ITS ORIGIN, ITS STRENGTH, AND ITS WEAKNESS. 167 
* Prophet’s” actions. “If we were to do sucha thing, it 
would be murder or adultery, as the case may be,” they say ; 
“but when Muhammad the chosen, the Apostle of Gop, 
acted thus. he committed no sin, for God* commanded him to 
do so.” The fact that it is a moral impossibility for Gop to 
sanction, much less to command, the commission of distinct 
breaches of the eternal Moral Law is quite beyond their com- 
prehension, and the enunciation of such a statement seems 
to them to be a blasphemous denial of the Ommipotence of 
Gop. : 
One of the leading features in the Religion of Muhammad 
is the belief it inculcates in an inexorable Fatet by which all 
things are ruled for time and tor eternity. A Tradition 
declares that before creating the world Gop caused to be 
written down all that should happen on earth, even to the 
extent of the movement produced by the rustling of a leaft 
upona tree. The happiness or misery of every man in the 
next world was decided by the Divine decree long before his 
creation. The Qur’An represents GoD as saying, “ Verily$ I 
will fill Hell with men and genii,” and makes Him declare 
that He created them for this very|| purpose.‘ Gop,” we are 
repeatedly assured, “misleadeth] whom He willeth, and 
guideth aright whom He willeth;” and He says of Himselfin 
* Mr. Bosworth Smith (“ Mohammed and Mohammedanism,” pp. 143-4) 
says that the Jewish Rabbis also held that “a Prophet who was properly 
commissioned might supersede any law.” If so, this may be another 
Rabbinical idea borrowed by Islam. But certainly the Old Testament 
shows us that not even David or Solomon, could transgress the moral law 
with impunity. How far Islam in this matter falls behind the morality 
of the Jews, even in the times of the Kings, is well seen by comparing 
what the Bible says of David’s adultery with Bathsheba, and what the 
Qur'an says of that of Muhammad with Zeinab, the wife (divorced for 
his sake) of his adopted son Zeid. (Cf. 2 Sam. xi, xii, with Strah 
XX XIII, 37-40. See also Al Beidhéwi’s commentary.) 
+ Vide Mishkat, Bébwl Imdn bil Qadr, pp. 11, sqg.3 Strahs VI, 123, 
125; VII, 177, 185; X, 99; XI, 120; XIII, 27, 30; XVI, 39, 95; 
Reville tay VILE Lbs MKT, 175 LXXTY, 34; LXXVE, 29,, 30; 
LXX XI, 28, 29; XCV, 4, 5, etc. 
t “Qisasu’l Anbiy4,” p. 4. 
§ Sfrah XI, 120, and Strah XXXII, 13. 
|| Sdrah XI, 120; VII, 178. 
@ Sarah LXXIV, 34 :— 
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