152 THE REY. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., ON ISLAM: 
was an innovation upon the faith of those ancestors of whom 
they were so proud. This being the case, and remembering* 
that the worship of the One True Gop had never entirely 
ceased in the country, we can readily understand how Muham- 
mad could come forward in the name of the Supreme Gop 
of the nation, the Gop of Abraham, Who had been merely 
cast intot the background by the overgrowth of local 
cults. 
Most of the rites and ceremonies which play so important a 
part in the Religion of Islém, were practised in the country 
from time immemorial. The Arabic Justorian Abf’l Fida 
states that ‘The Arabs of the Time of Ignorance used to do 
things which the religious law of Isl4m adopted. . . The 
used to make the Pilgrimage to the House (the Ka‘abah), 
and to visit holy places, and wear the /hrdm and perform the 
Tawwaf, and to run (between the hills As-Safa and Al- 
MarwéA), and to stand at all the Stations, and cast stones (at 
the Devil in the valley of Mina), and they were wont to 
intercalate a month every third year.”{ He adds that the 
ceremonial washings, religious cleansing of the teeth, and the 
practice of circumcision, were algo in vogue among the Arabs 
long before Muhammad's time.§ Then as now the pilgrims 
to the Ka‘abah had to kiss the famous Hujarwl Aswad or 
* It would be quite incorrect to describe the polytheism of the pre- 
Tslimic Arabs as at all similar to that of the Greeks and Romans. It was 
rather similar to the saint-worship of the Eastern Churches at the present 
time. The inferior deities were worshipped as mediators with Gop. (Ash 
Shahristéni, quoted above; Ibn Hishim, p. 127: Sale, Pred. Dise.; 
Sayyid Ahmad, “ Essay on Manners and Customs of Pre-Islaémic Arabs,” 
p. 13.) Weil (“Mohammed der Prophet,” p. 18), well says :—“ Ubrigens 
betrachteten die Araber vor Mohammed ihre Géotzen, welche theils 
Menschen- oder Thiergestalt hatten, theils als rohen, von dem Tempel zu 
Mecca herriihrenden Steinen bestandet, nur als Giétter zwerten Ranges.” 
+ Grau, “ Kulturentwickelung,” pp. 137, 138. 
{ “ Hist. ante-Isl4mica,” Fleischer’s edition, p. 180. (See the passage 
quoted at full Jength note ||, pp. 8, 9.) 
§ Similarly Ibn Ishaq says (Siratw’r Rasil, Part I, p. 27) :— 
~ \ 
wre Le open adpal dee cre LLY GO Ube ney 
hic \eo Cis, spas, al cy ilgll, call palees 
as pdltol pe Sadly al J, Gout) san, dWazally 
MN dhe Goal Le 
