Its intentional obscurity of expression does not facilitate the
task of the inquirer, but it provides, none the less, considerable
information concerning the religious progress of its author. Here we
are upon firmer ground than when we attempt to describe Muhammed's
outward life, the first half of which is wrapped in obscurity no less
profound than that which veils the youth of the Founder of
Christianity.
Muhammed's contemporaries lived amid religious indifference. The
majority of the Arabs were heathen and their religious aspirations
were satisfied by local cults of the Old Semitic character. They may
have preserved the religious institutions of the great South Arabian
civilisation, which was then in a state of decadence; the beginnings
of Islam may also have been influenced by the ideas of this
civilisation, which research is only now revealing to us: but these
points must remain undecided for the time being. South Arabian
civilisation was certainly not confined to the South, nor could an
organised township such as Mecca remain outside its sphere of
influence: but the scanty information which has reached us concerning
the religious life of the Arabs anterior to Islam might also be
explained by supposing them to have followed a similar course of
development. In any case, it is advisable to reserve judgment until
documentary proof can replace ingenious conjecture. The difficulty of
the problem is increased by the fact that Jewish and especially
Christian ideas penetrated from the South and that their influence
cannot be estimated.
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