towards God.¹ If any distinction is to be understood as implied by the use of aba instead of taba it is probably to be seen by noting that when the former word is used the repentance is regarded as having been made quickly after the committing of the sin.

However this may be, we may say boldly that, according to the Qur'an, there is no such experience on the part of the believer as that described by the word regeneration. Man not being dead in sin does not require to be born of the Spirit. All he requires is repentance and conversion, and God is ever ready to help him in the performance of these acts of merit, and ever ready to accept them at His hands when they are performed.

But repentance and faith alone are not, according to the Qur'an, sufficient to ensure salvation. They must be followed by and associated with good works. The view held by some Muhammadan theologians that he who repeats with sincerity the creed, 'There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God', thereby earns entrance into the blessings of the life hereafter is but a very defective way of maintaining that salvation is wholly of God's grace through faith. The Qur'an so persistently unites the three — repentance, faith, and good works — that it is difficult to believe that Muhammad ever thought that there could be any true faith apart from good works.

We come, therefore, to consider the place which, according to the teaching of the Qur'an, good works hold in the working out of the believer's salvation, and

first we shall look at the insistence of the Qur'an on the necessity of good works as the outward and visible sign of man's reformation, the evidence to the senses of his repentance and faith.

The passages in which good works are spoken of are very many. In almost every instance they are referred to in connexion with faith. We have already seen that the Qur'an knows nothing of repentance apart from a renouncement of evil courses, and here we may say that, similarly, the Qur'an knows nothing of faith without works. Belief in God and His revelation, and the doing of good works are so repeatedly united that it would almost seem as if Muhammad believed that faith apart from good works could not be truly said to exist. He never actually says so in so many words, but the continual and consistent union of the two in the description of what God demands of the believer, that is, of those who shall inherit salvation, can only be explained satisfactorily, if we understand that Muhammad meant to assert that the two are indissolubly united. Faith apart from works is a hollow sham, a vain hypocrisy.

As examples of those passages in which faith and works are spoken of together, we may take the following: 'But whosoever shall do good works, being a true believer, shall fear neither wrong, nor loss'.¹ 'Whoso shall do the things that are right, and be a believer, his efforts shall not be disowned: and surely we will write them down for him'. ² There occurs the following, 'And they who believe and do the things that are right, shall obtain forgiveness and an honourable provision.' ³