Christianity and Islam | Page 5

opinion
were the chief stages in the divine scheme of salvation. Each was
respectively confirmed or abolished by the revelation which followed it,
nor is this theory of Muhammed's shaken by the fact that each
revelation was given to a different nation. He regards all preceding
prophets in the light of his own personality. They were all sent to
people who refused them a hearing at the moment. Punishment follows
and the prophet finds a body of believers elsewhere. These temporary
punishments are confused with the final Judgment; in fact
Muhammed's system was not clearly thought out. The several prophets
were but men, whose earthly careers were necessarily crowned with
triumph: hence the crucifixion of Jesus is a malicious invention of the
Jews, who in reality crucified some other sufferer, while Jesus entered
the divine glory. Thus Muhammed has no idea of the importance of the
Crucifixion to the Christian Church, as is shown by his treatment of it
as a Jewish falsehood. In fact, he develops the habit of characterising as
false any statement in contradiction with his ideas, and this tendency is
especially obvious in his dealings with Judaism, of which he gained a
more intimate knowledge. At first he would refer sceptics to Christian
and Jewish doctrine for confirmation of his own teaching. The fact that
with no knowledge of the Old or New Testament, he had proclaimed
doctrines materially similar and the fact that these Scriptures referred to
himself, were proofs of his inspired power, let doubters say what they
would. A closer acquaintance with these Scriptures showed him that
the divergencies which he stigmatised as falsifications denoted in
reality vast doctrinal differences.
In order to understand Muhammed's attitude towards Christianity, we
will examine in greater detail his view of this religion, the portions of it
which he accepted or which he rejected as unauthentic. In the first place
he must have regarded the Trinity as repugnant to reason: he considered
the Christian Trinity as consisting of God the Father, Mary the Mother
of God, and Jesus the Son of God. In the Qoran, God says, "Hast thou,
Jesus, said to men, Regard me and my mother as Gods by the side of

God?" Jesus replies, "I will say nothing but the truth. I have but
preached, Pray to God, who is my Lord and your Lord" (5.116, f).
Hence it has been inferred that Muhammed's knowledge of Christianity
was derived from some particular Christian sect, such as the Tritheists
or the Arab female sect of the Collyridians who worshipped the Virgin
Mary with exaggerated reverence and assigned divine honours to her. It
is also possible that we have here a development of some Gnostic
conception which regarded the Holy Ghost as of feminine gender, as
Semites would do;[A] instances of this change are to be found in the
well-known Hymn of the Soul in the Acts of Thomas, in the Gospel to
the Egyptians and elsewhere. I am inclined, however, to think it more
probable that Muhammed had heard of Mariolatry and of the "mother
of God," a title which then was a highly popular catchword, and that
the apotheosis of Jesus was known to him and also the doctrine of the
Trinity by name. Further than this his knowledge did not extend;
although he knows the Holy Ghost and identifies him with Jesus, none
the less his primitive reasoning, under the influence of many old beliefs,
explained the mysterious triad of the Trinity as husband, wife, and son.
This fact is enough to prove that his theory of Christianity was formed
by combining isolated scraps of information and that he cannot have
had any direct instruction from a Christian knowing the outlines of his
faith.
[Footnote A: The word for "Spirit" is of the feminine gender in the
Semitic languages.]
Muhammed must also have denied the divinity of Christ: this is an
obvious result of the course of mental development which we have
described and of his characteristically Semitic theory of the nature of
God. To him, God is one, never begetting and never begotten. Denying
the divinity of Jesus, Muhammed naturally denies the redemption
through the Cross and also the fact of the Crucifixion. Yet, strangely
enough he accepted the miraculous birth; nor did he hesitate to provide
this purely human Jesus with all miraculous attributes; these were a
proof of his divine commission, and marvellous details of this nature
aroused the interest of his hearers.
Mary the sister of Ahron--an obvious confusion with the Old Testament
Miriam--had been devoted to the service of God by her mother's vow,
and lives in the temple under the guardianship of Zacharias, to whom a

later heir is born in answer to his prayers, namely John, the forerunner
of the Holy Ghost. The birth is announced to Mary