political and religious situation among their people. Some of these men had given up the common practice of idolatry; they asserted their belief in one God, whom they called Allah; and they called themselves Hanif s, a name which some derive from a word meaning "to incline" that is, their inclination was to search for truth among the maze of popular superstitions. They said they wanted to re-establish the religion of Abraham, the original ancestor of the Arabs. Not only was the religious condition of the country in need of reform, but the political condition was well-nigh hopeless as well. Torn with internal strife among the warring tribes, it was continually at the mercy of the encroachments and imperialistic ambitions of the Roman and Persian empires. The time was ripe for a thoroughgoing revolution, and there is no doubt that during those fifteen years Mohammed caught the vision of the need of a political-religious leader for his people a vision which he was in the fulhiess of time to apply to himself, and to develop into a comprehensive system providing for government under religious control.
MOHAMMED'S REVELATIONS FROM ALLAH
ALout the year A.D. 610, when Mohammed was forty years of age, something very unusual happened. One of the Hanifs, Zaid by name, was living as a hermit in a cave in the side of the mountain called Mount Hira, near the city. He had been forced into this retirement because he had greatly angered the
THE
