=2. What Mahomed learned from the Jews.=――From very early times there had been a settlement of Jews in Arabia. Tradition says that the Queen of Sheba travelled thence to pay her famous visit to King Solomon. But, however that may be, there are tolerably trustworthy records which tell of Jewish dwellers in Arabian valleys before the Christian era. At one time there undoubtedly existed an Arab-Jewish state. Its limits and dates are not very exactly defined, but over this Himyerite kingdom, as it was called, there was certainly a Jewish king ruling at the time of its downfall in the year 530. It was brought to an end by a Christian king of Abyssinia, who in his turn was defeated by Chosroes II. of Persia. There is also a story, seemingly legend, and yet historical, of a people called the Khozars, whose king, Bulan, became a convert to Judaism, and who founded a Jewish dynasty and ruled long and happily by the shores of the Caspian Sea. But however much or however little of truth there may be in these traditions which treat of kings and dynasties, certain it is that, divided by the desert from the pursuit of persecutors all round, Arabian Jews did live, century after century, in their fertile valleys, secure in the possession of perfect freedom of faith. In the northern parts of Arabia these Jews were wandering herdsmen like their Ishmaelitish brethren, but in the south and east they carried on a considerable trade with India and Persia and the Byzantine Empire. They were much more civilised than the native Arabs among whom they dwelt. The Jews were people with a past, which is in itself impressive. They could tell tales without end, of heroic ancestry, or could speak of the higher life with the authority befitting descendants of seers and prophets. They were the direct heirs of Abraham; these other Arabians, fulfilling the destiny of Ishmael, whose ‘hand was to be against every man, and every man’s hand against his,’ had the blood of Hagar the bondwoman in their veins. The Arabian Jews came naturally to have that influence over the native tribes which the higher always exercises on the lower. And thus it came to pass that the new faith, which Mahomed came from Arabia to preach, showed many signs of the Jewish surroundings in which its founder had been born and brought up. =3. Islam.=――The very name which was given to Mahomedanism has a certain Jewish suggestiveness about it. Arabic and Hebrew belong to the same group of languages, the Semitic. The Arabic ‘Islam’ and the Hebrew שָׁלוֹם are derived from a like radical term, which denotes soundness, or a perfect and unimpaired condition. Peace is another rendering of the word, and expresses a very similar meaning, since ‘peace’ would naturally ensue from a sound and healthy state of things.