by them had failed, he had taken up his position opposed to them, even above them.  With the rise of his power he became hard and cruel to the Jews in North-Arabia, and from Jews and Christians alike in Arabia he demanded submission to his authority, since it had proved impossible to make them recognize his divine mission.  This demand could quite logically be extended to all Christians; in the first place to those of the Byzantine Empire.  But did Mohammed himself come to these conclusions in the last part of his life?  Are the words in which Allah spoke to him:  “We have sent thee to men in general,"[1] and a few expressions of the same sort, to be taken in that sense, or does “humanity” here, as in many other places in the Qoran, mean those with whom Mohammed had especially to do?  Noldeke is strongly of opinion that the principal lines of the program of conquest carried out after Mohammed’s death, had been drawn by the Prophet himself.  Lammens and others deny with equal vigour, that Mohammed ever looked upon the whole world as the field of his mission.  This shows that the solution is not evident.[2]

[Footnote 1:  Qoran, xxxiv., 27.  The translation of this verse has always been a subject of great difference of opinion.  At the time of its revelation—­as fixed by Mohammedan as well as by western authorities—­the universal conception of Mohammed’s mission was quite out of question.]

[Footnote 2:  Professor T.W.  Arnold in the 2d edition (London, 1913) of his valuable work The Preaching of Islam (especially pp. 28-31), warmly endeavours to prove that Mohammed from the beginning considered his mission as universal.  He weakens his argument more than is necessary by placing the Tradition upon an almost equal footing with the Qoran as a source, and by ignoring the historical development which is obvious in the Qoran itself.  In this way he does not perceive the great importance of the history of the Abraham legend in Mohammed’s conception.  Moreover, the translation of the verses of the Qoran on p. 29 sometimes says more than the original. Lil-nas is not “to mankind” but “to men,” in the sense of “to everybody.” Qoran, xvi., 86, does not say:  “One day we will raise up a witness out of every nation,” but:  “On the day (i.e., the day of resurrection) when we will raise up, etc.,” which would seem to refer to the theme so constantly repeated in the Qoran, that each nation will be confronted on the Day of Judgment with the prophet sent to it.  When the Qoran is called an “admonition to the world (’alamin)” and Mohammed’s mission a “mercy to the world (’alamin),” then we must remember that ’alamin is one of the most misused rhymewords in the Qoran (e.g., Qoran, xv., 70); and we should not therefore translate it emphatically as “all created beings,” unless the universality of Mohammed’s mission is firmly established by other proofs.  And this is far from being the case.]