The Korān teaches the doctrine of predestination in its most radical form; every act of every living being having been written down from all eternity in “the preserved tablet.” This predestination is called taqdīr “meeting out,” or quismeh, “apportioning.” It is said in the Korān that “God leads astray whom he will, and guides whom he will.”[217] The Arabians were glad to argue that they were not responsible for their deeds, but every act of theirs being foreordained it was therefore justified. They were forbidden to turn back in battle, for he who turns back “save turning to fight or rallying to a troop, brings down upon himself wrath from God, and his resort is hell, and an ill journey shall it be.” They were exonerated from all charge of killing unbelievers, even in battle, for it is said, “Ye did not slay them, but it was God who slew them; nor didst thou shoot, when thou didst shoot, but God did shoot.”[218] When the Abyssinian, Abrahat el Aśram, marched upon Mecca with a large body of troops and elephants, he was suddenly defeated, and when the Korān was written it was said, “Hast thou not seen what thy Lord did with the fellows of the elephant? Did he not make their strategem lead them astray, and send down on them birds in flocks, to throw down on them stones of baked clay, and make them like blades of herbage eaten down?”[219] This legend of the destruction of an army by flocks of birds who carried stones in their beaks has been repeated in various forms in Oriental story. The object of the invader was supposed to be the destruction of the Kaābah, a shrine to which devotion had been paid from time immemorial. This was the one thing which the scattered Arabian people had in common, and which gave to them a national feeling. Mohammed, therefore, did not abolish it, but cleared it of its idols and dedicated it to the new faith. As it was predestinated that the Kaābah should stand throughout the ages, it was readily supposed that even the birds of heaven would repulse the forces of the infidel invader. POLYGAMY.