評論
打印
I've suggested that religions die, but, as when people die, perhaps they leave ghosts-and you can see across the Middle East many ghosts, many survivals of older religions, in the newly successful religions. So as you look at Islam, for example, you see many, many survivals from Christianity and Judaism. The Qur'an is absolutely littered with stories which make no sense, except in terms of what the Christians and Jews of that time would have understood, the sacred stories. Also in terms of the buildings of Islam, the institutions of Islam, the mystical practices of Islam, you can see a great many of these ghostly survivals. Then, as Islam spreads, it carries on drawing new kinds of pattern in from older religions, and evokes new ghosts.
我曾提出宗教死亡論，但也許它們會留下一些幽靈。在中東，你能看到許多古老宗教的幽靈進入了新興宗教。例如，伊斯蘭教中有一些來自基督教與猶太教的內容?！豆盘m經》中的有些故事看起來毫無意義，只有放到當時猶太教或基督教的背景中才能理解。在伊斯蘭的建筑、制度和一些神秘儀式中都能看到別的宗教的影響。隨著伊斯蘭教的傳播，它會繼續從其他古老宗教中吸收新的模式，喚醒新的幽靈。
Eventually that spreading Islam would conquer most of the world that we've been talking about this week. Indeed, it would conquer all the places from which our objects have come, except Dorset.
最終，伊斯蘭教成功地散播到本部分所提及的絕大部分地區，只有多塞特例外。接下來，我們將探討這些成功的伊斯蘭統治者如何管理他們所 征服的領土。
