the seed of Abraham, and possessed of the Word of God. Hence when the Prophet turned aside from idols as hateful to the Almighty, and sought to bring his people back to the faith of Abraham, he betook himself with the utmost care to learn in what the teaching, customs, and obligations of that Faith consisted. Comparing these with the Qur'an and Tradition, we find the closest similarity between the two. Thus the Qur'an throughout bears witness to the faith of Abraham, to the truth of the Jewish religion, and the heavenly origin of their divine books. The following passages will be found to that effect:— Dispute not with the People of the Book, but in the mildest way, excepting such as behave injuriously; and say, We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us, and in that which hath been revealed unto you; our God and your God is One, and to Him we are resigned. And again:— Say, We believe in God, and in that which hath been sent down unto us, and in that which was sent down unto Abraham and Ishmael, and Isaac and Jacob, and the Tribes; and in that which was delivered unto Moses and Jesus, and in that which was delivered to the Prophets from the Lord. We make no distinction between any of them; and to Him we are resigned. At this period, also, Muhammad made the Holy House (Jerusalem) the Qibla of his followers, being then, (as it has since remained) the Qibla of the Jews.

To this it might be objected that Muhammad, as the "illiterate prophet," must have been unable to read,¹

and how then could he have gained all this knowledge from Jewish literature? But even admitting it to have been so, it must still have been easy enough for him to have learned all about their beliefs and customs and tales from his companions, such as Obeidallah, Waraca, or even himself from his Jewish friends. For these people, though they had but an imperfect knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures, yet well knew the foolish tales current amongst the Jewish nation. And now, if we compare the Qur'an with the tales in the Talmud and other books still current among the Jews, it becomes evident that although the Qur'an speaks of Abraham and many others of whom we read in the Torah, still all the wild stories it tells us are taken from Jewish traditional Sources. And we shall now give a few specimens to prove that it is so.

First. Cain and Abel. — In Surah v. 30-35 we have the following passage:—

And tell them the story truly of the two sons of Adam. When they offered up their sacrifice, and it was accepted from one of them, and not accepted from the other, Cain said "I will kill thee." Abel answered, "God accepteth (offerings) of the pious alone. If thou stretchest forth thine hand against me to kill me, I will not stretch forth my hand to kill thee; for I fear God, the Lord of all worlds. I desire that thou shouldest bear my sin and thine own sin, and become a dweller in the Fire, for that is the punishment of the oppressor." But the soul of Cain inclined him to slay his brother, and he slew him; then he became one of the destroyed. And God sent a raven which scratched the earth to shew him how he should hide his brother's body. He said, "Woe is me! I am not able to be