كتاب منهج دراسة الأديان بين الشيخ رحمت الله الهندي والقس فندر
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Most of Pfander's energy was devoted to language and translation work and to developing his refutation of Islam. Bishop Stephen Neill has described the Mizan as "one of the earliest works of Christian learning in the field" of Islamic scholarship,]11[while the Basel Mission historian P. Eppler refers to Pfander's "extensive and penetrating knowledge of Islam."]12[One of his most enthusiastic admirers, Sir William Muir (18191905), however, thought that he made too little use of "the historical deductions of modern research."]13[Pfander does not qualify as a full-blown scholar of Islam, although he was willing to allow observation to modify his views and, in later editions of the Mizan, included references to the pioneering work of Gustav Weil (1808 - 89), one of the first European scholars to apply the historical-critical method to Muhammad's life. Weil's Mohammed der Prophet was published in 1843, his translation of Ibn Hisham (an early biography of Muhammad) in 1864. Weil pictured Muhammad as a deluded epileptic, a diagnosis that subsequently appeared in many nineteenth-century books about Islam. Pfander accepted, and repeated, this explanation of Muhammad's trances. Muhammad's "general conduct shows him to have been an acute and subtle man, yet some of his actions are like those of other unstable minds."]14[Islam's military success, with its "spoil, dominion and prosperity," enabled Muhammad's companions to "shut their minds to his faults and failings."]15[Among these failings, Pfander included Muhammad's multiple marriages and his treatment of conquered foes. Pfander's Remarks include such standard explantations of Islam's success as the allure of its promise of a sensual paradise. Generally, said Pfander, Islam was a religion of the sword, Christianity, one of peace. He also shared the suspicion of most orientalist scholars of the Hadith (Traditions) as largely fictitious and historically unreliable.]16[
We can best gain an understanding of the flavor of Pfander's writing by summarizing the Mizan's argument. The introduction establishes the ground rules for the following three sections. First, Pfander proposes that,
