纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 045阿拉伯青铜手(8)（在线收听）

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.

我曾提出宗教死亡论，但也许它们会留下一些幽灵。在中东，你能看到许多古老宗教的幽灵进入了新兴宗教。例如，伊斯兰教中有一些来自基督教与犹太教的内容。《古兰经》中的有些故事看起来毫无意义，只有放到当时犹太教或基督教的背景中才能理解。在伊斯兰的建筑、制度和一些神秘仪式中都能看到别的宗教的影响。随着伊斯兰教的传播，它会继续从其他古老宗教中吸收新的模式，唤醒新的幽灵。

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.

最终，伊斯兰教成功地散播到本部分所提及的绝大部分地区，只有多塞特例外。接下来，我们将探讨这些成功的伊斯兰统治者如何管理他们所 征服的领土。