ITS ORIGIN, ITS STRENGTH, AND ITS WEAKNESS. 183 
to serve. It means a debt (detn, dina) which a man owes to his 
God, and it is therefore identical with our word religion, if derived 
from the Latin religare. This meaning is also reflected in the 
whole nature of Muhammadanism, which looks on all religious 
acts asa debt which a servant owes to his master. These are 
trifles; but I sheuld like to make a few other remarks of a 
different nature. 
There are three omissions I observe in the paper, one in each of 
the three points concerning Islam, viz., “Its origin, its strength, 
and its weakness.” As regards its origin, the author abundantly 
showed how Islamic doctrines were to be found in pre-existing 
religions; but he merely takes it for granted that therefore they 
must have been taken from previous religions. Now I should 
have been very glad to hear him explain how and why the relics 
of previously existing religions came to form the substance of a 
religion which professes to have been expressly revealed by the 
angel Gabriel to Muhammad. This forms a very interesting 
psychological and historical question, and it is one upon which we 
ought to have heard something. The second omission is as to the 
strength of Islam. The author devotes three pages to its strength, 
and he tells us that it consisted in the truths or half-truths 
borrowed from other religions. But what does it mean—to speak 
of the strength of Islam and not even once to mention the sword ? 
It certainly is one of the sources of the strength of Islam, if not the 
chief seurce. As soon as Muhammad’s power began to be estab- 
lished in Medina, that place became too hot for the Christians, 
and they had to seek safety by emigrating to Mecca. The two 
great Arab tribes of Medina, the Awsites and Khazrajites, sub- 
mitted to the new power from anything but religious motives; and 
very many of them, wholly unconvinced, yielded to the force of 
circumstances, and embraced the militant religion, as the earliest 
Muhammadan historian tells us, ‘to save themselves from death.” 
They were the large party known as “hypocrites.” Not regard 
for truth, but dread of the sword made them Moslems. At 
Muhammad’s death all Arabia had been subjected to Islam. But 
whilst he lay still unburied such dissensions broke out in Medina, 
that Saad, the leader of the opposing party, was nearly killed, and 
order was only restored with the greatest difficulty. As soon as 
the news of Muhammad’s death reached Mecca, Islam was openly 
repudiated, and his representative, Attab, had to hide himself for 
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