Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/176

 158 APPENDIX.

necessity of abolishing resemblances to the Jews." 1 Thus, Muhammad asserts that the Jews are the enemies of the Muslims, 2 that they slew prophets, 3 a probable reference to Jesus; further, that they in common with Christians thought themselves specially favoured by God, 4 that they believed that they alone should possess Paradise, 5 that they held Ezra to be the son of God, 6 that they trusted in the intercession of their self pious predecessors, 7 that they had perverted the Bible 8 because in ita existing form that Book contained no allusions to him, and that the Jews built temples on the graves of the prophets. 9 Such accusations and the reasons given earlier supplied Muhammad with grounds on which to justify his departure from Jewish laws.

A. Prayer. Supper precedes prayer. 10 This is in direct opposition to the Talmud, which lays down exactly how long before prayer one may eat that the hour of prayer may not be let slip. Truly in this Muhammad wished to live so as to please his Arabs.

B. Laws about women* Muhammad says : n " It is lawful for you on the night of the fast to go in unto your wives." This is clearly prescribed in opposition to the directly contrary ruling in the Talmudic law prohibiting cohabitation on the night before the fast day in Abh, that being counted as part of the fast day itself.

The laws of divorce 12 are probably identical with those of the ancient Arabs. There is a remarkable passage in the Quran, 13 which says that the man after he has put away his wife for the second time cannot marry her again until she has married another man, and been divorced by him too. This ia directly contrary to the teaching of the Bible. 14

1 Pocock notee Misc., chap. 9, page 369. s Sura V. 85.

3 Suras II. 58, V. 74. 4 Sura V. 21.

5 Suras IT. 88, LXII. 6. 6 Sura IX. 30. Sunna 462.

7 Sura II, 128, 135.

8 Sura II. 73, and other passages. 9 Snnna 70 ff. 10 Sunna 97 ff. " Sura II. 183. 12 Sura, II. 229 ff, l3 Sura II. 230. 14 Deuteronomy, xxiv, 1 ff.