274 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. |N.S., XVIII, 
ence to the new faith, or more exactly from a time slightly 
subsequent. There is general agreement that he was an early 
convert (Ibn. 8., IV, 1, 184, Tab., III, 2349; cf Ibn Hajar, I, 
No. 2378), and that he was not present at the Battle of Badr 
2 A.H.); it has been said that his first engagement was 
Khandag (5 A.H. ; Ibn Hajar, ’Jsabah, 1, No. 2378), but usually 
it is stated that he was present in battlefields subsequent 
to Badr,—‘ all of them’’ adds Nawawi (Tah., 239). 
It is said by Al-Baydawi that vv. 9-11 of Strah LXII 
were revealed on an occasion when Dihyah al-Kalbi entered 
adinah on a Friday, before his conversion, for ‘“ while 
Muhammad was preaching, a caravan of merchants happened 
to arrive with their drums beating, according to custom ; 
which the congregation hearing, they all ran out of the mosque 
to see them, except twelve only.”’ If Dihyah was thus 
reprehended, the passage may well be set down to the year 
2 A.H. (Wherry’s Comment. on the Quran, IV, 144-6; cf. 
Rodwell’s Transl.. Everyman’s Libr. Ed., p 374). 
e was evidently engaged in trade between Syria and the 
took place shortly after the conversion of Rifa‘ah b. Zayd al- 
Judhami, i.e. by the Second Jumada, 6 A.H. (Caet., I, 697). 
The acquaintance with the Prophet may have sprung up in the 
course of caravan trade with the north ; at any rate it may well 
be set down to a date prior to the engagement at ’Uhud 
(3 A.H.). 
‘Mahomet, the Koran tells us, was inspired by the Holy 
Ghost, whom he held to be an angel, and who n he called, in 
later chapters, written at Medina, by the name of the Areh- 
angel Gabriel, which he pronounced Jabril. During the fits of 
ecstasy in which the inspiration came to him, he believed he 
beheld the archangel’s face, and when he was asked what he 
was like, he always mentioned a young man of the tribe of 
Kalb, named Dihyah ibn Khalifa” (Huart, Arabic Lit., 34-5). 
awawi declares he was one of the handsomest of men 
cB a 28 K's ab tte. 


