"Muhammad" is a melody, not a word — so often has it passed caressingly over the lips of created beings! It takes hold of the ear before it takes hold of the mind, and it yields the lightness of its letters and the sweetness of its utterances before it yields the tie with God! There is not, on the broad face of the earth, an Arab whose breast does not open to it, whose soul is not shaken through its every side. Him whom it does not take by Islam, it takes by Arabism; and him whom it does not take by Arabism, it takes by the Arabic tongue!!

And in the love of Muhammad — for there is no harm in holding fast to nationality, and in passion for the language, just as there is no harm in religion... — the two creeds of the Arabs meet: the creed of the "Quran" and the creed of the "Gospel"; until it is as though Islam were two Islams, one by religion and one by nationality and language. Or as though the Arabs were Muslims all — when Islam is taken thus: love of Muhammad, holding fast to his nationality, and passion for his language.

And Muhammad — no sect among the Arabs can claim for itself alone the glorying in him. For he — besides being for all creation, insofar as they model themselves upon the noblest of the sons of Adam in guarding the self, guarding the neighbor, and keeping faith with God — is all the worthier to be for the Arabs, all of them, insofar as they model themselves, over and above that, upon the most eloquent of us in the pure tongue, and the most quickening of us in great deeds, on the day when the scale's pan sank low with Arabs and swung high with foreigners!

The non-Muslim in the land of the Arabs may well not profess the religion of (the son of Abdullah); his heart may be ravished instead, say, by a book of "the son of Mary," every letter of which drips gentleness, and by a cross by which one world was brought low and another world raised up. But that there should be among us an Arab, of our flesh and of our blood, who then goes about owing no tie of loyalty to Muhammad, nor to Muhammad's language and Muhammad's nationality — such a one is a burdensome guest upon us, a stranger's face among our houses...

And Muhammad made this world purely Arab! He called down the Book of (the Message) in the language of our people, and hedged their