s SPIRIT OF ISLAM LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF MOHAMMED ■$ *cr ^ 1- EAC-SIMILE Or A LETTER FROM HIS LATE MAJESTY, Nasir ud-din Shah. r^^^^^^^ a & % *■-> *^«{~*&>fa 3Sf 'i^ THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM OR THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF MOHAMMED BY AMEER ALI, SYED, m.a., c. i. e. BARRISTER- AT-LAW, JUDGE OF HIS MAJESTY'S HICK COURT OF JUDICATURE IN BENGAL, AUTHOR OF "A Short History oj the Saracens," "The Ethics of Islam" " Mahommedan Law" " The Personal Law of the Mahommedans " "A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Moliammed" etc. etc. " What matters it whether the words thou utterest in prayer are Hebrew or Syrian, or whether the place in which thou seekest God is Jabalka or Jabalsa ?" — Sanal ^^^EF^^^ Calcutta: ^J^RN^ K. LAHIRI & Co., 54, COLLEGE STREET. I902. All Rights Reserved. PREFACE TO THE POPULAR EDITION Since the promulgation of Islam the world has seen great changes ; empires have risen and disappeared ; great nationa- lities have been swept away making room for others ; know- ledge and culture have drifted from the East to the West ; and with knowledge not only power but material prosperity has changed hands. Under the influence of their Prophet, a congeries of warring tribes consolidated into a nation, had for centuries carried aloft the torch of learning for the en- lightenment of the world. With the fall of their dominion they ceased to be the preceptors of humanity. The younger nations who succeeded to their heritage continued some of their glory in arms but less in arts and literature. They too declined in power and influence, and now the greatest of them is but a shadow of its former self. And yet as an active, living faith, Islam has lost none of its pristine force nor the magic hold it possesses over its followers. In certain parts of the world it is spreading with greater rapidity than any other creed, and its acceptance among the less advanced races has invariably tended to raise them in the moral scale. As the study of comparative religion, like the study of comparative history, acquires importance in the estimation of scholars and students, the interest in Islam as a motive power in the world will deepen. For outsiders,, however, to undestand its genius, and the causes of its unparalleled success in vitalising humanity, and its vast potentiality for good, it is necessary to grasp its " spirit," and its aims and aspirations from a philosophical point of view ; for the Islamist who desires to act up to the prescriptions of his religion, it is essential he should understand the significance of its ethics, the true meaning of its enunciations, and learn to differentiate between the permanent and the temporary. It is only then VU! PREFACE. , that he can maintain his religion as it was intended to remain, an important lever, a valuable factor, for the progress and development of the world, and be himself in a position to keep pace with the growing ethical and social needs of a living and advancing community. Nations like individuals, when they fail to realise the bent of the times and the necessities of the age, are doomed. And no one saw this more clearly or expressed it more forcibly than the Arabian Seer. In the following pages, I have endeavoured, however feebly and inefficiently, to portray the Islam of the Prophet and " the Philosophers of his House," and to give expression to their \ethical teachings and spiritual aspirations. Naturally the consideration of Islamic ethics has involved a criticism of the ethics of the earlier systems. But it has not been done in a spirit of cavil or antagonism, nor does it imply the smallest want of respect for any other moral creed. I have deliberately adopted the English language for com- municating my thoughts and views to Islamists as well as to others. English now exercises the same unchallenged sway over a greater part of the globe as Arabic did in Asia, Africa and Spain for nearly seven centuries. It is the language of culture and civilised progress. In India it has become, within the last thirty years, the ordinary vehicle of literary thought. The Mahommedan subjects of this great Empire occupy a unique position in the history of our times. Living under a Govern- ment which pursues, so far as possible, a policy of strict neutra- lity in religious matters while it is at the same time anxious to promote the moral and intellectual development of the people, they can, if they choose, avail themselves to the fullest extent of the progressive tendencies of the age without aban- doning their faith or the prescriptions of their religion. And by placing themselves in a line with the advancing communi- ties of the West, they can sensibly influence other Mahom- medan communities which happen to be less favourably situated. 1'KKfrACE. IX For the last few centuries Islam has become, in the minds of a large number of its votaries, associated with a lifeless formalism ; the practice of its rules of morality has given place to mere profession ; and its real aim as a creed to live by has been forgotten. For myself I attach far more importance to moral vigor than to mental agility — to character than to the faculty for passing examinations. I believe that the continued growth of a nation depends not on mere imitative intellectual cleverness but on the purity of its ethical stan- dards. And I consider that the first duty of those who wish to free their religion from the charge of obscurantism, bigotry or narrowness, is to endeavour to revive among the Moslems a knowledge of true Islamic ethics, — to elevate the general tone of thought, and to create a sense of patriotism and solidarity combined with a feeling of loyalty to the government under which they live. In India we are in the throes of a great moral, social and intellectual revolution ; the West is jostling the East, perhaps too vigorously at times, trying to awaken it from its lethargy, from its intense self-satisfaction and conceit in its old civilisa- tion. Those, who would perhaps like to see the two retain their separate individualities, are apt to forget that races, how- ever remote in their modes of thought, must, by the very process of coming together, act and re-act on each other. What is happening in India today happened ten centuries ago in the Iberian Peninsula. The learned author of " Studies in History and Jurisprudence" has recently com- pared British rule in India with Roman provincial government. He would probably find greater analogy in the Saracenic administration of Spain. It was equally liberal, sympathetic, non-exclusive and expansive; it gave the freest scope to local self-government ; it fostered trade and commerce ; encouraged agriculture and promoted education with unstint- ed generosity ; offices of trust and emolument were open X PREFACE. to all creeds and races. It also had its frontier raids and reprisals • its religious riots ; its racial prejudices. Apart, however, from political features, the splendid eclectic civilisa- tion which grew up in Spain from the introduction of Saracenic culture among the Vandals, the Goths and the Romans, shows what the result must be from the contact of a vigorous, progressive nationality with communities who have become stationary or have lost the genius of striving for advancement. And the intermixture of ideas, where the intermixture of races is not possible, acts as a solvent to the ignorance which idolises old forms. It would be disastrous if the Renaissance movement among the Moslems of India should fail to receive the countenance and support of the ruling classes, the only cultured classes in this country in the true sense of the word. Although in the main the progress of a nation is in its own hands, much may be done by them towards imparting a higher moral tone to and creating nobler ideals among the Indian communities. In my opinion the success of Islamic Renaissance will come only from the general diffusion of true Islamic culture and it is in this direction that the efforts of all interested in Mahomme- dan advancement should, I venture to suggest, be directed. Throughout this work my object has been to discuss the Islamic teachings in a historical spirit, and to develop among the latter-day Islamists a perception of the difference between ethics and ceremonialism. The book was issued to the public only a few years ago, barely more than a decade, a mere trifle in the life of a nation. And yet within this short period, its influence, judging from the results, must be admitted by all lovers of progress and friends of Islam, to be eminently satisfactory. The opposition it has evoked has only served to strengthen the hold of ideas which it was intended to diffuse among the growing generation. PREFACE. XI The demand, which has sprung up in consequence, has induced me to bring out a popular edition, enlarged and revised. The task of revision has been carried through under heavy pressure of judicial work and other literary undertakings, and I claim, therefore, some measure of indulgence for any shortcomings that may be found in this volume. Amekh All Calcutta AugUSt IQ02. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. EIGHTEEN years ago I published a small work, entitled, A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Moham- med. Since then a great change has taken place in the estimate of Islam as a Faith among the cultured classes of Christendom. Writers like Johnson, Lane- Poole, Bosworth- Smith, Isaac Taylor, have discussed, from a philosophical and historical point of view, the merits of Islam both as a creed and as a humanising agency. There seems, however, to be still room for an exposition of the Spirit of Islam as it was . understood by the immediate descendants of its Teacher. The present work, which it would be a misnomer to call a second edition of the earlier one, is primarily intended for the Indian Moslems. I have endeavoured to embody in these pages the philosophical and ethical spirit of Islam, in the hope that it may assist the Moslems of India to achieve their intellectual and moral regeneration under the auspices of the great European power that now holds their destinies in its hands. At the same time, I trust this book may prove of some practical value to those Seekers of Truth in the West whose minds have gone forth in quest of a positive and eclectic Faith suited for the noblest, and, by its disciplinary character, also for the lowest, natures. The glamour of the poet has not succeeded in making the Creed of Negation popu- lar in England, — that home of common sense, — for Buddhism has no vitality as a system ; its religious life is represented now by the prayer-wheels of the Lamas. But the general spread of liberalism in the West has, without the factitious assistance rendered to Buddhism, also led to the diffusion of Islamic ideas in Europe and cultured America, and even to the formation of a genuine Islamic centre in England. Unitarianism and Theism are neither more nor less than the Islam of PREFACE. Xlll Mohammed, shorn of the disciplinary rules framed for the guidance of the common folk. For these in every land something more is needed than mere philosophy ; they require practical rules and positive directions for their daily life. Dogmatic Christianity and philosophical Unitarianism both inculcate the exercise of self-restraint. Yet do all the preachings in churches and chapels reduce to any appre- ciable extent the drunkenness, the brutality, the licen- tiousness of the lowest natures ? The secular law imposes penalties, and keeps within bounds the recklessness of un- cultured man. The Islam of Mohammed, with its stern discipline and its severe morality, has proved itself the only practical religion for low natures to save them from drifting into lawless materialism. It is probable, how- ever, that, should the creed of the Arabian Prophet receive acceptance among European communities, much of the rigid formalism which has been imparted to it by the lawyers of Central Asia and Irak will have to be abandoned. Perhaps the present exposition of the true Spirit of Islam may help in the diffusion of Islamic ideas in the West. Calcutta, September i8go. AMEER All %* The transliteration I have adopted in this work of Arabic letters requires a word of explanation. The Indians, the Persians, and the Turks generally pronounce certain letters of the Arabic alphabet quite differently from the Arabs, e. g. , they make no difference between £; and ,«, pronouncing both as an s ; and, excepting among the Arabic scholars, ^ and J are pro- nounced alike as z. Little difference is made between & and ^. For these reasons I have eschewed the system, recently started in Europe, of differen- tiating the sounds of Arabic letters by dots and commas ; for to one unacquainted with Arabic, an h with a dot underneath it, and so forth, can convey no meaning. In the present volume I have generally represented th, subject to the same exception / Islam— Reason of their present divergence — Defects of ~\ modern Mahommedanism ... ... ... 138—165 Sumptuary regulations of Mohammed (note 1) CHAPTER III. The Church militant of Islam — Its wars purely defensive-— Toleration in Islam — Intolerance of the Jews, Christians, Mago-Zoroastrians, and Hindus — Islam opposed to isola- tion and exclusiveness — Wars of Islam after the Prophet — The capture of Jerusalem by the Moslems compared with its capture by the Crusaders ..» ... ... 166 — 182 XVIU CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. The status of women in Islam — Polygamy, its origin — Practi- sed by all the nations of antiquitv^-Polygamy among the Christians — Opinion of St. Augustine and the German reformers — Polygamy among the Arabs and the Jews — /Mohammed's regulations — Monogamy, result of develop- ment— Compatibility of Mohammed's regulation with every stage of development — Mohammed's marriages examined-^- Status of women in early Christianity— Conception of Jesus about marriage— Divorce among the Romans and the Jews — Among the Christians -(Regulations of Moham- med on the subject — Concubinage forbidden — Custom of female seclusion — Idealisation of womanhood — Prophecy and chivalry, offspring of the desert — The women of Islam— Improvement effected by Mohammed in the status of women /... CHAPTER V. Slavery existed among all ancient nations — Position of slaves among the Romans and Christians^— Regulations of Slavery abhorrent to Islam/ among the Romans and Jews — Slavery among the ChristiansV-Regulations of Mohammed about slavery — CHAPTER VI. The idea of a future existence, result of development — The idea of future existence among the Egyptians, the Jews, the Zoroastrians — The Jewish belief in a personal Messiah — Real origin of this belief — Character of the Christian traditions — Strongly-developed idea of an immediate king- dom of heaven in the mind of Jesus and the early dis- ciples— Paradise and hell, according to the traditional words of Jesus — The millenarian dream — How it has died away — The Islamic conception of a future existence — The parabolic character of many verses of the Koran — Pro- gressive development a necessity of human nature — The Koranic conception of present and future happiness ... 227—241 T CONTENTS. Xix CHAPTER VII. he political spirit of Islam— Degraded condition of humanity at the time of the Prophet's advent— Serfdom and villein- age—Absence of human liberty and equality^Intolerance of Christianity— The Charter of Mohammed— The message of the Prophet to the Christians of Najran— The character of the early Republic — Administration of the Caliphs Abu Bakr and Omar— Equality of men inclucated by Islam — Spain under the Arabs— Kitdb Tdrikh-ud-dawal . ... 2$2— 262 CHAPTER VIII. The political divisions and schisms of Islam — Owed their origin to clannic desert feuds, fostered by dynastic disputes/ — Osman's partiality for the Ommeyyades— His death — Accession of Ali — Revolt of Muawiyah — The battle of Siffin — The arbitrament of Amr ibn-ul-Aas and Abu Miisa al-Ashaari— Assassination of Ali— The usurpation of Muawiyah — The butchery of Kerbela — The triumph of paganism — The sack of Medina — The rise of the Abbas- sides — The origin of the Sunni Church— Mamun — The question of the Imamate— Shiahism— Sunnism — The principal Shiah sects — The Zaidias — The Ismailias — The Asnd-Aasharias — The Paulicians — The doctrine of Abdullah ibn-Maimun al-Kaddah— The Grand Lodge of Cairo — The assassins of Alamut — The Asna-Aasharias divided into Usiilis and Akhbdris, their respective doc- trines— The Sunnis divided into Hanafh, Md/iMs, Shdfets, and Hanbalis — The Khdrijis— Bdbism— -The Ahl-uz-zdhir —The Ahl-ul-Bdtin. ••• ••• ••• 263—336 CHAPTER IX. iThe literary and scientific spirit of Islam— The Arabian Pro- phet's devotion to knowledge and science— His precepts — The Caliph Ali's sayings— Learning and arts among the primitive Moslems— The school of Medina — Imam Jaafar as-Sadik-The foundation of Bagdad— Al-Mansiir — M&- miin, the Augustus of the Saracens— Al-Muiz li-din-illah— The Ddr-ul-Hikmat of Cairo— Astronomy and mathe- XX CONTENTS matics among the Arabs— Architecture— History— Poetry ^-The Koran— The intellectual achievements of the Moslems-j;Their present stagnation, its causes — The ter- rible destruction committed by the Tartars — The result of the Crusades— The Usbegs and Afghans — The Almohades. CHAPTER X. The rationalistic and philosophical spirit of Islam — The Koranic teachings about free-will and divine government- Mohammed's sayings — The exposition of the Caliph Ali and of the early descendants of the Prophe}/— The Ja&arias J cr predestinarians — The Sifdtias — The Mutazalas — Muta- zalaism the same as the teachings of the philosophers of the family of the Prophet-/- Rationalism in Islam— The reign of Mamun — Philosophy among the Moslems — Avicenna and Averroes-^-The fall of rationalism and philosophy in Islam — Its causes — Mutawakkil — His alliance with patristicism — The triumph of patristicism — Abu'l Hassan Ali al-Ashaari — His retrogressive teachings — Abu Hanifa, M&lik, Shafe'i, and Ibn Hanbal — Ilm-ul-Kaldm — The Ikhwan us-Safa (" The Pure Brethren "), their teach- ings— Imam al-Ghazzali— Siifism ) ... ... 372 Appendices :— ... ... ••• ••• 421 Index of Names ... ••• ••• ••• a^ PART I THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. INTRODUCTION U ^Idi U ^j <)tf t*fl w& j* ti J *aiU V--^sSXJ JI^ J U?- Ji>i u>.»; l ;J ;jyt «*>j > THE continuity of religious progress among mankind is a subject of enthralling interest to the student of humanity. The gradual awakening of the human mind to the recognition of a Personality, of a Supreme Will overshadowing the universe ; the travails through which individuals and races have passed before they arrived at the conception of an Universal Soul pervading, regulating, and guiding all existence, — furnish lessons of the deepest import. The process by which humanity has been lifted from the adoration of material objects to the worship of God, has often been retarded. Masses of mankind and individuals have broken away from the stream of pro- gress, have listened to the promptings of their own desires, have given way to the cravings of their own hearts ; they have gone back to the worship of their passions, symbolised in the idols of their infancy. But though unheard, the voice of God has always sounded the call to truth, and when the time has arrived His servants have risen to proclaim the duties of man to himself and his Creator. These men have been the veritable " messengers of Heaven." They came among their people as the children of their time ; they represent- ed the burning aspirations of the human soul for truth, purity, and justice. Each was an embodiment of the spiritual necessities of his XX THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. age ; each came to purify, to reform, to elevate a degraded race, a corrupted commonwealth. Some came as teachers of a smaller culture, to influence a smaller sphere ; others came with a world- wide message — a message not confined to one race or nation, but intended for all humanity. Such was Mohammed. His mission was not to the Arabs alone. He was not sent for one age or clime, but "for all mankind to the end of the world. " The advent of this great Teacher, whose life from the moment of his Ministry is a verifiable record, was not a mere accident, an unconnected episode in the history of the world. The same causes, the same crying evils, the same earnest demand for an " assured trust " in an all-pervading Power, which led to the appearance on the shores ot Galilee, in the reign of Augustus Caesar, of a Prophet whose life is a tragedy, operated with greater force in the seventh century of the Christian era. The beginning of the seventh century, as has been rightly said, was an epoch of disintegration — national, social, and religious : its phenomena were such as have always involved a fresh form of positive faith, to recall all wandering forces to the inevitable track of spiritual evolution towards the integration of personal worship. They all pointed to the necessity of a more organic revelation of divine government than that attained by Judaism or Christianity. The holy flames kindled by Zoroaster, Moses, and Jesus had been quenched in the blood of man. A corrupt Zoroastrianism, battling for centuries with a still more corrupt Christianity, had stifled the voice of humanity, and converted some of the happiest portions of the globe into a veritable Aceldama. Incessant war for supremacy, perpetual internecine strife, combined with the ceaseless wrangling of creeds and sects, had sucked the life-blood out of the hearts of nations, and the people of the earth, trodden under the iron heels of a lifeless sacerdotalism, were crying to God from the misdeeds of their masters. Never in the history of the world was the need so great, the time so ripe, for the appearance of a Deliverer. In order, there- fore, to appreciate thoroughly the achievement of Mohammed in the moral world, it is necessary to take a rapid survey of the religious and social condition of the nations of the earth previous to, and about the time of, the Islamic Dispensation. — The high table-land of Bactria, appropriately styled by Arab geographers Umm ul-Bildd, or " mother of countries/' is supposed to be the cradle of humanity, the original birth-place of creeds and INTRODUCTION. XX! nations. Through the faint and shadowy light, which comparative ethnology throws on the infancy of mankind, we perceive groups of families congregated in this primeval home of the human race, gradually coalescing into clans and tribes, and then forced by the pressure of increasing population, issuing in successive waves to people the face of the globe. The Hamitic branch were apparently the first to leave their ancient habitations. They were followed by the Turanians, or as they are sometimes called, the Ugro- Finnish tribes, supposed to be an offshoot of the Japhetic family. Some of them apparently proceeded northwards, and then spreading themselves in the East, founded the present Mongolian branch of the human race. Another section proceeded westward and settled in Azarbaijan, Hamadan, and Ghilan, countries to the south and south-west of the Caspian, better known in ancient history as Media. A portion of these descending afterwards into the fertile plains of Babylonia, enslaved the earlier Hamitic colonies, and in course of time amalgamating with them, formed the Accadian nation, the Kushites of the Christian and Jewish Scriptures. This composite race created Babylon, and gave birth to a form of religion which, in its higher phases, was akin to natural pantheism. In its lower phases, with its pan-daemonism, its worship of the sun-gods and moon-gods, closely associated with the phallic cult and the sexual instincts, the sacrifice of children to Baal and Moloch, of virginity to Beltis and Ashtoreth, it marks an epoch when high material civilisation was allied to gross licentiousness, and cruelty was sanctioned by religion. The Semites were the next to leave the primeval home. They also, following in the footsteps of the Turanians, migrated to- wards the West, and apparently settled themselves in the northern part of the Mesopotamian Delta. Increasing in numbers and strength, they soon overthrew the Babylonian kingdom, and founded a far-reaching empire which wielded its sway over all the neighbour- ing states. In their seat of power between the two great rivers of Western Asia, the Assyrians at times rose to a positive monotheistic conception. Their system of celestial hierarchy furnish indica- tions of a distinct recognition of one Supreme Personality. Whilst the main body of the Semitic colony was developing it- self in the upper parts of the Delta, a small section had penetrated far into a district called Ur, within the boundaries of the Chaldaean Xxii THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. monarchy.1 The patriarch of this tribe, whose self-imposed exile and wanderings have passed into the religious legends of more than one creed, became the father of the future makers of history. 2 The Japhetic family seems to have tarried longest in its ancient habitation. Whilst the other races, which had broken away from the original stock, were forming empires and evolving creeds, the Japhe- tic branch underwent a development peculiar to itself. But the march of nations once set on foot was never to cease ; actuated by that spirit of unrest which works in barbarous tribes, or influenced by the pressure of population and the scarcity of space in their old haunts for the pursuit of their pastoral avocations, tribe after tribe moved away towards the West. Among the first were the Pelasgians and the Celts. Other tribes followed, until the Aryans proper were left alone in the old haunts. One section apparently had its abode near Badakhshan, the other towards Balkh proper, where for centu- ries they lived almost isolated from the neighbouring nations, un- affected by their wars or their movements. The light of history which has dawned on the Western races, the founders of kingdoms and civilisations, also falls upon these ancient dwellers of the earth, and reveals, though indistinctly and as through a mist, several clans gathered together on that plateau ; just emerged from savageness into barbarism, they are becoming alive to the sense of an Universal Ideality. Innumerable idealities are taking the place of the natural objects, hitherto worshipped with fear and trembling. With some of them, the host of abstractions and personifications of the powers of nature are subordinated to two comprehensive principles — Light and Darkness. The sun, the bright harbinger of life and light, becomes the symbol of a beneficent Divinity, whose power, though held in check, is eventually to conquer the opposing principle of Evil and Darkness. With others, the idealities which they now impress on the fetish they worshipped before, merge in each other ; at one time standing forth as distinct personal entities, at another time resolving themselves into a hylozoic whole. Gradually the clouds lift, and we see the tribal and clan-formations giving way to monarchical institu- tions ; agriculture taking by slow degrees the place of pastoral i Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, p. 23. 2 In the Arabian traditions the father of Abraham is called Azar, which is evidently the same as Asshur ; and the beautiful idols of Azar are fre- quently referred to in Moslem literature. These traditions confirm the belief that Abraham was an Assyrian. INTRODUCTION. XXHI avocations ; primitive arts being cultivated : the use of metals gain- ing ground, and, above all, the higher conception of a Supreme Personality forcing itself upon the yet unopened mind. Kaiumurs, Hoshang, and the other old kings of whom Firdousi sings with such wondrous power, are types of an advancing civilisation. The v introduction of the monarchical institutions among the Aryans proper, seems to be coeval with that religious conflict between the two branches of the Aryan family which led to the expulsion of the Eastern branch from their Bactrian home. A powerful religious revolution had been inaugurated among the Western Aryans by a teacher whose name has been preserved in the literature of his religion as (^itama Zarathustra. The sharp religious conflict, which resulted from this movement, has left its mark in the deep imprecations heaped by the Vedic hymn-singers on the enemy of their race and creed, the Djaradashti of the Vedas. The attitude of the Vedic hymn-singers towards the reformed faith, even more than the extraordinary coinci- dence in names, furnishes the strongest proof that the religious divergence was the immediate cause of the split between the two branches of the Aryans proper. In this, probably the first religious war waged among mankind, the Western dualistic clans were success- ful in driving their half-polytheistic, half-pantheistic brethern across the Paropamisadae. The Eastern Aryans burst into India, driving before them the earlier black races, massacring and enslaving them, treating them always as inferior beings, Dasyus and Sudras, slaves and serfs. The difference between the Vedic and the Zoroastrian religions was, however, purely relative. Zoroastrianism substituted for the worship of the phenomena, the adoration of the cause. It converted the gods of the Vedas into demons and the deva-worship- pers into infidels ; whilst the Vedic hymn-singer, on his side, called the Ahura of the Avesta an evil god, an Asura, a power hostile to the gods, and heaped burning maledictions on the head of Djaradashti. Whilst the place and time of the early Zoroaster's birth are enwrapt in mystery, under Darius Hystaspes arose another teacher, who, under the same name, revived, organised, and enlarged the basis of the ancient teachings. Retracing our steps for a moment, we see the tide of Aryan conquest in India flowing eastward and southward for centuries. The Aryan colonies were naturally influenced by the fetishism of the races whom they conquered or among whom they settled, until at XXiv THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. last the revolting and inhuman Sakti worship1 was produced on the one hand, and the degrading sensualism of Krishna on the other. In the parts, however, which formed the core of the Aryan nation, the thoughts and feelings brought from their native home continued for ages to exercise an influence. But they, also, were to lose what remained. In the enjoyment of peace and plenty, separated from the energetic life of their brothers of the West, exposed to the voluptuous influences of a morbidly fertile imagination, and without possessing a system of positive morality embodied in effectual laws, the Aryan settlers soon lost the spiritual belief of their forefathers. In time they obtained a code ; but it represented the ideas which prevailed in an age of great moral decadence and gross materialism.2 A revolt ensued, from revolutionary and negative instincts acting on a Hindu mind. But Buddhism, with all its grand aspirations, did not possess any pretension of being a positive religion. Essentially adapted to the recluse, it never acquired a tangible hold on the masses ; and its failure under the most favourable circumstances sealed its fate in India as a religious system. On the expulsion of Buddhism from Hindustan, Brahmanism regained its supremacy. The old Nature-worship was dead ; its place was taken by a lifeless sacrificial cult. The ability of the ministering priest properly to perform the rites, rather than the con- duct of the worshipper, supplied the test of merit. Among the masses, the demons of destruction and lust became the two favourite objects of adoration; and the revolting orgies of Ashtoreth and Moloch were enacted under other names and aspects. Prostitution was not only recognised, but honoured in the class of dancing girls, especially those attached to the temples for the service of the gods and their 1 The Sakti is the female half and active creative side of each Hindu deity. The Sakti or spouse of Siva is the dread goddess known under various names, such as Parbati, Kali, Durga, Chsimunda\ The worship of this goddess as described in the drama of Bhavabhuti, written apparently in the 7th century of the Christian era, was celebrated with human sacrifices and other revolting rites. Human sacrifice prevailed in the Vedic times also and was called Purush- amedha. The Sakti worship represented the complete abandonment of the Aryan mind to the dark suparstitions of the pre- Aryan races. Primitive Sivaism was the unmixed cult of Priapus originating in the adoration offered by the denizens of the forests aud the hills to the generative powers of the universe figured in a symbolism which alone appealed to their mind. 2 Non-dualistic Vedantism, which unquestionably represents the highest form of religio-philosophical developement among the Hindus, was, I venture to think, connected with the grand upheaval in Western Asia originated by the Prophet of Arabia. INTRODUCTION. XXV ministers. The family law admitted forms of marriage which are "only euphemisms for seduction and rape."1 In the south, polyandry was universal; in the north, its practice was sanctified by the example of the heroes of antiquity. The relations between the sexes were marked by indescribable grossness. The condition of woman, during that vague and mythic period which passes under the name of the Vedic age, was not so favourable as some writers on India would fain represent to us now. In the " Epic times," she formed the prize in gambling and feats of athletics, and had to accept as many husbands as there were brothers in the family. But she arrived at the depth of degradation under Brahmanic domination. The contempt with which the Brahmanic legislator speaks of women, and the complete servitude to which he subjects them, are astonishing. " Women," says Manu, " have impure appetites ; they show weak flexibility and bad conduct. Day and night must they be kept in subjection/'2 Let us turn now to Persia — a country which, by its proximity to the birthplace of Islam, and the powerful influence it has always exercised on Mahommedan thought, not to speak of the character and tone it communicated to Christianity and Judaism, deserves our earnest attention. Consolidated into a nation, and with a new spiritual development, the western Aryans soon burst their ancient bounds, and spread themselves over the regions of modern Persia and Afghanistan. They appear to have conquered or destroyed most of the Hamitic and Cushite races inhabiting those tracts, and gradually reached the confines . of the Caspian, where they found the more tenacious and hardy Turanians settled in Media and Susiana. Before, however, they had succeeded in subjugating the Turanians, they themselves fell under the yoke of a foreign invader, Cushite or Assyrian, more probably the latter, under whose iron sway they remained for a considerable time.8 With the 1 Mayne's Hindu Law. 2 The rite of initiation by thich the men of the three Aryan castes obtained a " second birth " was denied to women along with the Sudras. In later ages they must have lost further ground, for women have no place in the scheme of salvation propounded by the Ved antic philosophy. 3 According to the Persian traditions, Zuhhak ruled over Iran for over a 1000 years, and this is supposed by several scholars to represent the exact period of Assyrian domination. The rise of Faridun would, according to this view, be synchronous with the downfall of Nineveh, XXVi THE LIFK OF MOHAMMED. expulsion of the foreigners commenced that conflict between Iran and Turan which lasted with varying fortunes for centuries, and ended with the partial subjugation of the Turanians in Media and Susiana.x The frequent contact of the followers of Afrasiab and Kai-Kaus in the field and the hall exercised a lasting effect on the Persic faith. The extreme materialism of the Turanians did not fail to degrade the yet undeveloped idealism of their Iranian rivals and neighbours, who, whilst they succeeded in superimposing them- selves on the ancient settlers of Media, had partially to incorporate Turanian worship with their own. And thus, whilst in Persia, Ormuzd alone was adored and Ahriman held up to execration, in Media, the good and the evil principle were both adored at the altars. Naturally the Turanian population was more inclined to worship their ancient national god than the deity of their Aryan conquerors ; and in the popular worship, Ahriman, or Afrasiab, took precedence of Ormuzd. The Assyrian empire had fallen before a coalition, the first of its kind known in history, of the Medes and the Babylonians, but the religion of Asshur, from its long domination over many of the parts occupied by the Aryans, left an ineffaceable mark on the conception of the Zoroastrians. The complex system of celestial co-ordination, the idea of a divine hierarchy prevalent among the Assyrians, en- grafted itself on Zoroastrianism. Ormuzd was henceforth worshipped as a second Asshur ; and the Persian's symbol of the God of light, the all-beneficent power, became a winged warrior, with bow and lifted hand, enclosed in the world-circle. Their symbol of growth also, the tree with the candelabra branches ending upwards in the pine-cone, was converted into the Persian fir-cone. Before the rise of Cyrus in Farsistan and his consolidating conquests, the symbolic worship in vogue among the early emigrants and settlers became degraded among the masses into pyrolatry, or took the form of Chaldaeo-Assyrian Sabaeism. The city of Asshur, — which had ruled Western Asia up to the confines of India for nearly a thousand years, and almost wrested from the Pharaohs the empire of Egypt, — the city of the mighty Sargon and the great Sennacherib, had fallen before the combined i Lenormant, Ancient Hist. of. the East, p, 54. INTRODUCTION. XXVH forces of the Babylonian and the Mede,1 never again to raise its head among the nations of the world. Babylon, which after its early rivalry with Nineveh had been reduced to a dependency of Assyria, became again the centre of Asiatic civilisation. She gathered up the arts and sciences of a thousand years of growth, and the product of " interfused races and religions, temples and priesthoods," and supplied the connecting link between the inorganic faiths of antiquity and the modern beliefs. Assyria had, with the civilisation and literature of the early Accadians, also borrowed much of. their religion. Babylon, rising into more potent grandeur from the ashes of Nineveh, centred in herself the essence of the Assyrian and Chaldaean cults. Under Nebuchadnezzar II. the empire of Baby- lonia attained the zenith of its power ; Judaea fell, and the flower of the nation was carried into captivity to lament by the waters of Babylon the downfall of the kingdom of Jehovah. The mighty conqueror penetrated into Arabia, and overwhelmed and nearly destroyed the Ishmaelites ;2 he smote the Tyrians, and broke the power of the Egyptian Pharaoh. In spite of the maledictions heaped upon her head by the Hebrew patriot, Babylon was by no means such a hard taskmaster as Egypt. The Israelites themselves bear testimony to the generosity of their treatment. Not until the redeemer was nigh with his mighty hosts, marching to the conquest of the doomed city, did the children of Israel raise their voice against Babylon. Then burst forth the storm of imprecations, of predictions of woe which displayed the characteristics of the race in its pristine savagery. " By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down ; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. O Daughter of Babylon ! happy shall he be who dasheth thy little ones against the stones."8 Under Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was indisputably the centre of all existing civilisations. And the influence wielded by her priest- hood did not cease with the empire of Babylonia. The mark of the Babylonian conceptions is traced in unmistakable characters in both the Judaical and Christian systems. The long exile of the Jews among the Chaldaean priesthood, the influence which some of the Hebrews obtained in the court of the Babylonian king, and the i 606 B.C. 2 Jer. xlix. 27 to 29. 3 Ps. cxxxvii. B XXV111 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. unavoidable interfusion of the two peoples, tended to impart a new character to later Judaism. They were carried to Babylon in a state of semi-barbarism ; they returned to Zion after their long probation in the land of exile a new people, advanced in faith and doctrine, with larger aspirations and their political vision extended.x With the conquest of Babylon begins a new era in religious development. Henceforth the religion of dualism wields the empire of Asia. The grand toleration which Cyrus extended towards the Jews naturally led to his exaltation as " the Messiah," '* the Redeemer," " the anointed Saviour of the world." The captivity of the Hebraic tribes, and their enforced settlement near the seat of Persian domi- nation, and their subsequent intermixture under Cyrus with the Persians, most probably gave impetus to that religious reform among the Zoroastrians which occurred during the reign of Darius Hys- taspes. There was mutual action and reaction. The Israelites impressed on renovated Zoroastrianism a deep and abiding concep- tion of a Divine Personality overshadowing the universe. They received from the Iranians the notion of a celestial hierarchy, and the idea of a duality of principles in the creation of good and evil. Henceforth it is not the Lord who puts a lying spirit into the mouths of evil-dooers ; Satan, like Ahriman, from this time takes a prominent part in the religious and moral history of the Hebrews. The reign of Cyrus was one of conquest, hardly of organisation. The reign of Darius was one of consolidation ; stern worshipper of Ormuzd, to whom he ascribes all his victories, he endeavoured to purify the faith of Zoroaster of all its foreign excrescences, to stamp out the Magism of the Medes from its stronghold, and to leave Aryan Persia the dominant power of the civilized world. Nothing, however, could arrest the process of decay. Before a hundred years had gone by, Zoroastrianism had imbibed to the full the evils which it had fought against in its infancy. The scourgers of idolatry, the uncompromising iconoclasts, who, in their fiery zeal, had slaughtered the Egyptian Apis and overturned its shrine, soon absorbed into the worship of Ormuzd the Semitic gods of their subject states. The old Magian element-worship was revived, and Artaxerxes Mnemon, one of the immediate successors of Darius, introduced among the Zoroastrians the worship of that l Johnson's Oriental Religions, in loco. INTRODUCTION. XXIX androgynous Mythra — the Persian counterpart of the Chaldaean Mylitta or Anaitis, with its concomitant phallic cult. It was impos- sible for Zoroastrianism to escape or avoid the magic influence of the ancient civilisations. The old religions furnished to the Persians the form which later Zoroastrianism presents to the student of history. Never was the condition of woman so bad, never was she held under greater subjection, — a slave to the caprice of man, — than under the Mago-Zoroastrians. The laws of Manu imposed certain rules of chastity, and the stringency of primitive exogamy exercised a restraining effect upon human passions. The Persian in the relations of the sexes recognised no law but that of his own will. He could marry his nearest kindred, and divorce his wives at his pleasure. The system of female seclusion was not confined to the Persians alone. Among the Ionic Greeks, women were confined within the gynaikonitis, often kept under lock and key, and never allowed to appear in public. But the Greek gynaikonomoi were not, until later times, mutilated specimens of humanity. In Persia, the custom of employing eunuchs to guard the women prevailed from the remotest antiquity. As in Greece, concubinage was a recognised social insti- tution, and was interwoven with the foundations of society. The Persian, however, never allowed lewdness to be incorporated with the national worship. He worshipped no Aphrodite Pandemos; nor was Zoroastrian society tainted with that "moral pestilence,"1 the most degrading of all vices, which was universal in Greece, which spread itself afterwards in Rome, and was not even rooted out by Christianity. With the downfall of the Achsemenian empire ended the vitality of Zoroastrianism as a motive power in the growth of the world. The swarms of conquerors, who swept like whirlwinds over the face of Persia, destroyed all social and moral life. The Macedonian conquest, with the motley hordes which followed on its footsteps, the influx of all the dregs of Lesser Asia, Cilicians, Tyrians, Pam- phylians, and various others, half Greeks, half Asians, obeying no moral law, the hasty and reckless temper of the conqueror himself, — all led to the debasement of the Zoroastrian faith. The Mobeds, the representatives of the national life, were placed under the ban i Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jeic, vol. ii. p> 239. XXX THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. of persecution by the foreigner, the aim of whose life was to hellenise Asia. Alexander's career was splendidly meteoric. Shorn of the legends which have surrounded his life and turned it into an epopee, he stands before us a man of gigantic conceptions and masterly purposes, possessed of a towering ambition, a genius which overpowered all opposition, and a personality which en- abled him to mould the minds of all around him according to his own will. His was a nature full of contradictions. A disciple of Aristotle, who aimed at the hellenisation of Asia, with himself as the central figure in the adoration of the world, an associate of philoso- phers and wise men, his life was disgraced by excesses of a revolting type. " The sack of Tyre and the enslavement of its population, the massacres and executions in India and Bactria, the homicide of Clytus, the death warrants of Philotas and the faithful Parmenio, the burning of Persepolis and the conflagration of its splendid libraryat the instigation of a courtezan, are acts," says an apologist and an admirer, " for which no historian has found a palliation/' With the conquest of Alexander and the extinction of the Achaemenian dynasty, Zoroastrianism gave way to Hellenism and the worst traditions of Chaldaean civilisation. The extreme partiality of the hero of many legends towards Babylon, and his anxious desire to resuscitate that city and make it the centre of a mightier and more complete civilisa- tion, led him to discourage all creeds and faiths, all organisations, religious or political, which militated with his one great desire. Under the Seleucidae, the process of denationalisation went on apace. Antiochus Epiphanes, the cruel persecutor of the worshippers of Jehovah, won for himself from them as well as the Zoroastrians, the unenviable designation of Ahriman. Even the rise of the Parthian power tended to accelerate the decline and ruin of Zoroastrianism. The Seleucidae ruled on the Tigris and the Orontes ; the Parthians formed for themselves a kingdom in the middle portion of the Achaemenian empire ; the Graeco-Bactrian dynasties were in posses- sion of the eastern tracts, viz. Bactria and the nothern part of Afghanistan. The state-religion of the Seleucidae was a mixture of Chaldaeo-Hellenism. The Jews and Zoroastrians were placed under the ban and ostracised. Under the Parthians, Mazdism, though not actually extinguished, was compelled to hide itself from the gaze of the rulers. In quiet and settled parts, Zoroastrianism became mixed INTRODUCTION. XXXI with the old Sabaeism of the Medes and the Chaldaeans ; or, where kept alive in its pristine character, it was confined to the hearts of some of those priests who had taken refuge in the inaccessible recesses of their country. But with Parthia enlarged into an empire, and the Par- thian sovereigns aspiring to the title of Shah-in-shah, persecution gave way to toleration, and Mago-Zoroastrianism again raised its head among the religions of the world. And the rise of the Sassanides gave it another spell of power. The founder of the new empire placed the Mobeds at the head of the State. Last sad representatives of a dying faith I Around them clustered the hopes of a renovated religious exis- tence under the auspices of the Sassanide dynasty. How far the brilliant aspirations of Ardeshir Babekan (Artaxerxes Longimanus), the founder of the new empire, were realised, is a matter of history. The political autonomy of Persia — its national life — was restored, but the social and religious life was lost beyond the power of rulers to restore. The teachings of yore lived perhaps in books, but in the hearts of the people they were as dead as old Gushtasp or Rustam. Under the Sassanides, the Zoroastrians attained the zenith of their power. For centuries they competed with Rome for the em- pire of Asia. Time after time they defeated her armies, sacked her cities, carried away her Caesars into captivity, and despoiled her sub- jects of their accumulated riches ; but the fire of Zoroastrianism was extinct. It burnt upon the high altars of the temples, but it had died out from the heart of the nation. The worship of the true God had given place to a Chaldaeo-Magian cult, and the fierce intolerance with which Ardeshir and his successors persecuted rival creeds, failed to achieve its purpose. The Persian empire, under the later Sassanides, only rivalled in the turmoil of its sects and the licentiousness of its sovereigns, in the degeneration of its aristocracy and the overweening pride of its priesthood, the empire of the Byzantines. The kings were gods ; they were absolute masters over the person and property of their subjects, who possessed no rights, and were virtual serfs. The climax of depravation was reached when Mazdak, in the begin- ning of the sixth century of the Christian era, bade all men to be partners in riches and women, " just as they are in fire, water, and grass ; private property was not to exist ; each man was to enjoy or endure the good and bad lots of this world."1 The lawfulness of lThe Dabistdn-i-Mazdhib of Mohsin Fani. XXX11 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. marriages with sisters and other blood relations had already been recognised by Mago-Zoroastrianism. The proclamation of this frightful communism revolted some of the nobler minds even anomg the Persians. The successor of Zoroaster, as Mazdak styled himself, was put to death ; but his doctrines had taken root, and from Persia they spread over the West. All these evils betokened a frightful depravation of moral life, and foreshadowed the speedy extinction of the nation in its own iniquities. This doom, though staved off for a time by the personal character of Kesra Anushirvan, became inevitable after his death. But a Master had already appeared, destined to change the whole aspect of the world ! Eleven centuries had passed over the Jews since their return from the Babylonian captivity, and witnessed many changes in their fortunes. The series of disasters which one after another had befallen the doomed nation of Moses, had culminated in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. Pagan Rome had destroyed their temple, and stamped out in fire and blood their existence as a nation. Christian Constantinople persecuted them with an equally relentless fury, but the misfortunes of the past had no lessons for them in the future. Their own sufferings at the hands of ruthless persecutors had failed to teach them the value of humanity and peace. The atrocious cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus and Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous harmony with the unsuspecting natives, are terribly revolting. The house of Israel was a total wreck j its members were fugitives on the face of the earth, seeking shelter far and wide, but carrying everywhere their indomitable pride, their rebellious hardness of heart, denounced and reprehended by an endless succession of prophets. The Jews, in their safe retreats in foreign lands, re-enacted the scenes of past times. The nation lived in hope, but the hope was mixed with rigid uncompromising bigotry on the one hand, and a voluptuous epicureanism on the other. Jesus had come and gone, without producing any visible effect upon them. The child of his age, he was imbued with the Messianic ideas floating in the atmosphere in which he lived and moved. The Book of Daniel , written during one of the greatest travails of the nation, with its hopes and aspirations, could not but make a deep impression on the mind of the Teacher mourning over the sight of his stricken people. The fierce intoler- INTRODUCTION. XXX111 ance of the Zealots seated in their mountain homes, the lifeless ceremonialism of the Sadducees, the half-hearted liberalism of the Pharisees, the dreamy hopefulness of the Essenes, with one hand extended towards Alexandria and the other towards Buddhistic India, the preachings and denunciations of the wild Dervish, whose life became a sacrifice to the depravity of the Herodian court, all appealed to the heart of Jesus. But the Eagle's talons were clutched on the heart of Judaea and its legions crushed out all hope of a violent change. The quietism of Jesus, and his earnest anticipation of a kingdom of heaven, to be ushered in by the direct instrumentality of God, were the outcome of his age. Among a nation of furious and relentless bigots, he had come as the messenger of universal brotherhood and love. In the midst of a proud and exclusive race, he trod the paths of humility and meekness ; kind and gentle to his immediate followers, demoted to the cause of all, he left behind • him the impress of an elevated, self-denying spirit. Among the powel, rfuthe rich, and the ruling classes, he had roused only feelings of hatred, fear, and opposition ; among the poor, the despised, the ignorant and the oppressed, the deep compassion of the great Teacher had awakened sentiments of gratitude and love. One bright sunny morning he had entered the stronghold of Jewish fanaticism full of hope in his ministry as the promised Messiah ; before a fortnight had run out, he was sacrificed to the vested interests of his day. Amidst the legends which surround his life, so much at least is clear. Born among the poor, his preachings were addressed to the poor. Deeply versed in the Rabbinical lore, his short ministry was devoted almost exclusively to the humble denizens of the country side — the proverty-stricken peasantry and the fishermen of Galilee. His disciples were poor, ignorant folk. In spite of their credulous natures, and the vivid — not to say weird — effect exercised on their imaginations by the untimely disappearance of the Master, I they never regarded him as anything more than a man. It was not until Paul adopted the creed of him at whose execution he had ^resided, that the idea of an incarnate God or angel was introduced ^jfinto Christianity. In spite of the promise attached to the "effusion of the Holy Ghost, " "it was found necessary," says the historian of Ecclesiasticism, "that there should be some one defender of the gospel who, who versed in the learned arts, might be able to combat the Jewish doctors and the pagan philosophers with their own arms. XXXIV THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. For this purpose Jesus himself, by an extraordinary voice from heaven, had called to his service a thirteenth apostle, whose name was Saul (afterwards Paul), and whose acquaintance both with Jewish and Grecian learning was very considerable."1 The Mago-Zoroastrian believed in an angel-deliverer, in the Surush who was to appear from the East ; the Buddhist, in an incarnate God born of a virgin ; the Alexandrian mystic inculcated the doctrine of the Logos and the Demiurge. The esoteric conceptions regarding the birtft, death, and resurrection of Osiris, the idea of the Isis-Ceres, the virgin mother "holding in her arms the new-born sun-god Horns,"2 were in vogue both in Egypt and Syria. And Paul, the Pharisee and the scholar, was deeply imbued with these half-mystical, half-philosophi- cal notions of his time. A visionary and enthusiast by nature, not free from physical ailments, as Strauss suggests, he, who had never come in actual contact with the great Master, was easily inclined to attach to him the attributes of a Divinity — of an Angel Incarnate. He infused into the simple teachings of his Master the most mysteri- ous principles of Neo-Pythagoreanism, with its doctrine of intelli- gences and its notion of the triad, borrowed from the far East. The jealousy between the home and the foreign, the Judaical and the anti-Judaical party, was shown in the curious though well-known antipathy of the two apostles, Peter and Paul.3 The Ebionites most probably represented the beliefs of the original companions of the Prophet of Nazareth. He had conversed with them familiarly, and "in all the actions of rational and animal life" had appeared to them as of the same nature as themselves. They had marked him grow from infancy to youth and from youth to manhood ; they had seen him increase in stature and wisdom. Their belief was tempered by their knowledge of him as a man. The depravation of ideas from this original faith, through various intermediate phases like those of the Docetes, the Marcionites, the Patripassians,4 and various others 1 Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 63. 2 Mr. Ernest de Bunsen's Essay on Mohammed's Place in the Church, Asiatic Quarterly Review, April 1889. 3 Milner, Hist, of the Church of Christ, vol. i. pp. 26, 27. 4 The Docetes believed Jesus to be a pure God. The Marcionites regarded him as a being "most like unto God, even his Son Jesus Christ, clothed with a certain shadowy resemblance of a body, that he might thus be visible to mortal eyes." The Patripassians believed that the Father suffered with the Son on the cross (Mosheim and Gibbon, in loco ; aud Neander, vol. ii. pp. 150, 301 et seq). INTRODUCTION. XXXV down to the decisions of the Council of Nice in 328, forms a con- tinuous chain. The prevalent belief in aeons and emanations predis- posed all classes of people, especially those who had never beheld the Prophet, observed his humanity, or noted his everyday life, to accept his divinity without any question. Several causes had assisted in the diffusion of the Christian faith before the accession of Constantine : the utter disorganisation of paganism, the absence of any hierarchy interested in the mainten- ance of an order which was fast falling to pieces ; the unsatisfying character of its rites and ceremonies ; above all, the growth of the various schools of philosophy, rendered the progress of Christianity both easy and rapid. In its higher phases the religion of Jesus appeal- ed to the nobler instincts of mankind. It brought solace and comfort to the down-trodden ; and whilst the dogmatism of its preachers silenced questioning minds, it satisfied the yearnings of those who, fleeing from the indecencies of the olden cults, hungered for a purer life ; even the persecutions to which they were sometimes subjected added to their prestige in the minds of the masses, and by attaching to their leaders the halo of martyrdom, gave an impetus to the cause. The early cessation of the ministry of Jesus and the absence of any organic teaching, whilst it allowed a freer scope to ima- gination, perhaps " a freer latitude of faith and practice,"1 as shown in the lives of even the early Christians, furnished an open ground for contending factions to dispute not only about doctrines and discipline, but also as to the nature of their Teacher. The expulsion of ■ the Jews and the Christians from Jerusalem, which abounded in so many traditions relating to the humanity of Jesus ; the intermixture of the latter with the non- Judaic people who surrounded them on all sides, and among whom the Neo-Pythagorean or Platonic ideas as to the government of the universe were more or less prevalent ; the very vagueness which surrounded the figure of Jesus in the conception of his followers, — soon gave birth to an infinite variety of doctrines and sects. And age after age everything human, " everthing not purely ideal, was smoothed away from the adored image of an incarnate God," the essentially pathetic history of Jesus was converted into a "fairy 1 Mosheim, p. 121. XXXVI THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. tale," and his life so surrounded with myths that it is now impossible for us to know ''what he really was and did." The fantastic shapes assumed by Christianity in the centuries which preceded the advent of Mohammed are alike amusing and instructive. The Gnostic doctrines, which were absolutely in conflict with the notions of the Judaic Christians, are supposed to have been promul- gated towards the end of the first century, almost simultaneously with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian. Cerin- thus, the most prominent of the Gnostic teachers in this century, inculcated among his followers the dual worship of the Father and the Son, whom he supposed to be totally distinct from the man Jesus, "the creator of the world." The narrowness of Pauline Christianity, and its futile endeavours to reconcile its doctrines with the philosophy of the Alexandrian schools, gave birth about the same time to the Neo-Platonic eclecti- cism of Ammonius Saccas, adopted afterwards by Origen and other leading Christians. This versatile writer, whose impress is visible in the writings of almost all the prominent thinkers of Christendom in the earlier centuries, endeavoured to bring about a general concordance among all the existing creeds and sects. In some respects, Ammonius was the prototype of Mani, or Manes, and was undoubtedly above the level of his contemporaries. He succeeded in forming a school, but his teachings never regulated the morals or influenced the faith of a community, The second century of the Christian era was ushered in strife and disorder. Divisions and heresies were rife throughout the Christian Church. Gnosticism was in great force, and left its character indelibly impressed on Christianity. Some of the sects which came into prominence in this century deserve a passing notice, as they show not only the evils which flowed from the crude teachings of the Church, but also the influence exercised upon Christianity by Zoroastrianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and the ancient Sabaeism of the Chaldaeans. The Marcionites, who were perhaps the most important of the early Gnostics, believed in the existence of two principles, the one perfectly good and the other perfectly evil. Between these there existed the Demiurge, an intermediate kind of deity, neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil, but - of a mixed nature, who administered INTRODUCTION. XXXVU rewards and inflicted punishments. The Demiurge was, according to the Marcionite doctrines, the creator of this inferior world, and engaged in perpetual conflict with the Principle of Evil, — mark the impress of the Zoroastrian ideas ! The Supreme Principle, in order to terminate this warfare and to deliver from their bondage the human souls, whose origin is celestial and divine, sent to the Jews, " a being most like unto Himself, even His Son Jesus Christ," clothed with a certain shadowy resemblance of a body, that thus he might be visible to mortal eyes. The commission to this celestial messenger was to destroy the empire, both of the Evil Principle and of the Author of this world, and to bring back wandering souls to God. " On this account he was attacked with inexpressible violence and fury by the Principle of Evil " and by the Demiurge, but without effect, since, having a body only in appearance, he was thereby rendered incapable of suffering. The Valentinians, whose influence was more lasting, taught that "the supreme God permitted Jesus, His Son, to descend from the upper regions to purge mankind of all the evils into which they had fallen, clothed, not with a real, but with a celestial and aerial body." The Valentinians believed Jesus to be an emanation from the Divine Essence come upon earth to destroy the dominion of the Prince of Darkness. The Ophites, who flourished in Egypt, entertained the same notions as the other Egyptian Gnostics concerning the aeons, the eternity of matter, the creation of the world in opposition to the will of God, the tyranny of the Demiurge, and " the divine Christ united to the man Jesus in order to destroy the empire of this usurper." They also maintained that the serpent, by which Adam and Eve were deceived, was either Christ himself, or Sophia, dis- guised as a serpent. Whilst the Gnostic creeds were springing into existence under the the influence of Chaldaean philosophy, the Greeks on their side endeavoured to bring about a certain harmony between the Pauline doctrine concerning " the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, and the two natures united in Christ," and their own philosophical views as to the government of the world. Praxeus was the first of these sophistical preachers of Christianity, and he set the ball rolling by denying any real distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghosts and maintained that the Father was so intimately united with XXXV111 THE £IFE OF MOHAMMED. the man Christ, His Son, that He suffered with him the anguish of an afflicted life, and the torments of an ignominious death ! " These sects/' says Mosheim, "were the offspring of philo- sophy. A worse evil was to befall the Christian Church in the person of Montanus, a native of Phrygia." This man, who dis- dained all knowledge and learning, proclaimed himself the Paraclete promised by Jesus. He soon succeeded in attaching to himself a large body of followers, the most famous of whom were Priscilla and Maximilla, the prophetesses, ■' ladies more remarkable for their opulence than for their virtue." They turned Northern Asia into a slaughter-house, and by their insensate fury inflicted terrible sufferings on the human race. Whilst the Marcionites, Valentinians, Montanists, and the other Gnostic sects were endeavouring to spread their doctrines through- out the empire of Rome, there arose in Persia a man whose indi- viduality has impressed itself in ineffaceable characters on the philo- sophy of two continents. Mani was, to all accounts, the most perfect embodiment of the culture of his age. He was an astronomer, a physicist, a musician, and an artist of eminence. The stories relating to his art-gallery1 have passed into a proverb. Throughly acquainted with the Jewish Cabbala and the teachings of the Gnostic masters, imbued with the ancient philosophy and mysticism of the East, a Magi by birth and Christian by education, he rose in revolt against the jarring discord which surrounded him on all sides, and set himself to the task of creating, from the chaos of beliefs, an eclectic faith which would satisfy all demands, the aspira- tions of all hearts. The audacity with which Mani applied himself to undermine the current faiths by an outward profession, joined to a subtle criticism, which destroyed all foundations of belief in the neophyte, — a process afterwards imitated by his congeners, the Ismailias,2 — and his assertion, like the Batinias, of an esoteric insight into all religious doctrines, armed against him every creed and sect ; and naturally, wherever he or his disciples appeared, they were perse- cuted with unparalleled ferocity. The doctrine of Mani was a fantastic mixture of the tenets of Christianity with the ancient philosophy of the Persians and the l Arzang-i-Mdni. - See poaty chap, xviii. INTRODUCTION. XXXIX Chaldaeans. According to him, Matter and Mind are engaged in perpetual strife with each other. In the course of this conflict human beings were created by the Principle of Matter endowed with two natures, one divine, the other material, the former being a part of the light or spirit which had been filched from heaven. In order to release the struggling divine soul from the prison in which it was confined, the Supreme God sent from the solar regions an Entity created from His own substance — which was called Christ. Christ accordingly appeared among the Jews clothed with the shadowy form of a humam body, and during his ministry taught mortals how to disengage the rational soul from the corrupt body — to conquer the violence of malignant matter. The Prince of Darkness having incited the Jews to put him to death, he was apparently, but not in reality, crucified. On the contrary, having fulfilled his mission, he returned to his throne in the sun. The Manichaean Christ thus could neither eat, drink, suffer, nor die ; he was not even an incarnate God, but an illusory phantasm — " the all-pervading light-element imprisoned in nature, striving to escape matter, without assuming its forms." However blasphemous and irrational these doctrines may seem, they appear hardly more so to us than the doctrine of transubstantiation, recognised by so many- Christians, the changing of the eucharistic elements into the actual flesh and blood of the Deity. Manes divided his disciples into two classes ; one, the " elect," and the other, the " hearers." The " elect " were compelled to submit to a rigorous abstinence from all animal food and intoxicating drink, to abjure wedlock and all gratifications of the senses. The discipline appointed for the " hearers " was of a milder kind. They were allowed to possess houses, lands, and wealth, to feed upon flesh, to enter into the bonds of conjugal relationship ; but this liberty was granted them with many limitations, and under the strictest conditions of moderation and temperance. Manes, or Mani, was put to death by Bahram-Gur, but his doctrines passed into Christianity and were visible in all the struggles which rent the Church in later times. About the middle of the third century arose the sect of the Sabellians, which marked a new departure in the religion of Jesus. They regarded Jesus as only a man, and believed that a certain energy proceeding from the Supreme Father had united itself with xl THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. the man Jesus, thus constituting him the son of God. This peculiar doctrine, which Gibbon regards as an approach to Unitarianism, was the cause of serious disorders in the Christian Church, and led to the promulgation in the early part of the fourth century, by Origen, of the doctrine of three distinct personalities in the Godhead. Tritheism was only a modification of the ancient paganism suited to the character of the people who had adopted the creed of Jesus. Polytheism was ingrained in their nature, and tritheism was a com- promise between the teachings of Jesus and the ancient worship of a number of personalities. In the course of time, tritheism merged into the doctrine of the trinity, but not before it had given birth to the most philosophic sect of Christianity.1 The rise of Arianism is due principally to the revolt of the human intellect from the irrational teachings of the Church. In Alexandria, which was at that time the most fanatical of Christian cities, Arius had the boldness to preach, in opposition to his own bishop, that Christ was not of the same essence with God. Arianism soon spread itself in Egypt and Northern Africa, and in spite of violent and frequent persecution, kept its hold in these parts as well as Spain until his followers were taken into the fold of Islam. The troubles generated by the schism of Arius induced Constan- tine, in a. c. 325, to assemble the Council of Nice, in Bithynia. In this general council, after many violent efforts on both sides, the doc- trine of Arius was condemned, and "Christ was declared consubstan- tial with the Father."2 Whatever may have been the condition of the Christian Church before, henceforth its history presents a eonstant and deplorable record of trouble and violence, of internecine strife and wrangling, of fearful and cruel persecutions, of bitter hatred and a perpetual endeavour to crush out reason and justice from the minds of men. The vices of the regular clergy assumed monstrous propor- tions, and the luxury, arrogance, and voluptuousness of the sacerdotal order became the subject of complaint on all sides. The asceticism of the early times had given place to monasticism, and the licentious- ness of the monks became a byword. They were the free lance of the Church, — always foremost in fomenting tumults and seditions, and the streets of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome frequently ran with blood in consequence of their unruliness and turbulence. iMosheira, p. 411. 2 Gibbon, vol. iv. 307. INTRODUCTION. xli The disputes of Nestorius with Cyril, the murderer of 'Hypatia, forms a prominent chapter in the history of Christianity. The second Council of Ephesus was convoked partly with the object of conciliat- ing the various parties which had sprung up in the Church ; but " the despotism of the Alexandrian Patriarch, ? says Gibbon, "again oppressed the freedom of debate. The heresy of the two natures was formally condemned. ' May those who divide Christ, be divided with the sword.' ■ May they be hewn in pieces.' ' May they be burned alive ! ' were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod." At the Council of Chalcedon, which was convened at the instance of the Bishop of Rome, the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ in one person but in two natures was definitely settled. The Monophysites and Nestorians, revolting from the doctrine of incarnation, endeavoured to make a stand against the decree of Chalcedon. But they succumbed under the furious onslaught of the orthodox, who had succeeded in solving the mystery of their Teacher's nature. Jerusalem was occupied by an army of monks; in the name of one incarnate nature they pillaged, they murdered ; the sepulchre of Christ was defiled with blood. The Alexandrian Christians, who had murdered a woman, did not hesitate to massacre their Patriarch in the baptistery, committing his mangled corpse to the flames and his ashes to the wind. About the middle of the sixth century the drooping fortunes of the Monophysites revived under the guidance of one of their leaders, Jacob, bishop of Edessa. Under him and his successor they acquir- ed overwhelming predominance in the Eastern empire, and by their unrelenting persecution of the Nestorians and their bitter quarrels with the orthodox or the Chalcedonians, plunged the Christian Church into internecine warfare and bloodshed. To a non-Christian, the doctrines of the Monophysites, who taught that " the divine and human nature of Christ were so founded as to form only one nature, yet without any change, confusion, or mixture of the two natures," seem to be in no way different from those laid down by the Council of Chalcedon. And yet this distinction without a difference was the cause of untold misery to a large number of the human race. At last, in 630 a. c, Heraclius tried to allay the disorders by starting a new sect, that of the Monothelites, whose doctrines were no less monstrous and fantastical. The Monothelites maintained that " Christ was both perfect God and perfect man, and that in him Xlli THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. were two distinct natures so united as to cause no mixture or confu- sion, but to form by their union only one person/' Instead, however, of bringing peace into the bosom of the Church of Jesus, the rise of this sect intensified the evil ; and Western Asia, Northern Africa, and various parts of Europe continued to be the scene of massacres and murders and every kind of outrage in the name of Christ. Such was the religious condition of Christendom during the centuries which preceded the advent of Islam. With the apparent conversion of Constantine, Christianity became the dominant power in the Roman empire. The fate of paganism was sealed. Its downfall, though staved off for a time by the greatest and most sincere of the Roman emperors, had become inevitable. " After the extinction of paganism/' says Gibbon, " the Christians, in peace and piety, might have enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more solicitous to explore the nature than to practise the laws of their founder." The whole of Christian Europe was immersed in absolute darkness, and the Church of Jesus was rent with schisms and heresies. The religious conception of the masses had not advanced beyond the pagan stage ; the souls of the dead were worshipped in numbers, and the images of those who were honoured in life were objects of adoration. Relic and saint worship had become universal, Christianity had reverted to heathenism. The social and political condition of the nations subject to the sway of Christianity was equally deplorable. Liberty of thought and freedom of judgment were crushed out from among mankind. And the reign of Christ was celebrated by the sacrifice of heretics who ventured to differ .from any idea which predominated for the time. In the streets of Alexandria, before the eyes of the civilised world, the noblest woman of antiquity was slaughtered with nameless horrors by a Christian who bears the name of saint in the annals of Christendom, and who, in modern times, has found an apologist. The eloquent pages of Draper furnish a vivid account of the atro- cious crime which will always remain one of the greatest blots on Christianity. A beautiful, wise, and virtuous woman, whose lecture- room was full to overflowing with the wealth and fashion of Alex- andria was attacked as she was coming out of her academy by a mob of the zealous professors of Christianity. Amidst the fearful yelling INTRODUCTION. xlHl of these defenders of the faith she was dragged from her chariot, and in the public street stripped naked. Paralysed with fear, she was haled into an adjoining church, and there killed by the club of a saint. The poor naked corpse was outraged and then dismembered ; but the diabolical crime was not completed until they had scraped the flesh from the bones with oyster shells and cast the remnants into the fire. Christendom honoured with canonisation the fiend who insti- gated this terrible and revolting atrocity, and the blood of martyred Hypatia was avenged only by the sword of Amru ! The condition of Constantinople under Justinian, the Christian and the glorified legislator, is the best index to the demoralised and degraded state of society all over Christendom. Public or private virtue had no recognition in the social conceptions ; a harlot sat on the throne of the Caesars, and shared with the emperor the honours of the State. Theodora had publicly plied her trade in the city of Constantine, and her name was a byword among' its dissolute inhabitants. And now she was adored as a queen in the same city by " grave magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive monarchs." The empire was disgraced by her cruelties, which recognised no religious or moral restraint. Seditions, out- breaks, and sanguinary tumults, in which the priesthood always took the most prominent part, were the order of the day. On these occasions every law, human or divine, was trampled under foot ; churches and altars were polluted by atrocious murders ; no place was safe or sacred from depredations ; the bonds of society were abso- lutely rent asunder, and revolting outrages were perpetrated in broad daylight. Nothing, however, can equal the horrors which were inflicted upon this unholy city during the Nika riots in the fifth year of Justinian's reign. The horrible anarchy of the circus, with its incessant bloodshed and sensuality, stimulated to its worst excesses by the support and encouragement which the imperial champions of orthodoxy extended to the most barbarous of the factions, was un- paralleled in any heathen land. As compared with Constantinople at this period, Persia was a country of order and law. Humanity revolts from the accounts of the crimes which sully the annals of Christian Constantinople. Whilst the Prophet of Islam was yet an infant, one of the most virtuous emperors who ever ascended the throne of Byzantium was massacred, with his children D xllV THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. and wife, with fearful tortures at the instance of a Christian monarch. The emperor was dragged from his sanctuary, and his five sons were successively murdered before his eyes ; and this tragic scene closed with the execution of the emperor himself. The empress and her daughters were subjected to nameless cruelties and then beheaded on the very ground which had been stained with the blood of the poor Emperor Maurice. The ruthless treatment meted out to the friends, companions and partisans of the imperial victim, serves as an index to the morality of the Byzantine Christians. Their eyes were pierced, their tongues were torn from the root, their hands and feet were amputated ; some expired under the lash, others in the flames, others again were transfixed with arrows. " A simple, speedy death/' says Gibbon, " was a mercy which they could rarely obtain." The Byzantine empire, slowly bleeding unto death, torn by political and religious factions, distracted with theological wranglings, and " crazed by an insane desire to enforce uniformity of religious belief/' offered a wretched spectacle of assassinations, dissolute- ness, and brutality.1 The countries included in Asiatic Turkey westward of the Euph- rates, devastated alternately by the Parthians and the Romans, and then by the Persians and the Byzantines, presented a picture of utter hopelessness. The moral misery of the people was surpassed by their social ruin. The followers of Jesus, instead of alleviating, intensi- fied the evil. Mago-Zoroastrianism combating with a degraded l Milman thus describes the Christianity of those days : " The Bishop of Constantinople was the passive victim, the humble slave, or the factious adversary of the Byzantine emperor ; rarely exercised a lofty moral control upon his despotism. The lower clergy, whatever their more secret beneficent or sanctifying workings on society, had sufficient power, wealth, and rank to tempt ambition or to degrade to intrigue ; not enough to command the public mind for any great salutary purpose, to repress the inveterate immor- ality of an effete age, to reconcile jarring interests, to mould together hostile races ; in general they ruled, when they »did rule, by the superstitious fears, rather than by the reverence and attachment of a grateful people. They sank downward into the common ignorance, and yielded to that worst barbarism — a worn-out civilisation. Monasticism withdrew a great number of those who might have been energetic and useful citizens into barren seclusion and religious indolence ; but except when the monks formed themselves, as they frequently did, into fieree political or polemic factions, they had little effect on the condition of society. They stood aloof from the world — the ancho- rites in their desert wildernesses, the monks in their jealously -barred con- vents ; and secure, as they supposed, of their own salvation, left the rest of mankind to inevitable perdition." — Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i, Introd. p. 4. INTRODUCTION. xlv Christianity in Mesopotamia, the Nestorians engaged in deadly conflict with the orthodox party, the earlier contests of Montanus and the prophetesses, had converted Western Asia into a wilderness of despair and desolation. The whirlwinds of conquest which had passed over Africa, the massacres, the murders, the lawlessness of the professors and teachers of the Christian religion, had destroyed every spark of moral life in Egypt and in the African provinces of the decaying empire. In Europe the condition of the people was, if possible, still more miserable. In the open day, in the presence of the ministers of religion and the people, Narses, the benefactor of his country, was burnt alive in the market-place of Constantinople. In the streets of Rome, under the eyes of the Exarch, the partisans of rival bishops waged war, and deluged churches with the blood of Christians. Spain exhibited a heart-rending scene of anarchy and ruin. The rich, the privileged few, who held the principal magistracies of the pro* vince under the emperors, or who were dignified with the title of magistrates, were exempt from all burdens. They lived in extreme luxury in beautiful villas, surrounded by slaves of both sexes ; spending their time in the baths, which were so many haunts of im- morality ; or at the gaming table, when not engaged in eating and drinking. The sight of this luxury and opulence offered a terrible contrast to the miseries of the masses. The middle class, the free population of the cities and the villages, were ground to the earth by the tyranny of the Romans. Agrarian slavery had disappeared ; its place was taken by the colonists, occupying an intermediate position between freedom and slavery. They were in some respects happier than the slaves. They could contract valid marriages ; they obtained a limited share of the produce of the lands they cultivated ; and their patrons could not take their goods and chattels from them. But in all other respects they were the slaves of the soil. Their personal services were at the disposal of the State. They were liable to cor- poral chastisement, like the domestic slaves •, x slaves, not of an individual, but of the soil, they remained attached to the lands they cultivated by an indissoluble and hereditary tie. The condition of the slaves, who formed the bulk of the population, was miserable 1 Three hundred lashes was the usual allowance for trivial faults, see Dozy, Hist, dea Mussulmans d'Espagne, vol. ii. p. 87. Xlvi THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. beyond description. They Were treated with pitiless cruelty, worse than cattle. The invasion of the barbarians brought with it a dire punishment upon the ill-fated land. In their wake followed desola- tion, terrible and absolute ; they ravaged, they massacred, they re- duced into slavery the women, children, and the clergy. A vast number of Jews were settled in the peninsula for centuries. The terrible persecutions which they suffered at the hands of the ecclesiastics in the reign of the Visigoth Sisebut in the year 616 a.c, r lasted until Islam brought emancipation to the wretched victims of ignorance and fanaticism. It was Islam which rendered possible \ for Judaism to produce such men as Maimonides or Ibn Gebrol. Let us turn now to Arabia, that land of mystery and romance, which has hitherto lain enwrapt in silence and solitude, isolated from the great nations of the world, unaffected by their wars or their polity. The armies of the Chosroes and the Caesars had for cen- turies marched and re-marched by her frontiers without disturbing her sleep of ages. And though the mutterings of the distant thunder, which so frequently rolled across the dominions of the Byzantine and the Persian, often reached her ears, they failed to rouse her from her slumber. Her turn, however, was come, and she soon found her voice in that of the noblest of her sons. The chain of mountains which, descending from Palestine to- wards the Isthmus of Suez, runs almost parallel to the Red Sea down to the southern extremity of the Arabian peninsula, is designated in the Arabic language, Hijaz, or Barrier, and gives its name to all the country it traverses until it reaches the province of Yemen. At times the mountains run close to the sea, at times they draw far away from the coast, leaving long stretches of lowland, barren, desolate, and inhospitable-looking, with occasional green valleys and rich oases formed in the track of the periodical rain-torrents. Beyond this range, and eastward, stretches the steppe of Najd — the " highland " of Arabia — a vast plateau, with deserts, mountain gorges, and here and there green plantations refreshing to the eye. In Hijaz, the barrier-land, lie the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, the birthplace and cradle of Islam. ^_ This vast region is divided into four tolerably well-defined * countries. First, to the north lies Arabia Petraea, including the countries of the ancient Edomites and the Midianites. Then comes Hijaz proper, containing the famous city of INTRODUCTION. xlvif Yathrib, known afterwards in history as the City of the Prophet,— Medinat un-Nabi, or Medina. South of Hijaz proper lies the province of Tihama, where are situated Mecca and the port of Jeddah, — the landing-place of the pilgrims of Islam. The fourth and the southernmost part is called Asyr, bordering on Yemen. Yemen, properly so called, is the country forming the south-western extremity of the Arabian Peninsula, bounded on the west by the Red Sea, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the north by Hijaz, and on the east by Hazramut (Hadhramaut). The name of Yemen is often applied to southern Arabia generally. It then includes, besides Yemen proper, Hazramut and the district of Mahra to the east of Hazramut. Beyond Mahra, at the south-east corner of the peninsula, is Oman, and to the north of this al-Bahrain, or al-Ahsa, on the Persian Gulf. This latter country is also called Hijr, from the name of its principal province. Najd, the highland, is the large plateau which, commencing westward on the eastern side of the mountains of Hijaz, occupies the whole of Central Arabia. That portion of Najd, which borders on Yemen, is called the Najd of Yemen, and the northern part simply Najd. These two divisions are separated by a mountainous province called Yemama, famous in the history of Islam. North of Najd, stretches the Syrian desert, not really a part of Arabia, but where the Arab tribes now roam, free and wild, leading a nomadic life like their ancient Aramaean predecessors. North-east are the deserts of Irak (Barriyat ul-Irak), bordering the fertile territory of Chaldaea on the right bank of the Euphrates, and separating it from the cultivated portions of Arabia. Eastward, Najd is separated from al-Ahsa by one of those strips of desert called Nafud by the Arabs. Towards the south lies the vast desert of Dahna. It separates Najd from Hazramut and Mahra. This vast region, which embraces an area twice the size of France in the height of its power, was then as now inhabited by two different types of people, 4b the people of the town " and " the dwellers of the desert." The virtues and the defects of the Bedawee, his devotion to his clan, his quixotic sense of honour, with his recklessness and thirst for revenge, and his dis- regard for human life, have been portrayed in vivid and sympathetic colours by eminent writers like Burton and Poole. But whatever the difference between the Bedouin and the citizen, the Arab is peculiar- Xlviii THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. \y the child of the desert. His passionate love of freedom and his spiritual exaltation are the outcome of the free air which he breathes and of the wide expanse which he treads, — conscious of his own dignity and independence. In spite of the annual gatherings at Mecca and Okaz, the tribes and nationalities which inhabited the soil of Arabia were far from homogeneous. Each was more or less distinct from the other in culture, development, and religion. This diversity of culture was mainly due to the diversity of their origin. Various races had peopled the peninsula at various times. Many of them had passed away, but their misdeeds or their prowess were fresh in the memory of successive generations, and these traditions formed the history of the nation. The Arabs themselves divide the races who have peopled the peninsula into three grand subdivisions, viz. : (i) the Arab ul-Bdidah, the extinct Arabs, under which are included the Hamitic colonies (Cushites), which preceded the Semites in the work of colonisation, as also the Aramaean populations of Syria, Phoenicia, and other parts ; (2) the Arab ul-Adriba, or Mutaariba, original Arabs, true Semites, whom tradition represents to be descended from Kahtan, or Joktan, and who, in their progress towards the south, destroyed the aboriginal settlers. The Joktanite Arabs, nomads by nature, super-imposed themselves in those countries on the primitive inhabitants, the Hamitic astral-worshippers. Their original cradle was the region whence also came the Abraha- mites, and is precisely indicated by the significant names of two of the direct ancestors of Joktan, Arphaxad, ''border of the Chaldaean," and Eber, "the man from beyond (the river)," in reference to Babylon, or the district now called Irak-Araby, on the right bank of the Euphrates.1 (3) The Arab ul-Mustaariba, "or naturalised Arabs," Abrahamitic Semites, who, either as peaceful immigrants or as military colonists, introduced themselves into the peninsula, and who intermarried and settled among the Joktanite Arabs.2 These three names, Adriba, Mutaariba, and Mustaariba, are derived from the same root, and by the modification of their grammatical form indicate the periods when these races were naturalised in the country.3 1 Lenorraant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 293. 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 55-58. S Caussin de Perceval regards the bdidah as the same as Adriba, and puts the Mutaariba as forming the second group. In the following pages I adopt his classification. INTRODUCTION. xllX Among the Arab ul-Adriba, the races which require special mention in connection with the history of Islam are the Bani-Aad,1 the Amalika, the Bani-Thamud,2 and Bani-Jadis (the Thamudiens and Jodicites of Diodorus Siculus and Ptolemy). The Bani-Aad, Hamitic in their origin, were the first settlers and colonists in the peninsula, and they were established principally in that region of Central Arabia, which is called by Arab historians and geographers, the Ahsdf ur-ramal, contiguous to Yemen, Hazramut, and Oman. They appear during one period of their existence to have formed a powerful and conquering nation. One of the sovereigns of this lUce, Shaddad, whose name is preserved in the Koran, seems to have extended his power even beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula. He is said to have conquered Irak, and even approached the borders of India. This tradition probably points to the invasion of Babylonia or Chaldaea by the Arabs more than 2000 years before Christ, and possibly might be referred to the same event which, in Persian traditions, is called the invasion of Zuhhak. The same Shaddad, or one of his successors bearing the same name, carried his arms into Egypt and farther west. This invasion of Egypt by the Arabs has been identified with the irruption of the Hyksos into that country. And the way in which the nomadic invad- ers were ultimately driven out of Africa by a combination of the princes of the Thebaid, with the assistance of their Ethiopian or Cushite neighbours towards the south, gives some degree of corroboration to the theory. The bulk of the Aadites are said to have been destroyed by a great drought which afflicted their country. A small remnant escaped and formed the second Aadite nation, which attained considerable prosperity in Yemen. These later Aadites, however, were engulphed in the Joktanide wave. The Banu-Amalika, supposed by Lenormant to be of Aramaean origin, who are undoubtedly the same as the Amalekites of the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, — the Shashu of the Egyptian monuments, — expelled from Babylonia by the early Assyrian sove- reigns, entered Arabia, and gradually spread themselves in Yemen 1 The Aadites are said to have been overwhelmed, conquered, and destroyed by the Joktanite Arabs ; the Thamudites, "that strange race of troglodytes," by the Assyrians under Chedorlaomer (Khoz&r al-Ahmar). 2 With a ,»» 1 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. and Hijaz, as well as Palestine and Syria. They appear to have penetrated into Egypt, and gave her several of her Pharaohs. The Amalika of Hijaz were either destroyed or driven out by the Banl- Jurhum, a branch of the Bani-Kahtan, who had originally settled in the south, and subsequently moving northwards, overwhelmed the Amalika. The Banu-Thamud, who, like the Banu-Aad, were Cushite or Hamitic, inhabited the borders of Edom and afterwards the country named Hijr, situated to the east of Arabia Petraea, and between Hijaz and Syria. These people were troglodytes, and lived in houses G/fa i in the side of rocks. Sir Henry Layard, in his Early Tkhjels, has described the ruins of these rocky habitations, and one can fix the exact location of the Thamudites by comparing the Arabian traditions with the accounts of modern travellers and the results of recent discoveries. As the "indispensable middlemen" of the com- merce between Syria and Najd or Hijaz, the Thamudites attained a high degree of prosperity. They were, ultimately, in great part ex- terminated by Chedorlaomer (Khozar al-ahmar), the great Elamite conqueror, in the course of his victorious campaigns in Syria and Arabia. The terrible fate which overtook these ancient cave-dwellers, who, in their solid habitations, considered themselves safe from divine wrath, is often referred to in the Koran as a warning to the Korai- shites. After this disaster, the rest of the Bani-Thamud retreated to Mount Seir, on the north of the Elamitic Gulf, where they lived in the times of Isaac and Jacob. But they soon disappeared, doubtless absorbed by the neighbouring tribes, and their place was taken by the Edomites who held Mount Seir for a time.1 These Edomites were apparently succeeded in their possessions by a body of Arabs driven fiom Yemen by the Bani Kahtan. In the days of Diodorus Siculus, under the same name as their predecessors they furnished contingents to the Roman armies. Leaving the Tasm, and Jadis, and other smaller tribes, as too un- important to require any specific mention, we come to the Bani- Jurhum, who, also, are classed under the head of Arab ul-Aariba, and who appear to have overwhelmed, destroyed, and replaced the Amalika in Hijaz. There seem to have been two tribes of that name, 1 Gen. xiv. 4, 6. INTRODUCTION. li one of them, the most ancient, and contemporaneous with the Aadites, and probably Cushite in their origin j the other, descendants of Kahtan, who, issuing from the valley of Yemen in a season of great sterility, drove out the Amalekite tribes of Hijaz, and established themselves in their possessions. The irruption of the Bani-Jurhum, of Kahtanite origin, is said to have taken place at a time when the Ishmaelitic Arabs were acquiring prominence among the Amalika, in whose country they had been long settled. The Ishmaelites entered into amicable relations with the invading hordes, and lived side by side with them for a period. Before the advancing tide of the descendants of Ishmael, the Jurhumites began gradually to lose their hold over the valley, and before a century was well over the dominion of Hijaz and Tihama passed into the hands of the Abrahamitic Arabs. The development of the Mustaariba Arabs suffered a temporary check from the inroad of the Babylonian monarch, but, as we shall see later, they soon recovered their vitality, and spread themselves over Hijaz, Najd, and the deserts of Irak and Mesopotamia, where they Anally absorbed the descendants of Kahtan, their predecessors. The Arab ul-Mutaariba were tribes sprung from Kahtan, son of Eber,1 and were chiefly concentrated in Yemen. The descendants of Kahtan had burst into Arabia from its northeast corner, and had penetrated down into the south, where they lived for a time along with the Aadites of the race of Cush, subject to their political supremacy, and at last became the governing power. The population sprung from Kahtan was not, however, exclusively confined to Southern Arabia. Their primitive cradle lay in Mesopotamia. In moving southward from that locality to Yemen, the Kahtanite tribes must have passed through the whole length of the Arabian peninsula, and no doubt left some settlements behind them along their route. According to the Arab historians, the wave which entered the peninsula at this period was headed by two brothers, Kahtan and Yaktan, the sons of Eber or Heber. And it was the_son_of Kahtan, Yareb, whom they regard as the first prince of Yemen, who gave his name to all his descendants and to the whole of the peninsula. Yareb is said to have been succeeded by his son Yeshhad, founder of Mareb, the ancient capital of the realm, and father of the famous Abd ush-Shams, surnamed Saba. This surname, which means l Ibn ul-Athir calls him Qhdbir or Adbir. E Hi THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Capturer, was given to him on account of his victories. The posterity of Saba became the progenitors of the various tribes of Kahtanite descent, famous in Arab traditions. Saba left two sons, Himyar (which means red) * and Kuhlan. The former succeeded to his father's throne, and it was after him that the dynasty of Saba were called Himyary or Himyarite.2 His descendants and those of Kiirrian, his brother and successor, alternately ruled Yemen until the century before l^hammed. To this dynasty "belonged the great Zu'lkarnain, and the celebrated Balkis, who went to Jerusalem in the time of Solomon.3 1 From the red mantle which he used to wear, in imitation of the Pharaohs. 2 The Himyarite sovereigns of Yemen, who were styled Tobbas, seem to have been from the earliest times in communication both with Persia and Byzantium. 3 There is considerable doubt as to the identity of Zu'lkarnain. Several Mahommedan historians have thought that the Zu'lkarnain referred to in the Koran is identical with Alexander of Macedon. This opinion, however, is open to question. Zu'lkarnain in its primitive sense means "the lord of two horns." When we remember the head-dress worn by the ancient Sabsean sovereigns, the crescent -shaped moon with its two horns, borrowed probably from Egypt about the period of this king, there can be little room for doubt that the reference in the Koran is to some sovereign of native origin, whose extensive conquests became magnified in the imagination of posterity into a world-wide dominion. Lenormant thinks that Shaddad, Zu'lkarnain, and Balkis were all Cushites. Judaism was strongly represented among the subjects of the Himyarite sovereigns, and in the year 343 a. c, at the instance of an ambassador sent to Yemen by the Emperor Constantine, several Christian churches were erected in their dominions. But the bulk of the nation adhered to the primitive Semitic cult. Towards the end of the fifth century, Zu-Nawas, known to the Byzantines as Dimion, made himself the master of Yemen and its dependencies, after slaying the ferocious usurper, Zu-Shinatir. His cruel persecution of the Christians, under the instigation of the Jews, whose creed he had adopted, drew upon him the vengeance of the Byzantine emperor. Instigated from Constantinople, an Abyssinian army, under the command of Harith or Aryat, landed on the shores of Yemen, defeated and killed Zu-Nawas, and made themselves masters of Yemen. This occurred about 525 a. c. Shortly afterwards (537 a. c.) Aryat was killed by Abraha al-Arsham, who subsequently became the Abyssinian viceroy. It was under Abraha that the Christian Abyssinians made their abortive attempt to conquer Hijaz. Yemen remained under the Abyssinian domination for nearly half a century, when Maadi Karib, the son of the famous Saif zu'l Yezen, whose heroic deeds are sung up to the present day by the Arabs of the desert, restored the Himyarite dynasty (573 a. c.) with the help of an army furnished by Kesra Anushirvan. On Maadi Karib's assassination by the Christians in 597, Yemen came under the direct domination of Persia, and was ruled by viceroys appointed by the court of Ctesiphon. Wahraz was the first Marzban. Under him Yemen, Hazramut, Mahra, and Oman were added to the Persian empire. The last of these viceroys was Bazan, who became Marzban under Khusru Parviz towards the year 606. It was during the viceroyalty of Bazan that Islam was introduced into Yemen, and he himself accepted the Faith. The Persian domination of Yemen was extremely mild. All religions enjoyed equal toleration, and the chiefs of the different tribes exercised their authority in their different tracts, subject to the control of the Marzban, INTRODUCTION. KH The traditions respecting the early Ishmaelite settlement in Arabia relate back to the time of Abraham and his expulsion or expatriation from Chaldaea. The descendants of Ishmael prospered and multi- plied in Hijaz until they, with their allies the Jurhumites, were overwhelmed and almost destroyed by the formidable king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar, who, of all the monarchs that endea- voured to attack the heart of Arabia, was alone successful in wounding it seriously. The foundation of Mecca was apparently co-eval with the establishment of the Abrahamitic Arabs in the peninsula, for according to the Arab traditions a Jurhumite chief named Meghass ibn-Amr, whose daughter was married to the progenitor of the Mustaariba Arabs, Ishmael or Ismail, was the founder of the city. __Ab_o_ut_lhe_- same- time was built the temple, which gave Mecca an overwhelming predominance over the other cities of Arabia. "BuTffW^Abraham. that " Saturnian father of the tribes," in the remotest antiquity, the Kaaba ever remained the holiest and most sacred of the temples of the nation. Here were ranged the three hundred and sixty idols, one for each day, round the great god Hobal, carved of red agate, the two ghazdlas, gazelles of gold and silver, and the image of Abraham and of his son. Here the tribes came, year after year, " to kiss the black stone which had fallen from heaven in the primeval days of Adam, and to make the seven circuits of the temple naked." Mecca was thus from the earliest times the centre, not only of the religous associations of the Arabs, but also of their commercial enterprises. Standing on the highway of the com- merce of antiquity, it gathered to itself the wealth and culture of the neighbouring countries. Not even the Babylonian monarch could touch her mercantile prosperity ; for, from the necessity of their situation, the Arabs of Hijaz became the carriers of the nations of the world. Mecca was the centre of the commercial activity which has dis- tinguished the Arabs at all times from the other nations of the East. From Mecca eradiated the caravans which carried to the Byzantine dominions and to Persia the rich products of Yemen and the far-famed Ind, and brought from Syria the silks and stuffs of the Persian cities. But they brought with them more than articles of trade ; in the train of these caravan s came all the luxuri- ous habits and vices which had corroded the very heart of the liv THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. neighbouring empires. Grecian and Persian slave girls, imported from Syria and Irak, beguiled the idle hours of the rich with their dancing and singing, or ministered to their vices. The poet, whose poems formed the pride of the nation, sung only of the joys of the present life, and encouraged the immorality of the people. And no one bethought himself of the morrow. The Arabs, and especially the Meccans, were passionately addicted to drinking, gambling, and music. Dancing and singing as in other Eastern countries, were practised by a class of women occupying a servile position, who were called Kiyan, or, in the singular, Kayna, and whose immorality was proverbial. And yet they were held in the highest estimation, and the greatest chiefs paid public court to them.1 As among the Hindoos, polygamy was practised to an unlimited extent. A widow (other than the mother) was considered an integral part of her deceased husband's patrimony, and passed into the use of the son ; and the atrocious and inhuman practice of burying female infants was universal. The. Jews, chased successively from their native homes by the Assyrians, the Greeks, antHfre Romans, had found among the Arabs safety and protection. But they had brought with their religion that bitter spirit of strife which was perhaps the cause of the greater portion of their misfortunes. They had succeeded, however, in gaining in Arabia a considerable body of proselytes ; and at the time when Mohammed proceeded to announce his mission, Judaism was professed in Yemen by a notable fraction of the descendants of Himyar and Kinda, issue of Kuhlan; at Khaibar and at Yathrib, by the Kuraizha and the Nadhir, tribes of Ishmaelite origin, but naturalised as Arabs from very ancient times. The Nestorians and the Jacobite Christians had also founded colonies in Arabia. The deadly rivalry between these two creeds to dominate over l The moral depravity of the people is evidenced by the fact that these women used to give receptions, which were attended by all the men of light and leading in the city. The town Arab was so passionately addicted to dicing that he would frequently, like the Germans of Tacitus, stake away his own liberty. It was on account of these evils, and the immoralities associated with their practice, that Mohammed wisely prohibited to his followers gambling, danc- ing, and drinking of wine. The Ommeyyades revived all the three evils ; they represented, in fact, the uprise of the old barbarism, which had been stamped out with such labour by the great Prophet. INTRODUCTION Iv Arabia occasioned sanguinary wars in the most fertile provinces.1 Christianity had commenced to introduce itself among some families of the race of Rabia son of Nizar, such as the Taglibites established in Mesopotamia, and the Banu Abd ul-Kais who were settled in al-Bahrain. It nourished at Najran among the Bani-1-Harith ibn Kaab ; in Irak, among the Ibad ; in Syria, among the Ghassanides and some Khuzaite families ; at Dumat ul-Jandal, among the Saconi and Bani-Kalb. And some of the tribes who roamed over the desert that lay between Palestine and Egypt were also Christians. Magism and Sabaeism had also their representatives among the Arabs, and specially among the Himyarites : the Banu-Asad worshipped Mercury ; the Jodham, Jupiter ; the Banu-Tay, Canopus ; the descen- dants of Kays- Ay Ian, Sirius f a portion of the Koraish, the three moon-goddesses, — al-Lat, the bright moon, al-Manat the dark, and al- Uzza, the union of the two, — who were regarded as the daughters of the high god (Bandt-ulldh). Mecca was, at this time, the centre of a far-l reaching idolatry, ramifications of which extended throughout the tribes of the peninsula. The Kinana, closely allied to the Koraish politically and by blood, besides the star Aldobaran, served the goddess Uzza, represented by a tree at a place called Nakhla, a day and a half's journey from Mecca. The Hawazin, who roamed towards the south-east of Mecca, had for their favourite idol the goddess Lat, located at Tayif. Manat was represented by a rock on the caravan road between Mecca and Syria. The worship of these idols was chiefly phallic, similar in character to that which pre- vailed among the ancientjSemites, the Phoenicians and the Babylonians. But the majority of the nation, especially the tribes belonging to the race of Mozar, were addicted to fetishism of the grossest type. Animals and plants, the gazelle, the horse, the camel, the palm-tree, . inorganic matter like pieces of rock, stones, etc., formed the principal objects of adoration. The idea of a Supreme Divinity, however, was not unrecognised ; but its influence was confined to an inappreciable few, who, escaping from the bondage of idolatry, betook themselves to a philosophical scepticism, more or less tinged with the legendary notions, religious and secular, of their neighbours, the Sabaeans, the 1 Ibn ul- Athir, vol. i. p, 308 et seq. ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vi. pp. 114, 115; Caussin de Perceval, Hist, des Arabes, vol. i. pp. 128-131. 2 Koran, sura xli. 37. lvi THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Jews, or the Christians. Among these some distinctly recognised the conception of the supreme Godhead, and, revolting at the obscenities and gross materialism of their day, waited patiently for the appear- ence of a Deliverer who, they felt in their hearts, would soon appear. Among some tribes, in the case of a death, a camel was sacrificed on the tomb, or allowed to die from starvation, in the belief that it would serve as a conveyance for the deceased in a future existence. Some believed that when the soul separated itself from the body, it took the shape of a bird called Hama or Sada. If the deceased was the victim of a violent death, the bird hovered over the grave, crying askuni, "Give me drink," until the murder was avenged. Belief in Jins, ghouls, and oracles rendered by their idols, whom they con- sulted by means of pointless arrows, called Azldm or Kiddh, was universal. Each tribe had its particular idols and particular temples. The priests and hierophants attached to these temples received rich offerings from the devotees. And often, there arose sanguinary conflicts between the followers or the worshippers of rival temples.1 But the prestige of the Kaaba, the chapel of Abraham and Ish- mael, stood unimpeached among all. Even the Jews and the Sabaeans sent offerings there. The custody of this temple was an object of great jealousy among the tribes, as it conferred on the custodians the most honourable functions and privileges in the sight of the Arabs. At the time of Mohammed's birth this honour was possessed by his family ; and his grandfather was the venerable chief of the theocratic commonwealth which was constituted round the Kaaba. Human sacri- fices were frequent. Besides special idols located in the temples each family had household penates which exacted rigorous observances. Such was the moral and religious condition of the Arabs. Neither Christianity nor Judaism had succeeded in raising them in the scale of humanity. "After five centuries of Christian evangelization/' says Muir, "we can point to but a sprinkling here and there of Christians ; — the Bani Harith of Najran ; the Bani Hanifa of Yemama ; some of the Bant Tay at Tayma, and hardly any more. Judaism, vastly more powerful, had exhibited a spasmodic effort of 1 Amang others, the temple of Zu'1-Khulasa in Yemen, belonging to the the tribe of Banu-Khatham ; the temple of Rodha in Najd, belonging to the Bani-Rabia ; the temple of Zu'l Sabat in Irak ; and that of Manat at Kodayd. not far from the sea, belonging to the tribe of Aus and Khazraj, domiciled at Yathrib— were the most famons. INTRODUCTION. lvH proselytism under Zu Nawas ; but, as an active and converting agent the Jewish faith was no longer operative. In fine, viewed thus in a religious aspect, the surface of Arabia had been now and then gently rippled by the feeble efforts of Christianity ; the sterner influences of Judaism had been occasionally visible in a deeper and more trou- bled current ; but the tide of indigenous idolatry and of Ishmaelite superstition, setting from every quarter with an unbroken and un- ebbing surge towards the Kaaba, gave ample evidence that the faith and worship of Mecca held the Arab mind in a thraldom, rigorous and undisputed."1 The divisions and jealousies of the tribes,2 combined with the antagonistic feelings which actuated one against the other from religious and racial differences, had enabled the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, and Abyssinians, to become masters of various provinces in the north, in the east, and in the south-west. The Abyssinians had even gone so far as to invade Hijaz, with the intention of destroying the national temple. But their power was broken before Mecca by the sturdy patriotism of Abd ul-Muttalib. After twenty years' oppression, they were driven out of Yemen with the assistance of Persia by a native prince, the son of the celebrated Saif zu'1-Yezen. On his assassination by the Christians, the sovereignty he had enjoyed under the auspices of the great Anushirvan passed entirely into Persian hands, and Yemen became tributary to Persia.8 Besides the direct domination which the rival empires of Cons- tantinople and Ctesiphon exercised over the various provinces of Arabia, two of the greatest chieftains, the kings of Ghassan and of Hira, divided their allegiance between the Caesars and the Chosroes ; and in the deadly wars, profitless and aimless, which Persian and Byzantine waged against each other, sucking out the life-blood of their people from mere lust of destruction, though oftener the right was on the side of the Zoroastrian than the Christian, the Ghassanide and Hirite stood face to face in hostile array, or locked in mortal combat.* 1 Muir, vol. i. Introd. p. ccxxxix. 2 These tribal jealousies and family feuds, which I shall have to describe later, were the causes which led to the ruin of the Arab empire. 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 324, 327 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. i. p. 138 et seq. ; Tibri (Zotenbergs transal.), vol. ii. pp. 217, 218. 4 The sedentary portion of the Arab population of Yemen, of Bahrain and Irak, obeyed the Persians. The Bodouins of these countries were in reality free from all yoke. The Arabs of Syria were subject to the Romans ; those lviii THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. The heterogeneous elements of which the Arabian peninsula was thus composed gave an extremely varied character to the folklore of the country. Among uncultured nations, the tendency is always to dress facts in the grab of legends. Imagination among them not only colours with a roseate hue, but magnifies distant objects. And the variety of culture multiplies legends, more or less based on facts. The Hamitic colonies of Yemen and of the south-west generally ; the true Semites who followed in their footsteps, like the Aryans in the East ; the Jews, the Christians, — all brought their traditions, their myths, their legends with them. In the course of ages, these relics of the past acquired a consistency and character, but however unsubstantial in appearance, on analysis there is always to be found uuderlying them a stratum of fact. In the legend of Shaddad and his garden of Irem, we see in the hazy past the reflec- tion of a mighty empire, which even conquered Egypt, — "of a wealthy nation, constructors of great buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of Chaldsea, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian ; a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to great moral depravity and obscene rites/'1 In the traditional, half-legendary, half-historic destruction of the Aadites and the Thamudites, we see the destructive fate which overwhelmed these Hamitic races before the Semitic tide, Assyrian and Arab.2 The children of Jacob, flying from their ruthless enemies, brought their legends and traditions with them, and thus contributed their quota to the folklore of the Peninsula. The last of the Semitic colonies that entered Arabia was acknowledged by themselves as well as their neighbours to be descended from Abraham ; and tradition had handed down this belief, and given it a shape and character. Manicheism, stamped out from Persia and the Byzantine domi- nions, had betaken itself to Arabia.3 The early Docetes, the Mar- cionities, the Valentinians, all had their representatives in this land of freedom. They all disseminated their views and traditions, which in course of time became intermixed with the traditions of the of Mesopotamia recogniced alternately the Roman and Persian rule. The Bedouins of Central Arabia and of Hijaz, over whom the Himyarite kings had exercised a more or less effective sovereignty, had nominally passed under Persian rule, but> they enjoyed virtual independence. 1 Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 296. 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 55-58. 3 Beausobre, Hist, du Manicheisme, pt, i. 1. ii. chap. iv. INTRODUCTION. Hx country. These Christians, more consistent in their views than their orthodox persecutors, believed that the God incarnate, or at least the Son of God, His Word, born in the bosom of eternity, an /Ron, an Emanation issuing from the Throne of Light, could not, did not, die on the cross ; that the words of agony which orthodox Christian traditions put into the mouth of Jesus did not, and could not, escape from his lips ; in short, that the man who suffered on the cross was a different person from the Divine Christ, who escaped from the hands of his persecutors and went away to the regions whence he had come.1 This doctrine, however fanciful, was more consistent with the idea of the sonship of Jesus, and in itself appears to have been based on some strong probabilities. The intense desire of Pilate, whom Tertullian calls a Christian at heart, to save Jesus ;2 even the unwillingness of Herod to incur more odium by the murder of the blessed prophet of Nazareth ; the darkness of the short hours when that great benefactor of humanity was led forth for the consummation of the frightful scenes which had continued through- out the night ; the preternatural gloom which overshadowed the earth at the most awful part of this drama :3 all these coincident cir- cumstances lend a strong probability to the belief that the innocent escaped and the guilty suffered. Before the Advent of Mohammed, all these traditions, based on fact though tinged by the colourings of imagination, must have become firmly imbedded in the convictions of the people, and formed essen- tiarparts^oiJheJ&lMm^ country. Mohammed, when promul- gating his faith and his laws, found these traditions current among his people ; he took them up and adopted them as the lever for raising the Arabs and the surrounding nations from the depths of social and moral degradation into which they had fallen. The light that shone on Sinai, the light that brightened the lives of the peasants and fishermen of Galilee, is now aflame on the heights of Faran ! 1 Mosheim and Gibbon, in loco. 2 Blunt, History of the Christian Church, p. 138. 3 Comp. Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 348-362. If anything could lend stronger probability to this curious belief, it ought to be the circumstantial account of Luke, xxiv. 36 et seq. , about Jesus allowing himself to be touched and felt (after the resurrection) in order to calm his affrighted disciples, who believed him to be a spirit ; and his asking for "meat," and partaking of "a broiled fish and of a honey-comb." CHAPTER I. MOHAMMED THE PROPHET. i * * * ^Jt asvj i^d^l l BU*j <* o * * *9 , aK^A. £**a»* >* J>.\av,». 1' * * 9 * O' ' > w A JT . a xb ^. A THESE lines, untranslatable in their beauty, do not in the least exaggerate the sweetness of disposition, the nobility of character, of the man whose life, career, and teachings we propose to describe in the following pages. At the dawn of the seventh century of the Christian era, in the streets of Mecca might often be seen a quiet thoughtful man, past the meridian of life, his Arab mantle thrown across his shoulders, his tailasdn x drawn low over his face ; some- times gently sauntering, sometimes hurrying along, heedless of the passers-by, heedless of the gay scenes around him, deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, — yet Withal never forgetful to return the salutation of the lowliest, or to speak a kindly word to the children who loved to throng around him. This is al-Amin, "the Trusty." He has so honourably and industriously walked through life, that he has won for himself from his compatriots the noble designation of the true and trusty. But now, owing to his strange preaching, his fellow-towns- men are beginning to look suspiciously upon him as a wild visionary, a crazed revolutionist, desirous of levelling the old landmarks of society, of doing away with their ancient privileges, of making them abandon their old creeds and customs. l A scarf thrown over the head usually covering the turban, and brought round under the chin and passed over the left shoulder. 2 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Mecca was, at this time, a city of considerable importance and note among the townships of Arabia, both from its associations and its position. Situated in a low-lying valley stretching north to south, bordered on the west by a range of hills, on the east by high granite rocks, — the Kaaba in its centre, its regular and paved streets, its fortified houses, its town-hall opening on to the platform of the temple, the city presented an unusual appearance of prosperity and strength. The guardianship of the Kaaba, originally an appanage of the children of Ishmael, had in consequence of the Babylonian attack, passed into the hands of the Jurhumites. The combination of the secular and religious power enabled the chiefs of the Bani-Jurhum to assume the title of malik or king. In the early part of the third century the Jurhumites were overwhelmed by the irruption of a Kahtanite tribe, called the Bani-Khuzaa, who, issuing from Yemen, possessed themselves of Mecca and the southern parts of Hijaz. In the meantime, the race of Ishmael, which had suffered so terribly at the hands of the Babylonian king, was gradually regaining its former strength. Adnan, one of the descendants of Ishmael, who nourished about the first century before Christ, had, like his ancestor, married the daughter of the Jurhumite chief, and established himself at Mecca, and his son Maad became the real progenitor of the Ishmaelites inhabiting Hijaz and Najd. Fihr, surnamed Koraish, a descendant of Maad, who flourished in the third century, was the ancestor of the tribe which gave to Arabia, her Prophet and Legislator. The Khuzaites remained in possession of the temple, and of all the pre-eminence it conferred on them, for more than two centuries. Upon the death of Holayl, the last of the Khuzaite chief, Kossay, a descendant of Fihr, l who had married Holayl's daughter, drove the Khuzaites out of Mecca, and possessed himself of the entire power, both secular and religious, in the city, and thus became the virtual ruler of Hijaz.2 We now arrive on absolutely historical grounds. Kossay appears to have made himself the master of Mecca about the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era, and he 1 Kossay was the fifth in descent from Fihr, and was born about 398 a.o. The word Koraish is derived from Karash, to trade, as Fihr and his descend- ants were addicted to commerce. 2 The next we hear of the Khuzaites is when the Koraish invoked their assistance against the Prophet. KOSSAY — TrtE FOUNDER OF MECCA. £ at once set himself to the task of placing the administration of the city upon an organised basis. Until Kossay's time, the different Koraishite families had lived dispersed in separate quarters, at con- siderable distances from the Kaaba, and the extreme sanctity they attached to the temple had prevented their erecting any habitation in its neighbourhood. Perceiving the dangers to which the national pantheon was exposed from its unprotected condition, he induced the Koraish to settle in its vicinity, leaving a sufficient space free \ on the four sides of the temple for the tawdf (circumambulation). \ The families, to whom the lands were allotted, dwelt in strongly j fortified quarters. Kossay built for himself a palace, the door of which opened on the platform of the temple. This palace was called the Ddr un- Nadwa, 1 " the council hall,*' where, under the presidency of Kossay, public affairs were discussed and transacted. To this hall, no man under the age of forty, unless a descendant of Kossay, could gain admission. Here also were performed all civil functions. At the Ddr un-Nadwd, the Koraishites, when about to engage in a war, received from the hands of Kossay the standard, liwa. Kossay himself attached to the end of a lance a piece of white stuff, and handed it, or sent it by one of his sons, to the Koraishite chiefs. This ceremony, called the Akd ul-liwa, continued in vogue from the time of its inauguration by Kossay until the very end of the Arab empire. Another of Kossay's institutions endured much longer. By representing to the Koraish the necessity of providing food for V^7 the poor pilgrims who annually visited Mecca, and by impressing on them the duties of hospitality, Kossay succeeded in making them submit to the payment of an annual poor-tax, called the Rifdda, which he applied in feeding the poorer pilgrims during the Ayydm ul~ Mindf1 — -the day of the sacrificial feast, and the two following days which they passed at Mina. This usage continued after the establish- ment of Islam, and was the origin of the distribution of food which was made at Mina. each year during the pilgrimage, in the name of the Caliphs and the Sultans, their successors. The words nadwa, liwa and rifdda denote the functions exercised by Kossay, being the right of convoking and presiding at the council of the nation, of 1 This building, after having been renewed several times, was ultimately converted into a mosque, under Abdul Malik II. (one of the Ommeyyades ). 2 Mina, (the ' i ' pronounced very short) is a suburb of Mecca. 4 tHE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. bestowing the standard, — the symbol of military command, — and of levying imposts, raised for the purpose of supplying food to the pilgrims. With these dignities, Kossay also held the administration of the water supplied by the wells in Mecca and its neighbourhood {sikdyd), and the custody of the keys of the Kaaba (hijaba), with the ministration to the worship of the gods. Kossay thus united in his own person all the principal religious, civil, and political functions. He was king, magistrate, and chief pontiff. His power, which was almost royal, threw great lustre on the tribe of Koraish, of whom he was the acknowledged chief, and from his time the Koraish acquired a marked preponderance among the other descendants of Ishmael. Kossay died at an advanced age, about the year 480 a. c. He had in his lifetime designated his eldest son Abd ud-Dar as his successor, and after his death the son succeeded quietly, and without dispute, to the high position of the father. Upon the death of Abd ud-Dar, serious disputes broke out between his grandchildren and the sons of Abd(u)Manaf, his brother. The various clans and their allies and neighbours ranged themselves on opposite sides. The dispute, however, was amicably settled for the time. By the compromise thus effected, the sikdya and the rifdda were intrusted to Abd us-Shams, the son of Abd(u)Manaf, whilst the hijdba, nadwa, and liwa remained in the hands of the children of Abd ud-Dar. Abd us-Shams, who was comparatively a poor man, transferred the duties which had been intrusted to him to his brother Hashim, a man of great consequence as well as riches among the Koraish. Hashim was the receiver of the tax imposed on the Koraishites by Kossay for the support of the pilgrims, and the income derived from their contributions joined to his own resources, was employed in providing food to the strangers who congregated at Mecca during the season of the pilgrimage. Like the majority of the Meccans, Hashim was engaged in commerce. It was he who founded among the Koraishites the custom of sending out regularly from Mecca two caravans, one in winter to Yemen, and the other in summer to Syria. Hashim died in the course of one of his expeditions into Syria, in the city of Ghazza, about the year 510 a. c, leaving an only son, named Shayba. by an Yathribite lady of the name of Salma. The charge of the KOSSAY — THE FOUNDER OF MECCA. 5 rifdda and the sikdya passed, upon his death, to his younger brother Muttalib, who had won for himself a high place in the estimation of his comparriots, and the noble designation of al-Faiz (the Generous) by his worth and munificence. Muttalib brought Shayba, the white-haired youth, from Yathrib, to Mecca. Mistaking Shayba for a slave of Muttalib, the Meccans called him Abd ul-Muttalib and history recognises the grandfather of the Prophet under no other name than that of Abd ul-Muttalib, " the slave of Muttalib." * Muttalib died at Kazwan, in Yemen, towards the end of 520 a.c, and was succeeded by his nephew, Abd ul-Muttalib, as the virtual head of the Meccan commonwealth. The government of Mecca was at this time vested in the hands of an oligarchy composed of the leading members of the house of Kossay. After the discovery of the sacred well of Zemzem by Abd ul-Muttalib, and the settlement of the, disputes regarding its superintendence, the governing body consisted of ten senators, who were styled Sharifs. These decem- virs occupied the first place in the State, and their offices were hereditary in favour of the eldest member, or chief, of each family. These dignities were — (1). The Hijdba, the guardianship of the keys of the Kaaba, a sacerdotal office of considerable rank. It had been alloted to the house of Abd ud-Dar, and at the time when Mecca was converted to Islam, it was held by Osman, the son of Talha. (2). The Sikdya, or the intendance of the sacred wells of Zemzem, and of all the water destined for the use of the pilgrims. This dignity belonged to the house of Hashim, and was held at the time of the conquest of Mecca, by Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet. (3). The Diyat, or the civil and criminal magistracy, which had, for a long time, belonged to the house of Taym ibn-Murra, and, at the time of the Prophet's advent, was held by Abdullah ibn-Kuhafa. surnamed Abu Bakr. (4). The Sifdrath, or legation. The person to whom this office belonged was the plenipotentiary of the State, authorised to discuss and settle the differences which arose between the Koraish and the 1 Of the sons of Abd(u)Manaf, Hashim died first, at Ghazza ; then died Abd ush -Shams at Mecca ; then Muttalib at Kazwan ; and lastly, Natifal, some time after Muttalib, at Silman, in Irak. ft THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. other Arab tribes, as also with strangers. This office was held by Omar. (5). The Liwa, or the custody of the standard under which the nation marched against its enemies. The guardian of this standard was the general-in-chief of all the forces of the State. This military charge appertained to the house of Ommeyya, and was held by Abu Sufian, the son of Harb, the most implacable enemy of Mohammed. (6). The Rifdda, or the administration of the poor tax. Formed with the alms of the nation, it was employed to provide food for the poor pilgrims, whether travellers or residents, whom the State regarded as the guests of God. This duty, after the death of Abu Talib, upon whom it had devolved after Abd ul-Muttalib, was transferred to the house of Naufal, son of Abd(u)Manaf, and was held at the time of the Prophet by Harith, son of Amr. (7). The Nadwa, the presidency of the national assembly. The holder of this office was the first councillor of the State, and under his advice all public acts were transacted. Aswad, of the house of Abd ul-Uzza, son of Kossay, held this dignity at the time of the Prophet. (8). The Kha'immeh, the guardianship of the council chamber. This function, which conferred upon the incumbent the right of convoking the assembly, and even of calling to arms the troops, was held by Khalid, son of Walid, of the house of Yakhzum, son of Marra. (9). Khdzina, or the administration of the public finances, belong- ed to the house of Hassan, son of Kaab, and was held by Harith, son of Kais. (10). The Azldm,1 the guardianship of the divining arrows by which the judgment of the gods and goddesses was obtained. Safwan, brother of Abu Sufian, held this dignity. At the same time it was an established custom that the oldest member exercised the greatest influence, and bore the title of Rais or Syed, chief and lord par excellence. Abbas was at the time of the Prophet the first of these senators. In spite, however, of this distribution of privilege and power, the personal character and influence of Abd ul-Muttalib gave him an (l) With a ; (stty), plural of zalam. THE KORAISHITE OLIGARCHY undoubted pre-eminence. The venerable patriarch, who had, in accordance with the custom of his nation, vowed to the deities of the Kaaba the sacrifice of one of his male children, was blessed with a numerous progeny.1 And in fulfilment of his vow he proceed- ed to offer up to the inexorable gods of his temple the life of his best beloved son, Abdullah. But this was not to be. The sacrifice of the human life was commuted, by the voice of the Pythia attached to the temple, to a hundred camels — thenceforth the fixed wehrgeld, or price of blood. Abdullah was married to Amina, a daughter of Wahb, the chief of the family of Zuhri. The year following the marriage of Abdullah was full of momentous events. At the beginning of the year the whole of Arabia was startled by an event which sent a thrill through the nation, Abraha al-Arsham, the Abyssinian viceroy of Yemen, had built a church at Sana, and was anxious to divert into his own city the wealth which the sanctity of the Kaaba attracted to Mecca. The desecration of the church by a Meccan furnished him with an ostensible motive, and he marched a large army to the destruc- tion of the temple, himself riding at the head of his troops on a magnificently caparisoned elephant. The sight of the huge animal striding solemnly in the midst of the vast force so struck the imagi- nation of the Arabian tribes, that they dated an era from this event, and named it as the Era of the Elephant (570 a.c). On the ap- proach of the Abyssinians, the Koraish, with their women and chil- dren, retired to the neighbouring mountains, and from there watch- ed the course of affairs, hoping all the while that the deities of the Kaaba would defend their dwelling place. The morning dawned brightly as the Abyssinians advanced towards Mecca, when, lo and behold, say the traditionists, the sky was suddenly overcast by an enormous flight of small birds, swallows, which poured small stones l Abd ul-Muttalib had twelve sons and six daughters. Of the sons, Harith, born towards a. c. 528, was the eldest ; the others were Abd ul-Uzza, alias Abu Lahab, the persecutor of the Prophet ; Abd(u)Manaf, better known as Abu Tdlib (born in a. c. 540, died in 620 a. c. ) ; Zubair and Abdullah (545), born of Fatima, daughter of Amr, the Makhzumi ; Dhirar and Abbas (566-652), born of Nutayla ; Mukawwim, Jahl, surnamed al-Ghaydak (the liberal), and Ham- zah, born of Hala. The daughters were Atika, Omayma, Arwa, Barra, and Umm-Hakim, surnamed al-Bayza (the fair), by Fatima, and Safiya, born of Hala, who married Awwam, the grandfather of the famous Abdullah ibn- Zubair, who played such an important part in the history of Islam. The names of the two other sons of Abd ul-Muttalib are not known, probably because they left no posterity. 8 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. over the ill-fated army. These stones, penetrating through the armour of men and horses, created terrible havoc among the in- vaders. At the same time the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and there burst forth torrents of rain, carrying away the dead and dying towards the sea. Abraha fled to Sana covered with wounds, and died there soon after his arrival. Ibn-Hisham, after narrating this prodigy, adds, •' it was in the same year that small-pox manifested itself for the first time in Arabia. ?> " This indication explains the miracle," says Caussin de Perceval. One can well understand the annihilation of Abraha's army by some terrible epidemic, similar to the fate which overtook Sennacherib, to which was joined perhaps one of those grand down-pours of rain which often produce terrible inun- dations in the valley of Mecca. Shortly after this event, Abdullah died in the course of a journey to Yathrib, in the twenty-fifth year of his age1. And, a few days after, the afflicted wife gave birth to a son who was named Moham- med. Mohammed was born on the 12th of Rabi I., in the year of the Elephant, a little more than fifty days after the destruction of the Abyssinian army, or the 29th of August 570. 2 His birth, they say, was attended with signs and portents from which the nations of the earth could know that the Deliverer had appeared. The rationalistic historian smiles, the religious controversialist, who, upon a priori reasoning, accepts without comment the accounts of the wise men following: the star, scoffs at these marvels. To the critical student, whose heart is not devoid of sympathy with earlier modes of thought, and who is not biased with preconceived notions, " the portents and signs " which the Islamist says attended the birth of his Prophet are facts deserving of historical analysis. We, moderns, perceive, in the ordinary incidents in the lives of nations and individuals, the current of an irresistible law ; what wonder then that 1300 years ago they perceived in the fall of a nation's memorial the finger of God, pointing to the inevitable destiny, which was to overtake it in its iniquity. In accordance with the 1 He was buried in the quarter occupied by the sons of Aadi, his maternal uncles. 2 Towards the end of the fortieth year of the reign of Kesrfi Amishirvitn, and the end of the year 880 of the era of the Seleucidce. THE CHILDHOOD OF MOHAMMED. 9 custom of the Arabs, the child was confided during his early infancy to a Bedouin woman1 of the tribe of Bani-Saad, a branch of the Hawazin, and upon being returned by her to his mother, was brought up by Amina with the tenderest care. But she died not long after, and the doubly-orphaned child was thus thrown upon the care of his grandfather, Abd ul-Muttalib, who, during the few years that he survived the mother, watched his grand- son with the utmost tenderness. But nothing could make up for the loss of that parental care and love which are the blessings of childhood. His father had died before he was born. He was bereft of his mother when only six years of age, and this irreparable loss made a deep impression on the mind of the sensitive child. Three or four years later he lost his grandfather also. Abd ul-Muttalib died towards the year 579 a.c,2 shortly after his return from a journey to Sana, where he had gone as the representative of the Koraish to congratulate Saif the son of Zu'l Yezen on his accession to the throne of the Tobbas, with the help of the Persians. With the death of Abd ul-Muttalib opens another epoch in the life of the orphan. On his death-bed the old grandfather had confid- ed to Abu Talib the charge of his brother's child, and in the house of Abu Talib Mohammed passed his early life. We can almost see the lad with his deep wistful eyes, earnest and thoughtful, looking, as it were, into futurity, moving about in the humble unpretentious household of his uncle, or going often into the desert to gaze upon the beauteous face of nature; sweet and gentle of disposition, painfully sensitive to human suffering, this pure-hearted child of the desert was the beloved of his small circle, and there ever existed the warmest attachment between uncle and nephew. "The angels of God had opened out his heart, and filled it with light/" His early life was not free from the burden of labour. He had often to ?o 1 In after life, when this poor Bedouin woman was brought by the Koraish as a captive to Mecca, Mohammed recognised her with tears of joy, and obtained for her from his rich wife an ample provision for her life. 2 Of the two duties of the Sikdya and Rifdda held by Abd ul-Muttalib, the Sikdya, with the custody of the Zemzem, passed to his son Abbas. The second devolved on AbvL Talib, who enjoyed at Mecca great authority and consideration. Abu Talib, however, did not transmit the Rifdda to his children. This dignity was transferred, upon his death, to the branch of Naufal, son of Abd(u)Manaf ; and at the time Mecca surrendered to the Prophet, Harith, the son of Amr, and the grandson of Naufal, exercised, as we have said before, the functions of the Rifdda, IO THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. into the desert to watch the flocks of his uncle. The princely muni- ficence of Hashim and Abd ul-Muttalib had told upon the fortunes of their heirs, and the Hashimites, owing to the lack of means, were fast losing their commanding position. The duty of providing the pilgrims with food was given up to the rival branch of Ommeyya, who had always entertained the bitterest jealousy towards the children of Hashim. Mohammed was but a child when the "Sacrilegious Wars" — the Ghazwat ul-Ftjdr, which continued with varying fortunes and consider- able loss of human life for a number of years— broke out at Okaaz between the Koraish and the Bani-Kinana on one side, and the Kais-Aylan on the other. Okaaz lies between Tayef and Nakhla, three short journeys from Mecca. At this place, famous in Arab history, was held a great annual fair in the sacred month of Zi'1-kaada, when it was forbidden to engage in war or shed human blood in anger, — "a sort of God's truce." Other fairs were held at Majna near Marr uz-Zuhran, not far from Mecca, and at Zu'l Majaz at the foot of Mount Arafat; but the gathering at Okaaz was a great national affair. Here, in the sacred month, when all enmity and tribal vendetta was supposed to lie buried for the time, flowed from all parts of Arabia and even more distant lands, the commerce of the world. Here came the merchants of " Araby the blest," of Hijaz, of Najd ; the poet-heroes of the desert ; and the actors, often disguised from the avengers of blood, in masks or veils, to recite their poems and win the applause of the nations gathered there. Okaaz was "the Olympia of Arabia ; " here they came, not for trade only, but to sing of their prowess, of their glory, — to display their poetical and literary talents. The Kasidas, which won the admiration of the assembled multitude, were inscribed in letters of gold {Muzah- habdt, golden), and hung up in the national pantheon as a memorial to posterity.1 During these weeks, Okaaz presented a gay scene of pleasure and excitement. But there was another side to the picture also. The dancing women, like their modern representatives the almas and ghawdzin of Egypt, moving from tent to tent exciting the impetuous son of the desert by their songs and their merriment ; the congregation of Corinthians, who did not even pretend to the calling of music ; the drunken orgies, frequently ending in brawls and i Hence also called the Muallakat, or " suspended poems." THE CHILDHOOD OF MOHAMMED. II bloodshed ; the gaming-tables, at which the Meccan gambled from night till morning; the bitter hatred and ill-feeling evoked by the pointed personalities of rival poets, leading to sudden affrays and permanent and disastrous quarrels, deepened the shadows of the picture, and made a vivid impression on the orphan child of Amina. During the interval between the first and second of those fratri- cidal wars, named sacrilegious from the violation of the sanctity of the month in which all quarrel was forbidden, Mohammed accom- panied his uncle and guardian on one of his mercantile journeys to Syria.1 Here was opened before him a scene of social misery and religious degradation, the sight of which never faded from his memory. Silently and humbly, with many thoughts in his mind, the solitary orphan boy grew from childhood to youth and from youth to manhood. Deeply versed in the legendary lore of his nation, education in the modern sense of the term he had none. With all his affection for his people, in his ways and mode of thought he seemed far removed from them, isolated in the midst of a chaotic society with his eyes fixed intently on the moving panorama of an effete and depraved age. The lawlessness rife among the Meccans, the sudden outbursts of causeless and sanguinary quarrels among the tribes frequenting the fairs of Okaaz, the immorality and scepticism of the Koraish, naturally caused feelings of intense horror and disgust in the mind of the sensitive youth. In the twenty-fifth year of his age, Mohammed travelled once more into Syria as the factor or steward of a noble Koraishite lady named Khadija, a kinswoman of his. The prudence with which he discharged his duties made a favourable impression on Khadija, which gradually deepened into attachment. A marriage, which proved a singularly happy one, was soon after arranged between Mohammed and his noble kinswoman, and was solemnised amidst universal rejoicings. In spite of the disparity of age between Mohammed and his wife, who was much the senior of her husband, there always existed the tenderest devotion on both sides. This 1 Abu Talib, like his father and grandfather, carried on a considerable trade with Syria and Yemen. He transported to Damascus, to Basra, and other places in Syria the dates of Hijaz and Hijr and the perfumes of Yemen, and in return brought back with him the products of the Byzantine empire. 12 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. marriage " brought him that repose and exemption from daily toil which he needed in order to prepare his mind for his great work. But beyond that it gave him a loving woman's heart, that was the first to believe in his mission, that was ever ready to console him in his despair, and to keep alive within him the thin flickering flame of hope when no man believed in him, — not even himself, — and the world was black before his eyes." Khadija is a notable figure, an exemplar among the womanhood ^ of Islam. The calumny which is levelled at Mohammed's system, that it has degraded the female sex, is sufficiently refuted by the high position which his wife and youngest daughter, our " Lady of Light," occupy in the estimation of the Islamist. Khadija bore Mohammed several children — three sons and four daughters ; but the sons all died in infancy, and their loss, which wrung the heart of the bereaved father so tenderly and devotedly attached to them, sup- plied the hostile Koraish later with an abusive epithet to apply to the Prophet. 1 The daughters long survived the new Dispensation. With the exception of an occasional appearance in public when the exigencies of his position or the necessities of the city of his birth demanded it, the next fifteen years after his marriage is a silent record of introspection, preparation, and spiritual communion. Since the death of Abd ul-Muttalib authority in Mecca had become more or less divided. Each of the senators enjoyed a somewhat limited authority, and among the different functions there was no such institution as a magistracy to insure the peaceable enjoyment by individuals of their rights and property. The ties of blood and family esprit de corps afforded some degree of protection to each citizen against injustice and spoliation, but strangers were exposed to all kinds of oppression. They would often find themselves robbed, not only of their goods and chattels, but also of their wives and daughters. A famous poet of the name of Hanzala of the tribe of Bani'l Kayn, better known as Abu Tamahan, was publicly robbed in the streets of Mecca, notwithstanding that he had entered the city as a client of a Koraishite notable. Abdullah ibn Judaan. Another similar act of lawlessness brought matters to a crisis. At the instance of Mohammed, the descendants of Hashim and of Muttalib and the principal members of the family 1 Al-abtary literally without a tail ; in ita secondary sense, one without issue. THE PERIOD OF PROBATION. 1$ of Zuhra and Taym bound themselves by a solemn oath to defend every individual, whether Meccan or stranger, free or slave, from any wrong or injustice to which he might be subjected in Meccan territories, and to obtain redress for him from the oppressor. This chivalrous league received the name of the Hilf ul- Fuzul, or the Federation of the Fuzul, in memory of an ancient society instituted with a similar object among the Jurhum, and composed of four personages, named Fazl, Fazal, Muffazzal, and Fuzail, collectively Fuzul. Mohammed was the principal member of this new associa- tion, which was founded about 595 a. c, shortly after his marriage. The League of the FuzCil exercised efficient protection over the weak and oppressed, and during the first year of its institution the simple threat of its intervention was sufficient to repress the lawlessness of the strong, and to afford redress to the helpless. The League continued to exist in full force for the first half-century of Islam. It was some years after the establishment of the Hilf ul-Fuziil, and towards the commencement of the seventh century of the Christian era, that an attempt was made by Osman, son of Huwairis, backed by Byzantine gold, to convert Hijaz into a Roman dependen- cy. His attempt failed chiefly through the instrumentality of Mohammed, and Osman was obliged to fly into Syria, where he was subsequently poisoned by Amr, the Ghassanide prince. ^In 605 a. c, when Mohammed was thirty-five, the Koraish took in hand the reconstruction of the Kaaba. In the course of this work a dispute among the different families engaged in the building of the temple, which at one time seemed likely to lead to great bloodshed, was happily settled by the ready intervention of Mohammed.J These are all we know of his public acts within these fifteen years. His gentle sweet disposition, his austerity of conduct, the severe purity of his life, his scrupulous refinement, his ever-ready helpfulness towards the poor and the weak, his noble sense of honour, his unflinching fidelity, his stern sense of duty had won him, among his compatriots, the high and enviable designation of al-Amin, the Trusty. It was at this period that he tried to discharge some portion of the debt of gratitude and obligation he owed his uncle Abu Talib. by charging himself with the education of Ali, one of his sons. Abu Talib's endeavour to maintain the old position of his family had 14 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. considerably straitened his circumstances. Mohammed, rich by his alliance with Khadija, and Abbas, the brother of Abu Talib, were the most opulent citizens of Mecca. During a severe famine which afflicted the country, Mohammed persuaded his uncle Abbas, to adopt one of the sons of Abu Talib, whilst he adopted another. Thus Abbas took Jaafar * Mohammed, Ali, and Akil remained with his father.1 Mohammed had lost all his sons in early infancy. In the love of Ali he found some consolation for their loss ; and the future marriage of the son of Abu Talib with the youngest daughter of Mohammed, Fatima,2 sealed the bond of love and devotedness. Mohammed about this time set an example to his fellow-citizens by an act of humanity which created a salutary effect upon his people. A young Arab of the name of Zaid, son of Harith, was brought as a captive to Mecca by a hostile tribe, and sold to a nephew of Khadija, who presented the young lad to her. Mohammed obtained Zaid as a gift from Khadija, and immediately enfranchised him. This kind- ness on the one side gave rise to absolute devotion on the other, and the Arab boy could not be induced, even by his own father, to return to his tribe or forsake Mohammed. Thus passed the fifteen years of trial and probation, years marked by many afflictions and yet full of sympathy with human suffering and sorrow. Before him lay his country, bleeding and torn by fratricidal wars and inter-tribal dissensions, his people sunk in barbarism, addicted to obscene rites and superstitions, and, with all their desert virtues, lawless and cruel. His two visits to Syria had opened to him a scene of unutterable moral and social desolation ; rival creeds and sects tearing each other to pieces, wrangling over the body of the God they pretended to worship, carrying their hatred to the valleys and deserts of Hijaz, and rending the townships of Arabia with their quarrels and bitterness. The picture before him was one of dreary hopelessness. The few who, abandoning their ancient beliefs, were groping in the dark for some resting-place, represented a general feeling of unrest.8 In their minds there was nothing capable of 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 109 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 42 ; Tibri, vol. ii. p. 396. 2 Born in 606 a.c. 3 Four men, Zaid, Waraka son of Naufal and a cousin of Khadija, and two others (Obaidullah and Osman), abandoning the fetishism of their countrymen, had betaken themselves to a search for the true faith. Zaid was the principal person among them. Before the Prophet retired into the wilderness, like THE PERIOD OF COMMUNION. 15 appealing to the humanity beyond themselves. Mohammed's soul was soaring aloft, trying to peer into the mysteries of creation, of life and death, of good and evil, to find order out of chaos. And God's words uttered to his soul became at last the life-giving power of the world. For years after his marriage it had been his wont to betake himself, sometimes with his family, at other times alone, for prayer and meditation to a cave on the Mount Hira,1 "a huge barren rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing out solitary in the full white glare of the desert sun, shadowless, flowerless, without well or rill." Solitude had indeed become a passion with him. Here in this cave he often remained whole nights plunged in profoundest thought, deep in communion ( &is±J\ ) with the unseen yet all-pervading God of the Universe. Slowly the heaven and earth fill with pre-destined vision and command. A voice seems to issue even from the inanimate objects around him, the stones and rocks and trees, calling on him to fulfil the task an Almighty Power was directing him to undertake.2 Can the poetry of the soul go further ? The mental visions and the apparitions of angels at these moments were the bright, though gradual, dawnings of those truths with which he was to quicken the world into life. Often in the dark and benighted pathways of concrete existence, the soul of every great man has been conscious of unrealised yet not unseen influences, which have led to some of the happiest achievements of humanity. From Samuel, that ancient Seer, wild and awful as he stands, deep in the misty horizon of the Past, to Jesus in the wilderness, pondering over the darksome fate of his people and the magnitude of his work, listening to the sweet accents of the God of Truth,— from Jesus to Mohammed in the solitude of his mountain retreat, there is no break in the action of these influences.3 In the still hours of the night, in the sweet calmness of the early dawn, in the depth of solitude, when no Jesus, to commune with God, he had come in contact with Zaid, and learnt to esteem his abhorrence of idolatry. When Zaid's cousin asked the Prophet in later times to supplicate divine mercy for him, Mohammed, who would not pray for his own grandfather, as he had died in idolatry, willingly did so for Zaid. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 145. l Now called the Mount of Light. Ibn-Hisham, Ibn ul-Athir, and Abulfeda mention the month of Ramazan as the month which Mohammed usually spent at Hira in prayer and the succour of the poor and famished wayfarers of the desert. Tibri mentions Rajab. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 151. 3 Koran, sura xcvi. 2 ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 153 ; Ibn ul-Athir , Vol. II p. 34. 1 6 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. human sympathy is near, a Voice comes to him from heaven, gently as the sough of the morning breeze : " Thou art the man, Thou art the Prophet of God ; " or, when wrapt in thought it comes in mighty waves : " Cry in the name of thy Lord."1 The over-wrought mind at these moments raises a vision before the eye, a vision of the celestial ministrants who are believed to form the medium of inter- communication between the God of Heaven and the man on earth. " The Father of Truth chooses His own prophets, and He speaks to them in a voice stronger than the voice of thunder. It is the same inner voice through which God speaks to all of us. That voice may dwindle away, and become hardly audible ; it may lose its divine accent, and sink into the language of worldly prudence ; but it may also from time to time assume its real nature with the chosen of God, and sound in their ears as a voice from heaven. "2 " The natural relations of Mahomet's vast conception of the personality of God with the atmosphere of his age," says a great writer,3 " is the only explanation of that amazing soberness and self-command with which he entertained his all-absorbing visions ; " and then adds, " it could not have been accidental that the one supreme force of the epoch issued from the solitudes of that vast peninsula round which the tides of empire rose and fell. Every exclusive prophetic claim in the name of a sovereign will has been a cry from the desert. The symbolic meaning given to Arabia by the withdrawal of the Christian apostle to commune with a power above flesh and blood, in Mahomet became more than a symbol. Arabia was itself the man of the hour, the prophet of Islam its concentrated word. To the child of her exalted traditions, driven by secret compulsion out into the lonely places of the starry night, his mouth in the dust, the desert spoke without reserve." One night — " the Night of Power and Excellence " — when a divine peace rests on creation, and all nature is lifted up towards its Lord, — in the middle of that night the Book was opened to the thirsting soul. Whilst lying self-absorbed, he is called by a mighty Voice, surging like the waves of the ocean, to cry. Twice the Voice called, and twice he struggled and waived its call. But a fearful weight 1 Comp. Isa. xl. 6. 2 Professor Muller, quoted from Stanlej7's Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, Part i. Lect. xviii. p. 394. 3 Johnson, Oriental Religions, p. 561, THE INSPIRATION. I 7 was laid on him, and an answer was wrung out of his heart. * Cry ! " called out the Voice for the third time. And he said, " What shall I cry ? " Came the answer : " Cry — in the name of thy Lord ! n When the Voice had ceased to speak, telling him how from minutest beginnings man had been called into existence and lifted up by understanding and knowledge of the Lord, who is most beneficent, and who by the Pen had revealed that which men did not know,1 Mohammed woke from his trace, and felt as if the words spoken to his soul had been written in his heart. A great trembling came upon him, and he hastened home to his wife, and said, " O Khadija ! What has happened to me ? " He lay down, and she watched by him. When he recovered from his paroxysm he said, f O Khadija ! he of whom one would not have believed it (meaning himself) has become either a soothsayer2 (Kahin) or one possessed — mad." She replied, " God is my protection, O Abu'l-Kasim ! (a name of Mohammed, derived from one of his boys), He will surely not let such a thing happen unto thee ; for thou speakest the truth, dost not return evil for evil, keepest faith, art of a good life, and kind to thy relations and friends. And neither art thou a babbler in the market-places. What has befallen thee ? Hast thou seen aught terrible ? " Mohammed replied, " Yes." And he told her what he had seen. Whereupon she answered and said, " Rejoice, O dear husband, and be of good cheer. He, in whose hands stands Khadija's life, is my witness that thou wilt be the Prophet of this people." Then she arose and went to her cousin Waraka, son of Naufal, who was old and blind, and " knew the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians." When she told him what she had heard, he cried out, " Kuddihun, Kuddusun ! Holy, holy ! Verily this is the Ndmils ul-akbar^ who came to Moses. He will be the Prophet of his people. Tell him this. Bid him be of brave heart." 1 Sura xcvi. vers. 1-5. " Ikra " is usually rendered into "read" ; but I have preferred to follow the rendering suggested by Deutsch, as more in accordance with the call to the Prophet ; see Rod well also, and compare Zamakhshari. 2 Divines and soothsayers were his particular aversions ; most of them were attached to the temples. 3 The primary signification of the word Ndmils in Arabic is a messenger, one who communicates a secret message. It also means law, as the Greek vo/xos. " In Talmudical phraseology," says Deutsch, " it signifies the revealed law. In Waraka's mind these different significations were combined ; the messenger and the message, both divine, had come to Mohammed even as they had come to Moses." 1 8 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. In the midst of the wreck of empires and nations, in the wild turmoil of tribes and clans, there was a voice in the air — east and west, north and south — that God's message was close at hand : the shepherd was nigh who was to call back the erring flock into the Master's fold. It had spoken to the heart of Waraka. And when the two men met subsequently in the streets, the blind old reader of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, who had searched in them for consolation and found none, but who knew of the promise held out to mankind of a Deliverer, spoke of his faith and trust. "I swear by Him in whose hand Waraka' s life is, " said the old man, " God has chosen thee to be the prophet of this people ; the Ndmus ul-akbar has come to thee. They will call thee a liar, they will persecute thee, they will banish thee, they will fight against thee. Oh, that I could live to those days ! I would fight for thee. " x And he kissed him on his forehead. These words of hope and trust brought com- fort to the troubled soul. 2 And then followed a period of waiting for the Voice to come again, — the inspiration of Heaven to fall once more on the anxious mind. We can appreciate the spiritual throes, the severe mental conflicts, the doubts, hopes, and misgivings which alternately wrung the heart of Mohammed, when we are told that before he had himself realised his Mission he was driven to the verge of self-destruction, when the angel of God recalled him to his duty to mankind. 8 It spoke to the poor grieved heart, agitated by doubt and fear, — of hope and trust, of the bright future when he should see the people of the earth crowding into the one true Faith. Saved by the gracious monition, he hurries home from the desert, exhausted in mind and body, to the bosom of his devoted wife, praying only to be covered from the overwhelming Presence. His was not the communion with God of those egoists who bury themselves in deserts or forests, and live a life of quietude for them- selves alone. His was the hard struggle of the man who is led onwards by a nobler destiny towards the liberation of his race from the bondage of idolatry. His destiny was unfolded to him when, wrapt in profound meditation, melancholy and sad, he felt himself called by that Voice from heaven which had called those who had 1 Rouzat-us-safa. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 103. 2 Waraka died soon after this event. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 104. 3 Ibn ul Athtr, vol. ii. pp. 35, 36 ; Tibri (Zotenberg's transl. ), vol. ii. p. 392. COMMENCEMENT OF THE MINISTRY 1 9 gone before him, to arise and preach. "O thou, enwrapped in thy mantle, arise and warn, and glorify thy Lord." * And he arose and girded himself for the work to which he was called. Thenceforth his life is devoted to humanity. Preaching with unswerving purpose amidst frightful persecutions, insulted and outraged, he held on in his path of reproof and reform. Khadtja was the first to accept his Mission. She was the first to believe in the revelation, to abandon the idolatry of her people, and to join with him in purity of heart in offering up prayers to the All-Merciful. Not only was she the first to believe in him and his divine message, but in the struggle which was to follow she was his true consoler ; and " God," says tradition, " comforted him through her when he returned to her, for she roused him up again and made his burden more light to him, assuring him of her own faith in him, and representing to him the futility of men's babble." In the beginning Mohammed opened his soul only to those who were attached to him, and tried to wean them from the gross practices of their forefathers. After Khadtja, AH was the next disciple.2 Often did the Prophet go into the depths of the solitary desert around Mecca, with his wife and young cousin, that they might together offer up their heartfelt thanks to the God of all nations for His manifold blessings. Once they were surprised in the attitude of prayer by Abu Talib, the father of Ali. And he said to Mohammed, " O son of my brother, what is this religion that thou art following ? " " It is the religion of God, of His angels, of His prophets, and of our ancestor Abraham," answered the Prophet. " God has sent me to His servants to direct them towards the truth ; and thou, O my uncle, art the most worthy of all. It is meet that I should thus call upon thee, and it is meet that thou shouldst accept the truth and help in spreading it." " Son of my brother/' replied Abu Talib, in the true spirit of the sturdy old Semite, " I cannot abjure the religion of my fathers ; but by the Supreme God, whilst I am alive none shall dare to injure thee." Then turning towards Ali, his son, the venerable patriarch inquired what religion was his. " O father," answered Ali, "I believe in God and His Prophet, and go with him." l Koran, sura lxxiv. 1 Ibn-Hisham, p, 155 ; Abulfeda (I)esvergers' transl. p. 14); Rouzat-ut-mfa. 20 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. " Well, my son," said Abu Talib, " he will not call thee to aught save what is good, wherefore thou art free to cleave unto him." ] Soon after Zaid, the son of Harith, who notwithstanding his freedom had cast in his lot with Mohammed, became a convert to the new faith. He was followed by a leading member of the Koraishite community of the name of Abdullah, son of Abu Kuhafa, who afterwards became famous in history as Abu Bakr.2 A member of the important family of Taym ibn-Murra, a wealthy merchant, a man of clear, calm judgment, at the same time energetic, prudent, honest, and amiable, he enjoyed great consideration among his compatriots. He was but two years younger than the Prophet, and his unhesitating adoption of the new faith was of great moral effect. Five notables followed in his footsteps, among them Osman, son of Affan, of the family of Ommeyya, who afterwards became the third caliph ; Abdur Rahman, son of Auf ; Saad, son of Abi Wakkas, afterwards the conqueror of Persia ; Zubair, son of Awwam and nephew of Khadija, presented themselves before the Prophet and accepted Islam at his hands. Several proselytes also came from the humbler walks of life. It is a noble feature in the history of the Prophet of Arabia, and one which strongly attests the sincerity of his character, the purity of his teachings and the intensity of his faith and trust in God, that his nearest relations, his wife, his beloved cousin, and intimate friends, were most thorough- ly imbued with the truth of his Mission and convinced of his inspiration. Those who knew him best, closest relations and dearest friends, people who lived with him and noted all his move- ments, were his sincere and most devoted followers. If these men and women, noble, intelligent, and certainly not less educated than the fishermen of Galilee, had perceived the slightest sign of earthli- ness, deception, or want of faith in the Teacher himself, Mohammed's hopes of moral regeneration and social reform would all have been dashed to pieces in a moment. They braved for him persecutions and dangers ; they bore up against physical tortures and mental agony, caused by social excommunication, even unto death. Would this have been so had they perceived the least backsliding in their 1 The above is a paraphrase of the account given by Ibn Hisham, pp. 159, 160 ; and Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii- pp. 42, 43. 2 Desvergers in a note (p. 108) mentions that before his conversion to Islam, he was called Abd ul-Kaaba, "servant of the Kaaba." • COMMENCEMENT OF THE MINISTRY. 21 master ? But even had these people not believed in Mohammed with such earnest faith and trust, it would furnish no reason for doubt- ing the greatness of his work or the depth of his sincerity. For the influence of Jesus himself was least among his nearest relations. His brothers never believed in him,1 and they even went so far as once to endeavour to obtain possession of his person, believing him to be out of his mind.2 Even his immediate disciples were not firm in their convictions. 3 Perhaps this unsteadiness may have arisen from weakness of character, or it may have resulted, as Milman thinks,4 from the vary- ing tone of Jesus himself ; but the fact is undeniable.5 The intense faith and conviction on the part of the immediate followers of Moham- med is the noblest testimony to his sincerity and his utter self- absorption in his apppointed task. For three weary long years he laboured quietly to wean his people from the worship of idols. But polytheism was deeply rooted among them ; the ancient cult offered attractions which the new Faith in its purity did not possess. The Koraish had vested interests in the old worship ; and their prestige was involved in its maintenance. Mohammed had thus to contend, not only with the heathenism of his city sanctified by ages of observance and belief but also with the opposition of the oligarchy which ruled its destinies, and with whom like the generality of their people, superstition was allied to great scepticism. With these forces fighting against him, little wonder that the life and death struggle of the three years drew only thirty followers. But the heart of the great Teacher never failed. Steadfast in his. trust in the Almighty Master whose behests he was carrying out, he held on. Hitherto he had preached quietly and unobtru- sively. His compatriots had looked askance at him, had begun to doubt the sanity of al-Amin, thought him crazed or " possessed," but had not interfered with his isolated exhortations. He now deter- mined to appeal publicly to the Koraish to abandon their idolatry. With this object he convened an assembly on the hill of Safa, and l John vii. 5. 2 Mark iii. 21. 3 And these were the men whom Jesus called " his mother and brethren.'" in preference to his own mother and brothers, Matt, xii 45 — 48 ; Mark iii. 32, 33. 4 Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 254, 255. •r> Sir \V. Muir admits this in the most positive terms (vol. ii. p. 274) ; he says, " the apostles fled at the first sound of danger." 22 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. there spoke to them of the enormities of their crimes in the sight of the Lord, their folly in offering adoration to carved idols. He warned them of the fate that had overtaken the races which had passed unheeded the words of the preachers of bygone days, and invited them to abjure their old impious worship, and adopt the faith of love and truth and purity. But the mockers mocked his words, laughed at the enthusiasm of young Ali, and departed with taunts and scoffs on their lips, and fear in their hearts at the spirit of revolution which had risen in their midst. Having thus failed to induce the Koraish to listen to the warnings of Heaven, he turned his attention to the strangers visiting the city for trade or pilgrimage. To them he endeavoured to convey God's words. But here again his efforts were frustrated by the Koraish. When the pilgrims began to arrive on the environs of the city, the Koraishites posted themselves on the different routes and warned the strangers against holding any com- munication with Mohammed, whom they represented as a dangerous magician. This machination led, however, to a result little expected by the Meccans. As the pilgrims and traders dispersed to their distant homes, they carried with them the news of the advent of the strange, enthusiastic preacher, who at the risk of his own life was calling aloud to the nations of Arabia to give up the worship of their fathers. If the Koraish were under the impression that Mohammed would be abandoned by his own kith and kin, they were soon undeceived by a scathing denunciation hurled at them by Abu Talib. The old patriarch, who had refused with characteristic persistency to abandon his ancient creed, or to adopt the new faith rebelled at the injustice and intolerance of his compatriots towards the reformer, and with true desert chivalry he deplored, in a poem which lies embalmed in history, the enormities of the Koraish towards one who was the benefactor of the orphan and the widow — al-Amin, who never failed in word or deed ; and declared that the childrem of Hashim and of Muttalib would defend the innocent with their lives. About the same time an Yathribite chief wrote to the Koraish of Mecca, and, holding up the examples of bygone ages, exhorted them not to embroil themselves with civil dissensions and warfare. He advised them to give a hearing to the new preacher : " An honourable man has adopted a certain religion, why persecute him ? for it is only the Lord of the Heaven who can read the heart of man !" His counsel THE DEVOTION OF THE DISCIPLES. 23 had some effect, and occasioned a change of tactics among the Koraish. For a time, accordingly, calumnies and vilifications, ex- asperating contumelies and petty outrages were substituted for open and violent persecution. The hostile Koraish stopped the Prophet from offering his prayers at the Kaaba •, they pursued him wherever he went ; they covered him and his disciples with dirt and filth when engaged in their devotions. They incited the children and the bad characters of the town to follow and insult him. They scattered thorns in the places which he frequented for devotion and meditation. In this act of refined cruelty the lead was always taken by Umm ul- Jamil, the wife of Abu Lahab, one of Mohammed's uncles. She was the most inveterate of his persecutors. Every place which he or his disciples frequented for devotion she covered with thorns. This exasperating conduct brought down upon her the designation of being " the bearer of faggots " {hammdlat ul-hatab) [to hell]. Amidst all these trials Mohammed never wavered. Full of the intensest confidence in his Mission, he worked on steadily. Several times he was in imminent danger of his life at the hands of the Koraish. On one occasion he disarmed their murderous fury by his gentle and calm self-control. But persecution only added to the strength of the new faith. " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, " is a truth not confined to one creed. The violence of the Koraish towards Mohammed, their burning and bitter intoler- ance, led to the conversion of the redoubtable Hamza, the youngest son of Abd ul-Muttalib. This intrepid warrior, brave, generous, and true, whose doughty sword was held in dread by all the Koraish, about this time came to the Prophet, adopted his faith, and became thenceforth a devoted adherent of Islam, and eventually laid down his life in the cause. Amidst all this persecution Mohammed never ceased calling to the nation so wedded to iniquity to abadon their evil ways and abominations. He threw his heart and soul into his preachings. He told them in burning words, which seared into the hearts of his listeners, the punishment which had lighted on the tribes of Aad and Thamud who had heeded not the warnings of God's messengers, of the outpouring of Heaven's wrath at the iniquities of Noah's people. He adjured them by the wonderful sights of nature, by the noon-day brightness, by the night when she spreadeth her veil, by the day when 24 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. it appeareth in glory, to listen to the warning before a like destruction came upon them. He told them of the day of reckoning, when the deeds done by man in this world shall be weighed before the Eternal Judge, when the children who had been buried alive shall be asked for what crime they hed been put to death, and when heaven and earth shall be folded up and none be near but God. He spoke to them of the rewards and punishments of the Hereafter, describ- ing to his materialistic people the joys of Paradise and the pains of hell " with all the glow of Eastern imagery/' He told them what the unbelievers were like — " They are like unto one who kindleth a lire, and when it hath thrown its light on all around him, God taketh away the light and leaveth him in darkness and they cannot see." " Deaf, dumb, blind, therefore they shall not retrace their steps/' " They are like those who, when there cometh a storm-cloud of heaven big with darkness, thunder, and lightning, thrust their fingers into their ears because of the thunder-clap for fear of death. God is round about the infidels/' " The lightning almost snatcheth away their eyes •, so oft as it gleameth on them, they walk on in it ; but when darkness closeth upon them, they stop ; and if God pleased, of their ears and of their eyes would He surely deprive them : verily God is Almighty."1 " As to the infidels, their works are like the Sardb on the plain,2 which the thirsty [traveller] thinketh to be water, and then when he cometh thereto, he findeth it [to be] nothing but he findeth God round about him, and He will fully pay him his account ; for swift in taking an account is God." " Or, as the darkness over a deep sea, billows riding upon billows below, and clouds above ; one darkness over another darkness ; when a man stretcheth forth his hand he is far from seeing it ; he to whom God doth not grant light, no light at all hath he."3 The people were awestruck, and conversions grew frequent. The Koraish were now thoroughly alarmed ; Mohammed's preach- ing betokened a serious revolutionary movement. Their power and prestige were at stake. They were the custodians of the idols whom Mohammed threatened with destruction ; they were the ministers of the worship which Mohammed denounced, — their very existence depended upon their maintaining the old institutions intact. If his l Sura ii. 3 i.e. the mirage of the desert. 8 Sura xxiv* 39, 40. THE HOSTILITY OF THE KORAISH. 25 predictions were fulfilled, they would have to efface themselves as a nation pre-eminent among the nationalities of Arabia. The new preacher's tone was intensely democratic ; in the sight of his Lord all human beings were equal. This levelling of old distinctions was contrary to all their traditions. They would have none of it, for it boded no good to their exclusive privileges. Urgent measures were needed to stifle the movement before it gained further strength. They accordingly decided upon an organised system of persecu- tion. In order, however, not to violate their laws of vendetta, each family took upon itself the task of strangling the new religion within its own circle. Each household tortured its own members, or clients, or slaves, who were supposed to have attached themselves, to the new faith. Mohammed, owing to the protection of Abu Talib and his kinsmen, Abu Bakr and a few others, who were either distin- guished by their rank or possessed some influential friend or protector among the Koraish, were, for the time, exempt from immediate violence. The. others were thrown into prison, starved, and then beaten with sticks. The hill of Ramdha and the place called Batha became thus the scenes of cruel tortures.1 The men or women whom the Koraish found abandoning the worship of their idol-gods, were exposed to the burning heat of the desert on the scorching sand, where, when reduced to the last extremity by thirst, they were offered the alternative of adoring the idols or death. Some recanted only to profess Islam once more when released from their torments ; but the majority held firmly to their faith. Such a one was Billal, the first Muazzin of Islam. His master, Ommeyya, son of Khallaf, conducted him each day to Batha when the heat of the sun was at its greatest, and there exposed him bare-backed with his face to the burning sun, and placed on his chest an enormous block of stone. " There shalt thou remain until thou art dead," Ommeyya used to say, " or thou hast abjured Islam/' As he lay half-stifled under his heavy weight, dying with thirst, he would only answer, " Ahadun, ahadun" " one [God], one." This lasted for days, until the poor sufferer was reduced to the verge of death, when he was ransomed by Abu Bakr, who had in like manner purchased the liberty of six other slaves. They killed with excruciating toments Yasar and Samiya (his wife ; they inflicted fearful tortures on Ammar 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 50 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 205-209, 4 26 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. their son. Mohammed was often an eye-witness to the sufferings of his disciples, — sufferings borne with patience and fortitude as became martyrs in the cause of truth. And these were not the only martyrs in the early history of Islam.1 Like the Pharisees tempting Jesus, the Koraish came to Moham- med with temptations of worldly honour and aggrandisement, to draw him from the path of duty. One day, says the chronicler, he was sitting in the Kaaba, at a little distance from an assembly of the antagonistic chiefs, when one of them, Otba, son of Rabia, a man of moderate views came to him and said, " O son of my brother, thou art distinguished by thy qualities and thy descent. Now thou hast sown division among our people, and cast dissension in our families ; thou denouncest our gods and goddesses ; thou dost tax our ancestors with impiety. We have a proposition to make to thee ; think well if it will not suit thee to accept it." " Speak, O father of Walid," 2 said the Prophet, " I listen, O son of my brother." Com- menced Otba : " If thou wishest to acquire riches by this affair, we will collect a fortune larger than is possessed by any of us ; if thou desirest honours and dignity, we shall make thee our chief, and shall not do a thing without thee ; if thou desirest dominion, we shall make thee our king ; and if the spirit (demon) which possesses thee cannot be overpowered, we will bring thee doctors and give them riches till they cure thee." And when he had done, " Hast thou finished, O father of Walid ?" asked the Prophet. " Yes," replied he. " Then listen to me." il I listen," he said. " In the name of the most merciful God," commenced the Warner, " this is a revelation from the most Merciful : a book, the verses whereof are distinctly explained, an Arabic Koran, for the instruction of people who understand ; bearing good tidings, and denouncing threats : but the greater part of them turn aside, and hearken not thereto. And they say, ' Our hearts are veiled from the doctrine to which thou invitest us ; and there is a deafness in our ears, and a curtain 1 E.g. Khobaib bin Aada, who, being perfidiously sold to the Koraish, was by them put to death in a cruel manner by mutilation and cutting off his flesh piece-meal. In the midst of his tortures, being asked whether he did not wish Mohammed in his place, answered, " / would not wish to be with my family, my substance, and my children on condition that Mohammed was only to be pricked with a thorn." 2 Walid being a son of Otba. It was usual, and is so even now, among the Arabs to call a man as the father of so-and-so, instead of using his own name, as a mark of consideration. THE KORAISH. TEMPTING MOHAMMED. 27 i between us and thee : wherefore act thou as thou shalt think fit ;. for we shall act according to our own sentiments/ Say ' verily I am only a man like you. It is revealed unto me that your God is one God; wherefore direct your way straight unto him ; and ask pardon of Him for what is past.' And woe be to the idolators, who give not the ap- pointed alms, and believe not in the life to come I1 But as to those who believe and work righteousness, they shall receive an everlasting reward," a When the Prophet finished this recitation, he said to Otba, " Thou hast heard, now take the course which seemeth best to thee." 3 , Profoundly afflicted by the sufferings of his disciples, whose position, as time went on, became more and more unbearable, he advised them to seek a refuge in the neighbouring Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, where ruled a pious sovereign, till God in His mercy wrought a change in the feelings of the Koraish. He had heard of the righteousness of this Christian sovereign, of his tolerance and hospitality, and was certain of a welcome for his followers. Some immediately availed themselves of the advice, and sailed, to the number of fifteen, to the hospitable shores of the Negus (Najashi). This is called the first Exile Kmuhdjarat) in the history of Islam, and occurred in the fifth year of Mohammed's Mission (615 a.c). These emigrants were soon joined by many more of. their fellow-sufferers and labourers in the cause of truth, until their number amounted to eighty-three men and eighteen women. 4 But the untiring hostility of the Koraish pursued them even here. They were furious at the escape of their victims, and sent deputies to the king to demand the delivery of these refugees that they might be put to death. They stated the chief charges against the poor fugitives to be the abjura- tion of their old religion, and the adoption of a new one. The Negus sent for the exiles, and inquired of them whether what their enemies had stated was true. " What is this religion for which you have abandoned your former faith'', asked the king, " and adopted neither mine nor that of any other people ?" Jaafar, son of Abu Talib, and brother of Ali, acting as spokesman for the fugitives, spoke thus : " O king, we were plunged in the depth of ignorance 1 Whilst hospitality was regarded as a great virtue, charity was con- sidered a weakness among the Arabs ; and a future life, an old woman's fable. 2 Koran, Sura xli. 3 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 185, 18b*. 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 208 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 58 ; Abulfeda, p. 20. 28 THE L1FK OF MOHAMMKI). and barbarism ; we adored idols, we lived in unchastity ; we ate dead bodies, and we spoke abominations ; we disregarded every feeling of humanity, and the duties of hospitality and neighbourhood ; we knew no law but that of the strong, when God raised among us a man. of whose birth, truthfulness, honesty, and purity we were aware ; and he called us to the unity of God, and taught us not to associate anything with Him ; 1 he forbade us the worship of idols ; and enjoined us to speak the truth, to be faithful to our trusts, to be merciful, and to regard the rights of neighbours ; he forbade us to speak evil of women, or to eat the substance of orphans ; he ordered us to fly vices, and to abstain from evil ; to offer prayers, to render alms, to observe the fast. We have believed in him, we have accepted his teachings and his injunctions to worship God, and not to associate anything with Him. For this reason our people have risen against us, have persecuted us in order to make us forego the worship of God and return to the worship of idols of wood and stone and other abominations. They have tortured us and injured us, until finding no safety among them, we have come to thy county, and hope thou wilt protect us from their oppression."2 The demands of the> Koraish were scouted by the king, and the deputies returned in confusion to Mecca. Whilst the disciples of Mohammed were seeking safety in other lands from the persecution of their enemies, he himself stood bravely at his post, and amidst every insult and outrage pursued his mission. Again they came to him with promises of honour and riches, to seduce him from his duty ; the reply was as before, full of life, full of faith : "lam neither desirous of riches nor ambitious of dignity nor of dominion ; I am sent by God, who has ordained me to announce glad tidings unto you. I give you the words of my Lord ; I admonish you. If you accept the message I bring you, God will be favourable to you both in this world and in the next; if you reject my admonitions, I shall be patient, and leave God to judge between you and me/' They mocked him, scoffed at him, tried by insidious questions to expose the fallacy of his teachings.3 His simple trust 1 The idolaters are almost always called " Associators," Mushrikin, in the Koran, or men who associate other beings with God. 2 Can there be a better summary of Mohammed's work or of his teachings ? Ibn ul-Athlr, vol. ii. p. 61 ; and Ibn-Hisham, pp. 219, 220. 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 188» A Christian historian goes into raptures at the subtlety of the idolaters ; see Osborn, Islam under the Arabs. THE MORAL EVIDENCES OF MOHAMMED S MISSION. 20, and sublime faith in his Master rose superior to all their materialistic scepticism. They asked him to cause wells and rivers to gush forth, to bring down the heaven in pieces, to remove mountains, to have a house of gold erected, to ascend to heaven by a ladder.1 It was a repetition of the old story, with this difference, that in the case ot Jesus his own followers insisted upon his performing miracles to satisfy them of the truth of his mission. " His immediate dis- ciples/' says Professor Momerie, * were always misunderstanding him and his work : wanting him to call down fire from heaven ; wanting him to declare himself king of the Jews ; wanting to sit on his right hand and on his left hand in his kingdom ; wanting him to show them the Father, to make God visible to their bodily eyes ; wanting him to do, and wanting to do themselves, anything and everything that was incompatible with His great plan. This was how they treated him until the end. When that came, they all forsook him, and fled." To these unsatisfied, lukewarm spirits, whose craving for wonders was no less strong than that of the Koraish, and who afterwards clothed the revered figure of Jesus in a mist, a legacy which even modern idealistic Christianity cannot shake off, the Master was wont to reply, at times angrily, that it was an evil and adulterous age which sought after a sign, and that no sign should be given to it ; and that if .a man believed not in Moses and the prophets, he would not repent even though one rose from the dead.55 It must be said to the credit of the disciples of the Arabian 1 teacher, that they never called for a miracle from their Master.] They— scholars, merchants, and soldiers — looked to the moral evi- dences erf his mission. They ranged themselves round the friend- less preacher at the sacrifice of all their worldly interests and worldly hopes, and adhered to him through life and death with a devotion to his human personality to which there is scarcely a parallel in the history (Si the world. In an age when miracles were supposed to be ordinary occur- rences at the beck of the commonest saint, when the whole atmos- 1 Sura xvii. 92-96. 2 Patristic Christianity has held, and still holds, to the miracles as a proof pf the divinity of Jesus ; modern Christianity calls them Aberglaube. It may well be, as the author of Literature and Dogma says, that the miracles are doomed, and that the miracle-saga of Christianity must, sooner or later, go with all legends, Eastern or Western. 30 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. phere was surcharged with supernaturalism, not only in Arabia, but in the neighbouring countries where civilisation had made far greater progress, the great Pioneer of rationalism unhesitatingly replies to the miracle-seeking heathens — " God has not sent me to work wonders ; He has sent me to preach to you. My Lord be praised ! Am I more than a man sent as an apostle ? . . . Angels do not commonly walk the earth, or God would have despatched an angel to preach His truth to you.1 I never said that Allah's treasures are in my hand, that I knew the hidden things, or that I was an angel I who cannot even help or trust myself, unless God pleaseth." . . . No extraordinary pretensions, no indulgence in hyperbolical language, no endeavour to cast a glamour round his character or personality. " I am only a preacher of God's words, the bringer of God's message to mankind," repeats he always. From first to last no expression escapes him " which could be construed into a request for human worship ;"2 from first to last there is unvarying soberness of expression, which, considering the age and surroundings, is more marvellous ; from first to last the tone is one of simple, deep humility before the Creator. And in the moment of his greatest exaltation the feeling is one of humble, sweet thankfulness : — " In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate ! Whatsoever is in heaven and on earth praises God the King, the Holy One, the Almighty, the All-wise. It is He who out of the midst of the illiterate Arabs has raised an apostle to show unto them His signs, and to sanctify them, and to teach them the Scripture and the Wisdom, them who before had been in great darkness. . . . This is God's free grace, which He giveth unto whomsoever He wills. God is of great mercy ! " 3 Disclaiming every power of wonder-working, the Prophet of Islam ever rests the truth of his divine commission entirely upon his Teachings. He never resorts to the miraculous to assert his influence or to enforce his warnings. He invariably appeals to the familiar phenomena of nature as signs of the divine presence.* He unswerv- ingly addresses himself to the inner consciousness of man, to his 1 Sura xvii. 97, 98 ; sura lxxii. 21-24. 2 Professor Momerie. 3 Sura lxii. vv. 1-10. 4 The passage of Sir W. Muir on this point is, to say the least, remark- able. He says : " Whether the idolatry of Mecca would not have succumbed without a struggle before such preaching as Mahomet's, sustained by reasonable MOHAMMEDS APPEAL TO REASON. 3 1 reason, and not to his weakness or his credulity. Look round yourself : is this wonderful world, the sun, moon, and stars, holding their swift silent course in the blue vault of heaven, the law and system prevailing in the universe ; the rain-drops falling to revive the parched earth into life ; the ships moving across the ocean, beladen with what is profitable to mankind ; the beautiful palm covered with its golden fruit, — are these the handiwork of your wooden or stone gods ? x Fools ! do you want a sign, when the whole creation is full of the signs of God. The structure of your body, how wonderfully complex, how beautifully regulated ; the alternations of night and day, of life and death ; your sleeping and awaking ; your desire to accumulate from the abundance of God ; the winds driving abroad the pregnant clouds as the forerunners of the Creator's mercy ; the harmony and order in the midst of diversity ; the variety of the human race, and yet their close affinity ; fruits, flowers, animals, human beings themselves, — are these not signs enough of the presence of a Master-Mind ? 2 To the Prophet of Islam, nature in itself is a revelation and a miracle. " There is a tongue in every leaf, A voice in every rill, A voice that speaketh everywhere, In flood and fair, through earth and air, A voice that's never still." 3 The Prophet of Monotheism is pre-eminently the Prophet of Nature. His ethical appeal and his earnest assertion of divine Unity are found- ed upon the rational and intellectual recognition of all-pervading order, of the visible presence of one Mind, one Will, regulating, guid- ing, and governing the Universe. His grandest miracle is the Book in which he has poured forth with an inspired tongue all the "revelations of nature, conscience, and prophecy." Ask you a greater miracle than this, O unbelieving people ! than to have your vulgar tongue chosen evidence, may be matter for speculation " (the italics are his^own), vol. ii. p. 144. Like the Koraish, Sir W. Muir is not satisfied with the teachings, unless supported by wonder-workings. 1 Sura xxv. 49-59 ; sura 1. 9, etc. 2 Sura vi. 95-99, li. 20, xv. 20, xx. 50-57, xxxiv. 20-28, 39, etc. 3 Com p. *J}£»° *) <-£* ^*» il Waj * *4jj e^j Jf *$ ^4 j*> " Every blade that springs from the earth bears testimony to the unity of Po4." 32 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. as the language of that incomparable Book, one piece of which puts to shame all your golden poesy and suspended songs — to convey the tidings of universal mercy, the warnings to pride and tyranny ! But to all his exhortations the Koraish turned a deaf ear. They were blind to the signs of God, blind to the presence of a Divine Personality in nature, deaf to the call of the Seer to come back to righteousness, to forego the crimes and abominations of antiquity. Their answear to him breathes a fierce animosity parallelled only by the darkest days of Arian or Pelagian persecution in Christendom. "Know this, O Mohammed,'" said they, "we shall never cease to stop thee from preaching till either thou or we perish.'' During this interval occured an incident which has been differently construed by the Moslem historians and the Christian biographers of the Prophet. One day, in one of his prophetic trances, Mohammed was reciting within the Kaaba some verses which now form part of the fifty-third chapter of the Koran. When he came to the words, "What think ye of al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manah ? the third besides,'" an idolater who was present on the occasion, and whom tradition has converted into the devil, anxious to avert the threatened denunciation called out, "They are exalted damsels, and their intercession with God may be hoped for."' These words were supposed to form part of the Prophet's revelation. And the Koraish, overjoyed either at the trick or at Mohammed's supposed concession, hastened to express their willingness to come to terms. When Mohammed learnt what had happened, he immediately proclaimed the words, "They are nought but empty names, which you and your fathers have invented." This is the version given by Mahommedan historians and traditionists. According to the Christian biographers, the incident is supposed to indicate a momentary desire on the part of the Prophet to end the strife with the Koraish by some compromise. The bigot calls it "a lapse" and "a fall" ; but the generous and unbiased historian con- siders the episode as throwing additional lustre on the Prophet of Arabia. Persecution was becoming fiercer and fiercer every day, the sufferings of his followers were increasing, and the whole city was up in arms against them. The sight of his poor disciples afflicted him deeply ; his weary struggle with the Arabian idolatry filled him with grief. What wonder that a momentary thought crossed his mind to end the conflict by making a slight concession to the bigotry of his enemies. "And so Mohammed made his first and last concession. PERSECUTION CONTINUES. 33 He recited a revelation to the Koraish, in which he spoke respectfully of the three moon-goddesses, and asserted that their intercession with God might be hoped for : 'Wherefore bow down before God and serve Him ;' and the whole audience, overjoyed at the compromise, bowed down and worshipped at the name of the God of Mohammed, — the whole city was reconciled to the double religion. But this dreamer of the desert was not the man to rest upon a lie. At the price of the whole city of Mecca he would not remain untrue to himself. He came forward and said he had done wrong, — the devil had tempted him. He openly and frankly retracted what he had said ; and 'as for their idols, they were but empty names which they and their fathers had invented.' " "Western biographers have rejoiced greatly over 'Mohammed's fall.' Yet it was a tempting compromise, and few would have with- stood it. And the life of Mohammed is not the life of a god, but of a man ; from first to last it is intensely human. But if for once he was not superior to the temptation of gaining over the whole city, and obtaining peace where before had been only bitter persecution, what can we say of his manfully thrusting back the rich prize he had gained, freely confessing his fault, and resolutely giving himself over again to the old indignities and insults ? If he was once insincere— and who is not ? — how intrepid was his after sincerity ! He was untrue to himself for a while, and he is ever referring to it in his public preaching with shame and remorse 5 but the false step was more than atoned for by his magnificent recantation/' * Upon the promulgation that Lat, Uzza, and Manah were but empty names, the persecution burst out anew with redoubled fury. Supported, however, by a firm conviction in divine assistance, and upheld by the admonitions of the heavenly voice within, conveyed to him by the ministrators of heavenly mercy, he continued his preaching undeterred by the hostility of his enemies, or by the in- juries they inflicted upon him. In spite of all opposition, however, slowly but surely the new teachings gained ground. The seeds of truth thus scattered could not fail to fructify. The wild Arab of the desert, the trading citizen of distant townships who came to the national fair, heard the words of the strange man whom his enemies thought possessed, listened to the admonitions in which he poured 1 Stanley Lane-Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. xlix. 5 34 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. forth his soul, listened with awe and wonder to his denunciations of their divinities and of their superstitions, of their unrighteousness, of their evil ways, and carried back to their far-off homes new light and new life, even unconsciously to themselves. And the satires, the ill-names his enemies heaped upon Mohammed, only tended to make his words more extensively known. The Meccans, on their side, were by no means quiet. Several times the Koraish sent deputations to Abu Talib, asking him to stop his nephew from preaching against their religion. At first Abu Talib turned them away with soft and courteous words. But as Mohammed persist- ed in his fiery denunciations against their godlessness and impiety, they expelled him from the Kaaba where he was wont to preach latterly, and then came in a body to his uncle.1 "We respect thy age and thy rank," said they, "but our respect for thee has bounds, and verily we can have no further patience with thy nephew's abuse of our gods, and his ill words against our ancestors ; wherefore do thou either prevent him from so doing, or thyself take part with him, so that we may settle the matter by fight until one of the two parties is exterminated."2 Having thus spoken, they departed. Abu Talib was unwilling to separate himself from his people, neither did he like abandoning his nephew to the idolaters. Sending for Mohammed, he informed him of the speech of the Koraish, and begged him to renounce his task. Mohammed thought his uncle wished to withdraw his protection ; but his high resolve did not fail him even at this moment. Firmly he replied : " O my uncle, if they placed the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left, to force me to renounce my work, verily I would not desist therefrom until God made manifest His cause, or I, perished in the attempt." But overcome by the thought of desertion by his kind protector, he turned to depart. Then Abu Talib called aloud : " Son of my brother, come back ; " and he came. And Abu Talib said : " Say whatsoever thou pleasest ; for by the Lord, I shall not abandon thee, nay, never."3 The Koraish made another attempt to persuade Abu Talib to deliver up his nephew to them. They offered in exchange a young man of the family of Makhzum, but it was of no avail.4 The declared intention 1 Tibri, vol. ii. p. 406 ; according to this author's authorities, ver. 214 of chap. xxi. of the Koran was revealed about this period. 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 47 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 167, 168. 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 168 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 48 ; Abulfeda, p. 17. 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 169 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 48. KORAISHITE LEAGUE AGAINST MOHAMMED, 35 of Abu Talib to support his nephew excited their fury, and they renewed their menaces of violence. The venerable patriarch appealed to the sense of honour of the Bani-Hashim and Barii- Muttalib, the kinsmen of Mohammed, to protect a distinguished member of their family from falling a victim to the hatred of rival clans. And the appeal was nobly responded to, with the solitary exception of the squint-eyed Abii Lahab, "the Father of the Flame/' as the sequel will show. At this time the new Faith gained a valuable adherent in Omar, whose energy of character made him an important factor in the future commonwealth of Islam. His services to the religion of Mohammed have engraved his name on the pages of history. A distinguished member of the family of Aadi ibn-Kaab, and the son of the Khattab, notorious for the persecution of the Moslems, he was hitherto a violent opponent of Islam, and the bitterest adversary of the Prophet. His conversion is said to have been worked by the magic effect on his mind of a chapter of the Koran which he heard recited in his sister's house, where he had gone in a furious rage and with murderous intent. Struck with the words which he had heard, he went straight to the Prophet with the naked sword in his hand with which he had meant to slay Mohammed and his disciples, causing considerable consternation among the assembly of the Faithful listening to the Preacher. He kissed the Master's hand, and then demanded to be taken into the fold of God ; and heartfelt thanks went up to heaven from the Moslems for the grace that had fallen on Omar. After his conversion he became one of the bulwarks of the Faith. -/^ Islam need no more hide its head in byways and corners, go about in concealment, or offer its prayers to God in secret and trepidation. Besides a large following taken from the humbler walks of life, there were now gathered round the Prophet a chosen band of apostles, consisting, not of ignorant folk, but of men of energy, talent, and worth, like Hamza, Abu Bakr, and Omar. And though Ali was in his youth, he was fast rising into prominence. These important adhesions gave heart to the Moslems, and they now ventured to perform their devotions in public. The Koraish, who were at first thunderstruck at the conversion of Omar, saw the gravity of the situation. And yet they waited to strike the decisive blow . 36 , THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. The return of the deputies, however, from Abyssinia, and the announcement of their unsuccessful mission, roused them to frenzy. They determined at last to exterminate with one stroke the entire clan of Hashim and Muttalib. With that purpose they, in the 7th year of the Mission, towards the end of 616 a.c, formed a league against the descendants of Hashim and Muttalib. They bound themselves by a solemn document, which was deposited in the Kaaba, not to enter into any contract of marriage with the Hashimites, or to buy and sell with them. The Hashimites and Muttalibites, Mussulmans as well as idolaters, were struck with dismay, and fearful that this might be the prelude to some other attack, judged it safer to abandon their houses dispersed in the city, and concentrate themselves at one point. They betook themselves accordingly to the Shi-b (or quarter) of Abu Talib, — a long, narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of Mecca, cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one narrow gateway. Abu Lahab alone remained aloof, and ranged himself on the side of the enemy. They lived in this defensive position with Mohammed in their midst for nearly three years, beleaguered by the Koraish, and subjected to every privation. The provisions which they had carried with them were soon exhausted, and the cries of the starving children could be heard outside. Probably they would have entirely perished but for the occasional help they received surreptitiously from less bigoted compatriots. Some of the chiefs, however, were beginning to be ashamed of their injustice. Towards the tenth year of the Mission (619 a.c), Hisham, son of Amr, who took a lively interest in the Hashimites, tried to bring about a reconciliation between the Koraishites and the two families of Hashim and Muttalib. He succeeded in winning over Zubair, son of Abu Ommeyya, to his side ; and, seconded by him and others, the pact was annulled, and the two families were taken back to the enjoyment of the communal rights, and were allowed to return to Mecca. During the period Mohammed was shut up in the Shi-b with his kinspeople, Islam made no progress outside. In the sacred months, when violence was considered a sacrilege, the Teacher would come out of his prison and endeavour to obtain hearers among the pilgrims -, but the squint-eyed " Father of the Flame V followed him about, and made his words nought by calling him " a liar and a Sabean." THE YEAR OF MOURNING. 37 The year which followed is called in the history of Islam " the Year of Mourning " for the loss of Abu Talib and Khadija, who followed each other to the grave within a short interval. In Abu Talib, Mohammed lost the guardian of his youth, who had hitherto stood between him and his enemies. The death of Khadija was a severe blow. When none believed in him, when he himself had not yet awakened to the full consciousness of his mission, and his heart was full of doubts, when all around him was dark and des- pairing, her love, her faith had stood by him. " She was ever his angel of hope and consolation." To the end of his life he retained the tenderest recollection of her love and devotion. Note to Chapter I. Sir W. Muir thinks M. Caussin de Perceval has made a mistake in supposing Ramdha and Batha to be names ot places. He thinks they signify the nature of the soil over which these people were tortured ; vol. ii. p. 128. To corroborate M. Caussin de Perceval and myself, I have only to add that the existence of these places is an undoubted fact ; and Batha especially has been frequently referred to by Mahommedan authors as a place in the immediate vicinity of Mecca. For example, the celebrated Hakim Sanai says : — Cho ilmat hast khidmat kun cho bi-ilman, ke zisht aid, Girifta Chinian ihram, wa Mekki khufta dar Batha. " If thou possessest knowledge, serve like those who are ignorant ; for it is unseemly that people from China should adopt the Ihram (that is to say, come on a pilgrimage to Mecca), and the native of Mecca should lie sleeping at Batha." CHAPTER II. THE HEGIRA. * * ' *■ ' THE children of Qmmeyya and other hostile clans, actuated as much by their attachment to the old cult as by their jealousy of, and hatred towards, the Hashimites, considered this a favourable opportunity to crush out Islam in Mecca ; and the death of Abu Talib, whose personal influence and character had restrained their fury within some limits, became the signal for the Koraish to redouble their persecutions.1 Weighed down by the loss of his venerable protector and of his cherished wife, hopeless of turning the Koraish from idolatry, with a saddened heart, and yet full of trust, he determined to turn to some other field for the exercise of his ministry. Mecca had rejected the words of God, hapless Tayef may listen to them. Accompanied by his faithful servant Zaid, he arrived among the Thakif.2 He spoke to them about his Mission ; told them about their iniquities, and called them to the worship of God. His words caused a storm of indig- nation ; Who was this crazy man, said they, who invited them to abandon the beautiful divinities they worshipped with such lightness of heart and such freedom of morals ? They drove him from the city ; and the rabble and the slaves followed, hooting and pelting him with stones until the evening, when they left him to pursue his way alone. Wounded and bleeding, footsore and weary, he betook himself to prayer under the shade of some palm trees, which afforded a welcome shelter to the thirsty and famished wayfarer. Raising his hands towards heaven, he cried : " O Lord ! I make my complaint unto Thee, out of my feebleness, and the vanity of my wishes, I am 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 69. 2 The people of Tayef. THE FIRST PLEDGE OF AKABA. 39 insignificant in the sight of men. O Thou most merciful ! Lord of the weak ? Thou art my Lord ! Do not forsake me. Leave me not a prey to strangers, nor to mine enemies. If Thou art not offended, I am safe. I seek refuge in the light of Thy countenance, by which all darkness is dispersed, and peace comes here and hereafter. Let not Thy anger descend on me; solve my difficulties as it pleaseth Thee. There is no power, no help, but in Thee."1 Mohammed returned to Mecca sorely stricken in heart. He lived here for some time, retired from his people, preaching occasionally, but confining his efforts mainly to the strangers who congregated in Mecca and its vicinity during the season of the annual pilgrimage, hoping, as Tibri expresses it, to find among them some who would believe in him, and carry the truth to their people. One day, whilst thus sadly but yet hopefully working among these half-traders, half-pilgrims, he came upon a group of six men from the distant city of Yathrib conversing together. He asked them to sit down and listen to him ; and they sat down and listened. Struck by his earnestness and the truth of his words, they became his proselytes (620 a.c); a and returning to their city, they spread the news, with lightning rapidity, that a Prophet had risen among the Arabs who was to call them to God, and put an end to their dissensions, which had lasted for centuries. The next year these Yathribites returned, and brought six more of their fellow-citizens as deputies from the two principal tribes who occupied that city.3 On the self-same spot which had witnessed the conversion of the former six, the newcomers gave in their adhesion to Mohammed. This is called the first Pledge of Akaba, from the name of the hill on which the conference was held.4 The pledge they took was as follows : " We will not associate anything with God; we will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor fornication ; we will not kill our children ; we will abstain from 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 279, 280 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 70, 71. 2 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 286, 287 ; Tibri (Zotenberg's transl. ), vol. ii. p. 438. 3 Aus and Khazraj. 4 In the history of Islam, this pledge is also called the " Pledge of Wo- men," in contradistinction to the second pledge, in which the deputies of Yathrib took an oath to assist the Moslems, even by arms against the attacks and outrages of their enemies. 40 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. calumny and slander ; we will obey the Prophet in everything that is right ; and we will be faithful to him in weal and in sorrow."1 After the pledge, they returned home with a disciple of Moham- med to teach them the fundamental doctrines of the new religion, which rapidly spread among the inhabitants of Yathrib. The interval which elapsed between the first and second pledge is remarkable as one of the most critical periods of Mohammed's Mission. The sublime trust of Mohammed in God, and the grandeur of his character, never stand forth more prominently than at this period. He was sad at the sight of his people so sternly wedded to idolatry ; 2 but his sorrow was assuaged by the hope that the truth would in the end prevail.8 He might not live to see it; 4 but as surely as darkness flies before the rays of the sun, so surely falsehood will vanish before truth.5 Regarding this epoch, a few words of uncon- scious admiration escape even the lips of Muir : " Mahomet, thus holding his people at bay, waiting, in the still expectation of victory, to outward appearance defenceless, and with his little band, as it were, in the lion's mouth, yet trusting in His Almighty power whose messenger he believed himself to be, resolute and unmoved, — presents a spectacle of sublimity parallelled only in the sacred records by such scenes as that of the prophet of Israel, when he complained to his Master, ' I, even I only, am left.' "6 This period of anxious waiting is also remarkable for that notable Vision of the Ascension which has furnished worlds of golden dreams for the imaginative genius of poets and traditionists. They have woven beautiful and gorgeous legends round the simple words of of the Koran : " Praise be to Him who carried His servant by night from the sacred temple to the temple that is more remote, whose precincts We have blessed, that We might show him some of our signs ! for He is the Hearer, the Seer." 7 And again : " And remem- ber we said to thee, Verily, thy Lord is round about mankind ; We ordained the Vision which We showed thee." 8 In spite of the 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 289 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 73 74. 2 Koran sura vi. ver. 107. 3 Koran, sura xl. ver. 78, xliii, ver. 40, etc. 4 Koran, sura xxi. ver. 18. 5 Life of Mahomet, vol. ii. p. 228. 6 Koran, sura xvii. ver. 1. 7 Koran, chap. xvii. ver. 62. "All that Mohammedans must believe respecting the Meraj is, that the Prophet saw himself in a vision, transported from Mecca to Jerusalem, and that in such vision he really beheld some of the greatest signs of his Lord. It must be evident to the reader that the THE VISION OF THE ASCENSION. 41 beautiful garb in which the traditionists have dressed this wonderful incident, " it is still a grand vision full of glorious imagery, fraught with deep meaning."1 The following year (622 a. c), the Yathribites who had adopted the new religion repaired to Mecca, to the number of seventy-five, in company with their idolatrous brethren, to invite the Prophet to their city ; a but the idolaters had no knowledge of the intention of their companions. In the stillness of night,8 when all hostile elements appeared slumbering, these pioneers of the new faith met under the hill which had witnessed the first pledge. Mohammed appeared among them, accompanied by his uncle Abbas, who, though not a convert, yet took a warm interest in the progress of Islam. He opened the conference, and vividly described to the Yathribites the risk they incurred by adopting Islam and inviting its Teacher to their city. They replied with one voice, that they adopted the religion fully conscious of the dangers that surrounded them. " Speak, O Prophet of God," said they, " and exact any pledge for thyself and thy Lord." The Prophet began, as was his wont, by reciting several passages of the Koran ; he then invited all present to the service of God, and dwelt upon the blessings of the new dispensation.* The former pledge was repeated, that they would worship none but God ; that they would observe the precepts of Islam ; that they would obey Mohammed in all that was right, and defend him and his, even as they would their women and children.5 "And," said they, "if we die in the cause of God, what shall be our return ?" " Happiness hereafter," was the reply.6 " But," said they, " thou wilt not leave us in the hour of prosperity to return to thy people ?" The Prophet smiled visions also of a prophet are a mode of divine inspiration," — Syed Ahmed Khan, Ess. xi. p. 34. Muir says that " the earliest authorities point only to a vision, not to a real bodily journey," vol. ii. p. 221, note. Compare the early tradi- tions given by Ibn-Hisham, p. 267, which support this view. It may, I think, be fairly asked why Christians, who believe in the bodily resurrection and bodily ascension of Jesus and of Elijah, should look upon those Moslems who believe in the bodily ascension of Mohammed as less rational than themselves ? 1 Stanley Lane-Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. Ivi. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 296. 3 In the night of the first and second day of the Tashrik, the period of three days which follow immediately the celebration of the rites of the pilgrimage. 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 296 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 76. 5 Ibid. <' Abulfeda, p. 29 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 77. 6 42 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. and said : " Nay never ; your blood is my blood ; I am yours, you are mine." " Give us then thy hand ; " and each one placing his hand on the Prophet's swore allegiance to him and his God. Scarce- ly had the compact been concluded, when the voice of a Meccan, who had been watching this scene from a distance, came floating on the night air, striking a sudden panic into the self-denying hearts there assembled. The firm words of Mohammed restored their presence of mind. Mohammed then selected twelve men from among them — men of position, pointed out to him by the voice of the people — as his delegates (Nakibs)} Thus was concluded the second Pledge of Akaba. The Meccan spy had already spread the news of this conference through the city. Astounded at the temerity of Mohammed and his followers, the Koraish proceeded in a body to the caravan of the Yathribites to demand the men who had entered into the pledge with him. Finding no clue, however, as to the persons who had taken part at the meeting, they allowed the caravan to depart un- molested. But this apparent moderation on the part of the Koraish formed only a prelude to a furious persecution of Mohammed and his disciples. The position of the latter became every day more and more perilous. The Prophet, fearing a general massacre, advised his followers to seek immediate safety at Yathrib ; whereupon about one hundred families silently disappeared by twos and threes from Mecca and proceeded to Yathrib, where they were received with enthusiasm. Entire quarters of the city thus became deserted ; and Otba, the son of Rabfa, at the sight of these vacant abodes, once so full of life, '-sighed heavily," and recited the old verse : "Every dwelling-place, even if it has been blessed ever so long, will one day become a prey to unhappiness and bitter wind ;" "And," he sorrow- fully added, "all this is the work of the son of our brother, who has scattered our assemblies, ruined our affairs, and created dissension amongst us." 2 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 297-300. Seventy-five people, men and women, took part in this Pledge. This event occurred in the month of Zi'1-Hijja, and the Prophet stopped at Mecca throughout the remainder of this month and Muharram and Safar. In Rabi I. he left for Medina ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 78 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 316. THE HEG1RA. 4$ As it was with Jesus, so it was with Mohammed ; only with this difference, that in one case the Teacher himself says : " Think not that I came to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword : for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-inlaw." ' In Mohammed's case it was one of his most persever- ing opponents who accused him of creating dissension in families. Throughout this period, when the storm was at its height and might at any moment have burst over his head, Mohammed never quailed. All his disciples had left for Yathrib j alone he remained bravely at his post, with the devoted Ali and the venerable Abu Bakr. Meanwhile the clouds were gathering fast. Fearful of the escape of the Prophet, an assembly of the Koraish met in all despatch in the town-hall (Dar un-Nadwa), and some chiefs of other clans were invited to attend. The matter had become one of life and death. Stormy was the meeting, for fear had entered their hearts. Imprison- ment for life, expulsion from the city, each was debated in turn. Assassination was then proposed ; but assassination by one man would have exposed him and his family to the vengeance of blood. The difficulty was at last solved by Abu Jahl,2 who suggested that a number of courageous men, chosen from different families, should sheath their swords simultaneously in Mohammed's bosom, in order that the responsibility of the deed might rest upon all, and the relations of Mohammed might consequently be unable to avenge it.3 This proposal was accepted, and a number of noble youths were selected for the sanguinary deed. As the night advanced, the assassins posted themselves round the Prophet's dwelling. Thus they watched all night long, waiting to murder him when he should i Matt. x. 34, 3,5. - Ibn-Hisham, pp. 323-325 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 79 ; the Koran, sura viii. ver. 30. According to Ibn Hisham, this proposal of Abu Jahl, one of the Koraish, was seconded by a stranger, in the guise of a venerable iSheikh from Najd whom tradition has resolved into Satan himself. Abu Jahl was one of the bitterest enemies of the Prophet. His real name was Amr and he was surnamed, for his sagacity, Abu' I Hikam (" father of wisdom," in the plural). Owing to his fanaticism and bigotry, which pre- vented his perceiving any good in the new Teachings, Mohammed called him instead Abu Jahl (" father of ignorance "). Ignorance has in all ages posed as the champion of orthodoxy. Abu. Jahl has thus become a type. It is to this fact Hakim Sanai, the great mystical poet, refers in the following couplet : — " Ahmed-i-Mursil nishista kai rawd ddrad Khirad. " Dil astr-i-sirat-i-Bu Jahl-i-Kdjir ddshtan." •* Ahmed the Prophet is sitting (in your midst), how can reason allow. "The heart to bocome captive of the equalities of Bit- Jahl the unbeliever* '• 44 THE LIFK OF MOHAMMED. leave his house in the early dawn, peeping now and then through a hole in the door to make sure that he still lay on his bed. But, meanwhile, the instinct of self-preservation, the instinct which had often led the great Prophet of Nazareth to evade his enemies,1 had warned Mohammed of the danger. In order to keep the attention of the assassins fixed upon the bed, he put his own green garment upon the devoted and faithful Ali, bade him lie on his bed,2 " and escaped, as David had escaped, through the windows." He repaired to the house of Abu Bakr, and they fled together unobserved from the inhospitable city of their birth. They lay hid for several days in a cavern of Mount Thour, a hill to the south of Mecca.8 The fury of the Koraish was now unbounded. The news that the would-be assassins had returned unsuccessful, and Mohammed had escaped, aroused their whole energy. Horsemen scoured the country. A price was set upon Mohammed's head.4 Once or twice the danger approached so near that the heart of old Abu Bakr quaked with fear. •' We are but two," said he. " Nay," said Mohammed, " we are three, God is with us ; " and He was with them. After three days the Koraish slackened their efforts. All this time Mohammed and his companion were sustained by food brought to them at night by a daughter of Abu Bakr.5 On the evening of the third day the fugitives left the cavern, and, procuring with great difficulty two camels, endeavoured to reach Yathrib by unfrequented paths. But even here the way was full of danger. The heavy price set upon Mohammed's head had brought out many horsemen from Mecca, and they were still diligently seeking for the helpless wanderer. One, a wild and fierce warrior, actually caught sight of the fugitives and pursued them. Again the heart of Abu Bakr misgave him, and he cried, " We are lost." " Be not afraid," said the Prophet, " God will protect us." As the idolater overtook Mohammed, his horse reared and fell. Struck with sudden awe, he entreated the forgiveness of the man whom he was pursuing and asked for an attestation of his pardon. This was given to him on a piece of bone by Abu Bakr.6 1 Comp. Milman, Hist of Christianity vol. i. p. 253. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 325 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 80. 3 See Desvergers' note (57) to his Abulfeda, p. 116. 4 Of a hundred camels, Ibn-Hisham p. 328 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. SI. 5 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 81. u Ibn-Hisham, pp. 331, 332 j Ibn ul-Athir, ibid. THE HEGIRA. 45 The fugitives continued their journey without further molestation and after three days' journeying reached the territories of Yathrib. It was a hot day in June, 622 of the Christian era, when Mohammed alighted from his camel upon the soil which was thenceforth to become his home and his refuge. A Jew watching on a tower first espied him,1 and thus were the words of the Koran fulfilled : M They, to whom the Scriptures have been given, recognise him as they do their own children." 2 Mohammed and his companion rested for a few days 3 at a village called Koba,4 situated only two miles to the south of Yathrib, and remarkable for its beauty and and fertility. Here he was joined by Ali, who had been severely maltreated by the idolaters after their disappointment at Mohammed's escape.5 Ali fled from Mecca and journeyed on foot, hiding himself in the daytime and travelling only at night, lest he should fall into the hands of the Koraish.6 The Banu Amr bin-Auf, to whom the village belonged, requested Mohammed to prolong his stay amongst them. But the duty of the Prophet lay before him ; and he proceeded towards Yathrib, attend- ed by a numerous body of his disciples. He entered the city on the morning of a Friday, 16th of Rabi I., corresponding (according to M. Caussin de Perceval) with the 2nd of July 622. 8 Thus was accomplished the Hijrat, called in European annals " the flight of Mohammed," from which dates the Mahommedan calendar. Note i to Chapter II. The " Hegira," or the era of the Hijrat, was instituted seventeen years later by the second Caliph. The commencement, however, is not laid at the real time of the departure from Mecca, which happened on the 4th of Rabi I., but on the first day of the first lunar month of the year, viz. Muharram — which day, in the year when the era was established, fell on the 15th of July. l Ibn-Hisham p. 330. 2 Koran, sura vi. ver. 20. 3 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Ibn-Hisham, p. 335 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 83. 4 See Desvergers' Abulfeda, p. 116, note 59. 5 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 80. 0 Ibid. Vol. ii. 82. 7 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 17-20. 8 Ibn-Hisham, p. 335 ; Abulfeda, p. 30. 4 6 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. But though Omar instituted the official era, the custom of referring to events as happening before or after the Hijrat originated, according to some traditions, with the Prophet him- self ; this event naturally marking the greatest crisis in the history of his Mission. — Comp. Tibri, in loco. Note 2 to Chapter II. The twelve Moslem months are ; Muharram (the sacred month), Safar (the month of departure), Rabi I. (first month of the spring), Rabi II. (second month of the spring), Jamadi I. (first dry month), Jamadi II. (second dry month), Rajab {respected, called often Rajab ul-Murajjab), Shaban (the month of the budding of trees), Ramazan (month of heat), Shawwal (month of junction), Zi'1-Kaada (month of truce, rest, or relaxation), Zi'l Hijja (month of pilgrimage). The ancient Arabs observed the lunar year of 354 days, 8 hours, 48 seconds, divided into twelve months of 29 and 30 days alter- nately. In order to make them agree with the solar year of their neighbours, the Greeks and the Romans, and also in order to make the months fall in the right season, they added a month every third year. This intercalation was called Nasi ; and although it was not perfectly exact, it served to maintain a sort of correlation between the denomination of the months and the seasons. Since the sup- pression of the Nasi, on account of the orgies and various heathen rites observed in the intercalary years, the names of the months have no relation to the seasons. CHAPTER III. THE PROPHET AT MEDINA. ZA*1 Jy$i> ^aJ dS jia^Jb jjt +s«Aa* yi L-?.* Jm-i JLL. <; I FEW Mussulmans of the present day understand the full import of the mystical verses quoted at the head of this chapter, but all appreciate the deep devotion to the grand Seer implied in those words. And this devotion is not one which has twined itself round a mythical ideal, or has grown with the lapse of time. From the moment of his advent into Yathrib he stands in the full blaze of day — the grandest of figures upon whom the light of history has ever shone. ;' The minutest details of his life are carefully noted and handed down to posterity, to become crystallised, often against the spirit of his own Teachings, which aimed at the perpetual growth of the human race. We have seen this wonderful man as an orphan child who had never known a father's love, bereft in infancy of a mother's care, his early life so full of pathos, growing up from a thoughtful childhood to a still more thoughtful youth. His youth as pure and true as his boyhood ; his manhood as austere and devout as his youth. His ear ever open to the sorrows and sufferings of the weak and the poor ; his heart ever full of sympathy and tenderness towards all God's creatures. Pie walks so humbly and so purely, that men turn round and point, there goes al-Amtn, the true, the upright, the trusty. A faithful friend, a devoted hus- band ; a thinker intent on the mysteries of life and death, on the j responsibilities of human actions, the end and aim of human 48 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. existence, — he sets himself to the task of reclaiming and reforming a nation, nay, a world, with only one loving heart to comfort and solace him. Baffled, he never falters ; beaten, he never despairs. He struggles on with indomitable spirit to achieve the work assigned to him. His purity and nobleness of character, his intense and earnest belief in God's mercy, bring round him ultimately many a devoted heart ; and when the moment of the severest trial comes, like the faithful mariner, he remains steadfast at his post until all his followers are safe, and then betakes himself to the hospitable shore : such we have seen him. We shall see him now the king of men, the ruler of human hearts, chief, lawyer, and supreme magistrate, and yet without any self-exaltation, lowly and humble. His history henceforth is merged in the history of the commonwealth of which he was the center. Henceforth the Preacher who mended with his own hands his clothes, and often went without bread, was mightier than the mightiest sovereigns of the earth. " Mohammed had shown men what he was ; the nobility of his character, his strong friendship, his endurance and courage, above all, his earnestness and fiery enthusiasm for the truth he came to preach, — these things had revealed the hero, the piaster whom it was alike impossible to disobey and impossible not to love. Hence- forward it is only a question of time. As the men of Medina come to know Mohammed, they too will devote themselves to him body and soul ; and the enthusiasm will catch fire and spread among the tribes, till all Arabia is at the feet of the Prophet of the one God. ' No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting.' He had the gift of influencing men, and he had the nobility only to influence them for good. " Medina, the " illuminated m — the city of many names — is situated about eleven days' journey to the north of Mecca. Now a walled city of considerable strength, in those days it was completely open and exposed to outside attacks until the Prophet made the famous moat as a defence against the Koraishites. The city is said to have been established by an Amalekite chief, whose name it bore until the advent of the Prophet. In early times Yathrib2 and its l Munawwareh. 2 With a £, (pronounced by the Arabs like ih in thin, by all non- Arabs like s. ) THE PROPHET AT MEDINA. 49 environs were inhabited by the Amalekites ; these are said to have been overwhelmed and destroyed by successive colonies of Jews, who, flying before Babylonian and Greek and Roman persecutors or avengers, entered Arabia and established themselves in the northern part of Hijaz. The most important of these colonies were the Banu-Nadhir at Khaibar, the Banu-Kuraizha at Fidak, the Banu- Kainukaa near Medina itself. Living in fortified cantons, they had domineered over the neighbouring Arab tribes, until the establishment of two Kahtanite tribes, Aus and Khazraj at Yathrib. These two tribes, who yielded at first some sort of obedience to the Jews, were able to reduce them to a state of clientage. Before long, however, they commenced quarrelling among themselves, and it was only about the time when the Prophet announced his Mission at Mecca that, after long years of decimating warfare, they had succeeded in patching up a peace. Such was the political condition of Yathrib when the Prophet made his appearance among the Yathribites. With his advent a new era dawned upon the city. The two tribes of Aus and Khazraj, forgetting their inveterate and mortal feuds in the brotherhood of the Faith, rallied round the standard of Islam and formed the nucleus of the Moslem common- wealth. The old divisions were effaced, and the noble designation of Ansdr (Helpers) became the common title of all who had helped Islam in its hour of trial. The faithful band who had forsaken their beloved birthplace, and every tie of home, received the name of Muhdjirln (Emigrants or Exiles). In order to unite the Ansar and Muhajirin in closer bonds, the Prophet established a brotherhood between them, which linked them together in sorrow and in happiness. Yathrib changed its ancient name, and was henceforh styled Medinat nn-Nabi, the City of the Prophet, or shortly, Medina, the city. A mosque was soon built, in the erection of which Mohammed assisted with his own hands ; and houses for the accommodation of the emigrants rose apace. Two brothers, who owned the land on which it was proposed to build the mosque, had offered it as a free gift ; but as they were orphans, the Prophet paid them the price at which it was valued. The building was simple in form and structure, suited to the 7 50 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. unostentatious religion he taught. The walls were of brick and earth, and the roof of palm leaves. A portion of the mosque was set apart as a habitation for those who had no home of their own. Everything in this humble place of worship was conducted with the greatest simplicity. Mohammed preached and prayed standing on the bare ground or leaning against a palm tree, and the devoted hearts around him beat in unison with his soul-stirring words. " He who is not affectionate to God's creatures and to his own children," he would say, " God will not be affectionate to him. Every Moslem who clothes the naked will be clothed by God in the green robes of Paradise."1 In one of his sermons he thus dwelt on the subject of charity : " When God created the earth, it shook and trembled, until He put mountains upon it to make it firm. Then the angels asked, ' O God, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than these mountains ?' And God replied, ' Iron is stronger than the mountains, for it breaks them.' ' And is there anything in Thy creation stronger than iron ? ' ' Yes ; fire is stronger than iron, for it melts it/ ' Is there anything in Thy creation stronger than fire ? ' ' Yes ; water, for it quenches fire.' O Lord, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than water ? ' ' Yes ; wind, for it overcomes water and puts it in motion.' ' Oh, our Sustainer, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than wind ?' ' Yes ; a good man giving alms ; if he give with his right hand and conceal it from his left, he overcomes all things.' " His definition of charity embraced the wide circle of kindness : " Every good act," he would say, " is charity. Your smiling in your brother's face is charity ; an exhortation addressed to your fellow-men to do virtuous deeds is equal to alms-giving. Putting a wanderer in the right path is charity ; assisting the blind is charity ; removing stones and thorns and other obstructions from the road is charity; giving water to the thirsty is charity."2 "A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he does in this world to his fellow-men. When he dies, people will ask, What property has he left behind him ? But the angels, who examine him in the grave, will ask, What good deeds hast thou sent before thee ? " 1 From Abu Huraira, Mishhdt, book xii. chap. iii. part, i, 2 From Abu Said Khazri. THE PROPHET AT MEDINA. 5 1 " Oh Prophet ! " said one of his disciples, " my mother, Umm Saad, is dead ; what is the best alms I can give away for the good of her soul ? " " Water!" replied Mohammed, bethinking himself of the panting heat of the desert. " Dig a well for her, and give water to the thirsty." The man digged a well in his mother's name, and said, " This is for my mother, that its blessings may reach her soul." " Charity of the tongue," says Irving, " that most important and least cultivated of charities, was likewise earnestly inculcated by Mahomet." Abu Jariya, an inhabitant of Basrah, coming to Medina, and being convinced of the apostolic office of Mohammed, begged of him some great rule of conduct. " Speak evil of no one," answered the Prophet. " From that time," says Abu Jariya, ■' I never abused any one, whether freeman or slave." The teachings of Islam extended to the courtesies of life. " Make a salam (or salutation) to the dwellers of a house on entering and leaving it. x Return the salute of friends and acquaintances, and wayfarers on the road. He who rides must be the first to make the salute to him who walks •, he who walks to him who is sitting ; a small party to a large party, and the young to the old." 2 1 Compare Koran, chap. xxiv. vers. 27, 28, 61, and 62. 2 From Abu Hurairah, Mishkdt, Bk. xxii. chap. i. part 1. Besides the references already given, consult the Kitcib ul-Mastatrif, chap s. iv. v. x. xii. xix. xxii. xxiii. and xxv. The Mustatr if gives fully the references to Tirmizi, Muslim, and Bukhari. Consult also the Majdlis id-Abrdr, Majlis (seance), 84. CHAPTER IV. THE HOSTILITY OF THE KORAISH AND THE JEWS. i A. H.—igth April 622— 7th May 623 A. C. \jJ * " **jjl >tkxj >Ls\*» ipAJJl AU.i.1 AT this time there were three distinct parties in Medina. The Muhajinn (the Exiles) and the Ansar (the Helpers) formed the ,m, kernel of Islam. Their devotion to the Prophet was 1 A. H. =19th r April 622 to 7th unbounded. The Exiles had forsaken their homes, ay ' ' and abandoned, contrary to all Arab traditions, the ties of kith and kin, in the cause of the Faith. They had braved all sufferings, withstood all temptations in the service of the Lord. Many of them had come to the City of Safety without means. They had been received with open arms by the Medinite converts, who in many cases shared their worldly goods with the poorer of the new- comers. The brotherhood of Faith, so wisely established by the Prophet, whilst it prevented the growth of jealousy, gave rise to a generous emulation, both among the Ansar and the Muhajinn, as to who would bring the greatest sacrifice in the service of God and His Prophet. The enthusiasm and earnestness with which these men and women devoted themselves to the new awakening, the zeal TriE JEWS IN MEbfNA. $3 with which they laid down their lives, was a manifestation such as had not been seen since the best days of the Christian phase of religious development/ The second, and at first by no means an unimportant party, was composed principally of lukewarm converts to the Faith, who retained an ill-concealed predilection for idolatry ; and was headed by Abdullah ibn-Ubbay, a chief of some position in the city, who aspired to the kinghood of Medina. With this object he had gathered round him, like Abu Sufian at Mecca, a strong body of partizans. Everything was ripe for him to seize the reins of power, when the arrival of the Prophet upset his designs. The popular enthusiasrn compelled him and his followers to make a nominal profession of Islam ; but, ever ready as they were to turn against the Moslems at the least opportunity, they were a source of considerable danger to the new-born commonwealth, and required unceasing watchfulness on the part of the Prophet. Towards them he always showed the greatest patience and forbearance, hoping in the end to win them over to the faith. And this expectation was fully justified by the result. With the death of Abdullah ibn-Ubbay his party, which has been stigmatised1 as the party of the Mundfikin (the Disaffected), disappeared for a time from view. But the Jews, who may be said to have formed the third party, constituted the most serious element of danger. They had close business connections with the Koraish, and their ramifications ex- tended into various parts hostile to the new Faith. At first they were inclined to look with some favour on the preachings of Mohammed. He could not, of course, be their promised Messiah, but perhaps a weak dreamer, a humble preacher, dependent upon the hospitality of their old enemies, now their patrons, the Aus and the Khazraj, might become their avenger, help them in conquering the Arabs, and found for them a new kingdom of Judah. With this aim in view, they had joined with the Medinites in a half-hearted welcome to the Prophet. And for a time they maintained a pacific attitude. But it was only for a time ; for barely a month had gone by before the old spirit of rebellion, which had led them to crucify 1 Koran, sura xlii. ; Ibn Hisham, pp.363, 411. The Munafikin or the Irreconcileable8 have never disappeared completely from the Islamic body politic. Ever and anon they have exercised the most disastrous effects in Islam. In later times they posed as the champions of orthodoxy. Note for example, the Khdrijis of Africa. 54 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. their prophets, found vent in open seditions and secret treachery. One of the first acts of Mohammed after his arrival in Medina was to weld together the heterogeneous and conflicting elements of which the city and its suburbs were composed, into an orderly con- federation. With this object he had granted a charter to the people, by which the rights and obligations of the Moslems inter se, and of the Moslems and Jews, were clearly defined. And the Jews, borne down for the moment by the irresistible character of the movement, had gladly accepted the Pact. This document, which has been carefully preserved in the pages of Ibn-Hisham, reveals the Man in his real glory — a master-mind, not only of his own age, as Muir calls him, but of all ages. No wild dreamer he, bent upon pulling down the existing fabrics of society, but a statesman of unrivalled powers, who in an age of utter and hopeless disintegration, with such materials and such polity as God put ready to his hands, set himself to the task of re-constructing a State, a commonwealth, a society, upon the basis of universal humanity. " In the name of the most merciful and compassionate God," says this first charter of freedom of conscience, " given by Mohammed, the Prophet, to the Believers, whether of the Koraish or of Yathrib. and all individuals of whatever origin who have made common cause with them, all these shall constitute one nation. " Then, after regulating the pay- ment of the Diat x by the various clans, and fixing some wise rules regarding the private duties of Moslems as between themselves, the document proceeds thus: "The state of peace and war shall be common to all Moslems ; no one among them shall have the right of concluding peace with, or declaring war against, the enemies of his co-religionists. The Jews who attach themselves to our commonwealth shall be protected from all insults and vexations ; they shall have an equal right with our own people to our assistance and good offices : the Jews of the various branches of Awf, Najjar, Harith, Jashm, Saalaba, Aus, and all others domiciled in Yathrib, shall form with the Moslems one composite nation ; they shall practise their religion as freely as the Moslems ; the clients 2 and allies of the Jews shall enjoy the same security and freedom ; the guilty shall be pursued arid punished ; the Jews shall join the 1 Diat, ivehrgeld, price which a homicide had to pay to the family of the victim, if they consented to it. 2 I.e. the protected. THE CHARTER OF MOHAMMED. 55 Moslems in defending Yathrib (Medina) against all enemies ; the interior of Yathrib shall be a sacred place for all who accept this Charter ; the clients and allies of the Moslems and the Jews shall be as respected as the patrons ; all true Moslems shall hold in abhorrence every man guilty of crime, injustice, or disorder : no one shall uphold the culpable, though he were his nearest kin." Then, after some other provisions regarding the internal manage- ment of the State, this extraordinary document concluded thus : " All future disputes between those who accept this Charter shall be referred, under God, to the Prophet." * A death-blow was thus given lo that anarchic custom of the Arabs, which had hitherto obliged the aggrieved and the injured to rely upon his own or his kinsmen's power in order to exact vengeance, or satisfy the requirements of justice. It constituted Mohammed the chief magistrate of the nation, as much by his pro- phetic function as by a virtual compact between himself and the people. The Jewish tribes of the Banf-Nadhir, Bani-Kuraizha, and Bani-Kainukaa, settled in the vicinity of Medina, 2a.h. 7th May were not at first included in this Charter ; but after 623 to 26th Ap- , ' ril 624 a.c. a short time they, too, gratefully accepted its terms. No kindness or generosity, however, on the part jof the Prophet would satisfy the Jews \ nothing could conciliate the bitter feelings with which they were animated. Enraged that they could not use him as their instrument for the conversion of Arabia to Judaism, and that his belief was so much simpler than their Talmudic legends, they soon broke off, and ranged themselves on the side of of the enemies of the new Faith. And when asked which they pre- ferred, idolatry or Islam, they, like many Christian controversialists, declared they preferred idolatry, with all its attendant evils, to the creed of Mohammed. They reviled him ; they " twisted their tongues" and mispronounced the Koranic words and the daily prayers and 'formulae of Islam, rendering them meaningless, absurd, or blasphemous ; and the Jewish poets and poetesses, of whom there existed many at the time, outraged all common decency and 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 341-343. The quaintness of this document has led me to paraphrase it, in order to throw into greater relief its real worth. 5^ THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. the recognised code of Arab honour and chivalry by lampooning in obscene verse the Moslem women. But these were minor offences. Not satisfied with insulting the women of the Believers and reviling the Prophet, they sent out emissaries to the enemies of the State, the protection of which they had formally accepted. The Koraish, who had sworn Mohammed's death, were well acquainted, thanks to the party of Abdullah ibn-Ubbay and the faithless Israelites, with the exact strength of the Moslems. They also knew that the Jews had accepted Mohammed's alliance only from motives of temporary expediency, and that the moment they showed themselves in the vicinity of Medina the worshippers of Jehovah would break away from him and join the idolaters. And now came the moment of severest trial to Islam. Barely had the Prophet time to put the city in a state of defence and organise the Believers, before the blow descended upon him.1 Medina itself was honeycombed by sedition and treachery. And it now became the duty of Mohammed to take serious measures to guard against that dreaded catastrophe which a rising within, or a sudden attack from without, would have entailed upon his followers. He was not simply a preacher of Islam ; he was also the guardian of the lives and liberties of his people. As a Prophet, he could afford to ignore the revilings and the gibes of his enemies ; but as the head of the State, "the general in a time of almost continual warfare," when Medina was kept in a state of military defence and under a sort of military discipline, he could not overlook treachery. He was bound by his duty to his subjects to suppress a party that might have led, and almost did lead to the sack of the city by investing armies. The safety of the State required the proscription of the traitors, who were either sowing the seeds of sedition within Medina or carrying information to the common enemy. Some half a dozen were placed under the ban, outlawed, and executed. We are, however, anticipating the course of events in referring to these executions. The Koraish army was afield before Mohammed received God's command to do battle to His enemies. He who never in his life wielded a weapon, to whom the sight of i Koran, sura ix. ver. 13 ; Al-Jannabi ; Zamakhshari (the Kashshaf), Egypt, ed., pp. 314, 315. THE BATTLE OF BADR. 57 human suffering caused intense pain and pity, and who, against all the canons of Arab manliness, wept bitterly at the loss of his children or disciples, whose character ever remained so tender and so pathetic as to cause his enemies to call him womanish,1 — this man was now compelled, from the necessities of the situation, and against his own inclination, to repel the attacks of the enemy by force of arms, to organise his followers for purposes of self-defence, and often to send out expeditions to anticipate treacherous and sudden onslaughts. Hitherto, Arab warfare consisted of sudden and mur- derous forays, often made in the night or in the early morn ; isolated combats or a general melee, when the attacked were aware of the designs of the attacking party. Mohammed, with a thorough know- ledge of the habits of his people, had frequently to guard against these sudden onslaughts by sending forth reconnoitring parties. The Meccans and their allies commenced raiding up to the very vicinity of Medina, destroying the fruit-trees of the Moslems, and carrying away their flocks. A force, consisting of a thousand well- equipped men, marched under the noted Abu Jahl, t( the Father of Ignorance," towards Medina to destroy the Islamites, and to protect one of their caravans bringing munitions of war. The Moslems received timely notice of the movement, and a body of three hundred disciples proceeded at once to forestall the heathens by occupying the valley of Badr, upon which Abu Jahl was moving. When Mohammed saw the infidel army arrogantly advancing into the valley, raising his hands towards heaven, like the prophets of Israel, he prayed that the little band of the Faithful might not be destroyed : " O Lord, forget not Thy promise of assistance. O Lord, if this little band were to perish, there will be none to offer unto Thee pure worship." 2 Three of the Koraish advanced into the open space which divided the Moslems from the idolaters, and, according to Arab usage, challenged three champions from the Moslem ranks to single combat. Hamza, Ali, and Obaidah accepted the challenge, and came out conquerors. The engagement then became general. At one time the fortunes of the field wavered, but Mohammed's appeal to his people decided the fate of the battle. " It was a stormy winter day. 1 Compare Dozy, Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne, vol. i. p. 32. '2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 444 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 97. 58 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. ;A piercing blast swept across the valley." It seemed as if the angels of heaven were warring for the Moslems. Indeed, to the earnest minds of Mohammed and his followers, who, like the early Christians, saw God's providence " in all the gifts of nature, in every relation of life, at each turn of their affairs, individual, or public,'' — to them those blasts of wind and sand, the elements warring against the enemies of God, at that critical moment appeared veritable succour sent from heaven ; as angels riding on the wings of the wind, and driving the faithless idolaters before them in confusion.1 The Meccans were driven back with great loss ; many of their chiefs were slain; and Abu Jahl fell a victim to his unruly pride.2 A large number remained prisoners in the hands of the Moslems, but only two of them were executed. They had been noted for their virulent animosity towards the followers of the new Faith, and by the laws of war among the Arabs they now paid the penalty of their conduct.3 The rest of the prisoners, contrary to all the usages and tradi- tions of the Arabs, were treated with the greatest humanity. The Prophet gave strict orders that respect should be paid to their mis- fortunes, and that they should be treated with kindness. The Moslems, to whose care he confided them, faithfully obeyed his instructions. They shared their own food with the prisoners, giving them the bread which formed the best part of their repast, and contenting themselves with dates alone.4 The division of the spoil gave rise to sharp dissensions among the Moslem soldiery. For the present, Mohammed calmed their 1 Koran, Sura viii. ver. 9, and Sura iii. vers. 11, 119, 120, and 121. Comp. also Muir, vol. iii, p. 106. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 443 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 26 et seq. Sir W. Muir mentions that when the head of Abu Jahl was brought to Mohammed, he said, "It is more acceptable to me than the choicest camel in Arabia." This passage, which is not to be found either in Ibn-Hisham, Ibn ul-Athir, Abulfeda, or Tibri, is apocryphal. 3 Nadhr, son of Harith, the man referred to in ver. 32 of Sura viii, of the Koran. 4 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 459, 460 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 79. Muir speaks thus: "In pursuance of Mahomet's commands, the citizens of Medina, and such of the refugees as possessed houses, received the prisoners, and treated them with much consideration. 'Blessings be on the men of Medina !' said one of these prisoners in later days ; 'they made us ride, while they themselves walked ; they gave us wheaten bread to eat when there was little of it ; contenting themselves with dates,' " vol. iii. p. 122. THE VICTORY OF THE MOSLEMS. 59 disputes by dividing it equally amongst all.1 But as such dissensions among an unruly people were likely to lead to mischief, the Prophet, with a view to prevent all future quarrels over spoil acquired in war, promulgated a special ordinance, which is incorporated in the chapter of the Koran entitled al-Anfdl (the Spoils). By this law the division of the spoils was left to the discretion of the chief of the common- wealth ; a fifth being reserved for the public treasury for the support of the poor and indigent.2 The remarkable circumstances which led to the victory of Badr, and the results which followed from it, made a deep impression on the minds of the Moslems, They firmly believed that the angels of heaven had battled on their side against the unbelieving host. The few simple touches in the Koran which bring into vivid prominence the poetic element involved in the conception of the angels fighting the battle of the Lord, will not yield in beauty or sublimity to the most eloquent words of the Psalmist. Indeed, the same poetic character is perceptible in both of them.3 Probably Mohammed, like Jesus and other teachers, believed in the existence of intermediate beings, celestial messengers from God to man. The modern disbelief in angels furnishes no reason for ridiculing the notions of our forefathers. Our disbelief is as much open to the name of superstition as their belief ; only one is negative, the other positive. What we, in modern times, look upon as the principles of nature, they looked upon as angels, ministrants of heaven. Whether there exist intermediate beings, as Locke thinks, between God and man, just as there are intermediate beings between man and the lowest form of animal creation, is a question too deep to be fathomed by the human intellect. Mohammed also, like Jesus, probably believed in the existence of the Principle of Evil as a personal entity. But an analysis of his 1 "It is remarkable," says Sale, "that the dispute among Mohammed's men about sharing the booty at Badr arose on the same occasion as did that among David's soldiers in relation to the spoils taken from the Amalekites ; those who had been in the action insisting that they who tarried by the stuff should have no part of the spoil ; and that the same decision was given in both cases, which became a law for the future, to wit, that they should part alike." Prel. Disc. sec. vi.) 2 Koran, chap. viii. ver. 42. Though the distribution was left to the dis- cretion of the chief of the State, certain customs were invariably observed which under the Caliphs became precedents, and thus gave a more definite shape to the law. Compare M. Querry's splendid work, entitled Droit Mussulman (Paris 1871), tome i. p. 335. 3 Ps. xviii. 60 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. words reveals a more rationalistic element, a subjective conception clothed in language suited for the apprehension of his followers. When somebody asked him where Satan lived, he replied "In the heart of man." The belief in angels and devils has given rise to an extraordinary number of legends both in Islam and in Christianity. The saints of heaven and angels fight for the Christian. The Moslem tries as much as possible to leave the saints to themselves, and only accepts the assistance of angels in the battles of life. Tradition converts the Pharisee who tempted Jesus, into the veritable Prince of Hell.1 Note to Chapter IV. The story of Mohammed's inhuman reply to the appeal of Okba, son of Abu Muait, when he was being led forward to execution, is utterly false ; it is said that on Okba's asking, "Who will take care of my liltle children ?", Mohammed answered, "Hell fire." This story is so preposterous in itself, so opposed to Mohemmed's true character (one of whose noblest traits was his love for children, and who always inculcated love and protection of orphans as an absolute duty, and an act most acceptable to God), that it is hardly necessary to search for its true origin. Christian writers, however, seem to gloat over it, and hence it becomes needful to examine how the story arose. It originated most probably from the sobriquet of Sibyat un-Ndr (children of fire), applied to the children of Okba. Okba himself belonged to the tribe of Ajlan,2 a branch of which inhabited certain valleys near Safra, and were known by the name of Bani un-Nar (children or descendants of fire). The sobriquet was probably deri- ved from this circumstance ; and the story of Mohammed's reply from the nickname. 1 All the Sohleiermaeher school believe the tempter to have been the head priest. Milman mentions this view as well as the patristic and orthodox one, but dexterously leaves for the reader to choose which he likes. The chapter of Reuss on Angels (History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age, English translation, note 1. pp. 401-404), with the mass of references arrayed therein, distinctly proves that the early Christians, the immediate disciples of Jesus, firmly believed the angels and devils to be personal entities, beings slightly ethereal, but in every way human-like ; and this belief, those dis- ciples of Jesus must have received from the Master himself, who indeed, as Renan says, could not have been, in these respects, intellectually different from the people of his age ; Vie de Jesus, 3rd ed. 1867, p. 267. 2 Aghanij according to C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 79. CALUMNY AGAINST JtOHAMMED. 6 1 Another story of Mohammed's having bitterly apostrophised the dead of the idolaters on their burial is, to say the least, distorted. Tibri thus narrates the circumstances which have given rise to this calumny : "The Prophet placed himself by the side of the large grave or pit which had been prepared for the corpses ; and as the bodies were lowered, the names were called out, and Mohammed then uttered these words, 'You, my kindred, you accused me of lying, when others believed in me ; you drove me from my home, when others received me ; what destiny has been yours ! Alas ! all that God threatened is fulfilled." These words, which were palpably meant to express pity, have been distorted to imply bitterness. CHAPTER V. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS AND ARABS. 2 A. H=624A. C. ' lit " C& SUCCESS is always one of the greatest criterions of truth. Even in the early days of Christianity, the good Pharisee said, " Let them alone ; if these men be false, they will come A 0 t0 nougnt> or e*se y°u yourselves shall perish." If Constantine had not seen, or fancied he had seen, the notable cross in the heavens ; if he had not marched to success under its auspices ; if it had not led him on to victory and to the throne, — we can hardly conceive what would have been the fate of Christianity. What the victory of Badr was for Islam, the victory of the Milvian Bridge was for Christianity.1 It thenceforth ruled from the throne of the Caesars. For the Moslems the victory of Badr was indeed most auspicious. It was not surprising that they, like the Israelites or Christians of yore, saw the hand of Providence in their success over the idolaters. Had the Moslems failed, we can imagine what their fate would have been — a universal massacre. Whilst Mohammed was engaged in this expedition, he lost one of his favourite daughters, Rukaiya, married to Osman, who had only recently returned from the Abyssinian exile. But the desire for 1 The Christians themselves look upon the defeat of Maxentius by Cons- tantine (312 a.c.) as the greatest triumph of their faith. The chapter of Gibbon, vol. iii. chap, xx., mingled satire and history, shows how the success of Christianity dates from that event. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS AND ARABS. 63 revenge with which the idolaters were burning allowed him no time to indulge in domestic sorrow. As soon as all the Koraishite prisoners had returned home, Abu Sufian issued forth from Meeca with two hundred horsemen, vowing solemnly never to return until he had avenged himself on Mohammed and his followers. Scouring the country to within a few miles of Medina, he came down with a fell swoop on the unprepared Moslems, slaying the people, and ravaging the date-groves which furnished the staple food of the Arabs. The Meccans had provided themselves with bags of " sawlk " l for the foray. As soon, however, as the Moslems sallied forth from Medina to avenge the murders, the Meccans turned bridle and fled, dropping the bags in order to lighten their beasts : whence this affair was derisi- vely called by the Moslems, Ghazwat us-sawik, " the battle of the meal-bags. ", 2 It was on this occasion that an incident happened to the Prophet, which has been exceedingly well told by Washington = 1st April 624. Irvm&- Mohammed was sleeping one day alone at the foot of a tree, at a distance from his camp, when he was awakened by a noise, and beheld Durthur, a hostile warrior, standing over him with a drawn sword. " O Mohammed," cried he, *' who is there now to save thee ? " " God ! " replied the Prophet. The wild Bedouin was suddenly awed, and dropped his sword, which was instantly seized upon by Mohammed. Brandishing the weapon, he exclaimed in turn, " Who is there now to save thee, O Durthur ? " " Alas, no one ! " replied the soldier. " Then learn from me to be "merciful." So saying, he returned the sword. The Arab's heart was overcome ; and in after years he proved one of the staunchest adherents of the Prophet.8 1 Sawilc is the old and modern Arabic name for a dish of green grain, toasted, pounded, mixed with dates or sugar, and eaten on journeys when it is found difficult to cook. 2 The place where the affair took place bears now the name of Suwayka — a few hours' journey to the south-west of Medina. 3 The last month of this year was marked by the death of Osman, son of Mahzun, and the marriage of Ali, son of Abu Talib, to Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Osman was one of the earliest believers, and he was the first of the Muhajirin who died at Medina, and was interred at Baki, a suburb of Medina, where lie buried a number of illustrious and saintly people, whose tombs are up to the present day venerated by the Moslems. Ali had been betrothed to Fatima several days before the expedition to Badr, but the marriage was only celebrated three months later, Ali being in his twenty-first, and Fatima in her fifteenth year. 64 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. But this skirmish between the idolaters and the Moslems, like others which followed, proved only a prelude to the great drama that was about to be enacted. The idolaters were burning for revenge. They made formidable preparations for another war upon the Moslems. 3 A. H. =26th Their emissaries succeeded in obtaining the assist- April624tol5th ° April 625 A.C. ance of the tribes of Tihama and Kinana, and their united forces soon amounted to three thousand well-equipped soldiers (of whom seven hundred were mailed warriors), animated with but one desire, that of revenge. This army was as formidable to the petty tribes of Arabia as the multitudinous hordes of Xerxes to the Grecian States. Marching under the command of the relentless Abu Sufian, and meeting with no opposition from any side, they took up a well-chosen position to the north-east of Medina, where only the hill of Ohod and a valley separated them from the devoted city. From this safe vantage-ground they ravaged the fields and fruit groves of the Medinites. Forced by the enthusiasm of his followers, and by their fury at the destruction of their property, Mohammed marched out of Medina with a thousand men. The ill-concealed enmity of the Jews led to the defection of Addullah ibn-Ubbay, the leader of the Munafikin (the Disaffected), with three hundred of his followers. This desertion reduced the strength of Mohammed's small force to seven hundred men, who only possessed two horses amongst them. But still this gallant band marched steadily forward. Advancing quietly through groves of fruit trees, they soon gained the hill of Ohod. They passed the night in the defile, and in the morning after offering prayers as they stood in arms, they debouched into the plain. Mohammed now took up his position immediately under the hill.1 Posting a few l Burton thus describes the spot : " This spot, so celebrated in the annals of El Islam, is a shelving strip of land, close to the southern base of Mount Ohod. The army of the infidels advanced from the fiumara in crescent shape, with Abu Sufiyan, the general, and his idols in the centre. It is distant about three miles from El Medinah in a northerly direction. All the visitor sees is hard gravelly ground, covered with little heaps of various coloured granite, red sandstone, and bits of porphyry, to denote the different places where the martyrs fell and were buried. Seen from this point, there is some- thing appalling in the look of the holy mountain. Its seared and jagged flanks rise like masses of iron from the plain, and the crevice into which the Moslem host retired, when the disobedience of the archers in hastening to plunder enabled Khalid ben Walid to fall upon Mohammed's rear, is the THE BATTLE OF OHOD. 65 archers on a height behind the troops, he gave them strict injunctions not to abandon their place whatever happened, but to harass the cavalry of the enemy and protect the flanks of the Moslems. The idolaters, confident in their numbers, marched down into the plain with their idols in the centre of their army, and the wives of the chiefs chanting their war-songs and beating their timbrels.1 The first violent onslaught of the Koraish was bravely repulsed by the Moslems, led by Hamza, who, taking advantage of the confusion of the enemy, dashed into the midst of the Koraishites, dealing havoc on all sides. Victory had almost declared for the Moslems, when the archers, forgetting the injunction of the Prophet, and seeing the enemy in flight, dispersed in search of plunder.2 And what happened in later days at Tours happened at Ohod. Khalid bin Walid, one of the Koraish, at once perceived their error, and rallying his horse, fell on the rear of the Moslems.3 The infantry of the Koraish also turned, and the Moslem troops, taken both in rear and front, had to renew the battle at fearful odds. Some of the bravest chiefs in the Moslem army fell fighting. The intrepid Hamza, with several others, was killed; Ali, who had chivalrously answered the first call of defiance (Rajz) of the idolaters,4 and Omar and Abu Bakr were severely wounded. The efforts of the idolaters were, however, principally directed towards Mohammed, who surrounded by a few disciples, and sepa- rated from the main body of his people, became now the chief object of their assaults. His friends fell fast around him. Though only break in the grim wall. Reeking with heat, its surface produces not one green shrub or stunted tree ; not a bird or beast appeared upon its in- hospitable sides, and the bright blue sky glaring above its bald and sullen brow made it look only the more repulsive. " — Burton's Pilgrimage to Mecca, vol. ii. pp. 236, 237. 1 Extracts from their war-songs are given by Ibn ul-Athir, Vol. ii p. 118. ' ' Courage ! Ye sons of Abd ud-Dar ; courage ! defenders of women ! strike home with the edges of your swords." Another runs thus : "We are daughters of the Star of the Morn (Tarik) ; we tread softly on silken cushions (namdrik) ; face the enemy boldly, and we shall press you in our arms ; fly, and we shall shun you, shun you with disgust." 2 This disobedience is referred to in the Koran, sura iii. ver. 146. 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. 119 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 26. ♦ 4 Tibri says that Talha, the standard-bearer of the idolaters, a man of heroic bravery, placed himself before Ali, and brandishing his sabre, defied him, crying, " You Moslems say that our dead will go to hell, and yours to heaven ; let me see whether I cannot send thee to heaven." Upon this Ali replied, "Be it so!" and they f aught, and Talha was struck to the ground. " Mercy, 0 son of my uncle," cried he. Ali replied, "Mercy be it ; thou dost not deserve the fire." — Vol. iii. p. 25. 66 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. wounded and bleeding he did not forget their loving hearts, and blessed the hand that tried to stanch the blood which flowed from his forehead.1 But rescue was nigh. The brave warriors who under Ali had been fighting in the centre with the energy of despair, succeeded in retreating to a point on the hill, where they were secure from the attacks of the enemy, but full of consterna- tion at the loss, as they supposed, of their great Master. Seeing, however, their brethren still righting in another part of the field, they rushed down into the midst of the idolaters. Penetrating to the place where the small group of Moslems yet defended the Prophet, and finding that he still lived, they succeeded, after great exertions, in retreating with him to the heights of Mount Ohod, where they breathed again. Ali fetched water in his shield from the hollow of a rock. With this he bathed Mohammed's face and wounds, and with his companions offered up the mid-day prayers sitting. The Koraish were too exhausted to follow up their advantage, either by attacking Medina or driving the Moslems from the heights of Ohod. They retreated from the Medinite territories after bar- barously mutilating their slain enemies. The wife of Abu Sufian, Hind, the daughter of Otba, with the other Koraishite women, showed the greatest ferocity in this savage work of vengeance, tearing out the heart of Hamza, and making bracelets and necklaces of the ears and noses of the dead. The barbarities practised by the Koraish on the slain created among the Moslems a feeling of bitter exasperation. Even Mohammed was at first so moved by indignation as to declare that the dead of the Koraish should in future be treated in like manner. But the gentleness of his nature conquered the bitterness of his heart. " Bear wrong patiently," he preached; "verily, best it will be for the patiently enduring." z And from that day the horrible 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 114, and Abulfeda, p. 44, mention the date of the battle of Ohod as the 7th of Shawwal ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 21, men- tions the 8th ; Ibn-Hisham, the 5th ; and several others the 11th. C. de Perceval, however, calculates the 11th to have been the real date of the battle, as according to all the chroniclers the day was a Saturday, and the 11th of Shawwsll (26th of January) fell on a Saturday. — Hist, des Arabes, vol. iii. p. 96, note. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 580 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 115-126 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 16 et seq. ; Abulfeda, pp. 44-46. l Koran, sura xvii. ver. 127 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 584,585 ; Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), Egypt, ed., p. 446. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS. 67 practice of mutilation which prevailed among all the nations of antiquity was inexorably forbidden to the Moslems.1 On his return to Medina the Prophet directed a small body of the disciples to pursue the retreating enemy, and to impress on them that the Moslems, though worsted in battle, were yet unbroken in spirit, and too strong to be attacked again with impunity. Abu Sufian, hearing of the pursuit, hastened back to Mecca, having first murdered two Medinites whom he met on his route. He, however, sent a message to the Prophet, saying that he would soon return to exterminate him and his people. The reply as before was full of trust and faith — " God is enough for us, a good guardian is He !" 2 The moral effect of this disastrous battle was at once visible in the forays which the neighbouring nomades prepared to make on the Medinite territories. Most of them, however, were repressed by the energetic action of Mohammed, though some of the hostile tribes succeeded in enticing Moslem missionaries into their midst, under the pretence of embracing Islam, and then massacred them. On one such occasion seventy Moslems were treacherously murdered near a brook called Bir-Mauna, within the territories of two tribes, the Bant-Aamir and the Bant-Sulaim, chiefly through the instru- mentality of the latter. One of the two survivors of the slaughter escaped towards Medina. Meeting on the way two unarmed Arabs belonging to the Bani-Aamir who were travelling under a safe-conduct of the Prophet, and mistaking them for enemies, he killed them. When Mohammed heard of this he was deeply grieved. A wrong had been committed by one of his followers, though under a mistake, and the relatives of the men that were killed were entitled to redress. Accordingly orders were issued for collecting the Diat (the wehrgeld) from the Moslems and the people who had accepted the Charter. 5 The Jewish tribes of the Bani un-Nadhir, the Kuraizha, and others were bound equally with the Moslems to contribute towards this payment.4 Mohammed himself, accompanied by a few disciples, 1 The Jews used to burn their prisoners alive, and most barbarously mutilate the slain. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Persians all practised similar barbarities. Christianity effected no improvement in these frightful customs, for as late as the sixteenth century we read of the most horrible mutilations. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 590 ; Koran, sura iii. ver. 167. 3 See ante, pp. 54-55. ± Ibn ul-Athir, vol. iii. p. 133 ; Tibri, vol. iv. p. 50. Muir and Sprenger have strangely garbled this part of the affair. (Sir W. Muir does not find 68 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. proceeded to the Bani un-Nadhir, and asked from them their contri- bution. They seemingly agreed to the demand, and requested him to wait awhile. Whilst sitting with his back to the wall of a house, he observed sinister movements amongst the inhabitants, which led him to divine their intention of murdering him. Bnt to explain the hostility of the Jews we must trace back the course of events. We have seen with what bitter animosity they dogged Mohammed's footsteps from the moment of his arrival at Medina. They tried to sow disaffection among his people. They libelled him and his followers. They mispronounced the words of the Koran so as to give them an offensive meaning. But this was not all. By their superior education and intelligence, by their union with the party of the Munafikin (the Disaffected), and by the general unanimity which prevailed among them (so different from the disunion of the Arabs), the Jews formed a most dangerous element within the federated State which had risen under the Teacher of Islam. Among unadvanced nations poets occupy the position and exercise the influence of the press in modern times.1 The Jewish poets by their superior culture naturally exercised a vast influence among the Medinites ; and this influence was chiefly directed towards sowing sedition among the Moslems, and widening the breach between them und the opposing faction. The defeat of the idolaters at Badr was felt as keenly by the Jews as by the Meccans. Immediately after this battle a distinguished member of their race, called Kaab, the son of Ashraf, any authority for M. C. de Perceval's saying, that the Jews were bound by treaty to contribute towards the Diat. If he had referred to Tibri he Would have seen the following statement : " En suite il ordonna de reeunir cette somme, ou la repartissant sur la ville de Medine, et d'y faire contribuer egalement les Juifs, tels que les Beni-Nadhir, les Koraizha et ceux de Fadak, que y etaient obliges par le traite." — Zotenberg's transl. vol. iii. p. 50. So also Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133. l An example of the influence which poets and rhapsodists exercise among unprogressed nations, is afforded by one of the episodes connected with the war of Ohod. Whilst preparing for this eventful campaign, the Koraish requested a poet of the name of Abu Uzza to go round the tribes of the desert, and excite them by his songs and poetry against the Moslems, and persuade them to join the confederacy, formed under the auspices of the Meccans, for the destruction of Mohammed and his followers. This man had been taken prisoner by the Moslems in the battle of Badr, but was re- leased by the Prophet, without ransom, on pledging himself never again to take up arms against the Medinites. In spite of this, he was tempted to break his word, and went round the tribes, rousing them to arms by his poetry ; and it is said he was eminently successful in his work. After Ohod he was again taken prisoner and executed by the Moslems. Ibn-Hisham, p. 591. HOSTILITY OF THE JK WS. 69 belonging to the tribe of Nadhir, publicly deploring the ill-success of the idolaters, proceeded towards Mecca. Finding the people there plunged in grief, he spared no exertion to revive their courage. By his satires against the Prophet and his disciples, by his elegies on the Meccans who had fallen at Badr, he succeeded in exciting the Koraish to that frenzy of vengeance which found vent on the plains of Ohod. Having attained his object, he returned to his home near Medina in the canton of Nadhir, where he continued to attack Mohammed and the Mussulmans in ironical and obscene verses, not sparing even the women of the Believers, whom he addressed in terms of the grossest character. His acts were openly directed against the commonwealth of which he was a member. He belonged to a tribe which had entered into the Compact1 with the Moslems, and pledged itself for the internal as well as the external safety of the State, Another Jew of the Nadhir, Abu Rafe Sallam, son of Abu'l Hukaik, was equally wild and bitter against the Mussulmans. He inhabited, with a fraction of his tribe, the territories of Khaibar, four or five days' journey to the north-west of Medina. Detesting Mohammed and the Mussulmans, he made use of every endeavour to excite the neighbouring Arab tribes, such as the Sulaim and the Ghatafan, against them. It was impossible for the Mussulman Com- monwealth to tolerate this open treachery on the part of those to whom every consideration had been shown, with the object of secur- ing their neutrality, if not their support. The very existence of the Mussulman community was at stake ; and every principle of safety required that these traitorous designs should be quietly frustrated. The sentence of outlawry was executed upon them by the Medinites themselves — in one case by a member of the tribe of Aus, in the other by a Khazrajite. Christian controversialists have stigmatised these executions as " assassinations. :> And because a Moslem was sent secretly to kill each of the criminals, in their prejudice against the Prophet, they shut their eyes to the justice of the sentence, and the necessity of a swift and secret execution. There existed then no police court, no judicial tribunal, nor even a court-martial, to take cognisance of in- dividual crimes. In the absence of a State executioner any individual might become the executioner of the law. These men had broken l See ante) p. 54. JO THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. their formal pact ; it was impossible to arrest them in public, or exe- cute the sentence in the open before their clans, without causing un- necessary blood-shed, and giving rise to the feud of blood, and ever- lasting vendetta. The exigencies of the State required that whatever should be done should be done swiftly and noiselessly upon those whom public opinion had arraigned and condemned.1 The existence of the republic, and the maintenance of peace and order within the city, depended upon the prompt execution of the sentence passed upon the culprits before they could rally their clansmen round them. The fate of these two traitors, and the expulsion of their brethren the Bani-Kainukaa from the Medinite territories, had 2 a.h. Shaw- wal, February given rise to a bitter feeling of animosity among the Nadhir against the Prophet. The circumstances connected with the banishment of the Kainukaa require a brief notice. Whilst the other Jewish tribes were chiefly agricultural, the Banu- Kainukaa hardly possessed a single field or date plantation. They were for the most part artisans employed in handicraft of all kinds.2 Seditious and unruly, always ready for a broil like their co-religionists of Alexandria, the Banu-Kainukaa were also noted for the extreme laxity of their morals. One day a young girl from the country came to their bazaar or market (Suk) to sell milk. The Jewish youths insulted her grossly. A Moslem passer-by took the part of the girl, and in the fray which ensued the author of the outrage was killed ; whereupon the entire body of the Jews present rose and slaughtered the Moslem. A wild scene then followed. The Moslems, enraged at the murder of their compatriot, flew to arms, blood flowed fast, and many were killed on both sides. At the first news of the riots, Mohammed hastened to the spot, and, by his presence, succeeded in restraining the fury of his followers. He at once preceived what the end would be of these seditions and disorders if allowed to take their course. Medina would be turned into an amphitheatre, in which members of hostile factions might murder one another with impunity. The Jews had openly and knowingly infringed the terms of their compact. It was necessary to put a stop to this with a firm hand, or 1 Our Christian historians forget that the " wise" Solon himself, for the safety of his small city, made it obligatory on the Athenians to become execu- tioners of the law, by pursuing the factious, or taking one of two eides in a public riot. They also forget that even the laws of Christian England allow any person to pursue and kill u an outlaw." 2 Tibri, vol. iii. p. 8. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS. 7 1 farewell to all hope of peace and security. Consequently Moham- med proceeded at once to the quarter of the Bani-Kainukaa, and required them to enter definitely into the Moslem Commonwealth by embracing Islam, or to vacate Medina. The reply of the jews was couched in the most offensive terms. " O, Mohammed, do not be elated with the victory over thy people (the Koraish). Thou hast had an affair with men ignorant of the art of war. If thou art desirous of having any dealings with us, we shall show thee that we are men."1 They then shut themselves up in their fortress, and set Mohammed's authority at defiance. But their reduction was an absolute duty, and siege was accordingly laid to their stronghold without loss of time. After fifteen days they surrendered. At first it was intended to inflict some severe punishment on them, but the clemency of Mohammed's nature overcame the dictates of justice, and the Banii-Kainukaa were simply banished. All these circumstances were rankling within the breasts of the Bani un-Nadhtr. They only waited for a favourable opportunity to rid themselves of Mohammed, and therefore looked upon his arrival amongst them as providential. But their sinister designs, as we have before said, did not escape the eye of the Prophet. He immediately left the place without raising the suspicions of the Jews, and thus saved himself and his disciples from almost certain destruction.2 The Banu un-Nadhir had now placed themselves in exactly the same position as the Banu-Kainukaa had previously done. They had by their own act put themselves outside the pale of the Charter ; and therefore on his arrival at Medina, Mohammed sent them a message of the same import as that which was sent to the Kainukaa. Relying on the support of the Munafikin and Abdullah ibn-Ubbay, the Banu un-Nadhir returned a defiant answer. Disappointed, however, in the promised assistance of Abdullah, and of their brethren, the Bani-Kuraizha, after a siege of fifteen days3 they sued for terms. 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 545. Tibri gives the speech of the Kainukaa with a slight variation. But all historians agree in its being defiant and offensive. I cannot understand whence Gibbon obtained the excessively meek reply he puts into the mouth of these people. 2 As any betrayal of suspicion by Mohammed or his disciples of the intents of the Jews would have made these people desperate, and precipi- tated matters, the Prophet went away by himself, leaving his followers behind, which led the Jews to suppose he was not gone far, and would quickly return. 3 Tibri says eleven days (vol. iii. p. 54). 72 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. The previous offer was renewed, and they agreed to evacuate their territories. They were allowed to take all their moveables, with them, with the exception of arms.1 In order to prevent the Moslems from occupying their dwellings, they destroyed these before leaving.2 Their land, warlike materials, etc., which they could not carry , H away, were distributed by the Prophet, with the con- = June to July, sent and cordial approval of the Ansaar, among the 625 S C Muhajirin, who, up to this time, had been entirely dependent for support on the generosity of the Medinites. Notwith- standing the strong brotherly love which existed between the " Re- fugees " and the " Helpers " 3, Mohammed knew that the assistance of the Medinites afforded but a precarious means of subsistence. He accordingly assembled the principal men from among the Ansar, and asked them whether they had any objection to his distributing among their poor brethren who had followed him from Mecca the goods left behind by the Jews. With one voice they answered, "Give to our brothers the goods of the Jews ; assign to them even a portion of ours : we willingly consent. " Upon this the Prophet divided the property among the Muhajirin and two of the Ansar who were extremely poor.4 The expulsion of the Bani un-Nadhir took place in the month of Rabi I. of the fourth year.8 The remaining portion of this year and the early part of the next were passed in repressing the spasmodic hostile attempts of the nomadic tribes against the Moslems, and in inflicting punishments for various murderous forays on the Medinite territories.6 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 652, 653 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133 ; Abulfeda, p. 49. 2 Koran, sura lix. ver. 5. 3 See ante, p. 49. 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 654 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 54. A principle was henceforth established that any acquisition, not made in actual warfare, should belong to the State, or the chief of the State ; and that its application should depend upon his discretion (vide Droit Mussalman by M. Querry, p. 337). Sura lix. of the Koran treats almost entirely of the circumstances connected with the banishment of the Bani un-Nadhir. 5 According to Ibn-Hisham, p. 653, and Abulfeda, p. 49 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 55, says it was the month of Safar. 6 Of this nature was the expedition against the Christian Arabs of Dumat ul-Jandal (a place, according to Abulfeda, about seven days' journey to the south of Damascus), who had stopped the Medinite traffic with Syria and even threatened a raid upon Medina ; these marauders, however, fled on the approach of the Moslems, and Mohammed returned to Medina, after conclud- ing a treaty with a neighbouring chief, to whom he granted premission of pasturage on the Medinite territories, — C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 129 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 60. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS. 73 Meanwhile the enemies of the Faith were by no means idle. Far 5 A. H. =3rd an(* w^e tne idolaters had sent their emissaries to May 626 to 23rd stir up the tribes against the Moslems. The Tews April 627 A. C. v & J were the most active in these efforts. Some of the Bani-Nadhir had remained behind with their brethren settled near Khaibar, and there, fired with the hope of vengeance, had set them- selves to the work of forming another league for the destruction of the Believers.1 Their efforts were successful beyond their utmost hopes. A formidable coalition was soon formed ; and an army, con- sisting of ten thousand well-appointed men, marched upon Medina, under the command of the relentless Abu Sufian. Meeting no opposition on their way, they soon encamped within a few miles of Medina, on its most vulnerable side, towards Ohod. To oppose this fl, A. _ . host the Moslems could only muster a body of three Shawwal, 5 A. J J H. =2February thousand men.2 Forced thus by their inferiority in numbers, as well as by the factious opposition of the Mundfikin within the city,3, to remain on the defensive, they dug a deep trench round the unprotected quarters of Medina, and, leav- ing their women and children for safety in their fortified houses, they encamped outside the city, with the moat in front of them. In the meantime they relied for the safety of the other side, if not upon the active assistance, at least upon the neutrality of the Bani-Kuraizha, who possessed several fortresses at a short distance, towards the south-east, and were bound by the Compact to assist the Moslems against every assailant. These Jews, however, were persuaded by the idolaters to violate their pledged faith, and to join the Koraish. As soon as the news of their defection reached Mohammed, he deputed " the two Saads," Saad ibn-Muaz and Saad ibn-Ubada, to entreat them to return to their duty. The reply was defiant and sullen : " Who is Mohammed, and who is the Apostle of God that we should obey him ? There is no bond or compact betwixt us and him."4 As these Jews were well acquainted with the locality, and could materially assist the besiegers by showing them the weak points of the city, the consternation among the Moslems became great, whilst 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 963 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 639; Tibri vol. iii. pp. 60,61. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 678. 3 Referred to in the Koran, sura xxxiii. vers. 12, 13, 14, etc. 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 675 ; Muir, vol. iii. p. 259. 19 74 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. the disaffected body within the walls increased the elements of danger.1 The idolaters and the Jews, failing in all their attempts to draw the Moslems into the open field, or to surprise the city under the direction of Jewish guides, determined upon a regular assault. The siege had already lasted twenty days. The restless tribes of the desert, who had made common cause with the Koraish and their Jewish allies, and who had expected an easy prey, were becoming- weary of this protracted compaign. Great efforts were made at this critical moment by the leaders of the beleaguering host to cross the trench and fall upon the small Moslem force. Every attempt was, however, repulsed by untiring vigilance on the part of Mohammed. The elements now seemed to combine against the be- sieging army ; their horses were perishing fast, and provisions were becoming scanty. Disunion was rife in their midst, and the far- seeing chief of the Moslems, with matchless prudence, fomented it into actual division. Suddenly this vast coalition, which had seemed to menace the Moslems with inevitable destruction, vanished into thin air. In the darkness of night, amidst a storm of wind and rain, their tents overthrown, their lights put out, Abu Sufian and the majority of his formidble army fled, the rest took refuge with the Bani-Kuraizha.2 Mohammed had in the night foretold to his followers the dispersion of their enemies. Daybreak saw his prognostication fulfilled, and the Moslems returned in joy to the city.8 But the victory was hardly achieved in the opinion of the Moslems noa as long as the Banu-Kuraizha remained so near, 5 a. h. =28th & February 626 to and in such dangerous proximity to the city of A q arc ' Islam. They had proved themselves traitors in spite of their sworn alliance, and had at one time almost surprised Medina from their side, — an event which, if 1 The whole scene is so beautifully painted in the Koran, sura xxxiii. (Surat ul-Ahzab, "The Confederates"), that I cannot resist quoting a few verses here : "When they assailed you from above you and from below you, and when your eyes became distracted, and your hearts came up into your throats, and ye thought divers thoughts of God, then were the Faithful tried, and with strong quaking did they quake ; and when the disaffected and diseased of heart (with infidelity) said, 'God and His Apostle have made us but a cheating promise. ' " 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 683 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 140. 3 In Moslem annals this war is called the "War of the Trench." THE FATE OF THE BANI-KURAIZHA. 75 successful, would have involved the general massacre of the Mussul- mans. The Moslems therefore felt it their duty to demand an explanation of the treachery. This was doggedly refused. The consequence was that the Jews were besieged, and compelled to surrender at discretion. They made only one condition, that their punishment should be left to the judgment of the Ausite chief, Saad ibn-Muaz. This man, a fierce soldier who had been wounded in the attack, and indeed died from his wounds the next day, infuriated by their treacherous conduct, gave sentence that the fighting men should be put to death, and that the women and children should become the slaves of the Moslems ; and this sentence was carried into execution.1 "It was a harsh, bloody sentence," says Lane-Poole, "worthy of the episcopal generals of the army against the Albigenses, or of the deeds of the Augustan age of Puritanism ; but it must be remembered that the crime of these men was high treason against the State during a time of siege ; and those who have read how Wellington's march could be traced by the 'bodies of deserters and pillagers hanging from the trees, need not be surprised at the summary execution of a traitorous clan." 2 The punishment inflicted on the various Jewish tribes has furnished to the Christian biographers of the Prophet, like Muir, Sprenger, Weil, and Osborn, a ground for attack. The punishment meted out to the Bani-Kainukaa and Bani un-Nadhir was far below their deserts. The Banu-Kuraizha alone were treated with anything like severity. Human nature is so constituted that, however criminal the acts of an individual may be, the moment he is treated with a severity which to our mind seems harsh or cruel, a natural revulsion of feeling occurs, and the sentiment of justice gives place to pity within our hearts. No doubt the sentence on the Banu-Kuraizha, from our point of view, was severe. But however much we may regret that the fate of these poor people should have been, though at their own special request, left in the hands of an infuriated soldier, — however much we may regret that the sentence of this man should have been so carried into effect, — we must not, in the senti- ~n>ent of pity, overlook the stern question of justice and culpability. 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 686-690 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 141 et seq. ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 68 et seq. 2 Selections from the Koran, Introd. p. lxv. ?6 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. We must bear in mind the crimes of which they were guilty, — their treachery, their open hostility, their defection from an alliance to which they were bound by every sacred tie. Moreover, we must bear in mind the temptations which they, the worshippers of the pure Jehovah, held out to the heathen Arabs to continue in the practice of idolatry. Some Moslems might naturally be inclined to say, with the Christian moralist : "It is better that the wicked should be destroyed a hundred times over than they should tempt those who are as yet innocent to join their company."1 These Moslems might say with him, with only the variation of a word : "Let us but think what might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, had the sword of the Arab1 done its work more sparingly. The Arab's sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of mercy for all the coun- tries of the earth to the very end of the world." If the Christian's argument is correct and not inhuman, certainly the Moslem's argu- ment cannot be otherwise. Other Moslems, however, might look upon this fearful sentence on the Bani-Kuraizha in the same light as Carlyle looks upon the order of Cromwell for the promiscuous massacre of the Irish inhabitants of Drogheda : "An armed soldier solemnly conscious to himself that he is the soldier of God the Just, — a consciousness which it well beseems all soldiers and all men to have always, — armed soldier, terrible as death, relentless as doom ; doing God's judgment on the enemies of God." We, however, are not disposed to look at the punishment of these Jews from either of these points of view. We simply look upon it as an act done in perfect consonance with the laws of war as then understood by the nations of the world : "a strict application of admitted customs of war in those days."5 These people brought their fate upon themselves. If they had been put to death, even without the judgment of Saad, it would have perfectly accorded with the principles which then prevailed. But they had themselves chosen Saad as the sole arbiter and judge of their fate ; they knew that his judgment was not at all contrary to the received notions, and accord- ingly never murmured. They knew that if they had succeeded they would have massacred their enemies without compunction. People 1 Arnold's Sermons', 4th Sermon, "Wars of the Israelites," pp. 35, 36. 2 In the original, of course, Israelites. 3 An observation of Grote, Hist of Greece, vol. vi. p. 499. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS. 77 judge of the massacres of King David according to the "lights of his time/'1 Even the fearful slaughters committed by the Christians in primitive times are judged according to certain "lights." Why should not the defensive wars of the early Moslems be looked at from the same standpoint ? But, whatever the point of view ; an unpre- judiced mind2 will perceive that no blame can possibly attach to the Prophet in the execution of the Bani-Kuraizha. The number of men executed could not have been more than 200 or 250. In the distribution of the surviving people, it is said, a young Jewess of the name of Raihana was allotted to the Prophet. Some say she was previously set apart. The Christian historians, always ready to seize upon any point which to their mind offers a plausible ground for attacking Mohammed, have not failed to make capital of this story. Leaving the examination of the question of slavery to a later chapter, we will here only observe that the allot- ment of Raihana, even if true, furnishes no ground for modern attack, as it was perfectly consonant with the customs of war recog- nised in those days. The story about Raihana becoming a wife of the Prophet is a fabrication, for, after this event, she disappears from history and we hear no more of her, whilst of others we have full and circumstantial accounts. l 2 Sam. viii. 2 : "The conquered Ammonites he treated with even greater ferocity, tearing and hewing some of them in pieces with harrows, axes, and saws ; and roasting others in brick-kilns" (xii. 31) ; Maitland, Jewish Literature and Modern Education, p. 21. Compare also Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Churchy vol. ii. p. 99. 2 I can only remember M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole among Europeans who have not been carried away by prejudice. CHAPTER VI. MOHAMMED'S CLEMENCY. ,9 , - .9.9 f , * ( . \ . fy » $ , , , The formidable coalition formed by the Jews and the idolaters 6 a h =23rd t0 comPass tne destruction of the new common- April 627 to 12th wealth of Medina had utterly failed, well might the pn Moslems say, miraculously.1 But the surrrounding tribes of the desert, wild and fierce, were committing depredations, accompanied with murders, on the Medinite territories : and the existence of the State required the employment of stern measures for their repression. Several expeditions were despatched against these marauders, but the slippery sons of the desert generally evaded the approach of the Moslems. The Bani-Lihyan, who had requested Mohammed to send a few of his disciples among them to teach the precepts of Islam, and who, on the arrival of the missionaries, had killed some and sold the rest to the Meccans, — had, up to this period, remained unpunished. But the time had come when this crime should be avenged. In the month of Jamadi I. of this year, a body of troops, under the personal command of the Prophet, marched against the Bani-Lihyan. The marauders, however, receiv- ing timely notice of the Prophet's approach, fled into the mountains, and the Moslems retuned to Medina without having accomplished their purpose.3 A few days had only elapsed when a chief of the Bani-Fizara, a branch of the nomade horde of Ghatafan, (Khail-Ghatafan), suddenly fell upon the open suburbs of the city, and drove off a large herd of camels, murdering the man who had charge of them, 1 Comp. Koran, sura xxxiii. ver. 9. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 718 ; Ion ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 143 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 72. MOHAMMEDS CLEMENCY. 79 and carrying off his wife. The Moslems were immediately on their track, and a few of the animals were recovered ; but the Bedouins escaped into the desert with the larger portion of their booty. It was about this time that the Prophet granted to the monks of the monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai, and to all Christians, a Charter which has been justly designated as one of the noblest monuments of enlightened tolerance that the history of the world can produce. This remarkable document, which has been faithfully preserved by the annalists of Islam, displays a marvellous breadth of view and liberality of conception. By it the Prophet secured to the Christians privileges and immunities which they did not possess even under" sovereigns of their own creed ; and declared that any Moslem violating and abusing what was therein ordered, should be regarded as a violator of God's testament, a transgressor of His commandments, and a slighter of His faith. He undertook himself, and enjoined on his followers, to protect the Christians, to defend their churches, the residences of their priests, and to guard them from all injuries. They were not to be unfairly taxed ; no bishop was to be driven out of his bishopric ; no Christian was to be forced to reject his religion; no monk was to be expelled from his monastery ; no pilgrim was to be detained from his pilgrimage. Nor were the Christian churches to be pulled down for the sake of building mosques or houses for the Moslems. Christian women married to Moslems were to enjoy their own religion, and not to be subjected to compulsion or annoy- ance of any kind on that account. If Christians should stand in need of assistance for the repair of their churches or monasteries, or any other matter pertaining to their religion, the Moslems were to assist them. This was not to be considered as taking part in their religion, but as merely rendering them assistance in their need, and complying with the ordinances of the Prophet which were made in their favour by the authority of God and of His Apostle. Should the Moslems be engaged in hostilities with outside Christians, no Christian resident among the Moslems should be treated with con- tempt on account of his creed. Any Moslem so treating a Christian should be accounted recalcitrant to the Prophet. Man always attaches an idea of greatness to the character of a person who, whilst possessing the power of returning evil for evil, not only preaches but practises the divine principle of forgiveness. So THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Mohammed, as the chief of the State and guardian of the life and liberty of the people, in the exercise of justice sternly punished every individual guilty of crime. Mohammed the Prophet, the Teacher, was gentle and merciful even to his greatest enemies. In him were combined the highest attributes that the human mind can conceive — justice and mercy. A chief of the tribe of Hanafa, named Thumama, son of Uthal, was taken prisoner by the Moslems in one of their expeditions against the unruly Arabs of the desert. He was brought to Medina, where he was so affected by the kindness of the Prophet, that from an enemy he soon became the most devoted follower. Returning to his people he stopped the transport to Mecca of provisions from Yemama, and this stoppage by Thumama reduced the Meccans to the direst straits. Failing to move the Hanafites, they at last addressed themselves to Mohammed, and besought him to inter- cede for them. The Prophet's heart was touched with pity, and he requested Thumama to allow them to have whatever they wanted ; and at his word the convoys were again permitted to reach Mecca. Endless instances might be cited of Mohammed's merciful nature. We will, however, only instance two. A daughter of his — a beloved child — was, after the treaty of Hudaiba, fleeing from Mecca. She was far advanced in pregancy, and as she was mounting her camel, a Koraish named Habrar, with characteristic ferocity, drove the butt-end of his lance against her, throwing her to the ground, and eventually causing her death. On the conquest of Mecca the murderer was proscribed. After hiding for some time he presented himself before the Prophet, and threw himself on the mercy of the bereaved father. The wrong was great ; the crime was atrocious, — but the injury was personal. The man was to all appearance sincere in his penitence and the profession of the Faith. Pardon was uncondi- tionally granted. The Jewess who attempted his life at Khaibar, and Ikrima, the son of Abu Jahl, who was bitterly personal in his animo- sity towards the Prophet, were freely forgiven. A tribe of Christian Bedouins (the Banu-Kalb), settled about Dumat ul-Jandal, had, in their depredations, appeared on the Medinite territories. An expedition was now despatched to summon them to embrace Islam and forego their lawless practices. Whilst delivering his injunctions to the captain who headed this small force, Mohammed Mohammed's clemency. 8i used the memorable words, "In no case shalt thou use deceit or per fidy, nor shalt thou kill any child. 'n In his instructions to the leaders of the expeditions against marauding and hostile tribes and people, he invariably enjoined them in peremptory terms never to injure the weak. "In avenging the injuries inflicted upon us/' he said to his troops, whom he dispatched against the Byzantines, "molest not the harmless inmates of domestic seclusion ; spare the weakness of the female sex ; injure not the infant at the breast, or those who are ill in bed. Abstain from demolishing the dwellings of the unresisting inhabitants ; destroy not the means of their subsistence, nor their fruit trees ; and touch not the palm," Abu Bakr, following his master, thus enjoined his captain : "O Yezid ! be sure you do not oppress your own people, nor make them uneasy, but advise with them in all your affairs, and take care to do that which is right and just ; for those that do otherwise shall not prosper. When you meet your enemies quit yourselves like men, and do not turn your backs •, and if you gain the victory, kill not little children, nor old people, nor women. Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as you kill for the necessity of subsistence. When you make any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons that live retired in monasteries, who propose to themselves to serve God that way. Let them alone, and neither kill them nor destroy their monasteries."2 These injunctions contrast strangely with the fearful denunciations of the Christians, Catholic, Protestant, and Greek, from the days of St. Lactantius to those of the Covenanters.3 The followers of the "Prince of Peace" burnt and ravished, pillaged and murdered promiscuously, old and young, male and female, without 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 992. Compare these injunctions of the Arabian Prophet, as also the historic words of Abu Bakr (the first Caliph) to Yezid bin Abu Sufian, when despatching him against the Byzantines, with the commands of the Israelite prophet : "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts. . . . Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass," I Sam. xv. 3 ; "Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little child- ren, and women," Ezek. ix. 6. 2 Compare Mill's History of Afiihammedanism, pp. 45, 46 ;and Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, in loco. 3 The massacre of 5000 Chinese men, women and children at Blagovestchenk in Manchuria in the 20th century by the troops of a great Christian power needs no mention. tl gi THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. compunction, up to recent times. And his vicegerents on earth, popes and patriarchs, bishops, priests, and presbyters, approved of their crimes, and frequently granted plenary absolution for the most heinous offences. In the month of Shaban of this year (November-December, 627) an expedition was directed against the Bani-Mustalik. These people had up to this time been on friendly terms with the Moslems. But, recently, instigated by their chief Harith, the son of Abu Dhirar, they had thrown off their allegiance, and committed forays on the suburbs of Medina. The expedition was entirely successful, and several prisoners were taken, amongst whom was a daughter of Harith, called Juwairiya.1 Six years had now passed since the exiles of Mecca had left their homes and their country for the sake of their faith, and of him who had infused into them a new consciousness such as they had never felt before, awakening in them the spirit of union, love, and brother- hood. People nocked from every part of Arabia to listen to the words of the wondrous man who had achieved all this ; to ask his counsel in the affairs of everyday life, even as the sons of Israel consulted of old the prophet Samuel.2 But the hearts of these exiles still yearned sadly for the place of their birth. Driven from their homes, they had found refuge in a rival city ; expelled from the precincts of the sacred Kaaba, which formed the glorious centre of all their associations, — the one spot round which gathered the history of their nation, — for six years had they been denied the pilgrimage of the holy shrine, a custom round which time, with its hoary traditions, had cast the halo of sanctity. The Teacher himself longed to see the place of his nativity with as great a yearning. The temple of the Kaaba belonged to the whole Arab nation. The Koraish were merely the custodians of this shrine, and were not authorised by the public law of the country to interdict the approach even of an enemy, if he presented himself without any •hostile design, and with the avowed object of fulfilling a religious duty.8 The season of the pilgrimage had approached ; the Prophet accordingly announced his intention of visiting the holy places. At 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 725 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 146. 2 Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, vol. i. in loco. 3 Tibri, vol. iii. p. 84 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 174, 175 et seq. THE PEACE OF HUDAIBA. 83' once a thousand voices responded to the call. Preparations were rapidly made, and, accompanied by seven hundred Moslems, Ansar and Muhajirin, all perfectly unarmed, he set out on the pilgrimage.1 The animosity of the Koraish, however, was not yet extinguished/: They posted themselves, with a large army, some miles in advance o£ Mecca, to bar the way, but soon after fell back on the city, in order to keep every point of access closed to the Moslems. They swore solemnly not to allow the followers of the Prophet to enter the shrine, and maltreated the envoy who was sent to them to solicit permission to visit the Kaaba. A body of the Meccans went round the, Prophets encampment with the avowed object of killing any unwary Moslem who might leave the camp. They even attacked the Prophet with stones and arrows.2 Finding the idolaters immovable, and wishful himself to end the state of warfare between the Moslems and Koraish, Mohammed expressed himself willing to agree to any terms the Meccans might feel inclined to impose. After much difficulty a treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed that all hostilities should cease for ten years ;• that any one coming from the Koraish to the Prophet without the permission of the guardian or chief, should be re-delivered to the idolaters ; that any individual from among the Moslems going over to the Meccans should not be surrendered ; that any tribe desirous of entering into alliance, either with the Koraish. or with the Moslems, should be at liberty to do so without hindrance j that the Moslems should retrace their steps on this occasion, without advancing farther ; that they should be permitted in the following, year to visit Mecca and to remain there for three days with their travelling arms, namely, their " scimitars in sheaths."3 1 Ibn-Hish&m, p. 740 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 84 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 152. Abulfeda, p. 60, mentions the number as 1400. 2 When some of these men were seized and brought before the Prophet, he pardoned and released them. Ibn-Hisham, p. 745. It was on this occasion that the Moslems took the pledge, called "The Agreeable Pledge" (Biat-ur- Rizwdn,), or "The Pledge of the Tree" (Biat-ush-Shajra). Osman being sent to the Koraish to repeat the request for permission, they seized and de- tained him. The Moslems, fearful of his murder, flocked round Mohammed, and solemnly swore to avenge his death. Ibn-Hisham, p. 746 ; Koran, sura xlviii. ver. 17 ; comp. also Muir, vol. iv. p. 32. 3 i.e. the Saldh-ur-rdkib ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 747; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 156 ; Mishkdt, bk. xvii. chap. 10, part i. It was on the occasion of this peace that a Koraishite envoy who was sent to the Moslem encampment, struck with the profound reverence and love shown to the Prophet by his followers, on his return to the Koraish, told them he had seen sovereigns like the Chosroes (Kesra), the Caesar (Kaiser), and the Negus (Najashi), surrounded with all the pomp and circumstance of royalty ; but he had never witnessed a sovereign 84 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. The moderation and magnanimity displayed by Mohammed in concluding this treaty caused some discontent among the more impulsive of his followers, in whose hearts the injuries and cruelties inflicted by the Koraish vet rankled. In virtue of the third stipula- tion of the treaty, by which the Moslems bound themselves to surrender every idolater who came over to their cause without the permission of their patron or chief, the Koraish demanded the sur- render of several of the Prophet's disciples ; and their demand was immediately complied with by Mohammed, in spite of the murmurs of some of the Moslems.1 On his return to Medina, Mohammed, in pursuance of the catholic wish by which he was inspired, that his religion should embrace all humanity,2 despatched several envoys to invite the neighbouring sovereigns and their subjects to drink of the cup of life offered to them by the Preacher of Islam. Two of the most noted embassies were to Heraclius the Emperor of the Greeks, and to Khusru Parviz, the Kesra of Persia. The King of Kings was amazed at the auda- city of the fugitive of Mecca in addressing him, the great Chosroes, on terms of equality, and enraged at what he considered the insolence of the letter, tore it to pieces, and drove the envoy from his presence with contumely. When the news of this treatment was brought to the Prophet, he quietly observed, "Thus will the empire of Kesra j be torn to pieces."3 The fulfilment of the prophecy is engraved on the pages of history. Heraclius, more polite or more reverential, treated the messenger with great respect, and returned a gracious and careful reply. Before, however, leaving Syria he tried to acquaint himself better with the character of the man who had sent him the message. With this object he is said to have sum- moned to his presence some Arab merchants who had arrived at Gaza with a caravan from Arabia. Among them was the noto- rious Abu Sufian, still one of the bitterest enemies of the Prophet. The Greek emperor appears to have questioned him with regard to Mohammed, and his replies, as preserved in the traditions, are in the midst of his subjects receiving such veneration and obedience as was paid to Mohammed by his people ; Ibn-HishSm, p. 745 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. ' p. 154 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 87 ; and Abulfeda, p. 61. 1 As women were not included in the treaty, the demand of the idolaters for the surrender of the female Moslems was peremptorily declined. 2 Koran, sura vii. vers. 157, 158. 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164. mohammed's message to heraclius and parviz 85 almost identical with the summary which Jaafar gave to the Negus of the teachings of Mohammed. " What are the doctrines Mohammed advances?" asked Heraclius of Abu Sufian. " He bids us abandon the worship of our ancient idols to adore one God ; to bestow alms ; to observe truth and purity ; to abstain from fornication and vice, and to flee abominations." Asked if his followers were increasing in number, or if they were falling off, the reply was, " his adherents are increasing incessantly, and there has not been one who has forsaken him." Another ambassador sent soon afterwards to the Ghassanide prince, a feudatory of ( Heraclius, residing at Busra, near Damascus, instead of receiving the reverence and respect due to an envoy, was cruelly murdered by another chief of the same family, and Amir of a Christian tribe subject to Byzantium. This wanton outrage on international obligations became eventually the cause of that war which placed Islam in conflict with the whole of Christendom. But of this we shall treat later. CHAPTER VII. THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH. ts ' f*£fl j o**^' fji ^* Aii U - .1) jjj) JUI J;lk; Ui THE Jewish tribes, in spite of the reverses they had already suffered were still formidable, — still busy with their machina- n „ io*-i, tions to work the destruction of the Moslems. Thev / A. H. iZhW •> April 628 to 1st possessed, at the distance of three or four days' ay A' °* journey to the north-east of Medina, a strongly fortified territory, studded with castles, the principal of which, called al-Kamus, was situated on an almost inaccessible hill. This group of fortresses was called Khaibar, a word signifying a fortified place. The population of Khaibar included several branches of the Bani- Nadhir and the Kuraizha, who had taken refuge there. The Jews of Khaibar had shown an active and implacable hatred towards Moham- med and his followers, and since the arrival of their brethren among them, this feeling had acquired greater force. The Jews of Khaibar united by an ancient alliance with the Bedouin horde of the Bani- Ghatafan, and other cognate tribes, worked incessantly for the formation of another coalition against the Moslems.1 These latter were alive to the power possessed by the desert-races to injure them, and prompt measures were needed to avert the evils of another league against Medina. Accordingly, early in the month of Muhar- ram of this year, an expedition, consisting of about 1400 men, was despatched against Khaibar. The Jews now solicited the assistance of their allies. The Banu-Fezara hastened to their support, but afraid of the Moslems turning their flank, and surprising their flocks and herds in their absence, speedily retreated. The Jews were thus left alone to bear the brunt of the war. Terms were offered to them 1 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 193, 194. THE FALL OF KHAlBAft. 8^ by the Moslems, but were refused. In spite of the most determined resistance on the part of the Jews, fortress after fortress opened its gate. At last came the turn of the redoubtable castle, al-Kamus. After a spirited defence, it also fell into the hands of the Moslems. The fate of this, their principal fortress, brought the remaining Jewish townships to see the utter futility of further resistance. They sued for forgiveness, which was accorded. Their lands and immoveable property were guaranteed to them (on condition of good conduct), together with the free practice of their religion ; and, as they were exempt from the regular taxes, the Prophet imposed upon them the duty of paying to the Commonwealth, in return for the protection they would thenceforth enjoy, half__the produce of their lands. The moveable property found in the fortresses which the Moslems reduced by regular sieges and battles, was forfeited to the army, and distribut- ed among the men according to the character of their arms ; thus, for instance, three shares were given to a horseman, whilst a foot-soldier received only one.1 Towards the end of the seventh year of the Hegira, Mohammed and his disciples availed themselves of their truce with the Koraish to accomplish the desire of their hearts2 — the pilgrimage to the holy places. This journey, in Moslem history, is reverently styled "the Pilgrimage, or Visit of Accomplishment."3 It was in March 629 that the Prophet, accompanied by 2000 Moslems, proceeded to Mecca to perform the rites of the Lesser Pilgrimage — rites which every pilgrim of Islam has now to observe. The Koraish would, however, have nothing to say to the pilgrims, and hold no converse with them. For the three days during which the ceremonies lasted, they evacuated the city, and from the summits of the neighbouring heights watched the Moslems performing the rites. " It was surely 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 764 and 773 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 169. The story of Kinana being tortured for the sake of disclosing the concealed treasures is false. Frequent attempts were made about this time to assassinate the Prophet. On his entry into Khaibar, a Jewess, animated with the same vengeful feeling as the Judith of old, spread a poisoned repast for him and some of his follow- ers. One of them died immediately after he had taken a few mouthfuls. The life of the Prophet was saved, but the poison permeated his system, and in after-life he suffered severely from its effects, and eventually died thereof. In spite of this crime, Mohammed forgave the woman, and she was allowed to remain among her people unharmed, Tibri, vol. iii. p. 104 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 170. 2 See Koran, sura xlviii, ver. 27. 3 Umrat<-id-Kazd* 88 tHE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. a strange sight," says Muir, with an unconscious thrill, "which at this time presented itself in the vale of Mekka, — a sight unique in the history of the world. The ancient city is for three days evacuated by all its inhabitants, high and low, every house deserted ; and, as they retire, the exiled converts, many years banished from their birthplace, approach in a great body, accom- panied by their allies, revisit the empty homes of their child- hood, and within the short allotted space, fulfil the rites of pilgri- mage. The outside inhabitants, climbing the heights around, take refuge under tents, or other shelter among the hills and glens ; and, clustering on the overhanging peak of Aboo-Kubeys, thence watch the movements of the visitors beneath, as with the Prophet at their head they make the circuit of the Kaabeh, and the rapid procession between Es-Safa and Marwah ; and anxiously scan every figure if perchance they may recognise among the worshippers some long- lost friend or relative. It was a scene rendered possible only by the throes which gave birth to Islam."1 In strict conformity with the terms of the treaty, they left Mecca after a sojourn of three days. This peaceful fulfilment of the day-dream of the Moslems was followed by important conversions among the Koraish. The self- restraint and scrupulous regard for their pledged word displayed by the Believers created a visible impression among the enemies of Islam. Many of those who were most violent among the Koraish in their opposition to the Prophet, men of position and influence, who had warred against him, and reviled him, struck by Mohammed's kindness of heart and nobility of nature, which overlooked all crimes against himself, adopted the Faith.2 . The murder of the Moslem envoy by a feudatory3 of the Greek emperor was an outrage which could not be passed over in silence, and unpunished. An expedition, consisting of three thousand men, was despatched to exact reparation from the Ghassanide prince. The lieutenants of the Byzantine emperor, instead of disavowing the crime, adopted it, and thus made the quarrel an imperial one. Uniting their forces, they attacked the Moslems near Muta, a village 1 Muir, Life of Mohammed, vol. iii. 402. 2 For instance, Khalid bin- Walid, who commanded the Koraish cavalry at Ohod, and Amr ibn al-Aas, famous as Amru. 3 According to Caussin de Perceval, the name of this chieftain was Shurabhil, son of Amr (and not, as Abulfeda mentions it, Amr, son of Shurabhil).— Vol. ii. p. 253, and vol. iii. p. 21 L THE FALL OF MECCA. 89 not far from Balka in Syria, the scene of the murder. The Byzan- tines and their allies were repulsed, but the disparity of numbers was too great, and the Moslems retreated to Medina.1 It was about this time that the Koraish and their allies the Banu- Bakr, in violation of the terms of peace concluded at Hudaiba, attacked the Banu-Khuzaa, who were under the protection of, and in alliance with, the Moslems. They massacred a number of the Khuzaa, and dispersed the rest. The Banu-Khuzaa brought their complaints to Mohammed, and asked for justice. The reign of iniquity and oppression had lasted long at Mecca. The Meccans had themselves violated the peace, and some of their chief men had taken part in the massacre of the Khuzaa. The Prophet immedi- ately marched ten thousand men against the idolaters. With the exception of a slight resistance by Ikrima,2 and Safwan3 at the head of their respective clans, in which several Moslems were killed, Mohammed entered Mecca almost unopposed. Thus, at length, Mohammed entered Mecca as a conqueror. He, who was once a fugitive and persecuted, now came to prove his mission by deeds of mercy. The city which had treated him so cruelly, driven him and his faithful band for refuge amongst strangers, which had sworn his life and the lives of his devoted disciples, lay at his feet. His old persecutors, relentless and ruthless who had dis- graced humanity by inflicting cruel outrages upon inoffensive men and women, and even upon the lifeless dead, were now completely at his mercy. But in the hour of triumph every evil suffered was forgotten, every injury inflicted was forgiven, and a general amnesty was extended to the population of Mecca. Only four criminals, " whom justice condemned/' made up Mohammed's proscription list when he entered as a conqueror the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered gently and peaceably ; no house was robbed, no woman was insulted. Most truly has it been said that through all the annals of conquest, there has been no triumphant entry like unto this one. But the idols of the nation 1 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 211 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 178-180. In this battle, Zaid, the son of Harith, who commanded the Moslem troops, Jaafar, a cousin of Mohammed, and several other notables were killed. 2 The son of Abil Jahl, who fell at Badr. 3 The son of Ommeyya. 12 90 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. were unrelentingly struck down. Sorrowfully the idolaters stood round and watched the downfall of the images they worshipped. And then dawned upon them the truth, when they heard the old voice, at which they were wont to scoff and jeer, cry, as he struck down the idols, f Truth has come, and falsehood vanisheth ; verily falsehood is evanescent," x how utterly powerless were their gods ! After destroying these ancient idols and abolishing every pagan rite, Mohammed delivered a sermon to the assembled people. He dwelt first upon the natural equality and brotherhood of mankind, in the words of the Koran,2 and then proceeded as follows : " Descend- ants of Koraish, how do you think I should act towards you ? " " With kindness and pity, gracious brother and nephew," replied they.3 At these words, says Tibri, tears came into the eyes of the Prophet, and he said, " I shall speak to you as Joseph spake unto his brothers, ' I shall not reproach you to-day ; God will forgive,' He is the most merciful and compassionate/' 4 And now was enacted a scene of which there is no parallel in the history of the world. Hosts upon hosts came and adopted the religion of Mohammed. Seated on the hill of Safa, he received the old pledge, exacted before from the Medinites : " They would not adore anything ; they would not commit larceny, adultery, or infan- ticide ; they would not utter falsehood, nor speak evil of women." s Thus were the words of the Koranic prophecy fulfilled, " When arrives victory and assistance from God, and seest thou men enter in hosts the religion of God, then utter the praise of thy Lord, and implore His pardon ; for He loveth to turn in mercy (to those who seek Him)." 6 Mohammed now saw his Mission all but completed. His principal disciples were despatched in every direc- tion to call the wild tribes of the desert to Islam, and with strict injunctions to preach peace and good-will. Only in case of violence were they to defend themselves. These injunctions were loyally obeyed with one exception. The men of Khalid bin-Walid, under the orders of this fierce and newly-converted warrior, killed a 1 Koran, sura xvii. ver. 83 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 192. 2 Koran, sura xlix. ver. 13. 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 821 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 134. 4 Koran, sura xii. ver. 32. 5 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 192 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 234. 6 Koran, sura ex ; comp. Zamakhshari (the Kasshdf), Egypt, ed., pt. ii. pp. 490, 491. The verse is given at the head of chapter ix post. THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH. Qt few of the Bani Jazima1 Bedouins, apparently mistaking them for hostile soldiers ; but the other Moslems interfering, prevented further massacre. The news of this wanton bloodshed deeply grieved the Prophet, and he cried, raising his hands towards heaven, " O Lord ! I am innocent of what Khalid has done." He immediately des- patched Ali to make every possible reparation to the Bani Jazima for the outrage committed on them. This was a mission congenial to Ali's nature, and he executed it faithfully. He made careful inquiries as to the number of persons killed by Khalid, their status, and the losses incurred by their families, and paid the Dial strictly. When every loss was made good, he distributed the remainder of the money he had brought among the kinsmen of the victims and other members of the tribe, gladdening every heart, says the chronicler, by his gentleness and benevolence. Carrying with him the blessings of the whole people, he returned to the Prophet, who overwhelmed him with thanks and praises.2 The formidable Bedouin tribes, the Hawazin, the Thaktf,3 and various others who pastured their flocks on the territories bordering Mecca, and some of whom possessed strongly fortified towns like Tayef, unwilling to render obedience to the Moslems without resist- ance, formed a league, with the intention of overwhelming Moham- med before he could make preparations to repulse their attack. His vigilance, however, disappointed them. After a well-contested battle fought near Hunain, a deep and narrow defile about ten miles to the north-east of Mecca,4 the idolaters were defeated with great loss.5 Separating their forces, one body of the enemy, consisting principally of the Thakif, took refuge in their city of Tayef, which only eight or nine years before had driven the Prophet from within its walls with insults ; the rest fled to a fortified camp in the valley of the Autas. This was forced, and the families of the Hawazin, with all i With a j {zdl). 2 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 834, 835 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 195 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 141. 3 With a d> 4 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 248 ; in the Kdmus, Hunain is merely said to be on the road from Mecca to Tayef. In the Mujam id-Bulddn the dis- tance between Mecca and Hunain (lying to the south of Zu'l Majaz) is given as three nights' journey, Vol II p. 35. 5 This battle is referred to in the Koran, sura ix. vers. 25, 26 ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 846 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol, ii. pp. 200, 201. 92 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. their worldly effects, — their flocks and herds, — fell into the hands of the Moslems. Tayef was then besieged, but after a few days Mohammed raised the siege, well knowing that the pressure of circumstances would soon force the Tayefites to submit without bloodshed. Returning to the place where the captured Hawazin were left for safety, he found a deputation from this powerful tribe awaiting his return to solicit the restoration of their families. Aware of the sensitiveness of the Arab nature regarding their rights, Mohammed replied to the Bedouin deputies that he could not force his people to abandon all the fruits of their victory, and that they must at least forfeit their effects if they would regain their families. To this they consented, and the following day, when Mohammed was offering the mid-day prayers,1 with his disciples ranged behind him, they came and repeated the request: "We supplicate the Prophet to intercede with the Moslems, and the Moslems to inter- cede with the Prophet, to restore us our women and children." Mohammed replied to the deputies, "My own share in the captives, and that of the children of Abd ul-Muttalib, I give you back at once/' His disciples, catching his spirit, instantaneously followed his example, and six thousand people were in a moment set free.2 This generosity won the hearts of many of the Thakif,s who tendered their allegiance, and became earnest Moslems. The incident which followed after the distribution of the forfeited flocks and herds of the •Hawazin, shows not only the hold the Prophet^ had over the hearts of the Medinites, and the devotion he inspired them with, but it also proves that at no period of his career had he any material reward to offer to his disciples. In the division of the spoil a larger propor- tion fell to the share of the newly-converted Meccans than to the people of Medina. Some of the Ansar looked upon this as an act of partiality, and their discontent reaching the ear of the Prophet, he ordered them to be assembled. He then addressed them in these l Tibri says morning prayer, vol. iii. p. 155. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 877 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 206 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 155. 3 The people of Tayef were so called. The story told by IVtuir (vol. iv. p. 149), as a curious illustration of the Prophet's mode of life, is apocryphal. It must be remembered, firstly, that the division of the booty had not taken place, and consequently the Prophet could not have given away as gift part of his own share ; but this he had promised to the deputies (before the division) to restore to the Hawazin. The story is a fabrication, and utterly worthless. THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH. 93 words : "Ye Ansar, I have learnt the discourse ye hold among your- selves. When I came amongst you, 'you were wandering in dark- ness, and the Lord gave you the right direction ; you were suffering, and He made you happy ; at enmity amongst yourselves, and He has filled your hearts with brotherly love and concord. Was it not so, tell me ?" "Indeed, it is even as thou sayest," was the reply ; "to the Lord and His Prophet belong benevolence and grace." " Nay, by the Lord," continued the Prophet, " but ye might have answered, and answered truly, for I would have testified to its truth myself. ' Thou earnest to us rejected as an impostor, and we believed in thee ; thou earnest as a helpless fugitive, and we assisted thee : poor, and an outcast, and we gave thee an asylum; comfortless, and we solaced thee.' Ye Ansar, why disturb your hearts because of the things of this life ? Are ye not satisfied that others should obtain the flocks and the camels, while ye go back unto your homes with me in your midst ? By Him who holds my life in His hands, I shall never abandon you. If all mankind went one way and the Ansar another, verily I would join the Ansar. The Lord be favourable unto them, and bless them, and their children, and their children's children ! " At these words, says the chronicler, they all wept until the tears ran down upon their beards. And they all cried with one voice, " Yea, Prophet of God, we are well] satisfied with our share. " Thereupon they retired happy and contented.1 Mohammed soon after returned to Medina. 1 Ibn-Hish&m, p. 886 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 208 ; Abulfeda, p. 82. CHAPTER VIII. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS. (V— b OiU' b £ 9o* ^ ' c ' cm* 4# ^/-^ ail) Axrj) U c'j <• o *• i C * C ^ o ^ c*' o " 1 ^ dU» l^lV* UI^n^ui U.J *£aJ • Kasidat-ul-Burda. * 9 * S f o fi , , Banat SuAd. THE ninth year of the Hegira was noted for the embassies which nocked into Medina to render homage to the Prophet of Islam. The cloud which so long had rested over 9 A. H. 20th this land, with its wild chivalry, its blood-feuds, April 630 to 9th . ' , , . • ; f April 631 A. C. and its heathenism, is now lilted ror ever, lne age of barbarism is past. The conquest of Mecca decided the fate of idolatry in Arabia. The people, who still regarded with veneration those beautiful moon- goddesses, Manat, Lat, and Uzza, and their peculiar cult, were painfully awakened by the fall of its stronghold. Among the wild denizens of the desert the moral effect of the submission of the Meccans was great. Deputations began to arrive from all sides to tender the allegiance and adherence of tribes hitherto most inimical THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS. 95 to the Moslems.1 The principal companions of the Prophet, and the leading citizens of Medina, at his request, received these envoys in their houses, and entertained them with the time-honoured hospitality of the Arabs. On departure, they always received an ample sum for the expenses of the road, with some additional presents, corresponding to their rank. A written treaty, guaranteeing the privileges of the tribe, was often granted, and a teacher invariably accompanied the departing guests to instruct the newly-converted people in the duties of Islam, and to see that every remnant of idolatry was obliterated from their midst. Whilst thus engaged in consolidating the tribes of Arabia under the new gospel, the great Seer was alive to the dangers which threatened the new confederation from outside. The Byzantines seem about this time to have indulged in those dreams of Arabian conquests which had, once before, induced the founder of the Roman empire to despatch expeditions into that country.* Heraclius had returned to his dominions elated by his victories over the Persians. His political vision could not have been blind to the strange events which were taking place in Arabia, and he had probably not forgotten the repulse of his lieutenants, at the head of a large army, by a handful of Arabs. During his stay in Syria he had directed his feudatories to collect an overwhelming force for the invasion of Arabia. The news of these preparations was soon brought to Medina, and caused some consternation among the Moslems. If the report was true it meant a serious danger to the Islamic commonwealth. Volunteers were summoned from all quarters to repel the threatened attack. Unfortunately, a severe drought had lately afflicted Hijaz and Najd ; the date crops had been ruined, and the beasts of burden had died in large numbers ; and the country people at large were unwilling to engage at this junc- ture on an expedition far from their homes. To some, the time of the year seemed unseasonable ; whilst the intensity of the heat, the hardships of the journey and the marvellous stories regarding the power of the Byzantine empire added largely to the fears of the timorous. Many applied to be exempted from service ; and the Prophet acceded to the prayers of those who were either too weak l Ibn-Hisham, p. 934 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 219. 2 1 allude to the expedition of /Elius Gallus under Augustus. 96 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. or too poor to take up arms or leave their homes, and such others as had no one besides themselves to look after their families.1 The unwillingness of the lukewarm was aggravated by the machi- nations of the Munafikin, who spared no endeavours to fan it into discontent.2 The example, however, of the principal disciples and other sincere followers of the Faith, infused vitality into the hearts of the timorous, and shamed the backsliders into enthusiasm which soon spread among the people. Contributions poured in from all sides. Abu Bakr offered all he possessed towards the expenses of the expedition ; Osman equipped and supplied at his own expense a large body of volunteers, and the other prominent and affluent Moslems were equally generous. The women brought their ornaments and jewelleries and besought the Prophet to accept the same for the needs of the State. A sufficient force was eventually collected,3 and accompanied by the Prophet the volunteers marched towards the frontier. During his absence from Medina the Prophet left Ali in charge of the city. The Munafikin, with Abdullah ibn-Ubbay, had pro- ceeded with the army as far as " the Mount of Farewell," * but they quietly fell back from there and returned to the city. Here they spread the report that the Prophet had not taken his cousin with him as he was apprehensive of the dangers of the expedition. Stung by the malicious rumour, Ali seized his arms and hastened after the army. Overtaking the troops, he told the Prophet what he had heard. Mohammed pronounced it to be a base calumny. " I have appointed thee my Vicegerent (Khalifa) and left thee in my stead. Return then to thy post, and be my deputy over my people and thine. O Ali, art thou not content that thou art to me what Aaron was to Moses."5 Ali accordingly returned to Medina. 1 These were called the cd-Bahdun, the Weepers, as they were distressed by their inability to join in the sacred enterprise of repelling a dangerous enemy — Ibn Hisham p. 791. 2 The machination of the Disaffected are censured in Sura IX, v. 82. These secret conspirators had for their rendezvous the house of a Jew named Suwailim near the suburb of J&sum. This house was ultimately rased to the ground. It was at this time that the great Teacher made the prophecy that there will always be Munafikin in Islam to thwart the endeavours of the true followers of the Faith to do good to their people. 3 It was called the Jaish-ul-usra, " the army of distress," owing to the difficulties with which it was collected. 4 Siniat-td-Wadda with a ^ Mujam ul-Bulddn vol. I p. 937. "' Jl£j THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS. 97 The sufferings of the troops from heat and thirst were intense. After a long and painful march they reached Tabuk, a place situated midway between Medina and Damascus,1 where they halted. Here they learnt to their amazement, and perhaps to their relief, that the apprehended attack was a Grecian dream, and that the emperor had his hands full at home. Finding, therefore, nothing at the moment to threaten the safety of the Medinite commonwealth, the Prophet ordered the Moslems to retrace their steps.2 After a sojourn of twenty days at Tabuk, where they found abundance of water for themselves and forage for their famished beasts of burden, the Moslems returned to Medina in the month of Ramazan.s The Prophet's return to Medina was signalised by the arrival of a deputation from the refractory and hard-hearted idolaters of Tayef, the very people who had driven the poor Preacher from their midst with insults and violence. Orvva, the Tayefite chief, who had been to Mecca after the Hudaiba incident as the Koraishite envoy, was so impressed with the words of the Teacher and his kindness, that shortly after the accomplishment of his mission he had come to the Prophet and embraced his religion. Though repeatedly warned by Mohammed of the dangers he ran among the bigoted of his city, he hastened back to Tayef to proclaim his abjuration of idolatry, and to invite his fellow-citizens to share in the blessings imparted by the new Faith. Arriving in the evening, he made public his conversion and called upon the people to join him. The following morning he again addressed them ; but his words roused the priests and worship- pers of Uzza into frenzy, and they literally stoned him to death. With his dying breath he said he had offered up his blood unto his i*Ua| ) ^Lki ji ^iiU.li £*.){$ ^A) j vs*Ty U «JUftK J&j fjj* &jM *&H lS^ && ^ 15^ ^ \J*°? **' p. 897. According to the Shiahs, the Prophet distinctly indicated in these words that Ali should be his successor. 1 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 285, 286. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 904 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 215 ; Abulfeda, p. 85. 3 According to C. de Perceval, middle of December 630 A. C. Chapter iv. of the Koran treats vividly of these events. At Tabuk Mohammed receiv- ed the submission of many of the neighbouring chiefs ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 215. 13 98 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Master for the good of his people, and he thanked God for the honour of martyrdom, and as a last wish prayed his friends to bury him by the side of the Moslems who had fallen at Hunain.1 The dying words of Orwa had a greater effect upon his compatriots than all his endeavours whilst living. The martyr's blood blossomed into faith in the hearts of his murderers. Seized with sudden compunction, perhaps also wearying of their hostility with the tribes of the desert, the Tayefites sent the deputation to which we have referred above, to pray for forgiveness and permission to enter the circle of Islam. They begged, however, for a short respite for their idols. First they asked two years, then one year, and then six months, but all to no purpose. The grace of one month might surely be conceded, they urged as a last appeal. Mohammed was immovable. Islam and the idols could not exist together. They then begged for exemption from the daily prayers. Mohammed replied that without devotion religion could be nothing.2 Sorrowfully, at last, they submitted to all that was required of them. They were excused, however, from destroying the idols with their own hands, and the notorious Abu Sufian, the son of Harb, the father of the well-known Muawiyath, the Judas Iscariot of Islam, one of those who have been stigmatised as the Mnalafat ul-Kulub (the nominal be- lievers)— for they had adopted the Faith from policy, — and Mughira, the nephew of Orwa, were selected for that work. They executed their commission amidst uproarious cries of despair and grief from the women of Tayef.3 The tribe of Tay had about this lime proved recalcitrant, and their disaffection was fostered by the idolatrous priesthood. A small force was despatched under Ali to reduce them to obedience and to destroy their idols. Aadi, the son of the famous Hatim, whose gener- osity and munificence have been sung by poets and minstrels through- out the Eastern world, was the chief of his tribe. On the approach of 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 914, 915 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 216. 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 217. 3 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 917, 918 ; Tibri vol. iii. pp. 161—163. The great number of deputations received by Mohammed in the ninth year has led to its being called the " Year of Deputations ; " {ivufild, pi. of ivafad). The principal adhesions which followed immediately upon the conversion of the Thakif were of the Himyarite princes of Yemen, of Mahra, of Oman, of the country of the Bahrain, and of the tribes domiciled in Yemama. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS. 99 Ali he fled to Syria ; but his sister, with some of his principal clans- men, fell into the hands of the Moslems. They were conducted, with every mark of respect and sympathy, to Medina. Mohammed at once set the daughter of Hatim and her people at liberty, and bestowed on them many valuable gifts. She proceeded to Syria, and told her brother of the nobleness of Mohammed. Touched by gratitude, Aadi hastened to Medina to throw himself at the feet of the Prophet, and eventually embraced Islam. Returning to his people, he persuaded them to abjure idolatry ; and the Banu-Tay, once so wedded to fetishism, became thenceforth devoted followers of the religion of Mohammed.1 Another notable conversion which took place about the same time as that of the Bani-Tay is deserving of more than passing notice. Kaab ibn-Zuhair, a distinguished poet of the tribe of Mozayna, had placed himself under the ban by trying to incite hostilities against the Moslems. His brother was a Moslem and had coun- selled him strongly to renounce idolatry and embrace Islam. Kaab, following the advice of his brother, came secretly to Medina, and proceeded to the mosque where Mohammed was wont to preach. There he saw a man surrounded by Arabs listening to his words with the greatest veneration. He at once recog- nised the Prophet, and penetrating into the circle, said aloud, " Apostle of God, if I should bring before thee Kaab as a Mussalman, would you pardon him ? " " Yes," answered Mohammed. " It is I who am Kaab, the son of Zuhair." Several people around the 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 948, 949 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 218 ; Tibri, vol. ii. pp. 171-174. The conversion of Aadi occurred in Rabi II. of the ninth year (July-August, 630 A. C), and accordingly, ought to have been placed before the expedition to Tabvik. But I have followed the order of the Arab his- torians. When the daughter of Hatim, whose name was Sufana, came before the Prophet, she addressed him in the following words : ''Apostle of God, my father is dead ; my brother, mj' only relation, fled into the mountains on the approach of the Moslems. I cannot ransom myself ; it is thy generosity which I implore for my deliverance. My father was an illus- trious man, the prince of his tribe, a man who ransomed prisoners, protected the honour of women, nourished the poor, consoled the afflicted, never rejected any demand. I am Sufana, daughter of Hatim." "Thy father," answered Mohammed, "had the virtues of a Mussalman ; if it were per- mitted to me to invoke the mercy of God on any one whose life was .passed in idolatry, I would pray to God for mercy for the soul of Hatim." Then addressing the Moslems around him he said : "The daughter of Hatim is free, her father was a generous and humane man ; God loves and rewards the merciful." And with Sufana, all her people were set at liberty. The Persian poet Saadi has some beautiful lines in the Bofttdn concerning this touching episode. IOO THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Prophet wanted leave to put him to death. " No," said the Prophet, " I have given him grace/' Kaab then begged permission to recite a Kasidax (poem) which has always been considered a master- piece of Arabic poetry. When he came to the lines2 quoted at the head of this chapter, the Prophet bestowed on the poet his own mantle, which was afterwards sold by his family to Muawiyah for 40,000 dirhems, and, after passing into the hands of the Ommeyades and Abbassides, is now preserved by the Ottoman Turks.3 Hitherto no prohibition had issued against the heathens entering the Kaaba, or performing their old idolatrous rites within its sacred precincts. It was now decided to put an end to this anomalous state, and remove once for all any possibility of a relapse into idolatry on the part of those upon whom the new and pure creed hung somewhat lightly. Accordingly, towards the end of this year, during the month of pilgrimage, Ali was commissioned to read a proclamation to the assembled multitudes, on the day of the great Sacrifice, {Yeum-nn-Nahr), which should strike straight at the heart of idolatry and the immoralities attendant upon it : " No idolater shall, after this year, perform the pilgrimage ; no one shall make the circuit (of the temple) naked ;* whoever hath a treaty with the Prophet, it shall continue binding till its termination •, for the rest, l Called the Kasida of Bdnat Sudd from the opening words of the poem, which begins with the prologue usual in Arabic Kasidas. The poet tells his grief at the departure of Suad (his beloved) ; she has left him, his heart is drooping, distracted and unhappy, following her train like a captive in chains. He praises her beauty, her sweet soft voice, her bright laughter, her winsome smile. The theme suddenly changes, and the poet reaches the climax when he bursts forth into a song of praise of his great subject. The language throughout is sonorous and virile, — a quality often wanting in the poems of later times, and the rhythmical swing and cadence are maintained, with extraordinary evenness, up to the last. 2 " The Prophet is the torch which has lighted up the world ; he is the sword of God for destroying ungodliness." 3 Called the Khirkai-shartf ( the Holy Mantle) which is taken out as the national standard in times of great emergency. The Kasida of 'Bdnat Sudd, which is sometimes also called the Kasidat-ul-Burda (the Kasida of the Mantle), is different from the Kasidat-id-Burda of Abu Abdullah Mohammed ibn-Said, who flourished in the reign of Malik Zahir, which opens with the following lines : — *&4 «&• &* igfj?* l*^ yj^a-y* - pL* ^i; ^jifr- /*"> ^ ' For translation see Appendix. 4 Alluding to a disgraceful custom of the idolatrous Arabs. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS. 1 01 four months are allowed to every man to return to his territories ; after that there will exist no obligation on the Prophet, except towards those with whom treaties have been concluded."1 This " Declaration of Discharge," as it is styled by Moslem writers, was a manifestation of far-sighted wisdom on the part of the Prophet. It was impossible for the state of society and morals which then existed to continue ; the idolaters mixing year after year with the Moslem pilgrims, if allowed to perform the lascivous and degrading ceremonies of their cultus, would soon have undone what Mohammed had so laboriously accomplished. History had already seen another gifted, yet uncultured, branch of the same stock as the Arabs, settling amongst idolaters ; their leaders had tried to preserve the worship of Jehovah by wholesale butcheries of the worshippers of Baal. They had failed miserably. The Israelites had not only succumbed under the evil influences which surrounded them, but had even surpassed those whom they at first despised in the practice of nameless abominations. Mohammed felt that any compromise with heathenism would nullify all his work. He accordingly adopted means seemingly harsh, but yet benignant in their ultimate tendency. The vast concourse who had listened to Ali returned to their homes, and before the following year was over the majority of them were Moslems. I lbn-Hifiham, pp. 921, 922; lbn-ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 222 ; Abulfeda, p. 87. CHAPTER IX. THE FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMEU'S MISSION. IflJ ^ Ail *;ft*i«*lj v-Jo; A»su ^^* * ^l?*' ^J DURING this year,1 as in the preceding, numerous embassies poured into Medina from every part of Arabia to „10 -,A,J?i 9L testify to the adhesion of their chiefs and their tribes. April 6.1 1 to i 29th March 632 To the teachers, whom Mohammed sent into the A C different provinces, he invariably gave the following injunctions : " Deal gently with the people, and be not harsh ; cheer them, and contemn them not. And ye will meet with many people of the books2 who will question thee, what is the key to heaven ? Reply to them [the key to heaven is] to testify to the truth of God, and to do good work."3 The Mission of Mohammed was now achieved. In the midst of a nation steeped in barbarism a Prophet had arisen "to rehearse unto them the signs of God to sanctify them, to teach them the scriptures and knowledge, — them who before had been in utter darkness. "'* He found them sunk in a degrading and sanguinary superstition ; he inspired them with the belief in one sole God of truth and love. He saw them disunited, and engaged in perpetual war with each other ; he united them by the ties of brotherhood and charity. From time immemorial the Peninsula had been wrapt in absolute 1 In the tenth year of the Hegira took place the conversions of the remain- ing tribes of Yemen and of Hijaz. Then followed the conversions of the tribes of Hazramiit and Kinda. 2 Christians, Jews, aud Zoroastrians. ? Ibn-Hisham, p, 907, 4 Koran, sura lxii, vers, 2-5, the fulfilment of mghammed's missiom. 103 moral darkness. Spiritual life was utterly unknown. Neither Judaism nor Christianity had made any lasting impression on the Arab mind. The people were sunk in superstition, cruelty, and vice. Incest and the diabolical custom of female infanticide were common. The eldest son inherited his father's widows, as property, with the rest of the estate. The worse than inhuman fathers buried alive their infant daughters ; and this crime, which was most rife among the tribes of Koraish and Kinda, was regarded, as among the Hindoo Rajpoots, as a mark of pride. The idea of a future existence, and of retribution of good and evil, were, as motives of human action, practically unknown. Only a few years before, such was tHe condition of Arabia. What a change had these few years witnessed ! The angel of heaven had veritably passed over the land, and breathed harmony and love into the hearts of those who had hitherto been engrossed in the most revolting practices of semi- barbarism. What had once been a moral desert, where all laws, human and divine, were contemned and infringed without remorse, was now transformed into a garden. Idolatry, with its nameless abominations, was utterly destroyed. Islam furnishes the only solitary example of a great religion which though preached among a nation and reigning for the most part among a people not yet emerged from the dawn of an early civilisation, has succeeded in effectually restraining its votaries from idolatry. . This phenomenon has been justly acknowledged as the pre-eminent glory of Islam, and the most remarkable evidence of the genius of its Founder. Long had Chris- tianity and Judaism tried to wean the Arab tribes from thier gross superstition, their inhuman practices, and their licentious immorality. But it was not till they heard " the spirit-stirring strains" of the "Appointed of God'* that they became conscious of the God of Truth, overshadowing the universe with His power, and love. Henceforth their aims are not of this earth alone ; there is something beyond the grave — higher, purer, and diviner — calling them to the practice of charity, goodness, justice, and universal love. God is not merely the God of to-day or of to-morrow, carved out of wood or stone, but the mighty, loving, merciful Creator of the world. Mohammed was the source, under Providence, of this new awakening, — the bright fountain from which flowed the stream of their hopes of eternity ; and to him they paid a fitting obedience and reverence. They were all 104 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. animated with one desire, namely, to serve God in truth and purity; to obey His laws reverently in all the affairs of life. The truths and maxims, the precepts which, from time to time during the past twenty years. Mohammed had delivered to his followers, were embalmed in their hearts, and had become the ruling principles of every action. Law and morality were united* "Never, since the days when primitive Christianity startled the world from its sleep, and waged a mortal conflict with heathenism, had men seen the like arousing of spiritual life, — the like faith that suffered sacrifices, and took joyfully the spoiling of goods for conscience' sake."1 The Mission of Mohammed was now accomplished. And in this fact, — the fact of the whole work being achieved in his lifetime — lies his distinctive superiority over the prophets, sages, and philosophers ot other times and other countries. Jesus, Moses, Zoroaster, Sakya- Muni, Plato, all had their notions of realms of God, their republics, their ideas, through which degraded humanity was to be elevated into a new moral life ; all had departed from this world with their aspira- tions unfulfilled, their bright visions unrealised ; or had bequeathed the task of elevating their fellow-men to sanguinary disciples or monarch pupils.2 It was reserved for Mohammed to fulfil his mis- sion, and that of his predecessors. It was reserved for him alone to see accomplished the work of amelioration, — no royal disciple came to his assistance with edicts to enforce the new teachings. May not the Moslem justly say, the entire work was the work of God ? The humble preacher, who had only the other day been hunted out of the city of his birth, and been stoned out of the place where he had betaken himself to preach God's words, had, within the short space of nine years, lifted up his people from the abysmal depths of moral and spiritual degradation to a conception of purity and justice. His life is the noblest record of a work nobly and faithfully performed. He infused vitality into a dormant people ; he consoli- dated a congeries of warring tribes into a nation inspired into action with the hope of everlasting life ; he concentrated into a focus all the fragmentary and broken lights which had ever fallen on the 1 Muir, vol. ii. p. 269. Coming from an avowed enemy of Islam, this observation is of the utmost value. 2 A Joshua among the Israelites ; an Asoka among the Buddhists ; a Darius among the Zoroastrians ; a Constantine among the Christians. THE FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED S MISSION. 10*5 heart of man. Such was his work, and he performed it with an enthusiasm and fervour which admitted no compromise, conceived no halting ; with indomitable courage which brooked no resistance, and allowed no fear of consequences ; with a singleness of purpose which thought of no self. The religion of divine unity preached on the shores of Galilee had given place to the worship of an incarnate God ; the old worship of a female deity had revived among those who professed the creed of the Master of Nazareth. The Recluse of Hira, the unlettered philosopher, — born among a nation of unyielding idolaters, — impressed inefraceably the unity of God and the equality of men upon the minds of the nations who once heard his voice. His " democratic thunder ° was the signal for the uprise of the human intellect against the tyranny of priests and rulers. In "that world of wrangling creeds and oppressive institutions," when the human soul was crush- ed under the weight of unintelligible dogmas, and the human body trampled under the tyranny of vested interests, he broke down the barriers of caste and exclusive privileges. He swept away with his breath the cobwebs which self-interest had woven in the path of man to God. He abolished all exclusiveness in man's relations to his. Creator. This unlettered Prophet, whose message was for the masses, proclaimed the value of knowledge and learning. By the Pen, man's works are recorded. By the Pen, man is to be judged. The Pen is the ultimate arbiter of human actions in the sight of the Lord. His persistent and unvarying appeal to reason and to the ethical faculty of mankind, his rejection of miracles, " his thoroughly democratic conception of the divine government, the universality of his religious ideal, his simple humanity," — all serve to differentiate him from his predecessors, "all affiliate him/' says the author of Oriental Religions, " with the modern world." His life and work are not wrapt in mystery. No fairy tale has been woven round his personality. When the hosts of Arabia came nocking to join his faith, Mohammed felt that his work was accomplished, x and under the impression of his approaching end, he determined to make a farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. On the 25th of Zu'1-Kaada (23rd February 1 Koran, sura ex. 14 106 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 632), the Prophet left Medina with an immense concourse of Moslems.1 On his arrival at Mecca, and before completing all the rites of the pilgrimage, he addressed the assembled multitude from the top of the Jabl ul- Arafat (8th Zu'1-Hijja, 7th March), in words which should ever live in the hearts of all Moslems. " Ye people ! listen to my words, for I know not whether another year will be vouchsafed to me after this year to find myself amongst you at this place.'' " Your lives and property are sacred and inviolable amongst one another until ye appear before the Lord, as this day and this month is sacred for all ; and (remember) ye shall have to appear before your Lord, who shall demand from you an account of all your actions. . . . Ye people, ye have rights over your wives, and your wives have rights over you. . . . Treat your wives with kindness and love. Verily ye have taken them on the security of 'God, and have made their persons lawful unto you by the words of God." "Keep always faithful to the trust reposed in you, and avoid sins.5' "Usury is forbidden.2 The debtor shall return only the principal ; and the beginning will be made with [the loans of ] of my uncle Abbas, son of Abd ul-Muttalib.3... Henceforth the vengeance of blood practised in the days of Paganism (Jdhilyat) is prohibited ; and all blood-feud abolished, commencing with the murder of my cousin Rabia4 son of Harith son of Abd ul-Muttalib . . . "And your slaves ! See that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear ; and if they commit a fault which ye are not inclined to forgive, then part from 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 966 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 230. It is said that from 90,000 to 140, 000 people accompanied the Prophet. This pilgrimage is called the Hajjat-ul-Baldgh the Great Hajj, or Hajjat-ul-Isldm, the Hajj of Islam, and sometimes Hajjat-ul- Wadda, Pilgrimage of Farewell. 2 Ribd or interest in kind was prohibited, but not legitimate profit on advances or loans for purposes of business or trade. No one who realises the economic condition of Arabia can fail to appreciate the wisdom of this rule. In fact the same reasons which impelled the great Prophet to forbid usury in his country, induced the Christian divines, upto nearly the end of the 17th century of the Christian era, to anathematise against usury. The elder Disraeli's chapter on this subject in his " Curiosities of Literature" is most interesting. 3 This shows that Abbas must have been a capitalist. In the application of the rule against Ribd and blood-fued, the Prophet set to his fiery people the example of self-denial in his own family. 4 Rabia was confided during his infancy, to the care of a family of the Bani Lais. This child was cruelly murdered by members of the tribe of Huzail but the murder was not yet avenged. THE FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED S MISSION. 107 them, for they are the servants of the Lord, and are not to be harshly, treated." " Ye people ! listen to m> words and understand the same. Know that all Moslems are "brothers unto one another. Ye are one brotherhood. Nothing which belongs to another is lawful unto his brother, unless freely given out of good-will. Guard yourselves from committing injustice." " Let him that is present tell it unto him that is absent. Haply he that shall be told may remember better than he who hath heard it/'1 This Sermon on the Mount, less poetically beautiful, certainly less mystical, than the other, appeals by its practicality and strong common sense to higher minds, and is also adapted to the capacity and demands of inferior natures which require positive and compre- hensible directions for moral guidance. Towards the conclusion of the sermon, Mohammed, overpowered by the sight of the intense enthusiasm of the people as they drank in his words, exclaimed, " O Lord ! I have delivered my message and accomplished my work." The assembled host below with one voice cried, "Yea, verily thou hast." " O Lord, I beseech Thee, bear Thou witness unto it." With these words the Prophet finished his address, which, according to the traditions, was remarkable for its length, its eloquence, and enthusiasm. Soon after, the necessary rites of the pilgrimage being finished, the Prophet returned with his followers to Medina.2 The last year of Mohammed's life was spent in that city. He settled the organisation of the provinces and tribal M* h 632 to communities which had adopted Islam and become 18th March 633 the component parts of the Moslem federation. In A C fact, though the Faith had not penetrated among the 1 After each sentence the Prophet stopped and his words were repeated in a stentorian voice by Rabia son of Ommeyya son of Khalaf who stood below, so that whatever was said was heard by the entire assembled host. 2 Abdullah the son of Ubbay, the head of the Munafikin died in the month of Zu'l Kaada (February 631 A. C. ). In his last moments he solicited the Prophet to say the funeral prayers over him. Mohammed who never rejected the wishes of a dying man, against the remonstrances of Omar, who reminded him of the persistent opposition and calumny of Abdullah, offered the prayers and with his own hands lowered the body into the grave. 108 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. Arab races settled in Syria and Mesopotamia, most of whom were Christians, the whole of Arabia now followed the Islamic Faith. Officers were sent to the provinces and to the various tribes for the purpose of teaching the people the duties of Islam, administering justice, and collecting the tithes or zakdt. Muaz ibn-Jabal was sent to Yemen, and Mohammed's parting injunction to him was to rely on his own judgment in the administration of affairs in the event of not finding any authority in the Koran. To Ali, whom he deputed to Yemama, he said, " When two parties come before you for justice, do not decide before hearing both." Preparations were also commenced for sending an expedition under Osama, the son of Zaid, who was killed at Muta, against the Byzantines to exact the long-delayed reparation for the murder of the envoy in Syria. In fact, the troops were already encamped outside the city ready for the start. But the poison which had been given to the Prophet by the Jewess at Khaibar, and which had slowly pene- trated his system, began now to show its effects, and it became evident that he had not long to live. The news of his approaching end led to the stoppage of the expedition under Osama. It had also the effect of producing disorder in some of the outlying provinces. Three pretenders started up claiming divine commission for their reign of licentiousness and plunder. They gave themselves out as prophets, and tried by all kinds of imposture to win over their tribes. One of these, the most dangerous of all, was Ayhala ibn-Kaab, better known as al-Aswad (the black). He was a chief of Yemen, a man of great wealth and equal sagacity, and a clever conjuror. Among his simple tribesmen, the conjuring tricks he performed invested him with a divine character. He soon succeeded in gaining them over, and, with their help, reduced to subjection many of the neighbouring towns. He killed Shahr, who had been appointed by Mohammed to the governorship of Sana in the place of Bazan, his father, who had just died. Bazan had been the viceroy of Yemen under the Chosroes of Persia, and after his adoption of Islam was continued in his viceroyalty by the Prophet. He had during his lifetime exercised great influence, not only over his Persian compatriots settled in Yemen, who were called by the name of Abnd, but also over the Arabs of the province. His example had led to the conversion of all the Persian settlers of Yemen. Al-Aswad, the impostor, had THF LAST. ILLNESS OF THE PROPHET. IO9 massacred Shahr, and forcibly married his wife Marzbana. He was killed by the Abnd, assisted by Marzbana, when he was lying drunk, after one of his orgies. The other two pretenders, Tulaiha, son of Khuwailid, and Abu Sumama Haran, son of Habib, commonly called Mosailima, were not suppressed until the accession of Abu Bakr to the Caliphate. Mosailima had the audacity to address the Prophet in the following terms : " From Mosailima, prophet of God, to Mohammed, prophet of God, salutations ! I am your partner : the power must be divided between us : half the earth for me, the other half for your Koraishites. But the Koraishites are a grasping people, not given to justice." Mohammed's reply reveals his sterling nature. " In the name of God the merciful and compassionate, from Mohammed, the Prophet of God, to Mosailima the Liar.1 Peace is on those who follow the right path. The earth belongs to God ; He bestows it on such of his servants as He pleaseth. The future is to the pious [i.e. only those prosper who fear the Lord] ! " The last days ot the Prophet were remarkable for the calmness and serenity of his mind, which enabled him, though weak and feeble, to preside at the public prayers until within three days of his death. One night, at midnight, he went to the place where his old companions were lying in the slumber of death, and prayed and wept by their tombs, invoking God's blessings for his " companions resting in peace."' He chose Ayesha's house, close to the mosque, for his stay during his illness, and, as long as his strength lasted, took part in the public prayers. The last time he appeared in the mosque he was supported by his two cousins, AH and Fazl, the son of Abbas. A smile of inexpressible sweetness played over his countenance, and was remarked by all who surrounded him. After the usual praises and hymns to God, he addressed the multitude thus : " Moslems, if I have wronged any one of you, here I am to answer for it ; if I owe aught to any one, all I may happen to possess belongs to you." Upon hearing this, a man in the crowd rose and claimed three dirhems which he had given to a poor man at the Prophet's request. They were immediately paid back, with the words, " Better to blush in this world than in the next." The Prophet then prayed and implored heaven's mercy for those present, and for those who had 1 Kazzdb, superlative of Kdzib, HO THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. fallen in the persecutions of their enemies ; and recommended to all his people the observance of religious duties, and the practice of a life of peace and good-will, and concluded with the following words of the Koran : " The dwelling of the other life we will give unto them who do not seek to exalt themselves on earth or to do wrong ; for the happy issue shall attend the pious." x After this, Mohammed never again appeared at public prayers. His strength rapidly failed. At noon on Monday (12th of Rabi L, 11 a. h. — 8th June 632 a. c), whilst praying earnestly in whisper, the spirit of the great Prophet took flight to the " blessed companionship on high."2 So ended a life consecrated, from first to last, to the service of God and humanity. Is there another to be compared to his, with all its trials and temptations ? Is there another which has stood the fire of the world, and come out so unscathed ? The humble preacher had risen to be the ruler of Arabia, the equal of Chosroes and of Caesar, the arbiter of the destinies of a nation. But the same humility of spirit, the same nobility of soul and purity of heart, austerity of conduct, refinement and delicacy of feeling, and stern devotion to duty which had won him the title of al-Amin, combined with a severe sense of self-examination, are ever the distinguishing traits of his character. Once in his life, whilst engaged in a religious conversation with an influential citizen of Mecca, he had turned away from a humble blind seeker of the truth. He is always recurring to this incident with remorse, and proclaiming God's disapprobation.3 A nature so pure, so tender, and yet so heroic, inspires not only reverence, 1 Koran, sura xxviii. ver. 83 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 241 ; Tibri, vol. iii. p. 207 et seq. 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 1009 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 244, 245 ; Abulfeda, p. 91. Comp. Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 322 and note. 3 The Sura in connection with this incident is known by the title of " He frowned," and runs thus : — " The Prophet frowned, and turned aside, •. Because the blind man came to him. And how knowest thou whether he might not have been cleansed from his sins. Or whether he might have been admonished, and profited thereby ? As for the man that is rich, Him thou receivest graciously ; And thou carest not that he is not cleansed. But as for him that cometh unto thee earnestly seeking his salvation, THE CHARACTER OF THE PROPHET. Ill but love. And naturally the Arabian writers dwell with the proudest satisfaction on the graces and intellectual gifts of the son of Abdullah. His courteousness to the great, his affability to the humble, and his dignified bearing to the presumptuous, procured him universal respect and admiration. His countenance reflected the benevolence of his heart. Profoundly read in the volume of nature, though ignorant of letters, with an expansive mind, elevated by deep communion with the Soul of the Universe, he was gifted with the power of influencing equally the learned and the unlearned. Withal, there was a majesty in his face, an air of genius, which inspired all who came in contact with him with a feeling of veneration and love 1 His singular elevation of mind, his extreme delicacy and refine- ment of feeling, his purity and truth, form the constant theme of the traditions. He was most indulgent to his inferiors, and would never allow his awkward little page to be scolded whatever he did. "Ten years," said Anas, his servant "was I about the Prophet, and he never said so much as ' Uff ' to me." a He was very affection- ate towards his family. One of his boys died on his breast in the smoky house of the nurse, a blacksmith's wife. He was very fond of children. He would stop them in the streets, and pat their litttle cheeks. He never struck any one in his life. The worst expression he ever made use of in conversation was, " What has come to him ? May his forehead be darkened with mud ! "3 When asked to curse And trembling anxiously, him dost thou neglect. By no means shouldst thou act thus. " After this, whenever the Prophet saw the poor blind man, he used to go out of his way to do him honour, saying, "The man is thrice welcome on whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me ; " and he made him twice governor of Medina. See the remark of Bosworth Smith on Muir about this incident. 1 Mishkdt, Bk. xxiv. chap. 3, pt. 2. "■* Ibid. Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 1. 3 Ibid. Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 1. Mr. Poole's estimate of Mohammed is so beautiful and yet so truthful that I cannot resist the temptation to quote it here : " There is something so tender and womanly, and withal so heroic, about the man, that one is in peril of finding the judgment unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and well-nigh love that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone braved for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to with- draw his hand from another's clasp ; the beloved of children, who never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and a kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice. The frank friend- ship, the noble generosity, the dauntless courage and hope of the man, all tend to melt criticism into admiration." 112 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED. some one, he replied, " I have not been sent to curse, but to be a mercy to mankind. " He visited the sick, followed very bier he met, accepted the invita- tion of a slave to dinner, mended his own clothes, milked his goats, and waited upon himself, relates summarily another tradition.1 He never first withdrew his hand out of another's palm, and turned not before the other had turned. His hand was the most generous, his breast the most courageous, his tongue the most truthful ; he was the most faithful protector of those he protected ; the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation j those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence ; those who came near him loved him ; they who described him would say, " I have never seen his like, either before or after." He was of great taciturnity ; and when he spoke, he spoke with emphasis and deliberation, and no one could ever forget what he said. " Modesty and kindness, patience, self-denial, and generosity pervaded his conduct, and riveted the affections of all around him. With the bereaved and afflicted he sympathised tenderly. . . . He shared his food even in times of scarcity with others, and was sedulously solicitous for the personal comfort of every one about him." He would stop in the streets listening to the sorrows of the humblest. He would go to the houses of the lowliest to console the afflicted and to comfort the heart-broken. The meanest slaves would take hold of his hand and drag him to their masters to obtain redress for ill-treatment or release from bondage,2 He never sat down to a meal without first invoking a blessing, and never rose without uttering a thanks-giving. His time was regularly apportioned. During the day, when not engaged in prayers, he " He was an enthusiast in that noblest sense when enthusiasm becomes the salt of the earth, the one thing that keeps men from rotting whilst they live. Enthusiasm is often used despitefully, because it is joined to an unworthy cause, or falls upon barren ground and bears no fruit. So was it not with Mohammed. He was an enthusiast when enthusiasm was the one thing needed to set the world aflame, and his enthusiasm was noble for a noble cause. He was one of those happy few who have attaired the supreme joy of making one great truth their very life-spring. He was Lhe messenger of the one God ; and never to his life's end did he forget who he was, or the message which was the marrow of his being. He brought his tidings to his people with a grand dignity sprung from the consciousness of his high office, together with a most sweet humility, whose roots lay in the knowledge of his own weakness." 1 Mishkdt, Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 2. 2 Hyat-ul-Kvlub (Shiah) and the Rouzat-ul-Ahbab (Sunni). THE CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 113 received visitors and transacted public affairs. At night he slept little, spending most of the hours in devotion. He loved the poor and respected them, and many who had no home or shelter of their own slept at night in the mosque contiguous to his house. Each evening it was his custom to invite some of them to partake of his humble fare. The others became the guests of his principal disciples.1 His conduct towards the bitterest of his enemies was marked by a noble clemency and forbearance. Stern, almost to severity, to the enemies of the State, mockings, affronts, outrages, and persecutions towards himself were, in the hour of triumph — synonymous with the hour of trial to the human heart — all buried in oblivion, and forgiveness was extended to the worst criminal. Mohammed was extremely simple in his habits. His mode of life, his dress and his furniture, retained to the very last a character of patriarchal simplicity. Many a time, Abu Huraira reports, had the Prophet to go without a meal. Dates and water frequently formed his only nourishment. Often, for months together, no fire could be lighted in his house from scantiness of means. God, say the Moslem historians, had indeed put before him the key to the treasures of this world, but he refused it ! 1 Abulfeda, p. 99. 15 PART II. THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM CHAPTER I. ISLAM. .?. v_S rs\j Axils ti A xJ J c^.Jai (f o ' & ' Sri* * »y ii ju; J.; hoJj i j] •• s * ' ■■ ■ " loo • O O-^ft - O 'G 'jS 'it\s\i ,-AxUsU (VSk.ll *; ,** THE religion of Jesus bears the name of Christianity, derived from his designation of Christ ; that of Moses and of Buddha are known by the respective names of their teachers. The religion of Mohammed alone has a distinctive appellation. It is Islam. In order to form a just appreciation of the religion of Mohammed it is necessary to understand aright the true significance of the word Islam. Salam (sa/ama), in its primary sense, means, to be tranquil, at rest, to have done one's duty, to have paid up, to "be at perfect peace ; in its secondary sense, to surrender oneself to Him with whom peace is made. The noun derived from it means peace, greeting, safety, salvation. The word does not imply, as is i For translation, see Appendix. Il8 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. commonly supposed, absolute submission to God's will, but means, on the contrary, striving after righteousness. The essence of the ethical principles involved and embodied in Islam is thus summarised in the second chapter of the Koran : "There is no doubt in this book — a guidance to the pious, who believe in the Unseen, who observe the prayers, and distribute (charity) out of what We have bestowed on them ; and who believe in that which We have commissioned thee with, and in that We commissioned others with before thee, and who have assurance in the life to come ; — these have received the direction of their Lord." l The principal bases on which the Islamic system is founded are (i) a belief in the unity, immateriality, power, mercy, and supreme love of the Creator ; (2) charity and brotherhood among mankind ; (3) subjugation of the passions ; (4) the outpouring of a grateful heart to the Giver of all good ; and (5) accountability for human actions in another existence. The grand and noble conceptions expressed in the Koran of the power and love of the Deity surpass everything of their kind in any other language. The unity of God, His im- materiality, His majesty, His mercy, form the constant and never- ending theme of the most eloquent and soul-stirring passages. The flow of life, light, and spirituality never ceases. But throughout there is no trace of dogmatism. Appeal is made to the inner conscious- ness of man, to his intuitive reason alone. Let us now take a brief retrospect of the religious conceptions of the peoples of the world when the Prophet of Islam commenced his preachings. Among the heathen Arabs the idea of Godhead varied according to the culture of the individual or of the clan. With some it rose, comparatively speaking, to the " divinisation " or deification of nature ; among others it fell to simple fetishism, the adoration of a piece of dough, a stick, or a stone. Some believed in a future life ; others had no idea of it whatever. The pre-Islamite Arabs had their groves, their oracle-trees, their priestesses, like the Syro-Phoenicians. Phallic worship was not unknown to them ; and the generative powers received adoration, like the hosts of heaven, under monuments of stone and wood. The wild denizens of the desert, then as now, could not be impervious to the idea of some unseen hand driving the blasts 1 Koran, sura ii. 1-6. islAm. 119 which swept over whole tracts, or forming the beautiful visions which rose before the traveller to lure him to destruction. And thus there floated in the Arab world an intangible, unrealised conception of a superior deity, the Lord of all.1 The Jews, those great conservators of the monotheistic idea, as they have been generally regarded in history, probably might have assisted in the formation of this conception. But they themselves showed what strange metamorphoses can take place in the thoughts of a nation when not aided by a historical and rationalistic element in their religious code. The Jews had entered Arabia at various times, and under the pressure of various circumstances. Naturally, the conceptions of the different bodies of emigrants, refugees, or colonists would vary much. The ideas of the men driven out by the Assyrians or Babylonians would be more anthropomorphic, more anthropopathic, than of those who fled before Vespasian, Trajan, or Hadrian. The characteristics which had led the Israelites repeatedly to lapse into idolatry in their original homes, when seers were in their midst to denounce their backslidings, would hardly preserve them from the heathenism of their Arab brothers. With an idea of "the God of Abraham" they would naturally combine a materialistic conception of the deity, and hence we find them rearing "a statue representing Abraham, with the ram beside him ready for sacrifice," in the interior of the Kaaba. Amongst the later comers the Shammaites and the Zealots formed by far the largest proportion. Among them the worship of the law verged upon idolatry, and the Scribes and Rabbins claimed a respect almost approaching adoration. They believed themselves to be the guardians of the people, the preservers of law and tradition, "living exemplars and mirrors, in which the true mode of life, according to the law, was preserved. v2 They looked upon themselves as the "flower of the nation," and they were considered, through their inter- course with God, to possess the gift of prophecy. In fact, by their people as well as bv themselves they were regarded as the prime 1 Shahristani ; Tiele calls the religion of the pre-Islamite Arabs "animistic do lydsemonism . " 2 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 308. 120 IrtE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. favourites of God.1 The veneration of the Jews for Moses went so far, says Josephus, that they reverenced his name next to that of God ; and this veneration they transferred to Ezra, the restorer of national life and law under the Kyanian dynasty.2 Besides, the mass of the Jews had never, probably, thoroughly abandoned the worship of the Teraphim, a sort of household gods made in the shape of human beings, and consulted on all occasions as domestic oracles, or regarded perhaps more as guardian penates.3 This worship must have been strengthened by contact with the heathen Arabs. When Jesus made his appearance in Judaea, the doctrine of divine unity and of a supreme Personal Will, overshadowing the universe with its might and grace, received acceptance only among one race — the worshippers of Jehovah. And even among them, despite all efforts to the contrary, the conception of the divinity had either deteriorated by contact with heathen nations, or become modi- fied by the influence of pagan philosophies. On the one hand, Chaldaso-magian philosophy had left its finger-mark indelibly im- pressed on the Jewish traditions ; on the other, their best minds, whilst introducing among the Greek and Roman philosophers the conception of a great Primal Cause, had imbibed, in the schools of Alexandria, notions hardly reconcilable with their monotheistic creed. The Hindoos, with their multitudinous hordes of gods and goddesses ; the Mago-Zoroastrians, with their two divinities strug- gling for mastery ; the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, with their pantheons full of deities whose morality was below that of the worshippers, — such was the condition of the civilised world when Jesus commenced his preachings. With all his dreams and aspira- tions, his mind was absolutely exempt from those pretensions which have been fixed on him by his over-zealous followers. He never claimed to be a '•complement of God," to be a "hypostasis of the Divinity." Even modern idealistic Christianity has not been able yet to shake itself free from the old legacy bequeathed by the anthro- l Josephus, Antiquities, xvii. 24. They were, so to speak, the Brahmins Judaism. Ezra vii. 10 et seq, 3 Judges xviii. 14. islAm. 121 pomorphism of bygone ages. Age after age everything human has been eliminated from the history of the great Teacher, until his per- sonality is lost in a mass of legends. The New Testament itself, with " its incubation of a century," leaves the revered figure clothed in a mist. And each day the old idea of " an JEon born in the bosom of eternity," gathers force until the Council of Nice gives it a shape and consistency, and formulates it into a dogma. Many minds, bewildered by the far-offness of the universal Father, Seek a resting-place midway in a human personality which they call divine. It is this need of a nearer object of adoration which leads modern Christianity to give a name to an ideal, clothe it with flesh and blood, and worship it as a man-God. The gifted author of the Defects of Modern Christianity con- siders the frequency with which the Nazarene Prophet asserted that he was " the Son of God," and demanded the same worship as God Himself, a proof of his Divinity. That Jesus ever maintained he was the Son of God, in the sense in which it has been construed by Christian divines and apologists, we totally deny. Matthew Arnold has shown conclusively that the New Testament records are in many respects wholly unreliable. So far as the divinity of Christ is con- cerned, one can almost see the legend growing. But assuming that he made use of the expressions attributed to him, do they prove that he claimed to be " the only-begotten of the Father" ? Has the apologist not heard of the Eastern dervish, famous now as al-Hallaj, who claimed to be God Himself ? " An-al-Hakk" " I am God— I am the]Truth," said he ; and the Mussulman divines, like the Jewish Sanhedrim, pronounced him guilty of blasphemy, and condemned him to death ? A poor simple heart, kindling with an exalted mysticism, was thus removed from earth. The Baby still believes that his master, " the Gate" to eternal life, was not killed, but miraculously removed to heaven. Can it be said that when Abu Mughais al-Hallaj1 and the Bab called themselves " Truth" and the " Gate to heaven," they meant to imply that they were part of the Divinity, or, if they did, that their " claim " is tantamount to proof ? l Abu Mughais ibn Mansur, al-Halldj, died in the prime of life. He was a man of pure morals, great simplicity, a friend of the poor, but a dreamer and an enthusiast. For an account of the Bib and Babism, see Gobi neau, Lea Religions et les Philosophies dans V Asie Gentrale and the History of the Bab' by Browne. 122 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. But, as we said before, we deny that Jesus, whose conceptions, when divested of the Aber^laube of his followers, were singularly free from exaggeration as to his own character or personality, ever used any expression to justify the demand attempted to be fixed upon him. His conception of the " Fatherhood " of God embraced all humanity. All mankind were the children of God, and he was their Teacher sent by the Eternal Father.1 The Christian had thus a nobler exemplar before him. The teachings of the Prophet of Nazareth should have elevated him to a purer conception of the Deity. But six centuries had surrounded the figure of Jesus with those myths which, in opposition to his own words, resolved him into a manifestation of the Godhead. The " Servant " took the place of the Master in the adoration of the world. The vulgar masses, unable to comprehend or realise this wonderful mixture of Neo-Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Judseo- Hellenistic philosophy, and the teachings of Jesus, adored him as God incarnate, or reverted to the primitive worship of relics and of a tinselled goddess who re- presented the pure mother of Jesus.2 The Collyridians, who were by no means an unimportant sect, went so far as to introduce in the Christian pantheon the Virgin Mary for God, and worship her as such, offering her a sort of twisted cake called colly vis, whence the sect had its name. At the Council of Nice which definitely settled the nature of Jesus, there were men who held that besides " God the Father," there were two other gods — Christ and the Virgin Mary.1' And the Romanists even now, it is said, call the mother of Jesus the complement of the Trinity. In the long night of superstition the Christians had wandered far away from the simplicity of the Nazarene teachings. The worship of images, saints, and relics had become inseparably blend- ed with the religion of Jesus. The practices which he had denounced, the evils which he had reprehended, were, one by one, incorporated with his faith. The holy ground where the revered Teacher had 1 The use of the word " Father " in relation to God was cut out from Islam owing to the perversion of the idea among the then Christians. 2 The lsaurian sovereigns, indirectly inspired by Islam, for over a century battled against the growing degradation of Christianity, strived with all their might to make it run back in the channel pointed out by the great Teacher, but to no purpose. 8 Mosheim, vol. i. p. 432. ISLAM. 123 lived and walked was involved in a cloud of miracles and visions, and "the nerves of the mind were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief."1 Against all the absurdities we have described above, the life-aim of Mohammed was directed. Addressing, with the voice of truth, inspired by deep communion with the God of the Universe, the fetish- worshippers of the Arabian tribes on one side and the followers of degraded Christianity and Judaism on the other, Mohammed, that "master of speech," as he has been truly called, never travelled out of the province of reason, and made them all blush at the monstrousness of their beliefs. Mohammed, the grand apostle of the unity of God, thus stands forth in history in noble conflict with the retrogressive tendency of man to associate other beings with the Creator of the universe. Ever and anon in the Koran occur pass- ages, fervid and burning, like the following : "Your God is one God ; there is no God but He, the Most Merciful. In the creation of the heaven and earth, and the alternation of night and day, and in the ship which saileth on the sea, laden with what is profitable to man- kind ; and in the rain-water which God sendeth from heaven, quickening again the dead earth, and the animals of all sorts which cover its surface ; and in the change of winds, and the clouds balanced between heaven and earth, — are signs to people of under- standing ; yet some men take idols beside God, and love them as with the love due to God."2 What a depth of sympathy towards those benighted people do these words convey ! Again : " It is He who causeth the lightning to appear unto you (to strike) fear and (to raise) hope ; and formeth the pregnant clouds. The thunder celebrateth His praise, and the angels also. . . . He launcheth His thunderbolts, and striketh therewith whom He pleaseth while they dispute concerning Him, . . . It is He who of right ought to be invoked, and those (the idols) whom they invoke besides Him l Mosheim's Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. i. p. 432 ; comp. also Hallam, Const. Hist of England, chap. ii. p. 75. From the text it will be seen how much truth there is in the assertion that Islam derived " everything good it con- tains " from Judaism or Christianity. " It has been the fashion", says Deutsch, " to ascribe whatever is good in Mohammedanism to Christianity. We fear this theory is not compatible with the results of honest investigation. For of Arabian Christianity at the time of Mohammed, the less said, perhaps, the better. By the side of it . . . even modern Amharic Christianity of which we possess such astounding accounts, appears pure and exalted." — Quarterly Review, No. 954, p. 315, 2 sura ii, 158—160, 124 THE SPIRITS OF ISLAM. shall not respond to them at all ; otherwise than as he who stretched forth his hands to the water that it may ascend to his mouth when it cannot ascend (thither).1 He hath created the heavens and the earth to (manifest His) justice ; far be that from Him which they associate with Him. He hath created man . . . and behold he is a professed disputer. He hath likewise created the cattle for you, and they are a credit unto you when they come trooping home at evening-time, or are led forth to pasture in the morn. . . . And He hath subjected the night and day to your service ; and the sun and the moon and the stars are all bound by His laws. ... It is He who hath subjected the sea unto you, and thou seest the ships ploughing the deep . . . and that ye might render thanks. . . . Shall He therefore who createth be as he who createth not ? Do ye not therefore take heed ? If ye were to reckon up the blessings of God, ye shall not be able to compute their number ; God is surely gracious and merciful. He knoweth that which ye conceal and that which ye publish. But those [the idols] whom ye invoke, besides the Lord, create nothing, but are themselves created. They are dead and not living."2 " God ! there is no God but He— the Living, the Eternal. No slumber seizeth Him. Whatsoever is in heaven or in earth is His. Who can intercede with Him but by His own permission ? He knows what has been before, and what shall be after them ; yet nought of His knowledge shall they grasp but He willeth. His Throne reacheth over the heavens and the earth, and the upholding of them both burdeneth Him not,3 ... He throweth the veil of night over the day, pursuing it quickly. He created the sun, moon, and stars subjected to laws by His behest. Is not all creation and all empire His ? Blessed be the Lord of the worlds. Say, He alone is God : God the Eternal. He begetteth not, and He is not begotten ; there is none like unto Him.4 Praise to God, the Lord of the worlds, the Compassionate, the Merciful, King on the day of reckoning J Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. Guide us on the straight path, — the path of those to whom Thou art gracious, with whom Thou art not angry ; such as go not astray.5 Against the evil in His creation i.-l Suraxiii. 13— 15. 2 Sura xvi. 3—21. 3 Sura ii. 256. 4 Sura xii. 5 This is the Surat-ul-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Koran. ISLAM. 125 I betake me to the Lord of the daybreak". " Thou needest not raise thy voice, for He knoweth the secret whisper, and what is yet more hidden. Say, Whose is what is in the heavens and the earth ? Say, God's who has imposed mercy on Himself.1 . . . With Him are the keys of the unseen. None knows them save He ; He knows what is in the land and in the sea ; no leaf falleth but He knoweth it ; nor is there a grain in the darkness under the earth, nor a thing, green or sere, but it is recorded by itself. He taketh your souls in the night, and knoweth what the work of your day deserveth ; then He awaketh you, that the set life-term may be fulfilled ; then unto Him shall ye return, and then shall He declare unto you what you have wrought.2 Verily, God it is who cleaves out the grain and the date-stone ; He brings forth the living from the dead, and it is He who brings the dead from the living. There is God ! How then can ye be beguiled ? " " It is He who cleaves out the morning, and makes night a repose, and the sun and the moon two reckonings ; that is the decree of the Mighty, the Wise,3 " There is God for you, your Lord ! There is no God but He, the Creator of everything ; then worship Him, for He over everything keeps guard ! " " Sight perceives Him not, but he perceives men's sights ; for He is the All- penetrating, the Aware.4 • ••_•• • "Say, Verily my prayers and my devotion, and my life and my death, belong to God, the Lord of thefworlds."5 "Dost thou not perceive that all creatures both in heaven and earth praise God ; and the birds also ? "Every one knoweth His prayer and His praise. "Unto God belongeth the kingdom of heaven and earth ; and unto God shall be the return. "Whose is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth? There is no God but He ! He maketh alive and killeth.6 ... He l Sura vi. 12 2 Sura vi. 59, 60. 3 Sura vi. 95. 4 gUra vi. 102. 5 Sura vi. 16 3. 6 Sura vii. v. 158. 126 THE SPIRITS OF ISL^M. is the Living One. No God is there but He. Call then upon Him, and offer Him a pure worship. Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds ! . . . . My prayers and my worship and my life and my death are unto God, Lord of the worlds. He hath no associate.1 It is He who hath brought you forth, and gifted you with hearing and sight and heart ; yet how few are grateful ! . . . It is He who hath sown you in the earth, and to Him shall ye be gathered.2, . . . O my Lord, place me not among the ungodly people.3 ... He it. is who ordaineth the night as a garment and sleep for rest, and ordaineth the day for waking up to life."4 " Is not He the more worthy who answereth the oppressed when they cry to Him, and taketh off their ills, and maketh you to succeed your sires on the earth ?5 God the Almighty, the All-knowing, Forgiver of Sin, and Receiver of Penitence."6 "Shal II seek any other Lord than God, when He is Lord of all things? No' soul shall labour but for itself, and no burdened one shall bear another's burden." " At last ye shall return to your Lord, and He will declare that to you about which you differ.7 Knower of the hidden and the manifest ! the Great, the Most High ! . . . Alike to Him is that person among you who concealeth his words, and he that telleth them abroad ; he who hideth him in the night, and he who cometh forth in the day."5 "God is the light of the heavens and the earth ; His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is in a glass ; the glass is as though it were a glittering star ; it is lit from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the east nor of the west, the oil of which would well-nigh give light though no fire touched it — light upon light ! God guides to His light whom He pleases ; and God strikes out parables for men, and God all things doth know." "In the houses God has permitted to be reared and His name to be mentioned therein, His praises are celebrated therein mornings and evenings." l Sura vii. v. 158. ^ -' Sura lxvii. 23, 24. 3 Sura xxiii 96. 4 Sura xxv. 49. 5 Sura xxvii, 63. 6 Sura xl. 1. 7 Sura H. 286. ^.8 Suraxiii. 10, 11, islAm. 127 "Men whom neither merchandise nor selling divert from the remembrance of God, and steadfastness in prayer and giving alms, who fear a day when hearts and eyes shall be upset, that God may recompense them for the best they have done, and give them increase of His grace ; for God provides whom He pleases without count." '•But those who misbelieve, their works are like the mirage in a plain, — the thirsty counts it water till when he comes to it he finds nothing, but he finds that God is with him, and He will pay him his account, for God is quick to take account. " "Or like darkness on a deep sea ; there covers it a wave, above which is a wave, above which is a cloud, — darknesses one above the other, — when one puts out his hand he can scarcely see it, for he to whom God has given no light he has no light." "Hast thou seen that God ? All who are in the heavens and the earth celebrate His praises, and the birds, too, spreading out their wings ; each one knows its prayer and its praise, and God knows what they do." "Hast thou not seen that God drives the clouds, and then reunites them, and then accumulates them, and thou mayest see the rain coming forth from their midst ; and He sends down from the sky mountains with hail therein, and He makes it fall on whom He pleases, and He turns it from whom He pleases ; the flashing of His lightning well-nigh goes off with their sight." "God interchanges the night and the day ; verily in that is a lesson to those endowed with sight. " The chapter entitled "The Merciful.*' which has been well called the Benedicite of Islam, furnishes one of the finest examples of the Prophet's appeal to the testimony of nature. " The sun and the moon in their appointed time, The herbs and the trees adore, And the heavens He raised them, and set the Balance that ye should not be outrageous in the balance ; But weigh ye aright and stint not the measure. And the earth, He has set it for living creatures ; Therein are fruits, and palms with sheaths, and grain with chaff and frequent shoots. 128 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. He created man of crackling clay like the potter's, and He created the firmament from the smokeless fire. The Lord of the two easts and the Lord of the two wests, He has let loose the two seas that meet together ; between them is a barrier they cannot pass. He brings forth from each pearls both great and small ! His are the ships which rear aloft in the sea like mountains. Every one upon it is transient, but the face of thy Lord endowed with majesty and honour shall endure. Of Him whosoever is in the heaven and in the earth does beg ; every day is He in [some fresh] work. Blessed be the name of thy Lord, possessed of majesty and glory." "Every man's fate have we hung about his neck, and on the last day shall be laid before him a wide-opened Book."1 . . . "By a soul, and Him who balanced it, and breathed into it its wickedness and its piety, blest now is he who hath kept it pure, and undone is he who hath corrupted it."2 . . . "No defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of mercy ; repeat the gaze, seest thou a single flaw, then twice more repeat the gaze, thy gaze shall return to thee dulled and weary."3 . . . "He quickeneth the earth when it is dead ; so too shall you be brought to life." "The heavens and the earth stand firm at His bidding •, hereafter when at once He shall summon you from the earth, forth shall ye come."4 ..." When the sun shall be folded up, and the stars shall fall, and when the mountains shall be set in motion ; when the she-camels shall be left, and the wild beasts shall be gathered together ; when the seas shall boil, and souls be re-paired [with their bodies] ; when the female child that was buried alive shall be asked for what crime she was put to death ; when the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled, and the heavens shall be stripped away, and the fire of hell blaze forth, and paradise draw l Sura xvii. 14. 2 sura xci, 3 Sura lxvii. 3. Sura xxx9 25. ist.Au* 129 nigh, then shall every soul know what it hath done."1 . . . "What knowledge hast thou [Mohammed] of the hour ? Only God knoweth its period. It is for thee only to warn those who fear it." . . . "What shall teach thee the inevitable ? Thamud and Aad treated the Day of Decision as a lie. They were destroyed with thunderbolts and roaring blasts." And yet with all His might, His tender care and pity are all- embracing : — " By the noonday brightness, and by the night when it darkeneth, thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither hath He been displeased. Surely the future shall be better for thee than the past ; and in the end He shall be bounteous to thee, and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an orphan, and give thee a home ; erring, and guided thee ; needy, and enriched thee ? As to the orphan, then, wrong him not ; and chide not away him that asketh of thee, and tell abroad the favours of thy Lord.'"2 "Did ye think We had made you for sport, and that ye should not be brought back again to us ?" "O our God, punish us not if we forget and fall into sin ; blot out our sins and forgive us." "Have mercy, O Lord, for of the merciful, Thou art the best."3 "The heavy laden shall not bear another's load. We never punished till we had sent an apostle." "This clear Book, behold, on a blessed night have we sent it down for a warning to mankind." " Not to sadden thee have we sent it thee.' And so on goes this wonderful book, appealing to the nobler feel- ings of man, his inner consciousness and his moral sense, proving and manifesting the enormity of idolatrous beliefs. Scarcely a chapter but contains some fervid passages on the power, mercy, and unity of God. The Islamic conception of the Almighty has been misunderstood by Christian writers. The God of Islam is commonly represented as P a pitiless tyrant, who plays with humanity as on a chess-board, and works out His game without regard to the sacrifice of the pieces." Let us see if this estimate is correct. The God of Isl&m is the All-mighty, the All-knowing, the All-just, the Lord of the worlds, the Author of the heavens and the earth, the Creator of life and death, in whose hand is dominion and irresistible power ; the great, all-powerful Lord of the glorious Throne. God is the 1 Sura lxxxi. 2 Sura xciii. 3 Sura xxiii. 11$. I. l7 I30 THE SPTRTT OF ISLJtll. Mighty, the Strong, the Most High, the Producer, the Maker, the Fashioner, the Wise, the Just, the True, the Swift in reckoning, who knoweth every ant's weight of good and of ill that each man hath done, and who suffereth not the reward of the faithful to perish. But the Almighty, the All-wise, is also the King, the Holy, the Peaceful, the Faithful, the Guardian over His servants, the Shelterer of the orphan, the Guide of the erring, the Deliverer from every affliction, the Friend of the bereaved, the Consoler of the afflicted ; in His hand is good, and He is the generous Lord, the Gracious, the Hearer, the Near-at-hand, the Compassionate, the Merciful, the Very-forgiving, whose love for man is more tender than that of the mother-bird for her young. * The mercy of the Almighty is one of the grandest themes of the the Koran. The very name [Ar-Rahman] with which each chapter opens, and with which He is invoked, expresses a deep, all-penetrat- ing conviction of that love, that divine mercy, which enfolds creation.1 The moral debasement of the followers of the two previous Dispensations wring the Teacher's heart, and then burst forth denun- ciations on the Christians and the Jews for the superstitious rites they practised in defiance of the warnings of their prophets. The fire of religious zeal, that had burned in the bosoms of Isaiah and Jeremiah, was rekindled in the breast of another and far greater man. He denounces ; but above the wail, the cry of agony at the degradation of humanity, is heard the voice of hope. The Koran severely censures the Jews for their " worship of false gods and idols,'' the teraphim before referred to, and for their exaggerated reverence for the memory of Ezra ; the Christians, for their adoration of Jesus and his mother. " Hast thou not seen those to whom a portion of the Scriptures have been given ? They believe in false gods and idols. They say to the unbelievers they are better directed in the right way than those that believe [the Moslems].'' 2 " The jews say, Ezra is the Son of God ; the Christians say, Christ is the Son of God. May God resist them. How infatuated they are ! They take their priests and their monks for their lords besides God. . . . They seek to extinguish the light l Rura iii. 124, xxv. 50, xxviii. 74, xlii. 3, etc. etc, 2 Sura iv. 49. islAm. 131 of God with their ^'mouths." x . . . " The Jews and the Christians say, We are the children of God, and His beloved." 2 " Many of those unto whom the Scriptures have been given 3 desire to render you again unbelievers, after ye have believed. ... Be constant in prayer, and give alms ; and what good ye have sent before you for your souls, ye shall find it with God." . . . " They say, Verily, none shall enter paradise except those who are Jews or Christians. . . . Say, Produce your proof if ye speak the truth. Nay, but he who directeth towards God, and doth that which is right, he shall have his reward with his Lord/'* "Oye who have received the Scriptures, exceed not the just bounds in your religion, neither say of God otherwise than the truth. Verily, Christ Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the apostle of God and His word. Believe therefore in God and His apostles, and say not, There are three Gods ; forbear this . . . Christ doth not proudly disdain to be a servant unto God." 5 " It beseemeth not a man, that God should give him the Scriptures, and the wisdom, and the gift of prophecy, and that then he should say to his followers, * Be ye worshippers of me, as well as of God,' but rather, ' Be ye perfect in things pertaining to God, since ye know the Scriptures, and have studied deep.' " 6 The following passage*" shows the feeling with which such religious conceptions were regarded : " They say the God of mercy hath begotten a Son. Now have ye uttered a grievous thing; and it wanted but little that the heaven should be torn open, and that the earth cleave asunder, and the mountains fall down, for that they attribute children unto the Merciful ; whereas it is not meet for God to have children. Verily there is none in heaven or on earth but shall approach the Merciful as His servant. He encompasseth them."/ ... But the inspired Preacher whose mission it is to proclaim the Truth does not confound the good with the bad : "Yet they are not all alike ; there are of those who have received the Scriptures 1 Sura ix. 30-32. * Sura v. 21. 3 The Jews, the Christians, and the Zoroastrians. 4 Sura 105, 106. 6 Sura iv. 169, 170. 6 Sura iii. 73. V Sura xix. 91-94. 132 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. upright people ; they meditate on the signs of God in the night season, and worship ; they believe in God and the last day ; and command that which is just ; and forbid that which is unjust, and zealously strive to excel in good works ; these are of the righteous."1 The mutual and burning hatred of Jew and Christian, the savage wars of Nestorian and Monophysite, the meaningless wrangle of the sects, the heartless and heart-rending logomachy of the Byzantine clergy, ever and anon bring down denunciations like the following: — "To Jesus and other apostles we gave manifest signs ; and if God had pleased, their followers would not have fallen into these disputes. But God doeth what He will !" "Mankind was but one people, and God sent them prophets of warning and glad tidings, and the Book of Truth to settle all disputes. Yet none disputed like those to whom the Book had been sent ; for they were filled with jealousy of each other." "O people of the Book, why wrangle about Abraham ? Why contend about that whereof ye know nothing ?" f The primary aim of the new Dispensation was to infuse ^pFevive in the heart of humanity a living perception of truth in the common relations of life. "The moral ideal of the new gospel/' to use the phraseology of an eminent writer, "was set in the common sense of duty and the familiar instances of love."' "Verily, those people3 have now passed away ; they have the reward of their deeds ; and ye shall have the meed of yours ; of their doings ye shall not be questioned."3 "Every soul shall bear the good and the evil for which it has laboured ; and God will burden none beyond its power." "Blessed is he who giveth away his sub- stance that he may become pure, and who offereth not favours to any one for the sake of recompense . . . but only as seeking the approval of his Lord the Most High."* . . . "They are the blest who, though longing for it themselves, bes- towed their food on the poor and the orphan and the captive [saying], ' We feed you for the sake of God : we seek from you neither recompense nor thanks/ "5 "Worship God alone ; be kind to kindred and servants, orphans 1 dura iii. 109, 110. - I.e. Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, and the tribes. 3 Sura ii. 128. 4 Sura xcii. 18, 19. 5 Sura lxxvi. 8, 9. islAm. 133 and the poor ; speak righteously to men, pray, and pay alms." "Defer humbly to your parents ; with humility and tenderness say, O Lord, be merciful to them, even as they brought me up when I was helpless.'' "Abandon the old barbarities, blood-vengeance, and child-murder, and be united as one flesh. ? "Do thy alms openly or in secret, for both are well." Give of that which hath been given you before the day cometh when there shall be no trafficking, nor friend- ship, nor intercession." "Wouldst thou be taught the steep [path] ? It is to ransom the captive, to feed the hungry, the kindred, the orphan, and him whose mouth is in the dust". " Be of those who enjoin steadfastness and compassion on others."1 "Woe to them that make show of piety, and refuse help to the needy/' "Make not your alms void by reproaches or injury." "Forgiveness and kind speech are better than favours with annoyance/' "Abandon usury/' "He who spendeth his substance to be seen of men, is like a rock with thin soil over it, whereon the rain falleth and leaveth it hard. Bftt they who expend their substance to please God and establish their souls, are like a garden on a hill, on which the rain falleth and it yieldeth its fruits twofold ; and even if the rain doth not fall, yet is there a dew." "Judge between men with truth, and follow not thy passions, lest they cause thee to err from the way of God."2 "Covet not another's gifts from God." "There is no piety in turning the face east or west, but in believing in God only and doing good.', "Make the best of all things ; enjoin justice and avoid the foolish ; and if Satan stir thee to evil, take refuge in God." "Touch not the goods of the orphan. Perform your covenant, and walk not proudly on the earth."3 " The birth of a daughter brings dark shadows on a man's face." . . . "Kill not your children for fear of want: for them and for you will We provide. Verily the killing them is a great wickedness."* " God hath given you wives that ye may put love and tenderness between you." " Reverence the wombs that bear you." " Commit not adultery ; for it is a foul thing and an evil way."JV " Let the believer restrain his eyes from lust ; let women make no display of ornaments, save to their own kindred/' 1 Sura xc. 12-15. 2 Sura xxxviii. 25. 3 Sura xvii. 36. * Sura xvii. 33. 5 Sura xvii. 25. 134 THE SPIRIT OF iSLJtM. " Know ye that this world's life is a cheat, the multiplying of riches and children is like the plants that spring up after rain, rejoicing the husbandman, then turn yellow and wither away. In the next life is severe chastisement, or else pardon from God and His peace." " Abandon the semblance of wickedness and wicked- ness itself. They, verily, whose only acquirement is iniquity, shall be rewarded for what they shall have gained."1 " Those who abstain from vanities and the indulgence of their passions, give alms, offer prayers, and tend well their trusts and their cove- nants, these shall be the heirs of eternal happiness."2 " Show kindness to your parents, whether one or both of them attain to old age with thee:* and say not to them ' Fie ! ' neither reproach them ; but speak to them both with respectful speech and tender affection."3 " And to him who is of kin render his due, and also to the poor and to the wayfarer ; yet waste not wastefully."* " And let not thy hand be tied up to thy neck •, nor yet open it with all openness, lest thou sit thee down in rebuke in beggary."5 " Enjoin my servants to speak in kindly sort."6 " Turn aside evil with that which is better.'" " Just balances will We set up for the day of the Resurrection, neither shall any soul be wronged in aught ; though were a work but the weight of a grain of mustard seed, We would bring it forth to be weighed : and Our reckoning will suffice."8 " Seek pardon of your Lord and be turned unto Him : verily, my Lord is merciful, loving."9 " And your Lord saith, ■ Call upon me, I will hearken unto you."10 " Say : O my servants who have transgressed to your own injury, despair not of God's mercy, for all sins doth God forgive. Gracious, merciful is He !mi " The good word riseth up to Him, and the righteous deed will He exalt."12 "Truly my Lord hath forbidden filthy actions, whether open or secret, and iniquity, and unjust violence."13 " Call upon your Lord with lowliness and in secret, for He loveth not transgressors. And commit not disorders on the well- ordered earth after it hath been well ordered ; and call on Him with fear and longing desire: Verily the mercy of God is nigh unto the i Sura vi. 120. 2 Sura xxiii. 8. 3 Sura xvii. 24. 4 Sura xvii. 28. & Sura xvii. 31. 6 Sura xvii. 55. 7 Sura xxiii. 98. 8 Sura xxi. 48. 9 Sura xi. 92. ^10 Sura xl. 62. U Sura xxxix. 54. 12 Sura xxxv. 11, 1* Sura vii. 31. islAm. 135 righteous. ,yl "Moreover, We have enjoined on man to show kind- ness to his parents. With pain his mother beareth him ; with pain she bringeth him forth ; and he saith, * O my Lord ! stir me up to be grateful for Thy favours wherewith Thou hast favoured me and my parents, and to good works which shall please Thee ; and prosper me in my offspring: for to Thee am I turned, and am resigned to Thy will.' "2 " For them is a dwelling of peace with their Lord ; and in recompense for their works shall He be their protector."3 " Lost are they who, in their ignorance, have foolishly slain their children, and have forbidden that which God hath given them for food, devising an untruth against God ! Now have they erred ; and they were not rightly guided."1 " The likeness of those who expend their wealth for the cause of God, is that of a grain of corn which produceth seven ears, and in each ear a hundred grains ; they who expend their wealth for the cause of God, and never follow what they have laid out with reproaches or harm, shall have their reward with their Lord ; no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they be put to grief. A kind speech and forgiveness is better than alms followed by injury. "s " God will not burden any soul beyond its power. It shall enjoy the good which it hath acquired, and shall bear the evil for the acquirement of which it laboured. " ... " O Lord ! punish us not if we forget, or fall into sin, O our Lord ! and lay not on us a load like that which Thou hast laid on those who have been before us, O our Lord I And lay not on us that for which we have not strength : but blot out our sins and forgive us and have pity on us."6 " The patient and the truthful, the lowly and the charitable, they who seek pardon at each daybreak :"' . . . " Who give alms, alike in prosperity and in success, and who master their anger, and forgive others ! God loveth the doers of good -,"5 [theirs a goodly home with their Lord.] " O our Lord ! forgive us then our sin, and hide away from us our evil deeds, and cause us to die with the righteous:"9 . . . "And their Lord answereth them, 'I will not suffer the work of him among you that worketh, whether of male 1 Sura vii. 53. 2 Sura xlvi. 14. 3 Sura vi. 127. 4 Sura vi. 141. 5 Sura ii. 263, 264, and 265. fi Sura ii. 286. ' Sura iii. 15. * Sura iii. 128. f> Sura iii. 191, I36 . THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. or female, to be lost, the one of you is 'the issue of the other.' m " And fear ye God, in whose name ye ask favours of each other— and respect women."2 " And marry not women whom your fathers have married : for this is a shame, and hateful, and an evil way."3 " Covet not the gifts by which God hath raised some of you above others.'"1 " Be good to parents, and to kindred, and to orphans, and to the poor, and to a neighbour, whether kinsman or new-comer, and to a fellow-traveller, and to the wayfarer, and to the slaves whom your right hands hold ; verily, God loveth not the proud, the vain boaster."5 " He who shall mediate between men for a good pur- pose shall be the gainer by it. But he who shall mediate with an evil mediation shall reap the fruit of it. And God keepeth watch over everything.6" " O ye Moslems ! stand fast to justice, when ye bear witness before God, though it be against yourselves, or your parents or your kindred, whether the party be rich or poor. God is nearer than you to both. Therefore follow not passion, lest ye swerve from truth. "' Do the preachings of this desert-born Prophet, addressing a larger world and a more advanced humanity, in the nobility of their love, in their strivings and yearnings for the true, the pure, and the holy, fall short of the warnings of Isaiah or " the tender appeals of Jesus "? The poor and the orphan, the humble dweller of the earth " with his mouth in the dust/' the unfortunate being bereft in early life of parental, care, are ever the objects of his tenderest solicitude. Ever and again he announces that the path which leads to God is the helping of the orphan, the 'relieving ]of the poor, and the ran- soming of the captive. His pity and love were not confined to his fellow-beings, the brute creation shared with them his sympathy and tenderness. " A man once came to him with a bundle, and said : ' O Prophet, I passed through a wood and heard the voice of the young of birds, 1 Sura iii. 193. 2 Sura iv. 1. 3 Sura iv. 26. 4 Sura iv. 36. 5 Suraiv. 40. 6 Sura iv. 87. ' ' 7 Sura iv. 34. islAm. 137 and I took them and put them in my carpet, and their mother came fluttering round my head.' And the Prophet said : ' Put them down' ; and when he had put them down the mother joined the young. And the Prophet said : ' Do you wonder at the affection of the mother towards her young ? I swear by Him who has sent me, Verily, God is more loving to His servants than the mother to these young birds. Return them to the place from which ye took them, and let their mother be with them.' " " Fear God with regard to animals," said Mohammed ; " ride them when they are fit to be ridden, and get off when they are tired. Verily, there are rewards for our doing good to dumb animals, and giving them water to drink." In the Koran, animal life stands on the same footing as human life in the sight of the Creator. " There is no beast on earth/' says the Koran, ** nor bird which flieth with its wings, but the same is a people like unto you — unto the Lord shall they return." It took centuries for Christendom to awaken to a sense of duty towards the animal creation. Long before the Christian nations ever dreamt of extending towards animals tenderness and humanity, Mohammed proclaimed in impressive words the duty of mankind towards their dumb and humble servitors. These precepts of tenderness so lovingly embalmed in the creed are faithfully rendered into a com- mon duty of everyday life in the world of Islam. \ * ) 18 CHAPTER II. ISLAM. y * - - - # f&\ j ?&)/ ^s\> * J1U) ^* f^;* ^HSj V; • l#U**] » * * r *■%&}£& {&** to f^+l FOR the conservation of a true religious spirit, Mohammed attached to his precepts certain practical duties, of which the following are the principal : (1) prayer, (2) fasting, (3) almsgiving, and (4) pilgrimage. > Man's consciousness of a supreme, . all-pervading Power ; his helplessness in the eternal conflict of nature ; his sense of bene- faction,— all lead him to pour out the overflowing sentiments of his islAm. 139 heart in words of gratitude and love, or repentance and solicitation, to One who is ever-wakeful and merciful. Prayers are only the utterance of the sentiments which fill the human heart. All these emotions, however, are the result of a superior development. The savage, if supplications do not answer his purpose, resorts to the casti- gation of his fetish. But every religious system possessing any organic element has recognised, in some shape, the efficacy of prayer. In most, however, the theurgic character predominates over the moral ; in some, the moral idea is entirely wanting. The early Hindoo worship consisted of two sets of acts — oblations and sacrifice accompanied with invocations. In the infancy of religious thought the gods are supposed to possess the same appetites and passions as human beings ; and thus whilst man needs material benefits, the gods require offerings and propitiation. This idea often finds expression in the old hymns of the Rig Veda. With the development of religious conceptions, it is probable that, among at least the more advanced or thoughtful minds, the significance attached to oblations and sacrifice underwent considerable modification. But as the hold of the priestly caste, which claimed the possession of a " secret virtue" transmissible only through the blood, strengthened on the minds of the masses, Brahminism crystallised into a literally sacrificial cult. The sacrifice could be performed only by the priest according to rigid and unalterable formulae 5 whilst he recited the mantras and went through the rites in a mechanical spirit, without religious feeling or enthusiasm, the worshipper stood by, a passive spectator of the worship which was performed on his behalf. The smallest mistake undid the efficacy of the observances. The devotional spirit, how- ever, could not have been entirely wanting, or the Bhagavat Gitd could not have been composed. But for the people as a whole, their worship had become a vast system of sacrifice, the value of which depended not so much upon the moral conduct of the indivi- dual worshipper as upon the qualification of the officiating priest. The former had only to believe in the efficacy of the rite and be in a state of legal purity at the time. The Mago-Zoroastrian and the Sabaean lived in an atmosphere of prayer. The Zoroastrian prayed when he sneezed, when he cut his nails or hair, while preparing meals, day and night, at the lighting of 140 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM, lamps, etc. Ormuzd was first invoked, and then not only heaven, earth, the elements and stars, but trees, especially the moon-plant,1 and beasts. The formulas were often to be repeated as many as twelve hundred times.2 The moral idea, however pure with the few, would be perfectly eliminated from the minds of the common people. But even the sort of spiritual life enjoyed by exceptional minds was monopolised by the ministers of religion. The barriers of special holiness which divided the priesthood from the laity, shut out the latter from all spiritual enjoyments of a nobler type. The Magians, like the Ophici, had two forms of worship, or rather, two modes of understanding the objects of worship : one esoteric, especially reserved for the priestly classes ; the other exoteric, in which alone the vulgar could participate.8 The Mosaic law contained no ordinances respecting prayers ; only on the payment of tithes to the priests, and the domestic solemnity of the presentation of the firstlings, was there a prescribed formula of a prayer and acknowledgment, when the father of the house, on the strength of his having obediently performed the behests of the law, supplicated blessings from Jehovah on Israel, "even as He had sworn unto their fathers." 4 But, with the rise of a. more spiritual idea of the Deity among the people and the teachers, and the decline of an uncompromising anthropomorphism, the real nature of prayer, as the medium of intercommunication between God and man, began to be understood. Tradition and custom, in default of any express regulation by the law, made the Jews at last, as Dollinger says, a people of prayer.5 Three hours daily were consecrated to devotional exercises, viz. nine, twelve, and three o'clock. The necessity, however, for the service of priests, com- bined with the absence of any positive precedent coming down from the Lawgiver himself, tended to make prayer, in the majority of cases, merely mechanical. Phylacteries were in use in the timev l Called Soma by the Sanscritic, and Homa or Haoma by the Zend races. 2 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. p. 398. The Zend Avesta itself is a grand repertory of prayers, hymns, invocations, etc., to a multi- tude of deities, among whom Ormuzd ranks first. In fact, it is a book of liturgies. ' Comp. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, pp. 187, 202. 3 Reland, Dissertationes Miscellancr, part i. p. 191 ; Shahristani. 4 Peut- xxvj. 12-15 5 Dollinger, vol. ii. p. 372, islAm. 141 of Jesus, and the Koran reproaches the Jews in bitter terms for " selling the signs of God."1 The teachings of Jesus, representing a later development of the religious faculty in man, recognised the true character of prayer. He consecrated the practice by his. own example.2 The early disciples, in the spirit of their Master, laid great stress on the habit of devotion and thanksgiving to God.3 But the want of some definite rule for the guidance of the masses, in process of time, left them completely adrift in all that regarded the practice of devotion, and under subjection to the priests, who monopolised the office of' regulating the number, length, and the terminology of prayers. Hence missals, liturgies, councils, and convocations to settle articles of faith and matters of conscience ; hence also, the mechanical worship of droning monks, and the hebdomadal flocking into churches and chapels on one day in the week to make up for the deficiency of spiritual food during the other six ; hence also the "presbyter," who, merely a "servant" at first,4 came to regard himself as "the Lord of- the spiritual heritage" bequeathed by Jesus. All these evils had culminated to a point in the seventh century, '/ when the Prophet of Arabia began to preach a reformed religion. In • instituting prayers, Mohammed recognised the yearning of the human soul to pour out its love and gratitude to God, and by making the practice of devotion periodic, he impressed that disciplinary character on the observance of prayer which keeps the thoughts from wandering into the regions of the material.5 The formulae, consecrated by his example and practice, whilst sparing the Islamic world the evils of contests regarding liturgies, leave to the individual worshipper the amplest scope for the most heartfelt outpouring of devotion and humility before the Almighty Presence. The value of prayer as the means of moral elevation and the purification of the heart, has been clearly set forth in the Koran ; — " Rehearse that which hath been revealed unto thee of the Book, and be constant at prayer, for prayer preserveth from crimes and from 1 Sura ii. 38. 2 Luke ix. 1—4. 3 E. g. Eph. vi. 18 ; Col. i. 12 et seq. 4 Mosheim, vol. i. 99 et seq. 5 Comp. Oelsner, Des Effets de la Religion de Mohammed, p. Q, 142 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. that which is blameable; and the remembering of God is surely a most sacred duty." 1 The forms of the supplicatory hymns, consecrated by the example of Mohammed, evince the beauty of the moral element in the teach- ings of Islam : — " O Lord ! I supplicate Thee for firmness in faith and direction towards rectitude, and to assist me in being grateful to Thee, and in adoring Thee in every good way : and I supplicate Thee for an innocent heart, which shall not incline to wickedness ; snd I suppli- cate Thee for a true tongue, and for that virtue which Thou knowest ; and I pray Thee to defend me from that vice which Thou knowest, and for forgiveness of those faults which Thou knowest. O my Defender ! assist me in remembering Thee and being grateful to Thee, and in worshipping Thee with the excess of my strength. O Lord ! I have injured my own soul, and no one can pardon the faults of Thy servants but Thou ; forgive me out of Thy loving- kindness, and have mercy on me ; for verily Thou art the forgiver of offences and the bestower of blessings on Thy servants."2 Another traditional prayer, called the prayer of David, runs thus ; "O Lord, grant to me the love of Thee ; grant that I may love those that love thee •, grant that I may do the deeds that may win Thy love ; make Thy love to be dearer to me than self, family or than wealth."3 The two following prayers of Ali (the Caliph) evince the highest devotional spirit. " THanks be to my Lord ; He the Adorable, and only to be adored. My Lord, the Eternal, the Ever-existing, the Cherisher, the True Sovereign whose mercy and might overshadow the universe ■, the Regulator of the world, and Light of the creation. His is our worship ; to Him belongs all worship ; He existed before all things, and will exist after all that is living has ceased. Thou art the adored, my Lord ; Thou art the Master, the Loving and Forgiving ; Thoubestowest power and might on whom Thou pleasest; him whom Thou hast exalted none can lower ; and him whom Thou hast lowered none can exalt. Thou, my Lord, art the Eternal, the Creator of all, 1 Koran xxix. 44. 2 MishMt, bk. iv. chap. 18, parts 2, 3, 3 Tajsir-Jelldli, p. 288, islAm. 143 All-wise Sovereign Mighty ; Thy knowledge knows everything ; Thy beneficence is all-pervading ; Thy forgiveness and mercy are all- embracing. O my Lord, Thou art the Helper of the afflicted, the Reliever of all distress, the Consoler of the broken-hearted ; Thou art present everywhere to help Thy servants. Thou knowest all secrets, all thoughts, art present in every assembly, Fulfiller of all our needs, Bestower of all blessings. Thou art the Friend of the poor and bereaved ; my Lord, Thou art my Fortress ; a Castle for all who seek Thy help. Thou art the Refuge of the weak ; the Helper of the pure and true. O my Lord, Thou art my Supporter, my Helper, the Helper of all who seek Thy help. . . . O my Lord, Thou art the Creator, I am only created ; Thou art my Sovereign, I am only Thy servant ; Thou art the Helper, I am the beseecher ; Thou, my Lord art my Refuge ; Thou art the Forgiver, I am the sinner ; Thou, my Lord, art the Merciful, All-knowing, All-loving ; I am groping in the dark ; I seek Thy knowledge and love. Bestow, my Lord, all Thy knowledge and love and mercy ; forgive my sins, O my Lord, and let me approach Thee, my Lord." , ' " O my Lord, Thou the Ever-praised, the Eternal, Thou art the Ever-present, Ever-existing, the Ever-near, the All-knowing. Thou livest in every heart, in every soul, all-pervading ; Thy knowledge is ingrained in every mind." ''He bears no similitude, has no equal, One, the Eternal ; thanks be to the Lord whose mercy extends to every sinner, who provides for even those who deny Him. To Him belong the beginning and the end, all knowledge and the most hidden secret of the heart. He never slumbers, the Ever-just, the Ever-wakeful. He forgiveth in His mercy our greatest sins, — loveth all creation. I testify to the goodness of my Lord, to the truth of His Messenger's message, blessings on him and his descendants and his companions."1 "It is one of the glories of Islam," says an English writer, "that its temples are not made with hands, and that its ceremonies can be performed anywhere upon God's earth or under His heaven."2 Every place in which the Almighty is faithfully worshipped is equally pure. The Moslem, whether he be at home or abroad, when the hour of prayer arrives, pours forth his soul in a brief but earnest supplicatory 1 Sahifai-Kdmila. 2 Hunter, Our Indian MuscUmans, p 179. 144 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. address ; his attention is not wearied by the length of his prayers, the theme of which is always self-humiliation, the glorification of the Giver of all' good, and reliance on His mercy.1 The intensity of the devotional spirit embalmed in the church of Mohammed has hardly been realised by Christendom. Tradition, that faithful chro- nicler of the past, with its hundred corroborative witnesses, records how the Prophet wept during his prayers with the fervour of his emotions ; how his noble cousin and son-in-law became so absorbed in his devotions that his body grew benumbed. The Islam of Mohammed recognises no caste of priesthood, allows no monopoly of Spiritual knowledge or special holiness to intervene between man and his God. Each soul rises to its Creator without the intervention of priest or hierophant. No sacrifice,2 no cere- monial, invented by vested interests, is needed to bring the anxious heart nearer to its Comforter. Each human being is his own priest ; in the Islam of Mohammed no one man is higher than the other. European rationalists have complained of the complex character of the Moslem prayers, b&t the ritual of the Koran is astonishing in its simplicity and soberness. It includes the necessary acts of faith, the recital of the creed, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, but lays down scarcely any rules' as to how they are to be performed. "Observe the prayers and the mid-day prayer, and stand ye attent before God ; seek aid from patience and prayer. Verily, God is with the patient ;" but nothing is said regarding the manner in which the prayers should be offered. "When ye journey about the earth," says the Koran, "it is no crime to you that ye come short in prayer if ye fear that those that disbelieve will set upon you. God pardons everything except associating aught with Him.:' The practice of the Prophet has, however, attached certain rites and ceremonies to the due observance of prayers. At the same time it is pointed out in unmistakeable terms that it is to the devotional state of the mind the Searcher of the spirit looks : "It is not the flesh or the blood of that which ye sacrifice which is acceptable to 1 Suraii. 129, 239, elc;, vii. 204, 205, xv. 132, xvii. 79, xx. 130, nxx. 16, 17, etc. etc. See the Kitab ul-Mustatrif. 2 The annual sacrifice at the Hajj and the Bairam is a mere memorial observance islAm. 145 God : it is your piety which is acceptable to the Lord."1 "It is not righteousness," continues the Koran, "that ye turn your faces in prayer towards the east or the west ; but righteousness is of him who believeth in God ; . . . who giveth money for God's sake unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the needy, and the stranger, and those who ask, and for the redemption of captives ; who is constant at prayers and giveth alms ; and of those who perform their cove- nant, when they have covenanted \ and who behave themselves patiently in hardship and adversity, and in times of violence : these are they who are true."2 . . . It was declared that prayer without " the presence of the heart" was of no avail, and that God's words which were addressed to all mankind and not to one people, should be studied with the heart and lips in absolute accord. And the Caliph AH held that devotion offered without understanding was useless and brought no blessing.3 The celebrated Imam al-Ghazzali 4 has pronounced that in reading the sacred book5 heart and intelligence must work together; the lips only utter the words ; intelligence helps in the due apprehension of their meaning ; the heart, in paying obedience to the dictates of duty.6 " It is not a sixth nor a tenth of a man's devotion," said the Prophet, "which is acceptable to God, but only such portion thereof as he offers with understanding and true devotional spirit."7 The practice of baptism in the Christian Church, even the lustra- tions, which the Egyptians, the Jews, or the hierophants of the heathen religions in the East and the West, required as preliminary to the performance of devotional or religious exercises, show the peculiar sanctity which was attached to external purifications. Mohammed, by his example, consecrated this ancient and beneficent custom. He required cleanliness as a necessary preliminary to the worship and adoration of God.8 At the same time, he especially inculcated l Sura xxii. 38. 2 Sura ii. 172. 3 Ghurrar wa'd Durrar 4 See post, chap xx. 5 The Koran. 8 The Kitdb ul-Muslatrif, Chap. 1. 7 From Muaz ibn Jabal, reported by Abu Daud and Nisal'. 8 Sura v. 8. The Koran, in its universality, speaks of ablutions, but where water is not available it allows any cleansing substitute for lavation, but nowhere lays down the details of the Wuzu. As usual, the manner of perform- ing the lavations or ablutions, derived from the practice of the Prophet, has given rise to considerable discussions and difference among the theolo- gians. 19 I I46 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. that mere external, or rather physical, purity does not imply true devotion. He distinctly laid down that the Almighty can only be approached in purity and humility of spirit.1 Imam al-Ghazzali expressly says, as against those who are only solicitous about external purifications, and have their hearts full of pride and hypocrisy, that the Prophet of God declared the most important purification to be the cleansing of the heart from all blameable inclinations and frail- ties, and the mind from all vicious ideas, and from all thoughts which distract attention from God.2 In order to keep alive in the Moslem world the memory of the birthplace of Islam, Mohammed directed that during prayers the Mos- lem should turn his face towards Mecca, as the glorious centre which saw the first glimmerings of the light of regenerated truth.3 With the true instinct of a prophet he perceived the consolidating effect of fixing a central spot round which, through all time, should gather the religious feelings of his followers ; and he accordingly ordained that everywhere throughout the world the Moslem should pray looking towards the Kaaba. " Mecca is to the Moslem what Jerusalem is to the Jew. It bears with it all the influence of centuries of associations. It carries the Moslem back to the cradle of his faith, the childhood of his Prophet , it reminds him of the struggle between the old faith and the new, of the overthrow of the idols, and the establishment of the worship of the one God ; and, most of all, it bids him remember that all his brother Moslems are worshipping towards the same sacred spot; that he is one of a great company of believers, united by one faith, filled with the same hopes, reverencing the same things, worshipping the same God. Mohammed showed his knowledge of the religious emotions in man when he preserved the sanctity of the temple of Islam."4 But that this rule is not an essential requisite for devotion, is evident from the passage of the Koran quoted above.5 ft The institution of fasting has existed more or less among all nations. But it may be said that throughout the ancient world the l Sura vii. 204. 2 Compare the Kitdb ul-Miistatrif, chap. i. sec. 1. 3 Sura ii. 139, 144, etc. 4 Stanley Lane-Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. Ixxxv. * See ante, p. 145. . is.lAm. 147 idea attached to it was, without exception, more of penitence than of abstinence. Even in Judaism the notion of fasting as an exercise of self-castigation or self-abnegation was of later growth. The Essenians (from their connection with the Pythagoreans, and, through them, with the asceticism of the further East) were the first among the Jews to grasp this moral element in the principle of fasting ; and Jesus probably derived this idea, like other conceptions, from them. The example of Jesus consecrated the custom in the Church. But the predominating idea in Christianity, with respect to fasts generally, is one of penitence or expiation;1 and partially, of precedent.2 Voluntary corporal mortifications have been as frequent in the Christian Church as in other Churches; but the tendency of such mortifications has invariably been the destruction of mental and bodily energies, and the fostering of a morbid asceticism. The institution of fasting in Islam, on the contrary, has the legitimate object of restraining the passions, by diurnal abstinence for a limited and definite period, from all the gratifications of the senses, and directing the overflow of the animal spirits into a healthy channel. Useless and unnecessary mortification of the flesh is discounte- nanced, nay, condemned. Fasting is prescribed to the able-bodied and the strong, as a means of chastening the spirit by imposing a restraint on the body. For the weak, the sickly, the traveller, the student (who is engaged in the pursuit of knowledge — the Jihdd-ul- Akbar), the soldier doing God's battle against the assailants of the faith, and women in their ailments, it is disallowed. Those who bear in mind the gluttony of the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, and the pre-Islamite Arabs, their excesses in their pleasures as well Mosheim, vol. i. p. 131. Mosheim distinctly says that fasting came early to be regarded " as the most effectual means of repelling the force, and disconcerting the stratagems of evil spirits, and of appeasing the anger of an offended deity ;" Vol. i. p. 398. " The weekly and yearly festivals of the Christians," says Neander, " originated in the same fundamental idea, . . . the idea of imitating Christ, the crucified and risen Saviour." And, again, " by the Christians — who were fond of comparing their calling to a warfare, a militia Christi— such fasts, united with prayers, were named stationes, as if they constituted the watches of the soldiers of Christ (the milites Christi) ;" Neander, Church Hist. vol. i. pp. 408, 409. / I48 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. as their vices, will appreciate the value of the regulation, and compre- hend how wonderfully adapted it is for keeping in check the animal propensities of man, especially among semi-civilised races. Mark the wisdom of the rule as given in the Koran : " O ye that have believed, a fast is ordained to you . . . that ye may practise piety, a fast of a computed number of days. But he among you who shall be ailing, or on a journey, (shall fast) an equal number of other days ; and they that are able to keep it (and do not), shall make atonement by maintaining a poor man. . . . But if ye fast, it will be better for you if ye comprehend ; . . . God willeth that which is easy for you." x This rule of abstinence is restricted to the day ; in the night, in the intervals of prayer and devotion, the Moslem is allowed, perhaps indeed, is bound, to refresh the system by partaking in moderation of food and drink, and otherwise enjoying himself lawfully. In the true spirit of the Teacher, the legists invariably laid down the rule that, during the fast, abstinence of mind from all base thoughts is as incumbent as the abstinence of the body.2 \ No religion of the world prior to Islam had consecrated charity, the support of the widow, the orphan, and the helpless poor, by enrolling its principles among the positive enactments of the system. The agapce, or feasts of charity among the early Christians, depended on the will of individuals ; their influence, therefore, could only be irregular and spasmodic. It is a matter of history that this very irregularity led to the suppression of the " feasts of charity or love-feasts " only a short time after their introduction. ? By the laws of Islam every individual is bound to contribute a certain part of his substance towards the help and assistance of his poorer neighbours. This portion is usually one part of forty, or z\ per cent, on the value of all goods, chattels, emblements, on profits of trade, mercantile business, etc. But alms are due only 1 Sura ii. 181. 2 The Kitdb ul-Mustatrif, chap. i. sec. 4. 3 Neander, vol. i. p. 450 et seq.; Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 56. I do nob mean to say that this was the only form in which Christian charity expressed itself. The support of the widow, the poor, and orphan was ae much insisted upon in Christianity as in Islam. But even this divine charity taught by Jesus received an impress of exclusiveness from the disciples, in whose hands he left his work. The widow, in order to claim the benefits of charity, was required to "be "threescore years of age, to have been the wife of one man, to have brought up children," etc. Compare throughout Blunt's History of the Christian Church, p. 27 et seq. islAm. 149 when the property amounts to a certain value,1 and has been in the possession of a person for one whole year ; nor are any due from cattle employed in agriculture or in the carrying of burdens. Besides, at the end of the month of Ramazan (the month of fasting), and on the day of the Id-ul-Fitr, the festival which celebrates the close of the Moslem Lent, each head of a family has to give away in alms, for himself and for every member of his household, and for each guest who breaks his fast and sleeps in his house during the month, a measure of wheat, barley, dates, raisins, rice, or any other grain, or the value of the same. The rightful recipients of the alms, as pointed out by the practice of Mohammed and his disciples, are (1) the poor and the indigent • (2) those who help in the collection and distribution of the obligatory alms ; (3) sieves, who wish to buy their freedom and have not the means for so doing ; (4) debtors, who cannot pay their debts ; (5) travellers and strangers.2 General charity is inculcated by the Koran in the most forcible terms.3 But the glory of Islam consists in having embodied the beautiful sentiment of Jesus4 into defii.ite laws. ^ The wisdom .which incorporated into Islam the time-honoured custom of annual pilgrimage to Mecca and to the shrine of the Kaaba, has breathed into Mohammed's religion a freemasonry and brotherhood of faith in spite of sectarian divisions. The eyes of the whole Moslem world fixed on that central spot, keep alive in the bosom of each some spark of the celestial fire which lighted up the earth in that century of darkness. Here, again, the wisdom of the inspired Lawgiver shines forth in the negative part of the enactment, in the conditions necessary to make the injunction obligatory: — (1) ripeness of intelligence and discernment; (2) perfect freedom and liberty ; (3) possession of the means of transport and subsistence during the journey, (4) possession of means sufficient to support the pilgrim's family during his absence ; (5) the possibility and practicability of the voyage.5 1 For example, no alms are due from a man unless he own twenty camels. 2 Jdmaa ut-Tirmizi, chapter on " Alms-giving ;" Jdmaa-Abbdsi ; Qnerry, Droit Musulman. Comp. also the Mabsut. 3 Sura ii. 267, 269, 275, etc., ix. 60, etc. 4 Matt. xxv. 35, 36. 5 Jdmaa-Abbdsi ; Querry, Droit Musulman, vol. i ; the Mabsut. I5Q THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. V Owing to the minute regulations, almost Brahminical in their strictness, in force among the heathen Arabs regarding the lawful or unlawful character of various kinds of food, the Teacher of Islam had frequently to admonish his followers that, with certain exceptions, all food was lawful. "And eat of what God hath given you for food that which is lawful and wholesome : and fear God, in whom ye believe."1 " Say," says the Koran, " I find not in what hath been revealed to me aught forbidden to the eater to eat, except it be that which dieth of itself , or blood poured forth, or swine's flesh, for that is an abomination, and meat which . has been slain in the name of other than God [idols]." This is amplified in the fifth sura, which is also directed against various savage and idolatrous practices of the pagan Arabs. " That which dieth of itself, and blood, and swine's flesh, and all that hath been sacrificed under the invocation of any other name than that of God,2 and the strangled, and the killed by a blow or by a fall, or by goring,3 and that which hath been eaten by beasts of prey, unless ye give the death-stroke yourselves, and that which hath been sacrificed on the blocks of stone,* is forbidden to you : and to make division of the slain by consulting the arrows, is impiety in you." 5 " Eat ye of the good things wherewith we have provided you and give thanks to God."6 1 Sura v. 90. 2 The heathen Arabs, when killing any animal for food, used to consecrate it by invoking the names of their gods and goddesses. 3 The idolatrous Arabs had different savage methods of killing animals. This prohibition has reference to the brutal processes employed by them. 4 Sacrificial stones placed round the Kaaba or at the entrance of houses over which the offerings were made to the idols. 5 Sura v. 4. 8 Things by nature abhorrent to man, such as the flesh of carnivorous animals, birds of prey, snakes, etc., required no specific prohibition. The idea prevalent in India, borrowed from the Hindoos, that Moslems should not partake of food with Christians, is entirely fallacious, and opposed to the. precept contained in the following passage of the Koran (sura v. 7) : " This day things healthful are legalised to you, and the meats of those who have received the Scriptures are allowed to you, as your meats are to them." With regard to the sumptuary regulations, precepts, and prohibitions of Mohammed, it must be remembered that they were called forth by the temporary circum- stances of the times and people. With the disappearance of such circum- stances, the need for these laws have also disappeared. To suppose, therefore that every Islamic precept is necessarily immutable, is to do an injustice to history and the development of the human intellect Ibn Khaldim's words are in this connection, deserving of our serious consideration : " It is only by an attentive examination and well-sustained application that we can dis- cover the truth, and guard ourselves against errors and mistakes. In fact, if we were merely to satisfy ourselves by reproducing the records transmitted bv tradition without consulting the rules furnished by experience, the funda- islAm. 151 v Intoxication and gambling, the curse of Christian communities, and the bane of all uncultured and inferior natures, and excesses of all kinds, were rigorously prohibited. Nothing can be simpler or more in accord with the advance of the human intellect than the teachings of the Arabian Prophet. The few rules for religious ceremonial which he prescribed were chiefly with the object of maintaining discipline and uniformity, so necessary in certain stages ot society; but they were by no means of an inflexible character. He allowed them to be broken in cases of illness or other causes. " God wishes to make things easy for you, for," says the Koran, " man was created weak." The legal principles which he enunciated were either delivered as answers to questions put to him as the Chief Magistrate of Medina, or to remove or correct patent evils. The Prophet's Islam recognised no ritual likely to distract the mind from the thought of the one God ; no law to keep enchained the conscience of advancing humanity. The ethical code of Islam is thus summarised in the fourth Sura : " Come, I will rehearse what your Lord hath enjoined on you — that ye assign not to Him a partner; that ye be good to your parents ; and that ye slay not your children because of poverty : for them and for you will We provide ; and that ye come not near to pollutions, outward or inward •, and that ye slay not a soul whom God hath forbidden, unless by right . . . and draw not nigh to the wealth of the orphan, save so as to better it . . . and when ye pronounce judgment then be just, though it be the affair of a kinsman. And God's compact fulfil ye ; that is, what He hath ordained to you. Verily, this is my right way ; follow it, then."1 And again, " Blessed are they who believe and humbly offer their thanks- giving to their Lord . . . who are constant in their charity, and who guard their chastity, and who observe their trust and convenants . . . Verily, God bids you do justice and good, and give to kindred mental principles of the art of government, the nature, even, of the particular civilisation, or the circumstances which characterise the human society ; if we are not to judge of the wants which occurred in distant times by those which are occurring under our eyes, if we are not to compare the past with the present we can hardly escape from falling into errors and losing the way of truth," Prolegomenes $ Ibn Khaldoun, traduits par M. de Slane, Premiere Partie, p. 13. l Sura iv. 152 et seq. 152 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. their due ; and He forbids you to sin and to do wrong and oppress/' " Faith and charity," to use the words of the Christian historian, " are not incompatible with external rites and positive institutions, which, indeed, are necessary in this imperfect state to keep alive a sense of religion in the common mass."1 And, accordingly, Mohammed had attached a few rites to his teachings in order to give a more tangible conception to the generality of mankind. Jesus himself had instituted two rites, baptism and the " Holy Supper." 2 Probably, had he lived longer, he would have added more. But one thing is certain, that had a longer career been vouchsafed to him, he would have placed his teachings on a more systematic basis. This funda- mental defect, in Christianity has been, in fact, the real cause of the assembling of councils and convocations for the establishment of articles and dogmas, which snap asunder at every slight tension of reason and free thought. The work of Jesus was left unfinished. It was reserved for another Teacher to systematise the laws of morality. X Our relations with our Creator are matters of conscience ; our relations with our fellow-beings must be matters of positive rules ; and what higher sanction — to use a legal expression— can be attach- ed to the enforcement of the relative duties of man to man than the sanction of religion. Religion is not to be regarded merely as a subject for unctuous declamations by "select preachers," or as some strange theory for the peculiar gratification of dreamy minds. [Religion ought to mean the rule of life ; its chief object ought to be the elevation of humanity towards that perfection which is the end of our existence. The religion, therefore, which places on a systematic basis the fundamental principles of morality, regulating social obligations and human duties, which brings us nearer and nearer, by its compatibility with the highest development of intellect, to the All-Perfect— that religion, we say, has the greatest claim to our con- sideration and respectj It is the distinctive characteristic of Islam, as taught by Mohammed, that it combines within itself the grandest and the most prominent features in all ethnic and catholic3 religions compatible with the reason and moral intuition of man. It is not merely a system of positive moral rules, based on a true conception of human progress, but it is also "the establishment of certain 1 Mosheim, vol. i. p. 124. 2 Ibid. 3 For the use of these words see Clarke, Ten Great Religions , chap. 1. islAm. 153 principles, the enforcement of certain dispositions, the cultivation of a certain temper of mind, which the conscience is to apply to the ever-varying exigencies of time and place." The Teacher of Islam preached, in a thousand varied ways, universal love and brotherhood as the emblem of the love borne towards God. "How do you think God will know you when you are in His presence — by your love of your children, of your kin, of your neighbours, of your fellow- creatures ?'" "Do you love your Creator ? love your fellow-beings first."2 "Do you wish to approach the Lord? love His creatures, love for them what you love yourself, reject for them what you reject for yourself, do unto them what you wish to be done unto you." He condemned in scathing language the foulness of impurity, the meanness of hypocrisy, and the ungodliness of self-deceit. He proclaimed, in unmistakable terms, the preciousness ot truth, charity, and brotherly love. The wonderful adaptability of Islamic precepts to all ages and nations ; their entire concordance with the light of reason ; the absence of all mysterious doctrines to cast a shade of sentimental ignorance round the primal truths implanted in the human breast, — all prove that Islam represents the latest development of the religious faculties of our being. Those who have ignored the historic signi- ficance of some of its precepts have deemed that their seeming harshness, or unadaptability to present modes of thought ought to exclude it from any claim to universality. But a little inquiry into the historic value of laws and precepts, a little more fairness in the examination of facts, would evince the temporary character of such rules as may appear scarcely consonant with the requirements or. prejudices of modern times. The catholicity of Islam, its expansive- ness, and its charity towards all moral creeds, has been utterly mis- taken, perverted, or wilfully concealed by the bigotry of rival reli- gions. "Verily," says the Koran, " those who believe (the Moslems), and those who are Jews, Christians, or Sabseans, whoever hath faith in God and the last day (future existence), and worketh that which is 1 Mishkdt, bks. xxii. xxiii. chaps, xv. and xvi. -' Comp. Kastalani's Commentary on the Sahih of Bukhdri, pt. i. pt 70f to 154 THE SPIRIT OF ISL&M. right and good,— for them shall be the reward with their Lord ; there will come no fear on them ; neither shall they be grieved. m The same sentiment is repeated in similar words in the fifth Sura ; and a hundred other passages prove that Islam does not confine "salvation" to the followers of Mohammed alone : — "To every one have we given a law and a way. . . . And if God had pleased, He would have made you all (all mankind) one people (people of one religion). But He hath done otherwise, that He might try you in that which He hath severally given unto you : wherefore press for- ward in good works. Unto God shall ye return, and He will tell you that concerning which ye disagree/'2 Of all the religions of the world that have ruled the conscience of mankind, the Islam of Mohammed alone combines both the conceptions which have in different ages furnished the mainspring of human conduct, — the consciousness of_jiuman dignity, so valued in the ancient philosophies, and the sense of human sinfulness, so dear to the Christian apologist. ThebelieTthat man will be judged by his work solely, throws the Moslem on the practice of self- denial and universal charity ; the belief in Divine Providence, in the mercy, love, and omnipotence of God, leads him to self- humiliation before the Almighty, and to the practice of those heroic virtues which have given rise to the charge that the virtues of Islam are stoical,"3 patience, resignation, and firmness in the trials of life. It leads him to interrogate his conscience with nervous anxiety, to study with scrupulous care the motives that actuate him,* to distrust his own strength, and to rely upon the assistance of an Almighty and All-Loving Power in the conflict between good and evil. In some religions the precepts which inculcated duties have been so utterly devoid of practicability, so completely wanting in a knowledge of human nature, and partaking so much of the 1 Sura v. 73. Compare the spirit of these teachings with that of the Athanasian Creed. 2 Sura v. 56. Compare also xxix. 45, xxxii. 23, 24, xxxix. 47, xl. 13, etc. 3 Clarke, Ten Great Religions, p. 484. 4 Compare the first Apologue in the Akhldh (Rthics) of Hussain Wfuz on Ikhldst feSLJUU 155 dreamy vagueness of enthusiasts, as to become in tt>e real battles of life simply useless.1 The practical character of a religion, its abiding influence on the common relations of mankind, in the affairs of everyday life, its power on the masses, are the true criteria for judging of its universality. We do not look to exceptional minds to recognise the nature of a religion. We search among the masses to understand its true character. Does it exercise deep power over them ? does it elevate them ? does it regulate their conception of rights and duties ? does it, if carried to the South Sea islander, or preached to the Caffrarians, improve or degrade them ? — are the questions we naturally ask. In Islam is joined a lofty idealism with the most rationalistic practicality. It did not ignore human nature ; it never entangled itself in the tortuous pathways which lie outside the domains of the actual and the real, Its object, like that of other systems, was the elevation of humanity towards the absolute ideal of perfection ; but it attained, or tries to attain, this object by grasping the truth that the. nature of man is, in this existence, imperfect. If it did not say, " If thy brother smite thee on one cheek, turn thou the other also to him j " if it allowed the punishment of the wanton wrong-doer to the extent of the injury he had done,2 it also taught, in fervid words and varied strains, the practice of forgiveness and benevolence, and the return of good for evil : — (i Who speaketh better," says the Koran, " than he who inviteth unto God, and worketh good ? . . . Good and evil shall not be held equal. Turn away evil with that which is better."3 And again, speaking of paradise, it says, " It is prepared for the godly, who give alms in prosperity and adversity, who bridle their anger, and forgive men ; for God loveth the beneficent." 4 The practice of these noble precepts does not lie enshrined in the limbo of false sentimentalism. With the true follower of the Prophet they form the active principles of life. History has pre- 1 Compare M. Ernest Havet's remarks in his valuable and learned work, Le Christianisme et ses Origines, Pref. p. xxxix. 2 Koran, sura xxii. 40, 41. Thonissen's remark, that Mohammed allowed the punishment of the wilful wrong-doer for the purpose of preventing enormous evils, must always be borne in mind. — VHi\f. du Droit Criminct des Peuples Anciens, vol. ii. p. 67. * Koran, sura xli. 33, 34. 4 Koran, sura v. 127, 128.. Il« THE SPIRIT OF ISL^M. served, for the admiration of wondering posterity, many examples of patience under suffering exhibited by the followers of other creeds. But the practice of the virtue of patient forgiveness is easier in adversity, when we have no power to punish the evil-doer, than in prosperity. It is related of Hussain, that noble martyr of Kerbela, that a slave having once thrown the contents of a scalding dish over him as he sat at dinner, fell on his knees and repeated the verse of the Koran, -'Paradise is for those who bridle their anger." " I am not angry," answered Hussain. The slave proceeded, u and for those who forgive men." " I forgive you." The slave, how- ever, finished the verse, adding, " for God loveth the beneficent." " I give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver," replied Hussain.1 The author of the Kashshdf thus sums up the essence of the Islamic teachings : " Seek again him who drives you away ; give to him who takes away from you ; pardon him who injures you:2 for God loveth that you should cast into the depth of your soul the roots of His perfections."3 In the purity of its aspiration, can anything be more beautiful than the following: "The servants of the Merciful are they .that walk upon the earth sottly ; and when the ignorant speak unto them, they reply, Peace ! they that spend the night worshipping their Lord, prostrate, and standing, and resting : those that, when they spend, are neither profuse nor niggardly, but take a middle course : . . . those that invoke not with God any other God, and slay not a soul that God hath forbidden otherwise than by right ; and commit not fornication : . . . they who bear not witness to that which is false ; and when they pass by vain sport, they pass it by with dignity : who say, ' Oh, our Lord, grant us of our wives and children such as shall be a comfort unto us, and make us examples unto the pious,' — these shall be the rewarded, for that they persevered; and they shall be 1 This anecdote has been told by Sale in a note to the third chapter of his translation of the Koran, and also by (ribbon ; but both have, by mistake, applied the episode to Hassan, the brother of Hussain. See the Tafsir-Hussaini, Mirat Ed. p. 199. 2 Compare this with the precept of Mohammed reported by Abu Darda, Mishkat, bk. iv. chap. i. part ii., and the whole chapter on "Forgive- ness " (chap, xxxvi.) in the Mustatrif. 3 Zamakhshari, (the Kashshaf), Egypt. Ed. parti, p. 280. islAm. 157 accosted in paradise with welcome and salutation : — For ever therein, — a fair abode and resting-place !" 1 This is the Islam of Mohammed. It is not " a mere creed ; it is a life to be lived in the present " — a religion of right-doing, right- thinking, and right-speaking, founded on divine love, universal charity, and the equality of man in the sight of the Lord. However much the modern professors of Islam may have dimmed the glory of their Master (and a volume might also be written on the defects of modern Mahommedanism), the religion which enshrines righte- ousness and '• justification by work " 2 deserves the recognition of the lovers of humanity. " • . ] lSj%* ')) ^J* 4*4 reM >] u^;^ +tt> i_Xl< . jl 15 r*t> }! A " Thou partakest of the nature of the beast as well as the angel ; Leave the nature of the beast, that thou mayest surpass the angel." The present life was the seed-ground of the future. To work in all humility of spirit for the human good, to strive with all energy to approach the perfection of the All-Perfect, is the essential principle of Islam. The true Moslem is a true Christian, in that he accepts the ministry of Jesus, and tries to work out the moral preached by him. Why should not the true Christian do honour to the Preacher^ who put the finishing stroke to the work of the earlier Masters ? Did 7 not he call back the wandering forces of the world into the channel J of progress ? Excepting for the conception of the sonship of Jesus, there is 1 Koran, sura xxv. 64-67. 2 Mr. Cotter Morrison, in his Service of Man, calls the other doctrine the most disastrous to human morality. I58 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. no fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. In their essence they are one and the same ; both are the outcome of the same spiritual forces working in humanity. One was a protest * against the heartless materialism of the Jews and the Romans ; the other a revolt against the degrading idolatry of the Arabs, their ferocious customs and usages. Christianity, preached among a more settled and civilised people subject to an organised government, had to contend with comparatively milder evils. Islam, preached among warring tribes and clans, had to fight against all the instincts of self-interest and ancient superstition. , Christianity, arrested in its progress towards the East by a man of cultured but bizarre character, who, though a Jew by birth, was by education an Alexandrian Greek, was carried to Greece and Rome, and there gathering up the pagan civilisation of centuries, gave birth to new ideas and doctrines. Christianity ceased to be Christian the moment it was trans- planted from the home of its birth. It became the religion of Paul, and ceased to be that of Christ. The pantheons of ancient paganism were tottering to their fall. Greek and Alexandrian philosophy had prepared the Roman world for the recognition of an incarnate God — a demiurgus, an ^Eon born in the bosom of eternity, and this conception imbedded itself in Pauline Christianity. Modern idealistic Christianity, which is more a philosophy than a positive religion, is the product of cen- 1 turies of pre-Christian and post-Christian civilisation. Islam i was preached among a people, among conditions social and moral, wholly divergent. Had it broken down the barrier which was raised against it by a degraded Christianity, and made its way among the higher races of the earth, its progress and its character would have \ presented a totally different aspect from what it now offers to the observer, among the less cultured Moslem communities. Like rivers flowing through varied tracts, both these creeds have produced ft results in accordance with the nature of the soil through which they have found their course. The Mexican who castigates himself with cactus leaves, the idol-worshipping South American, the lower strata of Christian nations, are hardly in any sense Christians. There exists a wide gulf between them and the leaders of modern Christian thought. J^l&m, wherever it has found its way among culturable and progressive nations, has shown itself in complete accord with islAm. t 59 progressive tendencies, it has assisted civilisation, it has idealised religion.1 J A religion has to be eminently positive in its " commandments and prohibitions'* to exercise an abiding salutary influence on the ignorant and uncultured. The higher and more spiritualised minds are often able to forge on the anvils of their own hearts, lines of duty in relation to their fellow creatures without reference to outside directions. They are in commune with God and are guided by the consciousness of right and wrong, of truth and purity which has grown up with their being. Plato and Aristotle, who had never received the light of the Semitic revelations, spoke to the world of the highest principles of morality in as distinct terms as the great prophets. They too had heard the voice of God, and were lifted up to Him by their own thoughts. / To the mass of mankind, however, sunk either in ignorance or barbarism, for the uncultured and the sodden, moral enunciations convey no meaning unless they are addressed in a positive form and formulated with the precision of enactments surrounded with definite sanctions. The ethical side of a religion does not appeal to their feelings or sentiments ; and philosophical conceptions exercise no influence on their minds, their daily conduct or their lives. They are swayed far more by authority and precedent than by sermons on abstract principles. They require definite prescriptions to regulate not only their relations towards their fellow-beings but also their Creator whom, in the absence of such rules, they are apt to forget. L The success of Islam in the seventh century of the Christian era, and its rapid and marvellous diffusion over the surface of the globe, were due to the fact that it recognised this essential need of human nature.! To a world of wrangling sects and creeds, to whom words were of far greater importance than practice, it spoke in terms l The faith which could give birth to the heroic devotion of Ali, the gentleness of Jaafar (the Sadik), the piety and patience of Musa, the divine purity of Fatima, the saintliness of Rabia ; the religion which could pro- duce men like Ibn-Sina. Al-Beiruni, Ibn-Khaldun, Sanai, Jellal ud-din Riimi, Farid ud-din (the Att&r), Ibrahim Adham, and a host of others, surely contains every element of hopefulness, l60 THE SPIRIT OF ISL&M. . of positive command from an Absolute Source. Amidst the moral and social wreck in which it found its birth, it aimed at the integra- tion of the worship of a Personal Will, and thereby to recall humanity to the observance of duty which alone pointed to the path of spiritual development. And by its success in lifting up the lower races to a higher level of social morality it proved to the world the need of a positive system. It taught them sobriety, temperance,] charity, justice and equality as the commandments of God. Its affirmation of the principle of equality of man and man and its almost socialistic tendency represented the same phase of thought that had found expression on the shores of Galilee. But even in his most exalted mood the great Teacher of Islam did not forget the limitations imposed on individual capacity which occasion economic inequalities. Alas for the latter-day professors of Islam! The blight of patristicism has ruined the blossom of true religion and a true devotional spirit. A Christian preacher has pointed out with great force the distinc- tion between religion and theology, and the evils which have follow- ed in his Church from the confusion of the two.1 What has happened in Christianity has happened in Islam. \Practice has given way to the mockery of profession, ceremonialism has taken the place of earnest and faithful work, — doing good to mankind for the sake of doing good, and for the love of God. Enthusiasm has died out, and devotion to God and His Prophet are meaningless words. The earnestness without which human existence is no better than that of the brute creation, earnestness in right-doing and right- thinking, is absent. The Moslems of the present day have ignored the spirit in a hopeless love for the letter. Instead of living up to the ideal preached by the Master, instead of " striving to excel in good works," " of being righteous ; " instead of loving God, and for the sake of His love loving His creatures, — they have made themselves the slaves of opportunism and outward observance. It was natural that in their reverence and admiration for the Teacher his early disciples' should stereotype his ordinary mode of life, crystallise the 1 Professor Moroerie in his Defects of Modern Christianity. islAm. ' ' 161 passing incidents of a chequered career, imprint on the heart orders, rules, and regulations enunciated for the common exigencies, of the day in an infant society. But to suppose that the greatest Reformer the world has ever produced, the greatest upholder of the sove- reignty of Reason, the man who proclaimed that the universe was governed and guided by law and order, and that the law of nature meant progressive development, ever contemplated that even those injunctions which were called forth by the passing necessities of a j semi-civilised people should become immutable to the end of the ( world, is doing an injustice to the Prophet of Islam. No one had a keener perception than he of the necessities of this world of progress with its ever-changing social and moral phenomena,' / nor of the likelihood that the revelations vouchsafed to him might not meet all possible contingencies. When Muaz was appointed as governor of Yemen, he was asked by the Prophet by what rule he would be guided in his administration of that province. ( " By the law of the Koran," said Muaz. " But if you find no direction therein ?" " Then I will act according to the example of the Prophet." " But if that fails ?" " Then I will exercise my own judgment." The Prophet approved highly of the answer of his disciple, and commended it to the other delegates. The great Teacher, who was fully conscious of the exigencies of his own times, and the requirements of the people with whom he had to deal, — people sunk in a slough of social and moral despond, — with his keen insight and breadth of views, perceived, and one may say foretold, that a time would come when the accidental and tem- porary regulations would have to be differentiated from the permanent and general. " Ye are in an age," he declared, " in which, if ye abandon one-tenth of what is ordered, ye will be ruined. After this, a time will come when he who shall observe one-tenth of what is now ordered will be redeemed."1 1 This authentic tradition is given in the Jdmaa ut-Tirmizi and is to be found also in the Mishkdt. C ^Cv> - £ ' ' C " 9o. . \U r MJ , 9^9' ■■ ' - - ''Or? *«? j* f \*>j*»* f 4**> lU* (^x> ^U) ^jIj ^ ^SUb *ij*i Lo j&fi *&x> ijy .. &£ ' .'o " t * >* o , ° * J o i. o- >" to~J)j yUkfU *UfM#j| ljIj - ^ajLaJi ijZJLc . lsChoJJi t\jj ' ' J , ' / S ' r r * .', r 21 1 62 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. v^As we have already observed, the blight which has fallen on Mussalman nations is not due to the teachings of the Master. No religion contained greater promise of development, no faith was purer, or more in conformity with the progressive demands of humanity. The present stagnation of' the Mussalman communities is prin- cipally due to the notion which has fixed itself on the minds of the generality of Moslems, that the right to'the exercise of private judg- ment ceased with the early legists, that its exercise in modern times is sinful, and that a Moslem in order^to be regarded as an orthodox follower of Mohammed should belong to one or the other of the schools established by the schoolmen of Islam, and abandon his judgment absolutely to the interpretations of men who lived in the ninth century, and could have no conception of the necessities of the nineteenth. Among the Sunnis, it is the common belief that since the four Imams,1 no doctor has arisen qualified to interpret the laws of the Prophet. No account is taken of the altered circumstances in which Moslems are now placed ; the conclusions at which these learned legists arrived several centuries ago are held to be equally applicable to the present day. Among the Shiahs, the Akhbari will not allow his judgment to travel beyond the dictates of " the expounders of the law." Mohammed had consecrated reason as the highest and noblest function of the human intellect. Our schoolmen and their servile followers have made its exercise a sin and a crime. - As among Christians, so among Moslems. The lives and conduct of a large number of Moslems at the present day are governed less by the precepts and teachings of the Master, and more by the theories and opinions of the mujtahids and imams who have tried, each according to his light, to construe the revelations vouchsafed to the Teacher. Like men in a crowd listening to a preacher who from a lofty position addresses a large multitude and from his van- tage ground overlooks a vast area, they observed only their immediate surroundings, and, without comprehending the wider meaning of his words or the nature of the audience whom he addressed, adapted his 1AM Hanifa, Shafei, Malik, and Ibn Hanbal. utterances to their own limited notions of human needs and human progress. Oblivious of the universality of the Master's teachings, unassisted by his spirit, devoid of his inspiration, they forgot that the Prophet, from the pinnacle of his genius, had spoken to all humanity. They mixed up the temporary with the permanent, the universal with the particular. Like many of the ecclesiastics of Christendom, not a few were the servants of sovereigns and despots whose demands were not consistent with the precepts of the Master. Canons were invented, theories started, traditions discovered, and glosses put upon his words utterly at variance with their spirit. And hence it is that most of the rules and regulations which govern now the conscience of so many professors of the faith are hardly derived from any express and positive declarations of the Koran, but for the most part from the lego-religious books with which the Islamic world was flooded in the later centuries. " Just as the Hebrews deposed their Pentateuch in favour of the Talmud/' justly observes an English writer, " so the Moslems have abolished the Koran in favour of the traditions and decisions of the learned." " We do not mean to say/' he adds most pertinently, " that any Mohammedan if asked what was the text- book of his religion, would answer anything but the ' Koran ;•' but we do mean that practically it is not the Koran that guides his belief or practice. In the Middle Ages of Christendom it was not the New Testament, but the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, that decided questions of orthodoxy ; and in the present day, does the orthodox churchman usually derive his creed from a personal investi- gation of the teaching of Christ in the Gospels ? Probably, if he refers to a document at all, the Church Catechism contents him ; or if he be of a peculiarly inquiring disposition, a perusal of the Thirty- nine Articles will resolve all doubts. Yet he too would say his religion was drawn from the Gospels, and would not confess to the medium through which it was filtered. In precisely the same way modern Mohammedanism is constructed, and a large part of what Moslems now believe and practise is not to be found in the Koran at all." And yet each system, each school contains germs of improve- ment, and if development is now stopped, it is not even the fault of the lawyers. It is due to a want of apprehension of the spirit of 164 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. the Master's enunciations, and even of those of the fathers of the Church.1 In the Western world, the Reformation was ushered in by the Renaissance and the progress of Europe commenced when it threw off the shackles of Ecclesiasticism. In Islam also, enlightenment must precede reform ; and, before there can be a renovation of religious life, the mind must first escape from the bondage which centuries of literal interpretation and the doctrine of •'•conformity" have imposed upon it. The formalism that does not appeal to the heart of the worshipper must be abandoned ; externals must be subordinated to the inner feelings ; and the lessons of ethics must be impressed on the plastic mind ; then alone can we hope for that enthusiasm in the principles of duty taught by the Prophet of Islam. The reformation of Islam will begin when once it is recognised that divine words rendered into any language retain their divine character and that devotions offered in any tongue are acceptable to God. The Prophet himself had allowed his foreign disciples to say their prayers in their own tongue.2 He had expressly permitted others to recite the Koran in their respective dialects ; and had declared that it was revealed in seven languages. In the earliest ages of Islam there was a consensus of opinion that devotion without understanding was useless. Imam Abu Hanifa considered the recitation of the namdz and also of the Khutba or sermon, lawful and valid in any language.3 The disciples of Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf and Mohammed, have accepted the doctrine of their master with a certain variation. They hold that when a person does not know Arabic, he may validly offer his devotions in any other language4 1 The Radd ul-Muhtdr of Mohammed Amin the Syrian, and the Majma ul-Anhdr of the Shaikh Zadeh are as much in advance of the Midteka and the Heddya as the views of an Eldon or Mansfield upon those of a Coke or Blackstone. The opinions of Shaikh Murtaza, in their liberal and liberalising tendencies, are far above those of the narrow-minded self-opinionated Mohak- kik. But the servile Akhbari follows the latter in preference to the former. 2 Salman the Persian, whom Ali had saved from a lion, was the first to whom this permission was granted. 3 Jawdhir ul-Akhldti ; Burr ul-Mulchtdr, Bab us-Saldt (Chapter on Prayer). This view is also given in the Tajnis. Tahtawi states that the Imam's opinion is authoritative and should be followed. The commentator of the Durr ul-Mukhtdr also recognises the validity of reciting prayers in Persian. 4 This is construed by the ULemas of the present day to mean, when the worshipper is unable to pronounce Arabic words ! The absurdity of the explanation is obvious. islAm. 165 There is, however, one great and cogent reason why the practice of reciting prayers in Arabic should be maintained wherever it is possible and practicable. Not because it was the language of the Prophet, but because it has become the language of Islam and maintains the unity of sentiment throughout the Islamic world. And wherein lies more strength than in unity ? NOTE I. The sumptuary prohibitions of Mohammed may be divided into two classes, qualitative and quantitative. The prohibition against excess in eating and drinking and others of the like import belong to the latter class. They were called forth in part by the peculiar semi- barbarous epicureanism which was coming into fashion among the Arabs from their intercourse with the demoralised Syrians and Persians, and in part by circumstances of which only glimpses are afforded us in the Koran. The absolute prohibition of swine's flesh, which may be classed under the head of qualitative prohibitions, arose, as is evident, from hygienic reasons and this prohibition must remain unchanged as long as the nature of the animal and the diseases engendered by the eating of the flesh remain as at present. The prohibition against dancing was directed against the orgiastic dances with which the heathen Arabs used to celebrate the Syro-Phcenician worship of their Ashtaroth, Moloch and Baal. CHAPTER III. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. l^*1 ^ ^sMkl] ; e/f^l ; ;v>U ^ci/l ;y^) ^jJI d! THE extraordinary rapidity with which the religion of the Arabian Prophet spread over the surface of the globe is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the history of religions. For centuries Christianity had hidden itself in byways and corners ; not until it had largely absorbed and assimilated paganism, not until a half- pagctn monarch had come to its assistance with edicts and orders, was it able to rear its head among the creeds of the world. Islam, within thirty years of the death of its Teacher, found its way into the hearts of millions of people. And before a century was well over the voice of the Recluse of Hira had rolled across three continents. The legions of the Csesars and the Chosroes, who endeavoured to stop the on-rush of the new democracy preached in Arabia, were shattered to pieces by the children of the desert. Its wonderful success and marvellous effect upon the minds of men have given rise to the charge that, as a religion of the sword, Islam was propa- gated by the sword and upheld by the sword. We propose, therefore, carefully to examine the circumstances and facts connected with the rise of Islam, to see whether there is any truth in the statement. At the time of the Prophet's advent into Medina, the two tribes 1 Sura ii. 257, " Let there be no compulsion in religion." 2 Sura v. 73 ; See p. 167. Compare this with the thunders of the Athanasian Creed. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. 1 67 of Aus and Khazraj, who had been engaged in deadly conflict for years, had just ended their strife by a hollow peace. There was every prospect of the war breaking out again with fiercer animosity. The Jews, who after the onslaught of Jabala had accepted the clientage of the Medinite Arabs, were fast recovering their strength, and were openly threatening their pagan compatriots with the vengeance of the Messiah, whose appearance was hourly expected. The surrounding tribes, among whom the influence of the Koraish was supreme, were arrayed in all their desert ferocity against Medina. The moment Mohammed appeared among the Medinites the elements of danger which threatened the new religion became apparent. The Meccan disciples who had braved death, and now faced destitution and exile for their Master and the . light which he had brought to their hearts, were few and weak. His Medinite followers were not many ; they were divided amongst themselves, actuated by tribal jealousies. An important faction, headed by an influential chieftain, an aspirant to the throne of Medina, worked in the city on the side of the heathens.1 The Jews, compact and united, jealously and relentlessly, with poison and with treachery, opposed him in every direction. But the heart, which did not fail when the Koraish threatened him with death, was not daunted when the existence of others depended on him. He at once set himself to the task of organising into a social entity the varied elements which had gathered round him as the minister of God. He sub- stituted referees for the old tribal vendetta ; he abolished the distinction of Aus and Khazraj ; he comprehended the Jews and Christians in his little commonwealth, and planted germs of cordial relations among all believers ; he proclaimed that a Jew, Sabzean, or Christian, whoever believed in God and future life, and acted righteously, " on him shall come no fear/' To a people wedded to the worst type of heathenism, to a race with whom the shedding of blood was a second nature, he taught purity and truth, self-restraint, charity, and love of one's kind. " It shall be an expiation with God," he said to them, " when one shall drop his right of retalia- tion." " He who shall mediate between men for a good purpose shall be the gainer thereby, but the mediator for evil shall reap the fruit of his doing." a 1 See ante p. 53 2 Sura iv. 87. 1 68 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Whilst engaged in this divine work of humanising his people, raising them from the abyss of degradation, purifying them from abominations, he is attacked by his enemies, ruthless and untiring in their vengeance. They had sworn his death and the extirpation of his creed. The apostates from the faith of their fathers, as the Koraish regarded Mohammed and his followers to be, had betaken themselves to the rival city, to plant the germs of revolutionary doctrines. United Arabia must annihilate these crazy enthusiasts who had forsaken home and wealth for the sake of an unseen God, so exacting in His worship, so insistent on the common duties of love, charity, and benevolence, on purity of thought and deed. From the moment of his entry into Medina, Mohammed's destiny had become intertwined with that of his people, and of those who had invited and welcomed him into their midst. His destruction meant the destruction of the entire body of people who had gathered round the minister of God. Surrounded by enemies and traitors, the whole of Arabia responding to the call of the Koraish, the ancient servitors of the national gods marching to their slaughter, his followers would have inevitably perished but for the swords in their hands. And it was not until their enemies were upon them that it was declared, " The infidels regard not in a believer either ties of blood or covenant ; when they break their oaths of alliance, and attack you, defend yourself;" and again, " Defend yourself against your enemies ; but attack them not first : God hateth the aggressor." l To the Moslems self-defence had become a question of self-preservation. They must either submit to be massacred or fight when they were attacked. They chose the latter alternative, and succeeded, after a long struggle, in subduing their enemies. The bitter animosity of the Jews, their repeated violations of the most solemn engagements, their constant seditiousness, and their frequent endeavours to betray the Moslems to the idolaters, led naturally to severe chatisement. It was essentially necessary for the safety of the weak and small community, more as a deterrent warning than as a vindictive punishment. We have no right to assume that because some of the great teachers who have from time to time appeared on earth haTe i Sura ii, 286. THE CHURCH MILITANT OP ISLAM. 169 succumbed under the force of opposing circumstances and become martyrs, that because others have created in their brains an un- realised Utopia, that because dreamers have existed, and enthusiasts have suffered, Mohammed was bound to follow their example, and leave the world before he had fulfilled his mission. Nor was he obliged to sacrifice himself and the entire community over which he was called to preside, for the sake of carrying out what, in the present time, would be called an ' Idea/ Let us compare the struggles of the Moslems in self-defence, and for self-preservation, with the frightful wars of the Jews and the Christians, and even of the gentle Parsis, for the propagation of their respective faiths. In the case of the Jews, aggression and extirpation were sanctified by religion. They were cursed for sparing. In the case of the early Christians, the doctrine of humility and meekness, preached by the Prophet of Nazareth, was soon forgotten in the pride of power. From the moment Christianity became a recognised force, — the dominant faith of a community, — it became aggressive and persecuting. Parallels have been drawn between Jesus and Mohammed by different writers. Those fully penetrated with the conviction of the godhead of Jesus have recognised in the " earthly " means employed by the Arabian Prophet for the re- generation of his people the result of " Satanic suggestions/' while the non-employment of such means (perhaps from want of oppor- tunity to use them) has been looked upon as establishing the divinity of the Prophet of Nazareth. We shall furnish reasons to show that such comparisons are unfair, based as they are on what is not only false to history, but false to human nature. The circumstances attending the lives of Jesus and Mohammed were wholly different. During his short ministry the influence of Jesus remained confined to a small bodv of followers, taken chiefly from the lower and uneducated ranks. He fell a victim1 to the passions he had evoked by his scathing denunciations of the lifeless sacerdotalism of the priestly classes — to the undying hatred of a l I write according to the generally received opinion among Western scholars ; that Mohammed, in accordance with the traditions current in his time, believed that Jesus miraculously disappeared, there is no doubt. In spite of this so-called apocryphal Gnostic tradition being opposed to the general body of Christian traditions, there is as much historic probability on one side as the other ; iSee ante, p. Iviii. ZZ 170 *HE SPIRIt OF ISLlM. relentless race — before his followers had become either numerous or influential enough to require practical rules for their guidance, or before they could form an organisation, either for purposes of spiritual teaching, or as a safeguard against the persecutions of the dominant creed. Drawn from among a people with settled laws, the observance of which was guaranteed by the suzerain power, the followers of Jesus had no occasion to constitute themselves into an organised body, nor had the Teacher any need to frame rules of practical positive morality. The want was felt when the community became more extensive, and the genius of a scholar, well-versed in the Neo-Platonic lore, destroyed the individuality and simplicity of the teachings of the Master. Mohammed, like Jesus, was followed from the commencement of his career as a preacher and reformer by the hostility and oppo- sition of his people. His followers also, in the beginning, were few and insignificant. He also was preceded by men who had shaken off the bondage of idolatry, and listened to the springs of life within. He, too, preached gentleness, charity, and love. I But Mohammed appeared among a nation steeped in barbarous usages, who looked upon war as the object of life, — a nation far removed from the materialising, degrading influences of the Greeks and the Romans, yet likewise far from their humanising influences. At first his enunciations evoked scorn, and then vengeful passions. His followers, however, increased in number and strength until at last the invitation of the Medinites crowned his glorious work with success. From the moment he accepted the asylum so nobly proffered, from the moment he was called upon to become their chief magistrate as well as their spiritual teacher, his fate became involved in theirs ; from that time the hostilities of the idolaters and their allies required an unsleeping vigilance on the part of the Moslems. A single city had to make head against the combined attacks of the multitudinous tribes of Arabia. Under these circum- stances, energetic measures were often necessary to sustain the existence of the Moslem commonwealth. When persuasion failed, pressure was required. The same instinct of self-preservation which spoke so warmly within the bosom of the great Prophet of Nazareth,1 when he 1 Luke xxii. 36. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. I7I advised his disciples to look to the instruments of defence, caused the persecuted Moslems to take up arms when attacked by their relentless enemies. Gradually, by gentle kindness and energy, all the disjointed fragments of the Arabian tribes were brought together to the worship of the true God, and then peace settled upon the land. Born among a people the most fiery of the earth, then as now vehement and impulsive by nature, and possessed of passions as burning as the sun of their desert, Mohammed impressed on them habits of self- control and self-denial such as have never before been revealed in the pages of history. At the time of Mohammed's advent international obligations were unknown. When nations or tribes made war upon each other, the result usually was the massacre of the able-bodied, the slavery of the innocent, and plunder of the household penates. The Romans, who took thirteen centuries to evolve a system of laws which was as comprehensive as it was elevated in con- ception,1 could never realise the duties of international morality or of humanity They waged war for the sole purpose of subjugating the surrounding nations. Where they succeeded, they imposed their will on the people absolutely. Treaties were made and broken, just as convenience dictated. The liberty of other nations was never of the slightest importance in their estimation.2 The intro- duction of Christianity made little or no change in the views enter- tained by its professors concerning international obligations. War was as inhuman and as exterminating as before ; people were led into slavery without compunction on the part of the captors ; treaties were made and broken just as suited the purpose of some designing chieftain. Christianity did not profess to deal with inter- national morality, and so left its followers groping in the dark. Modern thinkers, instead of admitting this to be a real deficiency in the Christian system, natural to the unfinished state in which it was left, have tried to justify it. A strange perversion of the human intellect ! Hence, what is right in the individual comes to be considered wrong in the nation, and vice versd. Religion and 1 In justice to the Semitic races, I must say that almost all the great jurists of Rome were Semites, — Phoenicians, Syrians, or Carthaginians. 2 Compare Dollinger, The Gentile, and the Jew throughout on this snbject. 1 172 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. morality, two convertible terms, are kept apart from the domain of law. Religion, which claims to regulate the tie of individual men, ignores the reciprocal relations of the various aggregates of humanity. Religion is thus reduced into mere sentimentalism, an object of gushing effusion, or mutual laudation at debating societies, albeit sometimes rising to the dignity of philosophical morality. The basis of international obligations, as has been ably observed, consists in the recognition of nations as individuals, and of the fact that there is not one standard for individuals and another for nations ; for as individuals compose a nation,, so nations compose humanity ; and the rights of nations and their obligations to each Other in nowise differ from those existing between individuals.1 True it is, that the rise of the Latin Church in the West, and the necessary augmentation of the power of the bishops of Rome, intro- duced in the Latin Christian world a certain degree of international responsibility. But this was absolutely confined to the adherents of the Church of Rome, or was occasionally extended as a favour to Greek Christianity. The rest of the world was unconditionally excluded from the benefits of such responsibility. " The name of religion served as the plea and justification of aggression upon weaker nations; it led to their spoliation and enslavement."' Every act of violation was sanctified by the Church, and, in case of extreme iniquity, absolution paved the criminal's way to heaven. From the first slaughters of Charlemagne, with the full sanction of the Church, to the massacre and enslavement of the unoffending races of America, there is an unbroken series of the infringement of inter- national duties and the claims of humanity. This utter disregard of the first principles of charity led also to the persecution of those followers of Jesus who ventured to think differently from the Church.2 The rise of Protestantism made no difference. The wars and mutual persecutions of the several religious factions form a history in themselves. " Persecution," says Hallam, " is the deadly original sin of the Reformed Churches, that which cools every honest man's 1 Comp. David Urquhart's essay on the Effects of the Contempt of Inter- national Law, reprinted from The East and West, Feb. 1867. 9 Compare Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 352, and Lecky, History of nationalism in Europe, chap, on Persecution. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. 173 zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more expansive." 1 But, however much the various new-born Churches disagreed among themselves, or from the Church of Rome, regarding doctrinal and theological points, they were in perfect accord with each other in denying all community of interests and rights to nations outside the pale of Christendom.2 The spirit of Islam, on the contrary, is opposed to isolation and exclusiveness. In a comparatively rude age, when the world was immersed in darkness, moral and social, Mohammed preached those principles of equality which are only half-realised in other creeds, and promulgated laws which, for their expansiveness and nobility of conception, would bear comparison with the records of any faith. " Islam," says the able writer to whom we have referred above, " offered its religion, but never enforced it ; and the accept- ance of that religion conferred co-equal rights with the conquering body, and emancipated the vanquished States from the conditions which every conqueror, since the world existed up to the period of Mohammed, had invariably imposed/' By the laws of Islam, liberty of conscience and freedom of worship were allowed and guaranteed to the followers of every other creed under Moslem dominion. The passage in the Koran, " Let there be no compulsion in religion,'' s testifies to the principle of toleration and charity inculcated by Islam. " What wilt thou force men to believe when belief can come only from God ? " — " Adhere to those who forsake you ; speak truth to your own heart ; do good to every one that does ill to you : "- these are the precepts of a Teacher who has been accused of fanaticism and intolerance. Let it be remembered that these are the utterances, not of a powerless enthusiast or philosophical dreamer paralysed by the weight of 1 Hallam's Const. Hist, of England, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 62. When Calvin burnt Servetus for his opinions regarding the Trinity, his act was applauded, says Lecky, by all sections of Protestants. Melanchthon, Bullinger, and Farel wrote to express their warm approbation of the crime. Beza defended it in an elaborate treatise ; Lecky, Hist, of Rationalism, vol. ii. p. 49. A study of the penal laws of England against the Catholics, Dissenters, and non -Conformists is enough to shock any candid mind.;.*- 2 Grotius, the founder, perhaps, of international law in Europe, formally excepted the Moslems from all community of rights with the European nations, • 3 Sura. ii. 257 (a Medina sura). s 174 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. opposing forces. These are the utterances of a man in the plenitude of his power, of the head of a sufficiently strong and well-organised State, able to enforce his doctrines with the edge of his reputed sword. In religion, as in politics, individuals and sects have preached toleration, and insisted upon its practice only so long as they have been powerless and feeble. The moment they have acquired strength enough to battle with the forces which they wish to super- sede, tolerance gives way to persecution. With the accession of Constantine to the throne of the Caesars, Christianity was safe from molestation. But from that period commenced a system of religious persecution in its atrocity paralleled only by that of the Jews. " From the very moment,"' says Lecky, " the Church obtained civil power under Constantine, the general principle of coercion was admitted and acted on, both against the Jews, the heretics, and pagans." l They were tortured with every refinement of cruelty ; they were burnt at a slow-consuming fire to enable them to think of the charity and humanity of the church of Christ. Father after father wrote about the holiness of persecution. One of the greatest saints of the Church, " a saint of the most tender and exquisite piety" — supplied arguments for the most atrocious persecution. Except during the Titanic struggles in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Christian church, purporting to derive its authority from the Apostles, has never hesitated to encourage war, — or to give its sanction, in the name of religion and " the glory of Christ " to exterminating enterprises against heretics and heathens. These had no claims on Christian humanity or the law of nations ; nor have the poor black races now ! In the fifteenth century, the Pope granted a special charter by which the non-Christian world was allotted to the Portuguese and Spaniards in equal shares with absolute power to convert the inhabitants in any way they chose ! History records how liberally they construed the permission. And all the atrocious doctrines relating to persecution and the treatment of non-Christians are unjustly based upon the words of Jesus himself ! Did not the Master say, " Compel them to come in " ? V In the hour of his greatest triumph, when the Arabian Prophet entered the old shrine of Mecca and broke down the idols, it was l Comp. Hallam, Const. Hist, of England, vol. i. chap. iii. p. 98. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. 175 not in wrath or religious rage, but in pity, that he said — " Truth is come, darkness departeth," — announcing amnesty almost universal, commanding protection to the weak and poor, and freeing fugitive slaves. Mohammed did not merely preach toleration ; he embodied it into a law. To all conquered nations he offered liberty of worship. A nominal tribute was the only compensation they were required to pay for the observance and enjoyment of their faith. Once the tax or tribute was agreed upon, every interference with their religion or the liberty of conscience was regarded as a direct contravention of the laws of Isllm.1 Could so much be said of other creeds ? Proselytism by the sword was wholly contrary to the instincts of Mohammed, and wrangling over creeds his abhorrence. Repeatedly he exclaims, " Why wrangle over that which you know not ; try to excel in good works ; when you shall return to God, He will tell you about that in which you have differed." We must now return to our examination of the wars of the Prophet. We have seen that the various conflicts of the Moslems under Mohammed with the surrounding tribes were occasioned by the aggressive and unrelenting hostility of the idolaters, and were necessary for self-defence. The battle of Muta and the campaign of Tabuk, the earliest demonstrations against a foreign State, arose out of the assassination of an envoy by the Greeks. Probably we should not have heard of the promulgation of Islam by the sword had the Moslems not punished the eastern Christians for this murder. The battle of Muta was indecisive, and the campaign of Tabuk, which was entirely defensive in its nature, (being undertaken to repulse the gathering of the forces of Heraclius), left this international crime unpunished during the lifetime of the Prophet; but his successors did not forget it, and a heavy penalty was exacted. The extent of the Greek empire brought the Moslems into a state of belligerency with the greatest portion of Christendom. Besides, the anomalous position occupied by the governors of the provinces under the waning suzerainty of the Byzantine emperors rendered it impossible for the Moslem Chiefs to put an end to this condition of affairs by means of treaty-stipulations with any one of l See chapter on The Political Spirit of Islam. 17^ THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. them. Before one could be subdued and brought to terms another committed some act of hostility, and compelled the Moslems to punish him. Hence the career once entered upon, they were placed in just warfare with nearly the whole of Christendom.1 Religion has often furnished to designing chieftains, among Moslems as among Christians, a pretext for the gratification of ambition. The Moslem casuists, like the Christian jurists and divines, have divided the world into two regions — -the Ddr ul-Harb and the Ddr ul-hldm, the counterparts of Heathendom and Christen- dom. An examination, however, of the principles upon which the relations of Moslem states with non-Moslem countries were based, shows a far greater degree of liberality than has been evinced by Christian writers on international law. It is only in recent times, and under stress of circumstances that non-Christian states have been admitted into the " comity of nations.*' The Moslem jurists, on the other hand, differentiate between the condition of belligerency and that of peace. The expression, Ddr ul-Harb? thus includes countries with which the Moslems are at war ; whilst the States with which they are at peace are the Ddr ul-Amdn.% The harbi, the inhabitant of the Ddr ul-Harb, is an alien, pure and simple. He has no right to enter Islamic States without express permission. But once he receives the dmdn or guarantee of safety from even the poorest Moslem, he is perfectly secure from molestation for the space of one year. On the expiration of that period, he is bound to depart. The inhabitant of the Ddr ul-Amdn is a mustdmin. The dmdn may be for ever or for a limited duration ; but so long as it lasts, the mustdmin 't treatment is regulated in strict accordance l See Urquhart's Islam as a Political System. I do nob mean to assert that the Moslems were never actuated by the spirit of aggression or by cupidity. It would be showing extreme ignorance of human nature to make such an assertion. It was hardly possible, that after the unprecedented progress they had made against their enemies and assailants, and after becoming aware of the weakness of the surrounding nations, they should still retain their moderation, and keep within the bounds of the law. Nor do I shut my eyes to the fact that there have been wars among the followers of Moham- med perhaps as cruelly waged as among the Christians. But these wars have been invariably dynastic. The persecutions to which certain sects have been subjected have arisen also, for the most part, from the same cause. The persecution of the descendants of Mohammed, the children of Ali and Fatima, by the Ommeyyades, found its origin in the old hatred of the Koraish to Mohammed and the Hashimis, as I shall show hereafter. 2 LiU the country of war. 3 The country of peace THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. 1 77 with the terms of the treaty with his country.1 The Mustdmins were governed by their own laws, were exempt from taxation and enjoyed other privileges. The spirit of aggression never breathed itself into that code which formally incorporated the Law of Nations with the religion ; and the followers of Mohammed, in the plenitude of their power, were always ready to say to their enemies, "Cease all hostility to us, v and be our allies, and we shall be faithful to you j or pay tribute, and we will secure and protect you in all your rights ; or adopt our religion, and you shall enjoy every privilege we ourselves possess." The principal directions of Mohammed, on which the Moslem laws of war are founded, show the wisdom and humanity which animated the Islamic system : " And fight for the religion of God against those who fight against you ; but transgress not (by attacking them first), for God loveth not the transgressors ; . . .if they attack you, slay them ; . . . but if they desist, let there be no ~ hostility, except against the ungodly." 2 ^ In turning their arms against Persia the Moslems were led on by circumstances. The Munzirs, a dynasty of semi-Arab kings who reigned under the shadow of the Persian monarchy, though politically hostile, were allied to the Byzantines by ties of faith and community of interests. The first conflicts of the Moslems with the Greeks naturally re-acted on the Hirites, the subjects of the Munzirs. The Hi rite territories comprehended a large tract of country, from the banks of the Euphrates westward, overlapping the desert of Irak, and almost reaching the pasturage of the Ghassanide Arabs, who owned allegiance to the Byzantines. The position of Hira under the Persians was similar to that of Judzea under Augustus or Tiberius. About the time of the Moslem conquest a Persian nominee ruled this principality ; but the jealousy of the Chosroes associated a marzbdn, or satrap, with the successor of the Munzirs, whose subjects, as impatient of control then as their descendants now, engaged in predatory raids on the neighbour- ing tribes, and became involved in hostilities with the Moslems. A strong government under the guidance of a single ruler, whose 1 These Amdns formed the origin of the Capitulations which have proved the ruin of Turkish resources. 2 Sura, ii. 186, compare ver. 257- 1 78 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. power had become doubly consolidated after the suppression of the revolts of the nomades on the death of the Prophet, was little inclined to brook quietly the insults of the petty dependency of a tottering empire. A Moslem army marched upon Hira ; the marzbdn fled to Madain (Ctesiphon), the capital of the Persian empire, and the Arab chief submitted, almost without a struggle, to the Moslems under Khalid bin-Walid. The conquest of Hira brought the Moslems to the threshold of the dominion of the Chosroes. Persia had, after a long period of internecine conflict, signalised by revolting murders and atrocities, succeeded in obtaining an energetic ruler, in the person of Yezdjard. Under the directions of this sovereign, the Persian general brought an imposing force to bear on the Moslems. The great Omar who now ruled at Medina, before taking up the challenge, offered to Yezdjard. through his deputies, the usual terms by which war might be avoided. These terms were, the profession of Islam, which meant the reform of the political abuses that had brought the Kyanian empire so low ; the reduction of all those heavy taxes and per- quisites,1 which sucked out the life-blood of the nation ; and the administration of justice by the code of Mohammed, which held all men, without distinction of rank or office, equal in the eye of the law. The alternative offer was the payment of tribute in return for protection. These terms were disdainfully refused by the Persian monarch and the days of Kadesia followed. After the conquest of Madain (Ctesiphon), the Caliph promulgated peremptory orders that under no circumstance should the Moslems cross the Tigris towards the East, and that that river should for ever form the boundary between the Persian and the Saracenic empires. Upon this basis a peace was concluded. But Iran chafed under the loss of Meso- potamia ; and the successive breaches of faith by the Persians led to Nehavend. The Kesra's power was irretrievably shattered ; many of his nobles and the chiefs of the priesthood, whose interest it was to keep up the reign of disorder and oppression, were cut off, and he himself became a fugitive like another Darius. The nation at large l Save the tenth on landed property, and 2^ per cent, of every man's means for the poor, the distribution of which would have been left to himself and his officers. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISL^M. I J() hailed the Moslems as their deliverers.1 The advance of the Sara- cens from the Tigris to the Elburz and from the Elburz to Trans- oxiana was like that of the British in India and due to similar causes. The general conversion of the Persians to the religion of Mohammed, and the almost total extinction of the Magian worship, are often taken as proofs of the intolerant character of Islam. But, in the blindness1 of bigotry, even scholars forget the circumstances under which the Moslems entered the country. Every trace of religious life was extinct among the people ; the masses were ground down by the worst of all evils, a degenerate priesthood and a licentious oligarchy. The Mazdakian and Manichsean heresies had loosened every rivet in the social fabric. Kesra Anushirvan had only postponed for a time the general disruption of society. The consequence was, that as soon as the Moslems entered the country as the precursors of law and order, a general conversion took place, and Persia became for ever attached to Islam.3 An impartial anal}st of facts will now be able to judge for himself how much truth there is in the following remark of Muir : " It was essential to the permanence of Islam that its aggressive course should be continuously pursued, and that its claim to an universal acceptance, or, at the least, to an universal supremacy, should be enforced at the point of the sword."3 Every religion, in some stage of its career, has, from the tendencies of its professors, been aggres- sive. Such also has been the case with Islam ; but that it ever aims at proselytism by force, or that it has been more aggressive than other religions, must be entirely denied.4 Islam seized the sword in self-defence, and held it in self-defence, as it will ever do. But Islam never interfered with the dogmas of any moral faith, never persecuted, never established an Inquisition. It never invented the rack or the stake for stifling difference of opinion, or strangling the human conscience, or exterminating 1 Yezdjard, like Darius, was assassinated by his own people. See my Short History of the Saracens, (Macmillan 1899) p. 32. 2 As a testimony to the spirit which animated the Moslems, we quote the. following from Gibbon : " The administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth ; and this monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed the philosophers of every age." — Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. v. p. 97. See also Suyviti, Tdrikh nl-Khnlafd {History of the Caliphs). 3 Muir, Life of Mahomet, vol. iii. p. 251. * Compare Niebuhr's remarks in his Description de V Arabic. > l8o THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. heresy. No one who has a competent knowledge of history can deny that the Church of Christ, when it pretended to be most infallible, " shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind." In England, after it became Protestant, the Presbyterians, through a long succession of reigns, were imprisoned, branded, mutilated, scourged, and exposed in the pillory. In Scotland, they were hunted like criminals over the mountain's ; their ears were torn from the roots ; they were branded with hot irons ; tfieir fingers were wrenched asunder by thumbkins ; the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots. Women were scourged publicly through the streets. The Catholics were tortured and hung. Anabaptists and Arians were burnt alive. But as regards non-Christians, Catholics and Protestants, orthodox and un-orthodox, were in perfect accord. Mussulmans and Jews were beyond the pale of Christendom. In England, the Jews were tortured and hung. In Spain, the Moslems wrere burnt. Marriages between Christians and Jews, and Christians and " infidels," were null and void, in fact prohibited under terrible and revolting penalties. Even now, Christian America burns alive a Christian negro marrying a Christian white woman. Such has been the effect produced by Christianity. To this day, wherever scientific thought has not infused a new soul, wherever true culture has not gained a foothold, the old spirit of exclusiveness and intolerance, the old ecclesiastical hatred of Islam, displays itself in writings, in newspaper attacks, in private conversations, in public speeches. The spirit of persecution is not dead in Christianity ; it is lying dormant, ready to burst into flame at the touch of the first bigot. Let us turn from this picture to the world of Islam. Whilst orthodox Christianity persecuted with equal ferocity the Jews .and Nestorians, — the descendants of the men who were supposed to have crucified its Incarnate God, and the men who refused to adore his mother, — Islam afforded them both shelter and protection Whilst Christian Europe was burning witches and heretics, and massacring Jews and " infidels," the Moslem sovereigns were treat- ing their non- Moslem subjects with consideration and tolerance. They were the trusted subjects of the State, councillors of the empire. Every secular office was open to them along with the THF, CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM. l8l Moslems. The Teacher himself had declared it lawful for a Moslem to intermarry with a Christian, Hebrew, or Zoroastrian. The converse was not allowed, for obvious political reasons. Moslem Turkey and Persia entrust their foreign interests to the charge of their Christian subjects. In Christendom, difference of faith has been a crime ; in Islam it is an accident. " To Christians,"' says Urquhart, " a difference of religion was indeed a ground for war, and that not merely in dark times and amongst fanatics." From the massacres, in the name of religion, of the Saxons, ihe Frisians and other Germanic tribes by Charlemagne ; from the burning to death of the thousands of innocent men and women ; from the frightful slaughters of the Arians, the Paulicians, the Albigenses and the Huguenots, from the horrors of the^sacks of Magdeburg and Rome, from the sanguinary scenes of the Thirty Years' War, down to the cruel persecutions of Calvinistic Scotland and Lutheran England, there is an uninterrupted chain of intolerance, bigotry, and fanaticism. Can anything be more heart-rending than the wholesale extermination of the unoffending races of America in the name of Christ ? It has been said that a warlike spirit was infused into mediaeval Christianity by aggressive Islam ! The massacres of Justinian and the fearful wars of Christian Clovis in the name of religion, occurred long before the time of Mohammed. Compare, again, the conduct of the Christian Crusaders with that of the Moslems. "'When the Khalif Omar took Jerusalem, a. d. 637, he rode into the city by the side of the Patriarch Sophronius, conversing with him on its antiquities. At the hour of prayer, he declined to perform his devotions in the Church of the Resurrection, in which he chanced to be, but prayed on the steps of the Church of Constantine ; for, said he to the Patriarch, 'had I done so, the Mussulmans in a future age might have infringed the treaty, under colour of imitating my example.' But in the capture by the Crusaders, the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls ; infants were pitched over the battlements ; men were roasted at fires ; some were ripped up, to see if they had swallowed gold ; the Jews were driven into their synagogue, and there burnt; a massacre of nearly 70,000 persons took place •, and 1 82 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. the pope's legate was seen partaking in the triumph ! " 1 When Saladin recaptured the city, he released all Christians, gave them money and food, and allowed them to depart with a safe-conduct.2 Islam "grasped the sword" in self-defence ; Christianity grasped it in order to stifle freedom of thought and liberty of belief. With the conversion of Constantine, Christianity had become the dominant religion of the Western world. It had thenceforth nothing to fear from its enemies ; but from the moment it obtained the mastery, it developed its true character of isolation and exclusiveness. Wherever Christianity prevailed, no other religion could be followed without molestation. The Moslems, on the other hand, required from others a simple guarantee of peace and amity, tribute in return for protection, or perfect equality, — the possession of equal rights and privileges, — on condition of the acceptance of Islam. 1 Draper, History of the Intellectual Development oj Europe, vol. ii. p. 22. 2 For a full account see Short History of the Saracens, p. 356. CHAPTER IV. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. IN certain stages of social development, polygamy, or more properly speaking, polygyny, — the union of one man with several women, — is an unavoidable circumstance. The frequent tribal wars and the consequent decimation of the male population, the numerical superiority of women, combined with the absolufe power possessed by the chiefs, originated the custom which, in our advanced times, is, justly regarded as an unendurable evil. Among all Eastern nations of antiquity polygamy was a recog- nised institution. Its practice by royalty, which everywhere bore the insignia of divinity, sanctified its observance to the people. Among the Hindoos, polygamy, in both its aspects, prevailed from the earliest times. There was, apparently, as among the ancient Medes, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians, no restriction as to the number of wives a man might have. A high caste Brahmin, even in modern times, is privileged to marry as many wives as he chooses. Polygamy existed among the Israelites before the time of Moses, who continued the institution without imposing any limit on the number of marriages which a Hebrew husband might contract. In later times, the Talmud of Jerusalem restricted the number by the ability of the husband to maintain the wives properly; and though the Rabbins counselled that a man should not take more than four wives, the Karaites differed from them, and did not recognise the validity of any limitation. i "Paradise is at the foot of the mother ;" Mohammed. I84 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. To the Persians, religion offered a premium on the plurality of wives.1 Among the Syro-Phcenician races, whom the Israelites displaced, conquered, or destroyed, polygamy was degraded into bestiality.2 Among the Thracians. Lydians, and the Pelasgian races settled in various parts of Europe and Western Asia, the custom of plura- lity of marriages prevailed to an inordinate extent, and dwarfs all comparison with the practice prevailing elsewhere. ' Among the Athenians, the most civilised and most cultured of all the nations of antiquity, the wife was a mere chattel, marketable and transferable to others, and a subject of testamentary disposition. She was regarded in the light of an evil, indispensable for the ordering of the household and procreation of children. An Athenian was allowed to have any number of wives ; and Demosthenes gloried in the possession by his people of three classes of women, two of which furnished the legal and semi-legal wives.4 Among the Spartans, though the men were not allowed, unless under especial circumstances, to have more than one wife, the women could have, and almost always had, more than one husband/1 The peculiar circumstances under which the Roman State was originally constituted probably prevented the introduction of legal polygamy at the commencement of its existence. Whatever the historical truth of the Rape of the Sabines, the very existence of the tradition testifies to the causes which helped to form the primitive laws of the Romans on the subject of matrimony. In the sur- rounding states generally, and especially among the Etruscans, plurality of marriage was a privileged custom. The contact, for centuries, with the other nations of Italy, the wars and conquests of ages, combined with the luxurious habits which success engendered, at last resulted in making the sanctity of marriage a mere by-word amongst the Romans. Polygamy was not indeed legalised, but " after the Punic triumphs the matrons of Rome aspired to the common benefits of a free and opulent republic, and their wishes l Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, pp. 495, 406. 8 Lev. xviii. 24. 3 Encyclopedie Unioerselle, art. " Mariage ; " Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 233. 4 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. pp. 233-238. 5 Grote, History of Greece, vol. vi. p. 136. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN JSI.AM. 185 were gratified by the indulgence of fathers and lovers." 1 Marriage soon became a simple practice cf promiscuous concubinage. Con- cubinage recognised by the laws of the State acquired the force of a privileged institution. The freedom of women, the looseness of the tie which bound them to men, the frequency with which wives were changed or transferred, betoken in fact the prevalence of polygamy, only under a different name. In the meantime, the doctrines of primitive Christianity preached on the shores of Galilee began to irradiate the whole Roman world. The influence of the Essenes, which is reflected visibly in the teach- ings of Jesus, combined with an earnest anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven, had led the Prophet of Nazareth to depreciate matrimony J in general, although he never interdicted or expressly forbade its practice in any shape. Polygamy flourished in a more or less pronounced form until forbidden by the laws of Justinian. But the prohibition contained in the civil law effected no change in the moral ideas of the people, and polygamy continued to be practised until condemned by the opinion of modern society. The wives, with the exception of the one first married, laboured under severe disabilities. Without rights, without any of the safeguards which the law threw around the favoured first one, they were the slaves of ever) caprice and whim of their hus- bands. Their children were stigmatised as bastards, precluded from all share in the inheritance of their father, and treated as outcasts from society. Morganatic and left-handed marriages were not confined to the aristocracy. Even the clergy, frequently forgetting their vows of celibacy, contracted more than one legal or illegal union. History proves conclusively that, until very recent times, polygamy was not considered so reprehensible as it is now. St. Augustine2 himself seems to have observed in it no intrinsic immorality or sinfulness, and declared that polygamy was not a crime where it was the legal institution of a country. The German reformers, as Hallam points out, even so late as the sixteenth century, admitted the validity of a second or a third marriage contemporaneously with the first, in default of issue and other similar causes. 1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 206. 2 St. Augustine, lib, ii. cont. Faust ch. xlvii, 24 1 86 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Some scholars, whilst admitting that there is no intrinsic immo- rality in a plurality of wives, and that Jesus did not absolutely or expressly forbid the custom, hold that the present monogamous practice, in one sense generd throughout Europe, arose from the engrafting of either Germanic or Hellenic-Roman notions on Christianity.1 The latter view is distinctly opposed to fact and history and deserves no credit. As regards the Germans, the proof of their monogamous habits and customs rests upon the uncorroborated testimony of one or two Romans, of all men the most untrustworthy witnesses to facts when it was to their interest to suppress them. Besides, we must remember the object with which Tacitus wrote his Manners of the Germans. It was a distinct attack upon the licen- tiousness of his own people, and, by contrasting the laxity of the Romans with the imaginary virtues of barbarians, was intended to introduce better ideas into Rome. Again, supposing that Tacitus is right, to what cause should we ascribe the polygamous habits of the higher classes of the Germans, even up to the nineteenth century ? 8 Whatever may have been the custom of the Romans in early times, it is evident that in the latter days of the republic and the commencement of the empire, polygamy must have been accepted as an institution, or, at least, not regarded as illegal. Its existence is assumed, and its practice recognised, by the edict which interfered with its universality. How far the Praetorian Edict succeeded in remedying the evil, or diverting the current of public opinion, appears from the rescript of the Emperors Honorius and Arcadius towards the end of the fourth century, and the practice of Constantine and his son, both of whom had several wives. The emperor Valen- tinian II, by an edict, allowed all the subjects of the empire, if they pleased, to marry several wives ; nor does it appear from the ecclesiastical history of those times that the bishops and the heads of the Christian Churches mide any objection to this law.3 Far from it, all the succeeding emperors practised polygamy, and the people generally were not remiss in following their example. 1 M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire appears to hold the opinion that monogamy was engrafted upon Christianity from Hellenic and Roman sources. 2 Comp. Encydopedie Unirerselle, art, " Mariage." 3 Comp. Encydopedie Universelle, art. " Mariage," and Davenport, Apology for Mahomet. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 87 This state of the laws continued until the time of Justinian, when the concentrated wisdom and experience of thirteen centuries of progress and development in the arts of life resulted in the pro- clamation of the laws which have shed a factitious lustre on his infamous reign. But these laws owed little to Christianity, at least directly. The greatest adviser of Justinian was an atheist and a pagan. Even the prohibition of polygamy by Justinian failed to check the tendency of the age. The law represented the advance- ment of thought ; its influence was confined to a few thinkers, but to the mass it was a perfectly dead letter. In the western parts of Europe, the tremendous upheaval of the barbarians, the intermingling of their moral ideas with those of the people among whom they settled, tended to degrade the relations between man and wife. Some of the barbaric codes attempted to deal with polygamy,1 but example was stronger than precept, and the monarchs, setting the fashion of plurality of wives, were quickly imitated by the people4. Even the clergy, in spite of the recommen- dation to perpetual celibracy held out to them by the Church, availed themselves of the custom of keeping several left-handed wives by a simple licence obtained from the bishop or the head of their diocese3. The greatest and most reprehensible mistake committed by I Christian writers is to suppose that Mohammed either adopted or legalised polygamy. The old idea of his having introduced it, a sign only of the ignorance of those who entertained that notion, is by this time exploded ; but the opinion that he adopted and legal- ised the custom is still maintained by the common masses, as well as by many of the learned in Christendom. No belief can be more false. Mohammed found polygamy practised, not only among his own people, but amongst the people of the neighbouring countries, where it assumed some of its most frightful aspects. The laws of the Christian empire had indeed tried to correct the evil, but without 1 Like the laws of Theodoric. But they were based on advanced Byzan- tine notions. 2 For polygamy among the Merovingian and Carlovingian sovereigns, see Short History of the Saracens, (M-icmillian 1899) p. 623. 3 Comp. Halian.'s Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 87, and note; Middle Ages, p. 353 (1 vol. ed.). 1 88 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. avail. Polygamy continued to flourish unchecked, and the wretched women, with the exception of the first wife, selected according to priority of time, laboured under severe disabilities. The corruptness of morals in Persia about the time of the Prophet was fearful. There was no recognised law of marriage, or, if any existed, it was completely ignored. In the absence of any fixed rule in the Zend-Avesta as to the number of wives a man might possess, the Persians indulged in a multitude of regular matri- monial connections, besides having a number of concubines.1 Among the ancient Arabs and the Jews there existed, besides the system of plurality of wives, the custom of entering into con- ditional, as well as temporary contracts of marriage. These loose notions of morality exercised the most disastrous influence on the constitution of society within the peninsula. The reforms instituted by Mohammed effected a vast and marked improvement in the position of women. Both among the Jews and the non-nomadic Arabs the condition of women was degraded in the extreme. The Hebrew maiden, even in her father's house, stood in the position of a servant ; her father could sell her if a minor. In case of his death, the sons could dispose of her at their will and pleasure. The daughter inherited nothing, except when there were no male heirs. % Among the settled pagan Arabs, who were mostly influenced by the corrupt and effete civilisation of the neighbouring empires, a woman was considered a mere chattel ; she formed an integral part of the estate of her husband or her father ; and the widows of a man descended to his son or sons by right of inheritance, as any other portion of his patrimony. Hence the frequent unions between step-sons and step-mothers which, when subsequently forbidden by Islam, were branded under the name of Nikdh ul-Makt (" shameful or odious marriages"). Even polyandry was practised by the half-Jewish, half-Sabaean tribes of Yemen.8 The pre-Islamite Arabs carried their aversion to women so far as to destroy, by burying alive, many of their female children. This fearful custom, which was most prevalent among the tribes of Koraish and Kendah, was denounced in burning terms by Moham- 1 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. p. 406. 2 Num. xxx. 17. 3 Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 318. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 89 med and was prohibited under severe penalties, along with the inhuman practice, which they, in common with other nations of antiquity, observed, of sacrificing children to their gods. In both the empires, the Persian and the Byzantine, women occupied a very low position in the social scale. Fanatical enthusiasts, whom Christendom in later times canonised as saints, preached against them and denounced their enormities, forgetting that the evils they perceived in women were the reflections of their own jaundiced minds. It was at this time, when the social fabric was falling to pieces on all sides, when all that had hitherto kept it together was giving way, when the cry had gone forth that all the older systems had been weighed in the scale of experience and found wanting, that Mohammed introduced his reforms. The Prophet of Islam enforced as one of the essential teachings of his creed. " respect for women." And his followers, in their love and reverence for his celebrated daughter, proclaimed her " the Lady of Paradise," as the representative of her sex. M Our Lady of Light"1 is the embodiment of all that is divine in womanhood,-— of all that is pure and true and holy in her sex, — the noblest ideal of human con- ception. And she has been followed by a long succession of women, who have consecrated their sex by their virtues. , Who has not heard of the saintly Rabia and a thousand others her equals ? In the laws which the Arabian Prophet promulgated he strictly prohibited the custom of conditional marriages, and though at first temporary marriages were tacitly allowed, in the third year of the Hegira even these were forbidden.2 Mohammed secured to women, in his system, rights which they had not before possessed ; he allowed them privileges the value of which will be more fully appreciated as time advances. He placed them on a footing of perfect equality with men in the exercise of all legal powers and functions. He res- trained polygamy by limiting the maximum number of contem- poraneous marriages, and by making absolute equity towards all obligatory on the man. It is worthy of note that the clause in the 1 Khatun-i-jinnat, Fdtimat-uz-zahrd. 2 A section of the Shiahs still regard temporary marriages as lawful. But with all deference to the Mujtahids, who have expounded that view, I cannot help considering that it was put forward to suit the tastes of the times, or of the sovereigns under whom these lawyers flourished. In many of their doc- trines one cannot fail to perceive the influence of personal inclinations. r \ I90 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Koran which contains the permission to contract four contem- poraneous marriages, is immediately followed by a sentence which cuts down the significance of the preceding passage to its normal and legitimate dimensions. The passage runs thus, " You may marry two, three, or four wives, but not more.'* The subsequent lines declare. " but if you cannot deal equitably and justly with all, you shall marry only one.'' The extreme importance of this proviso, bearing especially in mind the meaning which is attached to the word " equity " {aadl) in the Koranic teachings, has not been lost sight of by the great thinkers of the Moslem world. Aadl signifies not merely equality of treatment in the matter oTlodgment, clothing and other domestic requisites but also complete equity in love, affection and esteem. As absolute justice in matters of feeling is impossible, the Koranic presciption amounted in reality to a prohibition. This view was propounded as early as the third century of the Hegira. 1 In the reign of al-Mamun. the first Mutazalite doctors taught that the developed Koranic laws inculcated monogamy. And though the cruel persecutions of the mad bigot, Mutawakkil, prevented the general diffusion of their teachings, the conviction is gradually forcing itself on all sides, in all advanced Moslem communities, that polygamy is as much opposed to the teachings of Mohammed as it is to the general progress of civilised society and true culture.2 The fact must be borne in mind, that the existence of polygamy depends on circumstances. Certain times, certain conditions of society, make its practice absolutely needful for the preservation of women from starvation or utter destitution. If reports and statistics speak true, the greatest proportion of the frightful immorality pre- valent in the centres of civilisation in the West arises from absolute destitution. Abbe Hue and Lady Duff Gordon have both remarked that in the generality of cases sheer force of circumstances drives people to polygamy in the East. With the progress of thought, with the ever-changing conditions of this world, the necessity for polygamy disappears, and its practice is tacitly abandoned or expressly forbidden. And hence it is, that in 1 The Radd ul-Muhtdr distinctly says " some doctors [the Mutazala] hold that aadl includes equality in love and affection, but our masters differ from this view and confine it to equal treatment in the matter of najkah, which in the language of law, signifies food, clothing and lodgment." 2 Compare the remarks on this subject of Moulvi Chiragh Ali in his able work called, Are Reforms possible in Mahommedau States ? THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. I9I those Moslem countries where the circumstances which made its existence at first necessary are disappearing, plurality of wives has come to be regarded as an evil, and as an institution opposed to the teachings of the Prophet ; while in those countries where the conditions of society are different, where the means which, in advanced communities, enable women to help themselves are absent or wanting, polygamy must necessarily continue to exist. Perhaps the objection may be raised, that as the freedom of construction leaves room for casuistical distinctions, the total extinction of polygamy will be a task of considerable difficulty. We admit the force of this objection, which deserves the serious consideration of all Moslems desirous of freeing the Islamic teachings from the blame which has hitherto been attached to them, and of moving with advancing civilisation. But it must be remembered that the elasticity of laws is the greatest test of their beneficence and usefulness. And this is the merit of the Koranic provision. It is adapted alike for the acceptance of the most cultured society and the requirements of the least civilised. It ignores not the needs of progressive humanity, nor forgets that there are races and communities on the earth among whom monogamy may prove a dire evil. The task of abolishing polygamy, however, is not so difficult as is imagined. The blight that has fallen on the Moslem nations is due to the patristic doctrine which has prohibited the exercise of individual judgment (Ijtihdd). The day is not far distant when an appeal to the Teacher's own words will settle the question whether the Islamist will follow Mohammed or the Fathers of the Church, who have misused the Master's name to satisfy their own whimsicalities, or the capricious dictates of Caliphs and Sultans, whose obsequious servants they were. Europe has gone through the same process herself, and instead of hurling anathemas at the Church of Mohammed, ought to watch, with patience and sympathy, the efforts of regenerated Islam to free itself from patristic bondage. When once the freedom from the enthralment of old ideas is achieved, it will be easy for the jurists of each particular Moslem State to abolish, by an authoritative dictum, polygamy within that State, But such a consummation can only result from a general progress in the conception of facts, and a proper understanding of the Prophet's teachings. Polygamy is disappearing, or will soon disappear, under the new light in which his words are being studied. 192 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. As remarked already, the compatibility of Mohammed's system with every stage of progress shows their Founder's wisdom. Among unadvanced communities, polygamy, hedged by all the safeguards imposed by the Prophet, is by no means an evil to be deplored. At least it is preferable to those polyandrous customs and habits and modes of life which betoken an utter abandonment of all moral self-restraint. As culture advances, the mischiefs resulting from polygamy are better appreciated, and the meaning of the prohibition better comprehended. We are by no means prepared to say that the Mussalmans of India have benefited greatly by their intermixture with the Brahminical races, among whom prostitution was a legalised custom. Their moral ideas have become lax ; the conception of human dignity and spiritual purity has become degraded ; the class of hetairai has become as popular among them as among their pagan neighbours. And yet there are signs visible which bid us hope that God's light, which lit up Arabia in the seventh century, will fall on their hearts and bring them out of the darkness in which they are now plunged. The Mutazali is, by conviction, a strict monogamist ; according to him the law forbids a second union during the subsis- tence of a prior contract. In other words, a Mutazali marriage fulfils in every respect the requirements of an essentially monogamous marriage as a " voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.'' Even among the archaic sects, a large and influential body hold polygamy to be unlawful, the circumstances which rendered it permissible in primitive times having either passed away or not exist- ing in the present day. As a matter of fact, the feeling against polygamy is becoming a strong social, if not a moral, conviction, and many extraneous cir- cumstances, in combination with this growing feeling, are tending to root out the custom from among the Indian Mussalmans. It has become customary among all classes of the community to insert in the marriage-deed a clause, by which the intending husband formally renounces his supposed right to contract a second union during the continuance of the first marriage. Among the Indian Mussalmans ninety-five men out of every hundred are at the present moment, either by conviction or necessity, monogamists. Among the educated classes, versed in ihe history of their ancestors, and able to compare THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 93 it with the records of other nations, the custom is regarded with disapprobation. In Persia, only a small fraction of the population enjoy the questionable luxury of plurality of wives.1 It is earnestly to be hoped that, before long, a general synod of Moslem doctors will authoritatively declare that polygamy, like slavery, is abhorrent to the laws of Islam. We now turn to the subject of Mohammed's marriages, which to many minds not cognisant of the facts, or not honest enough to appreciate them, seem to offer a fair ground of reproach against the Prophet of Islam. His Christian assailants maintain that in his own person by frequent marriages he assumed a privilege not granted by the laws, and that he displayed in this manner a weakness of character little compatible with the office of prophet. Truer know- ledge of history, and a more correct appreciation of facts, instead of proving him to be a self-indulgent libertine, would conclusively i establish that the man, poor and without resource himself, when he undertook the burden of supporting the women whom he married in strict accordance with the old patriarchal institution, was undergo- ing a self-sacrifice of no light a character. And we believe that & tho- rough analysis of motives from the standpoint of humanity will demons- trate the falsehood and uncharitableness of the charges levelled at " the Great Arabian." When Mohammed was only twenty-five years of age, in the prime of life, he married Khadija, much his senior in years. For twenty-five years his life with her was an uninterrupted sunshine of faithfulness and happiness. Through every contumely and outrage heaped on him by the idolaters, through every persecution, Khadija was his sole companion and helper. At the time of Khadija's death Mahommed was in the fifty-first year of his age. His enemies cannot deny, but are forced to admit, that during the whole of this long period they find not a single flaw in his moral character. During the lifetime of Khadija, the Prophet married no % other wife, notwithstanding that public opinion among his people \ would have allowed him to do so had he chosen.// ' Several months after Khadija's death and on his return, helpless and persecuted, from Tayef, he married Sauda, the widow of one k Sakran, who had embraced Islam, and had been forced to fly into Abvssinia to escape the persecution of the idolaters. Sakran had 1 Only two per cent, according to Col Macgregor. 25 I94 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. died in exile, and left his wife utterly destitute. According to the customs of the country, marriage was the only means by which ^ the Teacher could protect and help the widow of his faithful disciple. Every principle of generosity and humanity would impel Mohammed to offer her his hand. Her husband had given his life in the cause of the new religion ; he had left home and country for the sake of his faith ; his wife had shared his exile, and now had returned to Mecca destitute. As the only means of assisting the poor woman, Mohammed, though straitened for the very means of daily subsist- ence, married Sauda.^' Abdullah, the son of Osman Abu Kuhafa, known afterwards in history as Abu Bakr, " the Father of the Virgin," was one of the most devoted followers of Mohammed. He was one of the earliest converts to the faith of the Prophet ; and in his sincere, earnest and unvarying attachment to Mohammed he might almost be com- pared with Ali. Abu Bakr, as by anticipation we may well call him, had a little daughter named Ayesha, and it was the desire of his life to cement the attachment which existed between h;mself and the Prophet, who had led him out from the darkness of scepticism, by giving Moham- med his daughter in marriage. The child was only seven years of -.age, but the manners of the country recognised such alliances. At the earnest solicitation of the disciple, the little maiden became the wife of the Prophet. Some time after the arrival of the fugitives at Medina there occurred an incident which throws considerable light on the con- ditions of life among the Arabs of the time. Those who know the peculiarities of the Arab character — " pride, pugnacity, a peculiar point of honour, and a vindictiveness of wonderful force and patience " — will be able to appreciate the full bearing ot the story. Even now " words often pass lightly between individuals/' says Burton, " which suffice to cause a blood-feud amongst Bedouins." Omar Ibn ul-Khattab, who afterwards became the second Caliph of Islam, had a daughter of the name of Hafsa. This good lady had lost her husband at the battle of Badr, and being blessed with a temper as fiery as that of her father, had remained ever since without a husband. The disciples bent upon matrimony fought shy of her. It was almost a reflection on the father ; and Omar, in order to get THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 95 rid of the scandal, offered his daughter's hand to Abu Bakr, and, upon his declining the honour, to Osman. He also met the offer with a refusal. This was little less than a direct insult, and Omar proceeded in a towering rage to Mohammed to lay his complaint before the Prophet. The point of honour must anyhow be settled in his favour. But neither Abu. Bakr nor Osman would undertake the burden of Hafsa's temper : — a dispute, ludicrous in its origin from our point of view, but sufficiently serious then to throw into commotion the small body of the Faithful. In this extremity the chief of the Moslems appeased the enraged father by marrying the daughter. And public opinion not only approved, but was jubilant over it.1 Hind Umm Salma, Umm Habiba, and Zainab Umm ul-Masakin,2 three other wives of the Prophet, had also been widows, whom the animosity of the idolaters had bereft of their natural protectors, and whom their relations were either unable or unwilling to support. Mohammed had married his devoted friend and freedman, Zaid, to a high-born lady of the name of Zainab, descended from two of the noblest families of Arabia. Proud of her birth, and perhaps also of her beauty, her marriage with a freedman rankled in her breast. Mutual aversion at last culminated in disgust. Probably this disgust on the husband's part was enhanced by the frequent repetition, in a manner which women only know how to adopt, of a few words which had fallen from the lips of Mohammed on once seeing Zainab. He had occasion to visit the house of Zaid, and 1 The story told by Muir, Sprenger, and Osborn, with some amount of gloating, of the domestic squabble between Hafsa and Mohammed, con- cerning Mary, the Coptic girl presented to the Prophet's household by the Negus, is absolutely false and malicious. A tradition, which is repudiated by all the respectable commentators of the Koran, and which must have been invented in the time of some Ommeyyade or Abbasside sensualist, founded on the weakest authority, has been seized with avidity by these critics for the vilification of the Prophet. The verse in the Koran which has been supposed to refer to this story, refers, in truth, to a wholly different circumstance. Mohammed, in his boyhood, when he tended the flocks of his uncle, had acquired a fondness for honey, which was often supplied by Zainab. Hafsa and Ayesha set to work to make him give up honey, and they succeeded in inducing him to vow he would never touch it. But after he had made the vow to her came the thought that he was making something unlawful in which there was nothing unlawful, simply to please his wives. His conscience smote him as to his weakness, and then came the verse, " 0 Prophet, why holdest thou that to be prohibited which God has made lawful, seeking to please thy wives ?"— (Zamakhshari.) 2 "Mother of the poor," so called from her charity and benevolence, 196 the spirit of islAm. upon seeing Zainab's unveiled face, had exclaimed, as a Moslem would say at the present day when admiring a beautiful picture or statue, " Praise be to God, the ruler of hearts ! " The words, uttered in natural admiration, were often repeated by Zainab to her husband to show how even the Prophet praised her beauty, and naturally added to his displeasure. At last he came to the decision not to live any longer with her, and with this deter- mination he went to the Prophet and expressed his intention of being divorced. " Why/' demanded Mohammed, " hast thou found any fault in her?" "No," replied Zaid, "but I can no longer live with her." The Prophet then peremptorily said, " Go and guard thy wife; treat her well and fear God, for God has said. 1 Take care of your wives, and fear the Lord ! ' " But Zaid was not moved from his purpose, and in spite of the command of the Prophet he divorced Zainab. Mohammed was grieved at the conduct of Zaid, more especially as it was he who had arranged the marriage of these two uncongenial spirits. After Zainab had succeeded in obtaining a divorce from Zaid, she commenced importuning Mohammed to marry her, and was not satisfied until she had won for herself the honour of being' one of the wives of the Prophet.1 Another wife of Mohammed was called Juwairiya. She was the daughter of Haris, the chief of the Bani Mustalik, and was taken prisoner by a Moslem in an expedition undertaken to repress their revolt. She had made an agreement with her captor to purchase her freedom for a stipulated sum. She petitioned Mohammed for the amount, which he immediately gave her. In recognition of this kindness, and in gratitude for her liberty, she offered her hand to Mohammed, and they were married. As soon as the Moslems heard of this alliance, they said amongst themselves the Banu Mustalik are now connections of the Prophet, and we must treat 1 Tibri (Zotenberg's translation), vol. iii. p. 58. This marriage created a sensation amongst the idolaters, who, whilst marrying their step-mothers and mothers-in-law, looked upon the marriage of the divorced wife of an adopted son (as Zaid at one time was regarded by Mohammed) by the adoptive father as culpable. To disabuse the people of the notion that adoption creates any such tie as real consanguinity, some verses of chap, xxxiii. were delivered, which destroyed the pagan custom of forbidding or making sacred the person of a wife or husband, or intended wife or husband, by merely calling her mother, sister, father, or brother — much less by her or him being first allied to an adopted son or daughter. One of the greatest tests of the Prophet's purity is that Zaid never swerved from his devotion to his master. *i THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 97 them as such. Each victor thereupon hastened to release the captives he had made in the expedition, and a hundred families, thus regain- ing their liberty, blessed the marriage of Juwairiya with Mohammed.1 Safiya, a Jewess, had also been taken prisoner by a Moslem in the expedition against Khaibar. Her, too, Mohammed generously liberated, and elevated to the position of his wife at her request. Maimuna, whom Mohammed married in Mecca, was his kins- woman, and was already above fifty. Her marriage with Mohammed, besides providing for a poor relation the means of support, gained over to the cause of Islam two famous men, Ibn- Abbas and Khalid bin-Walid, the leader of the Koraish cavalry in the disastrous battle of Ohod, and in later times the conqueror of the Greeks. Such was the nature of the marriages of Mohammed. Some of them may possibly have arisen from a desire for male offspring, for he was not a god, and may have felt the natural wish to leave sons behind him. He may have wished also to escape from the nick- name which the bitterness of his enemies attached to him.2 But taking the facts as they stand, we see that even these marriages tended in their results to unite the warring tribes, and bring them into some degree of harmony. The practice of Thar (vendetta) prevailed among the heathen Arabs ; blood-.feuds decimated tribes. There was not a family without its blood-feud, in which the men were frequently murdered, and the women and children reduced to slavery. Moses had found the practice of Thar existing among his people (as it exists among all people in a certain stage of development) ; but failing to abolish it, had legalised it by the institution of sanctuaries. Mohammed, with a deeper conception of the remedies to be applied, connected various rival families and powerful tribes to each other and to himselt by marriage ties. Towards the close of his mission, standing on the 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 729. 1 With savage bitterness the enemies of the Prophet applied to him the nick-name of al-abtar on the death of his last son. This word literally means " one whose tail has been cut off." Among the ancient Arabs, as among the Hindoos, a male issue was regarded as the continuation of the blessings of the gods ; and the man who left no male issue behind was looked upon as pecu- liarly unfortunate. Hence the bitter word applied to the Prophet ; Koran, chap, cviii. (see the Kashshdf). Hence, also, the idolatrous Arabs used to bury alive their female offspring, which Mohammed denounced and repre- hended in burning terms ; Comp. Koran xvii. 34, etc. I98 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Mount of Arafat, he proclaimed that from that time all blood-feuds should cease. The malevolence of unfair and uncandid enemies has distorted the motives which, under the sanction of the great patriarchs of ancient times, led Mohammed to have a plurality of wives, and so provide helpless or widowed women with subsistence in the lack of all other means. By taking them into his family, Mohammed provided for them in the only way which the circumstances of the age and the people rendered possible. People in the West are apt to regard polygamy as intrinsically evil, and its practice not only illegal, but the result of licentiousness and immorality. They forget that all such institutions are the off- spring of the circumstances and necessities of the times. They toiget that the great patriarchs of the Hebraic race, who are regarded by the followers of all Semitic creeds as exemplars of moral grandeur, practised polygamy to an extent which, to our modern ideas, seems the culmination of legalised immorality. We cannot perhaps allow their practice or conduct to pass unquestioned, in spite of the sanctity which time-honoured legend has cast around them. But in the case ot the Prophet of Arabia, it is essential we should bear in mind the historic value and significance of the acts. Probably it will be said that no necessity should have induced the Prophet either to practise or to allow such an evil custom as poly- gamv, and that he ought to have forbidden it absolutely, Jesus hav- ing overlooked it. But this custom, like many others, is not abso- lutely evil. Evil is a relative term. , An act or usage may be primarily quite in accordance with the moral conceptions of societies and individuals ; but progress of ideas and changes in the condition of a people may make it evil in its tendency, and, in process of time, it may be made by the State, illegal. That ideas are progressive is a truism ; but that usages and customs depend on the progress of ideas, and are good or evil according to circumstances, or as they are or are not in accordance with the conscience, — "the spirit of the time"' — is a fact much ignored by superficial thinkers. One of the most remarkable features in the history of early Chiistianity is its depreciation of marriage. Matrimony was regarded as a condition of inferiority, and the birth of children an evil. Monasticism had withdrawn from the world the most vigorous minds ; THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 1 99 the lay-clergy were either not allowed to marry, or to marry but once. This morbid feature was partly due to the example of the Master, and partly the resultant of a variety of circumstances which pressed upon the early Christian organisation. The Nazarene Prophet's intimate connection with the Essene ascetics, his vivid anticipation of the immediate advent of a kingdom of God, where all social relations would be at an end, and the early cessation of his ministry, all explain his depreciation of matrimony, and we may add, perhaps, his never entering the married state. His association with the Baptist, himself an Essene, throws light upon the ^listory of a short but most pathetic life. The strong and inexplicable ^ntipathy of, Paul towards the female sex,; joined to the words of the Master, strengthened in. the Church the Essenic conception that the ^irriion of man and woman in the holiest of ties was an act of sinful- ness, an evil to be avoided so far as possible. Marriage was regarded , as having for its sole object the procreation of -children and the : gratification of " man's carnal lusts," and the marriage services Q of most of the Christian Churches bear to this day the impress of ^. this primitive notion. It was under these influences, the idea en- grafted itself upon Christianity, which still retains its hold where not displaced by humanitarian science, that a person who has never married is a far superior being to one who has contaminated himself by marriage. The ash-covered Yogis of India, the matte d-locked ascetics of the East generally, the priests of Buddha, were celibates. According to them, " knowledge was unattainable without sundering all the loving ties of home and family, and infinity impossible of realisation without leading a life of singleness." Celibacy passed into Christianity through many hands from Eastern Gnosticism and and Asceticism. The " sinlessness •' of Jesus has been regarded by some as a proof of his divinity, by others as an indication of his immeasurable superiority over the rest of the teachers of the world. To our mind, the comparison or contrast which is so falsely instituted between Jesus and Mohammed appears wholly misconceived, and founded upon a wrong estimate of moral ideals. If never marrying constitutes a man an ideal being, then all the ascetics, the hermits, the dervishes are perfect. A perfect life would then imply a total abandonment of ail domestic relations. Surely this view would be a / perversion of nature, and end in disastrous consequences to humanity. ^ 200 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. But if it be not so, then why this disparagement of the Prophet, who fulfilled the work of Jesus? Is it because he married more wives than one ? We have shown what these marriages meant ; we have at least endeavoured to show that in those very deeds which have been used to calumniate him, he was undergoing a sacrifice. But let us look for a moment at his marriages from an abstract point of view. Why did Moses marry more than one wife ? Was he a moral, or a sensual man for doing so ? Why did David, " the man after God's heart," indulge in unlimited polygamy ? The answer is plain — each age has its own standard. What is suited for one time is not suited for the other, and we must not judge of the past by the standard of the present. Our ideals do not lose their greatness or their sublimity by having acted truthfully and honestly up to the standard of their age. Would we be justified in calling Jesus a vain, ambitious, unpractical dreamer, or Moses and David sanguinary sensualists, because the mind of one was filled with vague imaginings of expected sovereignty, and the lives of the others were so objection- able from the nineteenth century point of view ? In both cases we would be entirely wrong ; the aspirations of the one, the achieve- ments of the others, were all historical facts, in accord with their times. It is the truest mark of the Prophet that, in his most exalted mood, he does not lose sight of the living in his anticipation of the yet unborn. In his person he represents the growth and develop- ment of humanity. Neither Jesus nor Mohammed could at once efface existing society, or obliterate all national and political institu- tions. Like Jesus, Mohammed contented himself, except where ordinances were necessary, to meet the requirements of the moment. " with planting principles in the hearts of his followers which would, when the time was ripe for it, work out their abolition/' As regards the statement that Mohammed assumed to himself a privilege which he denied to his followers, only thus much need be said, that it is founded on a misconception resulting from ignor- ance. The limitation on polygamy was enunciated at Medina some years after the exile ; and the provision regarding himself, instead of being a privilege assumed by a libertine, was a burden conscien- tiously imposed on a self-conscious, self-examining soul. All his marriages were contracted before the revelation came restricting polygamy ; and with that came the other which took away from him THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 201 all privileges. Whilst his followers were free, (subject to the condi- tions imposed by the law), to marry to the limit of four, and by the use of the power of divorce, which, in spite of the Prophet's denun- ciations, they still exercised, could enter into fresh alliances, he could neither put away any of his wives, whose support he had undertaken, nor could he marry any other. Was this the assumption of a '* privilege ■/' or was it not a humane provision for those already allied to him — and to himself, a revelation of perfect self-abnegation in his prophetic task ? The subject of divorce has proved a fruitful source of misconcep- tion and controversy ; but there can be no question that the Koranic laws concerning the treatment of women in divorce are of " better humanity and regard for justice than those of any other scripture.,' Among all the nations of antiquity, the power of divorce has been regarded as a necessary corollary to the law of marriage ; but this right, with a few exceptions, was exclusively reserved for the benefit of the stronger sex ; the wife was under no circumstance entitled to claim a divorce. The progress of civilisation and the advancement of ideas led to a partial amelioration in the condition of women. They, too, acquired a qualified right of divorce, which they were never backward in exercising freely, until the facility with which marriages were con- tracted and dissolved under the Roman emperors passed into a by- word. Under the ancient Hebraic Law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause which made her disagreeable to him, and there were few or no checks to an arbitrary and capricious use of his power. Women were not allowed to demand a divorce from their husbands for any reason whatsoever.1 In later times, the Shammaites, to some extent, modified the custom of divorce by imposing certain restrictions on its exercise, but the school of Hillel upheld the law in its primitive strictness. At the time of the Prophet's appearance, the Hillelite doctrines were chiefly in force among the Jewish tribes of Arabia, and repu- diations by the husbands were as common among them as among the pagan Arabs. i Ex. xxi. 2 ; Deub. xxi- 14, xxiv. 1. Compare also Dollinger, The Gentih and the Jen-, vol. ii pp. 339, 340 ; and Selden's Uxor Hebraica, in loco. 20 202 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Among the Athenians the husband's right to repudiate the wife was as unrestricted as among the ancient Israelites. Among the Romans, the legality of the practice of divorce was recognised from the earliest times. The laws of the Twelve Tables admitted divorce. And if the Romans, as is stated by their admirers, did not take advantage of this law until five hundred years after the foundation of their city, it was not because they were more exemplary than other nations, but because the husband possessed the power of summarily putting his wife to death for acts like poisoning, drinking, and the substitution of a spurious child. But the wife had no right to sue for a divorce ;x and if she solicited separation, her temerity made her liable to punishment. But in the later Republic, the frequency of divorce was at once the sign, the cause, and the conse- quence of the rapid depravation of morals. We have selected the two most prominent nations of antiquity whose modes of thought have acted powerfully on modern ways of thinking and modern life and manners. The laws of the Romans regarding divorce were marked by a progressive spirit, tending to the melioration of the condition of women, and to their elevation to an equality with men. This was the result of the advancement of human ideas, as much as of any extraneous cause. kk The ambiguous word which contains the precept of Jesus is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of the legislator can demand. J'2 We may well suppose that at the time Jesus uttered the words, " What God has joined, let not man put asunder, " he had no other idea than that of stemming the torrent of moral depravity, and he did not stop to consider the ultimate tendency of his words. The subsequent rule, which makes fornication3 (using the translated word) the only ground of valid divorce, shows abund- antly that Jesus was alive to the emergency.4 But the " wisdom " 1 Dollinger, The GeMile and the Jew, vol. ii p. 255. 2 Gibbon, Decline and Fall oj the Roman Empire, vol. iv. (2nd Ed.) p. 209. 3 Matt. xxix. 9. 4 Two of the Christain Gospels make no mention of the reason for which Jesus allowed his followers " to put away " their wives (Mark x. 11 and Luke xvi. 18). If the traditions recorded by these two Gospels be considered of higher authority than those passing under the name of Matthew, then our contention is that Jesus, whilst preaching noble sentiments, and inculcating high principles of morality, did not intend his words should be considered as an immutable and positive law, nor had he any other idea than that of stemming the rising tide of immorality and irreligion. Selden thinks that by an evasive THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 203 of subsequent legislators has not confined itself to a blind adherence to a rule laid down probably to suit the requirement of an embryonic community, and delivered verbally. The rule may be regarded as inculcating a noble sentiment ; but that it should be considered as the typical law of divorce is sufficiently controverted by the multitudinous provisions of successive ages in Christian countries. Among the Arabs, the power of divorce possessed by the husband was unlimited. They recognised no rule of humanity or justice in the treatment of their wives. Mohammed looked upon the custom of divorce with extreme disapproval, and regarded its practice as calculated to undermine the foundations of society.1 He repeatedly declared that nothing pleased God more than the emancipation of slaves, and nothing more displeased Him than divorce. It was impossible, however, under the existing conditions of society to abolish the custom entirely. He was to mould the mind of an uncul- tured and semi-barbarous community to a higher development so that in the fulness of time his spiritual lessons might blossom in the hearts of mankind. The custom was not an unmixed evil ; and accordingly he allowed the exercise of the power of divorce to hus- bands under certain conditions. He permitted to divorced parties three distinct and separate periods within which they might endea- vour to become reconciled and resume their conjugal relationship ; but should all attempts at reconciliation prove unsuccessful, then the third period in which the final separation was declared to have arrived, supervened. In case of conjugal disputes, he advised settlement by means of arbiters chosen by the two disputants. M. Sedillot, than whom no Western writer has analysed the laws of Mohammed better, has the following passage on the subject : — "Divorce was permitted, but subject to formalities which allowed (and, we will add, recommended), a revocation of a hurried or not well-considered resolution. Three successive declarations, at a month's interval, were necessary in order to make it irrevocable."2 answer, Jesus wanted to avoid giving offence either to the school of Shammai or that of Hillel, Uxor Hebraica, 1. iii. c. 18-22, 28, 31. Compare Gibbon's valuable note on the interpretation of the Greek, word iropvtlcc, rendered " fornication " in the English version, vol. iv. (2nd Ed.) p. 209. 1 Koran, sura ii. 226. 2 Sedillot, Histoire des Arabes, vol. i. p. 85. 204 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM The reforms 01 Mohammed marked a new departure in the history of Eastern legislation. He restrained the power of divorce possessed by the husbands ; he gave to the women the right of obtaining a separation on reasonable grounds ; and towards the end of his life he went so far as practically to forbid its exercise by the men without the intervention of arbiters or a judge. He pronounced "taldk to be the most detestable before God of all permitted things/' for it prevented conjugal happiness and interfered with the proper bringing up of children. The permission, therefore, in the Koran though it gave a certain countenance to the old customs, has to be read with the light of the Lawgiver's own enunciations. When it is borne in mind how intimately law and religion are connected in the Islamic system, it will be easy to understand the bearing of his words on the institution of divorce. Naturally, great divergence exists among the various schools regarding the exercise of the power of divorce by the husband of his own motion and without the intervention of the judge. A large and influential body of jurists regard taldk emanating from the husband as really prohibited, except for necessity, such as the adultery of the wife. Another section, consisting chiefly of the Mutazalas,1 consider taldk as not permissible or lawful without the sanction of the Hakim ush-sharaa. They hold that any such case as may justify separation and remove taldk from the category of being forbidden, should be tested by an unbiassed judge ; and, in support of their doctrine, they refer to the words of the Prophet already cited, and to his direction that in case of disputes between the married parties, arbiters should be appointed for the settlement of their differences. The Hanafis, the Malikis, the Shafeis and the bulk of the Shiahs hold taldk to be permitted, though they regard the exercise of the power without any cause to be unlawful. The Radd ul-Muhtdr, after stating the arguments against the proposition that taldk is unlawful, proceeds to say, '« no doubt, it is forbidden, but it becomes viubdh (permitted) for certain outside reasons, and this is the meaning of those jurists who hold that it is really forbidden." Although, "the Fathers of the Church" have taken up the I See^wtf, THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 205 temporary permission as the positive rule, and ignored many of the principles of equity inculcated by the Master, the rules laid down by the legists are far more humane and just towards women than those of the most perfect Roman law developed in the bosom of the Church.1 According to the legists, the wife also is entitled to demand a separation on the ground of ill-usage, want of proper maintenance, and various other causes ; but unless she showed very good and solid grounds for demanding the separation, she lost her "settlement" or dowry. In every case, when the divorce originated with the husband (except in cases of open infidelity), he had to give up to her everything he settled upon her at her marriage.2 The frequent admonitions in the Koran against separations, the repeated recommendation to heal quarrels by private reconciliation, show the extreme sacredness of the marriage tie in the eyes of the Arab Legislator : — "If a woman fear ill-usage or aversion from her husband, it shall not be blameable in them3 if they agree with mutual agree- ment, for reconciliation (or agreement) is best. (Men's) souls are prone to avarice ; but if ye act kindly and deal piously, ver:1v 1 Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 368, 369. 2 M. Sedillot also speaks of the condition which (according to the Sunnite doctrines) requires that in such cases of complete separation, prior to the husband and wife coming together again, the latter should marry another, and be divorced anew, — as a very wise measure which rendered separation more rare. Muir censures Mohammed for making such a condition necessary (vol. iii. p. 306). He ignores, that, among a proud, jealous, and sensitive race like the Arabs, such a condition was one of the strongest antidotes for the evil. The very proverb he quotes ought to have shown the disgrace which was attached to the man who would make his wife go through such "a dis- gusting ordeal." I am afraid, in his dislike towards Mohammed, Sir W. Muir forgot that this condition was intended as a check on that other "revolting" practice rife both among the Jews and the heathen Arabs, and by example also among the Christians, of repudiating a wife on every slight occa- sion, at every outburst of senseless passion or caprice. This check was intended to control one of the most sensitive nations of the earth, by acting on the strongest feeling of their nature, the sense of honour (compare Sale, Preliminary Discourse, p. 134). Sir W. Muir also forgot that many of the Shiite doctors do not recognise the obligation or validity of the wife's being married to a third person, prior to her being taken back (compare Malcolm, History of Persia, vol. ii. p. 241, and the Mabsid, (in loco). For my part, I believe in the correctness of the construction, namely, that the verse which says, " When ye divorce women, and the time for sending them away is come, send them away with generosity ; but retain them not by constraint so as to be unjust towards them " abrogates the preceding verse. which requires the intervention of a third person. 3 The Arabic expression implies " it will be commendable," etc. / 206 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM God is well acquainted with what ye do. And ye will not have it at all in your power to to treat your ivives alike with equity, even though you fain wanted to do so ;* yet yield not to your inclinations ever so much as to leave her in suspense ; and if ye agree and act piously, then, verily, God is forgiving and merciful.1' 2 And again, in a preceding verse, it is declared :— " And if ye fear a breach between them (man and wife), then send a judge chosen from his family and a judge chosen from her family ; if they desire a reconciliation, God will cause them to agree ; verily, God is knowing and apprised of all." 3 The sanctity attached to the institution of marriage in the Islamic system has either not been apprehended or sufficiently appreciated by outsiders. "Marriage," says the Ashbdh wan-Nazdir, " is an institution ordained for the protection of society, and in order that human beings may guard themselves from foulness and unchastity". " Marriage is a sacrament, insomuch that in this world it is an act of ihddat or worship, for it preserves mankind free from pollution.' ' " It is instituted by divine command among members of the human species." " marriage when treated as a contract is a permanent relationship based on mutual consent on the part of a man and a woman between whom there is no bar to a lawful union." It has been frequently said that Mohammed allowed his followers, besides the four legitimate wives, to take to themselves any number of female slaves. A simple statement of the regulation on this point will show at once how opposed this notion is to the true precepts of Islam. u Whoso among you hath not the means to marry a free believing woman, then let him marry such of your maid-servants whom your right hands possess and who are believers. This is allowed unto him among you who is afraid of committing sin ; but if ye abstain from allying yourself with slaves, it will be better for you." 1 This furnishes another argument against those Mahommedans who hold that the developed laws of Islam allow plurality of wives. It being declared that "equity" is beyond human power to observe, we must naturally infer that the Legislator had in view the merging of the lower in the higher prin- ciple, and the abolition of a custom which though necessary in some state of society, is opposed to the later development of thought and morals. 2 Koran, sura iv. 127, 128. 3 Koran, sura iv. 39. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 207 On this slender basis, and perhaps on some temporary and acci- dental circumstances connected with the early rise of the Moslem commonwealth, have our legists based the usage of holding (/arias) female slaves. And this, though opposed to the spirit of the Master's precepts, has given rise to some of the strongest animad- versions of rival religionists. Concubinage, the union of people standing to each other in the relation of master and slave, without the sanction of matrimony, existed among the Arabs, the Jews, the Christians, and all the neighbouring nations. The Prophet did not in the beginning de- nounce the custom, but towards the end of his career he expressly forbade it. " And you are permitted to marry virtuous women who are believers, and virtuous women of those who have been given the Scriptures before you, when you have provided them their portions, living chastely with them without fornication, and not taking con- cubines. " 1 Compare the spirit of the first part of this commandment with the exclusiveness of Christian ecclesiasticism, which refused to recog- nise as valid or lawful the union of a Christian with a non-Christian. The stake frequently was the lot of the " infidel " who indulged in the temerity of marrying a Christian. Mohammed's rule was a distinct advance in humanity. The prohibition directed against Moslem women entering iuto marriage with non-Moslems, which has furnished a handle for attacks, was founded upon reasons of policy and the necessities of the early commonwealth. It cannot be denied that several institutions which the Mussal- mans borrowed fron the pre-Islamic period, "the Days of Ignorance, " ^"^ and which exist simply as so many survivals of an older growth, have had the tendency to retard the advancement of Mahommedan nations. Among them the system of the seclusion of females is one. It had been in practice among most of the nations of anti- quity from the earliest times. The gynaikonitis was a familiar institution among the Athenians ; and the inmates of an Athenian harem were as jealously guarded from the public gaze as the l Sura v. 7. 208 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. members of a Persian household then, or of an Indian household now. The gynaikonomot, like their Oriental counterpart, were the faithful warders of female privacy, and rigorously watched over the ladies of Athens. The seclusion of women naturally gave birth to the caste of Hetaii'ai, various members of whom played such an impor- tant part in Athenian history. Were it not for the extraordinary and almost inexplicable spectacle presented by the Byzantine empire and modern Europe and America, we should have said that in every society, at all advanced in the arts of civilised life, the growth of the unhappy class of beings whose existence is alike a reproach to humanity and a disgrace to civilisation, was due to the withdrawal of women from the legitimate exercise of their ennobling, purifying, and humanising influence over the minds of men. The human mind, when it does not perceive the pure, hankers after the impure. The Babylonians, the Etruscans, the Athenians and the pre-Islamite Meccans furnish the best exemplification of this view in ancient times. The enormity of the social canker eating into the heart and poisoning the life-blood of nations in modern times is due, however, to the spread of a godless materialism covered with a thin veneer of religion, be it Christianity, be it Mahommedanism, or any other form of creed. Mohammed had, in early life, observed with pain and sorrow the terrible depravity prevailing among the Meccans, and he took the most effective step suited to the age and the people to stamp out the evil. "By his severe laws at first,'' to use the expressive language of Mr. Bosworth Smith, "and by the strong moral sentiment aroused by these laws afterwards, he has succeeded, down to this very day, and to a greater extent than has ever been the case elsewhere, in freeing all Mohammedan countries " — where they are not overgrown by foreign excrescences — " from those profes- sional outcasts who live by their own misery, and, by their existence as a recognised class, are a standing reproach to every member of the society of which they form a part." The system of female seclusion undoubtedly possesses many advantages in the social well-being of unsettled and uncultured communities ; and even in countries, where the diversity of culture and moral conceptions is great, a modified form of seclusion is not absolutely to be deprecated. It prevails at the present moment, in forms more or less strict, among nations far removed from \ THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 209 Moslem influences, to which is ascribed the existence of the custom in India and other Oriental countries. In Corea, female seclusion is carried to the height of absurdity. In China and among the Spanish colonies of South America, which are not within the immediate ambit of the European social code, the Purdah is still observed. The Prophet of Islam found it existing among the Persians and other Oriental communities ; he perceived its advantages, and it is possible that, in view of the widespread laxity of morals among all classes of people, he recommended to the women-folk the obser- vance of privacy. But to suppose that he ever intended his recom- mendation should assume its present inelastic form, or that he ever allowed or enjoined the seclusion of women, is wholly opposed to the spirit of his reforms. The Koran itself affords no warrant for holding that the seclusion of women is a part of the new gospel. " O Prophet ! speak to thy wives and to thy daughters, and to the wives of the Faithful, that they let their wrappers fall low. Thus will they more easily be known, and they will not be affronted. God is indulgent, merciful." x '".And speak to the believing women, that they refrain their looks and observe continence ; and that they display not their ornaments except those which are external, and that they draw their kerchiefs over their bosoms." ■ Directions easy to understand3 in the midst of the social and moral chaos from which he was endeavouring, under God's guidance, to evolve order, — wise and beneficent injunctions having for their object the promotion of decency among women, the improvement of their dress and demeanour, and their protection from insult.4 1 Sura xxxiii. 59. 2 Sura xxiv. 31. 3 Those who have travelled in Europeanised Egypt and in the Levant will understand how necessary these directions must have been in those times. 4 Hamilton, the translator of the Heddya, in his preliminary discourse dealing with the Book of Abominations, has the following : " A subject which involves a vast variety of frivolous matter, and must be considered chiefly in the light of a treatise upon propriety and decorum. In it is particularly exhibited the scrupulous attention paid to female modesty, and the avoidance of every act which may tend to violate it, even in thought. It is remarkable, however, that this does not amount to that absolide seclusion of women supposed by some writers. In fact, this seclusion is a result of jealousy or pride, and not of any legal injunction, as appears in this and several other parts of the Heddya. Neither is it a custom universally prevalent in Mohammedan countries." Marsdcn, in his Travels, says : "The Arab settlers in Java never observed the custom, and the Javanese Mussul* man women enjoy the same amount of freedom as their Dutch sisters." 27 1/ 2IO THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose there is anything in the law which tends to the perpetuation of the custom. Considerable light is thrown on the Lawgiver's recommendation for female privacy, by the remarkable immunity from restraint or seclusion which the members of his family always enjoyed. Ayesha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, who was married to Mohammed on Khadija's death, personally conducted the insurrectionary movement against Ali. She commanded her own troops at the famous " Battle of the Camel." Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, often took part in the discussions regarding the succession to the Caliphate. The grand-daughter of Mohammed, Zainab the sister of Hussain, shielded her youthful nephew from the Ommeyyades after the butchery of Kerbela. Her indomitable spirit awed equally the ferocious Obaidullah ibn Ziyad and the pitiless Yezid. The depravity of morals, which had sapped the foundations of society among the Pre-Islamite Arabs, as well as among the Jews and the Christians, urgently needed some correction. The Prophet's counsel regarding the privacy of women served undoubtedly to stem the tide of immorality, and to prevent the diffusion among his followers of the custom of disguised polyandry, which had evidently, until then, existed among the pagan Arabs. According to von Hammer, " the harem is a sanctuary : it is pro- hibited to strangers, not because women are considered unworthy of confidence, but on account of the sacredness with which custom and manners invest them. The degree of reverence which is accorded to women throughout higher Asia and Europe (among Mahommedan communities) is a matter capable of the clearest demonstration." The idealisation of womanhood is a natural characteristic of all the highest natures. But national pride and religious bigotry have given rise to two divergent theories regarding the social exaltation of women among the cultured classes in modern Christendom. The one attributes it to Mariolatry, the other to Mediaeval chivalry, alleged to be the offspring of Teutonic institutions. Of Christianity, in its relation to womankind, the less said the better. In the early ages, when the religion of the people, high and low, the ignorant and educated, consisted only of the adoration of the mother of Jesus, the Church of Christ had placed the sex under a ban. Father after father had written upon the enormities of women, their evil tenden- THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 211 cies, their inconceivable malignity. Tertullian represented the general feeling in a book in which he described women as " the devil's gateway, the unsealer of the forbidden tree, the deserier of the divine law, the destroyer of God's image — man." Another authority declared with a revolting cynicism, "among women he sought for chastity but found none." Chrysostom, who is recognised as a saint of high merit, " interpreted the general opinion of the Fathers," says Lecky, " when he pronounced women to be a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, a painted ill." The orthodox Church excluded women from the exercise of all religious functions excepting the lowliest. They were excluded absolutely from society ; they were prohibited from appearing in public, from going to feasts or banquets. They were directed to remain in seclusion, to observe silence, to obey their hus- bands, and to apply themselves to weaving and spinning and cooking. If they ever went out they were to be clothed from head to foot. Such was the position of women in Christianity when Mariolatry was recognised and practised by all classes. In later times, and in the gloomy interval which elapsed between the overthrow of the Western empire and the rise of modern society in Europe, a period which has been described as one of "rapine, falsehood, tyranny, lust, and violence,'' Christianity, by introducing convents and nunneries, served, in some respects, to improve the lot of women. This questionable amelioration, however, was only suited for an age when the abduction of women was an every-day occurrence, and the dissoluteness of morals was such as to defy description. But the convents were not always the haunts of virtue, nor the; inculcation of celibacy the surest safeguard of chastity. The Registrum Visitationem, or the diary of the pastoral visits of Archbishop Rigaud, throws a peculiar light upon the state of morality and the position of the sex during the most glorious epoch of the Age of Faith. The rise of Protestantism made no difference in the social conditions, or in the conception of lawyers regarding the status of women. Jesus had treated woman with humanity ; his followers excluded her from justice. The other theory to which we have adverted is in vogue among the romanceurs of Europe. They have represented each historical figure in the Middle Ages to be a Bayard or a Crichton. The age of chivalry is generally supposed to extend from the beginning of the 212 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. eighth to the close of the fourteenth century — a period, be it noted, almost synchronous with the Saracenic domination in Spain. But, during this period, in spite of the halo which pjetry and romance have cast around the conditions of society, women were the frequent subjects of violence. Force and fraud were the distinguishing charac- teristics of the golden age of Christian chivalry. Roland and Arthur were myths until the West came in contact with the civilisation and culture of the East. Chivalry was not the product of the wilds of Scandinavia or of the gloomy forests of Germany ; — prophecy and chivalry alike were the children of the desert. From the desert issued Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed ; from the desert issued Antar, Hamza, and Ali. The condition of women among the Arabs settled in the cities and villages, who had adopted the loose notions of morality prevalent among the Syrians, Persians, and Romans, was, as we have already stated, degraded in the extreme. Among some of the nomades, however, they enjoyed great freedom, and exercised much influence over the fortunes of their tribes. " They were not, as among the Greeks," says Perron, " the creatures of misery."' They accompanied the warriors to battle, and inspired them to heroism ; the cavaliers rushed into the fights singing the praises of sister, wife, or lady-love. The guerdon of their loves was the highest prize of their prowess. Valour and generosity were the greatest virtues of the men, and chastity that of the women. An insult offered to a woman of a tribe would set in flame the desert tribes from end to end of the peninsula. The " Sacrilegious Wars," which lasted for forty years, and were put an end to by the Prophet, had their origin in an insult offered to a young girl at one of the fairs of Okaz. Mohammed rendered a fitful custom into a permanent creed, and embodied respect for women in his revelations. With manv directions, which reflect the rude and patriarchal simplicity of the age, his regulations breathe a more chivalrous spirit towards the sex than is to be found in the teachings of the older masters. Islam, like Christianity, is different with different individuals and in different ages, but on the whole, true chivalry is more intimately associated with true Islam than with any other form of positive faith or social institution. The hero of Islam, the true disciple of the founder of the Hilf- THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM. 2 13 ul-Fuziil, was as ready with lance and sword to do battle with God's enemies as to redress the wrongs of the weak and oppressed. Whether on the plains of Irak or nearer home, the cry of distress never failed to bring the mailed knight to the succour of the help- less and suffering. His deeds translated into legends, and carried from the tent to the palace, have served to influence the prowess of succeeding ages. The caliph in his banqueting-hall puts down the half-tasted bowl on being told that an Arab maiden, carried into captivity by the Romans, had cried out, " Why does not Abd ul- Malik come to my help ? " — he vows that no wine or water shall wet his lips until he has released the maiden from bondage. Forthwith he marches his troops upon the Roman caitiffs, and only when the maiden has attained her liberty is he freed from his vow. A Mogul emperor,1 sore pressed by relentless foes, is marching towards the frontiers when he receives the bracelet ot an alien queen — the token of brotherhood and call for succour. He abandons his own neces- sities, retraces his steps, defeats her foes, and then resumes his march. Oelsner calls Antar " the father of chivalry." Ali was its beau- ideal — an impersonation of gallantry, of bravery, of generosity ; pure, gentle, and learned, " without fear and without reproach," he set the world the noblest example of chivalrous grandeur of character. His spirit, a pure reflection of that of his Master, overshadowed the Islamic world, and formed the animating genius of succeeding ages. The wars of the Crusades brought barbarian Europe into contact with the civilisation of the Islamic East, and opened its eyes to the magnificence and refinement of the Moslems ; but it was especially the influences of Mahommedan Andalusia on the neigh- bouring Christian provinces which led to the introduction of chivalry into Europe. The troubadours, the trouveurs of Southern France, and the minnesingers of Germany, who sang of love and honour in war, were the immediate disciples of the romanceurs of Cordova, Grenada, and Malaga. Petrarch and Boccaccio, even Tasso and Chaucer, derived their inspiration from the Islamic fountain-head. But the coarse habits and thoughts of the barbarian hordes of Europe communicated a character of grossness to pure chivalry. 1 The Emperor Humayun, pursued by the Afghans, received, on his march to Cabul, the bracelet from the Jodhpur queen, and at once came to her help. I have only mentioned two instances of Moslem chivalry, which might be multiplied by hundreds. V 214 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. In the early centuries of Islam, almost until the extinction of the Saracenic empire in the East, women continued to occupy as exalted a position as in modern society. Zubaida, the wife of Harun, plays a conspicuous part in the history of the age, and by her virtues, as well as by her accomplishments, leaves an honoured name to pos- terity. Humaida, the wife of Faruk, a Medinite citizen, left for many years the sole guardian of her minor son, educates him to become one of the most distinguished jurisconsults of the day.1 Sukaina, or Sakina, the daughter of Hussain,2 and the grand- daughter of Ali, was the most brilliant, most accomplished, and most virtuous woman of her time, — " la dame des dames de son temps, la plus belle, la plus gracieuse, la plus brillante de qualites," as Perron calls her. Herself no mean scholar, she prized the converse of learned and pious people. The ladies of the Prophet's family were noted for their learning, their virtues, and their strength of character. Buran, the wife of the Caliph Mamun, Umm-ul-Fazl, Mamun's sister, married to the eighth Imam of the house of Ali, Umm ul-Habib, Mamun's daughter, were all famous for their scholarship. In the fifth century of the Hegira, the Sheikha Shuhda, designated Fakhr un-nissa (" the glory of women"), lectured publicly, at the Cathedral Mosque of Bagdad, to large audiences on literature, rhetoric, and poetry. She occupies in the annals of Islam a position of equality with the most distinguished ulemas. What would have befallen this lady had she nourished among the fellow-religionists of St. Cyril can be judged by the fate of Hypatia. Possibly she would not have been torn to pieces by enthusiastic Christians, but she would, to a certainty, have been burnt as a witch. Zat ul-Hemma, corrupted into Zemma, " the lion-heart,'' the heroine of many battles, fought side by side with the bravest knights.3 The improvement effected in the position of women by the Prophet of Arabia has been acknowledged by all unprejudiced writers, though it is still the fashion with bigoted controversialists to say the Islamic system lowered the status of women. No falser 1 Faruk was away for twenty-seven years engaged in wars in Khorasan. His son's name is Rabya ar-Ray. 2 Hussain was married to one of the daughters of Yezdjard, the last Sassanian king of Persia. 3 For a full account of the distinguished women who have flourished in \ Islam see my article in the May number of the Nineteenth Century for 1899 and my Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan). THE STATUS OP WOMEN IN ISLAM. 215 calumny has been levelled at the great Prophet. Nineteen centuries of progressive development working with the legacy of a prior civili- sation, under the most favourable racial and climatic conditions, have tended to place women, in most countries of Christendom, on a higher social level than the men, — have given birth to a code of etiquette which, at least ostensibly, recognises the right of women to higher social respect. But what is their legal position even in the most advanced communities of Christendom ? Until very recently, even in England, a married woman possessed no rights independently of her husband. If the Moslem woman does not attain, in another hundred years, the social position of her European sister, there will be time enough to declaim against Islam as a system and a dispensation. But the Teacher who in an age when no country, no system, no community gave any right to woman, maiden or married, mother or wife, who, in a country where the birth of a daughter was considered a calamity, secured to the sex rights which are only unwillingly and under pressure, being conceded to them by the civilised nations in the nineteenth century, deserves the gratitude of humanity. If Mohammed had done nothing more, his claim to be a benefactor of mankind would have been indisputable. Even under the laws as they stand at present in the pages of the legists, the legal position of Moslem females may be said to compare favourably with that of European women. We have dealt in another place at length with this subject. We shall do no more here than glance at the provisions of the Moslem codes relating to women. As long as she is unmarried she remains under the parental roof, and until she attains her majority she is, to some extent, under the control of the father or his representative. As soon, however, as she is of age, the law vests in her all the rights which /" belong to her as an independent human being. She is entitled to share in the inheritance of her parents along with her brothers, and though the proportion is different, the distinction is founded on the relative position of brother and sister. A woman who is sui juris can under •- no circumstances be married without her own express consent, "not even by the sultan."1 On her marriage she does not lose her indi- viduality. She does not cease to be a separate member of society. <" l Centuries after the principle was laid down by the Moslem jurists, the sovereigns and chiefs of Christendom were in the habit of forcibly marrying women to their subjects. 2l6 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. An ante-nuptial settlement by the husband in favour of the wife is a necessary condition, and on his failure to make a settlement the law presumes one in accordance with the social position of the wife. A Moslem marriage is a civil act, needing no priest, requiring no ceremonial.1 The contract of marriage gives the man no power over the woman's person, beyond what the law defines, and none whatever upon her goods and property. Her rights as a mother do not depend for their recognition upon the idiosyncracies of individual judges. Her earnings acquired by her own exertiofis cannot be wasted by a prodigal husband, nor can she be ill-treated with impunity by one who is brutal. She acts, if sui juris, in all matters which relate to herself and her property in her own individual right, without the intervention of husband or father. She can sue her debtors in the open courts, without the necessity of joining a next friend, or under cover of her husband's name. She continues to exercise, after she has passed from her father's house into her husband's home, all the rights which the law gives to men. All the privileges which belong to her as a woman and a wife are secured to her, not by the courtesies which "come and go," but by the actual text in the book of law. Taken as a whole, her status is not more unfavourable than that of many European women, whilst in many respects she occupies a decidedly better position. Her comparatively backward condition is the result of a want of culture among the community generally, rather than of any special feature in the laws of the fathers. Note to Chapter XIII. While this chapter was in the press, I came across the Claims of Ishmael, by the Rev. J. D. Bate of Allahabad, in which I find the author has read my remarks on polygamy, in my former work on the Life of Mohammed, in the light of a defence. I regret to find that my philosophical examination of the circumstances which led to polygamy in early times have been so misconstrued. For my own part, I look upon polygamy in the present day as an adulterous connection, and as contrary to the spirit of Islam, an opinion which is shared by a large number of Mussalm&ns. l The Hindu customs adopted by the Indian Mahommedans and the old pre-Islamite customs in Syria and Egypt which still survive, have nothing to do with the Mussalman law. CHAPTER V. SLAVERY. "And as to your slaves, see that ye feed them as ye feed yourselves and clothe them as ye clothe yourselves," — Mohammed. SLAVERY in some of its features has been aptly compared with polygamy. Like polygamy, it has existed among all nations, and has died away with the progress of human thought and the growth of a sense of justice among mankind. Like polygamy it was the natural product of passion and pride so strongly marked in certain phases of the communal and individual development. But unlike polygamy, it bears from its outset the curse of inherent injustice. In the early stages, when humanity has not risen to the full appreciation of the reciprocal rights and duties of man ; when laws are the mandates of one, or of the few, for the many ; when the will of the strong is the rule of life and the guide of conduct, — then the necessary inequality, social, physical, or mental, engendered by nature among the human race, invariably takes the form of slavery, and a system springs into existence which allows absolute power to the superior over the inferior.1 This complete subserviency of the weak to the strong has helped the latter to escape from the legendary curse laid on man — " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground, " and allowed them to employ the leisure thus acquired in congenial pursuits. " The simple wish," says the author of Ancient Law, " to use the bodily powers of another person as the means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the foundation of slavery, and as old as human nature."2 The practice of slavery is co-eval with human existence. His- torically, its traces are visible in every age and in every nation. Its germs were developed in a savage state of society, and it continued 1 Comp. throughout U Influence des Croisades sur VEtat des Peuples de V Europe, by Maxime de Choiseul D'Aillecourt, Paris 1809, 2 Maine, Ancient Law, p. 104. ?8 2? 1 8 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. to flourish even when the progress of material civilisation had done away with its necessity. The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient Germans,1 — people whose legal and social institutions have most affected modern manners and customs, — recognised and practised both kinds of slavery, praedial servitude as well as household slavery. Among the Hebrews, from the commencement of their existence as a nation, two forms of slavery were practised. The Israelite slave, given into bondage as a punishment for crime or for the payment of a debt, occupied a higher position than a slave of alien birth. The law allowed the former his liberty after six years of servitude, unless he refused to avail himself of his right. But the foreign slaves, whether belonging to the people whom the Israelites had reduced into absolute helotage by a merciless system of warfare, or whether acquired in treacherous forays or by purchase, wrere entirely excluded from the benefits of this arrangement,— an arrangement made in a spirit of national partiality and characteristic isolation.2 The lot of these bondsmen and bondswomen was one of unmitigated hardship. Helots of the soil or slaves of the house, hated and despised at the same time, they lived a life of perpetual drudgery in the service of pitiless masters. Christianity, as a system and a creed, raised no protest against slavery, enforced no rule, inculcated no principle for the miti- gation of the evil. Excepting a few remarks on the disobedience of slaves, * and a general advice to masters to give servants their due, the teachings of Jesus, as portrayed in the Christian traditions, contained nothing expressive of disapproval of bondage. On the contrary, Christianity enjoined on the slave absolute submission to the will of his or her proprietor. It found slavery a recognised institution of the empire ; it adopted the system without any endeavour to mitigate its baneful character, or to promote its gradual abolition, or to improve the status of slaves. Under the civil law. slaves were mere chattels. They remained so under the Christian domination. Slavery had flourished among the Romans from the earliest times. The slaves, whether of native or of foreign birth. 1 Caesar (De Bell. Gall. lib. vi.), Tacitus (De Moribus German, cap. 24, 25), and Pothier (De Stat. Servor. apud Germ. lib. i.) all testify to the extreme severity of German servitude. 2 Lev. xxv. 44,45. 3 i Tim. iv. 1, 2. SLAVERY. 2 I 9 whether acquired by war or purchase, were regarded simply as chattels. Their masters possessed the power of life and death over them. But that gradual improvement which had raised the archaic laws of the Twelve Tables to the comprehensive code of Hadrian, did not fail to introduce some amelioration in the condition of the slaves. In spite, however, of the changes which the humanity or the wisdom of the emperors had effected in the old laws, the person of the slave was absolutely subject to the will of the master. Each magnate of the empire possessed thousands of slaves, who were tortured and subjected to lashings for the most trivial of faults. The introduction of the religion of Jesus into Europe affected human chattelhood only in its relation to the priesthood. A slave could become free by adopting monachism, if not claimed within three years.1 But in other respects, slavery flourished as much and in as varied shapes as under the pagan domination. The Digest, compiled under a Christian emperor, pronounced slavery a constitu- tion of the law of nature, and the code fixed the maximum price of slaves according to the professions for which they were intended. Marriages between slaves were not legal, and between the slave and the free were prohibited under frightful penalties.2 The natural result was unrestrained concubinage, which even the clergy recognised and practised.8 Such was slavery under the most advanced system of laws known to the ancient world. These laws reflected the wisdom of thirteen centuries, and towards the close of their development had engrafted upon themselves some faint offshoots of the teachings of one of the greatest moral preceptors of the world. With the establishment of the Western and Northern barbarians on the ruins of the Roman empire, besides personal slavery, terri- torial servitude scarcely known to the Romans, became general in all the newly-settled countries. The various rights possessed by the lords over their vassals and serfs exhibited a frightful picture of 1 Corap. Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 358. 2 One of the punishments was, if a free woman married a slave, she was to be put to death and the slave burnt alive. Comp. the splendid though apologetic chapter of Milman on the subject, Latin Christianity, vol. ii. 3 Comp. Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 369 ; and also Du Cange, Concubina. 220 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. moral depravity and degradation.1 The barbaric codes, like the Roman, regarded slavery as an ordinary condition of mankind ; and if any protection was afforded to the slave, it was chiefly as the pro- perty of his master, who alone, besides the State, had the power of life and death over him. Christianity had failed utterly in abolishing slavery or alleviating its evils. The Church itself held slaves, and recognised in explicit terms the lawfulness of this baneful institution. Under its influence the greatest civilians of Europe have upheld slavery, and have insist- ed upon its usefulness as preventing the increase of pauperism and theft.2 And it was under the same influences that the highly cultured Christians of the Southern States of North America practised the grossest inhumanities upon the unfortunate beings whom they held as slaves, — many of their own kith, — and shed torrents of blood for' the maintenance of the curse of slavery in their midst. The least trace of the blood of an inferior race, however imperceptible, subjected the unfortunate being to all the penalties of slavery. The white Christian could never legitimatise the issue of his illicit con- nection with his negro slave-women. With her he could never con- tract a legal union. The mother of his illegitimate children and her descendants, however remote, could be sold by his legitimate white issue at any time. Christianity failed to grasp the spirit of its Master's teachings in regard to the equality of man in the sight of God. Islam recognises no distinction of race or colour ; black or white, citizens or soldiers, rulers or subjects, they are perfectly equal, not in theory only, but in practice. In the field or in the guest-chamber, in the tent or in the palace, in the mosque or in the market, they mix without reserve and without contempt. The first Muezzin of Islam, a devoted adherent and an esteemed disciple, was a negro slave. To the white Christian, his black fellow-religionist may be his equal in l Comp. Da Choiseul, and also consult on this subject the comprehensive chapter of Stephen's Commentaries on the Laws of England, bk. ii. pt. i. chap, ii. One of the miserable and disgusting privileges possessed by the lord was designated in Britain, the custom of culiage, which was afterwards commuted into a fine. This custom, as has been correctly supposed, gave rise to the law of inheritance, prevalent in some English counties, and known by the name of Borough English. ! Pufendorff, Law of Nature and Nations, bk. vi. c. 3, s. 10 ; Ulricus Huberus, Praelect. Jur. Civ. 1. i. tit. 4, s, 6 ; Pothier, De Statu Servorum ; and Grotius, De Jure Bell. 1. ii. c. 5, s. 27. SLAVERY. 221 the kingdom of heaven, but certainly not in the kingdom of this world ; in the reign of Chirst, perhaps, but not in the reign of Christianity. The law may compel him, a larger humanity with torrents of blood, may force him to give to his black brother civic rights, but the pride of race and colour acknowledges no equality, and even in the house of God a strict separation is observed. The Islamic teachings dealt a blow at the institution of slavery which, had it not been for the deep root it had taken among the surrounding nations and the natural obliquity of the human mind, would have been completely extinguished as soon as the generation which then practised it had passed away. It has been justly contended that, as the promulgation of the \^- laws, precepts, and teachings of Islam extended over twenty years, it is naturally to be expected many of the pre-Islamite institutions, which were eventually abolished, were, at first, either tacitly permitted or expressly recognised1. In one of these categories stood the usage of slavery. The evil was intertwined with the inmost relations of the people among whom Mohammed flourished. Its extinction was only to be achieved by the continued agency of wise and humane laws, and not by the sudden and entire emancipation of the existing slaves, which was morally and economically impossible. Numberless pro- visions, negative as well as positive, were accordingly introduced in order to promote and accomplish a gradual enfranchisement. A contrary policy would have produced an utter collapse of the infant commonwealth. The Prophet exhorted his followers repeatedly in the name of God to enfranchise slaves, " than which there was not an act more acceptable to God." He ruled that for certain sins of omission the penalty should be the manumission of slaves. He ordered that ^ slaves should be allowed to purchase their liberty by the wages of their service ; and that in case the unfortunate beings had no present means of gain, and wanted to earn in some other employment enough for that purpose, they should be allowed to leave their masters on an agreement to that effect.2 He also provided that sums should be advanced to the slaves from the public treasury to purchase their liberty. In certain contingencies, it was provided that the slave 1 Tahzib tU-AJchldk (15th Rajab, 1288), p. 118. 2 Koran xxiv. 33, etc. 22 2 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. should become enfranchised without the interference and even against the will of his master. The contract or agreement in which the least doubt was discovered, was construed most favourably in the interests of the slave, and the slightest promise on the part of the master was made obligatory for the purposes of enfranchisement. He placed the v^ duty of kindness towards the slave on the same footing with the claims of " kindred and neighbours, and fellow-travellers, and way- farers ;" encouraged manumission to the freest extent, and therewith the gift of " a portion of that wealth which God hath given you ;" and prohibited sensual uses of a master's power over the slave, with •< the promise of divine mercy to the wronged. To free a slave is the expiation for ignorantly slaying a believer, and for certain forms of untruth. The whole tenor of Mohammed's teaching made " per- manent chattelhood " or caste impossible ; and it is simply " an abuse- of words " to apply the word slavery, in the English sense, to any status known to the legislation of Islam. The Lawgiver ordained, that a fugitive fleeing to the territories of Islam should at once become enfranchised ; that the child of a slave- woman should follow the condition of the father, while the mother should become free at his death ; that the slave should be able to contract with his master for his emancipation ; and that a part of the poor-tax should be devoted to the ransom of those held in bondage. The masters were forbidden to exact more work than was just and proper. They were ordered never to address their male or female slaves by that degrading appellation, but by the more affectionate name of " my young man," or " my young maid" ; it was enjoined that all slaves should be dressed, clothed, and fed exactly as their masters and mistresses. Above all, it was ordered that in no case should the mother bt separated from her child, nor brother from brother, nor father from son, nor husband from wife, nor one relative from another.1 In the moral rules laid down for the treatment of those then in bondage, the Arabian Teacher did not prescribe the reciprocal duties of master and slave in the one-sided manner so often visible in l I see no need of quoting authorities on these points, as they are admitted facts. But I may refer the curious reader to the traditions collected in the Mishkdt, the Sahih of Bukhari, and the Bihar id- Anwar. The latter contains the noblest monument of generosity and charity practised by the Prophet's immediate descendants. SLAVERY. 223 other creeds.1 With a deeper and truer knowledge of human nature, he saw that it was not so needful to lay down the duties the weak owe to the strong, as those the strong owe to the weak. In Islam no discredit is attached to the status of slavery. It is an accident, and not, as in the civil law and patristic Christianity, " a constitution of nature/' Zaid, the freedman of the Prophet, was often entrusted with the command of troops, and the noblest cap- tains served under him without demur ; and his son Osama was honoured with the leadership of the expedition sent by Abu Bakr against the Greeks. Kutb ud-din, the first king of Delhi, and the true founder, therefore, of the Mussalman empire in India, was a slave. The slavery which was allowed in Islam had, in fact, nothing in common with that which was in vogue in Christendom until recent times, or with American slavery until the holy wrar of 1865 put an end to that curse. In Islam the slave of to-day is the grand vizier of to-morrow. He_may marry, without discredit, his master's daughter, and become the head of the family. Slaves have ruled kingdoms and founded dynasties. The father of Mahmud of Ghazni was a slave. Can Christianity point to such records as these ? Can Christianity show, in the pages of history, as clear, as humane an account of her treatment of slaves as this ? From all that we have said it is abundantly clear that the Legis- lator himself looked upon the custom as temporary in its nature, and held that its extinction was sure to be achieved by the progress of ideas and change of circumstances. The Koran always speaks of slaves as " those whom your right hands have acquired," indi- cating thus the only means of acquisition of bondsmen or bonds- women. It recognised, in fact, only one kind of slavery — the servitude of men made captives in bond fide lawful warfare, Jihdd-i- Shardi. Among all barbarous nations the captives are spared from a motive of selfishness alone,2 in order to add to the wealth of the 1 See Col. iii. 22 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1. 2 Comp. Milman, Latin Christ, vol. ii. p. 387. The ancient jurists based the right of enslaving the captive on the prior right of killing him. In this they are followed by Albericus Gentilis ( De Jnr. Gent. cap. de Servitute), Grothis, and Pufendorff. Montesquieu, indeed, was the first to deny this mythical right of killing a captive, unless in case of absolute necessity, or for self-preservation. And this the author of the Spirit of Laws denied, because of his freedom from the thraldom of the Church. 224 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. individual captor, or of the collective nation, by their sale-money or by their labour x Like other nations of antiquity, the Arab of the pre-Islamite period spared the lives of his captives for the sake of profiting by them. Mohammed found this custom existing among his people. Instead of theorising, or dealing in vague platitudes, he laid down strict rules for their guidance, enjoining that those only may be held in bond who were taken in bond fide legal war until they were ransomed, or the captive bought his or her own liberty by the wages of service. But even when these means failed, an appeal to the pious feelings of the Moslem, combined with the onerous responsibilities attached to the possession of a slave, was often enough to secure the eventual enfranchisement of the latter. Slave-lifting and slave-dealing, patronised by dominant Christianity,2 and sanctified by Judaism, were utterly reprobated and condemned. The man who dealt in slaves was declared the outcast of humanity. Enfranchisement ' of slaves was pronounced to be a noble act of virtue. It was forbidden in absolute terms to reduce Moslems to slavery. To the lasting disgrace of the majority of the followers of Mohammed it must be said, however, that, whilst observing, or trying to observe the letter, they have utterly ignored the spirit of the Teacher's precepts, and allowed slavery to flourish (in direct con- travention of the injunctions of the Prophet) by purchase and other means. The possession of a slave, by the Koranic laws, was con- ditional on a bond fide struggle, in self-defence, against unbelieving and idolatrous aggressors, and its permission was a guarantee for the safety and preservation of the captives. The cessation of the state of war in which the Moslem community was at first involved, from the animosity of the surrounding tribes and nations, would have brought about the extinction of slavery by a natural process — the stoppage of future acquisition and the enfranchisement of those in bondage. However, whether from contact with the demoralised nations of the East and the West, and the wild races of the North or from the fact that the baneful institution was deeply rooted among 1 Comp. Milman, Hist, of the Jews, vol. iii. p. 48. 2 After the massacre of Drogheda by Cromwell, and the suppression of the insurrection in Ireland, the English Protestants sold the Irish, men and women, wholesale to the colonists in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other places. The same was doue after Monmouth's rebellion. 3 According to an authentic and well-known tradition from Imam Jaafar as-Sadik {Bihar ul- Anwar). SLAVERY 22$ all classes of society, many Moslems, like the Christians and the Jews, recognised slavery, and to some extent do so even now. But the wild Turkoman, or the African Arab, who glories in slave- lifting, is no more a representative of Islam than is the barbarous Guacho, who revels on the savage prairies of South America, of Christianity.1 Like polygamy, the institution of slavery, prevalent universally among mankind at some stage or other of their growth, has, at least among the nations which claim to be civilised, outlived the necessities which induced its practice, and must sooner or later become extinct. It will be seen, therefore, that Islam did not " consecrate " slavery, as has been maliciously affirmed, but pro- vided in every way for its abolition and extinction by circumscribing the means of possession within the narrowest limits. Islam did not deal capriciously with this important question. Whilst proclaiming in the most emphatic terms the natural equality of human beings, it did not, regardless of consequences, enfranchise the men and women already in bondage, which would have only been productive of evil in a world not then ripe for that consummation of human liberty, moral and intellectual. The mutilation of the human body was also explicitly forbidden by Mohammed, and the institution which flourished both in the Persian and the Byzantine empires was denounced in severe terms. Slavery by purchase was unknown during the reigns of the first four Caliphs. There is at least no authentic record of any slave having been acquired by purchase during their tenure of the office. But with the accession of the usurpring house of Ommeyya a change came over the spirit of Islam. Muawiyah was the first Mussalman l In order not to break the letter of his Prophet's commandments, the Turkoman (himself a violent Sunni) forced his captive (whether a Sunni or a Shiah) to acknowledge himself a heretic. And the African Arab calls his murderous razzias, on the pagan negroes, Jihads. Mr. Joseph Thompson, the well-known African traveller, in a letter to the London Times of the 14th of November 1887, thus writes on the subject of slavery in East Africa : M I unhesitatingly affrm, and I speak from a wider experience of Eastern Central Africa than any of your correspondents possess, that if the slave trade thrives it is because Islam has not been introduced in these regions, and for the strongest of all reasons, that the spread of Mahommedanism would have meant the concomitant suppression of the slave trade." His account of " the peaceful and unassuming agencies " by which Islam has been spread in Western Africa and Central Soudan deserves the attention of every reader. " Here," he says " we have Islam as a living, active force, full of the fire and energy of its early days, proselytizing too with much of the marvellous success which characterized its early days." 29 2 26 THE SPIRIT OF ISI.A1M. sovereign who introduced into the Moslem world the practice of acquiring slaves by purchase. He was also the first to adopt the Byzantine custom of guarding his women by eunuchs. During the reigns of the early Abbassides, the Shiah Imam Jaafar as-Sadik preached against slavery. The time is now arrived when humanity at large should raise its voice against the practice of servitude, in whatever shape or under whatever denomination it may be disguised. The Moslems es- pecially, for the honour of their noble Prophet, should try to efface that dark page from their history — -a page which would never have been written .but for their contravention of the spirit of his laws, however bright it may appear by '.he side of the ghastly scrolls on which the deeds of the professors of the rival creeds are recorded. The day is come when the voice which proclaimed liberty, equality, and universal brotherhood among all mankind should be heard with the fresh vigour acquired from the spiritual existence and spirit- ual pervasion of thirteen centuries. It remains for the Moslems to show the falseness of the aspersions cast on the memory of the great and noble Prophet, by proclaiming in explicit terms that slavery is reprobated by their faith and discountenanced by their code. CHAPTER VI. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. O £ " G " G * G I G U $ 1» * THE idea of a future existence — of an existence after the separation of the living principle of our nature from the mortal part — is so generally shared by races of men, otherwise utterly distinct from each other, that it has led to the belief that it must be one of the first elementary constituents of our being. A more careful examination of facts, however, connected with the infancy of races and tribes, leads us to the conclusion that the conception of a future existence is also the result of the natural development of the human mind. The wild savage has scarcely any idea of a life separate and distinct from that which he enjoys on earth. He looks upon death as the end of existence. Then comes a later stage when man ha passed out of his savage state, his hopes and aspirations are bound- ed no more by an earthly death ; he now anticipates another course of existence after the course here has been fulfilled. But even in this stage the conception of immortality does not rise out of the groove of daily life. Life after death is a mere continuation of life on earth. This idea of a continued life beyond the grave must have been developed from the yet unconscious longing of the human soul for a more extended sphere, where the separation of dear friends, so painful to both savage and civilised m«,n, should end in reunion. The next stage is soon reached • man comes to believe that present happiness and misery are not, cannot be, the be-all and end-all of 1 See translation at end of this chapter 228 THE SPIRIT OF ISL^M. his existence ; that there will be another life, or that there is an- other life after death, where he will be happy or miserable in pro- portion to his deserts. Now we have reached a principle and a law. The mind of man goes no further towards developing the idea of future existence. The nihilistic philosopher makes no discovery, asserts no new position. He is only treading in the footsteps of our savage ancestor, whose field of vision was restricted to this life alone. It is a well-authenticated fact, however, that all those ideas which represent the various stages, from a subjective point of view, exist simultaneously not only among different nations but even in the same nation, in different combinations, according to the individual development. The Egyptians are said to have been the first to recognise the doctrine of a future life, or, at least, to base the principles of human conduct on such a doctrine.1 With an idea of metempsy- chosis they joined an idea of future recompense and punishmesnt. Man descended into the tomb only to rise again. After his resurrection he entered on a new life, in company with the sun, the principle of generation, the self-existent cause of all. The soul of man was considered immortal like the sun, and as accom- plishing the same pilgrimages. All bodies descended into the lower world, but they were not all assured of resurrection. The deceased were judged by Osiris and his forty-two assessors. Annihilation was often believed to be the lot of those adjudged guilty. The righteous, purified from venial faults, entered into perfect happiness, and as the companions of Osiris, were fed by him with delicious food.2 We might naturally expect that the long stay of the Israelites in Egypt would introduce among them some conception of a future life with its concomitant idea of rewards and punishments. But pure Mosaism, (or the teachings which pass under that name), does not recognise a state of existence differing from the present. The pivot on which the entire system of Mosaic legislation turns consists of tangible earthly rewards and punishments.3 The vitality of the laws 1 Rawlinson's History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 423. 2 Comp. Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. i. pp. 319-322 ; and Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 102 et seq. 3 Comp. Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 157 ; also Milman's Christianity, vol. i. pp. 21, 25, 75, etc, THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 229 is confined within a very small compass. The doctrine of a resur- rection, with the ideas arising from it, which appears in later Judaism, — especially in the writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, — is evidently a fruit of foreign growth derived from Zoroastrian sources. Even the descriptions of Sheol, the common sojourn of departed beings, equally of the just and unjust, which appear in comparatively early writings, do not seem of true Hebraic origin. In Sheol man can no longer praise God or remember His loving-kindness.1 It is a shadow-realm, a Jewish counterpart of the heathen Hades, in which the souls lead a sad, lethargic, comfortless existence ; knowing nothing of those who were dear to them on earth, mourning only over their own condition.2 But later Judaism is full of the strongest faith in a future life. Tradition revels in the descriptions of the abodes of bliss, or of the horrors of the damned.3 Zoroastrianism thus acted on the Hebraic race in a double way. It not only developed in them a purer and more spiritual conception of a future existence, but later Mago-Zoroastrianism, itself a product of Chaldseism, strongly coloured the Rabbinical beliefs with materialistic ideas of punish- ments and rewards hereafter.4 It was, however, among the Aryan nations of the East that the doctrine of a future life after visible death was distinctly and vividly recognised. In one branch of the Aryan family, it took the shape either of an eternal metempsychosis, a ceaseless whirl of births and deaths, or of utter absorption after a prolonged probation in absolute infinity, or endless unfathomable space, or nothing.5 In the other branch, this doctrine was clothed in the shape of a graduated scale of rewards and punishments, in the sense in which human accountability is understood by the modern Christian or Moslem. Whether the Mago-Zoroastrian from the beginning believed in a corporeal resur- i Ps. vi. 5. 2 Job xiv. 22. Comp. Dollinger, vol. ii. p. 389 ; and Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, pp. 151, 152 et seq. See Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 242, notes. 4 See the chapter of Alger, tracing the influence of the Persian system on later Judaism, p. 165 et seq. 5 And yet the Brahminical priests painted the horrors of hell and the pleasures of heaven with the vividness of a thoroughly morbid imagination, The Arabic scholar is referred to the appreciative account of the Buddhistic doctrines (not so much regarding future life as generally) in Shahristani, p. 446. 23O THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. rection is a question on which scholars are divided. Dollinger, with Burnouf and others, believes that this notion was not really Zoroas- tric, and that it is of later growth, if not derived from Hebrews.1 However this be, about the time of the Prophet of Arabia, the Persians had a strong and developed conception of future life. The remains of the Zend-Avesta which have come down to us expressly recognise a belief in future rewards and punishments. The Zoroastrianism of the Vendidad and the Bundehesh, enlarging upon the beliefs of the Avesta, holds that after a man's death the demons take possession of this body, yet on the third day conscious- ness returns. Souls that in their lifetime have yielded to the seduc- tions of evil cannot pass the terrible bridge Chinevad, to which they are conducted on the day following the third night after their death. The good successfully pass it, conducted by the Yazatas (in modern Persian, Izad), and, entering the realms of bliss, join Ormuzd and the Amshaspands in their abode, where seated on thrones of gold, they enjoy the society of beautiful fairies {Hoordn-i-Behisht) and all manner of delights. The wicked fall over the bridge or are dragged down into the gulf of Duzakh where they are tormented by the Dcevas. The duration of this punishment is fixed by Ormuzd, and some are redeemed by the prayers and intercessions of their friends. Towards the end of the world a prophet is to arise, who is to rid the earth of injustice and wickedness, and usher in a reign of happiness — the Zoroastrian millennium, Ormuzd's kingdom of heaven.2 After this, a universal resurrection will take place, and friends and relatives will meet again. After the joys of recognition there will follow a separation of the good from the bad. The tor- ments of the unrighteous will be fearful. Ahriman will run up and down Chinevad overwhelmed with anguish. A blazing comet, 1 Alger has furnished us with strong reasons for supposing that the early Zoroastrians believed in a bodily resurrection. The extreme repugnance witn which the Mago-Zoroastrians regarded corpses is no reason for discarding this conclusion, as most probably this repugnance arose under Mamchamn influences ; see Alger, p. 138 et seq, Apropos of the repugnance with which the Persians in Mohammed's time looked upon corpses, consult Dollinger, vol. ii. p. 409. 2 Shahristani calls this prophet Ushizerbeka (Cureton's ed. p, 188) ; but according to Western authors, his name is said to be Sosiosch, who is to be preceded by two other prophets, called Oscheder Bami and Oschedermah (Dollinger, v. ii. p. 401). De Sacy calls him Pashoutan (Sur Div. Ant, de la, Perse, p. 95). THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 23 1 falling on the earth, will ignite the world. Mountains will melt and flow together like liquid metal. All mankind, good and bad alike, will pass through this glowing flood, and come out purified. Even Ahriman will be changed and Duzakh purified. Evil thenceforth will be annihilated, and all mankind will live in the enjoyment of ineffable delights. Such is the summary of a religion which has influenced the Semitic faiths in an unmistakable manner, and especially the eclectic faith of Mohammed. About the time when Jesus of Nazareth made his appearance, the Phoenicians and Assyrians had passed away. The hellenised Roman ruled the wrorld, checked in the. East, however, by triumphant and revived Mago-Zoroastrianism. The Jew had lost his independence for ever. A miserable syco- phant occupied the throne of David. A mightier power than that of the Seleucidae kept in subjection his spirit of unruliness. Like every nation animated by a fierce love of their country, creed, and individuality, the Jews, as their fate grew darker and darker, became more and more inspired with the hope that some heaven-commis- sioned ministrant, like Gideon or Maccabeus, would restore their original glory, and enable them to plant their foot on the necks of their many oppressors.1 The appearance of a Messiah portrayed in vivid colours by all their patriotic seers, the Jewish bards, was founded on one grand aspiration — the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. Under the influences of the Mago-Zoroastrians and Chaldaeans in the East, and the Grecian schools of philosophy in the West, among some classes of society (especially among those whom the hellenising tendencies of Herod had withdrawn from the bosom of Israel), the belief in a personal Messiah was either faint and indistinct, or a mere echo from the vulgar masses. But, as Milman beautifully observes, the Palestinian Jews had about this time mould- ed out of various elements a splendid though confused vision of the appearance of the Messiah, the simultaneous regeneration of all things, the resurrection of the dead, and the reign of Messiah upon earth. All these events were to take place at once, or to follow l It is not necessary, as Alger supposes, that because the Jews looked forward to the reappearance of Elijah or some other prophet among them for these national purposes, we must conclude that they believed in trans - migration. 2 3^ THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. close upon each other.1 The Messiah was to descend from the line of David ; he was to assemble all the scattered descendants of the tribes, and to expel and destroy their hateful alien enemies. Under the Messiah a resurrection would take place, but would be confined to the righteous of their race.2 Amidst all this enthusiasm and these vague aspirations, the hopes of eternal life and future bliss were strangely mingled. The extremes of despair and enthusiastic expectation of external relief always tend to the development of such a state of mind among the people. One section appears to look forward to an unearthly kingdom, a reign of peace and law under divine agency, as an escape from the galling yoke of brute force ; the other looks forward to the same or cognate means for securing the kingdom of heaven by the blood of aliens and heathens.3 The traditions which record the sayings of Jesus have gone through such a process of elimination and selection, that it is hardly possible at the present moment to say which are really his own words and which are not.4 But taking them as they stand, and on 1 Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 76. 2 The similarity between the Zoroastrian idea of a deliverer and restorer of religion and order on earth, and the Messianic conception among the Jews, is, to say the least, wonderful. The Jews, it is certain, derived this concep- tion from the Zoroastrians ; and in their misfortunes developed it in more vivid terms. But I am strongly disposed to think that the idea of a Sosiosch, whatever its prophetic significance, arose among the Persians also when labouring under a foreign yoke — whether of the Semitic Assyrians or the Greek Macedonians it is difficult to say. The very country in which the scene of his appearance is laid — Kanguedez in Khorasan, according to De Sacy, Cansoya, according to Dollinger's authorities — show that the Persians, in their misfortunes, looked to the East, especially to the " Land of the Sun," for assistance and deliverance. 3 Like the modern, though obscure, sect of Christadelphians. 4 Milman himself admits that the traditions regarding the acts and sayings of Jesus, which were floating about among the Christian communities, were not cast into their present shape till almost the close of the first half of the second century (History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 126). Necessarily, therefore, the ancient collectors and modellers of the Christian Gospels, or as Milman regards them, rude and simple historians, must have exercised a discretionary latitude in the reception of the traditions. They must have decided every- thing on dogmatic grounds. " If a narrative or scripture was, in its tone and substance, agreeable to their (preconceived) views, they looked upon defective external evidence as complete ; if it was not agreeable, the most sufficient was explained away as a misunderstanding." Hence a great many additions were made, though unconsciously, to the sayings and doings of Jesus. On this point the testimony of Celsus, with every allowance for exaggeration, must be regarded as conclusive when he says the Christians were in the habit of coining and remodelling their traditional accounts (Origen c. Celsus ii. 27). And this on the principle laid down by Sir W. Muir in Canon III. p. lxxxi. vol. i. {Lift of Mahomet). THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 233 the same footing as we regard other religious documents (without ignoring their real spirit, yet without trying to find mysterious meanings like the faithful believer), we see that throughout these traditional records the notion of an immediate advent of a new order of things, " of a kingdom of heaven/' is so predominant in the mind of Jesus as to overshadow all other ideas. The Son of Man has appeared, the kingdom of God is at hand ; such is the burden of every hopeful word.1 This kingdom was to replace the society and government which the Prophet of Nazareth found so imperfect and evil. At times his words led the disciples to conclude that the new Teacher was born to lead only the poor and the famished to glory and happiness ; that under the hoped-for theocratic regime these alone would be "the blessed/' and would constitute the predominating element, for " woe " is denounced in awful terms against the rich and the well-fed.2 At other times, the realm of God is undersood to mean the literal fulfilment of the apocalyptic visions or dreams connected with the appearance of the Messiah. Sometimes, however, the kingdom of God is a realm of souls, and the approaching deliverance is merely a spiritual deliverance from the bondage of this mundane existence. All these conceptions appear at one period to have existed in the mind of Jesus simultaneously.8 But the fierceness and bigotry of the dominant party and the power of the Roman eagle made any immediate social change impossible. As every hope of present amelioration died away, hopes and aspirations of a brighter future took pos- session of the heart. Jesus felt the present state could not last long ; that the time of the regeneration of mankind was at hand,* 1 Matt. iv. 17, x. 7, etc. 2 Luke vii. 20 et seq. In Matthew " the poor in spirit " are mentioned. But the simpler statement of Luke, from a comparison of all the circum- stances, seems more authentic. 3 Renan, Vie de Jesus, p. 282. 4 Matt. xix. 18. There can be no doubt that Jesus himself believed in a corporeal resur- rection, and in tangible rewards and punishments in a future life. He often spoke of " the blessed " in his kingdom eating and drinking at his table. But whilst in the early traditions passing under the name of the four apostles, the accounts, owing to careful pruning, are meagre enough, later traditionists enlarge upon the descriptions of paradise and hell, and revel in the most gorgeous fantasies, which go under the name of revelations (vide Rev. xxi. 8-21, xxii. 1, 2). In puerility even the Christian traditionists do not fall short of the followers of other creeds. The tradition handed down by Irenaeus on the authority of John declares Jesus to have said, "Days shall 30 234 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. when he himself would appear in the clouds of heaven, clothed in divine garments, seated on a throne, surrounded by angels and his chosen disciples.1 The dead would rise from their graves,3 and the Messiah would sit in judgment. The angels would be the executors of his sentence. He would send the elect to a delightful abode prepared from the beginning of the world, and the unrighteous into " everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," 3 where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The chosen, not numerically large,* would be taken into an illu- minated mansion, where they would partake of banquets presided over by the father of the race of Israel, the patriarchs, and the prophets,5 and in which Jesus himself will share.6 That the inauguration of the new regime with the second advent of Jesus and the resurrection of the human race was considered not to be distant, is apparent from the words of the Master himself, when he impressed upon his hearers the approach of the kingdom of God, and the utter futility of every provision for the [occupations and exigencies of the present life.7 The words of the Teacher, acting in unison with the state of mind engendered by the circumstances of the age,s had sunk deep into the hearts of his disciples, and all looked forward, with a vivid- ness of expectation hardly surpassed in the annals of human beliefs, to the literal fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the millennium. " If the first generation of the Christians had a profound and constant belief, it was that the world was approaching its end, and that the great ' revelation ' of Christ was to happen soon.''3 It is only come in which there shall be vines, which shall have each ten thousand branches, and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand lesser branches, and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and in every one of these clusters there shall be ten thousand grapes, and every one of these grapes being pressed shall yield two hundred and seventy-five gallons of wine ; and when a man shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, another bunch shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me," etc. 1 Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 30, 31, xxv. 31 etseq., etc. 2 Rev. xx. 12, 18. Compare these notions with the Zoroastrian belief. 3 Matt. xxv. 41. 4 Luke xiii. 23. 5 Matt. viii. 11 ; Luke xiii. 28, xxii. 30. « Matt. xxvi. 29. 7JMatt x. 23 ; Mark xiii. 30 ; Luke xiii. 35 ; Matt. vi. 25-34, viii. 22. 8 Mark the bitter term which Jesus applies to his generation. 9 Renan, Vi de Jesus, p. 287. Comp. also Milman's History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 378. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 235 when the Christian Church becomes a regular organisation that the followers of Jesus expand their views beyond the restricted horizon of the Judaic world, and, forgetting their millenarian dream, they pass into the Greek and Roman system, and extend the empire of their creed over untold legions of barbarians fresh from their forests, who looked upon Jesus and his mother as the counterparts of their own Odin and Freya worshipped in their primeval homes. But ever and anon the Christian world has been agitated in moments of convulsions and disasters by the millenary excitement and fierce expectation of the apocalyptic appearance of the great Prophet of Nazareth. The idea, however, of the realm of God has, with the lapse of ages and progress of thought, taken either a spiritual shape or utterly faded away from the mind, or, where it has been retained, derives its character from the surroundings of the individual believers. The Jew, the Mago-Zoroastrian, and the Christian all believed in a bodily resurrection. The crude notions of primitive Mosaism had made way for more definite ideas derived chiefly from the Chaldaeo-Zoroastrian doctrines. We know how among the Persians the old worship of the mountains, the simple teachings of the early teachers, had grown, under the magic wands of the Babylonian wizards, into a complex system of graduated rewards and punishments, — how Chaldaean philosophy had permeated Mago-Zoroastrianism to its innermost core. Primitive Christianity, with its vivid belief in the immediate advent of the material kingdom of Christ, had imbibed notions from Chaldaean, Mago-Zoroastrian, and Alexandrian sources which had considerably altered the old conceptions. Jew, Christian, and Zoroastrian all looked, more or less, to material rewards and punishments in a future existence. The popular Christian notion, fostered by ecclesiasticism, that Mohammed denied souls to women, is by this time, we believe, exploded. It was a calumny concocted to create an aversion against Islam. But the idea that the Arabian Prophet promised his followers a sensual paradise with hooris, and a graduated scale of delights, still lingers. It is a sign alike of ignorance and ancient bigotry. There is no doubt that in the Suras of the intermediate period, before the mind of the Teacher had attained the full development of religious consciousness, and when it was necessary to formulate in language intelligible to the common folk of the desert, the 236 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. realistic descriptions of heaven and hell, borrowed from the floating fancies of Zoroastrian, Sabaean, and the Talmudical Jew, attract the attention as a side picture, and then comes the real essence — the adoration of God in humility and love. The hooris are creatures of Zoroastrian origin, so is paradise,1 whilst hell in the severity of its punishment is Talmudic. The descriptions are realistic, in some places almost sensuous \ but to say that they are sensual, or that Mohammed, or any of his followers, even the ultra-literalists accepted them as such, is a calumny. The wine "that does not inebriate" and the attendants " that come not nigh," can hardly be said to represent sensual pleasures ! The chief and predominating idea in Islam respecting a future life is founded upon the belief that, in a state of existence hereafter, every human being will have to render an account of his or her actions on earth, and that the happiness or misery of individuals will depend upon the manner in which they have performed the behests of their Creator. His mercy and grace are nevertheless unbounded, and will be bestowed alike upon His creatures. This is the pivot on which the whole doctrine of future life in Islam turns, and this is the only doctrinal point one is required to believe and accept. All the other elements, caught up and syncretised from the floating traditions of the races and peoples of the time, are mere accessories. Setting aside from our consideration the question of subjectivity involved in all ideas of future rewards and punish- ments, we may say, in all ideas of a life after death, we must bear in mind that these ideas have furnished to the moral teachers of the world the most powerful instrument for influencing the conduct of individuals and nations. But though every religion, ' more or less, contains the germ of this principle of future accountability in another state, all have failed thoroughly to realise its nature as a continuous agency for the elevation of the masses. Virtue, for its own sake, can only be grasped by minds of superior development ; for the average intellect, and for the uneducated, sanctions, more or less comprehensible, will always be necessary. To turn now to the nature of these sanctions, it must be re- membered that it is scarcely ever possible to convey an idea of 1 In Persian, jirdous. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 237 spiritual pleasure or spiritual pain to the apprehensions of the general- ity of mankind without clothing the expressions in the garb of tangible personalities, or introducing sensible objects into the description of such pleasure or pain. Philosophy has wrangled over abstract expressions, not dressed in tangible phraseology. Such expressions and conceptions have seen their day, have flourished, and have died without making themselves felt beyond a restricted circle of dreamers, who lived in the indefinable vagueness of their own thoughts. Mohammed was addressing himself not only to the advanced minds of a few idealistic thinkers who happened to be then living, but to the wide world around him engrossed in materialism of every type. He had to adapt himself to the comprehensions of all. To the wild famished Arab, what more grateful, or what more consonant to his ideas of paradise than rivers of unsullied incorruptible water, or of milk and honey ; or anything more acceptable than unlimited fruit, luxuriant vegetation, inexhaustible fertility ? He could con- ceive of no bliss unaccompanied with these sensuous pleasures. This is the contention of that portion of the Moslem world which, like Sanai and Ghazzali, holds that behind the descrip- tions of material happiness portrayed in objects like trees, rivers, and beautiful mansions with fairy attendants, lies a deeper meaning ; and that the joy of joys is to consist in the beatific visions of the soul in the presence of the Almighty, when the veil which divides man from his Creator will be rent, and heavenly glory revealed to the mind untrammelled by its corporeal, earthly habili- ments. In this they are upheld by the words of the Koran as well as the authentic sayings of the Prophet. " The most favoured of God," said Mohammed, " will be he who shall see his Lord's face (glory) night and morning, a felicity which will surpass all the pleasures of the body, as the ocean surpasses a drop of sweat." One day, talking to his friend, Abfi Huraira, the Prophet said, " God has prepared for His good people what no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of any one," and then re- cited the following verse of the Koran ; " No soul knoweth the joy which is secretly prepared for it as a reward for that it may have wrought/' * Another tradition2 reports that Mohammed declared ' 1 Koran xxxii. 17 ; Mishkat, bk. xxiii. chap. xiii. pt. 2 From Suhaib. 238 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. the good will enjoy the beatific vision of God, to which reference, he said, is made in the following verse of the Koran : " And God inviteth unto the dwelling of peace For those who do good there is excellent reward and superabundant addition." \ As to the parabolical nature of the Koranic expressions, this school of thinkers bases its convictions on the following passage of the inspired book : " It is He who hath sent down unto thee ' the book/ Some of the signs (verses) are firm (i.e. perspicuous or clear to understand) — these are the basis (or fundamental part) of the book — and others are figurative/' 2 , Another section looks upon the joys and pains of the Here- after as entirely subjective. It holds that as extreme mental pain is far more agonising than physical pain, so is mental pleasure of the higher type far more rapturous than any sensuous pleasure ; that as, after physical death, the individual soul merges ("returns," in the Koranic expressions) in the Universal Soul, all the joys and pains, portrayed in vivid colours by the inspired Teacher to enable the masses to grasp the truth, will be mental and subjective. This section includes within its bosom some of the greatest philosophers and mystics of the Moslem world. Another, and by far the largest class, however, believe in the literal fulfilment of all the word-paintings of the Koran. Without venturing to pass any opinion on these different notions, we may take this occasion to state our own belief with regard to the Koranic conception of future rewards and punishments. A careful study of the Koran makes it evident that the mind of Mohammed went through the same process of development which marked the religious consciousness of Jesus. Mohammed and Jesus are the only two historic teachers of the world, and for this reason we take them together. How great this development was in Jesus is apparent, not only from the idealised conception towards the end of his earthly career regarding the Kingdom ot Heaven, but also from the change of tone towards the nonJsraelites. Thoroughly l Koran x. 27. Consult here Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), Egyp. Ed. , pt. i. p. 244 ; he gives the fullest references to the opinions of the different theologians and schools, and especially mentions the doctrines of the Mush- habbahds and the Jabarias. 2 Koran iii 5. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 239 exclusive at first,1 with a more developed religious consciousness wider sympathies awaken in the heart.2 As with Jesus so with Mohammed. The various chapters of the Koran which contain the ornate descriptions of paradise, whether figurative or literal, were delivered wholly or in part at Mecca. Probably in the infancy of his religious consciousness, Mohammed himself believed in some or other of the traditions which floated around him. But with a wider awakening of the soul, a deeper communion with the Creator of the Universe, thoughts, which bore a material aspect at first, became spiritualised. The mind of the Teacher progressed not only with the march of time and the development of his religious consciousness, but also with the progress of his disciples in apprehending spiritual con- ceptions. Hence, in the later suras we observe a merging of the material in the spiritual, of the body in the soul. The gardens " watered by rivers,'' perpetual shade,3 plenty and harmony, so agree- able to the famished denizen of the parched, shadeless, and waterless desert, at perpetual discord with himself and all around him, — these still form the groundwork of beautiful imageries ; 'but the happiness of the blessed is shown to consist in eternal peace and goodwill in the presence of their Creator. ". But those," says the Koran, " who are pious shall dwell in gardens, amidst fountains ; they shall say unto them1, ' Enter ye therein in peace and security ;' and all rancour will we remove from their bosoms ; they shall sit as brethren, face to face,4 on couches ; weariness shall not affect them therein, neither shall they be repelled thence for ever." 5 What can be nobler or grander in its conception or imagery, or give a better idea of the belief in Mohammed's mind, (at least towards the latter period of his career), concerning the nature of the present and future life, than the following passage : "It is He who enableth you to travel by land and by sea ; so that ye go on board of ships, which sail on with them, with favourable breeze, and they rejoice therein. But if a tempestuous wind overtake, and the waves come on them from every side, and they think they are encompassed 1 Matt. x. 5, xv. 22-26. 8 Matt, xxviii. 19, etc. ; comp. throughout Strauss, New Life of Jesus (1865), vol. i. p. 296etseq. 3 Koran xiii. 34, xlvii. 16, 17. Comp. also chaps, ix., x., and xiv. * I.e. with peace and good will in their hearts. 5 Koran xv. 44. 240 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. therewith, they call on God, professing unto Him sincere reli- gion ; (saying) wouldst Thou but rescue us from this, then we will ever be indeed of the thankful. But when We have rescued them, Behold ! they commit unrighteous excesses on the earth. O men ! verily the excesses ye commit to the injury of your own souls are only for the enjoyment of this earthly life ; soon shall ye return to Us, and We will declare unto you that which ye have done. Verily, the likeness of this present life is not otherwise than the water which We send down from heaven ; and the productions of the earth, of which men and cattle eat, are mixed therewith, till the earth has received its beautiful raiment, and is decked out, and they who inhabit it imagine they have power over it ! (But) Our behest cometh unto it by night or by day, and We make it as if it had been mown, as though it had not teemed (with fertility) only yesterday. Thus do we make our signs clear unto those who consider. And God inviteth unto the abodes of peace, and guideth whom He pleaseth into the right way.1 For those who do good is excellent reward and superabundant addition of it ; neither blackness nor shame shall cover their faces. These are the inhabitants of paradise ; therein do they abide for ever. But those who have wrought evil shall receive the reward of evil equal thereunto ;2 and shame shall cover them (for there will be none to protect them against God) as though their faces were covered with a piece of the night of profound darkness."3 Then again, what can be purer in its aspirations than the following : — "Who fulfil the covenant of God and break not their compact ; and who join together what God hath bidden to be joined ; and who fear their Lord and dread an ill-reckoning ; and who, from a sincere desire to please their Lord,4 are constant amid trials, and observe prayers and give alms, in secret and openly, out of what We have bestowed on them ; and turn aside evil with good : for 1 Baizawi explains the expression "whom He pleaseth," as "those who repent" (p. 67, n. 1, chap. iv). Compare Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf). 2 Observe the reward of virtue will not be confined to an exact measure of man's works ; it will far exceed his deserts ; but the recompense of evil will be strictly proportioned to what one has done. 3 Koran x. 23-28. . 4 This may also be translated as "from a desire to see the face (glory) of theirLord." THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE. 24I them there is the recompense of that abode, gardens of eternal habitation, into which they shall enter, together with such as shall have acted rightly from among their fathers, their wives, and their posterity ; and the angels shall go in unto them by every portal, (saying), 'Peace be with you ! because ye have endured with patience.' Excellent is the reward in that abode I"1 Enough has been said to show the utter falsehood of the theory that Mohammed's pictures of future life were all sensuous. We will conclude this chapter with the following passage from the Koran to show the depth of spirituality in Islam, and the purity of the hopes and aspirations on which it bases its rule of life : " O thou soul which are at rest, return unto thy Lord, pleased and pleasing Him, enter thou among my servants, and enter thou my garden of felicity.''2 1 Koran xiii. 20-24. Compare throughout Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf). 2 Koran lxxxix. 27-30. 31 CHAPTER VII. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. "The blood of the Zimmi is like the blood of the Moslem" — All HITHERTO, we have considered the teachings of the Arabian Prophet solely from one point of view — as furnishing the rule of human conduct, and supplying the guide of man's duty to his Creator and to his fellow-creatures. We now propose to examine the influence of Islam on collective humanity, — on nations, and not merely on the individual, in short, on the destiny of mankind in the aggregate. Seven centuries had passed since the Master of Nazareth had come with his message of the Kingdom of Heaven to the poor and the lowly. A beautiful life was ended before the ministry had barely commenced. And now unutterable desolation brooded over the empires and kingdoms of the earth, and God's children, sunk in misery, were anxiously waiting for the promised deliverance which was so long in coming. In the West, as in the East, the condition of the masses was so miserable as to defy description. They possessed no civil rights or political privileges. These were the monopoly of the rich and the powerful, or of the sacerdotal classes. The law was not the same for the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor, the great and the lowly. In Sassanide Persia, the priests and the landed proprietors, the Dehkdns, enjoyed all power and influence, and the wealth of the country was centred in their hands. The peasantry, and the poorer classes generally, were ground to the earth under a lawless despotism. In the Byzantine Empire, the clergy and the great magnates, courte- zans, and other nameless ministrants to the vices of Caesar and proconsul, were the happy possessors of wealth, influence, and power. The people grovelled in the most abject misery. In the barbaric kingdoms — in fact, wherever feudalism had established THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. *4^ itself — by far the largest proportion of the population were either serfs or slaves. Villeinage or serfdom was the ordinary status of the peasantry. At first there was little distinction between praedial and domestic slavery. Both classes of slaves, with their families, and their goods and chattels, belonged to the lord of the soil, who could deal with them at his own free will and pleasure.1 In later times the serfs or villeins were either annexed to the manor, and were bought and sold with the land to which they belonged, or were annexed to the person of the lord, and were transferable from one owner to another. They could not leave their lord without his permission ; and if they ran away, or were purloined from him, might be claimed and recovered by action, like beasts or other chattels. They held, indeed, small portions of land by way of sus- taining themselves and their families, but it was at the mere will of the lord, who might dispossess them whenever he pleased. A villein could acquire no property, either in lands or goods ; but if he pur- chased either, the lord might enter upon them, oust the villein, and seize them to his own use. An iron-collar round the neck was the badge of both praedial servitude and domestic slavery. The slaves were driven from place to place in gangs, fed like swine, and housed worse than swine, with fettered feet and manacled hands, linked together in a single chain which led from collar to collar. The trader in human flesh rode with a heavy knotted lash in his hands, with which he ' encouraged ' the weary and flagging. This whip when it struck, and that was frequently, cut the flesh out of the body. Men, women, and children were thus dragged about the country with rags on their body, their ankles ulcerated, their naked feet torn. If any of the wretches flagged and fell, they were laid on the ground and lashed until the skin was flayed and they were nearly dead. The horrors of the Middle Passage, the sufferings of the poor negroes in the Southern States of North America before the War of Emancipation, the cruel- ties practised by the Soudanese slave-lifters, give us some conception of the terrible sufferings of the slaves under Christian domination at the time when Islam was first promulgated, and until the close of the l The Church retained its slaves longest. Sir Thomas Smith in his CommomcecUth speaks bitterly of the hypocrisy of the clergy. 2 44 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. fifteenth century. J And even after the lapse of almost two thousand years of Christ's reign, we still find Christians lashing to death help- less women, imprisoned for real or imaginary political offences by one of the most powerful empires of the civilised world. The condition of the so-called freemen was nowise better than that of the ordinary serfs. If they wanted to part with their lands, they must pay a fine to the lord of the manor. If they wanted to buy any, they must likewise pay a fine. They could not take by succes- sion any property until they had paid a heavy duty. They could not grind their corn or make their bread without paying a share to the lo%i. They could not harvest their crops before the Church had first appropriated its tenth, the king his twentieth, the courtiers their smaller shares. They could not leave their homes without the leave of the lord, and they were bound, at all times, to render him gratuit- ous services. If the lord's son or daughter married, they must cheerfully pay their contributions. But when the freeman's daughter married, she must first submit to an infamous outrage — and not even the bishop, the servant of Christ, when he happened to be lord of the manor, would waive the atrocious privilege of barbarism. Death even had no solace for these poor victims of barbarism. Living, they were subject to the inhumanities of man; dead, they were doomed to eternal perdition ; for a felo-de-se was the unholiest of criminals, there was no room for his poor body in consecrated ground ; he could only be smuggled away in the dead of night and buried in some unhallowed spot with a stake through his body as a warning to others. Such was the terrible misery which hung over the people ! But the baron in his hall, the bishop in his palace, the priest in his cloister, little recked they of the sufferings of the masses. The clouds of night had gathered over the fairest portion of Europe and Africa. Everywhere the will of the strongest was the measure of law and right. The Church afforded no help to the down-trodden and oppressed. Its teachings were opposed to the enfranchisement of the human race from the rule of brute force. "The early Fathers" had l In the first Parliamentary War waged against Charles I., we find both sides selling their opponents as slaves to the colonists. After the suppression of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion all his followers were sold into slavery. The treatment of the slaves in 'the colonies at the hands of "the Pilgrim Fathers" and their descendants will not bear description. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 245 condemned resistance to the constituted authorities as a deadly sin. No tyranny, no oppression, no outrages upon humanity were held to justify subjects in forcibly protecting themselves against the injustice of their rulers. The servants of Jesus had made common cause with those whom he had denounced, — the rich and powerful tyrant. They had associated themselves with feudalism, and enjoyed all its privileges as lords of the soil, barons and princes. The non-Christians — Jews, heretics, or pagans — enjoyed, under Christian domination, a fitful existence. It was a matter of chance whether they would be massacred or reduced to slavery. Rights they had none ; enough if they were suffered to exist. If a Christian contracted an illicit union with a non-Christian, — a lawful union was out of the question, — he was burnt to death. The Jews might not eat or drink or sit at the same table with the Christians, nor dress like them. Their children were liable to be torn from their arms, their goods plundered, at the will of the baron or bishop, or a frenzied populace. And this state of things lasted until the close of the seventeenth century. Not until the Recluse of Hira sounded the note of freedom, — not until he proclaimed the practical equality of mankind, not until he abolished every privilege of caste, and emancipated labour, — did the chains which had held in bond the nations of the earth fall to pieces. He came with the same message which had been brought by his precursors and he fulfilled it. The essence of the political character of Islam is to be found in the charter, which was granted to the Jews by the Prophet after his arrival in Medina, and the notable message sent to the Christians of Najran and the neighbouring territories after Islam had fully estab- lished itself in the Peninsula. This latter document has, for the most part, furnished the guiding principle to all Moslem rulers in their mode of dealing with their non-Moslem subjects, and if they have departed from it in any instance the cause is to be found in the character of the particular sovereign. If we separate the political necessity which has often spoken and acted in the name of religion, no faith is more tolerant than Islam to the fol- lowers of other creeds.1 (i Reasons of State" have led a sovereign 1 Comp. Gobineau, Les Religions et les Philosophies dans VAsie Centrale. 246 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. here and there to display a certain degree of intolerance, or to insist upon a certain uniformity of faith ; but the system itself has ever maintained the most complete tolerance. Christians and Jews, as a rule, have never been molested in the exercise of their religion, or constrained to change their faith. If they are required to pay a special tax, it is in lieu of military service, and it is but right that those who enjoy the protection of the State should contribute in some shape to the public burdens. Towards the idolators there was greater strictness in theory, but in practice the law was equally liberal. Jf at any time they were treated with harshness, the cause is to be found in the passions of the ruler or the population. The religious element was used only as a pretext. In support of the time-worn thesis that the non-Moslem subjects1 of Islamic States labour under severe disabilities, reference is made not only to the narrow views of the later canonists and lawyers of Islam, but also to certain verses of the Koran, in order to show that the Prophet did not view non-Moslems with favour, and did not encourage friendly relations between them and his followers.2 In dealing with this subject, we must not forget the stress and strain of the life-and-death struggle in which Islam was involved when those verses were promulgated, and the treacherous means that were often employed by the heathens, as well as the Jews and the Christians, to corrupt and seduce the Moslems from the new Faith. At such a time, it was incumbent upon the Teacher to warn his followers against the wiles and insidious designs of hostile creeds. And no student of comparative history can blame him for trying to safeguard his little commonwealth against the treachery of enemies and aliens. But when we come to look at his general treatment of non«Moslem subjects, we find it marked by a large-hearted tolerance and sympathy. Has any conquering race or Faith given to its subject nationalities a nobler guarantee than is to be found in the following words of the Prophet ? "To [the Christians of] Najran and the neighbouring terri- tories, the security of God and the pledge of His Prophet are extend- ed for their lives, their religion, and their property — to the present as well as the absent and others besides ; there shall be no interference < with [the practice of] their faith or their observances ; nor any change 1 In the Islamic system the non-Moslem subjects of Moslem states are called Ahl-uz-zimmah or Zimmis i. e. " people living under guarantees." 2 See Sell's Essays on Islam. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 247 in their rights or privileges; no bishop shall be removed from his bishopric ; nor any monk from his monastery, nor any priest from his priesthood, and they shall continue to enjoy every thing great and small as heretofore ; no image or cross shall be destroyed ; they shall not oppress or be oppressed j they shall not practise the rights of blood-vengeance asin the Days of Ignorance \ no tithes shall be levied from them nor shall they be required to furnish provisions for the troops."1 After the subjugation of Hira. and as soon as the people had taken the oath of allegiance, Khalid bin-Walid issued a proclamation by which he guaranteed the lives, liberty and property of the Christians, and declared that "they shall not be prevented from beating their ndkiis 2 and taking out their crosses on occasions of festivals." "And this declaration," says Imam Abvi-Yusuf,3 "was approved of and sanctioned by the Caliph4 and his council." 5 The non-Moslem subjects were not precluded from building new churches or temples. Only in places exclusively inhabited by Moslems a rule of this kind existed in theory. "No new Church or temple", said Abdullah bin Abbas,6 "can be erected in a town solely inhabited by Moslems \ but in other places where there are already Zimmis inhabiting from before, we must abide by our contract with them."7 In practice, however, the prohibition was totally disregarded. In the reign of Mamun, we hear of eleven thousand Christian churches, besides hundreds of synagogues and fire-temples within the empire. This enlightened monarch, who has been represented as " a bitter enemy" of the Christians, included in his Council the representatives of all the communities under his sway, — Moslems, Jews, Christians, Sabaeans and Zoroastrians ; whilst the rights and privileges of the Christian hierarchy were carefully regulated and guaranteed. 1 i. e. troops be quartered on them ; Futuh ul-Bidddn (Balazuri) p. 65 ; Kitdb-ul-Khirdj of Imam Abil Yusuf. Muir gives this guarantee of the Prophet in a somewhat abridged form, vol. II. p. 299 ; for the text see Appendix. 2 A piece of wood used in Eastern Christian churches in place of a bell. 3 The Chief Kazi of Hariin ar-Rashid. 4 AbuBakr. 5 Consisting of Omar, Osman and Ali and the other leading Companions of the Prophet ; See the Kitdb ul-Khirdj, p. 84. 6 A cousin of the Prophet and a jurist of recognised authority. 7 Kitdb ul-Khirdj, p. 88. 248 THE SPIRIT OF ISLlM. It is a notable fact, with few parallels even in modern history, that after the conquest of Egypt the Caliph Omar scrupulously preserved in tact the property dedicated to the Christian churches and continued the allowances made by the former government for the support of the priests.1 The best testimony to the toleration of the early Moslem govern- ment is furnished by the Christians themselves. In the reign of Osman (the third Caliph), the Christian Patriarch of Merv, addressed the Bishop of Fars, named Simeon, in the following terms. — "The Arabs who have been given by God the kingdom (of the earth) do not attack the Christian faith ; on the contrary they help us in our religion 5 they respect our God and our Saints, and bestow gifts on our churches and monasteries/' In order to avoid the least semblance of high-handedness, no Moslem was allowed to acquire the land of a zimmi even by purchase. "Neither the Imam nor the Sultan could dispossess a zhnmioi his property." The Moslems and the zimmis were absolutely equal in the eye of the law. " Their blood/' said Ali the Caliph, " was like our blood." Many modern governments, not excepting some of the most civilised, may take the Moslem administration for their model. In the punishment of crimes there was no difference between the rulers and the ruled. Islam's law is that if a zimmi is killed by a Moslem, the latter is liable to the same penalty as in the reverse case.* In their anxiety for the welfare of the non-Moslem subjects, the Caliphs of Bagdad, like their rivals of Cordova, created a special de- partment charged with the protection of the zimmis and the safe- guarding of their interests. The head of this department was called, in Bagdad, Kdtib-iil-Jihbdzeh ; in Spain, Kdiib-nz-Zimdm* Mutawakkil, who rased to the ground the mausoleum of the martyr Hussain and forbade pilgrimages to the consecrated spot, excluded non-Moslems, as he excluded the Moslem Rationalists, 1 Makrisi, pp. 492, 499. 2 Zailye in his Takhrij-ul-Heddya mentions a case which occurred in the Caliphate of Omar. A Moslem of the name of Bakr bin Wail killed a Christian named Hairut. The Caliph ordered that " the killer should be surrendered to the heirs of the killed". The culprit was made over to Honain, Hairut's heir, who put him to death, p. 338, Delhi edition. A similar case is reported in the reign of Omar bin Abdul Aziz. 3 With a Zdl ; see Short History of the Saracens. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 249 from the employment of the state and subjected them to many disabilities. In the later works of law, written whilst the great struggle was proceeding between Islam and Christendom, on one side for life — on the other for brute mastery, there occur no doubt passages which give colour to the allegation that in Islam zimmis are subject to humiliation. But no warrant for this statement will be found in the rules inculcated by the Teacher, or his immediate disciples or successors. It must be added, however, that the bigoted views of the later canonists were never carried into practice ; and the toleration and generosity with which the non- Moslems were treated are evidenced by the fact that zimmis could be nominated as executors to the wills of Moslems ; that they often filled the office of rectors of Moslem universities and educational institutions, and of curators of Moslem endowments so long as they did not perform any religious functions. And when a non-Moslem of worth and merit died, the Moslems attended his funeral in a body. In the beginning military commands, for obvious reasons, were not entrusted to non-Moslems, but all other posts of emolu- ment and trust were open to them equally with Islamists. This equality was not merely theoretical, for from the first century of the Hegira we find important offices of state held by Christians, Jews and Magians. The Abbassides, with rare exceptions, recognised no distinction among their subjects on the score of religion. And the dynasties that succeeded them in power scrupulously followed their example. If the treatment of non-Moslems in Islamic countries is com- pared with that of non-Christians under European Governments, it would be found that the balance of humanity and generosity, generally speaking, inclines in favour of Islam. Under the Mogul Emperors of Delhi, Hindoos commanded armies, administered provinces and satin the councils of the soveraign. Even at the present time, can it be said that in no European empire, ruling over mixed nationalities and faiths, is any distinction made of creed, colour or race ? That which Islam had almost exclusively in view was to inculcate among mankind the principle of divine unity and human equality 32 25O THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. preached by the Prophet. So long as the central doctrine of the unity of God and the message of the Prophet is recognised and accepted, Islam allows the widest latitude to the human conscience. Consequently, wherever the Moslem missionary-soldier made his appearance, he was hailed by the down-trodden masses and the per- secuted heretics as the harbinger of freedom and emancipation from a galling bondage. Islam brought to them practical equality in the eye of the law, and fixity of taxation. The battle of Kadessia, which threw Persia into the hands of the Moslems, was the signal of deliverance to the bulk of the Persians, as the battles of Yermuk and Ajnadin were to the Syrians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. The Jews, whom the Zoroastrians had massacred from time to time, the Christians, whom they hunted from place to place, breathed freely under the authority of the Prophet, the watch- word of whose faith was the brotherhood of man. The people everywhere received the Moslems as their liberators. Wherever any resistance was offered, it was by the priesthood and the aristocracy. The masses and the working classes in general, who were under the ban of Zoroastrianism, ranged themselves with the conquerors. A simple confession of an everlasting truth placed them on the same footing as their Moslem emancipators. The feudal chiefs of the tribes and villages retained all their privileges, honours, and local influence, — " more than we believe," says Gobineau, " for the oppressions and persecutions of the Mussulmans have been greatly exaggerated." The conquest of Africa and Spain was attended with the same result. The Arians, the Pelagians, and other heretics hitherto the victims of orthodox fury and hatred, — the people at large, who had been terribly oppressed by a lawless soldiery and a still more law- less priesthood, — found peace and security under Islam. By an irony of fate, which almost induces a belief in the Nemesis of the ancients, the Jews, whose animosity towards the Prophet very nearly wrought the destruction of the Islamic commonwealth, found in the Moslems their best protectors. " Insulted, plundered, hated and despised by all Christian nations," they found that refuge in Islam, that protection from inhumanity, which was ruthlessly de- nied to them in Christendom. Islam gave to the people a code which, however archaic in its THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 25I simplicity, was capable of the greatest development in accordance with the progress of material civilisation. It conferred on the State a flexible constitution, based on a just appreciation of human rights and human duty. It limited taxation, it made men equal in the eye of the law, it consecrated the principles of self-government. It established a control over the sovereign power by rendering the executive authority subordinate to the law, — a law based upon religious sanction and moral obligations. ''The excellence and effectiveness of each of these principles/' says Urquhart, "(each capable of immortalising its founder), gave value to the rest ; and all combined, endowed the sys- tem which they formed with a force and energy exceeding those of any other political system. Within the lifetime of a man, though in the hands of a population, wild, ignorant, and insignificant, it spread over a greater extent than the dominions of Rome. While it retained its primitive character, it was irresistible. V1 The short government of Abu Bakr was too fully occupied with the labour of pacifying the desert tribes to afford time for any sys- tematic regulation of the provinces. But with the reign of Omar — a truly great man — commenced that sleepless care for j the welfare of the subject nations which characterised the early Moslem govern- ments. An examination of the political condition of the Moslems under the early Caliphs brings into view a popular government administered by an elective chief with limited powers. The prerogatives of the head of the State were confined to administrative and executive matters, such as the regulation of the police, control of the army, transaction of foreign affairs, disbursement of the finances, etc. But he could never act in contravention of the recognised law. The tribunals were not dependent on the government. Their decisions were supreme ; and the early Caliphs could not assume the power of pardoning those whom the regular tribunals had con- demned. The law was the same for the poor as for the rich, for the man in power as for the labourer in the field. As time advances the stringency of the system is relaxed but the form is always maintained. Even the usurpers, who, without right, by treachery and murder seized the reins of government, and who 1 Urquhart, Spirit of the East, vol. i. Introd. p. xxviii. 252 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. in their persons represented the pagan oligarchy which had been dis- placed by the teachings of Islam, observed more or less the outward semblance of law-abiding executive heads of a representative govern- ment. And the rulers of the later dynasties, when they overstepped the bounds, often unlimited, of arbitrary power, were restrained by the sentence of the general body of jurisconsults, which in all Mussalman States serves as a constitutional check on the sovereign. In the early times, however, the "Companions" of the Master formed as it were, an effective Council of State. The consideration attached to the title of "Companion of the Prophet" was as great in the camp as in the city. The powerful influence which they possessed in- creased with the conquests of the Moslems. The quality of ashdb carried with it a character of sanctity and nobleness. When a person bearing this title was in an action, the crowd flocked to his side and followed his lead. In the first degree were those who had accom- panied the Prophet from Mecca — the Exiles, and the Ansar who had received him with devotion, and who had battled in defence of the Faith at Badr and Ohod ; those who were charged with any work by him and those who had talked with him, seen him, or heard him. In the last rank came those who had served under any of the saMba, and thus came indirectly within the magic influence of the Master. An incident which occurred during the Caliphate of Omar shows the absolute equality of all men in Islam. Jabala, king of the Ghassanides, having embraced the Faith, had proceeded to Medina to pay his homage to the Commander of the Faithful. He had entered the city with great pomp and ceremony, and been received with much consideration. Whilst performing the tawdf, or circum- ambulation of the Kaaba, a humble pilgrim engaged in the same sacred duties accidentally dropped a piece of his pilgrim's dress over the royal shoulders. Jabala turned round furiously and struck him a blow which knocked out the poor man's teeth. The rest of this episode must be told in the memorable words of Omar himself to Abu Obaidah, commanding the Moslem troops in Syria. "The poor man came to me," writes the Caliph, "and prayed for redress ; I sent for Jabala, and when he came before me I asked him why he had so ill-treated a brother-Moslem. He.answered that the man had insulted him, and that were it not for the sanctity of the place he would have killed him on the spot. I answered that his words added to the THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 253 gravity of his offence, and that unless he obtained the pardon of the injured man he would have to submit to the usual penalty of the law. Jabala replied, 'I am a king, and the other is only a common man.' 'King or no king, both of you are Mussalmans, and both of you are equal in the eye of law.' He asked that the penalty might be delayed until the next day ; and, on the consent of the injured, I accorded the delay. In the night Jabala escaped, and has now joined the Christian dog.1 But God will grant thee victory over him and the like of them. . . .'"' This letter was read by Abu Obaidah at the head of his troops. These communications appear to have been frequent under the early Caliphate. No person in the camp or in the city was a stranger to public affairs. Every Friday after divine service, the Commander of the Faithful mentioned to the assembly the im- portant nominations and events of the day. The prefects in their provinces followed the example. No one was excluded from these general assemblies of the public. It was the reign of demo- cracy in its best form. The Pontiff of Islam, the Commander of the Faithful, was not hedged round by any divinity. He was respon- sible for the administration of the State to his subjects. The stern devotion of the early Caliphs to the well-being of the people, and the austere simplicity of their lives, were in strict accordance with the example of the Master. They preached and prayed in the mosque like the Prophet ; received in their homes the poor and oppressed, and failed not to give a hearing to the meanest. Without cortege, without pomp or ceremony, they ruled the hearts of men by the force of their character. Omar travelled to Syria to receive the capitulation of Jerusalem, accompanied by a single slave. Abu Bakr on his death-bed left only a suit of clothes, a camel, and a slave to his heir. Every Friday, Ali distributed his own allowance from the public treasury among the distressed and suffering j and set an example to the people by his respect for the ordinary tribunals. Whilst the Republic lasted none of the Caliphs could alter, or act contrary to, the judgment of the constituted courts of justice.2 1 Such was the designation usually given to the Byzantine emperors by the early Moslems. 2 The first sentence of a court of justice which was not carried into execution was under Muawiyah, who pardoned a man found guilty by the judge upon the criminal reciting a poem in praise of the usurper. 2 54 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. Naturally, it is difficult for a new government, introduced by force of arms, to conciliate the affection of the people at once. But the early Saracens offered to the conquered nations motives for the greatest confidence and attachment. Headed by chiefs of the moderation and gentleness of Abu Obaidah, who tempered and held in check the ferocity of soldiers like Khalid, they maintained in tact the civil rights of their subjects. They accorded to all the conquered nations the completest religious toleration. Their conduct might furnish to many of the civilised governments of modern times the noblest example of civil and religious liberty. They did not lash women to death. They did not condemn innocent females to the outrages of the Siberian mines and their guards. They had the sagacity not to interfere with any beneficent civil institution, existing in the conquered countries, which did not militate with their religion. The measures taken by Omar to secure the agricultural pros- perity of the people evince an ever-present solicitude to promote their well-being and interests. Taxation on land was fixed upon an equable and moderate basis ; aqueducts and canals were ordered to be made in every part of the empire. rFhe feudal burdens, which had afflicted the cultivators of the soil, were absolutely withdrawn, and the peasantry were emancipated from the bond- age of centuries. The death of this remarkable man at the hands of an assassin was an undoubted loss to the government. His character, stern and yet just, his practical commonsense and knowledge of men, had eminently fitted him to repress and hold in check the ambitious designs of the children of Om- meyya. On his deathbed Omar entrusted to six electors the task of nominating a successor to the office. The Caliphate was offered to the son of Abu Talib, but Ommeyyade intrigue had annexed to the proposal a condition which they knew Ali would not accept. He was required to govern, not only in accordance with the laws and precedents of the Prophet, but also with those established by his two predecessors. With characteristic independence Ali refused to allow his judgment to be so fettered. The Caliphate was then offered, as it was expected by the Ommeyyades, to their kinsman Osman. The accession of this venerable chief to the vicegerency of the Prophet proved in the sequel an unqualified disaster to the commonwealth of Islam. He was a member of that family which The political spirit of islam. 255 had always borne a deep-rooted animosity towards the children of Hashim. They had persecuted the Teacher with rancorous hatred, and had driven him from his home. They had struggled hard to crush the Faith in its infancy, and had battled against it to the last. Strongly united among themselves, and exercising great influence among all the tribes of Muzar,1 of which they were the prominent members, the Ommeyyades had watched with ill-concealed jealousy the old power and prestige slip away from their hands. After the fall of Mecca they had accepted the inveitable, but never forgave the house of Hashim or Islam for the ruin which the son of Abdullah had wrought to them. Whilst the Prophet lived, his commanding personality overawed all these traitors. Many of them had made a nominal profession of the Faith from self-interest 2 and a greed to secure a part of the 'worldly goods which the success of the Moslems brought to the Islamic commonwealth. But they never ceased to hate the democracy proclaimed by Mohammed. Libertines and profligates, unscrupulous and cruel, pagans at heart, they chafed under a religion of equal rights, a religion which exacted strict observance of moral duties and personal chastity. They set themselves, from the com- mencement, to undermine the government to which they had sworn allegiance, and to destroy the men upon whom the Republic depended. The first two successors of the Prophet had kept their ambition within bounds, and repressed their intrigues and treacherous designs. With the election of Osman, they flocked to Medina like vultures scenting the prey. His accession was the signal for that outburst oi hatred, that pent-up profligacy on the part of the Om- meyyades, which convulsed the Islamic world to its' innermost core, and destroyed its noblest and most precious lives. Under Osman there was a complete reversal of the policy and administration of his two predecessors, whose decisions he had engaged to follow. All the old governors and commanders taken from among the immediate disciples of the Prophet and his companions were displaced. Merit and faithful service were wholly disregarded. All offices of trust and emolument were seiz- ed by the Ommeyyades. The governorships of the provinces were bestowed on men who had proved themselves most 1 With a Zad. 2 They were, therefore, called the MuaJafat itl-kidilb. 256 THE SPIRIT OP ISLAM. inimical to Islam, and the treasury was emptied in their favour. We shall have to describe the subsequent events in some detail when deal- ing with the divisions in the Church of Mohammed ; suffice it for us to say, that the corruptness of the administration, the total disregard of all precedent, the gross favouritism displayed by the old Caliph towards his kinsmen, and his refusal to listen to any complaint, gave rise to serious disaffection among the old companions of the Prophet and the general body of the Moslems, ending in revolt in which Osman lost his life. On Osman's tragical death, Ali was elected to the vacant Caliphate by the consensus of the people. The rebellions which followed are matters of history. "Had Ali been allowed to reign in peace/' says Oelsner, "his virtues, his firmness, and his ascendency of character would have perpetuated the old republic and its simple manners/'1 The dagger of an assassin destroyed the hope of Islam. "With him/' says Major Osborn, "perished the truest- hearted and best Moslem of whom Mohammedan history has pre- served the remembrance/' Seven centuries before, this wonderful man would have been apotheosised ; thirteen centuries later his genius and his talents, his virtues and his valour, would have extorted the admiration of the civilised world. As a ruler, he came before his time. He was almost unfitted by his uncompromising love of truth, his gentleness, and his merciful nature, to cope with the Ommeyyades' treachery and falsehood. With the establishment of an autocracy under Muawiyah the political spirit of Islam underwent a great change. The sovereigns were no more the heads of a commonwealth, elected by the suffrages of the people, and governing solely for the welfare of their subjects and the glory of the Faith. From the time of Muawiyah the reigning Caliph nominated his successor ; and the oath of fealty taken by the people in his presence, or in that of his proxy, confirmed his nomination. This system combined the vices of democrary and despotism without the advantages of either. Under the Republic not only were the Caliphs assisted by a council of the Companions of the Prophet, but the provincial governors had similar advisory bodies. During the Ommeyyade rule the government was a pure autocracy tempered by the freedom of speech possessed by the desert Arabs 1 Oelsner, Des Ejects de la religion de Mohammed. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 257 and the learned or holy, which enabled them, often by a phrase or verse from the Koran or from the poets, to change the mood of the sovereign. Under the first five Caliphs of the Abbasside dynasty also the government continued to be more or less autocratic, although the departmental ministers and prominent members of the family formed a body of unauthorised councillors. A regular Council composed of the leading representatives of communities owning allegiance to the Caliph was for the first time established in the reign of Mamun the Great. The Buyides, the Samanides, the Seljukides, and the Ayubides all had their councils in which the people were more or less represented. But absolutism in the hands of the early Abbassides helped in the intellectual development and material prosperity of the Islamic nations. In the vigor of their rule and the firmness with which they held the reins of government they may be compared with the Tudors of England. The political and administrative machinery of the Abbasside Caliphate, which was afterwards adopted by the succeed- ing dynasties, owes its origin to the genius of Mansiir, the founder of Bagdad. In its effective distribution of work and its control of details it ranks with the most perfectly organised systems of modern times. At the very commencement of their rule, which lasted for several centuries, they established a Chamber of Finance and a Chancellery of State, the first being charged with the duty of receiving the taxes and disbursing the expenses of the empire, the second with the duty of impressing a character of authenticity on the mandates of the sov- ereigns. Later, for the better subdivision of work,* other departments of state (called diwdns) were created, of which the following are the principal : — the Diwdn-ul-Khardj (Central Office of Taxes) or Depart- ment of Finance ; the Diwdn-ud-Dia (Office of the Crown property) ; the Diwdn-uz-zimdm (Audit or Accounts Office); the Diivdn-ul-Jund (War Office); the Diwdn-iil-Mawdli ' wa 7 Ghilmdn (Office for the Pro- tection of Clients and Slaves), where a register was kept of the freed- men and slaves of the Caliph, and arrangements made for their main- tenance ; the Diwdn-ul-Barid (the Post Office) -, Diwdn-uz^Zimdm an- Nafakdt (Household Expense Office) ; the Diwdn-ur-Rasdil (Board of Correspondence or Chancery Office) ; the Diwdn-ut- Toukia (Board of Requests) ; the Diwdn aan nazr fil Mazdlim (Board for the Inspection 33 258 THE SPIRIT OF LSI. A.M. of Grievances) ; the Diwdn-ul-Akdds w'ash-Shurta (Militia and Police Office) ; and the Diwdn-ul-Aatd (Donation Office), analogous to the paymaster-general's department, charged with the payment of the regular troops. The protection of the interests of non-Moslems was entrusted to a special office, the head of which was called the Kdiih- ul -j ihbazih . Each Government office was presided over by a director who was designated the Rats, or Sadi\ and the practical work of control and supervision was carried on by inspectors, called Mushrifs, or Ndzirs.1 To this organisation the Abbasside Caliphs added the appointment of an officer with the designation of Hdjib, who introduced the foreign ambassadors, and also formed a Court of Appeal from the decrees of the Kazis. They instituted the office of Vizier, or Prime Minister, whose duty it was to submit for the consideration of the sovereign the various matters requiring his decision. They gave regularity to the provincial administration, and fixed definitely the con- tributions due from the provinces. They constructed caravanserais, built cisterns and aqueducts along the road from Bagdad to Mecca, planted trees along the route, and everywhere founded wayside resting-places for the travellers and pilgrims. They made a route between Mecca and Medina, and laid relays of horses and camels between Hijaz and Yemen to facilitate communication between these twro provinces. They established couriers in every city for the despatch of the post. They formed a central office in the metropolis for the custody and preservation of the archives of the empire, and created an efficient police in every part of their dominions. They formed a syndicate of merchants, charged with the supervision of commercial transactions, the decision of disputes between mercantile men, and the duty of suppressing fraud. Not only did each centre of commerce possess its corporation of merchants but most cities of importance had their town-councils. They created the office of Muhtesib, or intendant of the market, who went round daily to examine the weights and measures of the tradespeople. They fostered self-government and protected and encouraged municipal institutions. Agriculture was promoted by advances to the peasantry, and periodical reports were required from the provincial officers 1 For a full account of the political and administrative machinery of the Abbassides, see Short History of the. Saracens, pp. 402-443. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 259 respecting the prosperity of the people and the state of the country. Many of them , in the midst of their pomp and circumstance, Wed to maintain a semblance of republican virtue. Books written by them, baskets woven by them, used to be sold in the narket, and the proceeds were supposed to supply the personal ex- pnses of the Caliphs. Their zeal to promote the well-being of tjeir subjects may perhaps be taken into the great Account against tleir cruelties towards the Alides. Under Mamun and his two imme- date successors the Abbasside empire attained the zenith of pros- Iity. Spain furnishes one of the most instructive examples of the itical character of Islam and its adaptability to all forms and caditions of society. This country had suffered frightfully under thebarbarian hordes which had swept over the land, destroying and levlling every institution they found existing. The kingdoms they hadformed over the ruins of the Roman administration had effaced the rerms of political development. Their subjects were weighted dow with feudal burdens, and all the terrible consequences flowing therirom. Vast areas were completely denuded of population. The introuction of the Islamic Code enfranchised the people as well as the lad from feudal bondage. The desert became fruitful, thriv- ing Cies sprang into existence 'on all sides, and order took the phe of anarchy. Immediately on their arrival on the soil of Spain,he Saracens published an edict assuring to the subject races, withouany difference of race or creed, the most ample liberty. Suevi, bth, Vandal^Roman, and Jew were all placed on an equal footing'ith the Moslem. They guaranteed to both Christian and Jew th full exercise of their religions, the free use of their places cworship, and perfect security of person and property. They even allcied them to be governed, within prescribed limits, by their own laws\o fill all civil offices and serve in the army. Their women were invity to intermarry with the conquerors. Does not the con- duct of thArabs in Spain offer an astonishing contrast to that of many Euruld be an insult to commonsense and humanity. The fidelity" the Arabs in maintaining their promises, the equal- 260 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. handed justice which they administered to all classes, without distinc- tion of any kind, secured them the confidence of the people. And not only in these particulars, but also in generosity of mind and in amenity of manner, and in the hospitality of their customs, tie Arabians were distinguished above all other people of those times.1 The Jews had, owing to the influence of the Christian priesthood, suffered bitterly under the barbarians, and they profited most by tie change of government. Spanish ladies of the highest rank, amoig them the sister of Pelagius and the daughter of Roderick, contracts marriages with "the Infidels," as the orthodox Jean Mariana cals the Moslems. They enjoyed all the rights and privileges which tbir rank gave them with the fullest liberty of conscience. The Moslens invited all the landed proprietors, whom the violence of Rodeick had driven into the mountains, to abandon their retreats. Unhappily the depopulation was so great that this measure had no effec in supplying inhabitants to the soil. They, accordingly, held forth the greatest advantages to foreign cultivators who wished to esta>lish themselves in the Peninsula. These offers brought large and idus- trious colonies from Africa and Asia. Fifty thousand Jews a one time, accompanied by their women and children, settled in Andiusia. For seven centuries the Moslems held Spain, and the benecence of their rule, in spite of intestine quarrels and dynastic disptes, is testified to and acknowledged even by their enemies. Te high culture attained by the Spanish Arabs has been sometimes ccsidered as due principally to frequent marriages between Moslems ajl Chris- tians. This circumstance undoubtedly exercised a great lfluence on the development of the Spanish Moslems and the growt of that wonderful civilisation to which modern Europe owes so m:h of its advance in the arts of peace.2 What happened in Spain hapsned also in other places. Wherever the Moslems entered a changeame over the countries-, order took the place of lawlessness, and peac^nd plenty smiled on the land. As war was not the privileged profeion of one caste, so labour was not the mark of degradation to archer. The pursuit of agriculture was as popular with all classes a the pursuit of arms.* 1 Uonde's History of the Spanish Moors. 2 Renan, Averroes et Averroisme. 3 Oelsner. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM. 26 1 The importance which Islam attaches to the duties of sovereigns towards their subjects, and the manner in which it promotes the freedom and equality of the people and protects them against the oppression of their rulers, is shown in a remarkable work1 by the celebrated publicist, Imam Fakhr ud-din Razi (i. e. of Rhages), on the Reciprocal Rights of Sovereigns and Subjects, edited and enlar- ged afterwards by Mohammed bin Ali bin Taba Taba, commonly known as Ibn ul-Taqtaqa. This work deals first with the duties of sovereigns to their subjects, and secondly with the rules for the administration of public affairs and political economy. The author describes the qualities essential for a sovereign, — wisdom, justice, knowledge of the wants and wishes of his people, and the fear of God ; and add s emphatically that this latter quality is the root of all good, and the key to all blessings, " for when the king is conscious of the presence of God, His servants will enjoy the blessings of peace and security/' UJJ\ ;i 9 0 ; 0 ' & *ij> j T ^ \ 9 pU V_5*' The sovereign must also possess the quality of mercy, v-jy^l ^ ^a*Jf and " this is the greatest of all good qualities." He must have an ever-present desire to benefit his subjects, and consult with them on their wants ; for the Prophet consulted always with his Compa- nions, and God hath said,2 "Consult with them3 on every affair." In the administration of public affairs, it is the sovereign's duty to superintend the public income, guard the lives and property of his subjects, maintain peace, check the evil-doer, prevent injuries. He must always keep his word, and then, adds the author significantly, " the duty of the subject is obedience, but no subject is bound to obey a tyrant.'' Ibn Rushd (the great Averroes) says, "the tyrant is he who governs for himself, and not for his people." 1 This work is generally known as the Kitdb-i-Tdrikh-ud-Dawal Hist, of Dynasties ; but its proper title is Kitab-ul-fakhri fVl dddb-id-Saltaniyat wa dawal ul-Isldmia, "the book of Fakhri, concerning the conduct of sovereigns and the Mahommedan"dynasties.° 2 In the Koran 3 /. e. The peopl 262 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. The laws of the Moslems, based on equitable principles, and remarkable for their simplicity and precision, did not demand an obedience either difficult to render or incompatible with the intelli- gence of mankind. The countries where the Moslems established themselves remained exempt from the disastrous cosequences of the feudal system and the feudal code.1 " Admitting no privilege, no caste, their legislation produced two grand results, — that of freeing the soil from factitious burdens imposed by barbarian laws, and of assuring to individuals perfect equality of rights." 2 1 In Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Lower Italy, the feudal system was introduced after the expulsion of the Arabs, 2 Oelsner. CHAPTER VIII. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF LSLAM. Hafiz. TO every philosophical student of the history of religion the head- ing of this chapter must cause surprise, if not pain ; to every Islamist devoted to the Founder of his Faith it must cause sorrow and shame. Alas ! that the religion of humanity and univer- sal brotherhood should not have escaped the curse of internecine strife and discord ; that the Faith which was to bring peace and rest to the distracted world should itself be torn to pieces by angry pas- sions and the lust of power. The evils, which we deplored in Christianity arose from the incompleteness of the system, and its incompatibility with human wants ; in Islam, the evils that we shall have to describe arose from the greed of earthly advancement, and the revolutionary instincts of individuals and classes impatient of moral law and order. Nothing evinces so clearly the extraordinary genius of the Arabian Teacher, his wonderful personality, and the impressiveness of his call to religious unity and universal citizenship, as the world- movement of which he was the cause, and which, in spite of inter- nal dynastic wars, carried his people on a tidal wave of conquest from one end of the globe to the other. Arabia, hitherto the home of warring tribes and clans, each with its blood-feud of centuries, was suddenly animated with a common purpose. Until now the wars of the Arabs and their alliances, their virtues and their vices, their love of independence and their clannish feeling, had alike prevented community of action. Suddenly a nation of shepherds is turned into a nation of kings, a race of semi-nomades transformed into masters 264 THE SPIRIT OF ISL^M. of "a world-faith and law." With unexampled energy and self- mastering devotion the congeries of wandering clans planted between three continents take up the banner of the Faith and bear it aloft to every quarter of the earth. "You have been elected to carry to all mankind the message of mercy, the announcement of divine unity/' is the call addressed to them, and they respond to it with a determination which acknowledges no obstacle. The intensity of conviction, which alone could carry them through the barriers of hostile creeds and races, explains the mystery of the revolution ! Truth is eternal : Mohammed's message was not new. It had been delivered before, but had not reach* d the heart of man. His voice quickened the dead into life, revived the dying, and made the pjlse of humanity beat with the accumulated force of ages. The exodus of the Saracens under this mighty impulse, its magnitude and its far- reaching effects, form the most marvellous phenomenon of modern times. They issued from their desert-fastnesses as the preceptors of of humanity. Within thirty years — the term prophesied for the true Caliphate — they were knocking at the gate of every nation, from the Hindoo Koh to the shores of the Atlantic, to deliver their message. In the short space of time which elapsed from the death of the Pro- phet to the subversion of the Republic, they built up an empire, which, in its vastness, exceeded that achieved by the Romans after thirteen centuries of continuous expansion. Turn over the pages of Ibn ul-Athir, Tibri, or Abulfeda, you will find a continuous record of the wave rolling onward, fertilising every soil over which it passes, assimilating in its way all that is good. The same causes, however, which, until the advent of the Prophet, had prevented the growth of the Arabs into a nation, — the same tribal jealousies, the same division of clan and clan, the marks of which are still visible throughout the Moslem world, — led eventually, not only to the ruin of the Republic, but also to the downfall of the Saracenic empire. "Had the followers of Mohammed marched on the lines of the Master and adopted the character of the early Caliphs'', says d'Ohsson, "their empire would have been still more vast and more durable than that of the Romans." But the greed of the Ommeyyade, the unruliness of the Arab, and his spirit of individual- ism, which showed itself even when arrayed against a common foe, caused the overthrow of the stupendous fabric which the heroism and THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 265 devotion of the early Moslems had raised. Owing to this, they lost Tours, even whilst victory was within their grasp ; they were driven out of Spain because they could not forget the old jealousies of the desert, and make common cause against the enemy. But though the Republic fell, and the imperial sceptre passed from the hands of the Saracens, the Faith lived. It was the outcome of ages of evolution. It represented the latest phase in the religious development of man ; it did not depend for its existence or its growth on the life of empires or men. And as it spread and fructified, each race and each age profited by its teachings according to their own spiritual necessities and intellectual comprehension ! The Church of Mohammed, like the Church of Christ, has been rent by intestine divisions and strifes. Difference of opinion on abstract subjects, about which there cannot be any certitude in a finite existence, has always given rise to greater bitterness and a fiercer hostility, than ordinary differences on matters within the range of human cognition. The disputes respecting the nature of Christ deluged the earth with the blood of millions ; the question of Free- will in man caused, if not the same amount of bloodshed, equal troubleHn Islam. The claim to infallibility on the part of the Pon- tiffs of Rome convulsed Christendom to its core ; the infallibility of the people and of the Fathers became in Islam the instrument for the destruction of precious lives. Most of the divisions in the Church of Mohammed owe their origin primarily to political and dynastic causes, — to the old tribal quarrels, and the strong feeling of jealousy which animated the other Koraishites against the family of Hashim. It is generally supposed that the Prophet had not expressly designated any one as his succes- sor in the spiritual and temporal Government of Islam ; but this notion is founded on a mistaken apprehension of facts, for there is abundant evidence that many a time Mohammed had indicated All for the vicegerency. Notably on the o /"sion 01 the return-journey from the performance of "the Farewell Pilgrimage/' during a halt at a place called Khumm, he had convoked an assembly of the people accompanying him, and used words which could leave little doubt as to his intention regarding a successor. "AH," said he, "is to me what Aaron was to Moses. Almighty God ! be a friend to his friends and a foe to his foes ; help those who help him, and frustrate the 34 266 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. hopes of those who betray him !" x On the other hand, the nomina- tion of Abu Bakr to lead the prayers during the Prophet's illness might point to a different choice. The question came up for dis- cussion and settlement on his decease, when it became necessary to elect a leader for Islam. The Hashimites maintained that the office had devolved by appointment as well as by succession upon Ali. The other Koraishites insisted upon proceeding by election. Whilst the kinsmen of Mohammed were engaged in his obsequies, Abu Bakr was elected to the Caliphate by the votes of the Koraish and some of the Medinite Ansar. The urgency of an immediate selection for the headship of the State might explain the haste. With his usual magna- nimity and devotion to the Faith, scrupulously anxious to avoid the least discord among the disciples of the Master, Ali at once gave in his adhesion to Abu Bakr. Three times was he set aside, and on every occasion he accepted the choice of the electors without demur. He himself had never stood forth as a candidate for the suffrages of the electors, and whatever might have been the feeling of his parti- sans, he had never refrained from giving to the first two Caliphs his help and advice in the governance of the Commonwealth : and they on their side had always deferred to his counsel and his exposition of the Master's teachings. We have already referred to the circum- stances connected with the elevation of Osman to the Caliphate. We will here trace the events which followed upon his acces- sion, to elucidate the history of the deplorable schism which at present divides the Moslem world into two sects. Osman possessed neither the shrewdness of Abu Bakr nor the intellectual vigour or the moral fibre of Omar. His amiability and easy good nature made him a pliable tool in the hands of his kins- folk. The venerable Caliph surrounded by his hungry kinsmen, the provinces crying for redress, and the general body of Mos- lems sullenly watching the proceedings of the head of the State, form an instructive though sad picture of the times. The character of the deluded Pontiff has been graphically portrayed l Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 383. " According to Al-Hazirai," says Ibn- Khallikan, "Khuram is the name of a valley lying between Mecca and Medina, and in the neighbourhood of al-Tuhfa. It contains a pond {Ghadir) near which the Prophet pronounced his invocation." This took place on the 18th of Zu'1-Hijja, for Ibn-Khallikan says the 18th of that month " is the anniversary of the Feast of Ghadir ( I d-ul- Ghadir ), which is the same as that of Gha&ir-i-Khwmm" See also p, 96 ante. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 267 by Dozy. ''The personality of Osman did not justify his election to the Caliphate. It is true he was rich and generous, had assisted Mohauimed and the religion by pecuniary sacrifices, and that he prayed and fasted often, and was a man of amiable and soft manners. He was, however, not a man of spirit, and was greatly enfeebled by old age. His timidity was such that when placed on the pulpit he knew not how to commence his sermon. Unhappily for this old man, he possessed an inordinate fondness for his kinsmen, who formed the Meccan aristocracy, and who, for twenty years, had in- sulted, persecuted, and fought against Mohammed. Soon they dominated over him completely. His uncle, Hisham, and especially Hisham's son, Merwan, in reality governed the country, only allow- ing the title of Caliph to Osman, and the responsibility of the most compromising measures, of which he was often wholly ignorant. The orthodoxy of these two men, especially of the father, was strongly suspected. Hisham had been converted only when Mecca was taken. Having betrayed state-secrets, he had been disgraced and exiled. Abu Bakr and Omar had maintained the order passed (by the Prophet). Osman, on the contrary, not only recalled him from his exile, but gave him on his arrival a hundred thousand pieces of silver from the public treasury, and a piece of land belonging to the State. He made Merwan his secretary and vizier, and married him to one of his daughters, and enriched him with the spoils of Africa."1 . . . He appointed Muawiyah, the son of Abu Sufian and Hind, who had fought against Mohammed with such ferocity at Ohod, to the governorship of Syria ; and his foster-brother, Abdullah ibn Saad ibn Surrah, to the satrapy of Egypt. This Abdullah was at one time a secretary to the Prophet, and when the Master dictated his revelations, he used to change the words and "denaturalise" their meaning. His sacrilege being discovered, he had fled, and had relapsed into idolatry. Walid, an uterine brother of the old Caliph, was made governor of Kufa. His father had often ill-treated Mohammad, and once nearly strangled him. An abandoned de- bauchee, a profligate drunkard, his life was a scandal to the Moslems. He appeared in the mosque at the time of morning-prayers helpless from intoxication, falling prostrate on the ground as he attempted 1 Dozy, Hist, des Mussulmans dans V Espagnz, vol, i, p, 44, 268 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. to perform the duties of an Imam, or leader of prayer ; and when the by-standers hurried up to assist him to his feet, shocked them by demanding more wine, in a husky and stammering voice. These were the men whom the Caliph favoured ! They fastened upon the provinces like famished leeches, heaping up wealth by means of pitiless extortion. Complaints poured into Medina from all parts of the empire. But the complaints were invariably dismissed with abuses and hard words.1 A deputation, consisting of twelve thousand men, headed by Mohammed, the son of the Caliph Abu Bakr, came to the capital to lay before Osman the grievances of the people, and to seek redress. Sore pressed at their demands for justice, he had recourse to the intervention of the son-in-law of the Prophet, whose advice he had hitherto persistently refused to heed. Ali persuaded the deputation to depart to their homes, by giving them a pledge that their complaints should be redressed. On their way back, and hardly at a day's journey from Medina, they intercepted a letter written by Osman's secretary, which bore the Caliph's own seal, con- taining a mandate to the unscrupulous Muawiyah to massacre them in a body. Enraged at this treachery, they returned to Medina, entered the old Caliph's house, and killed him. His death furnished to the Ommeyyades what they were long thirsting for, a plea for a revolt against Islam, — against its democracy, its equal rights, and its stern rules of morality. It furnished to the Meccans and their allies an excuse for organising a conspiracy against Medinite dominance, which they hated so bitterly. Ali had tried hard to save Osman, at first by wise counsels not to abandon himself absolutely into the hands of his unprincipled kinsmen, and at the last crisis by placing himself before the infuriated soldiery, and asking for consideration for the venerable though misguided Pontiff. He had nearly sacri- ficed his own sons in his endeavours to protect Osman. On Osman's death he was raised to the Caliphate by the unanimous voice of the people. Since the death of the Prophet, Ali, though he had never failed to attend the councils of State, had always maintained a digni- fied reserve and a noble independence of character. In his re- tirement he had chiefly devoted himself to study and the peaceable occupations of domestic life. Called to the helm of the State, he i Ibn ul-Athir, vol. iii, p. 125. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 269 received the oath of fealty with his usual simplicity, declaring his readiness to resign the office to any one more worthy. ''Had," says Sedillot, "the principle of hereditary succession (in favour of Ali) been recognised at the outset, it would have prevented the rise of those disastrous pretensions which engulfed Islam in the blood of Moslems. . . . The husband of Fatima united in his person the right of succession as the lawful heir of the Prophet, as well as the right by election. It might have been thought that all would submit themselves before his glory ; so pure and so grand. But it was not to be.'" Zubair and Talha, who had hoped that the choice of the people might fall on either of them for the Caliphate, baulked in their ambitious designs, and smarting under the refusal of the new Caliph to bestow on them the governorships of Bussorah and Kiifa, were the first to raise the standard of revolt. They were assisted by Ayesha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, who had taken a decisive part in the former elections. This lady had always borne an inveterate dislike towards the son-in-law of Khadtja, and now this feeling had grown into positive hatred. She was the life and soul of the insurrection, and herself accompanied the insurgent troops to the field, riding a camel. The Caliph, with his characteristic aversion to bloodshed, sent his cousin Abdullah bin Abbas to adjure the insurgents by every obligation of the Faith to abandon the arbitrament of war. But to no avail. Zubair and Talha gave battle at a place called Khoraiba, and were defeated and killed.1 Ayesha was taken prisoner. She was treated with courtesy and consideration, and escorted with every mark of respect to Medina. Hardly had this rebellion been suppressed, when Ali learnt of the insurrection of Muawiyah in Syria. The son of Abu Sufian, like most of his kinsmen whom Osman had appointed to the governorships of the provinces, had, with the gold lavished upon him by the late Pontiff and the wealth of Syria, collected round him a large band of mercenaries. Ali had been advised by several of his councillors to defer the dismissal of the corrupt governors appointed by the late Caliph until he himself was secure against all enemies. "The Bayard of Islam, the hero, without fear and without 1 The battle is called the "Battle of the Camel," from Ayesha's presence in a litter on a camel. The place where the right actually took place and where these men were killed, is called Wddi us-Sabda, "Valley of the Lion." 27O THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. reproach,"1 refused to be guilty of any duplicity or compromise with injustice. The fiat went forth removing from their offices all the men whom Osman had placed in power, and who had so grossly betray- ed the public trust. Muawiyah at once raised the standard of revolt. Defeated in several consecutive battles on the plains of Siffin, on the last day when his troops were flying like chaff before the irresistible charge of Malek al-Ashtar, he bethought himself of a ruse to save his men from impending destruction. He made some of his soldiers tie copies of the Koran to their spears, and advance towards the Moslems shouting, "Let the blood of the Faithful cease to flow j if the Syrian army be destroyed, who will defend the frontier against the Greeks ? If the army of Irak be destroyed, who will defend the frontier against the Turks and Persians ? Let the Book of God decide between us." The Caliph, who knew well the character of the arch-rebel and his fellow-conspirator, Amr the son of al-Aas, saw through the artifice, and tried to open the eyes of his people to the treachery ; but a large body of his troops refused to fight further, and demanded that the dispute should be referred to arbitration. In answer to the Caliph's assurances that the son of Abu Sufian was only using the Koran as a device for delivering himself from the jaws of death, these refractory spirits threatened open defection.2 Malek al-Ashtar was recalled, the battle was stopped, and the fruits of a victory already won were irretrievably lost.3 An arbitration was arranged. The bigots, who had compelled Ali to sheath the sword at the moment of victory, forced upon him, against his own judgment and wishes, Abu Musa al-Ashaari as the representative of the House of Mohammed. This man, who was also secretly hostile to Ali, was altogether unfitted by his vanity and religious conceit and a somewhat simple nature to cope with the astute and unscrupulous Amr the son of al-Aas, who acted as the representative of Muawiyah, and he soon fell into the trap laid for him by the latter. Amr led Abu Musa to believe that the removal of both Ali and Muawiyah (of the one from the Caliphate and of the other from the governor- ship of Syria), and the nomination of another person to the Head- ship of Islam, was necessary to the well-being of the Moslems. The trick succeeded; Abu Musa ascended the pulpit and solemnly- 1 These are the designations given to Ali by Major Osborn. 2 Shahristani, Pt. i. p. 85. 3 Ibid. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISL^M. 27 1 announced the deposition of Ali. After making this announcement he descended aglow with the sensation of having performed a virtuous deed. And then Amr smilingly ascended the pulpit vacated by Abu Musa the representative of Ali, and pronounced that he accepted the deposition of Ali, and appointed Muawiyah in his place. Poor Abu Musa was thunder-struck ; but the treachery was too patent, and the Fatimides refused to accept the decision as valid.1 This happened at Dumat ul-Jandal. The treachery of the Ommey- yades exasperated the Fatimides, and both parties separated vowing undying hatred towards each other. Ali was^shortly after assassinat- ed whilst engaged in prayer in a mosque at Kufa.2 His assassina- tion enabled the son of Abu Sufian to consolidate his power both in Syria and Hijaz. On the death of Ali, Hassan, his eldest son, was raised to the Caliphate. Fond of ease and quiet, he hastened to make peace with the enemy of his House, and retired into private life. But the Ommeyyade's animosity pursued him even there, and before many months were over he was poisoned to death. The star of Hind's son was now in the ascendant, and Abu Sufian's ambition to become the king of Mecca was fulfilled on a grander scale by Muawiyah. Thus was the son of the two most implacable foes of the Prophet, by the strangest freak of fortune recorded in history, seated on the throne of the Caliphs. Lest it be considered our estimate of Muawiyah's character is actuated by prejudice, we give the words of a historian who cannot be accused of bias in favour of of either side. "Astute, unscrupulous, and pitiless," says Osborn, "the first Khalif of the Ommayas shrank from no crime necessary to secure his position. Murder was his accustomed mode of re- moving a formidable opponent. The grandson of the Prophet he caused to be poisoned ; Malek-al-Ashtar, the heroic lieutenant of Ali, was destroyed in a like way. To secure the succession of his son Yezid, Muawia hesitated not to break the word he had pledged 1 Those very men who had forced upon the Caliph the arbitration after- wards repudiated it, and rose in rebellion against him for consenting to their demand for arbitration. They were the original Khaivdrij (insurgents), who became afterwards an enormous source of evil to Islam ; see post. 2 With the chivalrous generosity which distinguished him, the Caliph Ali, even in his war against his treacherous foe, always ordered his troops to await the enemy's attack, to spare the fugitive, and respect the captive, and never to insult the women. With his dying breath he commanded his sons to see that the murderer was killed with one stroke of the sword, and that no unnecessary pain might be inflicted on him. 2 72 THE SPIRIT OF ISL.&M. to Hosain, the surviving son of AH. And yet this cool, calculating, thoroughly atheistic Arab ruled over the regions of Islam, and the sceptre remained among his descendants for the space of nearly one hundred and twenty years. The explanation of this anomaly is to be found in two circumstances, to which I have more than once adverted. The one is, that the truly devout and earnest Muhammadan conceiv- ed that he manifested his religion most effectually by withdrawing himself from the affairs of the world. The other is the tribal spirit of the Arabs. Conquerors of Asia, of Northern Africa, of Spain, the Arabs never rose to the level of their position. Greatness had been thrust upon them, but in the midst of their grandeur they retain- ed, in all their previous force and intensity, the passions, the rivalries, the petty jealousies of the desert. They merely fought again on a wider field 'the battles of the Arabs before Islam' " With the rise of Muawiyah the oligarchical rule of the heathen times displaced the democratic rule of Islam. Paganism, with all its attendant depravity revived, and vice and immorality followed every- where in the wake of Ommeyyade governors and the Syrian soldiery. Hijaz and Irak groaned under the usurper's rule ; but his hold on the throat of Islam was too strong to be shaken off with impunity. The wealth which he pitilessly extracted from his subjects, he lavished on his mercenaries, who in return helped him to repress all murmurings. Before his death, he convened the chief officers of his army and made them take the oath of fealty to his son Yezid, whom he had designated as his successor to the throne. This was Yezid's title to the Caliphate ! On Muawiyah's death, the Domitian of the house of Ommeyya ascended the throne founded by his father on fraud and treachery. As cruel and treacherous as Muawiyah, he did not, like his father, possess the capacity to clothe his cruelties in the guise of policy. His depraved nature knew no pity or justice. He killed and tortured for the pleasure he derived from human suffering. Addicted to the grossest of vices, his boon companions were the most abandoned of both sexes. Such was the Caliph — the Commander of the Faithful ! Hussain, the second son of Ali, had inherited his father's chivairic nature and virtues. He had served with honour against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. He united in his person the right of descent from Ali, with the holy character of grandson of the Apostle. In the terms of peace signed THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 27$ between Muawiyah and Hassan, his right to the Caliphate had been expressly reserved. Hussain had never deigned to acknowledge the title of the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose character he regarded with abhorrence ; and when the Moslems of Kufa besought his help to release them from the curse of the Om* meyyade's rule, he felt it his duty to respond to the Irakians' appeal for deliverance. The assurances he received, that all Irak was ready to spring to its feet to hurl the despot from his throne the moment he appeared on the scene, decided him to start for Kufa with his family. He traversed the desert of Arabia unmolested, accompanied by his brother Abbas, a few devoted followers, and a timorous retinue ot women and children ; but as he approached the confines of Irak he was alarmed by the solitary and hostile face of the country, and suspecting treachery, the Ommeyyade's weapon, he encamped his small band at a place called Kerbela near the western bank of the Tigris. No event in history surpasses in pathos the scenes enacted on this spot. Hussain's apprehensions of betrayal proved to be only too true. He was overtaken by an Ommeyyade army under the brutal and ferocious Obaidullah ibn-Ziad. For days their tents were surround- ed ; and as the cowardly hounds dared not come within the reach of the sword of Ali's son they cut the victims off from the waters of the Tigris. The sufferings of the poor band of martyrs were terrible. In a conference with the chief of the enemy, Hussain proposed the option of three honourable conditions : that he should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.1 But the com- mands of the Ommeyyade tyrant were stern and inexorable —that no mercy should be shown to Hussain or his party, and that they must be brought as criminals before the "Caliph" to be dealt with according to he Ommeyyade sense of justice. As a last resource, Hussain besought these monsters not to war upon the helpless women and children, but to kill him and be done with it. But they knew no pity. He pressed his friends to consult their safety by a timely flight •, they 1 The author of the Rouzal-us-Safd, after stating the above, adds that 'an; attendent of Hussain, who by chance escaped the butchery of Kerbela, denied that his master, so far as he was aware, ever made any such proposal to the Ommeyyade leader. It is possible, however, that such denial was made in order to show that Hussain did not lower himself by proposing terms to the enemy. To my mind, however, it detracts in no way from the grandeur of Hussain's character,, that he proposed terms to the Ommeyyades, 35 274 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. unanimously refused to desert or survive their beloved master. One of the enemy's chiefs, struck with horror at the sacrilege of warring against the grandson of the Prophet, deserted with thirty followers "to claim the partnership of inevitable death." In every single combat and close fight the valour of the Fatimides was invincible. But the enemy's archers picked them off from a safe distance. One by one the defenders fell, until at last there remained but the grand- son of the Prophet. Wounded and dying he dragged himself to the river-side for a last drink ; they turned him off with arrows from there. And as he re-entered his tent he took his infant child in his arms ; him they transfixed with a dart. The stricken father bowed his head to heaven. Able no more to stand up against his pitiless foes, alone and weary, he seated himself at the door of his tent. One of the women handed him a cup of water to assuage his burning thirst ; as he raised it to his lips he was pierced in the mouth with a dart ; and his son and nephew were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven, — they were full of blood, — and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. Raising himself for one desperate charge, he threw himself among the Ommeyyades, who fell back on every side. But faint with loss of blood he soon sank to the ground, and then the murderous crew rushed upon the dying hero. They cut off his head, trampled on his body, and subjected it to every ignominy in the old spirit of Hind. They carried the martyr's head to the castle of Kufa, and the inhuman Obaidullah struck it on the mouth with a cane : "Alas !" exclaimed an aged Mussalman, "on these lips have I seen the lips of the Apostle of God." "In a distant age and climate," says Gibbon, "the tragic scene of the death of Hussain will *A awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader." It will now be easy to understand, if not to sympathise with, the frenzy of sorrow and 0>^ ^^"indignation to which the adherents of Al and his children give vent -n£<* on the recurrence of the anniversarv of Hussain's martyrdom. .^w^W ^Thus fell one of the noblest spirits of the age, and with him $4 v^v^ensned all the male members cf his family,— old and young, — J^t!*s?ijic j All I l-jUS la. " Excepting the Book of God and his family (descendants) nothing has been left by Ahmed the Prophet, memorials such as these can never be btained till the Day of Judgment." 286 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. serters).1 The Ommeyyades called themselves Amawis (children of Ommeyya). Asjyet the name of Ahl-us-Sunnat wdl Jamdet was whollyjunknown. Under Mansur and Harun this designation first came into existence. In the tenth century, a member of the house of Ali wrested Egypt from the Abbassides, and established a dynasty which ruled over that country and Syria until the rise of Saladin. The anathemas which the Caliphs of Bag- dad and Cairo hurled at each other, the multitudinous traditions which were unearthed to demolish the claims of the one and the other, and the fatwas emanating from the doctors of the two Caliphates, accentuated the strife and bitterness of partisans. Saladin overthrew the Fatimide dynasty in Egypt, and restored the predominance of the Sunni Church in Eastern Africa. Various other branches of the Bani-Fatima, however, succeeded in establish- ing the supremacy of their family in different parts of the two conti- nents.2 The Asnd-aasharias* alone, the followers of the saintly Imams, who reprehended the use of force, and who claimed and exercised only a spiritual dominion, maintained an attitude of com- plete withdrawal from temporal interests, until Shah Ismail the great Seffavian monarch made Asnd-aashariaism the State religion of Persia. Himself a philosopher and a Sufi,4 he perceived in the sympathy and devotion of the people to the House of Mohammed, whose descendant he was. a means of national awakening and con- solidation. Since then Asnd-aashariaism is the national church of Persia. The Bahmani and Aadil Shahi dynasties of Southern India which Aurungzeb overthrew, thus paving the way for the rise of the Mahratta marauders whom the Bahmani sovereigns had kept in check with an iron hand, were attached to the doctrines of the Imams. Such has been the political fate of the Fatimides/which has left its impress on their doctrines. The name of Khawarij was especially given to the troops who deserted Ali at Dumat ul-Jandal and formed a confederacy hostile to Islam, and was afterwards applied to those who adopted their pernicious doctrines ; see post, 2 Besides the Banu-Fatima of Egypt, other branches of Fatimides have ruled under the different denominations of Ameer, Imam, Sharif, and Caliph in different parts of the Mussalman world, such as the Banii-Ukhaydur, the Baml-Miisa, the Banu-Kitadah at Mecca, the Banu-Taba-Taba in Northern Yemen, the Banii-Ziyad in Southern Yemen, and the Banu Idris in Morocco. 3 See post. 4 Hence the name of the dynasty. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 287 The title of the Banf-Abbas to the spiritual and temporal head- ship of Islam was founded on biat or nominal election. Since Saffah's accession, the Abbasside Caliphs had taken the precaution of obtaining during their lifetime the fealty of the chiefs for their intended successors. And it became necessary to impress on the doctrine of election a sanctity derived from precedent and ancient practice. The rise of the Fatimides in Egypt, their persistent endeavour to wrest the dominion of the East from the Caliphs of Bagdad, made it doubly necessary to controvert the pretensions of the children of Fatima, and to give form and consistency to the orthodox doctrines recognising the Abbasside Pontiffs as the spiritual chiefs of Islam.1 Every corner of Irak and Hijaz was ransacked for traditions in sup- port of the right of the house of Abbas. The doctors of law were re- quired to formulate the principles of orthodoxy in explicit terms : and gradually the grand superstructure of the Sunni church was raised on the narrow foundations of Abbasside self-interest. Much of the success of the doctors and legists who assisted in the growth and de- velopment of Sunnism was due to the Manichaeism of the Egyptian Fatimides. The nature of their doctrines, which were at variance with the teachings of both the Shiah Imams and the Sunni doctors ; the assassinations of the best men committed at the instance of Hassan Sabah ("the Old Man of the Mountain") ; the disintegrating character of the heresies, which under the influence of the ancient Chaldaeo- Magism had sprung up in various quarters, and which were subversive of all order and morality, — added greatly to the strength of a system which formed, in the opinion of the masses, a bulwark against the enemies of Islam. The Shiah Imams strongly condemned the im- 1 Aaslan al-Bassasiri, a general in the service of the Abbassides, but an adherent of the Egyptian Fatimides, drove al-Kaim-ba-amr illah, the then Caliph of Bagdad, from the city, and compelled him to take refuge with the phylarch of the Arabs (the Ameer-ul-Arab, a title analogous to the Il-Khani of Persia), until restored by Tughril the father of Alp Arslan and the founder of the Seljukide dynasty. During- the whole of this period the Khviba was read in Bagdad itself in the name of the Fatimide Caliph. The Kh-utba is the name given to the sermon pronounced on Fridays from the pulpits of the great mosques in all Moslem countries ; it begins by a declaration of God's attributes and unity, and an invocation of His blessings upon the Prophet, his family, and successors ; then follows a prayer for the reigning Caliph and for the prince who exercises civil power in the State. The right of being named in the Khutba and that of coining money are two of the principal privileges possessed by the temporal sovereign, and the special marks of his legitimacy. 288 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. pious or communistic doctrines of the antitypes of Mani and Mazdak. but they lacked the power, even if willing to use it, to suppress heresy or enforce uniformity. Sunnism, associated with the temporal power of the Abbasside Caliphs, possessed the means and used it, and thereby won the sympathy and acceptance of all who cared little about the disputes on the abstract question of apostolical descent. Until the rise of the House of Abbas there was little or no difference between the assertors of the right of the Ahl-ul-bait to the pontificate and the upholders of the right of the people to elect their own spiritual and temporal chiefs. The people of Hijaz and the Medinite Ansar especially, who were so ruthlessly destroyed by the Ommeyyades, whilst they insisted on the principle of election, abhorred the injustice done to the children of Fatima. After the mur- der of Hussain, a cry of horror had gone forth from the heart of Islam, and the people of the holy cities had risen in arms againt the tyrant, and suffered bitterly for it. The adherents of the Ahl-ul-bait and the followers of the first three Caliphs together underwent fear- ful cruelties in the cause of the common Faith. But when it became necessary for dynastic reasons to create a gulf between the two parties the elements of divergence came ready to hand on both sides. Their doctrinal and legal differences began from this time to assume the type and proportions they retain at the present moment. During the enlightened rule of Mamun and of his two immediate successors, when humanitarian science and philosophy influenced the conceptions of all classes of society, there was a break in the develop- ment of the Sunni Church. With the exception of this period the entire duration of the Abbasside Caliphate1 was occupied in the consolidation of its dogmas. The Church and State were linked together ; the Caliph was the Imam — temporal chief as well as spirit- ual head. The doctors of law and religion were his servants. He presided at the convocations, and guided their decisions. Hence the solidarity of the Sunni church. Many of the sects z into which it was originally split up have gradually disappeared, but it is still divided into four principal denominations, differing from each other on many questions of dogma and ritual. Their differences may l From 750 a. c, to 1252 a. c. 1 According to Imam Jaafar Tusi (quoted in the Dabistdn), the Sunnis were originally divided into sixty-five sects. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 289 perhaps, be likened to those existing between the Roman Catholic and the Greek, Armenian, and Syrian orthodox churches. Shiahism, on the other hand, shows how the Church and the State have become dissociated from each other, and how the •' Expounders of the Law " have assumed, at least among a section, the authority and position of the clergy in Christendom. The freedom of judgment, which in Protestantism has given birth to one hundred and eighty sects, has produced an almost parallel re- sult in Shiahism, and the immense diversity of opinion within the church itself is due to the absence of a controlling temporal power, compelling uniformity at the point of the sword. The question of tbe Imamate,1 or the spiritual headship of the Mussalman commonwealth, is henceforth the chief battle-ground of the two sects.9. The Shiahs hold that the spiritual heritage bequeath- 1 A very good definition of the word " Imam " is given by Dr. Percy Badger : " The word ' Imam ' comes from an Arabic root signifying to aim at, to follow after, — most of the derivatives of which partake, more or less, of that idea. Thus Imam means, primarily, an exemplar, or one whose example ought to be imitated. It is applied in that sense, xcvr lfo^j/5 to Mohammed, as being the leader and head of the Muslims in civil and religious matters, and also to the Khalifahs, or legitimate Successors, as his representatives in both capacities. It is also given — in its religious import only — to the heads of the four orthodox sects, namely, the el-Hanafy, esh-Shafa'iy, el-Maliky, and el-Hanbaly ; and, in a more restricted sense still, to the ordinary func- tionary of a mosque who leads in the daily prayers of the congregation, — an office usually conferred on individuals of reputed piety, who are removable by the Jtfdzirs or wardens, and who, with their employment and salary, lose the title also." "The term is used in the Kuran to indicate the Book, or Scriptures, or record of a people ; also, to designate a teacher of religion. Hence, most probably, its adoption by the Muslims in the latter sense. ' When the Lord tried Abraham with certain words, which he fulfilled, He said, I have made thee an Imam to the people.' Again, referring to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ' We have made them Imams, that they may direct others at our command.' And again, ' We delivered to Moses the Book, therefore be not in doubt of his reception thereof, and we ordained it to be a guide unto the children of Israel. And we appointed some of them to be Imams, to direct the people according to our command."— Badger's Imams and Seyykls of Oman, App. A. S •* The question of the Imamate forms a subject of controversy," says Masudi, " between the followers of different sects, particularly between those who adhere to the doctrine of appointment, {jcX)\ Ij ^j^JLilft/} and the followers of the doctrine of election, jU£a^| ^Jar^t. The defenders of the doctrine of appointment are the Imamias, &clx$| J&f who form a section of the Adherents, Shiahs &&xwJ\ of Ali ibn Abi Talib and his holy children (by Fatima) & &ij {^ye ^.Alki} . They believe that God does not leave man- kind at an}' time without a man who maintains the religion of (!od (and acts 37 29O THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM. ed by Mohammed devolved on Ali and his descendants. They naturally repudiate the authority of the Jamdat (the people) to elect a spiritual head who should supersede the rightful claims of the Prophet's family. According to the Shiahs, therefore, the Imamate descends by divine appointment in the apostolical line. The Imam, besides being a descendant of the Prophet, must possess certain qualities, — he must be Maasilm or sinless, bear the purest and most unsullied character, and must be distinguished above all other men for truth and purity. It is not proper, nor could it be the intention of the Almighty, they argue, that a man whose character is not unimpeachable should have the direction of the human conscience. Human choice is fallible, as is proved by the history of mankind ; and the people have often accepted the worst men for their leaders. God could never have left the religious needs of man to his unaided faculty. If an Imam be needed, he must be one whom the conscience must accept. Accordingly they declare that if the choice of an Imam be left to the community, it would be subversive of all morality ; and consequently the spiritual guidance of mankind has been entrusted to divinely-appointed persons.1 According to the Sunnis, the Imamate is not restricted to the as their Imam). Such men are either prophets or their legates. The doctrine of election is defended by a section of the Khawarij _ j|^sr|, the Marjias iuakt^t, by many of those who admit the traditions and the generally received opinions (Ahl-tis-SunnatJ, by some of the Mutazalas, and by a section of the Zaidias, a)^ii^>^\. They believe that it is the will of God and his Prophet that the nation should choose a man amongst themselves, and make him their Imam, for there are times when God does not send a legate. The Shiahs consider such Imams as usurpers of the dignity." — Muruj-uz-zahab. 1 "It is neither the beauty of the sovereign," says Ibn-Khaldun, " nor his great learning, perspicacity, or any other personal accomplishment which is useful to his subject. . . . The sovereign exists for the good of his people." "The necessity of a ruler," continues this remarkable writer, whose keenness of observation was equalled by his versatility, " arises from the fact that human beings have to live together, and unless there is some one to maintain order, society would break to pieces. A temporal sovereign only enforces such orders as are promulgated by man, but the laws framed by a divinely-inspired legislator have two objects 'in view — the moral as well as social well-being of mankind. The Caliph is the Vicar and Lieutenant of the Prophet. He is more than a temporal ruler, he is a spiritual chief as well. The Caliph is thus designated the Imam, his position being similar to that of the leader of the congregation at the public prayers." "This establishment of an Imam," continues Ibn-Khaldun, " is a matter of obligation. The law which declares its necessity is founded on the general accord of the Companions of the Prophet. The Imam is the spiritual head, whilst the Caliph or Sultan represents the temporal power. " THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM. 20t family of Mohammed. But no one can be elected to the office un- less he is a Koraishite.1 The Imam need not he just, virtuous, or irreproachable (Maasilm) in his life, nor need he be the most excellent or eminent being of his time