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SECTION VII.

RITUAL ANALOGY OF MAHOMETANISM WITH JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

FROM what has preceded, it is sufficiently clear, that, in its primitive construction, and, still more, throughout its subsequent modifications, the religion of Mahomet drew largely upon Judaism and Christianity, both for its system of morals, and for its scheme of doctrines: in each branch, at the same time, so maintaining its accustomed place, that it never appears as the parallel, without reminding us that it is but the perversion, of the one true revelation.

The analogy will be found to subsist in equal force, when we now extend the comparison; and trace the chief Mahometan rites and ceremonies, to their undoubted sources in the Law and Gospel. With comparatively limited exceptions, the ritual of this superstition was, in its original institution, as framed by Mahomet himself, either servilely copied after, or studiously conformed to, the rites and ceremonies previously sanctioned by the venerable authority of the Jewish and Christian systems. The Mahometan ordinances of circumcision, of baptism,

of Sabbaths, of ablutions, of stated times and postures of prayer, periodic fasts and festivals, prohibited meats, legal almsgiving, and pilgrimage, with sundry other articles of ritual observance, readily occur as examples, either of matter-offact conformity with, or of direct and palpable plagiarism from, the Jewish, or the Christian church. Nor should a less known feature of the ritual analogy be left out of our enumeration: namely, the undoubted existence in the creed of Mahometanism, contrary to what has been incautiously asserted by writers of great name, both of a sacrifice and of a priesthood.

This branch of our subject it is now my design to elucidate, by a short comparison of the Mahometan ritual, with the Jewish, and the Christian tracing the correspondence under the heads by which it is indicated in the preceding paragraph.

Circumcision, the initiatory seal of admission within the Jewish Church, must be considered the fundamental rite of Judaism. The national use of this rite among the ante-Mahometan Arabians, and the proof of its derivation from Ishmael, their forefather, and from a patriarchal tradition, are matters which belong to another place. It is our present business to notice,

*

* See Appendix, Nos. I, II.

that Mahometanism appears to have first raised the custom of circumcision *, as practised by the pagan Arabs, from the character of a mere prescriptive usage, into which it had long degenerated; and to have restored it to its primitive rank, as a religious ordinance; by adopting, after established Jewish precedent, the rite of circumcision as its initiatory fundamental.

With the Christian church, in which the sacrament of baptism was substituted for the rite of circumcision, Mahometanism, at the same time, contrives to maintain its spurious analogy; since, according to the Mahometan law, baptism, no less than circumcision, is accounted essential, in the admission of infidels to the rank of Mussulmans. † The predilection for Judaism, however, strongly appears in the prominence given to the Jewish rite, in preference to the spiritual Christian sacrament; which Mahometanism but too willingly lays aside, to

return to the carnal letter of the law.

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* "Circumcision, though it be not so much as once mentioned in the Koran, is yet held, by the Mohammedans, to be an ancient divine institution, confirmed by the religion of Islam." Sale's Prelim. Disc. p. 141, 142. This omission, in fact, supplies the strongest proof of the known patriarchal antiquity of the rite; which thus would seem, in the judgment of Mahomet himself, to have required neither enforcement, nor explanation.

+ Reland, p. 74, 75.

The institution of the Sabbath furnishes our next example of fundamental agreement, between the rituals of the three creeds. In their common observance of that great primeval law, which enjoined the keeping of one day in seven, as a day of rest from worldly affairs, and of religious service, Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism, are, at once, agreed among themselves, and differ from every other known form of religion. The same place which Saturday holds in the Jewish, and Sunday in the Christian church, is assigned, by the Koran, and by established Mahometan usage, to the Friday in each week. This day of rest, it appears, was selected by Mahomet, partly to distinguish his Sabbath from those of the Jews and Christians *, partly because Friday had been traditionally observed among the Arabs, long before his time, as a day of public assembly; though whether for a civil, or for a religious, purpose, seems to be undetermined. †

In the solemn enactment of its ritual law, which thus sets apart one day in seven, as pe

"One reason given for the observation of Friday, preferably to any other day of the week, is because, on that day, God finished the creation." Sale, after Al Beidawi and Jallalo'ddin, Koran, chap. lxii. translator's note i.; where several more reasons assigned by the Mahometan commentators, are noticed.

+ Sale's Prelim. Disc. p. 199.

culiarly dedicated to attendance on the worship of God, and the duties of religion, the spurious affinity of Mahometanism to the Jewish and Christian revelations betrays itself, by marks of plagiarism which cannot be mistaken. In the popular practice of Mahometan countries, indeed, their Sabbath is less strictly observed, than either the Jewish, or the Christian1; but by Mahometan writers, Friday is extolled as "the prince of days," as "the most excellent day on which the sun rises;" and the more devout Mussulmans, according to Mr. Sale, "disapprove the applying any part of it to worldly affairs, but require it to be wholly dedicated to the business of the life to come." *

The legal washings and purifications which form so marked a feature of the Mahometan ritual, and which are particularly enjoined as preparatives for prayer, or rather indeed as an essential part of it, are too obviously modelled after the rites of the Jewish law, to require any comparison of the details. Nor is the corre spondence, here observable, limited to the outward rites: in the principle, also, of their legal purifications, the two systems maintain an

* Sale's Prelim. Disc. p. 199. So, also, the Koran : "O true believers, when ye are called to prayer on the day of assembly [Friday, or the Sabbath], hasten to the commemoration of God, and leave merchandising." Sale's Koran, chap. Ixii. Compare St. Matt. xxi. 12, 13.

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