Palgrave allows that such a notion of the Deity is monstrous, but maintains that it is the "truest mirror of the mind and scope of the writer of the Book" (Quran), and that, as such, it is confirmed by authentic Tradition and learned commentaries. At all events, Palgrave possessed {111} the two essential qualifications for a critic of Islam--a knowledge of the literature, and intercourse with the people. So far as my experience goes I have never seen any reason to differ from Palgrave's statement. Men are often better than their creeds. Even the Prophet was not always consistent. There are some redeeming points in Islam. But the root idea of the whole is as described above, and from it no system can be deduced which will grow in grace and beauty as age after age rolls by. The Arab proverb states that "The worshipper models himself on what he worships."[95] Thus a return to "first principles," sometimes proclaimed as the hope of Turkey, is but the "putting back the hour-hand of Islam" to the place where indeed Muhammad always meant it to stay, for "Islam is in its essence stationary, and was framed thus to remain. Sterile, like its God, lifeless like its first Principle and supreme Original in all that constitutes true life--for life is love, participation, and progress, and of these the Quranic Deity has none--it justly repudiates all change, all advance, all development."[96] Muhammad Ibn 'Abd-ul Wahhab was a man of great intellectual power and vigour. He could pierce through the mists of a thousand years, and see with an eagle eye how one sect and another had laid accretions on the Faith. He had the rare gift of intuition, and could see that change (Bida't) and progress were alien to the truth. This recognition of his ability is due to him; but what a sad prostration of great gifts it was to seek to arrest, by the worship of the letter, all hope of progress, and to make "the starting-point of Islam its goal." That he was a good Musalman in so doing no one can doubt, but that his work gives any hope of the rise of an enlightened form of Islam no one who really has studied Islam can believe.