ing different from other men. He
spent a great deal of his time in religious contemplation and would go
off by himself into the solitude of the mountains, to think and ponder
without interruption.

When he was forty years old he went one day to a mountain called Hira
which was not far from Mecca. And here a trance came upon him and in
the night he believed that he saw the angel Gabriel. The angel was
surrounded by a flaming aureole and in his hand he held a scroll of
fire from which he commanded Mohammed to read. Now Mohammed knew not
how to read or write, but to his amazement he found that the words on
the scroll were quite plain to him, and he read a wonderful message
that proclaimed the glory and the greatness of God, whom he called
Allah.

Mohammed was frightened by what he had seen; he thought that perhaps
the form of the angel had been taken by some evil spirit to lead him on
to his undoing. But at last he had another vision in which Gabriel came
to him again and called upon him to arise and preach the word of Allah
throughout the land and bring back to the Arabs the faith of their
fathers and the worship of a single god. And then for the first time
Mohammed believed his visions and thought himself God's Prophet, and he
called the new faith that he was to teach the faith of _Islam_, which
means righteousness.

Mohammed went back to Kadijah and told her what he had seen. He said he
was chosen by Allah to spread his faith over the land, and he himself
was a prophet greater than any other in the world. Kadijah was a true
and faithful wife and loved Mohammed better than herself. She believed
that he spoke the truth, and looked upon him as some one who through
God's means had become more than a man.

At first Mohammed did not try to preach his new faith to the people of
Mecca, but contented himself with teaching the word of Allah to his
nearest relatives. Most of them believed in him, but one of his uncles
called him a fool and would have nothing to do with the new religion.

After four years of teaching Mohammed had only converted to the new
belief forty people, who were mostly men of low degree or slaves. He
then thought that Allah called upon him to go forth publicly and preach
his new belief to the entire world. And soon afterward Mohammed could
have been seen in the market place preaching the word of Allah.

The faith that Mohammed taught was very much like the faith that we
ourselves believe in. That is, i