for the rest, embodied many of their own traditions and superstitions as well as many orally received from Christians and Jews. "The Koran itself," says Palmer, "is, indeed, less the invention or conception of Mohammed than a collection of legends and moral axioms borrowed from desert lore and couched in the language and rhythm of desert eloquence, but adorned with the additional charm of enthusiasm. Had it been merely Mohammed's own invented discourses, bearing only the impress of his personal style, the Koran could never have appealed with so much success to every Arab-speaking race as a miracle of eloquence." [1016] Kuenen challenges Sprenger's conclusions and sums up: "We need not deny that Mohammed had predecessors; but we must deny that tradition gives us a faithful representation of them, or is correct in calling them hanyfs. [1017] On the other hand, he concedes that "Mohammed made Islam out of elements which were supplied to him very largely from outside, and which had a whole history behind them already, so that he could take them up as they were without further elaboration." [1018] "During the first century of Islam the forging of Traditions became a recognized political and religious weapon, of which all parties availed themselves. Even men of the strictest piety practised this species of fraud, and maintained that the end justified the means." [1019] The final triumph of the religion, however, was due neither to the elements of its Sacred Book nor to the moral or magnetic power of the Prophet. This power it was that won his first adherents, who were mostly his friends and relatives, or slaves to whom his religion was a species of enfranchisement. [1020] From that point forward his success was military--thanks, that is, to the valour of his followers--his fellow citizens never having been won in mass to his teaching. [1021] Such success as his might conceivably be gained by a mere military chief. Nor could the spread of Islam after his death have taken place save in virtue of the special opportunities for conquest lying before its adherents--opportunities already seen by Mohammed, either with the eye of statesmanship or with that of his great general, Omar. [1022] It is an error to assume, as is still commonly done, that it was the unifying and inspiring power of the religion that wrought the Saracen conquests. Warlike northern barbarians had overrun the Western Empire without any such stimulus; the prospect of booty and racial kinship sufficed them for the conquest of a decadent community; and the same conditions existed for the equally warlike Saracens, [1023] who also, before Mohammed, had learned something of the military art from the Græco-Romans. [1024] Their religious ardour would have availed them little against the pagan legions of the unbelieving Cæsar; and as a matter of fact they could never conquer, though they curtailed,