Mohammed, to honour the town of Mecca, where he was born, gave great praise to the water of the well. It is believed among the Arabs that a draught of that water gives health, and that to drink much thereof washes away sin. It is related of a certain Mussulman teacher, who knew a great many traditions, that, having been interrogated on his memory, he replied, “Since I have drunk long draughts of the water of Zemzem, I have forgotten nothing that I learnt.” To conclude what we have to say of Ishmael. He had a daughter named Basemath, whom he married to Esau, and many sons; two, Nabajoth and Kedar, were his sons who dwelt in Mecca. He was a hundred and thirty years old when he died, and he was buried at Mecca, after having appointed Isaac his executor. Footnote 355: Tabari, i. c. liii. Footnote 356: Tabari; Weil, Abulfeda, pp. 25-27, &c. Footnote 357: Or El Khoudr; he is identified in Arab legend with S. George and Elias. Footnote 358: Weil, pp. 94-6. Footnote 359: Tabari, i. p. 181. XXVII. ESAU AND JACOB. There are few Oriental traditions, whether Rabbinic or Mussulman, concerning Isaac’s life after he was married and his father died. Those touching his birth, early life, and marriage, have been given in the article on Abraham. We proceed, therefore, to his history as connected with Esau and Jacob. Isaac, says Tabari, lived a hundred years after Ishmael. God granted him the gift of prophecy, and sent him to the inhabitants of Syria, in the country of Canaan, for he could not change his place of abode on account of his blindness; for Abimelech had wished him to be dim of sight, because Abraham had deceived him by saying, “Sarah is my sister;” and, say the Rabbis, Isaac’s eyes were made dim by the tears of the angels falling into them as he was stretched upon the altar by his father; or because he had then looked upon the Throne of God, and had been dazzled thereby. But others say he went blind through grief and tears at his son Esau having taken four Canaanitish women to wife. Isaac had two sons, twins, by Rebekah his wife—Esau and Jacob. The Cabbalists say that the soul of Esau, whom the Arabs call Aïs, passed into the body of Jesus Christ by metempsychosis, and that Jesus and Esau are one; and this they attempt to prove by showing that the Hebrew letters composing the name Jesus are the same as those of which Esau is compounded.[360]