place body text hereread nothing of either Sammael or of the "Samaritan."

Again, in Surah II., Al Baqarah, 52, 53, we are told that the Israelites said, "O Moses, we shall never believe thee until we see God clearly!" and that while they were gazing at the manifestation of God's presence a thunderbolt struck them and they died; but after their death God raised them to life again. This fable also is borrowed from the Jews, for in Tract Sanhedrin, § 5, we are told that they died on hearing the Divine voice (in the thunder), but that the Law itself made intercession for them and they were restored to life. If it is necessary to seek for any foundation for such a fable, it may perhaps be found in the words of the Hebrews in Exod. xx. 19 (cf. Deut. v. 25) "Let not God speak with us, lest we die."

All Muslims believe that the Qur'an was written on the "Preserved Tablet" long before the creation of the world. This belief of theirs is in accordance with what is said in Surah LXXXV., Al Buruj, 21, 22, "Nay, but it is a Glorious Qur'an in a Preserved Tablet." Strangely enough, they do not believe that the Psalms are of the same antiquity, although in Surah XXI., Al Anbiya, 105, God is represented as saying, "And indeed We have already written in the Psalms ... that, as for the earth, My righteous servants shall inherit it." The reference here is to Ps. xxxvii. 11, 29, "The just shall inherit the earth." This is the only text in the Old Testa-

ment which is actually quoted in the Qur'an, though there are some 131 passages in the Qur'an in which the Law, the Psalms, and the Gospel are named, always with respect, and it is frequently asserted of them that they were "sent down" by God to His prophets and apostles. To most men it would seem evident that a book cannot be quoted and referred to as an authority until after it has been composed, and that therefore the books of the Bible must have been in existence before the Qur'an. Of course we know from history that this is the case. But we do not find that any consideration of this kind weighs at all with Muslims, who still cling to their assertion that the Qur'an was, long ages before Muhammad's time, written upon the "Preserved Tablet." We therefore proceed to inquire what their received Traditions tell us in explanation of this phrase, and we find the answer in such accounts as that given in the Qisasu'l Anbiya (pp. 3, 4). In giving an account of the way in which God created all things, that work says, "Beneath the Throne (or Highest Heaven) He created a Pearl, and from that Pearl He created the Preserved Tablet: its height was 700 years' journey and its breadth 300 years' journey. Around it was all adorned with rubies through the power of God Most High. Then came to the Pen the command, ‘Write thou My knowledge in My creation, and that which is existent unto the day of the Resurrection.’ First it wrote on the Preserved Tablet, ‘In the