42 MEDIEVAL CIVILIZATION inspired in part by the Old Testament and the gospels. It has been said that Mahomet is a Christian heretic and Mahomelanism a Christian heresy adapted to the usages of the Arabs. TJie Koran.—Mahomet did not know how to write. Whenever he felt himself inspired and preached his words were collected. They were written on stones, on leaves of the palni-tree, or the bones of a camel. The Koran (the Book) is the combination of all these fragments,1 added one after another, not in the order in which they were dictated by Mahomet, but beginning with the longest. It was brought together only after the death of Mahomet by his secretary Zaicl Later the Khalif Othman had an official collection made, and it is this that we now possess.2 The Koran contains a confused mass of exhorta- tions, of narratives, precepts, and laws. It is at once a religious revelation, a guide for conduct, a code, and a constitution. Islamism,—The religion founded by Mahomet is called Islam (resignation, i.e., to the will of God). The faithful are called Mussulmans (the resigned). All Islamism is summed up in these words: "There is but one God and Mahomet is his prophet." One must, then, believe in God who has created the world and who governs it sitting on His throne, surrounded by the angels. One must submit himself to His will which He makes known to men through His prophets. His 1 There are 1,114 of them. Each forms a chapter, or sura. 2 Mussulmans since the tenth century have assumed the habit of praising the elegance of the language of the Koran. But this admiration is strange to the Arabs of the early centuries, and an expert finds that the majority of the sections "of the Koran urc written in very bad Arabic,