Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/11

 I VENTURE to offer to the general public a work which was primarily undertaken with somewhat scanty materials. The question propounded by the Philosophical Faculty at Bonn, viz., "Inguiratur in fontes Alcorani seu legis Mohammedicae eas, qui ex Judaismo derivandi sunt," served as an inducement to the undertaking. The point of view from which the subject was to be approached was left by the terms of the question entirely to the different workers; and that from which I have regarded it must be considered, in order that a right judgment upon my essay may be formed. It is assumed that Muhammad borrowed from Judaism, and this assumption, as will be shewn later, is rightly based. In this connection everything of course is excluded which appears only in the later development of Islam, and of which no trace can be met with in the Quran, but on the other hand all such religious ideas and legends as are hinted at in the Quran, and are explained and developed at the hands of later writers, deserve and receive consideration. Secondly, a comparison between Jewish sayings, and those of the Quran, in the hope of setting forth the former as the source of the latter, can take place only on condition that the Jewish sayings are actually found in Jewish writings prior to Islam; or unless it is certain that such sayings, though only recently recorded, existed earlier in the synagogue.

But this certainty cannot easily be attained, and historical criticism must find its doubt as to this the more deeply rooted in proportion to the number of times in which the sayings are found among those of other creeds, from which there is probability that they were adopted. Thirdly, those who undertake this work must consider seriously the