Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/32

 14 JUDAISM AND ISLAM.

were not only important politically, but were also able to hold him up to derision by their intellect and wit, He was anxious therefore to persuade them that his views were on the whole the same as theirs with some few differences.

We have given sufficient reasons for Muhammad's treating the Jews with consideration, and we shall now give proofs that he actually made great efforts to win them over to his way of thinking. Besides the frequent religious controversies already alluded to, there are many passages in the Quran specially addressed to the Jews, in all of which they are admonished in a very friendly way that the Quran would serve as an arbitrator in their own disputes. Not only did he address them with gentleness and consideration, he actually did many things on purpose to. please them. At first simply and solely on account of the Jews the Qibla, or place towards which prayer was to be made, was changed by Muhammad to Jerusalem, from Mecca the spot which the ancient Arabs had always regarded as holy ; and it was only when he recognised the fruitlessness of attempting to conciliate the Israelites that he changed back to the former direction.

The first change is not, it is true, stated in so many words in the Quran, only a complaint about the second alteration is "given, but some commentators maintain that the allusion is to the former change. 1 In disputes between Muslims and Jews he shewed himself at times perhaps too lenient. This is said to have given occasion to some believers to

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1 Quraa TI. 136. Vg/J,a us \i (^^i *8'^* M* t*&rj JaMlu'd-din. (Maracci in loco) hag as follows :

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" After his Flight he ordered his followers to turn to the Temple at

Jerusalem (tzHpSH jT3) 5 this however, which was done to conciliate the Jews, held good for six or seven months only, and then he changed it

agaiu,"