Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/125

 118 The naïve ideas concerning the other world in the clear-cut form outlined for them by previous generations are most likely to remain unchanged in a religious community where intellectual intercourse is chiefly limited to that between members of the community. There the belief is fostered that things most appreciated and cherished in this fading world by mankind will have an enduring existence in a world to come, and that the best of the changing phenomena of life are eternal and will continue free from that change, which is the principal cause of human misery. Material death will be followed by awakening to a purer life, the idealized continuation of life on earth, and for this reason already during this life the faithful will find their delight in those things which they know to be everlasting.

The less faith is submitted to the control of intellect, the more numerous the objects will be to which durable value is attributed. This is true for different individuals as well as for one religious community as compared to another. There are Christians attached only to the spirit of the Gospel, Mohammedans attached only to the spirit of the Qorân. Others give a place in their world of imperishable things to a particular translation of the Bible in its old-fashioned orthography or to a written Qorân in preference to a printed one. Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Islâm have marked with the stamp of eternity codes of law, whose influence has worked as an impediment to