Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/41

 THE QM^N A HNAL EEVELATION. 23

prophets, is to be considered as the seal of the prophets, 1 and therefore as the most perfect among them, because his- book is so clear 2 that no disputes or misunderstandings can arise about it, and, therefore, no apostle would be needed after himself. Thus it is clear that a borrowing from other religions was quite compatible with Muhammad's general aim. Consideration for his Arab followers, i.e., the fear of being called a mere compiler, a reproach which he did not altogether escape, did not hinder him, from such borrowing, partly, because he believed that he might rely on their ignorance; partly, because he had only to prove the harmony which must necessarily exist between the various revelations of the same Grod. Muhammad maintained that it was all revelation, that he derived nothing from Jew or Christian, but that Grod Himself revealed to him the contents of earlier Scriptures, and the historical facts concerning them. With regard to Judaism in particular Muhammad found no special difficulty. We have already observed that much in it accorded with the Prophet's poetic spirit, and who can now assert that any objection to an agreement with Judaism would have been raised by Muhammad's contemporaries? In those days people had not reached such a pitch of so-called enlightenment, as to consider the followers of one creed only as in the right, and to regard everything belonging to another belief as worthless ; to restrict to Christians the elements common to humanity, and to condemn Judaism as crafty and lifeless. Thus it was possible for Muhammad to lay before the Jews- the points of union between his religion and their own, carefully avoiding the while those points in his doctrine- which would be unacceptable to them. It is clear in itself that he could not adopt the whole o

Sura XXXIII. 40,