of the prophet were eagerly sought after, and, in time, with the
growth of a professional body of traditionalists, all legitimate
sources being exhausted, that which was doubtful, and even disputed,
was accepted as authentic and reliable. Imagination augmented the
legitimate springs of information, and the result was an exhaustive
accumulation of precedents for every possible circumstance.

Sprenger, in his essay on "Tradition," regarding the value and nature
of the material needed for compiling a life of Mohammed, says:

"During the stir and activity of the first sixty years, thousands
and thousands occupied themselves with handing down traditions. In
every mosque they committed them to memory, and rehearsed them in
every social gathering. All such knowledge was the common property
of the nation; it was learned by heart and transmitted orally. It
possessed, therefore, in the highest possible degree, the elements
of life and plasticity. Bunson has discovered the divinity of the
Bible in its always having been the people's book. If this
criterion be decisive, then no religion has better claim to be
called the 'vox Dei,' because none is in so full a sense the 'vox
populi.' The creations of the period we have been considering
possess this character for hundreds of millions of our fellow men;
for modern Islamism is as far removed from the spirit in which the
Coran was composed, as Catholicism is from the spirit of the
Gospel; and modern Islamism is grounded upon tradition. But in
tradition we find nothing but the Ideal, Invention, Fancy,
Historical facts, however they may have been floating among the
people in the days if Ibn 'Abbas, and the other founders of
genealogy, were trodden under feet, because men wished to remove
every barrier which stood in the way of self-glorification. And of