Christianity and Islam | Page 9

binding upon them. In any case the spirit of Judaism is
present, either directly or working through Christianity, as an influence
wherever Islam accommodated itself to the new intellectual and
spiritual life which it had encountered. It was a compromise which
affected the most trivial details of life, and in these matters religious
scrupulosity was carried to a ridiculous point: here we may see the
outcome of that Judaism which, as has been said, was then a definite
element in Eastern Christianity. Together with Jewish, Greek and
classical ideas were also naturally operative, while Persian and other
ancient Oriental conceptions were transmitted to Islam by Christianity:
these instances I have collectively termed Christian because
Christianity then represented the whole of later classical intellectualism,
which influenced Islam for the most part through Christianity.
It seems that the communication of these ideas to Muhammedanism
was impeded by the necessity of translating them not only into a
kindred language, but into one of wholly different linguistic structure.
For Muhammedanism the difficulty was lessened by the fact that it had
learned Christianity in Syria and Persia through the Semitic dialect
known as Aramaic, by which Greek and Persian culture had been
transmitted to the Arabs before the rise of Islam. In this case, as in
many others, the history of language runs on parallel lines with the
history of civilisation. The necessities of increasing civilisation had
introduced many Aramaic words to the Arabic vocabulary before
Muhammed's day: these importations increased considerably when the
Arabs entered a wider and more complex civilisation and were
especially considerable where intellectual culture was concerned. Even
Greek terms made their way into Arabic through Aramaic. This natural
dependency of Arabic upon Aramaic, which in turn was connected with
Greek as the rival Christian vernacular in these regions, is alone
sufficient evidence that Christianity exerted a direct influence upon
Muhammedanism. Moreover, as we have seen, the Qoran itself
regarded Christians as being in possession of divine wisdom, and some
reference both to Christianity and to Judaism was necessary to explain
the many unintelligible passages of the Qoran. Allusions were made to
texts and statements in the Thora and the Gospels, and God was
represented as constantly appealing to earlier revelations of Himself.

Thus it was only natural that interpreters should study these scriptures
and ask counsel of their possessors. Of primary importance was the fact
that both Christians and Jews, and the former in particular, accepted
Muhammedanism by thousands, and formed a new intellectual class of
ability infinitely superior to that of the original Muslims and able to
attract the best elements of the Arab nationality to their teaching. It was
as impossible for these apostate Christians to abandon their old habits
of thought as it was hopeless to expect any sudden change in the
economic conditions under which they lived. Christian theories of God
and the world naturally assumed a Muhammedan colouring and thus
the great process of accommodating Christianity to Muhammedanism
was achieved. The Christian contribution to this end was made partly
directly and partly by teaching, and in the intellectual as well as in the
economic sphere the ultimate ideal was inevitably dictated by the
superior culture of Christianity. The Muhammedans were thus obliged
to accept Christian hypotheses on theological points and the
fundaments of Christian and Muhammedan culture thus become
identical.
I use the term hypotheses, for the reason that the final determination of
the points at issue was by no means identical, wherever the Qoran
definitely contradicted Christian views of morality or social laws. But
in these cases also, Christian ideas were able to impose themselves
upon tradition and to issue in practice, even when opposed by the
actual text of the Qoran. They did not always pass unquestioned and
even on trivial points were obliged to encounter some resistance. The
theory of the Sunday was accepted, but that day was not chosen and
Friday was preferred: meetings for worship were held in imitation of
Christian practice, but attempts to sanctify the day and to proclaim it a
day of rest were forbidden: except for the performance of divine service,
Friday was an ordinary week-day. When, however, the Qoran was in
any sort of harmony with Christianity, the Christian ideas of the age
were textually accepted in any further development of the question. The
fact is obvious, not only as regards details, but also in the general
theory of man's position upon earth.
* * * * *
Muhammed, the preacher of repentance, had become a temporal prince
in Medina; his civil and political administration was ecclesiastical in

character, an inevitable result of his position as the apostle of God,
whose congregation was at the same time a state. This theory of the
state led later theorists unconsciously to follow the lead of Christianity,
which regarded the