216 THE ORIGIN OF ISLAM  

against the inroads of a culture which would have destroyed it, until it was able to assimilate that culture and make it its own. This it did in the end. And having done so the system so formed became itself a tradition. Christianity escaped from its scholastic shell at the Reformation. Islam still awaits that deliverance and new birth. The West has outstripped the East in science and culture, and is busy just now paying back the debt it has owed to Islam since the revival of learning in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. What will be the effect upon Islam of the infusion of the Western spirit into the East it is impossible to say. At present Islam is doing what it did before, falling back upon tradition. It will learn from the West in everything but religion. In religion it will learn nothing nor even acknowledge that in religion the West has anything to teach it. But when new life begins to stir no religion can permanently rest upon tradition. Sooner or later the new spirit will begin to affect it. There are indications that it is already beginning to do so — especially in India and Egypt. Whether the result will be a better understanding with Christianity, it would be rash to predict, though it does seem to contain the promise of that. At any rate the scholastic system of Muhammadan theology is almost bound to be loosened. Something analogous to the liberation of Christianity at the Reformation time will take place sooner or later, and Islam will begin to adapt itself to the modern spirit.
 

INDEX I. — SUBJECTS

Names which only occur incidentally have not been included. The article al at the beginning of Arabic names has been omitted. Transliterated words and phrases are printed in italics.

Abbasides, 181, 213
'Abd, 51
Abraha, 39; his expedition against Mecca, 39 f., 74
Abraham, 58, 129, 130, 131
Abyssinia, Christianity in, 28-32, 35
Abyssinians in South Arabia, 36, 37, 41
'Ad, 103, 107
Ædesius, 30
Ahmad, 156
Akhtal, 181
'Alaq, 77
Alexander the Great, 112
Alexandria, School of, 8
'Ali, 43, 146
Ali'ites, 205
Alladhina amanu, 148
Alladhina hadu, 149
Alladhina kafaru, 73
Allah, 53 f., 117
Almsgiving, 80, 87
'Amr b. Mundhir, 27
Ansar, 150
Ansar Allah, 150
Antioch, School of, 8
Apocalyptic, 103, 106; source of Muhammad's knowledge of, 104
Apocryphal books, Muhammad's knowledge of, 110, 112
Arab material in Qur'an, 103, 107
Arabia, Christianity in, 16 f., 26, 27, 33-63; Roman Province of, 20

  

Arabs in Mesopotamia, 25; in Syria, 18 f.
Aramaic, religious terms derived from, 50 f.
Aretas, v. Harith
Armenian Church, 11
Asceticism in Islam, 200
A'sha, 43
al-Asma al-husna, 116
'Ashura, fast, 127
Aswad, 61
Athanasius, 2, 30, 31
Axum, kingdom of, 29 f.

Badr, battle of, 65, 123
Baghdad, 213
Bahr, 29
Bakr b. Wa'il, tribe, 27
Balances, false, 81 f.
Bani Isra'il, 121
Bartholomew, apostle, 16, 34
Beast, the, 202
Beggar, in Qur'an, 81 f.
Bi'a, 50
Bible, no pre-Muhammadan Arabic translations of, 17; Muhammad's knowledge of, 69, 76, 92, 99, 112, 113
Biblical material in Qur'an, 113 f.
Bilal, first mu'azzin, 28
Book, the, 93, 94, 105, 120, 125; people of, 178

Calamity, v. Judgement, special Chalcedon, Council of, 10 f., 20