f Jerusalem as the Holy Place, he would have found it
impossible to have established his supremacy in Medina, and the religion
of Islam as he conceived it would have been overriden by the older and
more hallowed faith of the Jews. He saw the danger, and his dominant
spirit could not allow the existence of an equal or superior power to his
own. With that fiery daring and supreme belief in his destiny which
characterised him in later life, he cast away all pretensions to
friendliness either with the Jews or the Christians, and steered his
followers triumphantly through the perils that beset every adherent to an
idea.

But in compelling acceptance of his central thesis of the unity of the
Godhead, he showed signal wisdom and knowledge of men. He was himself by
no means impervious to the value of tradition, and never conceived his
faith as having no historical basis in the religious legends of his
birthplace. That the Muslim belief possesses institutions such as the
reverence for the Kaaba, the rite of Pilgrimage, the acceptance of Mecca
as its sacred city, is due to its founder's love of his native place, and
the ceremonial of which his own creed was really the inseparable outcome.

Besides his recognition of the need of ritual, he was fully aware of the
repugnance of most men to the wholly new. Whenever possible he emphasized
his connection with the ancient ceremonies of Mecca in their purer form,
and as soon as his power was sufficient, he enforced the recognition of
his claims upon the city itself.

His achievement as religious reformer rests largely upon the state of
preparation in which he found his medium, but it owes its efficiency to
one force alone. Mahomet was possessed of one central idea, the
indivisibility of God, and it was sufficient to uphold him against all
calamities. The Kuran sounds the note of insistence which rings the
clarion call of his message. With eloquence of mind and soul, with a
repetition that is wearisome to the outsider, he forces that dominant
truth into the hearts of his hearers. It cannot escape them, for he will
not cease to remind them of their doom if they do not obey. What he set
out to do for the religious life of Arabia he accomplished, chiefly
because he concentrated the whole of his demands into one formula, "There
is no God but God"; then when success had shown him the measure of his
ascendancy, "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet."

At the end of his life id