Notwithstanding the ubiquitous respect for Abu Talib and the equally widespread fear of Omar and Hamza, the Koreishite hatred of Mohammed became steadily more menacing. The lowborn fakir-Prophet might be a person of despicable origin who mouthed a prodigious amount of insane drivel, but he had certainly succeeded in kicking up a highly exasperating rumpus. The devil of it was that the pernicious fellow so skillfully blended his own revelations with Arabic and Jewish traditions, whose validity nobody impugned, that the Koreish could not denounce the one without laying themselves open to the charge of reviling the other. He appeared to be wholly impervious, not to say sublimely indifferent, to the appeal of common sense; for when the Koreish charged that his Suras were either fabricated by himself or dictated by abler assistants, he would employ the most underhanded means to disprove the accusation. When they suggested that, inasmuch as he identified himself with the prophets of old, he ought to trot out a few miracles, he unwisely obliged them by declaring that the sky would fall upon their impenitent heads. He realized his mistake, however, when they promptly demanded that he should fix a date for the catastrophe; and he then cleverly extricated himself from his predicament by maintaining that his presence in the holy city had averted the disaster. But Mohammed had learnt his lesson, and thereafter he never tampered with miracles--a fact that, perhaps more than any other, indicates his superiority over preceding prophets.