countries. For similar reasons Islam had to complete its spiritual store
from the well-ordered wealth of that of its new adherents. Recent research
shows most clearly, that Islam, in after times so sharply opposed to other
religions and so strongly armed against foreign influence, in the first
century borrowed freely and simply from the "People of Scripture" whatever
was not evidently in contradiction to the Qoran. This was to be expected;
had not Mohammed from the very beginning referred to the "people of the
Book" as "those who know"? When painful experience induced him afterwards
to accuse them of corruption of their Scriptures, this attitude
necessitated a certain criticism but not rejection of their tradition.
The ritual, only provisionally regulated and continually liable to change
according to prophetic inspiration in Mohammed's lifetime, required
unalterable rules after his death. Recent studies[1] have shown in an
astounding way, that the Jewish ritual, together with the religious rites
of the Christians, strongly influenced the definite shape given to that of
Islam, while indirect influence of the Parsi religion is at least probable.

[Footnote 1: The studies of Professors C.H. Becker, E. Mittwoch, and
A.J. Wensinck, especially taken in connection with older ones of Ignaz
Goldziher, have thrown much light upon this subject.]

So much for the rites of public worship and the ritual purity they require.
The method of fasting seems to follow the Jewish model, whereas the period
of obligatory fasting depends on the Christian usage.

Mohammed's fragmentary and unsystematic accounts of sacred history were
freely drawn from Jewish and Christian sources and covered the whole period
from the creation of the world until the first centuries of the Christian
era. Of course, features shocking to the Moslim mind were dropped and the
whole adapted to the monotonous conception of the Qoran. With ever greater
boldness the story of Mohammed's own life was exalted to the sphere of
the supernatural; here the Gospel served as example. Though Mohammed had
repeatedly declared himself to be an ordinary man chosen by Allah as the
organ of His revelation, and whose only miracle was the Qoran, posterity
ascribed to him a whole series of wonders, evidently invented in emulation
of the wonders of Christ. The reason for this seems to have been the idea
that none of the older prophets, not even Jesus, of whom the Qoran tells
the greatest won