whole
life has been linked with miraculous happenings of a most ludicrous
type. More reasonable men have exalted the prophet because they have
convinced themselves that he was what he ought to have been. This may
account for the pious confidence of some of the more intelligent, who,
accepting tradition as historical, have exalted their hero to the
ideal, and have received the imagined glory as real. This tendency to
exalt their master is well illustrated by the maxim of Shafy--"In the
exaltation of Mohammed it is lawful to exaggerate"--a maxim invaluable
to men who were seeking to glorify the prophet, and the usefulness of
which was fully appreciated by the legislators and doctors when they
were called upon to cope with the new relations and exigencies that
came into being after his death. The conquests and progress of Islam
necessitated almost daily the framing of new rules, while in the
application of the old, constant modification and adaptation were
required. To meet these needs, actual or supposed sayings and actions
of the prophet were eagerly sought after, and, in time, with the
growth of a professional body of traditionalists, all legitimate
sources being exhausted, that which was doubtful, and even disputed,
was accepted as authentic and reliable. Imagination augmented the
legitimate springs of information, and the result was an exhaustive
accumulation of precedents for every possible circumstance.

Sprenger, in his essay on "Tradition," regarding the value and nature
of the material needed for compiling a life of Mohammed, says:

"During the stir and activity of the first sixty years, thousands
and thousands occupied themselves with handing down traditions. In
every mosque they committed them to memory, and rehearsed them in
every social gathering. All such knowledge was the common property
of the nation; it was learned by heart and transmitted orally. It
possessed, therefore, in the highest possible degree, the elements
of life and plasticity. Bunson has discovered the divinity of the
Bible in its always having been the people's book. If this
criterion be decisive, then no religion has better claim to be
called the 'vox Dei,' because none is in so full a sense the 'vox
populi.' The creations of the period we have been considering
possess this character for hundreds of millions of our fellow men;
for modern Islamism is as far removed from the s