Concerning the religion of the heathen Arabs the Mohammedan writer Ash-Shahristani says: “The Arabs of pre-islamic times may, with reference to religion be divided into various classes. Some of them denied the Creator, the resurrection and men’s return to God, and asserted that Nature possesses in itself the power of bestowing life, but that Time destroys. Others believed in a Creator and a creation produced by Him out of nothing but yet denied the resurrection. Others believed in a Creator and a creation but denied God’s prophets and worshipped false gods concerning whom they believed that in the next world they would become _mediators_ between themselves and God. For these deities they undertook pilgrimages, they brought offerings to them, offered them sacrifices and approached them with rites and ceremonies. Some things they held to be Divinely permitted, others to be prohibited. This was the religion of the majority of the Arabs.” This is remarkable evidence for a Mohammedan who would naturally be inclined to take an unfavorable view. But his absolute silence regarding the Jews and Christians of Arabia is suggestive. When the Arabian tribes lost their earliest monotheism (the religion of Job and their patriarchs) they first of all adopted Sabeanism or the worship of the hosts of heaven. A proof of this is their ancient practice of making circuits around the shrines of their gods as well as their skill in astrology. Very soon however the star-worship became greatly corrupted and other deities, superstitions and practices were introduced. Ancient Arabia was a refuge for all sorts of religious-fugitives, and each band added something to the national stock of religious ideas. The Zoroastrians came to East Arabia; the Jews settled at Kheibar, Medina, and in Yemen; Christians of many sects lived in the north and in the highlands of Yemen. For all pagan Arabia Mecca was the centre many centuries before Mohammed. Here stood the Kaaba, the Arabian Pantheon, with its three hundred and sixty idols, one for each day in the year. Here the tribes of Hejaz met in annual pilgrimage to rub themselves on the Black Stone, to circumambulate the Beit Allah or Bethel of their creed and to hang portions of their garments on the sacred trees. At Nejran a sacred date-palm was the centre of pilgrimage. Everywhere in Arabia there were sacred stones or stone-heaps where the Arab devotees congregated to obtain special blessings. The belief in jinn or genii was well-nigh universal, but there was a distinction between them and gods. The gods have individuality while the jinn have not; the gods are worshipped, the jinn are only feared; the god has one form; the jinn appear in many. All that the Moslem world believes in regard to jinn is wholly borrowed from Arabian heathenism and those who have read the Arabian Nights know what a large place they hold in the everyday life of Moslems.