Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/120

 102 JUDAISM AND ISLiM.

" The angels descended and ate. They ate ? No, but it appeared as though they ate and drank." There is only one error to be found in the account as .given in the Quran. The doubt as to whether in the advanced age of the pair a son could come into the world (which in other passages and in the Bible is put into the mouth of Sarah) is here uttered by Abraham, but in very mild words. 1 - It is true that in the other Biblical account of the promise to Abraham, he himself is represented as doubting God's word. 2 In other passages the position of words and clauses might give rise to many errors, if we did not know the story better beforehand from the Bible. Thus in one passage 3 the laughter of Abraham's wife is given before the announcement is made, which leads the Arabic com- mentators to manifold absurd guesses. Elpherar by the side of these explanations (many of them quite wanting in truth) gives the right one in the following words : 4 " Bin 'Abbas and "W&hib say : ' she laughed from astonishment that she should have a child, for both she and her husband were of a great age.' Then the verse was transposed, but it ought to run thus : ' And his wife stood while We promised him Isaac, and after Isaac, Jacob, and then she laughed.' " It might seem that this son who was promised to Abraham was with deliberate forgery identified with Ishmael, because he is regarded as the ancestor of the Arabs; and so too the ensuing temptation 5 connected with the sacrifice of his son is made to refer to Ishmael.

1 Sura XV. 54. ff. 2 Genesis, xvij. 17. 3 Sura XI. 74

4

5 This is referred to in general terms in Sura II. 118, thus :

Of. Mishna Aboth. v. 8.