Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/157

 JETHBO. 139

idolatry and had thought of being converted even before Moses came. Then he called his fellow-townsmen and said to them : ' Till now I have served yon, but now I am old, choose you another priest : and he gave them back the vessels of service.' Then they put him under a ban, so that no one conversed with him, no one worked for him, no one tended his flocks ; and when he asked this service from the shepherds, they would not give it. The shepherds came and drove them away. ! Was it possible ? Jethro was the priest of Midian and the shepherds drove away his daugh- ters ? But this shews that they had put him under a ban, and for this reason they drove his daughters away." In the mouth of the people, or more probably from Muhammad himself, the legend received the embellishment that Jethro wanted to convert his fellow-countrymen to the faith, and that they were punished on account of their unbelief. A reproach which is specially brought against them, or rather the point of the exhortation, viz., to give just weight and measure, 2 must be founded on some legend or other, although I have not yet come across it in Jewish writings. 3 Jethro shows himself as a preacher quite according to Muhammad's ideas. He preaches about the Last Day 4 and asserts that he desires no reward ; 5 on the other hand his townspeople reproach him with working no miracles. 6 I have presented the facts and quotations here as though there were no doubt that all these passages refer to Jethro, but exception might be taken to this. An altogether different name 7 is found in the Quran, and it is not easy to

1 Exodus, ii. 17. 2 Suras VII. 83, XI. 86.

3 It seems as though Muhammad had confounded the Midianites with the inhabitants of Sodom, to whom such things are imputed by the Rabbis.

4 Sura XXIX. 85. 5 Sura XXVI. 180.

6 Sura XXVI. 186, 187. 7