SECTION B MOHAMMEDISM 



(Hall 8, September 23, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR JAMES R. JEWETT, University of Chicago. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR IGNAZ GOLDZIHER, University of Budapest. 



PROFESSOR DUNCAN B. MACDONALD, Hartford Theological Seminary . 



THE PROGRESS OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE IN THE LAST 

 THREE DECADES 



BY IGNAZ GOLDZIHER 



[Ignaz Goldziher, Professor of Semitic Philology, University of Budapest, Hungary. 

 b. Sze'kesfehe'rvar, 1850. Studied, Budapest, Berlin, Leipzig, Leyden, and 

 Cairo. Lecturer, University of Budapest, 1872-94; Professor of Semitic Philo- 

 logy, ibid. 1894- . Member Hungarian Academy. Author of Studien iiber 



Tanchum Jeruschalmi; Der Mythos bei den Hebraern und seine geschichtliche Ent- 

 wicklung; Muhammadanische Studien; Abhandlungen zur ArabischenPhilologie, 

 and many noted papers on Muhammadanism.] 



THE title given by me to this discourse clearly indicates that we 

 study and judge the life of Islam, and the documents from which 

 we learn the history of its development, from quite different points 

 of view from our predecessors of half a century ago. The scientific 

 study of Islam has exhibited very significant progress in these last 

 decades. I not only mean to say that we know more about Islam, 

 and that our knowledge is more abundant than that, for instance, of 

 Hadrian Reland's (1704) contemporaries. This increase of know- 

 ledge is the natural outcome of two things : first, a more intimate 

 knowledge of the countries where the believers in this religion live; 

 secondly, the always increasing knowledge of the theological liter- 

 ature of Islam and its sects. But we also know Islam in quite a 

 different manner from our predecessors. That is to say, we consider 

 it from other points of view and study it by other methods. 



There are two groups of the scientific results of our modern time, 

 which could not pass without having an effect upon the study of 

 Islam, nor could the researches concerning it escape their influence 

 either. 



First, the methods of historical critics which have proved suc- 

 cessful with the documents of other religions. In other words, the 

 traditional documents of the origin and development of Islam have 

 been submitted to the same historical-critical examination as we have 



