braham, no books of whom could be cited against
him, and who was acknowledged by Jews and Christians without being himself
either a Jew or a Christian.

This turn, this particular connection of Islam with Abraham, made it
possible for him, by means of an adaptation of the biblical legends
concerning Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, to include in his religion a set of
religious customs of the Meccans, especially the hajj.[1] Thus Islam became
more Arabian, and at the same time more independent of the other revealed
religions, whose degeneracy was demonstrated by their refusal to
acknowledge Mohammed.

[Footnote 1: A complete explanation of the gradual development of the
Abraham legend in the Qoran can be found in my book _Het Mekkaansche Feest_
(The Feast of Mecca), Leiden, 1880.]

All this is to be explained without the supposition of conscious trickery
or dishonesty on the part of Mohammed. There was no other way for the
unlettered Prophet, whose belief in his mission was unshaken, to overcome
the difficulties entailed by his closer acquaintance with the tenets of
other religions.

How, then, are we to explain the starting-point of it all--Mohammed's sense
of vocation? Was it a disease of the spirit, a kind of madness? At all
events, the data are insufficient upon which to form a serious diagnosis.
Some have called it epilepsy. Sprenger, with an exaggerated display of
certainty based upon his former medical studies, gave Mohammed's disorder
the name of hysteria. Others try to find a connection between Mohammed's
extraordinary interest in the fair sex and his prophetic consciousness.
But, after all, is it explaining the spiritual life of a man, who was
certainly unique, if we put a label upon him, and thus class him with
others, who at the most shared with him certain abnormalities? A normal man
Mohammed certainly was not. But as soon as we try to give a positive name
to this negative quality, then we do the same as the heathens of Mecca, who
were violently awakened by his thundering prophecies: "He is nothing but
one possessed, a poet, a soothsayer, a sorcerer," they said. Whether we say
with the old European biographers "impostor," or with the modern ones put
"epileptic," or "hysteric" in its place, makes little difference. The
Meccans ended by submitting to him, and conquering a world under the banner
of his faith. We, with the diffidence which true science implies, feel
obliged merely to call him Mohammed, and to see