[9] Kor., c. ix. 33.
[10] Kor., c. iii.
[11] This is a mistake of Eulogius. 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 faqui, imposed a penance of a month's extra fast on Abdurrahman II. (822-852) for violating the Prophet's ordinance, that wives should be abstained from during the fasting month.[7] Alvar, being a layman, may perhaps be supposed not to have studied Mohammedanism critically, and that his zeal was not according to knowledge is perhaps the best explanation of the matter. In one place[8] he informs us of his intention of writing a book on the Cobar,[9] but the work, if ever written, has not survived. Nor is this much to be regretted, if we may judge by the wild remarks he indulges in elsewhere[10] on this theme. In that passage he seems to apply the obscure prophecy of Daniel[11] to Mohammed, forgetting that verse 37 speaks of one who "shall regard not the desire of women," a description hardly characteristic of Mohammed. He identifies the God Maozim (Hebr. Mauzim), which our revised version (v. 38) translates the "God of fortresses" with the Mohammedan Cobar;[12] and the strange god, whom he shall acknowledge, Alvar identifies with the devil which inspired the Prophet in the guise of the angel Gabriel. All this, as the writer himself allows, is very enigmatical.
[1] See Dozy, ii. 107.