ius. See Sale's note on Koran,
ch. ii. 81, note.

[12] Kor., ch. v. 110 ff.

[13] Koran, cc. iv. ad fin; xliii. 59.

Alvar is much more unfair to Mohammed than his friend Eulogius, and he
even seems to have had a prejudiced idea[1] that the Prophet set himself
deliberately to preach doctrines the opposite of those taught by Christ.
It would be nearer to the truth to say that the divergence between the
two codes of morals was due to the natural ignorance of an illiterate
Arabian, brought into contact only with an heretical form of
Christianity, the real doctrines of which he was therefore not likely to
know.

According to Alvar, the sixth day of the week was chosen for the
Mohammedan holy day, because Christ suffered on that day. We shall
realise the absurdity of this when we consider the reverence in which
Mohammed held the very name of Christ, going so far even as to deny that
Christ Himself was crucified at all.[2] The true reason for selecting
Friday, as alleged by Mohammed himself, was, because the work of
creation ended on that day.[3]

Again, sensuality was preached, says Alvar, because Christ preached
chastity. But Mohammed cannot fairly be said to have preached
sensuality, though his private life in this respect was by no means
pure.

Gluttony was advocated instead of fasting. A more baseless charge was
never made; for how can it be contended that Christianity enjoins
fasting, while Islam disapproves of it, in the face of such texts as
Matthew ix. 14,[4] and Isaiah lviii. 6--"Is not this the fast that I
have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy
burdens, and to let the oppressed go free?" on the one hand; and on the
other the express injunction of the Koran[5]:--"O true believers, a fast
is ordained you, as it was ordained to those before you ... if ye fast,
it will be better for you, if ye knew it. The month of Ramadan shall ye
fast." But Alvar goes on to make a more astonishing statement
still:--"Christ ordained that men should abstain from their wives during
a fast, while Mohammed consecrated those days to carnal pleasure."
Christ surely gives us no such injunction, though St Paul does say
something of the kind. The Koran[6] explicitly says--"It is lawful for
you on the night of the fast to go in unto your wives; they are a
garment unto you, and you are a garment unto them." We even find an
incident recorded by an Arabian writer, where Yahya ibn Yahya, the
famous faq