Islam, a challenge to faith; studies on the Mohammedan religion and the needs and opportunities of the Mohammedan world from the standpoint of Christian missions . s, if it is all truly reflected in their poetry, was pro-fane in an unusual degree. The ancient inhabitants ofMecca practised piety essentially as a trade, just as theydo now; their trade depended on the feast, and its fairon the inviolability of the Haram and on the truce of theholy months. Not only had the old polytheism lost its force, so thatthe aged Abu Ubaiha wept on his deathbed at Mecca,for fear the worship of Uzza would be
Islam, a challenge to faith; studies on the Mohammedan religion and the needs and opportunities of the Mohammedan world from the standpoint of Christian missions . s, if it is all truly reflected in their poetry, was pro-fane in an unusual degree. The ancient inhabitants ofMecca practised piety essentially as a trade, just as theydo now; their trade depended on the feast, and its fairon the inviolability of the Haram and on the truce of theholy months. Not only had the old polytheism lost its force, so thatthe aged Abu Ubaiha wept on his deathbed at Mecca,for fear the worship of Uzza would be neglected, butthe better classes of Mecca and Medina had ceased tobelieve anything at all.^ The forms of religion werekept up rather for political and commercial reasons thanas a matter of faith and conviction.^ And the reason forthis decline of paganism is not far to seek. The religiousdecay in Arabia, shortly before Islam, says Hirschfeld,may well be taken in a negative sense, in the sense ofthe tribes losing the feeling of kinship with the tribal ij. Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidentums, 220. 2E. H. Palmer, Translation of the Quran, Intro. Vol. I, - J! .-Hor, > u u O o - J3 ORIGIN AND SOURCES OF ISLAM 15 gods. We may express this more concretely by sayingthat the gods had become gradually more nebulousthrough the destructive influence exercised for about fourhundred years by Jezvish and Christian ideas upon Ara-bian heathenism. How did these Jewish and Chris-tian ideas influence the Arabs of Mohammeds time, andMohammed himself, and to what extent? The Jews of Arabia.—The Jews came to Arabia fromthe earliest times. Since the days of Solomon the RedSea was a centre of busy traffic, and the Hebrews hadprobably located at the trading ports. Dozy finds epi-graphic and other evidence that Jews settled at Mecca asearly as the time of David, and that their settlement con-tinued until the fifth century of the Christian era.^ Buthis monograph on the subject is not altoget
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