ITS ORIGIN, ITS STRENGTH, AND ITS WEAKNESS, 163 
Thus nearly every leading doctrine of Islam can be traced 
with perfect certamty to some Pre-Islamic creed. Even in 
Muhammad’s lifetime he was accused of deriving from human 
teachers the revelations he professed to receive from GOD 
through the Angel Gabriel. This he strenuously denied, 
asserting that his wonderful acquaintance with the history of 
the Old Testament Prophets was a manifest proof of his 
Divine mission | 
Il. We have spoken above of the great influence which Islam 
exerts over many millions of our race. The secret of its 
might lies to a great extent in the amount of truth incorpo- 
rated in it and derived from Judaism and primitive Semitic 
tradition. Muhammad discovered not a single new truth, 
nor did he inculcate a single moral precept which had not 
been much more forcibly taught in the Old Testament. The 
more perfect moral system, and the completed revelation of 
Gop, contained in the New Testament he either ignored or 
denied* in set terms. Instead of being an advance on 
Christianity, therefore, as it must necessarily be if it were 
(as it claims to be) a later and perfect revelation, Islam has 
retrograded far behind the limit reached by the Prophets of 
Israel. It has no priesthood, no sacrificial system, no atone- 
ment for sin, no blessed hope of a coming Redeemer, no 
clearly-defined moral code, no glorious past ennobled by 
holy and devoted Prophets, no sinless future promised in its 
Qur'an. It has lost much that Gop had revealed previously, 
and gained instead only heathen myths, Jewish Pharisaism, 
and the Arabian fatalism and love of war. Yet in spite of all 
this Islam has retained enough of truth, though somewhat 
distorted, to give it the influence of which we have spoken. 
The Creed of Islém,f or of Unity, as it is called, well illustrates 
the character of the religion. It consists, as Gibbon remarks. 
“of an eternal truth, and a necessary fiction,” “La ilaha ill’ 
Alléhu; Muhamadur Rasflu ‘Hahi,” “There is no Gop but 
* JT do not mean that he rejected the Jnjil (Evayyéduov) as he calls the 
New Testament. On the contrary, it is again and again in the Qur’an 
spoken of as Divinely inspired. But most of the truths taught in the 
New Testament, eg., our Lord’s Divinity, His atoning Death, etc., are 
denied, and Muhammad shows no knowledge whatever of the moral 
system taught by Christ. 
7 URS 97 7 
+ In Arabic (plSY} ans. 
7 s 7 
t Vol. TX, Cap. L. 
