Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/87

 MARRIAGE. 69

Quran it is true, for the Quran knows nothing of a Shema prayer, but it appears in connection with the beginning of the Past Day : " l Until ye can discern a white thread from a black thread by the daybreak. "

2. Some rulings in respect of women tally with Judaism ; e.g., the waiting of divorced woman for three months before they may marry again. 2 The time of suckling is given in both as two years : 3 ' ' Mothers shall give suck unto their children two full years. " Similarly in Snra XLYI. 14 we find : " His bearing and his weaning is thirty months," which is explained by Blpherar as follows: 4 "He takes the shortest duration of pregnancy, viz., six months, and the shortest of suckling, viz., twenty-four months." Compare the Talmudic saying : 5 "A woman is to suckle her child two years, after that it is as though a worm sucked. " That those relatives to whom inter- marriage is forbidden in the Scripture are precisely those whom Muhammad permits 6 to see their near relations unveiled has been already noticed by Michaelis in the Mosaic system, and he has shewn the connection between these two laws.

1 Sura II. 183.

Compare the note in the first section (p. 26) for remarks on the Past Day, ' ishtira.

2 Sura II. 228. Of. Mishna Jabhamdth IV. 10.

3 Sura II. 233. Of. XXXI. 13.

4

5 Kethuboth 60. 1.

Compare Josephus Ant, 2. 9. 6 Sura XXIY, 31.