like the raven"; and he became one of those that repent (v. 35). For this cause we wrote unto the children of Israel that he who slayeth a soul, — without having slain a soul or committed wickedness in the earth, — shall be as if he had slain all mankind; and whosoever saveth a soul alive, shall be as if he had saved all mankind.

Now this conversation and affair of Cain and Abel, as given above in the Qur'an, has been told us in a variety of ways by the Jews.¹  Thus when Cain, according to them, said there was no punishment for sin and no reward for virtue, Abel, holding just exactly the reverse, was killed by Cain with a stone. So also in the book Pirkę Rabbi Eleazer, we find the Source of the burying of Abel as described in the Qur'an, there being no difference excepting that the raven indicates the mode to Adam instead of to Cain, as follows:— Adam and Eve, sitting by the corpse, wept not knowing what to do, for they had as yet no knowledge of burial. A raven coming up, took the dead body of its fellow, and having scratched up the earth, buried it thus before their eyes. Adam said, Let us follow the example of the raven, and so taking up Abel's body buried it at once.

If the Reader will look at the last verse (35) in the quotation above from Surah v. of the Qur'an, he will see that it has no connection with the one preceding. The relation is explained thus in the Mishnah Sanhedrîn, where in quoting from Genesis the verse, — The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground,² — the Commentator writes as follows:— "As regards Cain who killed his brother, the Lord address-

ing him does not say, 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth out,' but 'the voice of his Bloods'; — meaning not his blood alone, but that of his descendants; and this to shew that since Adam was created alone, so he that kills an Israelite is, by the plural here used, counted as if he had killed the world at large; and he who saves a single Israelite is counted as if he had saved the whole world." Now, if we look at the thirty-fifth verse of the text above quoted, it will be found almost exactly the same as these last words of this old Jewish commentary. But we see that only part is given in the Qur'an, and the other part omitted. And this omitted part is the connecting link between the two passages in the Qur'an, without which they are unintelligible.

Second. Abraham saved from Nimrod's fire.— The story is scattered over various passages of the Qur'an, chiefly in those noted below.¹ Now whoever will read these, as well as the Traditional Records of the Muslims,² will at once perceive that the tale as there told has been taken from one of the ancient Jewish books called Midrâsh Rabbâh. To bring this clearly to view, we must first shew the history as given in the Qur'an and Muslim writings, and then compare it with the Jewish tale in the above book.

In a work of Abdul Feda we have the Muslim story as follows.³ Azar, Abraham's father used to construct idols, and hand them over to his son to sell