Now, it should be the critic’s aim, in dealing with all true books, to place himself on the same plane as the author, and to look in the same direction, fixing the same end. This is more especially true of what his attitude should be towards a message that has been held sacred by countless millions for more than thirteen hundred years. The merits of the Kurán and the far-reaching reforms of the Prophet of Islám can be appreciated worthily only by such men as have taken the trouble to acquaint themselves with the idolatrous superstitions of the Arabians in the time of Ignorance, and with the empty logical jangling of the rival Syrian Christian sects at the close of the Sixth Century. And the critic having grasped the lifelessness of religious practice before the coming of Muhammad, would be wise to reveal, first of all, what there is of truth, and to spread what light there is in the written word of the great reformer, abandoning to the bigot and the purblind the less fruitful occupation of stirring in the cauldron of religious controversy. To that end, indeed, it were not amiss that he should cultivate his imagination, for the imaginative have turned the corner of their narrower selves, and theirs is an ever-widening vision. To those who, living by the word of Christ, diffuse darkness, Muhammad will ever be either a charlatan or an unscrupulous man of the sword. Well, the Prophet’s followers must take heart of grace. History itself as well as the Kurán has proclaimed the charges to be false. The keynote to Muhammad’s character is sincerity. Sincerity rings out clear enough in every word of his book. He was a man in whom the fire-thought of the desert burned so fiercely that he could not help being sincere. He was so truly sincere, indeed, as to be wholly unconscious of his sincerity. Now, of all the stories related of him none affords a more convincing proof of his thorough honesty than the one which shows him to have been, at least once in practice, a backslider from the high ideal of conduct that he preached. This story, from Al-Beidáwí’s commentary, is thus related by Sale: