Sell - Islam Its Rise and Progress

8/8/2019 Sell - Islam Its Rise and Progress

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PRINTED AT THE8. P. C. K . P R ES S, V EP RR Y, Jl,IADRAS.

1907.

ISLAM:blfs ~ t i s e ano ~ l " o g r e s 5

BY

EDWARD SELL, B.D., M.R.A.S.,FRLLOW OF THE U ! i l n ' E R " ~ I T Y OF MADRAS,

AUTIIOR OF' II T HE F AI TH O F ISLAM," "THE HIF;TORICAf.n F . V F . L O P ~ [ E N T O F T HE Q UR'AN, " "ESSA.YS ON I S L . t ~ f . "

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:SIJl.IPKIN, l \ fAnsHAJ.L . HAMILTON, KF.NT & CO. (LnUTF.D),

4, STATIONERS' HALL COURT, E.C.MADRAS:

S. P. C. K. DEPOSITORY; VEPRnY.1907.


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PREFACETo 'I'HE F m s ~ ' EDITION.

THIS book contains a simple and popularaccount of the rise and progress of a greatrel igion. Those who wishfor a more completestatement and who desire to know the originalauthorities on which this record is based arerefer red to the AuthOl"'s larger works-TheFaith of IsJam; Essays on Islam; The Historical Development of the Qur'lm.

:E. S.Jannary 1, 1906.

PREFACE~ l 'l'HE DEVOND EDITION.

r ~ r l l l i first cdition was soon exhausted. 'ri lebook ha s now been reproduced wi thout anymaterial cbange.

E. s.March i l l, 1907.


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I S LA M:ITS R.ISB AND PROGRBSS.

MUHAMMADAN historians cal l the period beforethe advent of Muhammad in Arabia. II the time ofignorance," and thus contrast it with the age ofenlightenment and culture which they allege thathe introduced; bnt nnder Christian and Jewishrulers parts of Arabia were as oivilized as theyhave ever since been. For two centur ies beforethe hirth of the Arabian Prophet, the Arahs hadbeen brought into contact with the Jews; andChristianity, even in an imperfect form, had beena civilizing influence. The art of writing waswell known and that of poetry Bonrished. Thepoems of the pre-Islamic period show pertectionof form and considerable skill in execution. I tis true that the spread of Arahic and its extendeduse as a language in which to write of history ,philosophy and other hranches of learning, is dueto Islam, hnt it is not correct to snppose that


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2 TH E ANCIENT ARABS. TH E R EL IG IO N O F T HE ARABS. 3there was no Arabian l iterature in the so-calledII time of ignorance."

Th e Ar..bs ..dored m..ny gods,' ..nd some adoptedSabeanism, or the worship of the hosts of beaven.To this was joined a superst it ions reverence forsacred trees , s tones and places. The bel ie f in theinfluence of Jinn, or Genii, was also common. TheKI1'hu. at Mecca was Lhe great pantheon, with iuolssufficient to furnish a different one for each day inthe ye..r. From the worship of th e he..venly hostscame the practice of circumambulating the shrineof the god, a cus tom now preserved in the Tawaf 2at Mecca. The superstitions reverence for naturalobjec ts lcd to the sep..rat ing off of cert..in pl..cesa.s sacrccl. This i s s ti ll seen in the reservation ofterritory around Mecca and hfawna, as haraooainor sacred localities. Tree and stone worship existto Lhili da,y. Hncrud trenK aro rOliortou to hy wor-shippers and the black stone in the Ka'ba was madeby Mnhamm..d himself t h e c e nt r..l s ite of the ceremonill.l connecteu with the obligatory act of pilgrima.ge to Mecca. rrhe belief in the Jinn is anessenti..l p..rt of the F..ith, an d is simply borrowedfrom pre-Islamic sources.

1Uu.'sudi tells us thatthey believed in a Supreme Creator,in the resurrection and in future rewards and punishments,but denied the mission of prophets. Mur6ju'dh-Dhahab,vol. iii, p. 257.i Atthe time ofthe Pilgrimage, the IUji, or pilgrim, goesround the Kslba seven times. This is st illcalled the Tawtif.

Yetabove ..11 tbe gods there w..s a Supreme One,Allah, the God. With m..ny the idols were lookedupon s imply a s intercessors with the one God.Th e doctrine of the Unity w..s not "n ide.. whichMuhamm..d brongbt to the Arabs ..s a troth bithertounknown and unrecognized. The Arabs, howeverwere not a pious people and the fear of Allah, andthe reVerence for their nUmerous deities degeneratedinto . . fo rm of fetish worsbip. Wh..t tbey lackedin devotion to the gods, Or in attention to the ritualof their worship, they more tb ..n made np for byregardfor ~ h clan. "The original religious societyw..s t h e k m dr e d gronp, ..nd ..II dnties of kinshipWere part of religion. And so when the clangod had f..llen into the b..ckgronnd and W"s littleremembered, the type of .. cl..n-religion w..s stillmaintained in the enduring sanctity of the kindred. b o n ~ . " I !n Mecca, the K ..'b.. Jrept the religionsmstlOct ..hve, but tb e Bedonin c..red as l it tle fb de't' orIS lies as he did for human rulers.Iu[u,nticiile was COmmon and polyandry andpoly

g..my were betb p....ctised. Tbe ties of tbe marriage bond were very loose. The legislation ofMuhammad put an end to the two former evils'but by regulating polygamy on the authorit f 'd''. y o aIVllle revelatIon it has given a permanence to itwbich otherwise it migbt not b..ve had. Polygamy1Robertson Smith, fl Religion of the Semites," p . 47.


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SOCIAL CUSTOMS. THE POLITICAL SHUATION. 5now remains as Doe of the greatest evi ls inI slam,l as wel l as ODe of its greatest barriers toenlightened progress. The sanctiongiven to u D l i m ~ited concubinage was even a worse mistake. Itis sometimes urged in its defence that the' socialevil' is l es s in Muslim lands than in o ther s; butu concubinage does not ma.terially differ fromprostitutioD, and whilst the latter is strictly forbidden by tbe dominant religion of Enrope, con-cnbinage is as directly permitted by Islam.'" Inthe "time of ignorance" the harem system didnot prevail. Its origin was the result of ODe of themarriage t roub les of tbe Prophet .3 So, whi ls tadmitting that Muhammad successfully abolishedsome evils and regulated another, it i s s ti ll open todoubt whether he really improved permanentlythe posit ion of women. There is no higher authori ty on this point than that of the late Dr. Robert-son Smith and he says: U It is very remarkablethat , in spite of :h1uhammad's humane ordinances,the place of women in the family and in societyhas steadily declined under his law. In ancientArabi a we find . . . . many proofs that womenmoved more freely and asserted themselves morestrongly than in th e modern East. . . .. The1" I look upon polygamy in t h ~ R r e s ~ ~ t day as a n , ~ u l t e r -conneotion." Syed Amir 'Ah, Splnt of IsMm, p. 365.iii Lane's ,. Selections from the Qur'an," p. xciii.3 S u r a t u ' I ~ A h z ' b , xxxiii, 33, 59.

effect of Muhammad's legislation in favour ofwomen was more than o u ~ w e i g h e d by the establ ishment of marriages of dominion as the onelegitimate type, and by the gradual loosening of theprinciple that married women could count on theirown kin to stand by them against their husbands." 1The pagan Arabs were a tolerant people andZoroastrians, Jews and Christians all settled peacefully amongst them. In South-Western ArabiaChristianity made great progress. Here and thereDr noble person arises worthy of his name and calling, but the mass of the people were ignorant and~ u p e r s t i t i o u s . Yet, notwithstandingmuch that wasweak, much that was evi l in the Church, therewere good influences at work which led to anumber of non-Christiau Arabs, known as theHanifs, wholly discarding idolatry and worshippingAllah only.

With tbe decay of the religious sentimentamongst the Arabs, and with the effect of Jewisha.nd Christian teaching bringing about changesin the thoughts and ideas of th e people, thegradual Joss of political power must also be takeninto account. Until the end of the sixthcentury,parts of Arabia were subject to the Abyssinians,the Persians and. the Bomans. In Yama.n a greatChristian Cathedral was erected, and the effort1 Robertson Smith, II Kinship and Uarriage in EarlyArabia," pp. 100-104.


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6 SEMITIC INFLUENCE. TRIBAL INFLUENCE. 7made to attract pilgrims away from Mecca to thisnew shrine at San:L led to a conf lict in which theAbys sinians were defea ted by the Arabs. Thepeople of Yaman in orde,r to throw off tbe yoke oftheir Christian rulers then turned to Persia for aidbut simply found themselves subject to new f o r e i g ~masters. The Roman Emperor, Herac lius, hadattained such power that in the year 610 A.D. hewas able to nominate a Christian convert, formerlya Ranif , as Governor of Mecca. On all 8oides, thesurrounding nations were encroaching on Arabiansoil. There was no s trong central Government,no popular exponent of the national will. I f thereligious state with its decay and corruption calledloudly for reform, no less did the disorganizedpolitical condition point to the need of a strongresolute ruler who could head a national movementaud unite the Arah people in faith and politics.Muhammad successfully did t hi s when he foundedthe politico-religious system of Ishim.

A great religion does not come into existence asanentirely new conception, but grows out of thepa st. Ishim claims to be th e outcome of a specialrevelation: in reality it established itself on theolder traditions and usages of the Arab people andon ideas borrowed from Jewish and Christiansources. Muhammad was a Semite of a religioustype, and Semitic influence is apparent in Ishim,.especially in its vigorous assertion of the unity of

God and in the absence, as regards the simplicityof i ts sborter creed, of a complicated systemof theology. Muhammad was led to look uponAllah-the God-as the absolute Ruler of natureand of men, and to see in entire submission to Hiswill the truest form of religion. Whether, if hehad not been brought into contact with Judaism,his monotheism would have been so strong is per-haps doubt fu l; but there is no douht that suchintercourse largely developed the Semitic bias ofhis character. This teaching of the absolute willof God, and of the consequent entire submissionof man, f itted in with some of the Bedouin con-ceptions. They, though lawless and undisciplined,believed in unlimited despotism and the sternfatalism of Islam was not repugnant to them.

The Arabs were aristocratic in their ideas. Thequestion of precedence was one which often causedmuch dispute. The t ribe mos t noble was the onemost famous for victories on the b a ~ t l e f i e l d , or inthe more peaceful oratorica.l contests, or the mostrenowued for generos ity and hospitality. Thegenealogies were most carefully kept. The unityof the tribe was strong. Muhammad himself owedmuch to the personal protection of his uncle AbuTalib, who, though not at a ll p leased with theact ions of h is nephew, s ti ll s tood manfu lly by himon the grouud of kinship and would allow no oneto injure him.


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8 THE HANIFS. THE RELIGION OF ABRAHAM, 9Noldeke says: - " The Semite is deficient in the

power of taking a general view, in the gift of com-prehensive intel ligence of large and, at the sametime, of logical thought, and, therefore, speakinggenerally, he has only in a few cases contributedany thing of importance to science." 1 This is trueboth of Islam and of its founder. He certainlyfailed to take a comprehensive view, for he laiddown as l aw for all t ime and all people regulationssuited only for a temporary per iod amongst Arahtribes. I t is true that in calling himself the "sealof the prophets," he seems to have looked back onthe pas t and to have connected the present withit, and it is trne that he formed Islam ont ofe lements which existed before i t and around it ;hut still Islam W3S, after all, a religion for theArabs. The perfection of it is the fixed and finalnature o f its law, which being perfect in its in-ception can admit of no change without an implieddepreciation of its divine origin. The outlook ofMuhammad was narrow and so Islam has neyarreally progressed from its Semitic basis, and if ithas all the good, i t a lso has all the limitations tobe ascribed to such a sonrce.Muhammad was not the first Arab to protest

against idolatry and toprofess a helief in the Unityof God. Shortly before he began hIs mission, theHanUs are said to have found tbe religious conso1Noldeke, II Sketches from Eastern History." p. 16.

lation they needed in the Millah, or religion ofAbraham. They said to each other: II You know,hy God, that your nation h at h not t he tr ne faith,and that they have corrupted the rel igion of theirfather Abraham: how shaH we compass a stonewhich neither hears nor sees, nor helps nor hurts?Seek ye another fai th for yourselves, for the oneyou have is useless." Several of them becameChristians) others remained Unitarians. Muham-mad in his lItter years professed that his missionwas to restore to the Arabs tht:' religion of their.ancestor Abraham, and it is sometimes said thatthis fac t shows that he was influenced hy theteaching of the Hanif s. No doubt t he ir exampleled him on to a bold protest against idolatry and avigorous assertion of the Unity; but how far hegot from them the idea of restoring the religion ofAhraham is very doubt fnl, for the verses in theQur'an which speak of it are not found in the early}.{eccan Sums, or chapters of the Qur'an. I t wasnot until he was in Madina, where at first hewished to win over the Jews) that this connectionof Islam with Abraham became prominent in histeaching. At Mecca) Muhammad showed greatignorance of the family and life of Ahraham. I fwe follow up historically the references in tbeQur'a.n) i t seems clear that this idea was an after-development and not the inspiring cause of theorigin of Islam.


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10 MUHAMAIAD. C O M M E N C E ~ l E N T OF REVELATION. 11At the. beginning of the sixth centnry the state

of Arabian Society was on the whole irreligious,and its politicaJ disintegration was imminent. Areligious reformer who would also be a patrioticleader was needed. Mnhammad was hoth. HeSaw that only On a new religious basis could hiscountry become united and strong. Judaism,whilst it could give him the essence of Semiticthought and feeling, was a foreign religion and sodid not appeal to the national aspirations of theArab people. Whatever happened it was necessarythat Mecca shonld he the religious and the nationalcentre of the new a.ge. Such, then, was the stateof society, when Muhamma.d, imbued with thehigher teaching of the Hanifs and acquainted moror loss with J owish thought, folt himsolf c"l1od tohis prophetic mission.Mnhammad was horn in the year 570 A.D. andwhen six years old was left an orphan. He he-longed to the Quraish tribe and for two years livedunder the guardianship of his grandfather, AbuMntta lib, after which his nncle AbU T"l ib tookcharge of him. When a lad he went with hisuncle to Syria. He had seen Jews at Mecca andnow his knowledge of them was increased. It issaid in the Traditions that at the annnal fair ofOcatz he hea rd the Chr is ti an Bishop of Najranpreach . So the years pas sed on and t he lad grewup, enga.ged in tend ing the sheep and goats on

the hills around his home. When five snd twentyyears of age, Khadija, a rich Meccan widow, agreat admirer of the Hanifs, put him in cha rgeo fa mercantile expedition to Syria, a t ask he fnlfilledto her great satisfaction. I t was in th is journeythat he probably gained his s light knowledge ofChristianity and was misled hy the corrnpt formof it which he saw. His marriage with Kbadijasoon followed and placed him in a position ofindependence and affluenceJ whilst his connectionwith the Qnraish gave him the protection whicha lesser man would not have found. Thus, it isincorrect to regard Muhammad as a poor man, amere camel driver, forcing hi s way upward unaided against all opposition. His family Wll,S anaristocrat.ic one nnd possessed great social andpolitical influence in the religious and commercialcapital of the nation. Withont the support whichthis posit ion afforded him, i t is donhtfnl whetherhe could have lived down the s ~ r o n g oppositionhe at first met with. Islam owes much to thesocial position of Muhammad.As the years passed hy in his quiet home life, hebecame more and more thoughtful. The idolatry

aronnd him and the gradual loss of political powerdepressed him. He songht 'elief by spendingtime in meclitation in a cave a t the foot of MountHim, a hill sitn"ted about two miles from Mecca.The people of Mecca generally failed to nnderstand


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12 MODE OF REVELATION. OPPOSITION AT MECCA. 13his religious positiou, but h is unc le AM Tltlibtolerated him, while his wife Khadija, as wel las Zaid and 'Ali, firmly believed in him. Some oftbe Hanif s also agreed with his views and sympathized with his protest aga inst ido la try. S ti ll ,the impulse of a divine revelation was neededand so Muslims believe tbat on the twenty-seventhnight of the month of Ramadan, the Laylatu'l-Qadr,the night of power, the night when angels comedown to earth, the night wbich hriugs peace andblessing, the Qur'un descended to the lowest-of the seven heavens , from whence, as occas ionrequired, Gabriel, in the years which followed,brought revelations to the Prophet. On tbis night,then, when Muhammad was medita.ting in the-cave of HirtL he twice heard the caUli Recite thouin the name of thy Lord, who created man from


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THE QUR'AN A MIRACLE. PARADISE. 15AbU Lahab it is said that his weal th should perishaud that he should he burnt i u t be fiery flame. Asthe opposition grew in strength, s o did the denunciations of the P rophe t. The descriptions of thetorments in hel l become more and more realistic,and all th is i s announc ed a s th e decree of God,not of maD.Bu t denuncia.tion was not argument and so theMeccans called for the Prophet's credentials: tbey

askedformiracles to confirm his message. l\Iuham.mad c,>Uld no t meet the demand; but to show thatthe request was mere idle curiosity on their part ,the revelation came stating that God would notsend angels down without due cause; 1 that, if thepeople deliherately rejected the warning of thewarner, evidence such a s t hey called for, would beof no avail, fOf, in the case of former prophets, thepower of working miracles had produced no goodresult. "Nothing bindered Us from sending theewith miracles, except that the people of old treatedthem as lies:" The Meccans did not accept tbisexcuse, bu t pressed their point and, receiving DOsatisfaction, spoke of the revelations b rought byGabriel as H fBobles of the ancients," as the productof a vivid imagina tion , or as the result of inter.course with s trangers in Mecca. They wen t onto say, I'The Qur 'an i s a mere fra.ud of h is own1 Sl1.ratu'I-Hijr, xv. 8. i Buratu Bani Isra'fl, xvii. 61.

devising and others have helped him with it." 1The reply of the Prophet was that the Qnr'an itselfwas a miracle, "a. glorious Qur'iLn, wri tt en on t hesecret tablet ;" 2 the admonition I< written on reveredpages, exalted, purified." J At the same t ime hea lso t ri ed to conciliate the people generally byreferring to God's protecting care over them whenhe preserved Mecca from the attack of the Abyssinians; by speaking of the sacred !{a'ba in termsof great respect and of i ts vi cini ty a s inviol ablesoil." He portrays for those who believed in himthe joys of parad ise : - " For the godfear ing i s ablissful abode, enclosed gardens and vineyards,and damsels with swelling breasts, their peers inage, and a full cup."; "On couches rangedin rows shall they recline and to the damselswit h l arge eyes will we wed them." 6 There aremany s imilar descr ip tions. Are they allegoricalor l iteral? Muslims in India , men of high moraltone, influenced by Christian thonght and Westerncul tu re , look upon a ll these sensuous descriptionsof Paradise as allegorical. "The Houris are creatures of Zoroastria.n origin, so is paradise, whilsthell in t he severity of its punishment is Talmudic.The descriptions a.re realistic, in some places1 Suratu'l-Furq!.n,xxv, 5.i Sllratu'l-Bunij, lxxxv, 21. 3 Suratu'l-'Abasa., Ixxx,13.4 Suratu'l-Quraish, cvi, 3-4 .; Suratu't-Tin, xcv, 1 -3 ;Sl1.ratu't-Tur, Iii, 1 - 4 . 5 Suratu'n-NaM', lxxviii, 31.6 Suratu't-Tllr Iii, 20.


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16 FLIGHT TO ABYSSINIA. COMPROMISE WITH IDOLATRY. 17almost sensuous; but to say that they are s e n s u a l ~or that Muhammad Or any of his followers, eventhe ul tra- li terali st s, accepted them as such is a-calumny:' 1 Whilst it i s good to see how theinf luences of wider cu lture and the knowledge ofa truer, and indeed Christian, idea of inspirrttionraises the moral tone of many Indian Musl ims,it i s very doubt ful whether Muhammad ever in tended the words to be taken as mere al legor icalstatements. He certainly would ll6ver have admitted, as Byed AmiI' IAli does, that he borrowedthe ideas from other creeds. The very strengthof his position was that they were part of theeterna.l Qur'an. He was not a mystic. His mindwas intensely practical and in God's stern government of men he saw no difficulties and no mystery.Anyhow, it is safe to say that, ex cept amongs t asmall body of .rat ional ist ic Mus lims, the wholeMuhammadan world looks upon these descriptionsof t he joys of paradise and of the pains of hel l asvery real anu not allegorical . Sti ll , the prospecto f future p leasures did not win the Meccans and ,during the remaining years of his ministry inMecca, the Prophet continued his denunciations.The chapters in which they occur are some of thefinest in the book. The suspicion, the agitation,the vindictiveness of the author are in them setforth in strong, passionate and eloquent terms.

1 Byed Amir 'Al i, . . Spiri to f I slam," p. 304.

Unable to protect his followers from the increasi ng hos ti li ty of the Meccans, Muhammad sentthem away to Abyssinia where several becameChristians. In a few months, however , the emi grants returned, for the prospect of peace inMecca h ad now hecome hopeful. The leadingmemhers of the Quraish a p p r o ~ c h e d M u h ~ m m a dand said that they fully recognized his position asa man of rank amongst them, that they regrettedhe had caused divisions in the community hithertoa united one, and that they were sorry that hehad reviled their ancient cust.oms and blasphemedtheir gods. Then, wi th the tolerance common tothem, tbey suggested that, if he would acknowledgethe local deities, they, on their part, would givehim riches and honour, acknowledge Allah asthe supreme god and would worship him wi ththe other gods. It was a great tempta. tion, forMuhammad h ~ then only ahout fifty followersof whom some were now exiles. He had failedto inlluence the leaders of society, or to affectthe masses of the people. This compromise wouldhring peace and perhaps prepare the way for thefuller acceptance of his teaching; so, after a strongassertion o f bi s own position and o f the fact thatthe Qur'an was rea lly from heaven, l he recitedthe words : - " Do you see Al Lat and Al 'U zzaand Manat the third idol besides:" Then the

1 S 6 . r a . t u ' n ~ N a j m , liii. 15. s S 6 . r a . t u ' n ~ N a j m , liii. 1920.2


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18 OPPOSITION OF THE QURAISH. D E ~ ' E N C E OF THE QUR'AN. 1 Quraish heard with astonishment and satisfactionthe continuation of the revelation :_fl These arethe exalted females, and verily their intercessionis to be hoped for." The whole disconrse con:eluded with the words II Prostrate yourselves thento God and worship." They did so and the scenewas a remarkable one. I t seemed as if all conflictwas at an end, for, in admitting the position ofthe local deities as intercessors, Muhammad haddone all that the Qnra ish had requested h im todo. II Now," said they, H as thou hast concededa posi tion unto them, we are content to followthee." To Muhammad's honour it must be saidthat he soon saw the mistake he had made, anda revelation came altering the verse about theexalted females to .. What? shall ye have maleprogeny and God females?" the words a s theynow stand in the Qur'an. It was also said in alater revelation that Sa tan had deceived otherprophets 1 and the conclusion drawn was that hehad been allowed thus to tempt Muhammad. TheQuraish were very angry. They would not acceptt hi s t heory of satani c influence, and held thatsuch contradictions, as those to which they hadl istened, entirely destroyed Muhammad's claimto be a bearer of divine messages. I f the Qur'anwere really God's Word, surely this shift ing aboutand cancel ling of verses were not divine, so they

1 Suratu'l.Hajj, xxii. 15.

la.ughed him to scorn and went on with theiridol worship. This latter charge was a difficultone to meet and so another revelation came,saying: U When We cha.nge ODe verse for anotherand God knowe th best what He revealeth theysay: ' Thou ar t only a fa.brica.tor. ", 1 On thisverse the very convenient doctrine of abroga.tionis founded, by the application of which Muhammadwas a fte rwards able t o just ify to h imself and tohis followers the changes he oft en found i t wiseto ma.ke in his relation to Jews and to Christians.

Muhammad himself was in no personal danger,for his uncle Abu Talih, though hy no meanspleasedwith his nephew's conduct, was loyal to himand le t i t bevery clearly known that injury to himwould lead to the death of the moles ter, Sti ll , theoutlook was very da.rk and the Muslims were disheartened. The revelationsof this period show howMuhammad with very great ski ll used two l ines ofa rgument . He showed that former prophets hadbeen trea.ted in a. similar way and that, therefore,this opposit ion was in reality a proof of his divinemission: 2 the other argument::was a still strongerassert ion of his divine call and of the t ru th of therevelation sent. Statements are now constantly

1 Surntu'nNahl, xvi. 103.51 Sumtu'l.Hijr, xv. 10-13; :Suratu Sad, xxxviii. 11 ;'Sl\mtu'l.Qamar, liv. 3; Sliratu'l-Anbiya', xxi. 43 i'8liratu'l-lflimin,xl. 83--5.


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20 JOURNEY TO TAY1F. PLEDGE OF 'AQABA. 21made to prove that the Qur' an is not the work of apoet, not H ta le s of the ancients:" but a miss ionfrom the Lord of the worlds, a revelation revealed,the honourable Qur'an, the Luminous Book sentdown from heaven.! This constant iteration of theclaims of the Qur'an to be a divine book seems toshow that t he mind of the Prophet was not a t ease,and tha t th is continued and st rong assertion ofhis position, as the medium through whom Godrevealed His will, was made not onl y to silenceh is adversaries but also to confirm the faith o fhis disciples.. The Quraish now took another course . Insteadof opposing Mnhammad, they simply avoided allsocial intercourse with him and bis family. At thistime AM Tahh, his powerful protector, and Khadijah, his loving wife and wise counsel lor, died.Mecca was DO longer a home and so , with Zaid asa companion, he went to Tayif, a city some seventymiles away, to SE whether he could establish hismission there. He ~ x p l a i n e d his views to the chiefmen but without success . After a sojourn of tendays he was s to ned and t he n expelled from th ecity. "There is something lofty and heroic in thisjourney of Muhammad to Tayif : a sol itary man,despised and rejected hy his own people, goingforth boldly in the name of God,-Iike Jonah to1 St'iratu't-Tur. Iii. 33-4; St'iratu'l-Haqqah, lxix. 36-47;Suratu'l-WAqi'a.h,lvi. 74-8 ; Sur9.tu'n-Najm, liii. 4; Sdratu'd

D ~ ~ h r , lxxvi. 28; Sllratu'n Nabl, xvi. 104.

Nineveh-and summoning an idolatrous city torepentance and to the support of his mission. I tsheds a s tr ong l ig ht on t he i nt en sit y of his ownbelief in the divine oligiu of his calling."1 On hisreturn to Mecca, he found the opposition as strongas ever. Notwithstanding his family connections.his relat ionsbip to the guardians of the Ka'ba, hisperseverance, fearlessness, eloquence and the truthwhich some of his teaching contained, his missionat Mecca was a failure. The idea of a cha.nge ofres idence seems now to have been forming in hismind and in a Bilra of this period we find thewords :-" Retire from the idolaters. I f God hadso desired, they had no t followed idolatry, and wehave not made thee a keeper over them." 2 Thecontemplated f light being thus sanct ioned hy arevelation, Muhammad was prepared to enter intocommunication with men from Madina. from whichplace a few pilgrims had, in th e f ir st p le dg e of'Aqaba, taken an oath of allegiance to him. A year..fter a larger body, in the second pledge of 'Aqaba,vowed to defend the Prophet and his cause hyforce of arms. Muhammad said to them :_U Yourhlood is my blood; what yon shed, I also shed:you belong to me and I b elong to you; I fightwhomsoever you fight and I make peace withwhomsoever you make peace." The Prophet was

1 Muir, .. Life of Muha.mma.d," vol. ii, p. 207.2 Sthatu'l-An'am, vi. lQ6..7.


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22 THE HIJRA. TH E JEWS. 23now leaving the method of preaching and persuas ion which had proved a. failure, and was contemplating t he u se of the more material methods.The politico-religious development of Islam had advanced a. sta.ge, and the prospec t of uniting th eArah people, as a pol it ical whole , seemed to hemore possible now. Muhammad could not, h o w ~ever , leave Mecca without a. warning and a rebuke.Confident in the f inal success of b is mission andof some future victory over the Meccn.ns, he brought.forth a revelation, stating that the Muslims wouldyet inherit t he l and and that tyrants shonld hl>destroyed. I

The t ime was most favourable for a residence inMadina. The people tired of feuds were anxious tof ind a fuler . The la.rge Jewish colony, prosperousand inlluential, had made the people familiar withsnchtruths as the Unity of God, revelation thronghprophets and a future life. In th e despondent moodin which the Prophet was, this call to Madina, acity with which his family had had some connectionand where bis fathel was buried, was heartily welcomed. Later on be had to meet inMadina. a difficul ty he h ad not been confrouted with in Mecca.The Jews soon found out, as th e Meccans couldDot the unhistorical Dature of his statements abouttheir patriarchs and prophets. Still, Madina wasa necessity to Islam. In Mecca Muhammad would

1 Sfiratu Ibrnhim, xiv. 16-18.

have passed away as an enthusiast, followed by afew, rejected by many; but Madina "became thereal birth.place of Islam, th e cradle of i ts polit icalpower and the c en tr e o f its conquests throughou t Arabia."

Ahont one hnndred and f if ty persons accompanied the Prophet to Madina iu th e year 622 A.D.The Muslim community then formed t he re can sisted of the Mubttjinlu, or immigrants from ~ i e c c aand the Madiua converts, jnstly called the Ansaror helpers. They entered into a mutual compactto a id one another and in all matters to abide bythe decisions of th e P rophet. The J ews were tohetreated with tolerance. I t was then that th e versecame, .. Let there be no compuls ion in religion." 1This is a verse often wrongly quoted, as if it expressed the general principle of the relat ion ofIslam to other creeds, in st ea d o f h av in g only alocal reference to Jews a t Madina whom it wasthen necessary to conciliate. In Mecca Muhammad had claimed a common source for Ishtm,Christianity and Judaism - the sacred books sentI Sumtu'I-Baqarah, ii . 257. I t does no t a.pply t o t he paganArabs, as it i ahrogated by th e verse of the sword, "Ki l l

t h ~ 1 l 1 wheresoever )'e shall find them" (ii. ]87), nnd, asregards Jews an d C ~ r i s t i a n s , it applies o n l y ~ if they. becomeDhimmis, or subjects of a ],IushmPower WIth restrIctedprivilp.ges. In no sense does it give. religious l i b e r ~ yunder l \lu..lim rule, or freedom to a Muslim to cha.nge hiSrellaion, the legal pcnalt)' for which is d eath. The compulsion'"is absolute in such cases.


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24 THE JEWS. THE n;ws. 25down from heaven-for be seems to have thoughtt ha t t he Jew s in Madina would readily acknow-ledge him. He ~ g ~ i n strictly enjoined kindnesst o w ~ r d s them: "Dispu te not wit h the people ofthe Book, except in kindly manner:'l The Jewsworshipped looking toward J e m s ~ l e m and kepttheir f ~ s t of the atonement on the teuth day of themonth. The Muslims made .Terusalem their Qibla,or the place t o w ~ r d which prayer should he said, andohserved thesame fast day. Some Jews were wonover and provedtheir usefulness by the informationthey gave; hut as a hody they held aloof. Now,there could be hut Oue power in Madina and, if theJews would not accept the leadership of Muham-mad, he could only treat them as enemies. Hisfirst cha.rge against them was that of COlTuptingtheir Scriptures; not the alleration of the text, butthe suppressing,or concen.ling of portions which hethought established his claims. The second Surais full of revelations against them and a. stern warning is given them in the words :_ U Those who oon.ceal aught that we have sent down, . . . . after whatwe have so clearly shown to men in the Book, Godshall curse them." 2 The Jews remaining thus obstinate, there was nothing to be ga ined ')y adopting

1 Suratu'l-'Ankab&t, xxix. 45. This yerse bas causedtrouble to th e commentators, some of whom say that itrefers only to those Jews who are Dhimmis.2 Snratu'l-Baqarah, ii . 154. The" Book" i s the Pentllteuch.

their customs. I t was betler to l\ppeal 10 then a t i o n ~ l sentiment of the Arabs and to author isethe substitution of :f\.fecca for Jerusalem as theQihla, aud the change of the fast to t he month ofRamada.n, the sacred mon tb i n which tbe Qur'a.nwas revealed. The breach between the .rews andMuhammadhad to come. They were conservativeupholders of their revealed Law and of the customsbased on its interpreta.tions. He des ired to conserve the old Arab customs, and so h enow declaredthai it was God's will that the pilgrimage to Meccashould be retained. l The second Stira deserves-careful study. I t shows in a. remarkable way howMuhammad in the early days at Madina began tochange his policy. I t i s an excel lent example ofIhc value to him or the gradnal revelation of theQur'an, enabling him to claim divine authority forthe change of plans, adapted to the varying socialand political l;ituations in which he found himselfp laced. Persecution now commenced . The BaniQainuqa.a. were expell ed from the c ity and the irproperty was confiscaled. The chief Rabbi ofthe Bani Nadhar, who, from being a friend toMuhammad, hecame a.n opponent, after and proba.bly in consequence of the change of the Qibla,was assassincl,ted. The rest of the tribe were forcibly expelled and their goods were divided amongstthe Muhajirtin, for which act of spoliation

1 Suratu'l-Baql\rah, it 192.


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26 THE J ~ } W S . BATTLE OF BADR. 27a. revelation ca.me.l The Jews are fiercely de.oouoced aod told that all who dishelieve io iothe sigosGod has g iven shall b..oil in the fi..eof hell, tha t as fast a.s one skin perishes, anothershall be provided, so that their tormeot shall beceaseless. 2 The Bani Quraitza. were natural lysullen aod discontented aod possibly were apolitical danger, but they offered to emigrate andleave Muhammad alone, if only their li ves werespared. I t was or 00 avai l. Muhammad hadnow determined to make an example in order tomark his displea sure wi th t hose who would notsuhmit to his will. Nearly eight hundred menwere slain in the market p lace at 1\'1adina underthe personal direction and in the presence vfMuhammad. SOlDe females were aiven to theMuslims and the rest were sold as0 slaves. Theprophet claimed one-fif th share of the booty. Abeautiful Jewess, widow of ooe of the slaughteredmen, Was taken into hi s harem. She refusedeither to abandon her religion or to marry theProphet, so she had to remain as Do sl ave and tobecome his concubine. Now that fighting hadcommenced and captives were made, a revelationcame sancUoning the relat ionship Muhammadthus established with RaiMna, the J ewess. "0Prophet, we allow thee thy wives whom thou

1Suratu'l-Hashr, l ix. 8. I Suratu'n-Nisti-', iv. 59.

hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy righthand possesseth out of the booty wbich God hathgranted thee." 1

I t may be said that Muhammad's severe treatment of the Jews was no worse than the perse cu ti on of t hem by tbe Emperor Heraelius in theyear 630; hut there is this difference. Noonejust if ies the cruel ty of the Roman Emperor, norare h is actions taken as precedents which mus the followed by al l good Chr is tians. On the othe..hand, the actions of Muhammad were, as Muslimsmust believe, done under supernatural guidanceand t hey form a definite rule or faith-the sunna,to which all Muhammadans must conform. Hisactions, therefore, cannot be justified by comparison with the act ions of other men. Theybelong to Do different category; they are, accordingto Muslim theology, the result of a divine impulsewithin him, the deeds of a s inless and, therefore ,perfect man. They rorm the highest ideal andthe mos t perfect conception of life which Islamcan present . All apologies for Muhammad basedon the fact that other lea.ders, religious or secular,1 Suratu'l-Ahzab, xxxiii. 49. Syed Amir 'Ali repud iat es

the whole story a.s a fabrication; but it is too well a.ttestedby ~ I u f l 1 i m authorities to be set uside. One of the m o s ~careful of commentators, Husain, refers this passage to theslave women, tl Sa.fia. and &iht\nu and tho se li ke them."The f ac t tha t a :Muslim of h igh charact er is anxious toremove this reproach from the l i fe of the Prophet shows howgrave a fault it was.


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28 DANGER TO ~ I E C C A N TRADE.have done s imilar deeds are bes ide the quest ionn.ltogcthcr.

A short while before these events took place th eMuslims came into conta.et with the Meccans atthe hat ti e of Badr . The position of the Prophetat Madina was then cr iti cal . The Jews repudiatedhim: the pagan Arabs opposed him and a numberof the new converts were very lukewarm. The1\fuslims were now very poor and suffered muchdistl'css.1 Some new SOurce of revenue had to befound. I f in adopting a system of plunderMuham.mad did not rise above Arab notions on the subject,he did not fall below them. Apparently to his fol.lowers there was nothing inconsistent in the unionor a. prophet and a robber-chief in onc and thesameperson.

A year haa passed by since his entry into the city.Some signal ilispby DC power was needed to encourage the desponding and to overawe the discontented. The des ire for gain had been excited andthe martia,} spirit stirI'cu up by a. few minor expeditions. The Muslims were now prepared for Dogreater effort, and the immediate cause of the battleof Baclr was tbeir desire to captnre a rich cara.vanof merchandise which the Meccn-ns were bring.iug from Syria. AM Sufyau, the leader of thecaravan, heard. of the danger which awaited it and1 See Margoliouth's "MohAmmed," pp. 234 .8 (or theoriginal authorities in support of this statement.

DANGER TO MECCAN TRADE. 29sent a. messenRcr to Mecca to seek for aid. Abodyof men star ted forth to defend the caravan, butsoon a second messenger came to say that helpwas not then needed. A good many returned toMecca., but others , overborne by the vehementwords of AbU Jabl, continued tbeir march. TheMuslims expected to find the caravan in a defenceless position at Badr, but , a fter they had startedout from Madina, Muhammad heard of the ap.p roach of a rel ieving force. He consulted tbeCompanions as to the course to be now pursued,and, on their recommendation, determined to attempt the capture of the caravan. After a severeconflict, in which many individual acts of braverywere done, the Muslims gained a complete victory.Many revelations came to testify that the victorywas due to supernatural aid, especially in the encouragement given to Muhammad, by the servicerendered by angelic hosts 1 and the confused sightof the infidels. 2 The importance of this victorywas very great. I t came at a critical period of theProphet's career. Defeat would have ruined himbut success a.ttained, as he declared, and a s h i ~followers believed, by the direct interposition ofGod, materially strengthened his position. Thevictory can be easily accounted for. The Muslimsshowed superior tactics and early in the contest.1 SuratU'l-AnUl, viii. 9-11. t Suratu Al-i.Imran, iii. 11.


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30 GROWING POWER OF ~ I U H A M ~ I A D . GROWING POWER OF MUHAMMAD. 31secured possession 01 the wells, the key 01 theposition. They came lully in tending to fight.They were united in spirit, devoted to their leadera.nd anxious for booty. The victory made a greatimpression on the Bedouin tribes. For the Prophe t they cn.red little, hut a. successful wanior,claimed their attention and respect. 'Modern apologists for Muhammad declare tha t all bi s warswere defensive, and this commercial venture of theMecca-us has been called a raiding expedition to thevicinity 01 Madina "to destroy the Islamites andto protect One of their (Meccan) caravans bringing munitions of war." As a matter of fact, theMecc3.ns had no intention of attacking Madina,hut wished to get away Irom its neighhourhood asquickly as possible, and t he reliel party sent outwas purely a defensive one. It i s said that II theQuraish would natural ly have taken very strongand hostile measures to persecute the fugitives:'This may be t;O, but in thi s case i t was cl early theMuslims who wanted to rob n. number of Meccanmerchants peacelully pursuing their way.The merchants in Mecca werenow in a d i f f i c u l t y ~'The ordinary trade route to Syria proved a danger.-ous one. Theydetermined to send the next caravan,a rich one, by the eastern route; but Muhammadhearing of it, sent a. force in pursuit and capturedall the goods. Whether, il lelt a.!one, the Meccanswould have been peacelul neighbours is perhaps

open to question; but it is quite evident thatMubammad and the Muslims either did not wantpeace, or that the Arab love of looting overcametheir prudence, lor it is incredible tbat tbey shouldhave supposed that tbe Meccans would tamely suh-mit to this constant plundering of their caravans.The M e c c a n ~ , enraged at the loss of their valuablestock of merchandise , vowed vengeance . Therecould now be no compromise. IsltLm mnst standor la ll by the sword, wbich Muhammad was thefirst to draw. The very existence of the people ofMecca as a. commercial community was in danger . This considera tion led to t h despatch bytbem 01 a strong lorce, wbicb in the battle 01Uhud infl ic ted a severe defeat on the Muslims.This was a. serious blow to the cause of Islam andit required great skill on tbe part 01 Muhammadand the prodnction of many revelations to avert avery great danger.! Tbe victory of Badr had beenextolled as a signal mark 01 God's favour. Thenatural conclusion would be that this defeat wasa sign 01 His disapproval. Tbis accounts lor theProphet's anxiety about tbe effect 01 it on tbe mindof the Muslims and the many references i n thetbird Stira to this subject.

In the fifth year of the Hijra, or flight 01 Muham-mad to Madina, the Meccans laid siege to that city1 Suratu Ali-i-'Imni-D, iii. 50, 134,1404 159-00 163-5 166200. ' I , ,


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32 THE LESSER PILGRIMAGE. THE LESSER PILGRIMAGK 33but failed t o t ak e it. Mubammad's pos it ion a s aohieftain was now becoming very s trong, and heassumed a. position of superiori ty, 'j Address nottbe Apostle as ye ad dress one anotber." 1 Still,Mecca held proudly aloof from the foremost man inArabia. UntH his power Was supreme there, thebea rt and centre of Arab life, Mnbammad couldnot expe ct to unite the t ribes into a. nation ofwhich he should be the supreme political andspiritual bead.The first time Muhammad and a number of

Mus lims t ri ed t o make the'lesser pilgrimage toMecca, they were not allowed to enter the city;but a compact was ma.de by which war wa.s suspanded for ten years, freedom to join or to leaveMuhammad WilS given, find. in the following year,th e Muslims were to he allowed to stay in Meccafor three days. This led to the revelation in theforty-eighth 8tirn., beginning with the words,II Verily, We have won for thee an undoubtedvictory," and so it was , for t he Meccans in treati ng h im as a.n equal acknowledged for the firsttime his polit ical status. He was now able tosay, " I t is He who hath sent Hi s apost le withthe guidance and the !'eligion of truth that Hemay exalt it above every religion." 2 II Whosocraves o ther t han Islam for h is rel ig ion, i t s ha ll

1 Suratu'o.Nltr, xxiv. GS. 2Suratu'l.Fa.th, xlviii. 28.

surely not be accepted f rom bim, and in the nextworld h e s ba n be among tbe lost." I No longerwas Is lam to be a religion co-ordinate with Judaismand Cbristianity. It was exalted above tbem botband in it alone was salvation to be found.

Tbe following year tbe lesser p ilgr image wasmade. The usual c er emon ie s wer e al l ca re fu ll yobserved. The honour thus done to t he c it y andthe Ka'ba. lead several influential Meccans to joinMuhammad.

Before tbe pilgrimage was actually made, feelingthat his supremacy in Arabia was certain to come,h e se nt embassies 'to various Christian rulers, ofwhom Heraclius, the Roman Emperor , was thechief, tc the king of Persia and tc otbers callingupon them t,o embrace Islam and submit to hisrule.' Tbe Governor of Alexandria rep lied bysending two beaut iful s lave girls; one of whom,Mary the Cop t, became an important addition toth e harem of the Prophet. Hern.clius sent troopsto tbe frontier. At Muta in 629 t be Romansgained a vic tory . In G30 Muhammad raised aforce to attack tbem at Tabuk, but no cooflictensued. The Muslims then said, "The wars forreligion are now ended," but Muhammad replied : _" There sball not cease from tbe midst of my people

1 Suratu AI-i.'Imrao, iii. 7!J .s The f o l l o w i ~ p a s s a g ~ s probably refer to these matters.Suratu1.Araf, lI . 157; Suratu A.l-i-'Imrt\n, i i i . 57-60.3


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CAPTURE OF MECCA. GROWING POWER. 35a party engaged in war s for the Tru th , t il l ant i-christ appear."

Muhammad now began to consider the advisa-bility of capturing Mecca. The reluctance of someof his followers was met by a revelation: -" What,will ye not fight against those (Meccans) who havehroken the ir oaths a nd aimed to expel yourApostle and attacked you first.'" An o c c a ~ i o nof str ife soon offcred itself and was eagerly se,zedupon as an excuse for breaking the ten yearstruce' already agreed upon. A Bedouin tribe no:vattached to Muhammad was attacked hy onc ,nalliance with the Meceans. Many of the Meccanshy this tilDe were weary of the s t r i ~ e and sawthat prolonged resistance was of no a.Vall. Muhammad marched to Mecca with an army ten thousandstrong and the city capitulated. Muhammad wentto the Ka'ha, saluted the black s tone and thenordered the idols to be removed. Many Meecansnow joined him. I t was a great day of triumph.Eight ycars bcfore, M U h a m m a ~ had left. ~ e c c aas an outcast, rejected by hIS fellow cItIzen,S.Now, after years of strenuous strife, he stood Inthc ancient temple of the Arab people, performedtheir old ceremonies, and consecrated them to a.Dew use in 0. religion, free from the idol worshipthey had so long observed. The Arabs saw that

1 Suratll't-To.Uba.h, ix. 13.

the old things had passed away. Socie ty neededa reconstruction and Muhammad was the onlyman in Arabia who could now reconstruct it. Submission to the political rule involved acceptanceof the new religion and an unhesitating obedienceto the Prophet. He is no longer a p reach er anda. warner merely , but a ruler whose decrees haveall the force of a d h ~ n e sanction. The phrase"God and His Apostle" is now common in theSt'iras of this period; opposi tion to one is opposition to the other; the condition of success isobedience to each; the wise are those who fearboth; the lost in the day of judgment willregret that they obeyed not "God and HisApostle. '" At Mecca he had been more modes tand had not laid claim to snch an equality ofobedience , now the sense of his growing powerled to bolder assumptions and wider claims.Severe treatment of bo th Jews and Christians i.sanctioned in the nin th Sura, which, being thelatest but one of the revelations made, may belooked upon as the final view of Muhammad onthe relat ion of Islam to these religions. Thechange from the days in Mecca and the ear lydays in Madina is very great. Then he had1 The following a.re a. few out o f many verses:-Suratu'I.Anf6.l, viii. 13; St'uatu'IMuhammad xlvii. 35 'Bnratu'I-.J\hzAb, x x x i ~ i . 29, 57,. flG; St'iratu't-Tngh"bun, lxi,,:8; St\ratu n.Nur, XXlV. 46; Sumtu'l.Hadid, Ivii. 7, 28.


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aG INTOLERANCE. DEATH OF MUHAMMAD. 87professed respect for the people of the Book,had advocated. II no compulsion in religion:') hadsaid that all disputes should be couducted in akindly manne r, ' h ad looked upon Judai sm andChristianity as religious systems co-ordinate withIshlm, and in hoth of which salvation could befound.' All was now chauged. Friendship wasabsolutely forbidden anel salvation outside the paleof Islam was declared impossible. The moderationof th e preacber gives way to the imperious commands of the Dictator, and tbe last l egacy of theProphetis a mandate of universal war. U The Jewssay I Ezra is a son of God, ' and the Christians say,The Messiah is a son of God: such th e sayings in1 Siua,tu'l-Baqarah, ii. 257.Suratu'I-'An'kahilt. xxix. 45. In th e llllolt StUll, thefifth, this friendly attitude is completely . c ~ f l . n g e d :-" 0ye who hel ieve, t nkc not the J e w ~ and Christians M . yourfriends . . . whoso aOlong you tnketh t h . c ~ n ali fncnds,veril\" he is one of them," v . 56. S ~ m c crItics, h o w e v c ~ ,

say that t h i ~ verse belongs t;, fin e a ~ l l C r d ~ t e , !l'nd ~ l n c e Ita ft er t he b att lc of Ullud: If that If; so, It simpl) .showsthnt th e changed attitude of th e Proph?t, af> f;Cen II I theninth Sura the last hu t on e revealed, If; really only th edevelopmen't of a. principle settled some yefl.l'!> before.3 I. Yerily, they who believe ( M u . s l i ~ s ) and ther who ~ o U o wthe Jewish religion, and th e Chrlstums a nd th e So.beIteswhc){wcr of thmm hnlievdh il l 000, and t h la:::t day, ~ n doeth that which is right, shnll have the ll ' r e ~ v D r r 1 withtheir Lord. FeDI' :.;lmlluot conw upon.. tlH'm, n ~ l ~ h e ~ ' s h ~ l Ithe.r be grieved." Suratu'l-Baqarah, 11. 59. 'Ihls IS saidby some authorities t abrogated by t,he .verse:


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38 THE CREED OF ISLAlII. IDEA OF GOD. 39he employed to gain his ends, must always heregarded as one of the greatest men the world hasproduced. His t1:loughts and deeds have influencedand sti ll inf luence a very large and an importantportion of the human race. Even admitting thatthere were then many eouditions favourable to tbesuccessful rise of a strong man, s ti ll credit mustbe given to Muhammad for the great work be didi n uniting the Arab tribes, in winning over t o apurer faitb the idola ters of Mecca, in gatheringaround himself, by the force of his attractive personality, sucb loyal and devoted followers as hisCompauious and Helpers (Ans....) proved to be, audin in fus ing in to the newly.formed Muslim community the energy and zeal which in a few yearscarried its victorious at'ms far and wide.

The creed of Islam in its shortest form is "Thereis no god hut God, Muhammad is the Apostle ofGod;" but its dogmas a re more fully set fo rth i nthe formal statement :_ " I believe in God, Angels,Books, Prophcts, thc Last Day, the Predestina-t ion by the Most High of good aud evil, and theResurrection after death." The orthodox doctrinesconcerning God are that He is neither begottennor begets, is w ithout associate or equal, i s omniscient, omnipresent, immuta.ble, invisible, withoutform or parts. Whatsoever He desires comes topass. Good and evil exist by His will, whether itbe the fai th of the believer, or the unbelief of the

infidel. He speaks to some of His servants direct,as He did to Moses; with others He communicatesby means of Gabriel. That which He thus revealsis His Word, and, as the KaMIn or speech, is one ofHis attributes. Then, asthe attributes are eternal,it follows that His revealed word-the Qur 'an- iseternal also. The question whether the attribntesof God are part of His essence o r not has been andis a. fruitful source of controversy. Such prominence is given to the omnipotence a.nd absolutesovereignty of God tha t the ideas of holiness andlove are obscured. His relation to man is thatof a God afar off.

The Asma-i-Husna, the most excel lent names,n.re ninety and nine, but the name of father is notfound among, them: s o man must ever be to Himin th e relation of a slave. He can never attainto the freedom and digni ty of a son. The idea ofunlimited power has so filled the Muslim mindthat sin is looked upon not so much as a breach ofmoral law as a violation of some arbitrary decree.Some ac tions of the Prophe t were, according toany law of righteousness, evil; but no Muslimwould admit th at he in doing them committed as in, for it is believed that he performed them bythe command of God. Tbe Mnslim's conception ofGod and h is idea of sin are both very defective.The result is thatsalvation is not regarded as the


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40 INSPIRATION. PROPHETS.moral elevation of a man-he is saved from punishment and rewarded and that is all .Angels were crented f rom fi re and, though theyare super ior to man,may fall into s in . Theymakeknown God's will to man, record th e good and haddeeds of each human being and examine in thegrave a ll recently buried Muslims as to the correc tness of the ir fai th. The J inn (Genii) are a lsomade from fire and, though the fables concerningthem may be disregarded, yet t he Muslim mus taccept all t ha t t he Qur'an teaches on this subject.

T he Qur' an i s the last of the one hundred andfour divine books. The la,w came to Moses, thePsalms to David, the Gospel to Jesus; hut asIslam abrogates all preceding religions, so theorthodox believe tbat t he Qm",in super sede s allpreceding Scriptures. This is really contrary tothe tes timony which the Qur'an itself bear s tothem.' There are intelligent Mnslim scbolarsin Indi a who regard as untenable the orthodoxbel ief on thi s point; but ev en they consider theinspiration of tbe Qur 'an t o be of a higher orderthan that of the Bible. Sir Syed Abmad says: -" In the Case of our Prophet, the revelations madeto him were intended to impn.rt a special mit'acleof eloquence and they were written down, l iteral ly

1" And to t hee have We sen t down the Book (Qur'iin)with trnth, confirmntory of previous ScriptnrC's Rnd tlJ('irsafe.guard." Sllratu'l M4'idlL, v. f)2.

and exactly, in the form in which they were communicated." Of the four gospels , only the actna.lwords of Christ are considered to be the revelationwhich came down from beaven, All the rest,th e Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles arer egarded s imply a s worthy writings of the Com-panionsof Jesus, This crude notion of inspiration,even as i t is held by the most intelligent Muslims,sadly hinders the formation amonKst Muslim tbeologians of any real exegetical science and preventsthem from understanding, much less appreciating,more reasonable ideas of revelation. The Muslimshows the great reverence he has for the Qur'tLnby conceiving of it as divine thought and soimmanentin God. It follows then that it is eternaland uncreated, a dogma much d i ~ p u t e d when firstformulated but now generally accepted.

The Khalif Ahu Bakr made the first recensicnof the Q ur'"n an d the Khalif 'Uthman tbe finalone , f ixing the text o f the Qur'a.n as we now haveit. A Shi'ah tradition a lle ges that references to'Ali were left ont and that a whole chapter,Stiratu'u-Ntirain, or the Sura of the u two lights,"i.e., I Ali and Muhammad, has been omitted.1

The six gren.ter prophets are Adam, Noah,Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, the last

1Thi s chapter is g iven in Arabic and Engli sh in Sel l' sII Essays on Ishi-m," pp. 233w8 and in Arabic nnd Frenchin the Journal Asiatique, December 1843.


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42 DAY OF JUDGMENT. HEAVEN AND HELL. 43and t he greatest of all . As regards the teachingof the Qur' an on the divinity of Christ, He issaid to be .. the Word from Him (God)" 1 andU His Word which heconveyed into Mary and 0.Spiri t proceeding from him.'" I t is admittedby some Muslim theologians that these texts pointto the superna tu ra l h ir th of Chri st , but theyahsolutely deny that they teach the dogma of Hisdivinity. Indeed, the words just quoted are immediately followed by a strict injunction to avoidsaying that there are three gods, remembering thatit would be far from 'I His g lory to have a son.";jMuhammad, led;as tray by the almost idolatrousreverence pa.id to the Virgin Mary in the apocryphal gospels and other early uncanonical works,looked upon the Christian Trinity as consist ing ofGod, Jesus and Mary. The Qur'an does not seemconsistent with itself in its statements regardingChrist, but the probability is that Muhammad usedthese expressions II Spirit of God," U Word of God,"knowing them to he current amongst Chr is tians,either to commend his own teaching tatham, orsimply because he did not understand the fulltheological import of the words.

I t is believed that prophets are sinless; hutthe Qur'an clearly indicates that they do wrong.1 Suratu Al-i-Imra,n, i i i. 45. 2 Suratu'n-Nisti-', iv.169.3 See also Suratu't-Tnubab, ix. SO; 8uratn Ma1")'am, xix.36; Surntu'z-Zukhruf, xliii. 59.

Even Muhammad is told to ask "pardon for hissin," 1 and God is sa id tohave" forgiven his earlierand later fault.'" Muslim theologians try to explainall t hi s away, but t aking the Qur 'an as our guide,the one fault less prophet of the six chief ones isJesus Christ, who may be looked npon as thesinless prophet of Islam.At the Day of Judgment, th e Books of Actions,kept by the recording angels, will be given into

the right hands of the just and into the left handsof the wicked.' Then, either the books, or theactions recorded in them, will be weighed in thebalances and judgment be delivered thereon.' Nextcomes the passing over the bridge Sintt , a bridgeU sharper than the edge of a sword, f iner than a.hail' , suspended over hell. ' Muslims, though theydie in sin, wil l at last reach Paradise. Muhammadwill successfully intercede for all such men, in acoordance with the Tradition, II my intercession isfor the men of my following, who have committedgreat sins:' The teaching of the Qur'an, how-ever, is not cl ear on the subject of the intercession of Muhammad, the exact nature of which hasbeen a cause of much controversy a.mongst Muslimsects. The verse H Who i s he that can intercede

1 Surntu Uubammad, xlvii. 21. t Stiratu'l-Fath, xlviii.1 , 2. 3Burntu BaniIsrael ,xvii . 73. Suratu' l-Muminum,xxiii. 104.-5.


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44 PREDESTINATION. PRAYER. 46with Him, hut by His own permission," 1 whilst itdistinctly teaches that Muhammad can intercedeby permission, does not go so far as th e Tradition.The advent of Jesus Christ is a sigu of t he L as t

Day.' He will no t come as a J udg e bu t likeother prophets to be judged. He is to bearwitness against the .Jews.3There ar e m any degr ee s of f elicity i n heavenand of punishmentd in hell. The material and

sensual joys of tbe oue, and tbe horrors of tbeo tber a re vividly portrayed. Tbe realistic presentation of all these joys and sorrows powerfullyaffected the Arab tribes and had no l it tl e sbarein the exten sion of Islam.On the subject of predestination the re a re three

wel l def ined schools of thought in Ish tm. First,the Jabarians,who deny all free agency inman andsay that be is necessari ly constrained by the forceof God's eternal decree to act as he does; secondly,the Qadarians, who say that man is a frce agentand that evil and injustice ought not t o be attributed to a d ecr ee of God, bu t to the will of mau ;thirdly, the _\sh1arians, who 'my that from theeternal wil l of God all tbings, good or evil, proceedand t ha t t he destiny of each man was written ontbe concealed Tablet, before t he wodd was made.So fa r they agree with the .Tabarirlofis, but they go

1 Suratu'l-Baqara.h, ii . 256. Suratu'z-Zukhruf, xliii.'61. 3 Sllratu'n.Nisa.', iv. 158.

on t o sa y that man h as power to convert will intoaction, that when a man desires to do a certainthing, the action corresponding to the des ire i screated by God and, as it were, fitted on to tbeintention. Thus, i i a man becomes an infidel,it is not to be said that it is by the decree ofGod, but by tbe man's own cboice. Theoretically,the popular Muslim hel ie f i s now Ash 'a rian , practically it is .rabarian. The Qur 'an may be quotedon both sides of this subject. Tbus, " God willmislead whom He pleaseth, and whom He pleaseth,He will p lace on the straight path," I can be metby "Tbe truth i s from your Lord, let him thenwho will believe; and le t him who will, be aninfideL" 2The religious duties incumbent on all good 1I.ius-

l ims are , Tashahhud , o r the recital or the creed;Sahi:t or the repetition or the five daily prayers.Roza or fasting; Zakat, or almsgiving; t be Haj j01' pilgrimage to Mecca. These are all fard duties,or essential ones, being based on the distinct anddefiuite teacbiog of the Qur'an. Tbe Creed in it s

1 Suru.tn'J-Ana.'m, vi. 30.Sumtu'l-Kahf, xviii. 28. Some of the texts on theside of fatalism are Sltratu'J-Hadid, lvii. 22; Sllratu'JQal'las, xxviii. 56; Sllratu'l-Qamr. , liv. 49 ; Suratu'll-Nahlxvi. 38 ; Snratu'J Au'am, vi. 35, 30, 150; those which a r claimed to be onthe side of freedom of th e will arc Suratu'J.Mumin, xl. 413; Siuatu'l-Ka.hf, xviii, 28; and generall)' allverses in which th e words to do, to coustruc t , to create areapplied to men.


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46 PRAYER. ALMSGIVING. 47shortest form-La ilaha i lla' lhlhu: MuhammadRa.lilu'llah ..There is uogod hutGod; Muhammadis the Apostle of God" embodies the very spiri tof Islam; its strength is the proolamation of theDivine Unity; i ts weakness the a3sertion of theapostleship of Muhammad. I t is the rallying cryfor the armies of Islam, it i s repeated wi th prideand fervour in its sonorous Arabic form, day by


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48 THE HAJJ. THE HAJJ.was not p art of the Prophet's taaching. I t wasnot until he came into contact with Jews atMadina, when the desire to win them arose, that,in imitation of their custom, fasting was ofllciallydec la red to be a sacred rite.

Zakat, or the giving of the l ega l a lms, i s basedon the words" observe prtt.yer (sal;i,t) and the legalimpost (zaktLt)."I Many rules have been framedto guide believers in the exercise of this duty.The Hajj "is a service due to God from those

who a re able to journey thither." 2 The ceremoniesnow obscrvca !l.re those of the old pagan pilgrimage.I t hILS been \\'dl c.l.llud "t " frll.gmcnt of incomprehensible hea thenism taken up undigested intoIslam." 3 Whate'ler may have been Muhammad'ssense of individual need, it seems to have been anerror t o exa lt th e impulse of bis own hea.rt into n.duty ior :"ll rna.nkind. As Kuenen well says : - " I tis individuality erecting itself into a universality,and cl aim ing t o r ul e wher e it ought t o s er ve ."Still, for the immediate llCCl]S oC the ca.use of Islam,it was a pol it ic thing to make the pilgrimage anessential part of the system, and l \luhammadshowed great Rhrcwdness in retaining the ancientshrine of Mecca as the local centre of Islam. The

1 S l l . r a . t u ' I ~ B a q a r a h . ii. 40.li Suratu Al_i_'Imran. i i i. 91. See a lso Silratu'l-Haji. xxii.28. 30-1. 3Hibbert Lectures, 1882, p. 33.

Ka'ba , witb all tbat was connected witb it was theobject of universal reverence by the Arab people.The sen timent involved in this Was the mostobvious means of uniting the various Arab tribes,long disunited, into ODC vast confederation for onegreat purpose. I t was, as I have said elsewhere,lU a compromis.e, well adapted at the time to securethe allegiance of the Arabs to Ishlm, by g iv ing anational character to i t ; but it has been 8, sourceof weakness since, for its continued observanceemphasises the great Islamic principle that laws,regulations and customs, suitable for the Arabs ofthe seventh century, arc binding on the Muslimeverywhere in the nineteenth. Chr is tianity tookj ns t t bc opposite conrse. I t qnickly freed itselffrom the nar row l imitations of Judaism. I t leftJewish ceremonies and circumcision behind it inPalestine. I t never aimed at being a nationalreligion and so became an universal one. Thusit can flourish under all forms of civil government,for it is dependent on none. I t exists independently of the State, and survives a ll forms of pol iticalorganisation."

Isla.m as a religion derived its doctrines and muchof its practice from creeds which existed before itand chiefly from Judaism. 1I The Jews, powerful in1 II Faith of !.Q!6,m" (ed. London, 1896),p. 299.II Geiger's II Islamand Judaism "(SimpkinMarshall & Co.,.London), shows how much Muhammad borrowed from th eJews. 4


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PREVIOUS SCRIPTURES. SOURCES OF THE QUR'AN. 51Madina, defended their cause with snch skill as tomake Muhammo.d g re at ly de si re to gain them tohis side. This is why he, at first, made Jerusalemth e Qibla for worship and made the Muslim fastdays coincide with the Jewish ones.Mnhammad showed his ignorance of the OldTestament by th e confnsed o rder in which heplaces the prophets. l The errors he makes inhistorical statements and the curious narrativeshe relates show that he gained what l it tle knowledge he bad by hearsay and chiefly from Jewishtraditions, though he himself declared that hegained i t by di reet revelation. Of the stor y ofJoseph it is s ai d, u In revealing to thee this Qur'an(i.e., Stira) one of the most beaut iful of narrat iv es will \Ve narrate to thee." 2 II This is one ofthe secret histories which 'rVe reveal unto thee." 3Then, t o s how that infol1llation was given to himin this special manne r, i n o rder to confirm and-strengthen the Jewish records, and that thus hewas a s ucc es so r of their own prophets, he adds,l< 'rhis is nO new talc of fiction, but a confirmation,of previous Scriptures." -t The introduction ofRabbinicn.! Hebrew terms into the Qur'an shows that

1 He seems to h av e h ad some idea of his weakness inthis respect , for God is represented a.s sll.)'ing :-"Of someApost les We have t ol d t hee before: of other apostles haveWe not told thee." Suratu'nNisa', iv. 162.i Suratu Yusuf , x ii . 3 . J Suratu Yasuf, xii. 103.4- Burntu yt'isuf, xii. 111.

he must h ave gained th e conceptions connectedwith them from the Jews. l The ideas about creation the throne of God above tbe waters, tbes e v ~ n heavens and hells, the intermediate state-the al-'ArM of Islam-are all horrowed from theTalmud. The s taud ing posi tion for prayer conforms to the r itua l of the Rabbis. The ceremonial purificatiou before prayer is Talmudic. Therules for divorce are very s imilar to t ho se of theJews, except in ODC respcc:t, which is greatly tothe disadvantage of Islam.' The p"r odies ef OldTestament stories given in the Qur'an are gatheredfrom Talmudic legends. The importance attached by the Jews to matters of ritnal, pilgrimageand fastiuu influenced Islam and has deepenedo. .the notion that obedIence to a ceremomal a tonesfor sin, that good works, the Haj j an d fightingfor the cau se of God win h ea ven .

Muhammad also introduced into the Qur'LLn manyfoolish notions of the various heretical Christiansects with whom he was brought into contact.3 If ,1Geiger "Judaism ltlldIsIam," Pl'. 3144. (Tmnslation of,. Was hat'}fohammedaus dem Judenthume aufgenommen,"ed. Bonn, 1833). AI-Kindi in h i apology s t a t e ~ that thesewords show either t ha t t he ArabIc v ~ a b u l a r y IS very poor,which confessedly it is not; or that dlilcrent. persolls h ~ l < l l l .hand i n t he eon1llOSition of th e Qur'an, whIch he thmksis thus proved. See Muir's t r e . ~ ; > l a t i o n , ! ? 30.2 Compare S 6 r l \ t u : I - B 8 . 9 . ~ r a h , ll . 230 wIth Deuteronomy,xxiv. 1-4, and JeremIah, lll. 1. .J The se a nd other notions ga thered from ZOl'oastrlansarc given in full det ai l i n OJ The sources of the Qur 'an/ ' byDr . St . Clair Tisdall. (S. P. C. K.)


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52 FOUNDA1'IONSOF ISLAM. FOUNDATIONS OF ISLAM. 53as Muslims assert, Gabriel brought tbese stories toMuhammad down from heaven, it is clear that hemust, at previous periods of t ime, have broughtexactly the same information to preceding authors.Until Mus lim theolog ians give up the ir p resentideas about inspiration, they can never meet thisdifficulty.'

Islam has also felt the influence of pagan reli.giODS. The marvellous night-journey of Muhammad to heaven Ims its counterpart in the ascentof a Zoroastrian who went in a similar way. TheHouris are the Peris of the Persians. The' light ofMuhammad' which takes so impor tant a place inMuhammadan theology is simply the halo or lightof Jamshfd. Sirat, the bridge over hel l, comesfrom the same source. The paganism of Arabiahas also lef t i ts mark in the ceremonial of the Hajjand the sanctity of certain localities.Muslims base their system of belief and practice

on the Qur 'an; the Snnua , as known through theTraditions; the Ijml:L', or consensus of the opinionsof the c!Lrly learned authorities on Islam; and Qiyas,oranalogical reasoning. The autborityof tbe Qur'anhas been already described. The Sunna may hedefined as the Rule of Faith hased on the words ofthe Prophet, or on an example set by him in some1 Syed Amir 'Ali sees this, and in hi s II Spirit of Isliim "speaks of the "eclect ic fa.ith of Muha.mmad," p. 387; of the

U Zoroastrian origin of the Houris" and of the II Talmudioideas of hell," p. 394.

action he performed. The ohligation to conform tothe Bunna is derived from sucb verses as H ObeyGod and His Apostle." 1 "A noble pattern have yein God's apostle." 2 The words H noble pattern"-Sunnatan hasana.tan-ar6 explained to mea.nunable Sunna... Disobedience to God and HisApostle 3 is said tobe II erring with a palpable error."I t is helieved that Muhammad wasinspired in all hesaid and in all he did. The Sunna covers aU law,religious, political, social, and moral. The greatestof the Arab historians, Ibn Khaldtin, says: If Thedoctors of the Law are unanimous as to the obligat iou to couform to the actions attributed tothe Prophet in the Traditions" and speaks of theu Maxims o[ Musalman Law, based on the text ofthe Qur 'an and t he teaching of the Traditions."Muhammad did not himself claim this infallihility,but whenever he made a mistake, Gabriel brought a-revelation to correct it, so that his error was onlytemporary, and after his death his words andactions became invested with a peculiar sanctity.Now, though there may be differences of opinionas to the a.uthoritative value of separate Traditions, yet, when once they are accepted, they formthe basis of an absolute law. The exist ing collections of Traditions were collected in the third century of Islam by competent scholars. The Sbi'ahs1 Sllratu'l.Anfti.l, viii. 20. i S u r a t u ' I ~ A h z a b , xxxiii. 21..

3 Stiratu'k.o\hza.b, xxxiii. 3G.


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5t JURISPRUDENCE, DEATH OF M U H A M ~ I A D . 55do not accep t the Sunni Traditions, but have collec.t iona of their own. There is no sect i n I sl amwhich rejec ts the Sunna as a bas is of la.w, for theShi1ahs have its equivalent in the ir own Traditions.l jma. ' i s the collection of the opinions of the

Companions of the Prophet and the ir immediatesucceSSors. II The Law ," says the historian, IbnKhaldtin, H is grounded upon the general accordof the Companions and thei r followers,"As the Emp ire g rew circumstances arose, to

which no Tradition could be found which wouldapply. Recourse was then had to Qiyas,-analog.ical deduction-which must be hased on the Qnr'an,the Snnna and the l jma' . This led to the forma.tion of four great schools of jurisprudence by fourIlmims, RaniCa, :hf:Wk, Shafa1j and Hanbal whol ived in the second centnry after the Hijra. AllBunni Muslims, so-called because they follow theBunna, must obey the laws of one of these foursystems. I t might he snpposed that the require.ments of modern t imes might be met by freshanalogica.l deductions, but it is not so. Nothingmnst he con trary to these estahli shed schools ofjurisprudence. The Khalif of Islam can claimallegiance only so long as he conserves the ancientlaw. Uniformity is thus pr odu ced in Mus limcommunities, bu t intellectual activity in higherpursuits ceases. Moral stagnation follows andMuslim nations, brought within the circle of c ivi -

l ized ones, in course of time, decay and musteventually pass away. Knenen well su.ys :_11 Thatwhich is no l onge r suscept ib le of change maycontinue to exist, but it has ceased to live, andreligion must live, must enter into new combinations and bear f resh f ru it s, if it is t o answe rt o i ts destiny, if, refusing to crystallize into formulas and usages, it is to work l ike l eaven, i s toconsole, to inspire and to strengthen." 1

When the Ansar, the men of Madina, heard thatMnhammad was dead they took s teps to elect oneof their own number as his successor, but no onehu t a member of th e Qnraish tr ibe conld have commanded the allegiance of all the various sectionsof the Arab people. However , wiser counsels preva.iled and Abil Ba.kr was elected. He was one ofthe earliest converts to Islam, a rich and prosperous man. Devoted to the Prophet, he had beenhis Compa.nion in the f light f rom Mecca , h is wisesnppoder a t the hattie of Badr, h is s,;bstitnte asImtLm at th e public prayers during his la.st illness.At this time, though hJam was strong in Mecca.and Maruna, its hold on many of the Arab tribeswasweak and Rome were already in revolt. No manwas better fitted than Abli Bakr to rule i n t imesso critical. He was gentle yet s t rong; he had aprofound respect for the mp-mory of the Prophet andan intimate acquaintance with his plans , whilst his

1 Hihbert LectnreH, l R 8 ~ , p. 2!)r;.


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68 . CONQUEST OF EGYPT. 'UTHMAN. 69invaders.' That" Egypt fen without a hlow" andthat "the Copts welcomed the Arabs as deliverers ..are described by Butler a.s H time-honoured f a . l l a ~cies." 2 On the other hand, Cyrus proved a traitora nd at last died in 642 a di sg rac ed and degradedman. Thus the Persian occupation, the fanaticismand unjust rule of Cyrus over the Copts, and h ishetrayal of his cause , the exhaustion of the Romanf orc es i n the war with Per si a and th e failingphysimtl and montH.! powers of the great warriorHeraclius, a ll a ided the Arabs in th e conquest ofBgypt . The a.llegeJ. destruction of th e very famouslihrary hy the command of the Khalif 'Umar maynow be looked upon as an incorrect statement.3'Uma r was assassina.ted by It Persian slave anel'

fL r ei gn of about eleven years. He had seen thepower of th e Khalifate extended far and wide.F;Jrtile la.nds and r ich cit ies had been added toit. Conquered races had embraced Islam, 01' paidto i t their t ri bu te . The revenue had become great,tho rna-torin.! ardour of t ho pe opl e s trong and theprospeets of the further exteusion of Empire bright.

1 Butler, "The Arab conquest of Egypt," pp. 285, 209.2 A very good example of such fsHacics is found ill SycdAmir 'Ali's"History of the Saraccns," p. 41. He sny!:! Egyptw.as clearc


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'ALI. PHILOSOPHERS. (,1year 661. His private character Was high, his pers.onal bra,very undoubted, but he lacked the qualitIes reqUired for a ruler in such turbulent timesHis refusal to punish the murderers of ' U t h m a ~was a pol it ic al b lunder and led to his downfall.Hasan, his son, who succeeded him was compelledto abd,icate and. after a few years' Was poisoned.nIuaWlyah then became the Khalif and the founderof the Um"yy"a dyn"sty. His f"ther Ab'i Sufyllnhad, before his COllversion, been an active Opponentof :MuhamrnH,d, and now his son secured the position the son-inla.w [LOd. the grandson of the Prophet had. so lately occupied. During the reign ofthe U.mayyad Kahlifs there was a great expansionof.Isla.":. The Roman power was, it is true, maintamed In NOlth Africa unt il the fall of Ci.lorthaae. 69 ' 0III l::i A.D., but then, after sixty years of strife, theArab conquest was assured.

In 711 A.D., the Arabs, largely assisted by theirBerber cOll:erts., llltroduced Ishm into Spain, wherefor a long time It flourished as it ha,d done nowhereelse. 1Lwas the goldon age of Muslim learning~ n cu!turc; hut sufficient weight is not given toIts enVironment, nor to the intiuence of learnedJews. The gloeat Muslim philosophers were not~ - \ n l o b s , Abli Sina (.-\vicenna) wt\s a Persian andDoth Ibn Bajja (Avempace) and Ibn Rashid (Averhoes) were born in Spain. The orthOdox divines ofthe day opposed the philosophers, whose teaching

did not harmonize with the exclusive spirit of thereligious system. Averhoes was accused of heterodoxy and banished. For a wbile, Muslim learningshone with a borrowed splendour; but when theMoors retired to Africa, where the environmentwas not cultured, they retrograded and Moroccoto-day is a n illustration of woot Isllim left entirelyto i ts el f c an come to. A thougbt fu l Indian Mnslimsays :_ " I t must always be borne in mind that inspite of the enormous progress made by Muham-madans in the early centuries of their power,learning has never been popular among them asa. nation, and science only flourished when therewas a man to protect it:'The Arabs, then, can lay no claim to what iscalled Arabian philosophy. M. Ronan says: .. ThisArabian science and philosophy was only a puerilerendering of Greek science and philosophy. I t hasnothing Arabian in i t. Its foundation is purelyGreek, amongst its originators there is not, a singletrue Shemite, they were all Spaniards and Persianswho wrote in Arabic," Islam, as u. religion, bas noright to claim any of the glory wbich Muslim philosophers are supposed to have shed around it, 'Veare told by a recent Muslim writer that" an age ofactive principles" was ushered in by Muhammad,whose words II breathe energy and force and infusenew life into the dormant heart of humanity,"and t ha t t hen from all this proceeded the various

62 'ABBASSIDES. THE MU'TAZILA. 63


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intellectual movements in Europe, leading up tothe Renai ssance and the Reformation. Now, ifIslam has in itself the germ of such capacities, suchregenerative power; if, as it i s said, the Arabswent forth to II eleva.te and civilize," surely somesigns of all this should he now seen in Arahia.Yet that land in which the Prophet lived andtaught, where the "rightly guided" Khalifs ruled,that land which contains the shrine, a pilgrimageto which ensures salvation, and where the languageof the common people is the language of the sacredQur'1Ln anll so of heaven, that land is amongst themost backward lands in the world to-day.

The victorious arms of the Umayyads also wentas far as India, tho only purely Arab Musliminvasion of that c oun tr y. The l ast Khalif of theUmayyads was slain in battle by men of the4Abh:tsside par tyin the year 7,1jO A.D. One memberof tbe family escaped and founded tbe Khalifateof Cordova.

The partisans of I Ali had continued to he opponents of the Umayyads. and this feeling of resentmen t on t he ir part was skilfnlly made use of hythe descendants of 'Abbas, one of the uncles ofthe Prophet, who now by the aid of the IAlyitefaction came into power. The y made Baghdadtb e capital of the new Khalifate, which lasted from750 to lOG3 A.D., when tbe Turks under Togbrulovertbrew it. Under t he temporal rule of the

Seljnldan Turks, the Kba li fs wer e r et ai ned atBaghd ad , to k ee p np th e semblance of spiri tnalauthority; hut real power t hey had none and theiroffice, such as it was, came to an end when RalaguKhan sacked Baghdad in 1258 A.D., a nd p ut th eKhalif, Mustasim bi'll"h, to dea th . Sope ri shed inthe r ui ns of Baghdad the last of tbe 'Ahbassidedynasty. Tbe l at e Kba li l' s unc le fled to Egypt,where his descendants asserted their claim to thespiri tual leadership of Ishim t il l 1517 A.n., whentbe Ottoman Sultan Salim conquered Egypt andcompelled the titular Khalif, Mutawakkil, to bandover h is title and office. The Sultan of Turkeybas, however, no valid claim to the Khalifate,which, accorJing to the Traditions, CH,n only beheld by a descendant of Muhammad's own tribe,the Quraish of Mecca.

Some of the .AhhlLHsil1e KhalifR were, from anorthodox stand point, free-thinkers. In the reignof the Khalif Mamun, Muslim culture reached itshighest stage in n l l , ~ h d a ( l , and ,,,aR coincident intime with a very earnest etTort to bring reason tobear upon dogmatic quest ions and to cast otf thedead weight of traditionalism. This was the workof the more intelligent :Muslims. who belonged tothe S l ~ c t of the Mu1tav,ila. They rejected, amongstother things, the orthodox views on free will, onthe divine attributes and, above all, the notionthat t he Qur 'a n is uncreated. They tangbt the

04 CRITICISM OF THE QUR'AN.


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connected with a bri ll iant epoch oC learning inBaghdad, the centre then of a comparatively highcivilization. Mamun employed Jews and Chl'istians to transla.te Greek books into Arabic and solaid th e foundation of th e so-called Arahian philosophy. Many centuries have passed by, and nowin India, men, influenced by \Vestern culture andaffected by th e environment of a higher civilizat ion, are reviving the old .M::u'taziJa views. Tbeiridea of inspiration is Christian and they claim th eright to exercise private judgmf::nt and the powerto adapt the laws of Islam to modern conditions.They admit that th e legal system of Islam is ananachronism now; but attribute it to the slavishadherence to th e letter and the ignoring of th espirit or the Qur'ILn on the part oC its interpretersin the p a s ~ . To th e law, as formulated hy the earlyLa.w Doctors and theologians, they ra.ise the fol.lowing objections, viz., t h a ~ " an imperfect code ofe th ic s h as heen IDI \de no permanent Rtandard ofgood and evil and a f inal i rrevocable law, that theLaw deals with precepts rather than with princLpies, that it has led to formality of worship andthat by it IshLm is rendered stat ionary and unableto ada.pt itself to the varying circumstances of timeand place." 1 This i s a ll most t rue, but most unor-thodox. On moral questions, their opinions are

1 For a det.....i led account of the views of the se IndianMuslims, see" Faith of Islf.m," pp. 193-199.5

subjective nature of its inspiration and so broughtthe book within the range of reverent criticism.In the year 212 of th e H ij ra, th e Khalif Mamlini ssned a dec ree that t hose who asser ted that theQur'an \Yas eternal wer e t o be dealt with as here-tics. They were called II vessels of ignorance, beacons of f als ehood. " Officials wer e r emoved f romoffice, the lives of many persons were threatenedand all who held the orthodox view lived in terror.When t imes changed , mel l wer e put to death forholding the views which Mamlin now supported.The final hlow cnme to the M u ' t a ~ d l a s from One ofthemselves. Abti. Hasan al-Ash'ariwent one day to~ h mosqne at Basra and, Btanding on t he s teps ofthe pulpit, threw away h is cloak and said :_11 Sodo I renounce all I formerly believed," He becamea grcn, t opponont of the :Mu'tn.zilas. He was flo manoC much ahility, which he used to overthrow th emost liberal school of thought Islam has producedand he succeeded. Had it been otherwise, andhad n.IAsh'ari retained his early liberal views, it mayhe that the whole dogmatic system of Islam wouldhave been very much modified, its bigotry softenedand the lands inwhich i t h as flourished have becomemore progressive and enlightened.

The l\1n'ta.zilas f:tiled. '11he movement was anintellectual rather than a moral and spiritual one~ h o u g ? i t s e e n ~ e d ~ one t ime a s i f it would change:II I a hhel-al dIrectIOn, the creed of IsI:\m. I t was

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TH E MODERN MU'TAZILAS. T H E B L h IA T E . 67also far in advance of the Musl im community ina n y o th er p ar t of the world. Even in India, theyform hnt a very small par ty . Th e popular opinionamo ng st th e Muslim community is that they havegiven up belief in revealed religion and a.re simplybelievers in 11 natural one . S ti ll , it i s interes tingto see bow principles once influential in Baghdadare revived , with 11 far deeper ethical spirit anda. wider outlook, by cultured :Muslims, under theenlightened rule of th e Br i ti sh Empir e. I t i s onlyin a movement in this direction that any hopeof intellectual advancement and enlightened progress for Indian Muslims now rests.

The Persians, weakened by the war with theRoman Emperor Heraclius, were not able to with-stand the attacks of the Muslim armies and, all thedeath of Yazdigird III. in 651 A.D., ceased to be.& separate nation. The majority of the peopleaccepted Is la m an d h ~ n c e f o r t h hecame in manyways more important to it than the Arabs. The'Abbassides owed their rise almost entirely to Persian influences and their power rested mainly onPersian troops. In philosophy, divinity and lawPersian authors took the lead. The administra t ion of affairs was largely in their hands. Persianraiment was the official court dress , and Persianfashions and customs were prevalent. The mother.and the sister of the Khalif Maroun were Persianladies. In the turbulent days at the close of th e

'Baghdad Khalifate, Persia became gradually inde-pendent. T he P er si an s t he n showed t he ir p re -;ference for the Shi'ahsect, and are now it sstrongest supporters.

The misfortunes of 'Ali and of his sons drewforth the sympathy of many Muslims, and though-attachment to his ca.use wa.s, at first, ba.sed onthe s trong tribal fee ling so COmmon among theArabs; yet, in the COUl'se of time, a theolog icalhasi s was found for i t. The belief g ained g roundthat 'Ali and his family had a "divine right" tothe Khalifate. This was quite in accord withPersian ideas about Government, for the king sof the Sassanian dynasty were s trong upholdersof this doctrine. It is also said that Husain, t heson of 'Ali, ma.rried Sharb-banu, the daughter>of Yazdigird, the las t Sassanian king . T llus theImams of both branches of the Shitah sec t beina, 0descendants of a Persian king an d of the ProphetMUhammad, represented to the Pers ian people.both the k ingly and prophet ic omees of d iv inely-appointed rulers.

After the death of Hasan, there was a successionof spiritual

Sell - Islam Its Rise and Progress

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