the way through addressed by the Angel Gabriel as the recipient of the divine
revelations, with the word SAY. Perhaps such passages as Sura ii. 15, p. 339,
and v. 246, p. 365, and the constant mention of guidance, direction,
wandering, may have been suggested by reminiscences of his mercantile
journeys in his earlier years.

It may be considered quite certain that it was not customary to reduce to
writing any traditions concerning Muhammad himself for at least the greater
part of a century. They rested entirely on the memory of those who have
handed them down, and must necessarily have been coloured by their prejudices
and convictions, to say nothing of the tendency to the formation of myths and
to actual fabrication, which early shews itself, especially in
interpretations of the Koran, to subserve the purposes of the contending
factions of the Ommeyads and Abbâsides. It was under the 5th Caliph, Al-
Mâmûn, that three writers (mentioned below) on whom we mainly depend for all
really reliable information, flourished: and even their writings are
necessarily coloured by the theological tendencies of their master and
patron, who was a decided partizan of the divine right of Ali and of his
descendants. The incidents mentioned in the Koran itself, for the
interpretation of which early tradition is available, are comparatively few,
and there are many passages with which it is totally at variance; as, for
instance, that Muhammad worked miracles, which the Koran expressly disclaims.
Traditions can never be considered as at all reliable, unless they are
traceable to some common origin, have descended to us by independent
witnesses, and correspond with the statements of the Koran itself-always of
course deducting such texts as (which is not unfrequently the case) have
themselves given rise to the tradition. It soon becomes obvious to the reader
of Muslim traditions and commentators that both miracles and historical
events have been invented for the sake of expounding a dark and perplexing
text; and that even the earlier traditions are largely tinged with the