Busy and occupied with fighting as those last years of Mohammed's life were, his work as religious prophet was not neglected. He poured forth fresh suras as each new occasion demanded. True, they seem to have lost their old rugged earnestness now, and much of their sense of God, but he declares them still to be the revelation of the Almighty, and to have existed in heaven from the beginning of eternity. Many suras are concerned with the most trivial and unimportant matters treated in the most commonplace way. Some show his unrivalled skill in getting out of difficult personal or political situations. Some are to give 'divine authority' for his own violations of his own law, or for those actions of his which outraged even the primitive conscience of Arabia. One instance of this should be given. Within a year of his reaching Medina the Prophet greatly admired Zainab, the wife of his foster-son Zaid, and coveted her for his wife. Marriage to one who was reckoned a daughter-in-law was utterly abhorrent to the conscience of the Arabs, but he justified this by obtaining a divine commission--a divine blessing forsooth--for the act. We {89} have more than once seen how the Prophet fell into the very convenient habit of retracting or 'abrogating' any previous suras which he found it convenient to alter. One would have thought this would have shaken the faith of the 'believers' in the revelations, but Mohammed waved their scruples aside with a high hand, and they soon grew accustomed to such vagaries. Interspersed among these very minor matters was much advice as to the conduct of the faith, the obligations of Moslem brotherhood, the relation of the faithful to unbelievers, to women and to slaves. Many Arabian customs were commended for adoption. There were disquisitions on criminal and civil law and punishments, on political economy and tax-collecting, and florid descriptions of the believers' Paradise and the fires of the unbelievers' Hell. [Sidenote: Mohammed's Death, 632 A.D.]