The Barāhima appear in two quite different guises in Islamic literature before emerging in a recognisable form as the Brahmans of India. The first is that of the ascetic sages to whom Alexander had posed questions, a role they had acquired in antiquity and which developed especially in Persian poetry. The second is that of mouthpieces, in kalām debates about the necessity of prophets, for the view that prophethood was neither necessary nor real, since one could establish the existence of God and the difference between right and wrong on