the development of his attitude towards
Christianity is a more difficult task than to discover the growth of
his views upon Judaism; probably he pursued a similar course in either
case. At first he assumed the identity of the two religions with one
another and with his own doctrine; afterwards he regarded them as
advancing by gradations. Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed,
these in his opinion were the chief stages in the divine scheme of
salvation. Each was respectively confirmed or abolished by the
revelation which followed it, nor is this theory of Muhammed's shaken
by the fact that each revelation was given to a different nation. He
regards all preceding prophets in the light of his own personality.
They were all sent to people who refused them a hearing at the moment.
Punishment follows and the prophet finds a body of believers
elsewhere. These temporary punishments are confused with the final
Judgment; in fact Muhammed's system was not clearly thought out. The
several prophets were but men, whose earthly careers were necessarily
crowned with triumph: hence the crucifixion of Jesus is a malicious
invention of the Jews, who in reality crucified some other sufferer,
while Jesus entered the divine glory. Thus Muhammed has no idea of the
importance of the Crucifixion to the Christian Church, as is shown by
his treatment of it as a Jewish falsehood. In fact, he develops the
habit of characterising as false any statement in contradiction with
his ideas, and this tendency is especially obvious in his dealings
with Judaism, of which he gained a more intimate knowledge. At first
he would refer sceptics to Christian and Jewish doctrine for
confirmation of his own teaching. The fact that with no knowledge of
the Old or New Testament, he had proclaimed doctrines materially
similar and the fact that these Scriptures referred to himself, were
proofs of his inspired power, let doubters say what they would. A
closer acquaintance with these Scriptures showed him that the
divergencies which he stigmatised as falsifications denoted in reality
vast doctrinal differences.

In order to understand Muhammed's attitude towards Christianity, we
will examine in greater detail his view of this religion, the portions
of it which he accepted or which he rejected as unauthentic. In the
first place he must have regarded the Trinity as repugnant to reason:
he considered the Christian Trinity as consisting of God the Father,
Mary the Mother