Religion of the Crescent

64	THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

is "of ¹ purer eyes than to behold evil"? And how different is Muhammad's conception of GOD in this respect from that held by the Patriarchs, and even by Abraham the Friend of² GOD, to whose religion Muhammad professed to wish to recall³ his fellow-countrymen! "The⁴ very source and fountain-head of the religion of the Old Testament," as a German writer well says, "is the religious experience of the Holiness of GOD." Although it was not until Moses' time and the giving of the Law at Sinai that it was verbally commanded to the chosen People, "Be⁵ ye holy, for I am holy," yet the very nature of the GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is Holiness,⁶ as is evident from His recorded actions and laws. In His sternness and might, His irresistible decrees and His despotic acts, the Allah of Islam bears a

¹ Hab. i. 13. ² This title—in Arabic Khalilu'llah—is more frequently used by the Muslims with reference to Abraham than even by the Jews, and is justified by e.g. Surah iv. 124[125]: وَاتَّخَذَ اللّهُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ خَلِيلاً
³ Surah ii. 129; iii, 89, sqq.
⁴ Grau, "Ursprunge," p. 123. Even De Wette acknowledges this. ("Biblische Dogmatik," § 83: "Die sittliche, vom Mythus befreite Idee Eines Gottes, als eines heiligen Willens, zeigt sich als dieser Gegensatz und Beziehungspunct . . . . . Er" [i.e., der subjective Charakter des Hebraismus] "ist . . . . Wahrheitsliebe und sitt.icher Ernst.")
⁵ Lev. xix. 2; and xi. 44; cf. Ex. xv. 11; xxviii. 36.
⁶ Grau, ibid., p. 125.

² Allah (Himself) chose Abraham for friend.
[Pickthal's translation]

THE WEAKNESS OF ISLAM.

most striking resemblance to the Zeus of that immortal creation of the grandest of the tragedians of Hellas, the "Prometheus Bound":

Πολλους δ οδυρμους και γοους ανωφελεις φθεγξει Διος γαρ δυσπαραιτητοι φρενες,

so much so indeed that the words which it rends even the stern heart of Hephaistos to utter to the ill-fated Prometheus,¹( ) might well be said by Gabriel to one of those whom the Muslim terms the "enemies of ² GOD." But the GOD of Islam is more terrible even than the Aeschylean Zeus, inasmuch as of Him it cannot be asserted that He fears³ Fate or dreads the coming of one who shall drive Him from power. Nay further, instead of being subject to Fate or Necessity, Allah's will is Fate, and by it the lot of every creature for time⁴ and eternity is

¹ "Prometheus Desmotes," vv. 33, 34.
² أعْداءُ الله This phrase and its singular عُدُوُّ الله are of continual recurrence in Arabic books; e.g., in the Siratu'r Rasul of Ibn Hisham. ³ The ordinary view with regard to the relation subsisting between the Aeschylean Zeus and Fate is ably combated by Dr. Westcott in his "Religious Thought in the West." If his view be adopted, the parallel between Zeus and Allah will be still closer. ⁴ V. Sale, "Preliminary Discourse," sect. iv.; Muir, "The Coran, its Composition and Teaching," pp. 52, 53; Stobart, "Islam," p. 96, sqq. V. also Qur'an, Surah vi. 123, 125; vii. 177, 185; x. 99; xi. 120; xiii. 27, 30; xvi. 39, 95; xvii. 14; xviii. 16; xxxii. 17; lxxiv. 34; lxxvi.

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