Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/178

 100 " APPENDIX.

judgeth nofc according to what God hath revealed they are unjust." The passage of Scripture which Muhammad here has in mind is in Exodus j l and those who do not observe it are the Jews, in that they extend to all cases the permission to make atonement with money> which is given only when the injured party agrees to it. The Mishna 2 runs as follows : " If a man has blinded another, or cut off his hand, or broken his foot, one must regard the injured person as though he were a slave sold iu the market, and put a price upon him and reckon how much he was worth before the injury and how much now, etc."

These are about all the chief points showing a consideration of Judaism, and the collecting of them gives us another proof that Muhammad had a personal knowledge of Judaism through acquaintance with the Jewish manner of life and through intercourse with the Jews.

If we now once more consider this treatise as a whole, we shall find that by the establishment of the fact which was to be demonstrated, viz., that Muhammad borrowed from Judaism, we come to a clear understanding of the Quran in general as well as of individual passages in it. Furthermore, the state of culture of the Arabians of that day, and especially of the Arabian Jews, is to some extent made clear, and light is thrown upon the plan of Muhammad and upon his intellec- tual power and knowledge by many authentic documents. Then in collecting the passages which serve as proofs we are compelled to dismiss at once the ill-considered confidence with which people are apt to speak of each legend as a dream of the rabbinical Talmudists; for although the author neither can nor will maintain that no passage bearing on his thesis has escaped him in the Kabbinical literature, still this must be accepted as a fact until it can be proved that this

1 Exodus, xxi. 23 ff. 2 Mishua Baba, ^tnma viii. 1,

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