Khadija rated first. From the beginning she had stood faithfully by his side, and whenever he was low-spirited and his heavenly visitations were temporarily suspended, she would tenderly comfort him--for the sad memories of her first marriage had made her determined that her second husband should succeed in whatever business he undertook. Her cousin, the learned mystic Waraka, readily abandoned his firm conviction that Christ was the only true prophet in favor of his cousin-in-law’s exclusive claim to the same honor; and it is probable that he, more than any other person, enlightened Mohammed’s many-sided ignorance of religious history. Mohammed had early adopted his youthful cousin Ali, son of Abu Talib, and the attachment between them had come to be mutually strong. He had also assumed control of Zeid, a Christian slave, who became so devoted to his master that, when he was offered his freedom, he replied: “I will not leave thee; thou art in the place to me of father and of mother.” This pleased Mohammed so much that he immediately escorted Zeid to the Black Stone and said: “Bear testimony, all ye that are present. Zeid is my son; I will be his heir, and he shall be mine.” In his thirty-ninth year Mohammed had become acquainted with Abu Bekr--commonly called either “the Sighing” or “the True”--a rich cloth merchant who was middle-aged and short, and who had deep-set eyes. Shrewd and penetrating in business concerns, mentally stable, and untroubled by too many disturbing ideas and emotions, he was just the sort of person Mohammed most needed: a devoted adherent who would serve as business agent for the new faith. But in the beginning these were all. Some of his immediate relatives did not take him very seriously: Abu Lahab grimaced in his face, and even the charitable Abu Talib smiled rather derisively at his curious actions. We are told that Abu Talib, chancing to apprehend his son Ali and Mohammed contorting themselves according to the precepts of Islam, thereupon remarked that he would not care to twist himself so that his middle portion would be higher than his head--a flippancy that Ali cherished and chuckled over years after his father’s death. Meanwhile the great bulk of the Koreish were too contemptuously indifferent to pay any heed to Mohammed’s strange yarnings, though occasionally, as he passed cliques of them on the streets, they would lazily point him out as a harmless and but mildly amusing dunce. III