Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/421

 The Mohammedans 359 As Mohammed traveled back and forth across the desert with Mohammed's his trains of camels heavily laden with merchandise he had plenty from the An- of time to think, and he became convinced that God was sending sei Gabriel him messages which it was his duty to reveal to mankind. He met many Jews and Christians, of whom there were great num- bers in Arabia, and from them he got some ideas of the Old and New Testaments. But when he tried to convince people that he was God's prophet, and that the Angel Gabriel had appeared to him in his dreams and told him of a new religion, he was treated with scorn. Finally, he discovered that his enemies in Mecca were plan- The Hejira, ning to kill him, and he fled to the neighboring town of Medina, where he had friends. His flight, which took place in the year 622, is called the Hejira by the Arabs. It was taken by his followers as the beginning of a new era — the year One, as the Mohammedans reckon time. A war followed between the people of Mecca and those who islam had joined Mohammed in and about Medina. It was eight years before his followers became numerous enough to enable him to march upon Mecca and take it with a victorious army. Before his death in 632 he had gained the support of all the Arab chiefs, and his new religion, which he called Islam (submission to God), was accepted throughout the whole Arabian peninsula. Mohammed could probably neither write nor read well, but The Koran- when he fell into trances from time to time he would repeat to his eager listeners the words which he heard from heaven, and they in turn wrote them down. These sayings, which were col- lected into a volume shortly after his death, form the Kofan, the Mohammedan Bible. This contains the chief beliefs of the new religion as well as the laws under which all good Mohammedans were to live. It has been translated into English several times. Parts of it are very beautiful and interesting, while other portions are dull and stupid to a modern reader. The Koran follows the Jewish and Christian religions in pro- claiming one God, " the Lord of the worlds, the merciful and