The works of Geiger, J. M. Arnold, Hershom, McCaul, Bishop Barclay, Deutsch, Lightfoot, Schottgen, Ugolini, Meuschen (which pending a complete translation of the Talmud, can be consulted), will, upon comparison with the teachings of the Qurʾān, reveal how entirely Muḥammad constructed his religious system on the lines of Talmudic Judaism. We are indebted to the late Dr. J. M. Arnold’s Islam and Christianity, for the following review of the subject, he having largely availed himself of the facts given in Geiger’s celebrated essay, already referred to.
The seven heavens and the seven earths which are held in the Talmud, have found their way into the Qurʾān.[2] During the creation, God’s glorious throne was placed in the air upon the water.[3] According to the Talmud, “the world is the sixtieth part of the garden, the garden is the sixtieth part of Eden”; and Muḥammad states that the breadth of the garden is that of heaven and earth.[4] Both in the Qurʾān and Talmud we find seven hells as the appointed abode for the damned, and each hell has seven gates in both documents.[5] The entrance of Jahannam is marked, according to the Sukkah, by two date-trees, between which smoke issues; and the Qurʾān speaks of a tree in hell [[ZAQQUM]] of which the damned are to eat, and of which many terrible things are related.[6] In the Talmud the prince of hell demands supply for his domain, and a similar request is made in the Qurʾān.[7] Between the seven heavens and the seven hells is an intermediate place [[AʿRAF]], for those who are too good to be cast into hell and too imperfect to be admitted into heaven.[8] This intermediate abode is, however, so narrow, that the conversations of the blessed and the damned on either side may be overheard. Again, the happiness of Paradise [[PARADISE]] is similarly described in both Talmud and Qurʾān;[9] also the difficulty of attaining it. The Talmud declares that it is as easy for an elephant to enter through the eye of a needle; the Qurʾān substituting a camel for an elephant.[10] That the dead live in the sight of God is stated in both documents in the same terms, and that there is no admission to the actual presence of the Almighty before the Day of Judgment and the resurrection of the dead.[11] The signs of the last day as given in the Qurʾān are borrowed equally from the Scriptures and the Talmud.[12] [[RESURRECTION].]
The lengthened descriptions in the Qurʾān of the future resurrection and judgment are also tinged with a Talmudical colouring. That the several members of the human body shall bear witness against the damned, and that idols shall share in the punishment of their worshippers, is stated in both the Talmud and Qurʾān.[13] The time of the last judgment Muḥammad declined to fix, resting upon the Jewish or Scriptural sentence, that “one day with God is like a thousand.”[14] The Jews, in speaking of the resurrection of the dead, allude to the sending down of rain; the Qurʾān also affirms that this means of quickening the dead will be employed.[15] Further still, the Talmudical idea that the dead will rise in the garments in which they were buried, likewise has been adopted by Islām.[16] The Jewish opinion was that “all the prophets saw in a dark, but Moses in a clear mirror.”[17] In the Qurʾān, God sends down His angelic messenger, Gabriel, as “the Holy Ghost,” with revelations; and this very notion of Gabriel being considered the Spirit of God seems to be borrowed from the Jews.[18]
Again, the demonology of the Qurʾān is chiefly taken from the Talmud. Three properties the demons have in common with angels, and three with men—they have wings like angels, they can fly from one end of the world to the other, and know things to come. But do they know future events? No, but they listen behind the veil. The three properties in common with men are: they eat and drink, indulge in physical love, and die.[19] This Jewish idea was adopted in the Qurʾān, and spun out ad libitum; for instance, whilst listening once to the angelic conversations, they were hunted away with stones. Their presence in places of worship is admitted both in the Talmud and the Qurʾān; thus it happened that “when the servant of God stood up to invoke Him, the Jinns all but pressed on him in the crowd.”[20] [[GENII].]
Amongst the moral precepts which are borrowed from the Talmud, we may mention that children are not to obey their parents when the latter demand that which is evil.[21] Prayer may be performed standing, walking, or even riding;[22] devotions may be shortened in urgent cases, without committing sin;[23] drunken persons are not to engage in acts of worship;[24] ablutions before prayer are in special cases enforced, but generally required both in the Talmud and the Qurʾān;[25] each permit the use of sand instead of water [[TAYAMMUM]], when the latter is not to be procured.[26] The Talmud prohibits loud and noisy prayers, and Muḥammad gives this short injunction:—“Cry not in your prayers”;[27] in addition to this secret prayer, public worship is equally commended. The Shema prayer of the Jews is to be performed “when one is able to distinguish a blue from a white thread,” and this is precisely the criterion of the commencement of the fast in the Qurʾān.[28] [[RAMAZAN].]
The following social precepts are likewise copied from Judaism: a divorced woman must wait three months before marrying again[29] [[DIVORCE]]; mothers are to nurse their children two full years; and the degrees of affinity within which marriages are lawful.[30] [[MARRIAGE].] The historical incidents which Muḥammad borrowed from Judaism are embodied, regardless of the sources from which he gleaned them, and indifferent to all order or system. Ignorant of Jewish history, Muḥammad appropriates none of the historical way-marks which determine the great epochs recorded in the Old Testament, but confines himself to certain occurrences in the lives of single individuals. At the head of the antediluvian patriarchs stands the primogenitor of the human race. In [Sūrah ii. 28–33] we read, “When thy Lord said to the angels, Verily I am going to place a substitute on earth, they said, Wilt thou place there one who will do evil therein and shed blood? but we celebrate Thy praise and sanctify Thee. God answered, Verily I know that which ye know not; and He taught Adam the names of all things, and then proposed them to the angels, and said, Declare unto me the names of these things if ye say truth. They answered, Praise be unto Thee, we have no knowledge but what Thou teachest us, for Thou art knowing and wise. God said, O, Adam, tell them their names. And when he had told them their names, God said, Did I not tell you that I know the secrets of heaven and earth, and know that which ye discover, and that which ye conceal?” Let us examine whence the Qurʾān obtained this information. “When God intended to create man, He advised with the angels and said unto them, We will make man in our own image ([Gen. i. 26]). Then said they, What is man, that Thou rememberest him ([Psalm viii. 5]), what shall be his peculiarity? He answered, His wisdom is superior to yours. Then brought He before them cattle, animals, and birds, and asked for their names, but they know it not. After man was created, He caused them to pass before Him, and asked for their names and he answered, This is an ox, that an ass, this a horse, and that a camel. But what is thy name? To me it becomes to be called ‘earthly,’ for from ‘earth’ I am created.”[31] To this may be added the fable that God commanded the angels to worship Adam,[32] which is likewise appropriated from Talmudic writings. Some Jewish fables record that the angels contemplated worshipping man, but were prevented by God; others precisely agree with the Qurʾān,[33] that God commanded the angels to worship man, and that they obeyed with the exception of Satan.
The Sunnah informs us that Adam was sixty yards high, and Rabbinical fables make him extend from one end of the world to the other; but upon the angels esteeming him a second deity, God put His hand upon him and reduced him to a thousand yards![34] [[ADAM].]
The account given in the Qurʾān of Cain’s murder is borrowed from the Bible, and his conversation with Abel, before he slew him,[35] is the same as that in the Targum of Jerusalem, generally called pseudo-Jonathan. After the murder, Cain sees a raven burying another, and from this sight gains the idea of interring Abel. The Jewish fable differs only in ascribing the interment to the parents: “Adam and his wife sat weeping and lamenting him, not knowing what to do with the body, as they were unacquainted with burying. Then came a raven, whose fellow was dead: he took and buried it in the earth, hiding it before their eyes. Then said Adam, I shall do like this raven, and, taking Abel’s corpse, he dug in the earth and hid it.”[36] The sentence following in the Qurʾān—“Wherefore we commanded the children of Israel, that he who slayeth a soul, not by way of retaliation, or because he doeth corruptly in the earth, shall be as if he had slain all mankind; but he who saveth a soul alive shall be as if he saved all souls alive,” would have no connection with what precedes or follows, were it not for the Targum of Onkelos, in the paraphrase of [Gen. iv. 10], where it is said that the blood of Cain’s brother cried to God from the earth, thus implying that Abel’s posterity were also cut off. And in the Mishnah Sanhedrin, we find the very words which the Qurʾān attaches to the murder, apparently with sense or connection.[37] [[ABEL], [CAIN].]
Noah stands forth as the preacher of righteousness, builds the ark, and is saved, with his family;[38] his character is, however, drawn more from Rabbinical than Biblical sources. The conversations of Noah with the people, and the words with which they mocked him whilst building the ark,[39] are the same in Talmudical writings as in the Qurʾān; and both declare that the generation of the flood was punished with boiling water.[40] [[NOAH].]
The next patriarch after the flood is Hūd, who is none other than Eber; another sample of the ignorance of Muḥammad. In the days of Hūd the tower is constructed; the “obstinate hero,” probably Nimrod, takes the lead; the sin of idolatry is abounding; an idol is contemplated as the crowning of the tower; but the building is overthrown, the tribes are dispersed, and punished in this world and in the world to come.[41] These particulars are evidently borrowed from scripture and Rabbinical writings. In the Qurʾān, however, the dispersion is caused by a poisonous wind, and not by the confusion of tongues. The significance which the Qurʾān gives to Hūd is again in perfect accordance with Rabbinical Judaism: “Eber was a great prophet, for he prophetically called his son Peleg (dispersion), by the help of the Holy Ghost, because the earth was to be dispersed.”[42] Among all the patriarchs, Abraham was most esteemed by Muḥammad, as being neither Jew nor Christian, but a Muslim. That he wrote books is also the belief of the Jewish doctors.[43] His attaining the knowledge of the true faith, his zeal to convert his generation; his destruction of the idols; the fury of the people; their insisting on his being burned, and his marvellous deliverance: all these particulars in the life of Abraham, as given by the Qurʾān, are minutely copied from Jewish fictions.[44] [[HUD], [ABRAHAM].]