We not only have the fullest accounts of Mohammed’s whole character, but we possess his authentic work, the _Koran_, which he preached in the name of his God; and yet the extraordinary, attractive, and repulsive man remains in many respects an enigma. He had come across much of Judaism and Christianity, but by verbal report only. For though it remains an open question whether Mohammed was actually ignorant of reading and writing, it is certain that he had neither read the Bible nor any other books. The persons from whom he gathered his information concerning the older monotheistic religions must have been somewhat unlettered folk. This holds good of his Christian instructors more particularly. Certain Judæo-Christian ideas, however, had early laid powerful hold upon him; resurrection, judgment, heaven and hell, strict monotheism and the vanity and culpability of all forms of idolatry. Feeling in himself the divine call, he uttered the thought that possessed him as the word of God; that which the prophets of Israel had done in exceptional cases became with him the set form of his teaching. We may be but ill pleased with the grossness of imagination, the lack of logic, the undeniable poverty of thought, and much besides in the _Koran_, but this was not the effect it wrought upon his hearers, especially when once their attention had been riveted. It was all new to them, they were thrilled with terror and delight by those gross representations of hell and heaven, to these naïve people the weakness of the reasoning was not apparent, while the strenuousness of assertion took full effect. Moreover they heard only scattered fragments at a time. The revelation of the _Koran_ was accomplished gradually, it extended over a period of more than twenty years, and thus the monotony that repels us was not realised. But, as has already been said, Mohammed met with small success in his native town, although he was joined by some of the best and most earnest-minded men, like Saad ben Abi Wakkas and Omar. It was not until he took a step unprecedented among the Arabs, and, abandoning his own tribe, migrated with his handful of Meccan followers to dwell among the inhabitants of Yathreb, that he gained a firm footing. The latter, palm-dressers and husbandmen, were a vigorous race, but not intellectually equal to the Koreish. They had given proof of their valour chiefly by perpetual civil broils between the two clans of which they consisted. Through their Jewish neighbours they were at least superficially acquainted with many of the religious ideas with which Mohammed was occupied. The prophet soon gained a large following among them. He established peace within their borders, they recognised him (though not without some exceptions) as their leader, and together with the companions of his wanderings constituted at first the bulk and afterwards the flower of his army.