poverty and renunciation of personal property:  this is the great Christian ideal.  Muhammed was neither poor nor without possessions:  at the end of his life he had become a prince and had directly stated that property was a gift from God.  In spite of that his successors praise poverty and their praises were the best of evidence that they were influenced not by the prophet himself but by Christianity.  While the traditions are full of the praises of poverty and the dangers of wealth, assertions in praise of wealth also occur, for the reason that the pure Muhammedan ideas opposed to Christianity retained a certain influence.  J. Goldziher has published an interesting study showing how many words borrowed from this source occur in the written Muhammedan traditions:  an almost complete version of the Lord’s Prayer is quoted.  Even the idea of love towards enemies, which would have been unintelligible to Muhammed, made its way into the traditions:  “the most virtuous of acts is to seek out him who rejects thee, to give to him that despises thee and to pardon him that oppresses thee.”  The Gospel precept to do unto others as we would they should do unto us (Matt. vii. 12, Luke vi. 31) is to be found in the Arab traditions, and many similar points of contact may be noticed.  A man’s “neighbour” has ever been, despite the teaching of Jesus, to the Christian and to the Muhammedan, his co-religionist.  The whole department of Muhammedan ethics has thus been subjected to strong Christian influence.

Naturally this ecclesiasticism which dominated the whole of life, was bound to assert itself in state organisation.  An abhorrence of the state, so far as it was independent of religion, a feeling unknown in the ancient world, pervades both Christianity and Muhammedanism, Christianity first struggled to secure recognition in the state and afterwards fought with the state for predominance.  Islam and the state were at first identical:  in its spiritual leaders it was soon separated from the state.  Its idea of a divine polity was elaborated to the smallest details, but remained a theory which never became practice.  Yet this ideal retained such strength that every Muhammedan usurper was careful to secure his investiture by the Caliph, the nominal leader of this ecclesiastical state, even if force were necessary to attain his object.  For instance, Saladin was absolutely independent of the nominal Caliph in Bagdad, but could not feel that his position was secure until he had obtained his sultan’s patent from the Caliph.  Only then did his supremacy rest upon a religious basis and he was not regarded by popular opinion as a legitimate monarch until this ceremony had been performed.  This theory corresponds with constitutional ideals essentially Christian.  “The tyranny,” wrote Innocent IV to the Emperor Frederick II, “which was once generally exercised throughout the world, was resigned into the hands of the Church by Constantine, who then received as an honourable