The material was altogether divine; and any
unprejudiced historical inquiry, any simple and natural
interpretation of the Coran, any free judgment on tradition or its
origin, was condemned as apostasy. The only task that remained was
to work up, in scholastic form, the existing material; and in this
way was developed a literature of boundless dimensions, which yet
at bottom possessed nothing real. The whole spiritual activity of
the Mohamedans, from the time of the prophet to the present day, is
a dream; but it is a dream in which a large portion of the human
race have lived; and it has all the interest which things relating
to mankind always possess for man."
Sir William Muir agrees with these views, subject to two
considerations. He says:--
"The tendency to glorify Mohammed and the reciters of the
traditions was considerably modified by the mortal strife which
characterised the factions that opposed one another at the period,
where, in attempting to depreciate one another, they would not be
averse to perpetuating traditions in support of their contentions;
such partisanship secured no insignificant body of historical fact,
which otherwise would have been lost."
He also points out that in a state of society circumscribed and
dwarfed by the powerful Islamic system, which proscribed the free
exercise of thought and discussion, tradition can scarcely be said to
be the "vox populi.
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