Though unskilled in the mechanism of knowledge--he could neither read nor write--he has left his mark upon the literature of his age and the years succeeding him. The Kuran was the sum of his inspiration, the expression in poetic and visionary language of his beliefs and ideals. He found the medium prepared. The Arabs had long previously evolved a poetry of their own which lived not in written words, but in their traditional songs. Mahomet's first flush of inspiration, which waned before the heaviness of his later tasks, is the cumulation of that wild and fervid art with the breath of the desert urgent within it. The Kuran was never written down during his lifetime, but was collected into a jumble of fragments, "gathered together from date-leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men," by Zeid in the first troublous years of the Caliphate. We have inevitably lost much of its original fire, and its effect is weakened by any translation into the unsuitable medium of modern speech. But that it is a valuable contribution to the literature of its country cannot be doubted, especially in the earlier portions, before Mahomet's love of harangue and the necessity of some vehicle by which to make his political dictates known had transformed its style into the bald reiterative medley of its later pages. Through it all runs the fire of his genius; in the later suras it is the reflection of his energy that looks out from the pages; the flame itself has now lighted his actions and inspired his dreams of conquest. The Kuran is the best revelation of Mahomet himself that posterity possesses, imperfect as was the manner of its handing down to the modern world. It shows us both the beauty and strength of his personality and his cruelty, evasions, magnanimities, and lusts. More than all, the passionate zeal beating through it makes clear the secret of his sustained endeavours through discouragement and defeat until his triumph dawned. To those outside the sphere of his magnetism, Mahomet seems urged on by a power beyond himself and scarcely within his control. His gifts bear intimate relation to the particular phase in the task of creating a religion and a political entity that was uppermost at the moment. In Mecca he is poet and visionary, the man who speaks with angels and has seen Gabriel and Israfil, "whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." He penetrates in fancy to the innermost Holy Place and beholds the God of battles, even feels his touch, icy-cold upon his shoulder, and returns with the glow of that immortal intercourse upon him. It sustains him in defeat and danger, and by the power of it he converts a few in Medina and flees thither to complete his task. In Medina he becomes a watchful leader, and still inspired by heavenly visitants, he produces order out of chaos and guards his power from numberless assaults.