Christian/Muslim ThreadsDebunking Abdurrahman: Pauls corruption of Jesus Christ5. The Bridge of the Dead.
This is called in the Muhammadan Traditions As-Sirat or "The Way." There are many details given about this marvellous bridge, which is said to be finer than a hair and sharper than a sword. It stretches right over the abyss of hell, and is the only way of passing from earth to heaven on the Judgment Day. All will be commanded to cross it. The pious Muslim will do so without difficulty, guided by the angels; but the unbeliever, unable to cross, will fall headlong into hell fire.
Though the word Sirat is used in the Qur'an in the metaphorical sense of a way, as in the phrase As Siratu'l Mustaqim ("the Right Way," Surah I., Al Fatihah, et passim), yet it is not properly an Arabic word at all. Its derivation shows the origin of the legend about the bridge of that name. The word comes from no Arabic or indeed Semitic root, but is the Persian Chinvat in Arabic letters, since the Arabic language, not having any character to represent the sound ch (as in church), replaces it by the letter , the first letter in Sirat. Chinvat in Persian means a collector, one that sums up or assembles (cf. Sanskrit ) or takes account. Hence it is only by contraction that the Arabic Sirat gets its meaning, for the Avesta speaks, not of Chinvat59 but of Chinvato-peretus, "The bridge of him that reckons up" good deeds and bad. This bridge extends from Mount Alburz to the Chakat Daitih, reaching over hell. Each man's spirit, as soon as certain funeral ceremonies have been performed, reaches the bridge and has to cross it in order to enter Paradise. When he has crossed the bridge, he is judged by Mithra, Rashnu, and Sraosha in accordance with the account of his deeds, good and bad60. Only if his good deeds exceed his evil ones can the gate of Paradise be opened to admit him. If his deeds are preponderatingly evil, he is cast into hell: but if the good are equal to the bad, the spirit of the dead has to await61 the last judgment (vulaiti), which will take place at the close or the final struggle between Ormazd and Ahriman.
To show the origin not only of the word Sirat of the Muhammadan doctrine on the subject, it is sufficient to translate the following short passage from the Pahlavi book called the Dinkart:— "I flee62 from much sin, and I keep pure my conduct by keeping pure the six powers of life — act and speech and thought and intellect and mind and understanding — by thy desire, O mighty Causer of good deeds. In justice do I perform it, that worship of thine, in good thought and speech and deed, in order that I may remain in the bright way, that I may not arrive at the severe punishment of hell, but may cross over Chinvat and may attain to that blessed abode which is full of perfume, wholly pleasant, always brilliant." In the Avesta also we find many references to the same belief, among others the passage in which it is said of good men and women: "Whom63 too I shall lead through the prayer of such as you: with all blessings shall I guide them to the bridge of Chinvat."
A further proof of the Aryan origin of this belief is found in the fact that the ancient Scandinavian mythology contains mention of Bifrost, generally styled "the bridge of the gods," by which they cross over from their abode in Asgardh (in heaven) to the earth. It is the rainbow. This at once explains the natural basis upon which the legend of the bridge is founded, and shows how ancient it is, as the Scandinavians brought the idea with them to Europe. It must therefore have been common to them and the Persians in very ancient times. In Greece the rainbow becomes the messenger of the gods (Iris) in the Iliad, but the idea of a bridge connecting heaven and earth seems to have been lost.
6. Other Persian Ideas Borrowed.
There are, no doubt, many other matters in which Persian ideas have influenced Islam, but what has been said is sufficient for our purpose. We must not conclude this part of our inquiry, however, without a reference to two other points of some little importance.
One of these is the Muslim belief that every prophet before his death gave notice of the coming of his successor. This idea finds no support in the Bible, where we find prophecies of the coming of the Messiah, but nothing to give rise to the Muhammadan theory. It is probably borrowed from a Zoroastrian work called the Dasatir i Asmani. This work claims to be of very great antiquity, and (owing doubtless to the difficulty of making any sense out of the original64 text) is believed by many of the modern Parsis to be "composed in the language of heaven"! An interlinear translation into the old Dari dialect of Persian, however, accompanies the text, which is said to have been discovered in Persia early in the last century, and was edited by Mulla Firuz of Bombay. It consists of fifteen tractates which are supposed to have been revealed to fifteen successive prophets, the first of whom is styled Mahabad and the last Sasan, from whom probably the Sasanian dynasty may be supposed to trace their descent. The Dari translation is said to date from the time of Khusrau Parviz (A.D. 590-5), so that the original must be of some antiquity65. Near the conclusion of each tractate but the last there is what purports to be a prophecy of the coming of the next prophet in succession. The object of this is very evident. Many Parsis reject the book, but the idea seems to have pleased the Muslims so much that it has found an entrance into their ordinary belief.
Secondly, it is worthy of note that the second verse of every one of these tractates runs thus: "In the name of God, the Giver, the Forgiver, the Merciful, the Just." It is evident that these words are closely related to those which form the introduction to every Surah of the Qur'an except the ninth: "In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." Probably the Qur'an has borrowed from the Zoroastrian book and not conversely: for the Bundahishnih has the similar clause, "In the Name of Ormazd the Creator." Others think that the clause in the Qur'an is of Jewish Origin. Tradition says that one of the Hanifs, whom we shall deal with in our next chapter, Ummiyyah, a poet belonging to Taif, taught this formula to the Quraish66, having learnt it from his intercourse with Jews and Christians during his journeys in Syria and elsewhere as a merchant. If Muhammad heard it in this way and adopted it, he doubtless altered it somewhat, as he always did whatever he borrowed. But it is more probably of Zoroastrian origin than of Jewish, and Ummiyyah might have learnt it from the Persians whom he met on his mercantile expeditions.
We have seen how extensive Persian influence was in Arabia in Muhammad's time, and there is therefore no a priori difficulty in accepting the conclusion which must be drawn from all the coincidences mentioned in the present chapter — that Zoroastrian ideas and legends are one of the sources from which Islam has derived very much of what is contained in certain parts of the Qur'an and the Traditions. Tradition itself proves the possibility of this, for the Raudatu'l Ahbab tells us that it was Muhammad's habit to speak67 a few words in their own language to people that came to him from different nations, and that, since on one or two occasions he spoke Persian to such visitors, a few Persian words in this way found an entrance into the Arabic language. Of course there is a good deal of the legendary in this statement, but it is important in its way because it clearly testifies to the fact that Muhammad had at least some slight acquaintance with Persian, if with no other foreign tongue. Again, among other Persian converts, the Siratu'r Rasul of Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham informs us that there was one called Salman, who must have been a man of some education and ability, since it was by his advice and in accordance with his military experience that Muhammad, when the Quraish and their allies were besieging Medina in February, A.D. 627, defended the city with the celebrated ditch68, a method of fortification which the Arabs are said not to have previously used. By Salman's advice Muhammad is also said to have used a catapult at the time of his campaign against Taif (A. D. 630). Some say that Salman, though always known as "the Persian," was originally a Christian69 carried away captive from Mesopotamia. This may or may not be true, though the appellation which he received does not support it. If it is untrue, he was very probably the person whom Muhammad's enemies are said to have accused the Prophet of using as his assistant in the composition of certain parts of the Qur'an; for in Surah XVI., An Nahl, 105, we read: "Truly we know that they say, ‘Verily a human being teacheth him.’ The tongue of him at whom they aim is Persian70, and this [book] is Arabic, clear." If Salman was not a native of Persia, then the language of the verse suffices to prove that there was some Persian in Muhammad's company who was believed to "teach" him a certain portion of what he was then inserting in the Qur'an. We see then that Persian fables were well enough known71 in Arabia to be recognized by some at least of the Arabs when incorporated into the supposed Divine Revelation. Nor was Muhammad able to give a satisfactory answer to the charge, for no one supposed that the foreigner was teaching him to improve his Arabic style. The charge affected the matter and not the language of the Qur'an. Moreover, as we have proved that Muhammad borrowed legends from the heathen Arabs and from the Jews, there is no reason why he should not be ready and willing to adopt others from Zoroastrian sources. In fact the instances which we have produced in this chapter prove conclusively that he did so, and that these Persian legends, many of which have been shown to be common to the Persians with other branches of the Aryan family of nations, form another of the original sources of Islam.
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