One of them, by name Bahira, spared no pains to secure his conversion from the idolatry in which he had been brought up.

He found the boy not only precociously intelligent, but eagerly desirous of information, especially on matters relating to religion.
In Mohammed's own country the chief object of Meccan worship was a black meteoric stone, kept in the Caaba, with three hundred and sixty subordinate idols, representing the days of the year, as the year was then counted.
At this time, as we have seen, the Christian Church, through the ambition and wickedness of its clergy, had been brought into a condition of anarchy.

Councils had been held on various pretenses, while the real motives were concealed.

Too often they were scenes of violence, bribery, corruption.

In the West, such were the temptations of riches, luxury, and power, presented by the episcopates, that the election of a bishop was often disgraced by frightful murders.