Divine ordinances also regulated the manner of eating. The prophet said, "With one finger the devils eat, with two the Titans of antiquity and with three fingers the prophets." The application of the saying is obvious. Similar sayings prescribe the mode of handling dishes and behaviour at a common meal, if the blessing of God is to be secured. There seems to be a Christian touch in one of these rules which runs, in the words of the prophet: "He who picks up the crumbs fallen from the table and eats them, will be forgiven by God." "He who licks the empty dishes and his fingers will be filled by God here and in the world to come." "When a man licks the dish from which he has eaten, the dish will plead for him before God."
I regard these words as practical applications of the text, "Gather up the pieces that remain, that nothing be lost" (Matt. xiv. 10: John vi. 12). Even to-day South Italians kiss bread that has fallen to the ground, in order to make apology to the gift of God. Volumes might be filled with rules of polite manners in this style: hardly any detail is to be found in the whole business of daily life, even including occupations regarded as unclean, which was not invested with some religious significance. These rules are almost entirely dictated by the spirit of early Christianity and it is possible to reconstruct the details of life in those dark ages from these literary records which are now the only source of evidence upon such points. However, we must here content ourselves with establishing the fact that Islam adopted Christian practice in this as in other departments of life.
The state, society, the individual, economics and morality were thus collectively under Christian influence during the early period of Islam. Conditions very similar in general, affected those conceptions which we explain upon scientific grounds but which were invariably regarded by ancient and mediaeval thought as supernatural, conceptions deduced from the phenomena of illness and dreams. Islam was no less opposed than Christianity to the practice of magic in any form, but only so far as these practices seemed to preserve remnants of heathen beliefs. Such beliefs were, however, continued in both religions in modified form.
There is no doubt that ideas of high antiquity, doubtless of Babylonian origin, can be traced as contributing to the formation of these beliefs, while scientific medicine is connected with the earlier discoveries of Greece. Common to both religions was the belief in the reality of dreams, especially when these seemed to harmonise with religious ideas: dreams were regarded as revelations from God or from his apostles or from the pious dead. The fact that man could dream and that he could appear to other men in dreams after his death was regarded as a sign of divine favour and the biographies of the saints often contain chapters devoted to this faculty.
These are natural ideas which lie in the national consciousness of any people, but owe their development in the case of Islam to Christian influence. The same may be said of the belief that the prayers of particular saints were of special efficacy, and of attempts by prayer, forms of worship and the like to procure rain, avert plague and so forth: such ideas are common throughout the middle ages. Thus in every department we meet with that particular type of Christian theory which existed in the East during the seventh and eighth centuries.
This mediaeval theory of life was subjected, as is well known, to many compromises in the West, and was materially modified by Teutonic influence and the revival of classicism. It might therefore be supposed that in Islam Christian theory underwent similar modification or disappeared entirely. But the fact is not so. At the outset, we stated, as will be remembered, that Muhammedan scholars were accustomed to propound their dicta as utterances given by Muhammed himself, and in this form Christian ideas also came into circulation among Islam. When attempts were made to systematise these sayings, all were treated as alike authentic, and, as traditional, exerted their share of influence upon the formation of canon law. Thus questions of temporary importance to mediaeval Christianity became permanent elements in Muhammedan theology.
One highly instructive instance may be given. During the century which preceded the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy, the whole of nearer Asia was disturbed by the question whether the erection and veneration of images was permissible. That Constantinople attempted to prohibit such veneration is well known: but after a long struggle the church gained its wishes. Islam was confronted with the problem and decided for prohibition, doubtless under Jewish influence. Sayings of Muhammed forbid the erection of images. This prohibition became part of canon law and therefore binding for all time: it remains obligatory at the present day, though in practice it is often transgressed. Thus the process of development which was continued in Christendom, came to a standstill in Islam, and many similar cases might be quoted.
Here begins the development of Muhammedan jurisprudence or, more exactly, of the doctrine of duty, which includes every kind of human activity, duties to God and man, religion, civil law, the penal code, social morality and economics. This extraordinary system of moral obligations, as developed in Islam, though its origin is obscure, is doubtless rooted in the ecclesiastical law of Christendom which was then first evolved. I have no doubt that the development of Muhammedan tradition, which precedes the code proper, was dependent upon the growth of canon law in the old Church, and that this again, or at least the purely legal part of it, is closely connected with the pre-Justinian legislation. Roman law does not seem to me to have influenced Islam immediately in the form of Justinian's _Corpus Juris_, but indirectly from such ecclesiastical sources as the Romano-Syrian code.
This view, however, I would distinctly state, is merely my conjecture. For our present purpose it is more important to establish the fact that the doctrine of duty canonised the manifold expressions of the theory that life is a religion, with which we have met throughout the traditional literature: all human acts are thus legally considered as obligatory or forbidden when corresponding with religious commands or prohibitions, as congenial or obnoxious to the law or as matters legally indifferent and therefore permissible. The arrangement of the work of daily life in correspondence with these religious points of view is the most important outcome of the Muhammedan doctrine of duties. The religious utterances which also cover the whole business of life were first made duties by this doctrine: in practice their fulfilment is impossible, but the theory of their obligatory nature is a fundamental element in Islam.
Where the doctrine of duties deals with legal rights, its application was in practice confined to marriage and the affairs of family life: the theoretical demands of its penal clauses, for instance, raise impossible difficulties. At the same time, it has been of great importance to the whole spiritual life of Islam down to the present day, because it reflects Muhammedan ideals of life and of man's place in the world. Even to-day it remains the daily bread of the soul that desires instruction, to quote the words of the greatest father of the Muhammedan church. It will thus be immediately obvious to what a vast extent Christian theory of the seventh and eighth centuries still remains operative upon Muhammedan thought throughout the world.
Considerable parts of the doctrine of duties are concerned with the forms of Muhammedan worship. It is becoming ever clearer that only slight tendencies to a form of worship were apparent under Muhammed. The mosque, the building erected for the special purpose of divine service, was unknown during the prophet's lifetime; nor was there any definite church organisation, of which the most important parts are the common ritual and the preaching. Tendencies existed but no system, was to be found: there was no clerical class to take an interest in the development of an order of divine service. The Caliphs prayed before the faithful in the capital, as did the governors in the provinces. The military commanders also led a simple service in their own stations.
It was contact with foreign influence which first provided the impulse to a systematic form of worship. Both Christians and Jews possessed such forms. Their example was followed and a ritual was evolved, at first of the very simplest kind. No detailed organisation, however, was attempted, until Christian influence led to the formation of the class which naturally took an interest in the matter, the professional theologians. These soon replaced the military service leaders. This change denoted the final stage in the development of ritual. The object of the theologians was to subject the various occupations of life to ritual as well as to religion. The mediatorial or sacramental theories of the priestly office were unknown to Islam, but ritual customs of similar character were gradually evolved, and are especially pronounced in the ceremonies of marriage and burial.
More important, however, was the development of the official service, the arrangement of the day and the hour of obligatory attendance and the introduction of preaching: under Muhammed and his early followers, and until late in the Omajjad period, preaching was confined to addresses, given as occasion demanded, but by degrees it became part of the regular ritual. With it was afterwards connected the intercession for the Caliphs, which became a highly significant part of the service, as symbolising their sovereignty. It seems to me very probable that this practice was an adoption, at any rate in theory, of the Christian custom of praying for the emperor.
The pulpit was then introduced under Christian influence, which thus completely transformed the chair (_mimbar_) of the ancient Arab judges and rulers and made it a piece of church furniture; the Christian _cancelli_ or choir screens were adopted and the mosque was thus developed. Before the age of mosques, a lance had been planted in the ground and prayer offered behind it: so in the mosque a prayer niche was made, a survival of the pre-existing custom. There are many obscure points in the development of the worship, but one fact may be asserted with confidence: the developments of ritual were derived from pre-existing practices, which were for the most part Christian.
But the religious energy of Islam was not exclusively devoted to the development and practice of the doctrine of duties; at the same time this ethical department, in spite of its dependency upon Christian and Jewish ideas, remains its most original achievement: we have pursued the subject at some length, because its importance is often overlooked in the course of attempts to estimate the connection between Christianity and Islam. On the other hand, affinities in the regions of mysticism and dogma have long been matter of common knowledge and a brief sketch of them will therefore suffice. If not essential to our purpose within the limits of this book, they are none the less necessary to complete our treatment of the subject.