[1] Alvar, “Ind.  Lum.,” sec. 26.

    [2] Ibid., sec. 29.  This is more than can be said at the
    present day.

    [3] Eul., “Lib.  Apol.,” sec. 19.

    [4] Koran, ch. iii. 40.

    [5] Koran, ch. ii. 81, “strengthened with Holy Spirit.”

    [6] Kor., c. iii. 59.

    [7] Kor., c. iii. 45.

    [8] Kor., c. iii. 50.

    [9] Kor., c. ix. 33.

    [10] Kor., c. iii.

    [11] This is a mistake of Eulogius.  See Sale’s note on Koran,
    ch. ii. 81, note.

    [12] Kor., ch. v. 110 ff.

    [13] Koran, cc. iv. ad fin; xliii. 59.

Alvar is much more unfair to Mohammed than his friend Eulogius, and he even seems to have had a prejudiced idea[1] that the Prophet set himself deliberately to preach doctrines the opposite of those taught by Christ.  It would be nearer to the truth to say that the divergence between the two codes of morals was due to the natural ignorance of an illiterate Arabian, brought into contact only with an heretical form of Christianity, the real doctrines of which he was therefore not likely to know.

According to Alvar, the sixth day of the week was chosen for the Mohammedan holy day, because Christ suffered on that day.  We shall realise the absurdity of this when we consider the reverence in which Mohammed held the very name of Christ, going so far even as to deny that Christ Himself was crucified at all.[2] The true reason for selecting Friday, as alleged by Mohammed himself, was, because the work of creation ended on that day.[3]

Again, sensuality was preached, says Alvar, because Christ preached chastity.  But Mohammed cannot fairly be said to have preached sensuality, though his private life in this respect was by no means pure.

Gluttony was advocated instead of fasting.  A more baseless charge was never made; for how can it be contended that Christianity enjoins fasting, while Islam disapproves of it, in the face of such texts as Matthew ix. 14,[4] and Isaiah lviii. 6—­“Is not this the fast that I have chosen?  To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free?” on the one hand; and on the other the express injunction of the Koran[5]:—­“O true believers, a fast is ordained you, as it was ordained to those before you ... if ye fast, it will be better for you, if ye knew it.  The month of Ramadan shall ye fast.”  But Alvar goes on to make a more astonishing statement still:—­“Christ ordained that men should abstain from their wives during a fast, while Mohammed consecrated those days to carnal pleasure.”  Christ surely gives us no such injunction, though St Paul does say something of the kind.  The Koran[6] explicitly says—­“It is lawful for you on the night of the fast to go in unto your wives; they are a garment unto you, and you are a garment unto them.”  We even find an incident recorded