Before the rise of Islam, Mahomet's native place, Mecca, appears to figure nowhere in historical records, unless there be a reference to it in the "valley of Baca" (Psalm lxxxiv. 6). Its sacred, and therefore archaic, name is _Bakkah_; hence the identification of the name with that of the sanctuary Makoraba, known to the Greek geographers, is not philologically tenable; although so eminent a linguist as Dozy evolved a theory of the origin of the city from this name, which appears to be South Arabian for "sanctuary," and has no connexion with Hebrew (as Dozy supposed). In the 3rd century of Islam the mythology of Mecca was collected and published in book form, but we learn little more from it than names of tribes and places; it is clear that there was no record of the mode in which the community inhabiting the place had got there, and that little was remembered with accuracy of the events which preceded the rise of its prophet. The city had a sanctuary, called the _Cube_ (_ka'ba_), of which the nucleus was the "Black Stone," probably to be identified with Allah, the god of the community; both still exist, or rather their legitimate substitutes, as the Ka`ba has been repeatedly reconstructed, and the original Black Stone was stolen by the Carmathians in the 4th century of Islam; they afterwards returned one, but it may or may not have been the same as that which they removed. At some time in the 6th century--said to have been the birth-year of the Prophet, but really much earlier--an Abyssinian invader raided Mecca with the view of abolishing this sanctuary; but for some reason had to desist. This expedition, known as the "Raid of the Elephant," one of these animals being employed in it, seems to be of great importance for explaining the rise of Islam; for a sanctuary which can repel an invader acquires tremendous reputation. Some verses in the Koran which are perhaps not genuine, record the miracle whereby Allah repelled the "People of the Elephant." The sanctuary was apparently in the possession of the tribe Koreish (Quraish), the origin of whose name is unknown, said to have come originally from Cutha in Mesopotamia. They were known (we are told) as the people of Allah, and, by wearing a badge, were sacrosanct throughout Arabia. If this be true, it was probably a privilege earned by the miraculous defence of the Ka`ba, and is sufficient to account for the rise of Meccan commerce of which we hear much in the biography of the Prophet, and to which some verses of the earliest part of the Koran allude; for merchants who were safe from attacks by bandits would have an enormous advantage. The records seem, however, to be inconsistent with this assertion; and the growth of the Meccan commerce is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that after the Abyssinian invasion pilgrimage to the Ka`ba became the practice of numerous Arab tribes, and for four months in the year (selected by