their understanding of his "clear Arabic Qorân" was no longer the principal object of his striving. Such an Islâm could equally well be forced upon non-Arabian heathens. And, as regards the "People of Scripture," since Mohammed's endeavour to be recognized 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 Qorân, mean those with whom Mohammed had especially to do? Nöldeke 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
- ↑ Qorân, 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.
