Jews and Christians. He preferred now to connect his own revelations more
immediately with those of Abraham, no books of whom could be cited against
him, and who was acknowledged by Jews and Christians without being himself
either a Jew or a Christian.

This turn, this particular connection of Islâm with Abraham, made it
possible for him, by means of an adaptation of the biblical legends
concerning Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, to include in his religion a set of
religious customs of the Meccans, especially the hajj.[1] Thus Islâm became
more Arabian, and at the same time more independent of the other revealed
religions, whose degeneracy was demonstrated by their refusal to
acknowledge Mohammed.

[Footnote 1: A complete explanation of the gradual development of the
Abraham legend in the Qorân can be found in my book _Het Mekkaansche Feest_
(The Feast of Mecca), Leiden, 1880.]

All this is to be explained without the supposition of conscious trickery
or dishonesty on the part of Mohammed. There was no other way for the
unlettered Prophet, whose belief in his mission was unshaken, to overcome
the difficulties entailed by his closer acquaintance with the tenets of
other religions.

How, then, are we to explain the starting-point of it all--Mohammed's sense
of vocation? Was it a disease of the spirit, a kind of madness? At all
events, the data are insufficient upon which to form a serious diagnosis.
Some have called it epilepsy. Sprenger, with an exaggerated display of
certainty based upon his former medical studies, gave Mohammed's disorder
the name of hysteria. Others try to find a connection between Mohammed's
extraordinary interest in the fair sex and his prophetic consciousness.