CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED.--From the time of the flight of Mohammed to Medina, the prophet turned more and more into the politician. Under the circumstances, this was, perhaps, an almost inevitable change. But one consequence was the bringing out of his natural vindictiveness, and the transformation of the enthusiast into the fanatic. Beginning as the prophet of Arabia, he came to think that he was the prophet of the whole world. There was a call to a wider warfare against idolatry. A crusade, partly political and partly religious, involved a mixture of craft and cruelty which exhibit his character in a new light. Yet it is probable that he always sincerely felt that his work in general was one to which he was called of God. Even the prosaic regulations and "orders of the day," which are placed in the _Koran_, if not the reproduction, in cataleptic visions, of his previous thoughts, may have been regarded by him as having a divine sanction. The extent of possible self-deception in so extraordinary a combination of qualities, it is not easy to define. His conduct was, for the most part, on a level with his precepts. There was one exception; he allowed not more than four wives to a disciple: he himself, at one time, had eleven. While _Khadija_ lived he was wedded to her alone. THE KORAN.--The Koran is regarded as the word of God by a hundred millions of disciples. It is very unequal in style. In parts it is vigorous, and here and there imaginative, but generally its tone is prosaic. Its narrative portions are chiefly about scriptural persons, especially those of the Old Testament. Mohammed's acquaintance with these must have been indirect, from rabbinical and apocryphal sources. _Adam_, _Noah_, _Abraham_, _Moses_, and _Christ_ are acknowledged as prophets. The deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity are repudiated. The miracles of Jesus are acknowledged. Mohammed does not claim for himself miraculous power. Predestination is taught, but this became a conspicuous tenet of Moslems after the death of the founder. The immortality of the soul is admitted, the pains of hell are threatened to the wicked and to "infidels;" and a sensual paradise is promised to the faithful, although it is declared that higher spiritual joys are the lot of the most favored. The faith of Mohammed was, in substance, Judaism, the religion of the Old Testament; power being set before holiness, however, in the conception of God, and the supernatural mission of _Mohammed_ substituted for the future Messianic reign of righteousness and peace, and coupled with the emphatic proclamation of the last judgment. The law in the Koran is a civil as well as a moral code. Notwithstanding his countenance of sensuality by his own practice, as well as by his legalizing of polygamy, and his notion of paradise, Mohammed elevated the condition of woman among the Arabs. Before there was unbridled profligacy: now there was a regulated polygamy.