The story of the Kaaba is no less mysterious and wonderful. Originally built to guard or mark a sacred spot connected in Arabian legend with the story of Ishmael, its true history has been enshrouded and obscured in a cloud of myths. According to the inventive genius of Arabian writers it was first constructed in heaven 2000 years before the creation of the world, and Adam erected a replica on earth exactly below the spot its perfect model occupies in heaven. At the Flood the sacred building was destroyed, and God is said to have instructed Abraham to journey from Syria to rebuild it with the help of Hagar and Ishmael. [Sidenote: The Religion of Arabia.] How uncouth and far behind the times it all seemed! The Jews had their Prophet and law-giver Moses, the Nazarenes looked to Jesus, the Persian magicians quoted Zoroaster, even Abyssinia was a homogeneous kingdom owning allegiance to the Gospel. Every nation had its revelation and its Book;--Arabia had none at all, no open vision, no Prophet, {13} nothing certain. It was but a tangle of tribes and clans with hardly any cohesion at all. Each clan was a law to itself, a separate unit, in competition with all other clans, and the law of the blood-feud tyrannized everywhere. Such a social organization was calculated to ensure the maximum of confusion with the minimum of achievement. Mohammed could not but contrast it all with the definiteness, strenuousness, and order of the political and social organizations which he had seen abroad. There could be no law, for there was no ruler; no justice, for there was no supreme authority; no progress, for there was no plan. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER I 1. What is known of Mohammed's parents and grandparents? 2. Describe Mohammed's education. What part of it did him most good? 3. Describe the Arab race. 4. Wherein lay the chief interest of Mohammed's caravan journeys? To what countries would he go? 5. Describe the Kaaba, and the worship of Arabia in olden days. [1] Gen. xvi. 12. [2] Job xxxix. 5-8. [3] J. M. Arnold, _Christianity and Islam_, p. 32. {14} CHAPTER II EARLY MANHOOD 'The future comes not from before to meet us, but streams up from behind over our heads.'--RAHEL LEVIN. [Sidenote: Mohammed's First Fighting.] So the years passed on, and Mohammed grew from boyhood to youth, fair of character and of honourable bearing among his fellow citizens. Though he shunned the coarser sins and licentious practices of the city he could no longer as a young Meccan hold aloof from the civil and social life of his day. When he was about twenty he received 'his baptism of fire,' and fought in his first battle. The Koreish were at war with a neighbouring tribe. The cause of the war was insignificant enough, but it is typical of the slight causes of the blood-feuds of that day.