Christianity and Islam

By: Carl Heinrich Becker

Narrated by: Phree Norde

We propose to devote our attention more particularly to the influences which Christianity and Islam exerted directly upon one another. While Muhammedanism has borrowed from its hereditary foe, it has also repaid part of the debt. By the very fact of its historical position Islam was at first indebted to Christianity; but in the department of Christian philosophy, it has also exerted its own influence. This influence cannot be compared with that of Greek or Jewish thought upon Christian speculation: Christian philosophy, as a metaphysical theory of existence, was however strongly influenced by Arabian thought before the outset of the Reformation. On the other hand, the influence of Christianity upon Islam—and also upon Muhammed, though he owed more to Jewish thought—was so extensive that the coincidence of ideas upon the most important metaphysical questions is positively amazing.

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