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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(June, 1903.
Jewish and Christian ideas remained during the Meccan epooh the corner-stone of the edifice of Muhammad's system. Excepting the original form of the fifty-third Súra, which was subsequently rescinded, we obtain no glimpse of the tenets of heathen Arabs in the Qorán. Nor did the religion of Persia contribute anything, save obliquely, in the shape of Jewish doctrines which were tinged with Zoroastrianism.88
The period of Muhammad's mission in Medina beheld the continnation of the process of borrowing from the Book-religions, that is from Judaism and Christianity. The dogmatics at all events halted where they had been, nay, retrogressed. Their wings of philosophic specalation were closely clipped. Bat the doctrine of necessary obligations was expounded, and assumed a spirit of contracted formalism promoting the development of numerous minor ritualistic observances. But worse than the externalization was the effect of gradual relapse into the Usages of ancient heathenism covered with a veneer of Islam.
The idol fane of Mecca was flaunted before the eyes of the faith as the palladium of Islam. The ancient pagan war-vengeance reappeared under the mask of religious crusade and fell into the category of works highly approved of by God. And when the road to the shrine of Mecca was made accessible, its bygone pilgrimages and sacrificial ceremonials were sanctioned by the Qorán. By this was introduced into the till then harmonious system of Islam,
discordant note which could be drowned in no amount of resonant rhetoric. If despite its fine tendency, Islam has shown no endaring culture, if in every centary it experiences renewed crises, the greater part of the blame must be attributed to the Prophet's last crude and ungrateful innovations.
The splendid achievement which Muhammad made and left behind, after a labour of twenty-two years, may well be called religion, but not Church. However firmly the dogmatic and ethical foundations were laid, the superstructure altogether lacked ecclesiastical elements. This might appear surprising in view of the long time the Prophet had at his disposal, but not when we consider the manner in which he used to regulate the external relations of the order. His goal throughout the Medina period was complete centralisation into his own hands of all power, spiritual or secular. To his office of Prophet, with the emoluments appertaining to the functions of a preceptor, he added his sacerdotal authority in so far as the latter was to be conceived as a medium between God and the faithfal. And not content with this, he claimed legal jurisdiction, which he had originally acquired by a covenant with the Medinites, even in the spiritual sphere, and exercised it in his lifetime in a theocratical sense. The Qorán conceded a certain reverent obedience to the old tribal heads, and probably their privilege to advise and to aid in the solution of diffionlt problems was also recognized by Muhammad, they being allowed to be arbiters in the case of two contending factions in the fraternity. But their time-honoured prerogative to judicially pronounce their decisions was suspended while he lived.
The sole public fanctions in which the Prophet tolerated co-operation were of an executive description. And here, too, he appointed no absolute officials, but only deputies who represented a fraction of the authority focussed in him. The command of an army in war was committed to a general only for the time the campaign lasted, and so much as the collection of the annual taxes was entrusted to ever-changing hands.
Nevertheless the authority which Mohammad possessed he regarded as of divino origin. It was vonchsafed to him as an aot of unmerited grace, and by consequence not transferable
[See Dr. Kohut's Zoroastrian Legende and their Biblical sources; also Tisdal St. Clair's Religion of the Crescent, where it is proved, inter alia, that the expression assumed to be peculiar and most obaracteristio of Islam, Din, in & Joan word from the Avesta daona, which means religion or creed. But perhaps the most recent contribution to the subjeot all-important to the Parsisin by Dr. Erik Stano, entitled Uber den Einflus de Paris au das Judentum (On the Infinence of the Para Religion on Judaism). -TR.) 89 8dra 4, 62. 40 Sura 4, 85.
# Sura 4, 97, and 10, 8, refer to this.
