Christianity and Islam | Page 4

bodies: but his reverence for this God was somewhat impersonal and he felt no instinct to approach Him, unless he had some hopes or fears to satisfy. The idea of a reckoning between man and God was alien to the Arab mind. Christian and Jewish influence became operative upon Muhammed with reference to this special point. The idea of the day of judgment, when an account of earthly deeds and misdeeds will be required, when the joys of Paradise will be opened to the good and the bad will be cast into the fiery abyss, such was the great idea, which suddenly filled Muhammed's mind and dispelled the indifference begotten of routine and stirred his mental powers.
Polytheism was incompatible with the idea of God as a judge supreme and righteous, but yet merciful. Thus monotheism was indissolubly connected with Muhammed's first religious impulses, though the dogma had not assumed the polemical form in which it afterwards confronted the old Arabian and Christian beliefs. But a mind stirred by religious emotion only rose to the height of prophetic power after a long course of development which human knowledge can but dimly surmise. Christianity and Judaism had their sacred books which the founders of these religions had produced. In them were the words of God, transmitted through Moses to the Jews and through Jesus to the Christians. Jesus and Moses had been God's ambassadors to their peoples. Who then could bring to the Arabs the glad tidings which should guide them to the happy fields of Paradise? Among primitive peoples God is regarded as very near to man. The Arabs had, their fortune-tellers and augurs who cast lots before God and explained His will in mysterious rhythmical utterances. Muhammed was at first more intimately connected with this class of Arab fortune-tellers than is usually supposed. The best proof of the fact is the vehemence with which he repudiates all comparison between these fortune-tellers and himself, even as early Christian apologetics and polemics attacked the rival cults of the later classical world, which possessed forms of ritual akin to those observed by Christianity. The existence of a fortune-telling class among the Arabs shows that Muhammed may well have been endowed with psychological tendencies which only awaited the vivifying influence of Judaism and Christianity to emerge as the prophetic impulse forcing him to stand forth in public and to stir the people from their indifference: "Be ye converted, for the day of judgment is at hand: God has declared it unto me, as he declared it unto Moses and Jesus. I am the apostle of God to you, Arabs. Salvation is yours only if ye submit to the will of God preached by me." This act of submission Muhammed calls Islam. Thus at the hour of Islam's birth, before its founder had proclaimed his ideas, the influence of Christianity is indisputable. It was this influence which made of the Arab seer and inspired prophet, the apostle of God.
Muhammed regarded Judaism and Christianity as religious movements purely national in character. God in His mercy had announced His will to different nations through His prophets. As God's word had been interpreted for the Jews and for the Christians, so there was to be a special interpretation for the benefit of the Arabs. These interpretations were naturally identical in manner and differed only as regards place and time. Muhammed had heard of the Jewish Messiah and of the Christian Paraclete, whom, however, he failed to identify with the Holy Ghost and he applied to himself the allusions to one who should come after Moses and Jesus. Thus in the Qoran 61.6 we read, "Jesus, the Son of Mary, said: Children of Israel, I am God's apostle to you. I confirm in your hands the Thora (the law) and I announce the coming of another apostle after me whose name is Ahmed." Ahmed is the equivalent of Muhammed. The verse has been variously interpreted and even rejected as an interpolation: but its authenticity is attested by its perfect correspondence with what we know of Muhammed's pretensions.
To trace in detail the development of his attitude towards Christianity is a more difficult task than to discover the growth of his views upon Judaism; probably he pursued a similar course in either case. At first he assumed the identity of the two religions with one another and with his own doctrine; afterwards he regarded them as advancing by gradations. Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed, these in his 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