Thus Judaism and Christianity, though they were well known, and furnished many of the ideas and most of the ceremonies of Islām, were never able to effect any general settlement in Arabia. The common Arabs did not care much about any religion, and the finer spirits found the wrangling dogmatism of the Christian and the narrow isolation of the Jew little to their mind. For there were men before the time of Mohammad who were dissatisfied with the low fetishism in which their countrymen were plunged, and who protested emphatically against the idle and often cruel superstitions of the Arabs. Not to refer to the prophets, who, as the Korān relates, were sent in old times to the tribes of Ad and Thamūd to convert them, there was, immediately before the preaching of Mohammad, a general feeling that a change was at hand; a prophet was expected, and women were anxiously hoping for male children, if so be they might mother the Apostle of God; and the more thoughtful minds, tinged with traditions of Judaism, were seeking for what they called the “religion of Abraham.” These men were called “Hanīfs,” or “incliners,” and their religion seems to have consisted chiefly in a negative position,--in denying the superstition of the Arabs, and in only asserting the existence of one sole-ruling God whose absolute slaves are all mankind--without being able to decide on any minor doctrines, or to determine in what manner this One God was to be worshipped. So long as the Hanīfs could give their countrymen no more definite creed than this, their influence was limited to a few inquiring and doubting minds. It was reserved for Mohammad to formulate the faith of the Hanīfs in the dogmas of Islām. It is essential to bear in mind all these surroundings of Mohammad if we would understand his position and influence. A desert Arab in love of liberty and worship of nature’s beauty, but lacking something of the frank chivalrous spirit of the desert warrior--more a saint than a knight,--yet possessing a patient determined perseverance which belonged to the life of the town, a moral force which the roaming Bedawy did not need, Mohammad owed something to either side of Arabian life; whilst without the influence of other religions, especially the Jewish, he could never have come forward as the preacher of Islām. Even the old nature worship of the Arabs had its share in the new religion, and no faith was made up of more varied materials than that which Mohammad impressed upon so large a portion of mankind.