HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER III.
MOHAMMEDANISM IN ITS RELATION TO
CHRISTIANITY.136
"There is no God but God,
and Mohammed is his apostle."_The Koran.
"There is one God and one
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom
for all."_1 Tim. ii. 5, 6.
§ 38. Literature.
See A. Sprenger’s Bibliotheca Orientalis Sprengeriana.
Giessen, 1857.
W. Muir.: Life of Mahomet, Vol. I.,
ch. 1. Muir discusses especially the value of Mohammedan traditions.
Ch. Friedrici:
Bibliotheca Orientalis. London (TrĂĽbner & Co.) 1875 sqq.
I.
Sources.
1. The Koran or AL-Koran. The chief source. The Mohammedan Bible, claiming to
be given by inspiration to Mohammed during the course of twenty years. About
twice as large as the New Testament. The best Arabic MSS., often most
beautifully written, are in the Mosques of Cairo, Damascus, Constantinople, and
Paris; the largest, collection in the library of the Khedive in Cairo. Printed
editions in Arabic by Hinkelmann (Hamburg,
1694); Molla Osman Ismael (St.
Petersburg, 1787 and 1803); G. FlĂĽgel (Leipz.,
1834); revised by Redslob (1837,
1842, 1858). Arabice
et Latine, ed.
L. Maraccius, Patav., 1698, 2
vols., fol. (Alcorani
textus universus,
with notes and refutation). A lithographed edition of the Arabic text appeared
at Lucknow in India, 1878 (A. H. 1296).
The standard English
translations: in prose by Geo. Sale (first
publ., Lond., 1734, also 1801, 1825, Philad., 1833, etc.), with a learned and
valuable preliminary discourse and notes; in the metre, but without the rhyme,
of the original by J. M. Rodwell (Lond.,
1861, 2d ed. 1876, the Suras arranged in chronological order). A new transl. in
prose by E. H. Palmer. (Oxford,
1880, 2 vols.) in M. Müller’s
"Sacred Books of the East."
Parts are admirably translated by Edward
W. Lane.
French translation by Savary, Paris, 1783, 2 vols.; enlarged edition by Garcin de Tassy, 1829, in 3 vols.;
another by M. Kasimirski, Paris,
1847, and 1873.
German translations by Wahl (Halle, 1828), L. Ullmann (Bielefeld, 1840, 4th ed.
1857), and parts by Hammer von Purgstall
(in the Fundgruben des Orients), and Sprenger (in Das Leben und die Lehre des
Mohammad).
2. Secondary sources
on the Life of Moh. and the origin of Islâm are the numerous poems of
contemporaries, especially in Ibn Ishâc,
and the collections of the sayings of Moh., especially the Sahih (i.e. The True, the
Genuine) of Albuchârî (d. 871). Also the early Commentaries on the
Koran, which explain difficult passages, reconcile the contradictions, and
insert traditional sayings and legends. See Sprenger, III. CIV. sqq.
II.
Works On The Koran.
Th. Nöldeke: Geschichte
des Quorâns, (History
of the Koran), Göttingen, 1860; and his art. in the "Encycl. Brit.,
9th ed. XVI. 597-606.
Garcin de Tassy: L’Islamisme d’après le Coran l’enseignement doctrinal et
la pratique, 3d
ed. Paris, 1874.
Gustav Weil: Hist.
kritische Einleitung in den Koran. Bielefeld und Leipz., 1844, 2d ed., 1878.
Sir William Muir: The Corân. Its Composition and Teaching; and the Testimony it bears
to the Holy Scriptures. (Allahabad, 1860), 3d ed., Lond., 1878.
Sprenger, l.c.,
III., pp. xviii.-cxx.
III.
Biographies of Mohammed.
1. Mohammedan biographers.
Zohri (the
oldest, died after the Hegira 124).
Ibn Ishâc (or
Ibni Ishak, d. A. H. 151, or a.d. 773), ed. in Arabic from MSS. by WĂĽstenfeld,
Gött., 1858-60, translated by Weil, Stuttg., 1864.
Ibn (Ibni) Hishâm (d. A. H. 213, a.d. 835), also ed. by Wüstenfeld,
and translated by Weil, 1864.
Katib Al Waquidi (or Wackedee, Wackidi, d. at Bagdad A. H. 207, a.d. 829), a man of prodigious
learning, who collected the traditions, and left six hundred chests of books
(Sprenger, III., LXXI.), and his secretary, Muhammad
Ibn Sâad (d. A. H. 230, a.d.
852), who arranged, abridged, and completed the biographical works of his
master in twelve or fifteen for. vols.; the first vol. contains the biography
of Moh., and is preferred by Muir and Sprenger to all others. German transl. by
Wellhausen: Muhammed in
Medina. From the Arabic of Vakidi. Berlin, 1882.
Tabari (or Tibree, d. A. H. 310, a.d. 932), called by Gibbon "the Livy of the
Arabians."
Muir says (I.,
CIII.): "To the three biographies by Ibn
Hishâm, by Wackidi, and
his secretary, and by Tabari, the
judicious historian of Mahomet will, as his original authorities, confine
himself. He will also receive, with a similar respect, such traditions in the
general collections of the earliest traditionists_Bokhâri, Muslim, Tirmidzi, etc.,_as
may bear upon his subject. But he will reject as evidence all later
authors." Abulfeda (or Abulfida,
d. 1331), once considered the chief authority, now set aside by much older
sources.
*Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador (member
of the Royal Asiatic Society): A Series of Essays on the Life of
Mohammed. London (TrĂĽbner & Co.), 1870. He wrote also a
"Mohammedan Commentary on the Holy Bible." He begins with the sentence: "In nomine Dei Misericordis
Miseratoris. Of
all the innumerable wonders of the universe, the most marvellous is religion."
Syed Ameer Ali, Moulvé (a Mohammedan lawyer, and brother of the former): A Critical
Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed. London 1873. A defense
of Moh. chiefly drawn from Ibn-Hishâm (and Ibn-al Athîr (1160-1223).
2. Christian Biographies.
Dean Prideaux (d.
1724): Life of Mahomet, 1697, 7th ed. Lond., 1718. Very unfavorable.
Count Boulinvilliers: The Life of Mahomet. Transl. from the French. Lond., 1731.
Jean Gagnier (d.
1740): La vie de Mahomet, 1732, 2 vols., etc. Amsterd. 1748, 3
vols. Chiefly from Abulfeda and the Sonna. He also translated Abulfeda.
*Gibbon: Decline and Fall, etc.
(1788), chs. 50-52. Although not an Arabic scholar, Gibbon made the best use of
the sources then accessible in Latin, French, and English, and gives a brilliant
and, upon the whole, impartial picture.
*Gustav Weil: Mohammed
der Prophet, sein Leben und seine Lehre. Stuttgart, 1843. Comp. also his translation of Ibn
Ishâc, and Ibn Hishâm, Stuttgart, 1864, 2 vols.; and his Biblische
Legenden der Muselmänner aus arabischen Quellen und mit jüd. Sagen verglichen. Frcf., 1845. The last is also
transl. into English.
Th. Carlyle: The
Hero as Prophet, in his Heroes Hero- Worship and the Heroic in History.
London, 1840. A mere sketch, but full of genius and stimulating hints. He says:
"We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent prophet, but as the one we
are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of prophets, but I esteem
him a true one. Farther, as there is no danger of our becoming, any of us,
Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him I justly can. It is the way to
get at his secret."
Washington Irving: Mahomet and His Followers. N. Y., 1850. 2 vols.
George Bush: The
Life of Mohammed. New York (Harpers).
*SIR William MUIR (of the Bengal Civil
Service): The Life of Mahomet. With introductory chapters on the original
sources for the biography of Mahomet, and on the pre-Islamite history of Arabia.
Lond., 1858-1861, 4 vols. Learned, able, and fair. Abridgement in 1 vol. Lond.,
1877.
*A. Sprenger: First an English biography
printed at Allahabad, 1851, and then a more complete one in German, Das
Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad. Nach bisher grösstentheils unbenutzten
Quellen.
Berlin, 1861-’65, 2d ed. 1869, 3 vols. This work is based on original and
Arabic sources, and long personal intercourse with Mohammedans in India, but is
not a well digested philosophical biography.
*Theod. Nöldeke: Das
Leben Muhammeds.
Hanover, 1863. Comp. his elaborate art. in Vol. XVIII. of Herzog’s Real-Encycl.,
first ed.
E. Renan: Mahomet, et
les origines de
l’islamisme, in
his "Etudes de l’histoire relig.," 7th ed. Par., 1864.
Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire: Mahomet et le Oran. Paris, 1865. Based on Sprenger and Muir.
Ch. Scholl:
L’Islam et son Fondateur. Paris, 1874.
R. Bosworth Smith (Assistant Master in
Harrow School): Mohammed and Mohammedanism. Lond. 1874, reprinted New
York, 1875.
J. W. H. Stobart: Islam and its Founder.
London, 1876.
J. Wellhausen: Art. Moh. in the
"Encycl. Brit." 9th ed. vol. XVI. 545-565.
IV.
History Of The Arabs And Turks.
Jos. von Hammer-Purgstall: Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches. Pesth, 1827-34, 10 vols. A
smaller ed. in 4 vols. This standard work is the result of thirty years’ labor,
and brings the history down to 1774. By the same: Literaturgeschichte
der Araber.
Wien, 1850-’57, 7 vols.
*G. Weil: Gesch. der
Chalifen.
Mannheim, 1846-5l, 3 vols.
*Caussin de Perceval: Essai
sur l’histoire des Arabes. Paris, 1848, 3 vols.
*Edward A. Freeman (D. C. L., LL. D.): History and Conquests of the
Saracens. Lond., 1856, 3d ed. 1876.
Robert Durie Osborn (Major of the Bengal Staff Corps): Islam under the Arabs. London.,
1876; Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad. London, 1877.
Sir Edward S.
Creasy: History of the Ottoman
Turks from the Beginning of their Empire to the present Time. Lond., 2d ed.
1877. Chiefly founded on von Hammer’
Th. Nöldeke: Geschichte
der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des
Tabari ĂĽbersetzt.
Leyden, 1879.
Sir Wm. Muir:
Annals of the Early Caliphate. London 1883.
V.
Manners And Customs Of The Mohammedans.
Joh. Ludwig Burckhardt: Travels in Nubia, 1819; Travels in Syria and Palestine,
1823; Notes on the Bedouins, 1830.
*Edw. W. Lane: Modern Egyptians. Lond., 1836, 5th ed. 1871, in
2 vols.
*Rich. F. Burton: Personal narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah
and Meccah, Lond. 1856, 3 vols.
C. B. Klunzinger: Upper Egypt: its People
and its Products. A descriptive Account of the Manners, Customs,
Superstitions, and Occupations of the People of the Nile Valley, the Desert,
and the Red Sea Coast. New York, 1878. A valuable supplement to Lane.
Books of Eastern Travel, especially on Egypt
and Turkey. Bahrdt’s Travels
in Central Africa (1857), Palgrave’s
Arabia (1867), etc.
VI. Relation Of
Mohammedanism To Judaism.
*Abraham Geiger: Was
hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum aufgenommen? Bonn,
1833.
Hartwig Hirschfeld: JĂĽdische Elemente im Koran. Berlin, 1878.
VII.
Mohammedanism as a Religion, and its Relation to Christianity.
L. Maracci: Prodromus ad refutationem
Alcorani. Rom.,
1691, 4 vols.
S. Lee: Controversial Tracts on
Christianity and Mahometanism. 1824.
J. Döllingber (R.C.):
Muhammed’s Religion nach ihrer innern Entwicklung u. ihrem Einfluss auf das
Leben der Völker.
Regensb. 1838.
A. Möhler (R.C.): Das
Verhältniss des Islam zum Christenthum (in his "Gesammelte Schriften"). Regensb.,
1839.
C. F. Gerock: Versuch
einer Darstellung der Christologie des Koran. Hamburg and Gotha, 1839.
J. H. Newman (R.C.): The Turks in their
relation to Europe (written in 1853), in his "Historical
Sketches." London, 1872, pp.
1-237.
Dean Arthur P.
Stanley: Mahometanism and its
relations to the Eastern Church (in Lectures on the "History of the
Eastern Church." London and New
York, 1862, pp. 360-387). A picturesque sketch.
Dean Milman: History
of Latin Christianity. Book IV., chs.1 and 2. (Vol. II. p. 109).
Theod. Nöldeke:
Art. Muhammed und der Islam, in Herzog’s "Real-Encyclop." Vol. XVIII. (1864), pp. 767-820.’
*Eman. Deutsch:
Islam, in his "Liter. Remains." Lond. and N. York, 1874, pp. 50-134. The article originally
appeared in the London "Quarterly Review" for Oct. 1869, and is also
printed at the end of the New York (Harper) ed. of R. Bosworth Smith’s Mohammed.
Reports of the General Missionary Conference at Allahabad, 1873.
J. MĂĽhleisen Arnold (formerly chaplain at
Batavia): Islam: its History, Character, and Relation to Christianity.
Lond., 1874, 3d ed.
Gustav. Rösch: Die Jesusmythen
des Islam, in
the "Studien und Kritiken."
Gotha, 1876. (No. III. pp. 409-454).
Marcus Dods: Mohammed,
Buddha, and Christ. Lond. 2d ed. 1878.
Ch. A. Aiken:
Mohammedanism as a Missionary Religion. In the "Bibliotheca
Sacra," of Andover for 1879, p. 157.
Archbishop Trench: Lectures on Mediaeval Church History (Lect. IV. 45-58). London,
1877.
Henry H. Jessup (Amer. Presbyt. missionary at
Beirut): The Mohammedan Missionary Problem. Philadelphia, 1879.
Edouard Sayous:
Jésus Christ d’après Mahomet. Paris 1880.
G. P. Badger: Muhámmed in Smith and
Wace, III. 951-998.
§ 39. Statistics and Chronological Table.
Estimate
of the Mohammedan Population (According to Keith Johnston).
In Asia, 112,739,000
In Africa, 50,416,000
In Europe, 5,974,000
Total, 169,129,000
Mohammedans
Under Christian Governments.
England in India rules over 41,000,000
Russia in Central Asia rules over 6,000,000
France in Africa rules over 2,000,000
Holland in Java and Celebes rules over 1,000,000
Total, 50,000,000
a.d.
Chronological Survey.
570. Birth of
Mohammed, at Mecca.
610. Mohammed
received the visions of Gabriel and began his career as a prophet.
(Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons).
622. The Hegira,
or the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina. Beginning of the Mohammedan
era.
632. (June 8) Death
of Mohammed at Medina.
632. AbĂ» Bekr, first
Caliph or successor of Mohammed
636. Capture of
Jerusalem by the Caliph Omar.
640. Capture of
Alexandria by Omar.
711. Tharyk crosses
the Straits from Africa to Europe, and calls the mountain Jebel Tharyk
(Gibraltar).
732. Battle of
Poitiers and Tours; Abd-er-Rahman defeated by Charles Martel; Western Europe
saved from Moslem conquest.
786-809. Haroun al
Rashîd, Caliph of Bagdad. Golden era of Mohammedanism. Correspondence with
Charlemagne).
1063. Allp Arslan,
Seljukian Turkish prince.
1096. The First
Crusade. Capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon.
1187. Saladin, the
Sultan of Egypt and scourge of the Crusaders, conquers at Tiberias and takes
Jerusalem, (1187); is defeated by Richard Coeur de Lion at Askelon, and dies
1193. Decline of the Crusades.
1288-1326. Reign of
Othman, founder of the Ottoman (Turkish) dynasty.
1453. Capture of
Constantinople by Mohammed II., "the Conqueror," and founder of the
greatness of Turkey. (Exodus of Greek scholars to Southern Europe; the Greek
Testament brought to the West; the revival of letters.)
1492. July 2.
Boabdil (or Alien Abdallah) defeated by Ferdinand at Granada; end of Moslem
rule in Spain. (Discovery of’ America by Columbus).
1517. Ottoman Sultan
Selim I. conquers Egypt, wrests the caliphate from the Arab line of the Koreish
through Motawekkel Billah, and transfers it to the Ottoman Sultans; Ottoman
caliphate never acknowledged by Persian or Moorish Moslems. (The Reformation.)
1521-1566. Solyman
II., "the Magnificent," marks the zenith of the military power of the
Turks; takes Belgrade (1521), defeats the Hungarians (1526), but is repulsed
from Vienna (1529 and 1532).
1571. Defeat of
Selim II. at the naval battle of Lepanto by the Christian powers under Don John
of Austria. Beginning of the decline of the Turkish power.
1683. Final repulse
of the Turks at the gates of Vienna by John Sobieski, king of Poland, 2Sept.
12; Eastern Europe saved from Moslem rule.
1792. Peace at Jassy
in Moldavia, which made the Dniester the frontier between Russia and Turkey.
1827. Annihilation
of the Turko-Egyptian fleet by, the combined squadrons of England, France, and
Russia, in the battle of Navarino, October 20. Treaty of Adrianople, 1829.
Independence of the kingdom of Greece, 1832.
1856. End of Crimean
War; Turkey saved by England and France aiding the Sultan against the
aggression of Russia; Treaty of Paris; European agreement not to interfere in
the domestic affairs of Turkey.
1878. Defeat of the
Turks by Russia; but checked by the interference of England under the lead of
Lord Beaconsfield. Congress of the European powers, and Treaty of Berlin;
independence of Bulgaria secured; Anglo-Turkish Treaty; England occupies Cyprus_agrees
to defend the frontier of Asiatic Turkey against Russia, on condition that the
Sultan execute fundamental reforms in Asiatic Turkey.
1880. Supplementary
Conference at Berlin. Rectification and enlargement of the boundary of
Montenegro and Greece.
§ 40. Position of Mohammedanism in Church History.
While new races and countries in
Northern and Western Europe, unknown to the apostles, were added to the
Christian Church, we behold in Asia and Africa the opposite spectacle of the
rise and progress of a rival religion which is now acknowledged by more than
one-tenth of the inhabitants of the globe. It is called
"Mohammedanism" from its founder, or "Islâm," from its
chief virtue, which is absolute surrender to the one true God. Like
Christianity, it had its birth in the Shemitic race, the parent of the three
monotheistic religions, but in an obscure and even desert district, and had a
more rapid, though less enduring success.
But what a difference in the
means employed and the results reached!
Christianity made its conquest by peaceful missionaries and the power of
persuasion, and carried with it the blessings of home, freedom and
civilization. Mohammedanism conquered the fairest portions of the earth by the
sword and cursed them by polygamy, slavery, despotism and desolation. The
moving power of Christian missions was love to God and man; the moving power of
Islâm was fanaticism and brute force. Christianity has found a home among all
nations and climes; Mohammedanism, although it made a most vigorous effort to
conquer the world, is after all a religion of the desert, of the tent and the
caravan, and confined to nomad and savage or half-civilized nations, chiefly
Arabs, Persians, and Turks. It never made an impression on Europe except by
brute force; it is only encamped, not really domesticated, in Constantinople,
and when it must withdraw from Europe it will leave no trace behind.
Islâm in its conquering march
took forcible possession of the lands of the Bible, and the Greek church,
seized the throne of Constantine, overran Spain, crossed the Pyrenees, and for
a long time threatened even the church of Rome and the German empire, until it
was finally repulsed beneath the walls of Vienna. The Crusades which figure so
prominently in the history of mediaeval Christianity, originated in the desire
to wrest the holy land from the followers of "the false prophet," and
brought the East in contact with the West. The monarchy and the church of
Spain, with their architecture, chivalry, bigotry, and inquisition, emerged
from a fierce conflict with the Moors. Even the Reformation in the sixteenth
century was complicated with the Turkish question, which occupied the attention
of the diet of Augsburg as much as the Confession of the Evangelical princes
and divines. Luther, in one of his most popular hymns, prays for deliverance
from "the murdering Pope and Turk," as the two chief enemies of the
gospel137; and the Anglican Prayer Book, in the collect for Good
Friday, invokes God "to have mercy upon all Turks," as well as upon
"Jews, Infidels, and Heretics."138
The danger for Western
Christendom from that quarter has long since passed away; the
"unspeakable" Turk has ceased to be unconquerable, but the Asiatic
and a part of the East European portion of the Greek church are still subject
to the despotic rule of the Sultan, whose throne in Constantinople has been for
more than four hundred years a standing insult to Christendom.
Mohammedanism then figures as a
hostile force, as a real Ishmaelite in church history; it is the only
formidable rival which Christianity ever had, the only religion which for a
while at least aspired to universal empire.
And yet it is not hostile only.
It has not been without beneficial effect upon Western civilization. It aided
in the development of chivalry; it influenced Christian architecture; it
stimulated the study of mathematics, chemistry, medicine (as is indicated by
the technical terms: algebra, chemistry, alchemy); and the Arabic translations
and commentaries on Aristotle by the Spanish Moors laid the philosophical
foundation of scholasticism. Even the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks
brought an inestimable blessing to the West by driving Greek scholars with the
Greek Testament to Italy to inaugurate there the revival of letters which
prepared the way for the Protestant Reformation.
Viewed in its relation to the
Eastern Church which it robbed of the fairest dominions, Mohammedanism was a
well-deserved divine punishment for the unfruitful speculations, bitter
contentions, empty ceremonialism and virtual idolatry which degraded and
disgraced the Christianity of the East after the fifth century. The essence of
true religion, love to God and to man, was eaten out by rancor and strife, and
there was left no power of ultimate resistance to the foreign conqueror. The
hatred between the orthodox Eastern church and the Eastern schismatics driven
from her communion, and the jealousy between the Greek and Latin churches
prevented them from aiding each other in efforts to arrest the progress of the
common foe. The Greeks detested the Latin Filioque as a heresy more
deadly than Islâm; while the Latins cared more for the supremacy of the Pope
than the triumph of Christianity, and set up during the Crusades a rival
hierarchy in the East. Even now Greek and Latin monks in Bethlehem and
Jerusalem are apt to fight at Christmas and Easter over the cradle and the
grave of their common Lord and Redeemer, unless Turkish soldiers keep them in
order!139
But viewed in relation to the
heathenism from which it arose or which it converted, Mahommedanism is a vast
progress, and may ultimately be a stepping-stone to Christianity, like the law
of Moses which served as a schoolmaster to lead men to the gospel. It has
destroyed the power of idolatry in Arabia and a large part of Asia and Africa, and
raised Tartars and Negroes from the rudest forms of superstition to the belief
and worship of the one true God, and to a certain degree of civilization.
It should be mentioned, however,
that, according to the testimony of missionaries and African travelers,
Mohammedanism has inflamed the simple minded African tribes with the impure
fire of fanaticism and given them greater power of resistance to Christianity.
Sir William Muir, a very competent judge, thinks that Mohammedanism by the
poisoning influence of polygamy and slavery, and by crushing all freedom of
judgment in religion has interposed the most effectual barrier against the
reception of Christianity. "No system," he says, "could have
been devised with more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which
it has sway, from the light of truth. Idolatrous Arabs might have been
aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus; Mahometan
Arabia is, to the human eye, sealed against the benign influences of the
gospel .... The sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of
civilization, liberty, and truth."140
This is no doubt true of the
past. But we have not yet seen the end of this historical problem. It is not
impossible that Islâm may yet prove to be a necessary condition for the revival
of a pure Scriptural religion in the East. Protestant missionaries from England
and America enjoy greater liberty under the Mohammedan rule than they would
under a Greek or Russian government. The Mohammedan abhorrence of idolatry and
image worship, Mohammedan simplicity and temperance are points of contact with
the evangelical type of Christianity, which from the extreme West has
established flourishing missions in the most important parts of Turkey. The
Greek Church can do little or nothing with the Mohammedans; if they are to be
converted it must be done by a Christianity which is free from all appearance
of idolatry, more simple in worship, and more vigorous in life than that which
they have so easily conquered and learned to despise. It is an encouraging fact
that Mohammedans have, great respect for the Anglo-Saxon race. They now swear
by the word of an Englishman as much as by the beard of Mohammed.
Islâm is still a great religious
power in the East. It rules supreme in Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt,
North Africa, and makes progress among the savage tribes in the interior of the
Dark Continent. It is by no means simply, as Schlegel characterized the system,
"a prophet without miracles, a faith without mysteries, and a morality
without love." It has tenacity,
aggressive vitality and intense enthusiasm. Every traveller in the Orient must
be struck with the power of its simple monotheism upon its followers. A visit
to the Moslem University in the Mosque El Azhar at Cairo is very instructive.
It dates from the tenth century (975), and numbers (or numbered in 1877, when I
visited it) no less than ten thousand students who come from all parts of the Mohammedan
world and present the appearance of a huge Sunday School, seated in small
groups on the floor, studying the Koran as the beginning and end of all wisdom,
and then at the stated hours for prayer rising to perform their devotions under
the lead of their teachers. They live in primitive simplicity, studying, eating
and sleeping on a blanket or straw mat in the same mosque, but the expression
of their faces betrays the fanatical devotion to their creed. They support
themselves, or are aided by the alms of the faithful. The teachers (over three
hundred) receive no salary and live by private instruction or presents from
rich scholars.
Nevertheless the power of Islâm,
like its symbol, the moon, is disappearing before the sun of Christianity which
is rising once more over the Eastern horizon. Nearly one-third of its followers
are under Christian (mostly English) rule. It is essentially a politico-religious
system, and Turkey is its stronghold. The Sultan has long been a "sick
man," and owes his life to the forbearance and jealousy of the Christian
powers. Sooner or later he will be driven out of Europe, to Brusa or Mecca. The
colossal empire of Russia is the hereditary enemy of Turkey, and would have
destroyed her in the wars of 1854 and 1877, if Catholic France and Protestant
England had not come to her aid. In the meantime the silent influences of
European civilization and Christian missions are undermining the foundations of
Turkey, and preparing the way for a religious, moral and social regeneration
and transformation of the East. "God’s mills grind slowly, but surely and
wonderfully fine." A thousand
years before Him are as one day, and one day may do the work of a thousand
years.
§ 41. The Home, and the Antecedents of Islâm.
On the Aborigines of
Arabia and its religious condition before Islam, compare the preliminary
discourse of Sale, Sect.1 and 2; Muir, Vol. I. ch. 2d; Sprenger, I. 13-92, and Stobart, ch. 1.
The fatherland of Islâm is
Arabia, a peninsula between the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
It is covered with sandy deserts, barren hills, rock-bound coasts, fertile
wadies, and rich pastures. It is inhabited by nomadic tribes and traders who
claim descent from five patriarchal stocks, Cush, Shem, Ishmael, Keturah, and
Esau. It was divided by the ancients into Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petraea (the
Sinai district with Petra as the capital), and Arabia Felix (El-Yemen, i.e.
the land on the right hand, or of the South). Most of its rivers are swelled by
periodical rains and then lose themselves in the sandy plains; few reach the
ocean; none of them is navigable. It is a land of grim deserts and strips of
green verdure, of drought and barrenness, violent rains, clear skies, tropical
heat, date palms, aromatic herbs, coffee, balsam, myrrh, frankincense, and
dhurra (which takes the place of grain). Its chief animals are the camel,
"the ship of the desert," an excellent breed of horses, sheep, and
goats. The desert, like the ocean, is not without its grandeur. It creates the
impression of infinitude, it fosters silence and meditation on God and
eternity. Man is there alone with God. The Arabian desert gave birth to some of
the sublimest compositions, the ode of liberty by Miriam, the ninetieth Psalm
by Moses, the book of Job, which Carlyle calls "the grandest poem written
by the pen of man."
The Arabs love a roaming life,
are simple and temperate, courteous, respectful, hospitable, imaginative, fond
of poetry and eloquence, careless of human life, revengeful, sensual, and
fanatical. Arabia, protected by its deserts, was never properly conquered by a
foreign nation.
The religious capital of Islâm,
and the birthplace of its founder_its Jerusalem and Rome_is Mecca (or Mekka), one of the oldest
cities of Arabia. It is situated sixty-five miles East of Jiddah on the Red
Sea, two hundred and forty-five miles South of Medina, in a narrow and sterile
valley and shut in by bare hills. It numbered in its days of prosperity over
one hundred thousand inhabitants, now only about forty-five thousand. It stands
under the immediate control of the Sultan. The streets are broad, but unpaved,
dusty in summer, muddy in winter. The houses are built of brick or stone, three
or four stories high; the rooms better furnished than is usual in the East.
They are a chief source of revenue by being let to the pilgrims. There is
scarcely a garden or cultivated field in and around Mecca, and only here and
there a thorny acacia and stunted brushwood relieves the eye. The city derives
all its fruit_watermelons, dates, cucumbers, limes, grapes, apricots, figs,
almonds_from Tâif and Wady Fatima, which during the pilgrimage season send more
than one hundred camels daily to the capital. The inhabitants are indolent,
though avaricious, and make their living chiefly of the pilgrims who annually
flock thither by thousands and tens of thousands from all parts of the
Mohammedan world. None but Moslems are allowed to enter Mecca, but a few
Christian travellers_Ali Bey (the assumed name of the Spaniard, Domingo Badia y
Leblich, d. 1818), Burckhardt in 1814, Burton in 1852, Maltzan in 1862, Keane
in 1880_have visited it in Mussulman disguise, and at the risk of their lives.
To them we owe our knowledge of the place.141
The most holy place in Mecca is Al-Kaaba, a small oblong temple, so
called from its cubic form.142 To it the
faces of millions of Moslems are devoutly turned in prayer five times a day. It
is inclosed by the great mosque, which corresponds in importance to the temple
of Solomon in Jerusalem and St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome, and can hold about
thirty-five thousand persons. It is surrounded by colonnades, chambers, domes
and minarets. Near it is the bubbling well Zemzem, from which Hagar and Ishmael
are said to have quenched their burning thirst. The Kaaba is much older than
Mecca. Diodorus Siculus mentions it as the oldest and most honored temple in
his time. It is supposed to have been first built by angels in the shape of a
tent and to have been let down from heaven; there Adam worshipped after his
expulsion from Paradise; Seth substituted a structure of clay and stone for a
tent; after the destruction by the deluge Abraham and Ishmael reconstructed it,
and their footsteps are shown.143 It was
entirely rebuilt in 1627. It contains the famous Black Stone,144 in the North-Eastern corner near
the door. This is probably a meteoric stone, or of volcanic origin, and served
originally as an altar. The Arabs believe that it fell from Paradise with Adam,
and was as white as milk, but turned black on account of man’s sins.145 It is semi-circular in shape, measures about six inches in height,
and eight inches in breadth, is four or five feet from the ground, of reddish
black color, polished by innumerable kisses (like the foot of the Peter-statue
in St. Peter’s at Rome), encased in silver, and covered with black silk and
inscriptions from the Koran. It was an object of veneration from time
immemorial, and is still devoutly kissed or touched by the Moslem pilgrims on
each of their seven circuits around the temple.146
Mohammed subsequently cleared
the Kaaba of all relics of idolatry, and made it the place of pilgrimage for
his followers. He invented or revived the legend that Abraham by divine command
sent his son Ishmael with Hagar to Mecca to establish there the true worship
and the pilgrim festival. He says in the Koran: "God hath appointed the
Kaaba, the sacred house, to be a station for mankind," and, "Remember
when we appointed the sanctuary as man’s resort and safe retreat, and said,
’Take ye the station of Abraham for a place of prayer.’ And we commanded Abraham and Ishmael,
’Purify my house for those who shall go in procession round it, and those who
shall bow down and prostrate themselves.’ "147
Arabia had at the time when
Mohammed appeared, all the elements for a wild, warlike, eclectic religion like
the one which he established. It was inhabited by heathen star-worshippers,
Jews, and Christians.
The heathen were the ruling
race, descended from Ishmael, the bastard son of Abraham (Ibrahim), the real
sons of the desert, full of animal life and energy. They had their sanctuary in
the Kaaba at Mecca, which attracted annually large numbers of pilgrims long
before Mohammed.
The Jews, after the destruction
of Jerusalem, were scattered in Arabia, especially in the district of Medina,
and exerted considerable influence by their higher culture and rabbinical
traditions.
The Christians belonged mostly
to the various heretical sects which were expelled from the Roman empire during
the violent doctrinal controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. We find
there traces of Arians, Sabellians, Ebionites, Nestorians, Eutychians,
Monophysites, Marianites, and Collyridians or worshippers of Mary. Anchorets
and monks settled in large numbers in Wady Feiran around Mount Serbal, and
Justinian laid the foundation of the Convent of St. Catharine at the foot of
Mount Sinai, which till the year 1859 harbored the oldest and most complete
uncial manuscript of the Greek Scriptures of both Testaments from the age of
Constantine. But it was a very superficial and corrupt Christianity which had
found a home in those desert regions, where even the apostle Paul spent three
years after his conversion in silent preparation for his great mission.
These three races and religions,
though deadly hostile to each other, alike revered Abraham, the father of the
faithful, as their common ancestor. This fact might suggest to a great mind the
idea to unite them by a national religion monotheistic in principle and
eclectic in its character. This seems to have been the original project of the
founder of Islâm.
It is made certain by recent
research that there were at the time and before the call of Mohammed a
considerable number of inquirers at Mecca and Medina, who had intercourse with
Eastern Christians in Syria and Abyssinia, were dissatisfied with the idolatry
around them, and inclined to monotheism, which they traced to Abraham. They
called themselves Hanyfs, i.e. Converts, Puritans. One of them, Omayah
of Tâif, we know to have been under Christian influence; others seem to have
derived their monotheistic ideas from Judaism. Some of the early converts of
Mohammed as, Zayd (his favorite slave), Omayab, or Umaijah (a popular poet),
and Waraka (a cousin of Chadijah and a student of the Holy Scriptures of the
Jews and Christians) belonged to this sect, and even Mohammed acknowledged
himself at first a Hanyf.148 Waraka,
it is said, believed in him, as long as he was a Hanyf, but then forsook him,
and died a Christian or a Jew.149
Mohammed
consolidated and energized this reform-movement, and gave it a world-wide significance,
under the new name of Islâm, i.e. resignation to God; whence Moslem (or
Muslim), one who resigns himself to God.
§ 42. Life and Character of Mohammed.
Mohammed, an unschooled,
self-taught, semi-barbarous son of nature, of noble birth, handsome person,
imaginative, energetic, brave, the ideal of a Bedouin chief, was destined to
become the political and religious reformer, the poet, prophet, priest, and
king of Arabia.
He was born about a.d. 570 at Mecca, the only child of a
young widow named Amina.150 His
father Abdallah had died a few months before in his twenty-fifth year on a
mercantile journey in Medina, and left to his orphan five camels, some sheep
and a slave girl.151 He
belonged to the heathen family of the HĂ shim, which was not wealthy, but claimed
lineal descent from Ishmael, and was connected with the Koreish or Korashites,
the leading tribe of the Arabs and the hereditary guardians of the sacred
Kaaba.152 Tradition
surrounds his advent in the world with a halo of marvellous legends: he was
born circumcised and with his navel cut, with the seal of prophecy written on
his back in letters of light; he prostrated himself at once on the ground, and,
raising his hands, prayed for the pardon of his people; three persons,
brilliant as the sun, one holding a silver goblet, the second an emerald tray,
the third a silken towel, appeared from heaven, washed him seven times, then
blessed and saluted him as the "Prince of Mankind." He was nursed by a healthy Bedouin woman of
the desert. When a boy of four years he was seized with something like a fit of
epilepsy, which Wâckidi and other historians transformed into a miraculous
occurrence. He was often subject to severe headaches and feverish convulsions,
in which he fell on the ground like a drunken man, and snored like a camel.153 In his sixth year he lost his mother on the return from Medina,
whither she had taken him on camel’s back to ’visit the maternal relations of
his father, and was carried back to Mecca by his nurse, a faithful slave girl.
He was taken care of by his aged grandfather, Abd al Motkalib, and after his
death in 578 by his uncle Abu Tâlib, who had two wives and ten children, and,
though poor and no believer in his nephew’s mission, generously protected him
to the end.
He accompanied his uncle on a
commercial journey to Syria, passing through the desert, ruined cities of old,
and Jewish and Christian settlements, which must have made a deep impression on
his youthful imagination.
Mohammed made a scanty living as
an attendant on caravans and by watching sheep and goats. The latter is rather
a disreputable occupation among the Arabs, and left to unmarried women and
slaves; but he afterwards gloried in it by appealing to the example of Moses
and David, and said that God never calls a prophet who has not been a shepherd
before. According to tradition_for, owing to the strict prohibition of images,
we have no likeness of the prophet_he was of medium size, rather slender, but
broad-shouldered and of strong muscles, had black eyes and hair, an oval-shaped
face, white teeth, a long nose, a patriarchal beard, and a commanding look. His
step was quick and firm. He wore white cotton stuff, but on festive occasions
fine linen striped or dyed in red. He did everything for himself; to the last
he mended his own clothes, and cobbled his sandals, and aided his wives in
sewing and cooking. He laughed and smiled often. He had a most fertile
imagination and a genius for poetry and religion, but no learning. He was an
"illiterate prophet," in this respect resembling some of the prophets
of Israel and the fishermen of Galilee. It is a disputed question among Moslem
and Christian scholars whether he could even read and write.154 Probably he could not. He dictated the Koran from inspiration to
his disciples and clerks. What knowledge he possessed, he picked up on the way
from intercourse with men, from hearing books read, and especially from his
travels.
In his twenty-fifth year he
married a rich widow, Chadijah (or Chadîdsha), who was fifteen years older than
himself, and who had previously hired him to carry on the mercantile business
of her former husband. Her father was opposed to the match; but she made and
kept him drunk until the ceremony was completed. He took charge of her caravans
with great success, and made several journeys. The marriage was happy and
fruitful of six children, two sons and four daughters; but all died except
little Fâtima, who became the mother of innumerable legitimate and illegitimate
descendants of the prophet. He also adopted AlĂ®, whose close connection with
him became so important in the history of Islâm. He was faithful to Chadijah,
and held her in grateful remembrance after her death.155 He used to say, "Chadijah believed in me when nobody else
did." He married afterwards a
number of wives, who caused him much trouble and scandal. His favorite wife,
Ayesha, was more jealous of the dead Chadijah than any of her twelve or more
living rivals, for he constantly held up the toothless old woman as the model
of a wife.
On his commercial journeys to Syria,
he became acquainted with Jews and Christians, and acquired an imperfect
knowledge of their traditions. He spent much of his time in retirement, prayer,
fasting, and meditation. He had violent convulsions and epileptic fits, which
his enemies, and at first he himself, traced to demoniacal possessions, but
afterwards to the overpowering presence of God. His soul was fired with the
idea of the divine unity, which became his ruling passion; and then he awoke to
the bold thought that he was a messenger of God, called to warn his countrymen
to escape the judgment and the damnation of hell by forsaking idolatry and
worshipping the only true God. His monotheistic enthusiasm was disturbed,
though not weakened, by his ignorance and his imperfect sense of the difference
between right and wrong.
In his fortieth year (a.d. 610), he received the call of
Gabriel, the archangel at the right hand of God, who announced the birth of the
Saviour to the Virgin Mary. The first revelation was made to him in a trance in
the wild solitude of Mount Hirâ, an hour’s walk from Mecca. He was directed
"to cry in the name of the Lord."
He trembled, as if something dreadful had happened to him, and hastened
home to his wife, who told him to rejoice, for he would be the prophet of his
people. He waited for other visions; but none came. He went up to Mount Hirâ
again_this time to commit suicide. But as often as he approached the precipice,
he beheld Gabriel at the end of the horizon saying to him: "I am Gabriel,
and thou art Mohammed, the prophet of God. Fear not!" He then commenced his career of a prophet
and founder of a new religion, which combined various elements of the three
religious represented in Arabia, but was animated and controlled by the faith
in Allah, as an almighty, ever-present and working will. From this time on, his
life was enacted before the eyes of the world, and is embodied in his deeds and
in the Koran.
The revelations continued from
time to time for more than twenty years. When asked how they were delivered to
him, he replied (as reported by Ayesha): "Sometimes like the sound of a
bell_a kind of communication which was very severe for me; and when the sounds
ceased, I found myself aware of the instructions. And sometimes the angel would
come in the form of a man, and converse with me, and all his words I
remembered."
After his call, Mohammed labored
first for three years among his family and friends, under great
discouragements, making about forty converts, of whom his wife Chadijah was the
first, his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, and the young, energetic Omar the most
important. His daughter Fatima, his adopted son AlĂ®, and his slave Zayd
likewise believed in his divine mission. Then he publicly announced his
determination to assume by command of God the office of prophet and lawgiver,
preached to the pilgrims flocking to Mecca, attacked Meccan idolatry, reasoned
with his opponents, answered their demand for miracles by producing the Koran
"leaf by leaf," as occasion demanded, and provoked persecution and civil
commotion. He was forced in the year 622 to flee for his life with his
followers from Mecca to Medina (El-Medina an-NabĂ®, the City of the Prophet), a
distance of two hundred and fifty miles North, or ten days’ journey over the
sands and rocks of the desert.
This flight or emigration,
called HĂ©gira or Hidshra, marks the beginning of his wonderful
success, and of the Mohammedan era (July 15, 622). He was recognized in Medina
as prophet and lawgiver. At first he proclaimed toleration: "Let there be
no compulsion in religion;" but afterwards he revealed the opposite
principle that all unbelievers must be summoned to Islâm, tribute, or the
sword. With an increasing army of his enthusiastic followers, he took the field
against his enemies, gained in 624 his first victory over the Koreish with an
army of 305 (mostly citizens of Medina) against a force twice as large,
conquered several Jewish and Christian tribes, ordered and watched in person
the massacre of six hundred Jews in one day,156 while their wives and children
were sold into slavery (627), triumphantly entered Mecca (630), demolished the
three hundred and sixty idols of the Kaaba, and became master of Arabia. The
Koreish were overawed by his success, and now shouted: "There is but one
God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
The various tribes were melted into a nation, and their old hereditary
feuds changed into a common fanatical hatred of the infidels, as the followers
of all other religions were called. The last chapter of the Koran commands the
remorseless extermination of all idolaters in Arabia, unless they submit within
four months.
In the tenth year of the Hegira,
the prophet made his last pilgrimage to Mecca at the head of forty thousand
Moslems, instructed them in all important ordinances, and exhorted them to
protect the weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury. He
planned a large campaign against the Greeks.
But soon after his return to
Medina, he died of a violent fever in the house and the arms of Ayesha, June 8,
632, in the sixty-third year of his age, and was buried on the spot where he
died, which is now enclosed by a mosque. He suffered great pain, cried and
wailed, turned on his couch in despair, and said to his wives when they
expressed their surprise at his conduct: "Do ye not know that prophets
have to suffer more than all others?
One was eaten up by vermin; another died so poor that he had nothing but
rags to cover his shame; but their reward will be all the greater in the life
beyond." Among his last utterances
were: "The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians! Let his anger be kindled against those that turn the tombs of
their prophets into places of worship!
O Lord, let not my tomb be an object of worship! Let there not remain any faith but that of
Islâm throughout the whole of Arabia .... Gabriel, come close to me! Lord, grant me pardon and join me to thy
companionship on high! Eternity in
paradise! Pardon! Yes, the blessed companionship on
high!"157
Omar would not believe that
Mohammed was dead, and proclaimed in the mosque of Medina: "The prophet
has only swooned away; he shall not die until he have rooted out every
hypocrite and unbeliever." But Abu
Bakr silenced him and said: "Whosoever worships Mohammed, let him know
that Mohammed is dead; but whosoever worships God, let him know that the Lord
liveth, and will never die." Abu
Bakr, whom he had loved most, was chosen Calif, or Successor of Mohammed.
Later tradition, and even the
earliest biography, ascribe to the prophet of Mecca strange miracles, and
surround his name with a mythical halo of glory. He was saluted by walking
trees and stones; he often made by a simple touch the udders of dry goats
distend with milk; be caused floods of water to well up from the parched
ground, or gush forth from empty vessels, or issue from betwixt the fingers; he
raised the dead; he made a night journey on his steed Borak through the air
from Mecca to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to paradise and the mansions of the prophets
and angels, and back again to Mecca.158 But he himself, in several passages of the Koran, expressly
disclaims the power of miracles; he appeals to the internal proofs of his
doctrine, and shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those
signs which might diminish the merit of faith and aggravate the guilt of
unbelief.159
Character
of Mohammed.
The Koran, if chronologically
arranged, must be regarded as the best commentary on his character. While his
followers regard him to this day as the greatest prophet of God, he was long
abhorred in Christendom as a wicked impostor, as the antichrist, or the false
prophet, predicted in the Bible, and inspired by the father of lies.
The calmer judgment of recent
historians inclines to the belief that he combined the good and bad qualities
of an Oriental chief, and that in the earlier part of his life he was a sincere
reformer and enthusiast, but after the establishment of his kingdom a slave of
ambition for conquest. He was a better man in the period of his adversity and persecution
at Mecca, than during his prosperity and triumph at Medina. History records
many examples of characters rising from poverty and obscurity to greatness, and
then decaying under the sunshine of wealth and power. He degenerated, like
Solomon, but did not repent, like the preacher of "vanity of
vanities." He had a melancholic
and nervous temperament, liable to fantastic hallucinations and alternations of
high excitement and deep depression, bordering at times on despair and suicide.
The story of his early and frequent epileptic fits throws some light on his
revelations, during which he sometimes growled like a camel, foamed at his
mouth, and streamed with perspiration. He believed in evil spirits, omens,
charms, and dreams. His mind was neither clear nor sharp, but strong and
fervent, and under the influence of an exuberant imagination. He was a poet of
high order, and the Koran is the first classic in Arabic literature. He
believed himself to be a prophet, irresistibly impelled by supernatural influence
to teach and warn his fellow-men. He started with the over-powering conviction
of the unity of God and a horror of idolatry, and wished to rescue his
countrymen from this sin of sins and from the terrors of the judgment to come;
but gradually he rose above the office of a national reformer to that of the
founder of a universal religion, which was to absorb the other religions, and
to be propagated by violence. It is difficult to draw the line in such a
character between honest zeal and selfish ambition, the fear of God and the
love of power and glory.
He despised a throne and a
diadem, lived with his wives in a row of low and homely cottages of unbaked
bricks, and aided them in their household duties; he was strictly temperate in
eating and drinking, his chief diet being dates and water; he was not ashamed
to milk his goats, to mend his clothes and to cobble his shoes; his personal
property at his death amounted to some confiscated lands, fourteen or fifteen
slaves, a few camels and mules, a hundred sheep, and a rooster. This simplicity
of a Bedouin Sheikh of the desert contrasts most favorably with the luxurious
style and gorgeous display of Mohammed’s successors, the Califs and Sultans,
who have dozens of palaces and harems filled with eunuchs and women that know
nothing beyond the vanities of dress and etiquette and a little music. He was
easy of access to visitors who approached him with faith and reverence;
patient, generous, and (according to Ayesha) as modest and bashful "as a
veiled virgin." But towards his
enemies he was cruel and revengeful. He did not shrink from perfidy. He
believed in the use of the sword as the best missionary, and was utterly
unscrupulous as to the means of success. He had great moral, but little
physical courage; he braved for thirteen years the taunts and threats of the
people, but never exposed himself to danger in battle, although he always
accompanied his forces.
Mohammed was a slave of sensual
passion. Ayesha, who knew him best in his private character and habits, used to
say: "The prophet loved three things, women, perfumes and food; he had his
heart’s desire of the two first, but not of the last." The motives of his excess in polygamy were
his sensuality which grew with his years, and his desire for male offspring.
His followers excused or justified him by the examples of Abraham, David and
Solomon, and by the difficulties of his prophetic office, which were so great
that God gave him a compensation in sexual enjoyment, and endowed him with
greater capacity than thirty ordinary men. For twenty-four years he had but one
wife, his beloved Chadijah, who died in 619, aged sixty-five, but only two
months after her death he married a widow named Sawda (April 619), and
gradually increased his harem, especially during the last two years of his
life. When he heard of a pretty woman, says Sprenger, he asked her hand, but
was occasionally refused. He had at least fourteen legal wives, and a number of
slave concubines besides. At his death he left nine widows. He claimed special
revelations which gave him greater liberty of sexual indulgence than ordinary
Moslems (who are restricted to four wives), and exempted him from the
prohibition of marrying near relatives.160 He married by divine command, as he alleged, Zeynab, the wife of
Zayd, his adopted son and bosom-friend. His wives were all widows except
Ayesha. One of them was a beautiful and rich Jewess; she was despised by her
sisters, who sneeringly said: "Pshaw, a Jewess!" He told her to reply: "Aaron is my
father and Moses my uncle!"
Ayesha, the daughter of AbĂ» Bakr, was his especial favorite. He married
her when she was a girl of nine years, and he fifty-three years old. She
brought her doll-babies with her, and amused and charmed the prophet by her
playfulness, vivacity and wit. She could read, had a copy of the Koran, and
knew more about theology, genealogy and poetry than all the other widows of
Mohammed. He announced that she would be his wife also in Paradise. Yet she was
not free from suspicion of unfaithfulness until he received a revelation of her
innocence. After his death she was the most sacred person among the Moslems and
the highest authority on religious and legal questions. She survived her
husband forty-seven years and died at Medina, July 13, 678, aged sixty-seven
years.161
In his ambition for a hereditary
dynasty, Mohammed was sadly disappointed: he lost his two sons by Chadijah, and
a third one by Mary the Egyptian, his favorite concubine.
To compare such
a man with Jesus, is preposterous and even blasphemous. Jesus was the sinless
Saviour of sinners; Mohammed was a sinner, and he knew and confessed it. He
falls far below Moses, or Elijah, or any of the prophets and apostles in moral
purity. But outside of the sphere of revelation, he ranks with Confucius, and
Cakya Muni the Buddha, among the greatest founders of religions and lawgivers
of nations.
§ 43. The Conquests of Islâm.
"The sword," says
Mohammed, "is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the
cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of
fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the
day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and
cherubim." This is the secret of
his success. Idolaters had to choose between Islâm, slavery, and death; Jews
and Christians were allowed to purchase a limited toleration by the payment of
tribute, but were otherwise kept in degrading bondage. History records no
soldiers of greater bravery inspired by religion than the Moslem conquerors,
except Cromwell’s Ironsides, and the Scotch Covenanters, who fought with purer
motives for a nobler cause.
The Califs, Mohammed’s
successors, who like him united the priestly and kingly dignity, carried on his
conquests with the battle-cry: "Before you is paradise, behind you are
death and hell." Inspired by an
intense fanaticism, and aided by the weakness of the Byzantine empire and the
internal distractions of the Greek Church, the wild sons of the desert, who
were content with the plainest food, and disciplined in the school of war,
hardship and recklessness of life, subdued Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, embracing
the classical soil of primitive Christianity. Thousands of Christian churches
in the patriarchal dioceses of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria, were
ruthlessly destroyed, or converted into mosques. Twenty-one years after the
death of Mohammed the Crescent ruled over a realm as large as the Roman Empire.
Even Constantinople was besieged twice (668 and 717), although in vain. The
terrible efficacy of the newly invented "Greek fire," and the unusual
severity of a long winter defeated the enemy, and saved Eastern and Northern
Europe from the blight of the Koran. A large number of nominal Christians who
had so fiercely quarreled with each other about unfruitful subtleties of their
creeds, surrendered their faith to the conqueror. In 707 the North African provinces,
where once St. Augustin had directed the attention of the church to the highest
problems of theology and religion, fell into the hands of the Arabs.
In 711 they crossed from Africa
to Spain and established an independent Califate at Cordova. The moral
degeneracy and dissensions of the Western Goths facilitated their subjugation.
Encouraged by such success, the Arabs crossed the Pyrenees and boasted that
they would soon stable their horses in St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome, but the
defeat of Abd-er Rahman by Charles Martel between Poitiers and Tours in 732_one
hundred and ten years after the Hegira_checked their progress in the West, and
in 1492_the same year in which Columbus discovered a new Continent_Ferdinand
defeated the last Moslem army in Spain at the gates of Granada and drove them
back to Africa. The palace and citadel of the Alhambra, with its court of
lions, its delicate arabesques and fretwork, and its aromatic gardens and
groves, still remains, a gorgeous ruin of the power of the Moorish kings.
In the East the Moslems made new
conquests. In the ninth century they subdued Persia, Afghanistan, and a large
part of India. They reduced the followers of Zoroaster to a few scattered
communities, and conquered a vast territory of Brahminism and Buddhism even
beyond the Ganges. The Seliuk Turks in the eleventh century, and the Mongols in
the thirteenth, adopted the religion of the Califs whom they conquered.
Constantinople fell at last into the hands of the Turks in 1453, and the
magnificent church of St. Sophia, the glory of Justinian’s reign, was turned
into a mosque where the Koran is read instead of the Gospel, the reader holding
the drawn scimetar in his hand. From Constantinople the Turks threatened the
German empire, and it was not till 1683 that they were finally defeated by
Sobieski at the gates of Vienna and driven back across the Danube.
With the senseless fury of
fanaticism and pillage the Tartar Turks have reduced the fairest portions of
Eastern Europe to desolation and ruin. With sovereign contempt for all other
religions, they subjected the Christians to a condition of virtual servitude,
treating them like "dogs," as they call them. They did not
intermeddle with their internal affairs, but made merchandise of ecclesiastical
offices. The death penalty was suspended over every attempt to convert a
Mussulman. Apostasy from the faith is also treason to the state, and merits the
severest punishment in this world, as well as everlasting damnation in the
world to come.
After the Crimean war in 1856,
the death penalty for apostasy was nominally abolished in the dominions of the
Sultan, and in the Berlin Treaty of 1878 liberty of religion (more than mere
toleration) was guaranteed to all existing sects in the Turkish empire, but the
old fanaticism will yield only to superior force, and the guarantee of liberty
is not understood to imply the liberty of propaganda among Moslems. Christian
sects have liberty to prey on each other, but woe to them if they invade the
sacred province of Islâm.162
A Mohammedan tradition contains
a curious prophecy that Christ, the son of Mary, will return as the last Calif
to judge the world.163 The
impression is gaining ground among the Moslems that they will be unable
ultimately to withstand the steady progress of Christianity and Western
civilization. The Sultan, the successor of the Califs, is a mere shadow on the
throne trembling for his life. The dissolution of the Turkish empire, which may
be looked for at no distant future, will break the backbone of lslâm, and open
the way for the true solution of the Eastern question_the moral regeneration of
the Lands of the Bible by the Christianity of the Bible.
§ 44. The Koran, and the Bible.
"Mohammed’s
truth lay in a sacred Book,
Christ’s in a holy
Life."_Milnes (Palm-Leaves).
The Koran164 is the sacred book, the Bible of
the Mohammedans. It is their creed, their code of laws, their liturgy. It
claims to be the product of divine inspiration by the arch-angel Gabriel, who
performed the function assigned to the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures.165 The Mohammedans distinguish two kinds of revelations: those which
were literally delivered as spoken by the angel (called Wahee Matloo, or
the word of God), and those which give the sense of the inspired instruction in
the prophet’s own words (called Wahee Ghair Matloo, or Hadees). The
prophet is named only five times, but is addressed by Gabriel all through the
book with the word Say, as the recipient and sacred penman of the
revelations. It consists of 114 Suras166 and 6,225 verses. Each Sura
(except the ninth) begins with the formula (of Jewish origin): "In the
name of Allah, the God of Mercy, the Merciful."167
The Koran is composed in
imperfect metre and rhyme (which is as natural and easy in the Arabic as in the
Italian language). Its language is considered the purest Arabic. Its poetry
somewhat resembles Hebrew poetry in Oriental imagery and a sort of parallelism
or correspondence of clauses, but it loses its charm in a translation; while
the Psalms and Prophets can be reproduced in any language without losing their
original force and beauty. The Koran is held in superstitious veneration, and
was regarded till recently as too sacred to be translated and to be sold like a
common book.168
Mohammed prepared and dictated
the Koran from time to time as he received the revelations and progressed in
his career, not for readers, but for hearers, leaving much to the suggestive
action of the public recital, either from memory or from copies taken down by
his friends. Hence its occasional, fragmentary character. About a year after
his death, at the direction of Abu-Bakr, his father-in-law and immediate
successor, Zayd, the chief ansar or amanuensis of the Prophet, collected the
scattered fragments of the Koran "from palm-leaves, and tablets of white stone,
and from the breasts of men," but without any regard to chronological
order or continuity of subjects. Abu-Bakr committed this copy to the custody of
Haphsa, one of Mohammed’s widows. It remained the standard during the ten years
of Omar’s califate. As the different readings of copies occasioned serious
disputes, Zayd, with several Koreish, was commissioned to secure the purity of
the text in the Meccan dialect, and all previous copies were called in and
burned. The recension of Zayd has been handed down with scrupulous care
unaltered to this day, and various readings are almost unknown; the differences
being confined to the vowel-points, which were invented at a later period. The
Koran contains many inconsistencies and contradictions; but the expositors hold
that the later command supersedes the earlier.
The restoration of the
chronological order of the Suras is necessary for a proper understanding of the
gradual development of Islâm in the mind and character of its author.169 There is a considerable difference between the Suras of the
earlier, middle, and later periods. In the earlier, the poetic, wild, and
rhapsodical element predominates; in the middle, the prosaic, narrative, and
missionary; in the later, the official and legislative. Mohammed began with
descriptions of natural objects, of judgment, of heaven and hell, impassioned,
fragmentary utterances, mostly in brief sentences; he went on to dogmatic
assertions, historical statements from Jewish and Christian sources, missionary
appeals and persuasions; and he ended with the dictatorial commands of a
legislator and warrior. "He who at Mecca is the admonisher and persuader,
at Medina is the legislator and the warrior, who dictates obedience and uses
other weapons than the pen of the poet and the scribe. When business pressed,
as at Medina, poetry makes way for prose,170 and although touches of the
poetical element occasionally break forth, and he has to defend himself up to a
very late period against the charge of being merely a poet, yet this is rarely
the case in the Medina Suras; and we are startled by finding obedience to God and
the Apostle, God’s gifts and the Apostle’s, God’s pleasure and
the Apostle’s, spoken of in the same breath, and epithets, and attributes,
applied to Allah, openly applied to Mohammed, as in Sura IX."171
The materials of the Koran, as
far as they are not productions of the author’s own imagination, were derived
from the floating traditions of Arabia and Syria, from rabbinical Judaism, and
a corrupt Christianity, and adjusted to his purposes.
Mohammed had, in his travels,
come in contact with professors of different religions, and on his first
journey with camel-drivers he fell in with a Nestorian monk of Bostra, who goes
by different names (Bohari, Bahyra, Sergius, George), and welcomed the youthful
prophet with a presage of his future greatness.172 His wife Chadijah and her cousin Waraka (a reputed convert to
Christianity, or more probably a Jew) are said to have been well acquainted
with the sacred books of the Jews and the Christians.
The Koran, especially in the
earlier Suras, speaks often and highly of the Scriptures; calls them "the
Book of God," "the Word of God," "the Tourât" (Thora,
the Pentateuch), "the Gospel" (Ynyil), and describes the Jews and Christians
as "the people of the Book," or "of the Scripture," or
"of the Gospel." It finds in
the Scriptures prophecies of Mohammed and his success, and contains narratives
of the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Deluge, Abraham and Lot, the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses and Joseph, John the Baptist, the
Virgin Mary and Jesus, sometimes in the words of the Bible, but mostly
distorted and interspersed with rabbinical and apocryphal fables.173
It is quite probable that
portions of the Bible were read to Mohammed; but it is very improbable that he
read it himself; for according to the prevailing Moslem tradition he could not
read at all, and there were no Arabic translations before the Mohammedan
conquests, which spread the Arabic language in the conquered countries.
Besides, if he had read the Bible with any degree of care, he could not have
made such egregious blunders. The few allusions to Scripture phraseology_as
"giving alms to be seen of men," "none forgiveth sins but God
only"_may be derived from personal intercourse and popular traditions.
Jesus (Isa) is spoken of as "the Son of Mary, strengthened by the
Holy Spirit." Noah (Nûh),
Abraham (Ibrahym), Moses (Mûsa), Aaron (Harun), are often
honorably mentioned, but apparently always from imperfect traditional or
apocryphal sources of information.174
The Koran is unquestionably one
of the great books of the world. It is not only a book, but an institution, a
code of civil and religious laws, claiming divine origin and authority. It has
left its impress upon ages. It feeds to this day the devotions, and regulates
the private and public life, of more than a hundred millions of human beings.
It has many passages of poetic beauty, religious fervor, and wise counsel, but
mixed with absurdities, bombast, unmeaning images, low sensuality. It abounds
in repetitions and contradictions, which are not removed by the convenient
theory of abrogation. It alternately attracts and repels, and is a most
wearisome book to read. Gibbon calls the Koran "a glorious testimony to
the unity of God," but also, very properly, an "endless, incoherent
rhapsody of fable and precept and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment
or idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the
clouds."175 Reiske176 denounces it as the most absurd
book and a scourge to a reader of sound common sense. Goethe, one of the best
judges of literary and poetic merit, characterizes the style as severe, great,
terrible, and at times truly sublime. "Detailed injunctions," he
says, "of things allowed and forbidden, legendary stories of Jewish and
Christian religion, amplifications of all kinds, boundless tautologies and
repetitions, form the body of this sacred volume, which to us, as often as we
approach it, is repellent anew, next attracts us ever anew, and fills us with
admiration, and finally forces us into veneration." He finds the kernel of Islâm in the second Sura,
where belief and unbelief with heaven and hell, as their sure reward, are
contrasted. Carlyle calls the Koran "the confused ferment of a great rude
human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read, but fervent, earnest,
struggling vehemently to utter itself In words;" and says of
Mohammedanism: "Call it not false, look not at the falsehood of it; look
at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries it has been the religion and
life-guidance of the fifth part of the whole kindred of mankind. Above all, it
has been a religion heartily believed."
But with all his admiration, Carlyle confesses that the reading of the
Koran in English is "as toilsome a task" as he ever undertook.
"A wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations,
long-windedness, entanglement; insupportable stupidity, in short, nothing but a
sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran. We read it, as we
might in the State-Paper Office, unreadable masses of lumber, that we may get
some glimpses of a remarkable man."
And yet there are Mohammedan doctors who are reported to have read the
Koran seventy thousand times! What a
difference of national and religious taste!
Emanuel Deutsch finds the grandeur of the Koran chiefly in its Arabic
diction, "the peculiarly dignified, impressive, sonorous nature of Semitic
sound and parlance; its sesquipedalia verba, with their crowd of prefixes and affixes, each of them affirming its
own position, while consciously bearing upon and influencing the central root,
which they envelop like a garment of many folds, or as chosen courtiers move
round the anointed person of the king."
E. H. Palmer says that the claim of the Koran to miraculous eloquence,
however absurd it may sound to Western ears, was and is to the Arab incontrovertible,
and he accounts for the immense influence which it has always exercised upon
the Arab mind, by the fact, "that it consists not merely of the
enthusiastic utterances of an individual, but of the popular sayings, choice
pieces of eloquence, and favorite legends current among the desert tribes for
ages before this time. Arabic authors speak frequently of the celebrity
attained by the ancient Arabic orators, such as Shâibân Wâil; but unfortunately
no specimens of their works have come down to us. The Qur’ân, however, enables
us to judge of the speeches which took so strong a hold upon their
countrymen."177
Of all books, not excluding the
Vedas, the Koran is the most powerful rival of the Bible, but falls infinitely
below it in contents and form.
Both contain the moral and
religious code of the nations which own it; the Koran, like the Old Testament,
is also a civil and political code. Both are oriental in style and imagery.
Both have the fresh character of occasional composition growing out of a
definite historical situation and specific wants. But the Bible is the genuine
revelation of the only true God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself;
the Koran is a mock-revelation without Christ and without atonement. Whatever
is true in the Koran is borrowed from the Bible; what is original, is false or
frivolous. The Bible is historical and embodies the noblest aspirations of the
human race in all ages to the final consummation; the Koran begins and stops
with Mohammed. The Bible combines endless variety with unity, universal
applicability with local adaptation; the Koran is uniform and monotonous,
confined to one country, one state of society, and one class of minds. The
Bible is the book of the world, and is constantly travelling to the ends of the
earth, carrying spiritual food to all races and to all classes of society; the
Koran stays in the Orient, and is insipid to all who have once tasted the true
word of the living God.178 Even the
poetry of the Koran never rises to the grandeur and sublimity of Job or Isaiah,
the lyric beauty of the Psalms, the sweetness and loveliness of the Song of
Solomon, the sententious wisdom of the Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
A few instances must suffice for
illustration.
The first Sura, called "the
Sura of Praise and Prayer," which is recited by the Mussulmans several
times in each of the five daily devotions, fills for them the place of the
Lord’s Prayer, and contains the same number of petitions. We give it in a
rhymed, and in a more literal translation:
"In the name of
Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate!
Praise be to Allah,
who the three worlds made,
The Merciful, the
Compassionate,
The King of the day
of Fate,
Thee alone do
we worship, and of Thee alone do we ask aid.
Guide us to the path
that is straight _
The path of those to
whom Thy love is great,
Not those on whom is
hate,
Nor they that
deviate! Amen.179
"In the name of
God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Praise be to God,
Lord of the worlds!
The Compassionate,
the Merciful!
King on the day of
judgment!
Thee only do
we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help.
Guide Thou us on the
right path,
The path of those to
whom Thou art gracious;
Not of those with
whom Thou art angered,
Nor of those who go
astray."180
We add the most
recent version in prose:
"In the name of the
merciful and compassionate God.
Praise belongs to
God, the Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the compassionate, the ruler of the
day of judgment! Thee we serve and Thee
we ask for aid. Guide us in the right path, the path of those Thou art gracious
to; not of those Thou art wroth with; nor of those who err."181
As this Sura invites a
comparison with the Lord’s Prayer infinitely to the advantage of the latter, so
do the Koran’s descriptions of Paradise when contrasted with St. John’s vision
of the heavenly Jerusalem:
"Joyous on that
day shall be the inmates of Paradise in their employ;
In shades, on bridal
couches reclining, they and their spouses:
Therein shall they
have fruits, and whatever they require _
’Peace!’ shall be
the word on the part of a merciful Lord.
But be ye separated
this day, O ye sinners!"182
*
* * * * * *
"The sincere
servants of God
A stated banquet
shall they have
Of fruits; and
honored shall they be
In the gardens of
delight,
Upon couches face to
face.
A cup shall be borne
round among them from a fountain,
Limpid, delicious to
those who drink;
It shall not oppress
the sense, nor shall they therewith be drunken,
And with them are
the large-eyed ones with modest refraining glances,
fair like the sheltered egg."183
§ 45. The Mohammedan Religion.
lslâm is not a new religion, nor
can we expect a new one after the appearance of that religion which is perfect
and intended for all nations and ages. It is a compound or mosaic of
preëxisting elements, a rude attempt to combine heathenism, Judaism and
Christianity, which Mohammed found in Arabia, but in a very imperfect form.184 It is professedly, a restoration of the faith of Abraham, the
common father of Isaac and of Ishmael. But it is not the genuine faith of
Abraham with its Messianic hopes and aspirations looking directly to the gospel
dispensation as its goal and fulfilment, but a bastard Judaism of Ishmael, and
the post-Christian and anti-Christian Judaism of the Talmud. Still less did
Mohammed know the pure religion of Jesus as laid down in the New Testament, but
only a perversion and caricature of it such as we find in the wretched
apocryphal and heretical Gospels. This ignorance of the Bible and the
corruptions of Eastern Christianity with which the Mohammedans came in contact,
furnish some excuse for their misbelief and stubborn prejudices. And yet even
the poor pseudo-Jewish and pseudo-Christian elements of the Koran were strong
enough to reform the old heathenism of Arabia and Africa and to lift it to a
much higher level. The great and unquestionable merit of Islâm is the breaking
up of idolatry and the diffusion of monotheism.
The creed of Islâm is simple,
and consists of six articles: God, predestination, the angels (good and bad),
the books, the prophets, the resurrection and judgment with eternal reward and
eternal punishment.
God.
Monotheism is the comer-stone of
the system. It is expressed in the ever-repeated sentence: "There is no
god but God (Allâh, i.e., the true, the only God), and Mohammed is his
prophet (or apostle)."185 Gibbon calls this a "compound of an eternal truth and a
necessary fiction." The first
clause certainly is a great and mighty truth borrowed from the Old Testament
(Deut. 6:4); and is the religious strength of the system. But the Mohammedan
(like the later Jewish, the Socinian, and the Unitarian) monotheism is
abstract, monotonous, divested of inner life and fulness, anti-trinitarian, and
so far anti-Christian. One of the last things which a Mohammedan will admit, is
the divinity of Christ. Many of the divine attributes are vividly apprehended,
emphasized and repeated in prayer. But Allah is a God of infinite power and
wisdom, not a God of redeeming love to all mankind; a despotic sovereign of
trembling subjects and slaves, not a loving Father of trustful children. He is
an object of reverence and fear rather than of love and gratitude. He is the
God of fate who has unalterably foreordained all things evil as well as good;
hence unconditional resignation to him (this is the meaning of Islâm) is true
wisdom and piety. He is not a hidden, unknowable being, but a God who has
revealed himself through chosen messengers, angelic and human. Adam, Noah,
Abraham Moses, and Jesus are his chief prophets.186 But Mohammed is the last and the greatest.
Christ.
The Christology of the Koran is a
curious mixture of facts and apocryphal fictions, of reverence for the man
Jesus and denial of his divine character. He is called "the Messiah Jesus
Son of Mary," or "the blessed Son of Mary."187 He was a servant and apostle of the one true God, and strengthened
by the Holy Spirit, i.e., the angel Gabriel (Dshebril), who afterwards
conveyed the divine revelations to Mohammed. But he is not the Son of God; for
as God has no wife, he can have no son.188 He is ever alone, and it is monstrous and blasphemous to associate
another being with Allah.
Some of the Mohammedan divines
exempt Jesus and even his mother from sin, and first proclaimed the dogma of
the immaculate conception of Mary, for which the apocryphal Gospels prepared
the way.189 By a
singular anachronism, the Koran confounds the Virgin Mary with Miriam,"
the sister of Aaron" (Harun), and Moses (Ex. xv. 20; Num. xxi. 1).
Possibly Mohammed may have meant another Aaron (since he calls Mary, "the
sister of Aaron but not "of Moses"); some of his commentators,
however, assume that the sister of Moses was miraculously preserved to give
birth to Jesus.190
According to the Koran Jesus was
conceived by the Virgin Mary at the appearance of Gabriel and born under a palm
tree beneath which a fountain opened. This story is of Ebionite origin.191 Jesus preached in the cradle and performed miracles in His infancy
(as in the apocryphal Gospels), and during His public ministry, or rather Allah
wrought miracles through Him. Mohammed disclaims the miraculous power, and
relied upon the stronger testimony of the truth of his doctrine. Jesus
proclaimed the pure doctrine of the unity of God and disclaimed divine honors.
The crucifixion of Jesus is
denied. He was delivered by a miracle from the death intended for Him, and
taken up by God into Paradise with His mother. The Jews slew one like Him, by
mistake. This absurd docetic idea is supposed to be the common belief of
Christians.192
Jesus predicted the coming of
Mohammed, when he said: "O children of Israel! of a truth I am God’s
apostle to you to confirm the law which was given before me, and to announce an
apostle that shall come after me whose name shall be Ahmed!"193 Thus the promise of the Holy Ghost, "the other
Paraclete," (John xiv. 16) was applied by Mohammed to himself by a
singular confusion of Paracletos (paravklhto") with Periclytos (perivkluto", heard all round, famous) or Ahmed (the glorified, the
illustrious), one of the prophet’s names.194
Owing to this partial
recognition of Christianity Mohammed was originally regarded not as the founder
of a new religion, but as one of the chief heretics.195 The same opinion is expressed by several modern writers, Catholic
and Protestant. Döllinger says: "Islâm must be considered at bottom a
Christian heresy, the bastard offspring of a Christian father and a Jewish
mother, and is indeed more closely allied to Christianity than Manichaeism,
which is reckoned a Christian sect."196 Stanley calls Islâm an "eccentric heretical form of Eastern
Christianity," and Ewald more correctly, "the last and most powerful
offshoot of Gnosticism."197
The
Ethics of IslÂm.
Resignation (Islâm) to the
omnipotent will of Allah is the chief virtue. It is the most powerful motive
both in action and suffering, and is carried to the excess of fatalism and
apathy.
The use of pork and wine is
strictly forbidden; prayer, fasting (especially during the whole month of Ramadhân),
and almsgiving are enjoined. Prayer carries man half-way to God, fasting brings
him to the door of God’s palace, alms secure admittance. The total abstinence
from strong drink by the whole people, even in countries where the vine grows
in abundance, reveals a remarkable power of self-control, which puts many
Christian nations to shame. Mohammedanism is a great temperance society. Herein
lies its greatest moral force.
Polygamy.
But on the other hand the
heathen vice of polygamy and concubinage is perpetuated and encouraged by the
example of the prophet. He restrained and regulated an existing practice, and
gave it the sanction of religion. Ordinary believers are restricted to four
wives (exclusive of slaves), and generally have only one or two. But Califs may
fill their harems to the extent of their wealth and lust. Concubinage with
female slaves is allowed to all without limitation. The violation of captive
women of the enemy is the legitimate reward of the conqueror. The laws of
divorce and prohibited degrees are mostly borrowed from the Jews, but divorce
is facilitated and practiced to an extent that utterly demoralizes married
life.
Polygamy and servile concubinage
destroy the dignity of woman, and the beauty and peace of home. In all
Mohammedan countries woman is ignorant and degraded; she is concealed from
public sight by a veil (a sign of degradation as well as protection); she is
not commanded to pray, and is rarely seen in the mosques; it is even an open
question whether she has a soul, but she is necessary even in paradise for the
gratification of man’s passion. A Moslem would feel insulted by an inquiry
after the health of his wife or wives. Polygamy affords no protection against
unnatural vices, which are said to prevail to a fearful extent among
Mohammedans, as they did among the ancient heathen.198
In nothing is the infinite
superiority of Christianity over Islâm so manifest as in the condition of woman
and family life. Woman owes everything to the religion of the gospel.
The sensual element pollutes
even the Mohammedan picture of heaven from which chastity is excluded. The
believers are promised the joys of a luxuriant paradise amid blooming gardens,
fresh fountains, and beautiful virgins. Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls
of blooming youth will be created for the enjoyment of the meanest believer; a
moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years; and his faculties
will be increased a hundred fold. Saints and martyrs will be admitted to the
spiritual joys of the divine vision. But infidels and those who refuse to fight
for their faith will be cast into hell.
The Koran distinguishes seven
heavens, and seven hells (for wicked or apostate Mohammedans, Christians, Jews,
Sabians, Magians, idolaters, hypocrites). Hell (Jahennem=Gehenna) is beneath
the lowest earth and seas of darkness; the bridge over it is finer than a hair
and sharper than the edge of a sword; the pious pass over it in a moment, the
wicked fall from it into the abyss.
Slavery.
Slavery is recognized and
sanctioned as a normal condition of, society, and no hint is given in the
Koran, nor any effort made by Mohammedan rulers for its final extinction. It is
the twin-sister of polygamy; every harem is a slave-pen or a slave-palace.
"The Koran, as a universal revelation, would have been a perpetual edict
of servitude." Mohammed, by
ameliorating the condition of slaves, and enjoining kind treatment upon the
masters, did not pave the way for its abolition, but rather riveted its
fetters. The barbarous slave-trade is still carried on in all its horrors by
Moslems among the negroes in Central Africa.
War.
War against unbelievers is
legalized by the Koran. The fighting men are to be slain, the women and
children reduced to slavery. Jews and Christians are dealt with more leniently
than idolaters; but they too must be thoroughly humbled and forced to pay
tribute.
§ 46. Mohammedan Worship.
"A simple,
unpartitioned room,
Surmounted by an
ample dome,
Or, in some Iands
that favored he,
With centre open to
the sky,
But roofed with
arched cloisters round,
That mark the
consecrated bound,
And shade the niche
to Mecca turned,
By which two massive
lights are burned;
With pulpit whence
the sacred word
Expounded on great
days is heard;
With fountains
fresh, where, ere they pray,
Men wash the soil of
earth away;
With shining
minaret, thin and high,
From whose fine
trellised balcony,
Announcement of the
hour of prayer
Is uttered to the
silent air:
Such is the
Mosque_the holy place,
Where faithful men
of every race
Meet at their ease
and face to face."
(From Mi
