This “something unpleasant” was the sudden appearance of a brand-new prophet by the name of Mahomet, and the conquest of western Asia and northern Africa by the followers of a new God who was called Allah. The literature which we absorb in our childhood full of “infidel dogs” and Turkish atrocities is apt to leave us under the impression that Jesus and Mahomet represented ideals which were as mutually antagonistic as fire and water. But as a matter of fact, the two men belonged to the same race, they spoke dialects which belonged to the same linguistic group, they both claimed Abraham as their great-great-grandfather and they both looked back upon a common ancestral home, which a thousand years before had stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf. And yet, the followers of those two great teachers who were such close relatives have always regarded each other with bitter scorn and have fought a war which has lasted more than twelve centuries and which has not yet come to an end. At this late day and age it is useless to speculate upon what might have happened, but there was a time when Mecca, the arch-enemy of Rome, might have easily been gained for the Christian faith. The Arabs, like all desert people, spent a great deal of their time tending their flocks and therefore were much given to meditation. People in cities can drug their souls with the pleasures of a perennial county-fair. But shepherds and fisher folk and farmers lead solitary lives and want something a little more substantial than noise and excitement. In his quest for salvation, the Arab had tried several religions, but had shown a distinct preference for Judaism. This is easily explained, as Arabia was full of Jews. In the tenth century B.C., a great many of King Solomon’s subjects, exasperated by the high taxes and the despotism of their ruler, had fled into Arabia and again, five hundred years later in 586 B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah, there had been a second wholesale exodus of Jews towards the desert lands of the south. Judaism, therefore, was well known and furthermore the quest of the Jews after the one and only true God was entirely in line with the aspirations and ideals of the Arabian tribes. Any one in the least familiar with the work of Mahomet will know how much the Medinite had borrowed from the wisdom contained in some of the books of the Old Testament. Nor were the descendants of Ishmael (who together with his mother Hagar lay buried in the Holy of Holies in the heart of Arabia) hostile to the ideas expressed by the young reformer from Nazareth. On the contrary, they followed Jesus eagerly when he spoke of that one God who was a loving father to all men. They were not inclined to accept those miracles of which the followers of the Nazarene carpenter made so much. And as for the resurrection, they flatly refused to believe in it. But generally speaking, they felt very kindly disposed towards the new faith and were willing to give it a chance.