ho hath made man from Clots of Blood,
Recite thou, for thy Lord, he is most bounteous."
_The Kuran_.

The mental growth by which Mahomet attained the capacity of Prophet and
ruler will always have spread about it a misty veil, wherein strange
shapes and awful visions are dimly discerned. Did his soul face the
blankness that baffles and entices the human spirit with any convictions,
the gradual products of thought and experience, or was it with an
unmeaning chaos within him that he stumbled into faith and evolved his
own creed? His knowledge of Christianity and Judaism undoubtedly helped
to foster in him his central idea of the indivisibility of God. But how
was this faith wrought out into his conception of himself as the Prophet
of his people?

It is impossible for any decision to be made as to the mainspring of his
beliefs, except in the light of his character and development of mind. He
was passionate and yet practical, holding within himself the elements of
seer and statesman, prophet and law-giver, as yet doubtful of the voice
which inspired him, but spurred on in his quest for the truth by an
intensity of spirit that carried him forward resistlessly as soon as
conviction came to him. The man who imposed his dauntless determination
upon a whole people, who founded a system of religious and social laws,
who moved armies to fight primarily for an idea, could not lightly gain
is right to exhort and control. His nature is almost cataclysmic, and
once filled with the fire of the Lord, he bursts forth among his
fellow-men "with the right hand striking," to use his own vivid metaphor,
but before this evidence of power has come an agonising period of doubt.

Traces of his mental turmoil are seen abundantly in his physical nature.
We read of his exhaustion after the inspiration comes, and of "the
terrific Suras" that took their toll of his vitality afterwards. The
mission imposed upon him was no light burden, and demanded of him
strength both of body and mind. The successive stages by which he became
convinced of his divine call are only detailed in the histories with the
concurrence of the supernatural; he sees material visions and dreams
fervent dreams. With the ecstacy of Heaven about him, according to
legend, he holds converse with the angel Gabriel, arch-messenger of God,
and the divine injunctions must be translated into mental enthusiasms
before the true evolution of Mahomet's mind can be dimly conceived.

Whe