The Quran has been divided by scholars into those verses revealed while Muhammad was in Mecca (the Meccan surah) preaching to develop a following, and those revealed after he left Mecca to govern the city of Medina (the Medinan surah). Sudanese Islamic scholar Mahmoud Mohammed Taha has advanced the idea that the Meccan surah contain "the basic and pure doctrine of Islam", and should form the "basis of the legislation" for modern society. These Meccan verses give more prominence to the position of women and praise other prophets and their communities — i.e. Jews and Christians. Taha argues that the Medinan surah, though revealed later in the mission of Muhammad, are not corrections of Meccan revelations but contain specialized commands/doctrine, "compromises" for the political climate, which while appropriate for their time are not eternal and are not necessarily appropriate for the 20th or 21st century.