SURVIVALS WITHIN ISLAM 1

...imitate God by making an effort to create living beings.

It would be easy to multiply these examples; the most typical and well-known is the preservation, within the ceremonies accompanying the pilgrimage to Mecca, of an entire block of pre-Islamic rites: the circumambulations around the Ka’ba, the kissing of the Black Stone, the running between Safa and Marwa, and the festivals of Arafat^(1). One can also cite this curious concept of the Fitra^(2) Fitra: the innate human nature or "natural religion" believed to be inherent in all people from birth, that is to say, of natural religion, including a certain number of non-Quranic prescriptions, but contained in the Hadith Hadith: the recorded traditions, sayings, and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, that is to say, tradition; among these are circumcision, hair removal, and the trimming of nails and mustaches.

Orthodoxy attributes these prescriptions to Abraham Abraham is considered a foundational prophet and the "first Muslim" in Islamic tradition, credited with establishing many monotheistic practices, whereas modern ethnography finds here again universal and exceedingly ancient customs—rites known in primitive societies to be rites of initiation or purification. These latter play a considerable role in the Muslim religion; the chapter on tahara tahara: the state of ritual purity required for religious duties is the first and one of the most important in the books of fiqh fiqh: Islamic jurisprudence; the human interpretation of divine law, and we know the place that ablutions ritual washing occupy in the life of the believer. Now, the distinction between the pure and the impure is one of the fundamental themes of all primitive religions, and one can no longer treat this part of the Muslim religion without referring to the considerable works of contemporary sociologists on this subject^(3).

(1) See Wellhausen, Remnants of Arabian Paganism original title: Reste arabischen Heidentums, 2nd ed., p. 79 seq.
(2) Ibid., p. 167 seq. Compare below, chap. XIII.
(3) Especially those of Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites.