504 MOHAMMEDISM 



You see, Islam is putting up here a practical precept of how the 

 every-day experience of contagious diseases may be somehow squared 

 with the conviction that one cannot escape God's decree, and that 

 one should not even try to evade it. Two opinions seem to have 

 existed in old Islam as regards infection. The one does not admit 

 any causal connection of events, but imputes each to a separate 

 decree of God's. Such a view could not admit the possibility of a 

 contagious character in certain diseases. The other did not base 

 the explanation of facts entirely on dogmatical suppositions; some 

 at least cared, in spite of a fatalistic creed, for their own skin and 

 for saving their own property. The following traditional report 

 shows you the struggle of these two modes of proceeding : 



"Abti Huraira relates that the Prophet taught the following: 

 there is no contagion and no cankering worm (causing disease) , and no 

 soul-owls (into which, according to the belief of the Arabs, the souls 

 of the unavenged are transformed, in order to cry for the murderer's 

 blood). Thereupon a Bedawi, who was present, threw in: '0 Mes- 

 senger of God! but how is it that we see camels lying fresh and 

 healthy like gazelles in the sand of the desert; then a scabby camel 

 mixes with the flock, and infects all the healthy animals? ' Then the 

 Prophet replied: 'But who infected this sick camel?' 



"Abu Salima relates that he heard later from Abti Huraira, that 

 the Prophet had said : ' One must not bring a sick one among healthy 

 ones,' and that he (A. H.) denied his previous comments. Then 

 we said to him: 'Did you not say before, in the Prophet's name, 

 "There is no contagion"? Then he muttered something in the 

 Ethiopic language. Abil Salima says: "I have never noticed that 

 he had forgotten anything,"' (that he had told us formerly)." 1 



You can believe me that the Oriental commentators were not want- 

 ing in ingenuity for making the shadow disappear which was cast 

 by the story just mentioned upon the earnestness and trustworthi- 

 ness of Abti Huraira, who was one of the amplest informants from the 

 Master. But, however naively the tale presents itself, it is technically 

 nothing else than the reflex of, first, the two simultaneously existing 

 views on the nature and efficiency of infection; secondly, the con- 

 cession which knowledge, founded on experience, wrung from a re- 

 ligious conception. The fact of such a concession has found in 

 Abti Huraira's hesitation and revocation a form suitable for these 

 circles. 



One is entitled to conclude that this critical penetration into the 

 primeval documents of Islam shows a great progress in our know- 

 ledge of its oldest history. It is not only important, as regards the 

 religious history of Islam, but also as concerns the criticism of the 

 historical tradition. First on this path was Alois Sprenger, who not 

 1 Bukhari, Tibb nr. 35, Sahih Muslim, v, p. 54. 



