e no principle beside that of God. As a
typical example we may take a sentence from the Spanish bishop Isidor
who died in 636: "Good are the intentions directed towards God and bad
are those directed to earthly gain or transitory fame." Any Muhammedan
theologian would have subscribed to this statement. On the one hand
stress is laid upon motive as giving its value to action. The first
sentence in the most famous collection of traditions runs, "Deeds
shall be judged by their intentions." On the other hand is the
contrast between God and the world, or as Islam puts it, between the
present and the future life. The Christian gains eternal life by
following Christ. Imitation of the Master in all things even to the
stigmata, is the characteristic feature of mediaeval Christianity. Nor
is the whole of the so-called Sunna obedience anything more than the
imitation of Muhammed which seeks to repeat the smallest details of
his life. The infinite importance attached by Islam to the Sunna seems
to me to have originated in Christian influence. The development of it
betrays original features, but the fundamental principle is Christian,
as all the leading ideas of Islam are Christian, in the sense of the
term as paraphrased above. Imitation of Christ in the first instance,
attempts to repeat his poverty and renunciation of personal property:
this is the great Christian ideal. Muhammed was neither poor nor
without possessions: at the end of his life he had become a prince and
had directly stated that property was a gift from God. In spite of
that his successors praise poverty and their praises were the best of
evidence that they were influenced not by the prophet himself but by
Christianity. While the traditions are full of the praises of poverty
and the dangers of wealth, assertions in praise of wealth also
occur, for the reason that the pure Muhammedan ideas opposed to
Christianity retained a certain influence. J. Goldziher has published
an interesting study showing how many words borrowed from this source
occur in the written Muhammedan traditions: an almost complete
version of the Lord's Prayer is quoted. Even the idea of love towards
enemies, which would have been unintelligible to Muhammed, made its
way into the traditions: "the most virtuous of acts is to seek out him
who rejects thee, to give to him that despises thee and to pardon him
that oppresses thee." The Gospel precept to do unto others as we would
they should do unto us