Of real, genuine, religious feeling there was none. This empty show, however, was kept up for purposes of gain; the manifold sanctuaries yielding large incomes to certain noble families and clans.[3] In a soil, apparently so uncongenial, how did Islam strike its root? This is an interesting and fascinating question and we must try to solve it here. The solution of this question is to be found in the existence of Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and in the commercial activity of the Arabs, on the other. By commerce the Arabs acquired an extended knowledge of foreign nations and their civilisation. Frequent contact with the outer world widened their intellectual horizon and awakened in them higher and more spiritual thoughts. They learnt new ideas, acquired new habits and, what was most valuable of all, they learnt to think for themselves. But not merely did travel in foreign countries and intercourse with foreign people exercise a disruptive influence, but there were forces, alike subversive and destructive, nearer home. In Arabia itself the two streams of Christianity and Judaism flowed, side by side, with the Arab Heathenism. That Christianity had made a considerable advance among the Arabs is clear from the fact, that, at the time of Mohamed, it was considerably diffused not merely among the Rabia tribes but even among the Tamim. Nor did the Taiyy altogether escape its influence. Its growth, however, was not so favourable in Hijaz and central Arabia, but even here Christian ideas undoubtedly made their way through commerce and social intercourse. Similarly the Jewish influence was equally powerful. When the Jews came to Arabia we do not definitely know, but Dr. Nöldeke points out that a great Jewish immigration into Arabia cannot be fixed prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Hadrian. At all events, it is clear that at the time of Mohamed there was a large colony of Jews at Taima, Khaibar, Yathrib, Fedak and Yaman. They did not live scattered amidst Arab population but kept together and, though despised by the Ara`sq they were yet indispensible to them as merchants, jewellers, and goldsmiths. It would, therefore, be not an error to suppose that they exerted no small spiritual influence over the Arabs.[4] That this is no unfounded theory or improbable supposition is evidenced by the fact that in the works of four of the most prominent Arabian poets of the Pre-Islamic time--An-Nabigah, Zuhair, Al-Asha and Labid--we find expressions which show that they, at least, if not the wild wanderers of the desert, knew very well what a spiritual religion meant.[5] Ibn Qutaibah enumerates drinking, joy, wrath and love among the “motive causes” which speed the poet but we cannot fail to detect in their poems an undercurrent of deep religious feelings. Individual minds felt a sense of uneasiness and sought to find some plausible solution of the mysteries of life and death and