Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/109

 TOWER Ol 1 BABEL. 01

the new punishment is described, which would not have been accorded to a fiction. It appears therefore that the history reached this development in the mouth of the people, who delight in minute descriptions of punishment. The remaining deviations and additions, particularly the latter, are caused, as we have already remarked in .the case of Noah, by confusion with Muhammad's own time and person. This is the case when he transfers unbelief in the resurrection to the time of Had and counts it among the sin's of that time which were worthy of punishment. 1 This is seen too especially in the great importance assigned to Eber and to his desire to turn the people from their evil ways. Decided traces of this are certainly to be found in Jewish writings, 2 where we are told that Eber was a great prophet, who by the Holy Spirit called his son Pelag, because in his days the earth was divided 3 (which Eber had known beforehand). Much also is said of the school of Eber, and Rebekah is said to have gone there ; for it is written : " She went to enquire of the Lord," 4 and Jacob is supposed to have stayed there for fourteen years. But of the fact that Eber preached to the people, he being their brother (on which Muhammad places great stress, because he himself was sent as an Arab to the Arabs) , not a trace is to be found, still less of the fact that he took no reward from them .5 One point still remains to be cleared up, why the race under discussion is called in the

1 Sura XXIII. 87.

2 Seder 'Olam quoted in Midi-ash Yalkut, Chap. 62.

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3 Genesis, x, 25.

4 Genesis, xxv. 22. Midr. Eabbah on Genesis, par, 68. Also par, 68. for Jacob's sojourn in the home of Eber,

6 Sura XI, 58, XXYI, 127.