is with God, and with the Apostle, and with the Faithful. Yet the Hypocrites understand not. 7-8.

The Jews in Madina were a large and important section of the community on whom, at first, Muhammad placed great hopes, for to them the idea of a revelation was familiar. Muhammad had maintained that Islam and the Jewish and Christian religions in their purity had one common source—the Books from heaven. He seemed to expect that the Jews would admit the divine origin of Islam and acknowledge that he was a divinely-commissioned prophet, at least for the Arab people. As we have already seen he admitted them to certain privileges, used them as confederates and allowed them religious liberty. Noldeke I considers that verse forty-five of Sura Al-'Ankabut (xxix), a late Meccan one, is a Madina verse and that it applies to this time. It reads thus:—

Dispute not with the people of the Book, except in kindly manner, except against such of them as deal evil with you.²

However this may be, there is no doubt that now he was very anxious to gain their allegiance and so in several ways he strove to win them to his side. They turned towards Jerusalem in prayer, so did he; they observed the Feast of the Atonement on the tenth day of the month by sacrifice and fasting, he ordered his followers to do the same. Thus he made it easy for certain Jews to pass over to Islam. These men proved most useful, for they could supply him with much needed information about the ancient Scriptures and they led him to believe that there were in them passages relating to his advent.