hose aim in life at one period or another came to resemble
wonderfully that of the inhabitants of West- and Central-Arabia in the
seventh century A.D. Hereby they strayed from the true path, in strife with
the commands given by Allah. The whole of history, therefore, was for him
a long series of repetitions of the antithesis between the foolishness of
men, as this was now embodied in the social state of Mecca, and the wisdom
of God, as known to the "People of the Scripture." To bring the erring ones
back to the true path, it was Allah's plan to send them messengers from out
of their midst, who delivered His ritual and His moral directions to them
in His own words, who demanded the acknowledgment of Allah's omnipotence,
and if they refused to follow the true guidance, threatened them with
Allah's temporary or, even more, with His eternal punishment.

The antithesis is always the same, from Adam to Jesus, and the enumeration
of the scenes is therefore rather monotonous; the only variety is in the
detail, borrowed from biblical and apocryphal legends. In all the thousands
of years the messengers of Allah play the same part as Mohammed finally saw
himself called upon to play towards his people.

Mohammed's account of the past contains more elements of Jewish than of
Christian origin, and he ignores the principal dogmas of the Christian
Church. In spite of his supernatural birth, Jesus is only a prophet
like Moses and others; and although his miracles surpass those of other
messengers, Mohammed at a later period of his life is inclined to place
Abraham above Jesus in certain respects. Yet the influence of Christianity
upon Mohammed's vocation was very great; without the Christian idea of the
final scene of human history, of the Resurrection of the dead and the Last
Judgment, Mohammed's mission would have no meaning. It is true, monotheism,
in the Jewish sense, and after the contrast had become clear to Mohammed,
accompanied by an express rejection of the Son of God and of the Trinity,
has become one of the principal dogmas of Islam. But in Mohammed's first
preaching, the announcement of the Day of judgment is much more prominent
than the Unity of God; and it was against his revelations concerning
Doomsday that his opponents directed their satire during the first twelve
years. It was not love of their half-dead gods but anger at the wretch who
was never tired of telling them, in the name of Allah, that all their
life was idle