an unbelieving nation whom God cut off, with the exception of those who had accepted Houd; Saleh, sent to Themoud as above related; Lot, sent to Sodom to warn it against sin; Shoaib, sent to Madian, a people of which the unbelieving members were destroyed by earthquakes; Moses, sent with signs to Pharaoh and his nobles, as also to the Israelites, of whom some worshiped the calf, and were overtaken by the wrath of their Lord (K., p. 375-386.—Sura, 7. 57-154). In another Sura he makes mention of other prophets besides these: namely, of John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, Abraham, Ishmael, and Enoch (K., p. 127 ff.—Sura, 19).
His view of Jesus Christ is peculiar and interesting. He invariably treats him with the highest respect as a servant of God and his own precursor, but he is careful to protest that the opinion of his divinity was not held by Jesus, and was a baseless invention of his followers. The notion that God could have a son seems to him a gross profanation, and he often recurs to it in terms of the strongest reprobation. Thus he endeavors to claim Christ as a genuine Moslem, and to include Christianity within the pale of the new faith. A Christian who adopted it might continue, indeed must continue, to believe everything in the Old and New Testaments, except such passages as expressly assert the incarnation and divinity of Jesus. Yet Mahomet's own version of this prophet's conception involves a supernatural element, and only differs from that of Luke in not asserting the paternity of God.
"And make mention in the Book," he says, "of Mary when
she went apart from her family, eastward, and took a veil to shroud herself from them, and we sent our spirit to her, and he
took before her the form of a perfect man. She said: 'I fly for
refuge from thee to the God of Mercy! If thou fearest him
begone from me.' He said: 'I am only a messsenger of thy
Lord, that I may bestow on thee a holy son.' She said: 'How
shall I have a son, when man hath never touched me, and I am
not unchaste.' He said: 'So shall it be. Thy Lord hath said:
easy is this with me, and we will make him a sign to mankind
and a mercy from us. For it is a thing decreed.' And she conceived
him, and retired with him to a far-off place" (K., p. 128.—Sura,
19. 16-22).
