Christian Influence

There is no doubt that in Medina Muhammed was under direct Jewish influence of extraordinary power. Even at that time Jewish ideas may have been in circulation, not only in the Qoran but also in oral tradition, which afterwards became stereotyped: at the same time Muhammed's utterances against the Jews eventually became so strong during the Medina period, for political reasons, that I can hardly imagine the traditions in their final form to have been adopted directly from the Jews. The case of Jewish converts is a different matter. But in Christianity also much Jewish wisdom was to be found at that time and it is well known that even the Eastern churches regarded numerous precepts of the Old Testament, including those that dealt with ritual, as 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 Islam 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.