gave in his own way an account of the origin of Islâm. Nôldeke was
much sharper and more cautious in his historical criticism than Muir or
Sprenger. While the biographies written by these two men have now
only historical value, Nôldeke's _History of the Qorân_ is still an
indispensable instrument of study more than half a century after its first
appearance.

Numbers of more or less successful efforts to make Mohammed's life
understood by the nineteenth century intellect have followed these without
much permanent gain. Mohammed, who was represented to the public in turn as
deceiver, as a genius mislead by the Devil, as epileptic, as hysteric, and
as prophet, was obliged later on even to submit to playing on the one
hand the part of socialist and, on the other hand, that of a defender of
capitalism. These points of view were principally characteristic of the
temperament of the scholars who held them; they did not really advance our
understanding of the events that took place at Mecca and Medina between 610
and 632 A.D., that prologue to a perplexing historical drama.

The principal source from which all biographers started and to which they
always returned, was the Qorân, the collection of words of Allah spoken by
Mohammed in those twenty-two years. Hardly anyone, amongst the "faithful"
and the "unfaithful," doubts the generally authentic character of its
contents except the Parisian professor Casanova.[1] He tried to prove a
little while ago that Mohammed's revelations originally contained the
announcement that the HOUR, the final catastrophe, the Last judgment would
come during his life. When his death had therefore falsified this prophecy,
according to Casanova, the leaders of the young community found themselves
obliged to submit the revelations preserved in writing or memory to a
thorough revision, to add some which announced the mortality even of the
last prophet, and, finally to console the disappointed faithful with the