ABSTRACT
THE Prophet Mu1}.ammad nominated no successor. It would be idle to speculate why with his genius for organization he neglected to make such provision for the future of the new religious community he had founded. His health had been failing for some time before his final illness, and perhaps, like Oliver Cromwell, he was 'so discomposed in body or mind, that he could not attend to that matter '.1 It is more probable that he was a child of his age, and fully realized the strength of Arab tribal feeling, which recognized no hereditary principle in its primitive forms of political life, and left the members of the tribe entirely free to select their own leader.
