p See before, chapter 2, p. 8, note y. q This passage was revealed on the Jews reproaching Mohammed and his followers with their eating of the flesh and milk of camels,1 which they said was forbidden Abraham, whose religion Mohammed pretended to follow. In answer to which he tells them that GOD ordained no distinction of meats before he gave the law to Moses, though Jacob voluntarily abstained from the flesh and milk of camels; which some commentators say was the consequence of a vow made by that patriarch, when afflicted with the sciatica, that if he were cured he would eat no more of that meat which he liked best; and that was camel's flesh: but others suppose he abstained from it by the advice of physicians only.2 This exposition seems to be taken from the children of Israel's not eating of the sinew on the hollow of the thigh, because the angel, with whom Jacob wrestled at Peniel, touched the hollow of his thigh in the sinew that shrank.3 r Wherein the Israelites, because of their wickedness and perverseness, were forbidden to eat certain animals which had been allowed their predecessors.4 s Mohammed received this passage when the Jews said that their Keblah, or the temple of Jerusalem, was more ancient than that of the Mohammedans, or the Caaba.5 Becca is another name of Mecca.6 Al Beidâwi observes that the Arabs used the "M" and "B" promiscuously in several words. t i.e., The Keblah, towards which they are to turn their faces in prayer. 1 See Levit. xi. 4; Deut. xiv. 7. 2 Al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin. 3 Gen. xxxii. 32. 4 Kor. c. 4. See the notes there. 5 Al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin. 6 See the Prelim. Disc Sect. I. p. 3.