As a matter of fact his attitude towards Jews and Christians, and even towards the idolaters, was largely opportunist. At one time he made leagues with the Jews, promising that they should not be disturbed in their religion; at other times he picked quarrels with them, and put every one who would not accept Islam to the sword. This latitudinarianism has found its way into the Quran itself, where a verse is to be found telling Mohammedans that they may eat the food of “the people of the book,” that is, of the people holding religions whose origin he recognised as divine. The strict Shiahs in Yezd interpret this as meaning dry food. They make a great distinction between wet and dry; only a few years ago it was dangerous for an Armenian Christian to leave his suburb and go into the bazaars in Isfahan on a wet day. “A wet dog is worse than a dry dog.” Nevertheless, there are great differences of opinion on this point, and most non-clerical Shiahs would take tea at any European’s house. There was a Shiah woman who used to freely take tea at the house of a Christian lady, the lady herself making it and pouring it out, but she refused to use the tea-glasses used in the same house by Babi women. Another Shiah lent a donkey for a Christian lady, but told her that he could not use it again if she allowed her Parsi nurse to ride upon it. And yet it is more easy to get the Mussulmans to eat food with the Parsis than with the Jews, whose religion ranks higher than Zoroastrianism in the popular regard, though they themselves are specially despised by the Mohammedans. This curious mixture of breadth and bigotry is only explicable on the assumption that the Shiah’s main ideal is exactly that opportunist position which was taken up by Mohammed during his lifetime.