It was only natural that the new masters adopted, with certain modifications, the administrative and fiscal systems of the conquered countries.  For similar reasons Islam had to complete its spiritual store from the well-ordered wealth of that of its new adherents.  Recent research shows most clearly, that Islam, in after times so sharply opposed to other religions and so strongly armed against foreign influence, in the first century borrowed freely and simply from the “People of Scripture” whatever was not evidently in contradiction to the Qoran.  This was to be expected; had not Mohammed from the very beginning referred to the “people of the Book” as “those who know”?  When painful experience induced him afterwards to accuse them of corruption of their Scriptures, this attitude necessitated a certain criticism but not rejection of their tradition.  The ritual, only provisionally regulated and continually liable to change according to prophetic inspiration in Mohammed’s lifetime, required unalterable rules after his death.  Recent studies[1] have shown in an astounding way, that the Jewish ritual, together with the religious rites of the Christians, strongly influenced the definite shape given to that of Islam, while indirect influence of the Parsi religion is at least probable.

[Footnote 1:  The studies of Professors C.H.  Becker, E. Mittwoch, and A.J.  Wensinck, especially taken in connection with older ones of Ignaz Goldziher, have thrown much light upon this subject.]

So much for the rites of public worship and the ritual purity they require.  The method of fasting seems to follow the Jewish model, whereas the period of obligatory fasting depends on the Christian usage.

Mohammed’s fragmentary and unsystematic accounts of sacred history were freely drawn from Jewish and Christian sources and covered the whole period from the creation of the world until the first centuries of the Christian era.  Of course, features shocking to the Moslim mind were dropped and the whole adapted to the monotonous conception of the Qoran.  With ever greater boldness the story of Mohammed’s own life was exalted to the sphere of the supernatural; here the Gospel served as example.  Though Mohammed had repeatedly declared himself to be an ordinary man chosen by Allah as the organ of His revelation, and whose only miracle was the Qoran, posterity ascribed to him a whole series of wonders, evidently invented in emulation of the wonders of Christ.  The reason for this seems to have been the idea that none of the older prophets, not even Jesus, of whom the Qoran tells the greatest wonders, could have worked a miracle without Mohammed, the Seal of the prophets, having rivalled or surpassed him in this respect.  Only Jesus was the Messiah; but this title did not exceed in value different titles of other prophets, and Mohammed’s special epithets were of a higher order.  A relative sinlessness Mohammed shared with Jesus; the acceptance of this doctrine, contradictory to the original spirit of the Qoran, had moreover a dogmatic motive:  it was considered indispensable to raise the text of the Qoran above all suspicion of corruption, which suspicion would not be excluded if the organ of the Revelation were fallible.