Note 41 — DICTIONARY OF ISLĀM. (continued 14)

The next patriarch after the flood is Hūd, who is none other than Eber; another sample of the ignorance of Muḥammad. In the days of Hūd the tower is constructed; the “obstinate hero,” probably Nimrod, takes the lead; the sin of idolatry is abounding; an idol is contemplated as the crowning of the tower; but the building is overthrown, the tribes are dispersed, and punished in this world and in the world to come.41 These particulars are evidently borrowed from scripture and Rabbinical writings. In the Qurʾān, however, the dispersion is caused by a poisonous wind, and not by the confusion of tongues. The significance which the Qurʾān gives to Hūd is again in perfect accordance with Rabbinical Judaism: “Eber was a great prophet, for he prophetically called his son Peleg (dispersion), by the help of the Holy Ghost, because the earth was to be dispersed.”42 Among all the patriarchs, Abraham was most esteemed by Muḥammad, as being neither Jew nor Christian, but a Muslim. That he wrote books is also the belief of the Jewish doctors.43 His attaining the knowledge of the true faith, his zeal to convert his generation; his destruction of the idols; the fury of the people; their insisting on his being burned, and his marvellous deliverance: all these particulars in the life of Abraham, as given by the Qurʾān, are minutely copied from Jewish fictions.44 [HUD, ABRAHAM.]