Chapter VI: Introduction: Sidenote: Object of the book (3)

Dr. Mosheim thinks that, "the causes of this new religion's rapid
progress are not difficult to be discovered: Mahomet's law itself
was admirably fitted to the natural disposition of man, but
especially to the manners, opinions and vices prevalent among the
people of the East; for it was extremely simple proposing few
things to be believed; nor did it enjoin many and difficult duties
to be performed, or such as laid severe restraints on the
propensities."[128]

It is manifest from the history of religions that the people generally try their best to obtain religion's sanction for the vices prevalent among them. But there is no doubt in this that Mohammad never sanctioned the idolatries and superstitions of the Arabs, nor he framed his doctrines according to the opinions and fancies of the people. He preached vehemently against everything he found blamable in the people; he spared not their dear idols and beloved gods and the dreaded genii, nor accommodated his preaching and reform to indulge them in their evil practices; nor did he adopt any of the vices current among the people into his system.

Mohammad certainly did lay stress on the propensities of the mind and made the actions of the heart answerable to God, and preferred inward holiness to outside form.

53. "The heart is prone to evils."--Sura XII.

38. "The hearing and the sight and the heart, each of these shall
be inquired of."--Sura XVI.

225. "God will not punish you for a mistake in your oaths; but He
will punish you for that which your hearts have assented to. God is
gracious, merciful."

284. "Whatever is in the Heavens and in the Earth is God's, and
whether ye disclose what is in your minds or conceal it, God will
reckon with you for it; and whom He pleaseth will He forgive, and
whom he pleaseth will He punish; for God is All-powerful."--Sura
II.

5. "And unless made with intent of heart, mistakes in this matter
shall be no crimes in you."--Sura XXXIII.

The teachings of the Koran make our natural inclination subject to regulation. It lays stress upon the heart of men. Note the following injunctions regarding internal purity:

120. "Abandon the outside iniquity and its inside."--Sura VI.

152. "Come not near the pollutions outside or inward."--_Ibid._

31. "Say: Truly my Lord hath forbidden filthy actions whether open
or secret, and iniquity and unjust violence."--Sura VIII.

Referring to Dr. Mosheim's cause of the spread of Islam, I will quote Henry Hallam's opinion regarding the causes of the success of Islam.

Henry Hallam, after enumerating the three important causes of the success of Islam, the first of which is "those just and elevated notions of the divine nature and of moral duties, the gold-ore that pervades the dross of the Koran, which were calculated to strike a serious and reflecting people," and explaining the two others which are not against us, he says:--

"It may be expected that I should add to this what is commonly
considered as a distinguishing mark of Mohammedanism,--its
indulgence to voluptuousness. But this appears to be greatly
exaggerated. Although the character of its founder may have been
tainted by sensuality as ferociousness, I do not think that he
relied upon inducements of the former kind for the diffusion of his
system. We are not to judge of this by rules of Christian purity,
or of European practice. If polygamy was a prevailing usage in
Arabia, as is not questioned, its permission gave no additional
license to the proselytes of Mohammed, who will be found rather to
have narrowed the unbounded liberty of oriental manners in this
respect; while his decided condemnation of adultery and of
incestuous connections, so frequent among barbarous nations, does
not argue a very lax and accommodating morality. A devout Mussulman
exhibits much more of the stoical than the epicurean character. Nor
can any one read the Koran without being sensible that it breathes
an austere and scrupulous spirit. And in fact, the founder of a new
religion or sect is little likely to obtain permanent success by
indulging the vices or luxuries of mankind. I should rather be
disposed to reckon the severity of Mohammed's discipline among the
causes of its influence. Precepts of ritual observance, being
always definite and unequivocal, are less likely to be neglected,
after their obligation has been acknowledged than those of moral
virtue. Thus the long fasting, the pilgrimages, and regular prayers
and ablutions, the constant almsgiving, the abstinence from
stimulating liquors, enjoined by the Koran, created a visible
standard of practice among its followers, and preserved a continual
recollection of their law.

"But the prevalence of Islam in the lifetime of its Prophet, and
during the first ages of its existence, was chiefly owing to the
spirit of martial energy that he infused into it. The religion of
Mohammed is as essentially a military system as the institution of
chivalry in the west of Europe. The people of Arabia, a race of
strong passions and sanguinary temper, inured to habits of pillage
and murder, found in the law of their native prophet not a license,
but a command, to desolate the world, and the promise of all that
their glowing imaginations could anticipate of Paradise annexed to
all in which they most delighted upon earth."[129]

This is sufficient to refute the opinion of Dr. Mosheim. But what Hallam says regarding the prevalence of Islam in the lifetime of the Prophet, and during the first ages of its existence, that "the people of Arabia, a race of strong passions and sanguinary temper, inured to habits of pillage and murder, found in the law of their native prophet not a license, but a command, to desolate the world," is untenable. There was neither a command nor a license to desolate the world, nor was any person or tribe converted to Islam with that object in view. All the teachings of the Koran and the history of the early spread of Islam falsify such an idea.

[Footnote 127: Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., page 83.]

[Footnote 128: Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Book II, Chap. III, page 73.]

[Footnote 129: Hallam's Middle Ages, Vol. II, pp. 118-9.]

[Sidenote: Mohammad's unwavering belief in his own mission and his success show him to be a true prophet.]

34. I will pause here for a while, and ask the indulgence of the reader to reflect upon the circumstances of the persecutions, insults and injuries, expulsion and attack suffered by Mohammad and his early followers,[130] and his unwavering adherence to preach against the gross idolatry and immorality of his people, which all show his sincere belief in his own mission, and his possession of an irresistible inward impulse to publish the Divine Truth of his Revelations regarding the unity in the Godhead and other moral reforms. His preachings of monotheism, and his enjoining righteousness, and forbidding evil deeds, were not attended to for many years with material success. In proportion as he preached against the gross idolatry and superstition of his people, he was subjected to ridicule and scorn, and finally to an inveterate persecution which ruined his and his follower's fortune. But he unflinchingly kept his path; no threats and no injuries hindered him from still preaching to the ungodly people a purer and higher theology and better morality than had ever been set before them. He claimed no temporal power, no spiritual domination; he asked but for simple toleration, for free permission to win men by persuasion into the way of truth. He declared he was sent neither to compel conviction by miracles, nor to constrain outward profession by the sword.[131] Does this leave any doubt of the strong conviction in his mind, as well as in the truth of his claim, to be a man sent by God to preach the Divine Perfection, and to teach mankind the ways of righteousness? He honestly and sincerely conveyed the message which he had received or which he conscientiously or intuitively believed to have received from his God and which had all the signs and marks of truth in itself. What is meant by a True Prophet or a Revelation is not more than what we find in the case of Mohammad.[132]

The general office and main business of a prophet is to proclaim to mankind the Divine Perfection, to teach publicly purer theology and higher morality, to enjoin the people to do what is right and just, and to forbid what is wrong and bad. It is neither a part of the prophet to predict future events, nor to show supernatural miracles. And further, a prophet is neither immaculate nor infallible. The Revelation is a natural product of human faculties. A prophet feels that his mind is illumined by God, and the thoughts which are expressed by him and spoken or written under this influence are to be regarded as the words of God. This illumination of the mind or the effect of the Divine Influence differ in any prophet according to the capacity of the recipient, or according to the circumstances--physical, moral, and religious--in which he is placed.

[Footnote 130: The early followers of Mohammad bore persecutions and exile with patience and steadfastness; and never recanted. Look to the increasing number of these early Moslems, their magnanimous forbearance, and the spontaneous abandonment of their dear homes and relations, and their defending their Prophet with their blood. The number of Christian believers during the whole lifetime of Christ was not more than 120 (Act I, 15). They had a material view of the Messiah's kingdom, and had fled at the first sound of danger. Two of the disciples when walking to Emmaus observed, "We trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel," and the apostle asked Jesus after the so-called resurrection, "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?"

"During the periods thus indicated as possible for comparison, persecution and rejection were the fate of both. But the thirteen years' ministry of Mahomet had brought about a far greater change to the external eye than the whole lifetime of Christ. The apostles fled at the first sound of danger, and however deep the inner work may have been in the 500 by whom our Lord was seen, it had produced as yet but little outward action. There was among them no spontaneous quitting of their homes, nor emigration by hundreds, such as distinguished the early Moslems; nor any rapturous resolution by the converts of a foreign city to defend the Prophet with their blood."--The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, Vol. II, page 274.]

[Footnote 131: "Let us for a moment look back to the period when a ban was proclaimed at Mecca against all the citizens, whether professed converts or not, who espoused his cause; when they were shut up in the _Sheb_ or quarter of Abu Tâlib, and there for three years without prospect of relief endured want and hardship. Those must have been steadfast and mighty motives which enabled him amidst all this opposition and apparent hopelessness of success, to maintain his principles unshaken. No sooner was he relieved from confinement, than, despairing of his native city, he went forth to Tâyif and summoned its rulers and inhabitants to repentance; he was solitary and unaided, but he had a message, he said, from his Lord. On the third day he was driven out of the town with ignominy, blood trickling from the wounds inflicted on him by the populace. He retired to a little distance, and there poured forth his complaint to God: then he returned to Mecca, there to carry on the same outwardly hopeless cause with the same high confidence in its ultimate success. We search in vain through the pages of profane history for a parallel to the struggle in which for thirteen years the Prophet of Arabia in the face of discouragement and threats, rejection and persecution retained his faith unwavering, preached repentance, and denounced God's wrath against his godless fellow-citizens. Surrounded by a little band of faithful men and women, he met insults, menaces, dangers, with a high and patient trust in the future. And when at last the promise of safety came from a distant quarter, he calmly waited until his followers had all departed, and then disappeared from amongst his ungrateful and rebellious people."--Muir, Vol. IV, pages 314-15.]

[Footnote 132: "That he was the impostor pictured by some writers is refuted alike by his unwavering belief in the truth of his own mission, by the loyalty and unshaken confidence of his companions, who had ample opportunity of forming a right estimate of his sincerity, and finally, by the magnitude of the task which he brought to so successful an issue. No impostor, it may safely be said, could have accomplished so mighty a work. No one unsupported by a living faith in the reality of his commission, in the goodness of his cause, could have maintained the same consistent attitude through long years of adverse fortune, alike in the day of victory and in the hour of defeat, in the plenitude of his power and at the moment of death."--Islam and its Founder, by J.W.H. Stobart, M.A., page 23.

"Of the sincerity of his belief in his own mission there can be no doubt. The great merit is his that among a people given up to idolatry he rose to a vivid perception of the Unity of God, and preached this great doctrine with firmness and constancy, amid ridicule and persecution. But there it seems to me that the eulogy of the Prophet ought to cease."--Islam under the Arabs by R.D. Osborn. London 1876, p. 90.]

[Sidenote: Striking effects of Mohammad's reforms.]

35. Although his mission was only to convey the message and preach publicly what was revealed to him, and he was not responsible for the conversion of the ungodly polytheists to the purer theology and higher morality, or in other words, to the faith of Islam, yet whatever success and beneficial results in the sphere of theology, morality, and reforms in social matters he achieved was a strong evidence of his Divine mission. In the name of God and in the character of His Apostle, he wrought a great reform according to his light in his own country. "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit."--(Matt. VII, 17). Facts are stubborn things, and facts are conclusive in these points.

The effects produced by his preaching, and the changes wrought by them in the religious, social, and political sphere of the polytheists, the idolatrous and grossly superstitious Arabs within a comparatively short period, mostly consisting of persecutions at Mecca, and struggles at Medina, were very striking. From an indiscriminate mass of polytheism and gross superstitious belief in gods, genii, the sons and daughters of God, he gave them a pure monotheistic belief, recognizing no other superior power but the Almighty. He raised the moral standard of his countrymen, ameliorated the condition of women, curtailed and mitigated polygamy and slavery, and virtually abolished them as well as infanticide. He most sternly denounced and absolutely forbade many heinous evils of the Arab society. He united a number of wild and independent tribes into a nation and abolished their internecine wars.

Sir W. Muir says:--

"Few and simple as the positive precepts of Mahomet up to this time
appear, they had wrought a marvellous and a mighty work. Never,
since the days when primitive Christianity startled the world from
its sleep, and waged a mortal combat with Heathenism, had men seen
the like arousing of spiritual life, the like faith that suffered
sacrifice and took joyfully the spoiling of goods for conscience
sake.

"From time beyond memory, Mecca and the whole Peninsula had been
steeped into spiritual torpor. The slight and transient influence
of Judaism, Christianity, or Philosophy upon the Arab mind, had
been but as the ruffling here and there the surface of a quiet
lake;--all remained still and motionless below. The people were
sunk in superstition, cruelty, and vice. It was a common practice
for the eldest son to marry his father's widows inherited as
property with the rest of the estate. Pride and poverty had
introduced among them, as it has among the Hindus, the crime of
female infanticide. Their religion consisted in gross idolatry, and
their faith was rather the dark superstitious dread of unseen
beings, whose goodwill they sought to propitiate, and to avert
their displeasure, than the belief in an over-ruling Providence.
The Life to come and Retribution of good and evil were, as motives
of action, practically unknown.

"Thirteen years before the Hegira, Mecca lay lifeless in this
debased state. What a change those thirteen years had now produced!
A band of several hundred persons had rejected idolatry, adopted
the worship of one great God, and surrendered themselves implicitly
to the guidance of what they believed a revelation from
Him;--praying to the Almighty with frequency and fervour, looking
for pardon through His mercy, and striving to follow after good
works, almsgiving, chastity and justice. They now lived under a
constant sense of the Omnipotent power of God, and of His
providential care over the minutest of their concerns. In all the
gifts of nature, in every relation of life, at each turn of their
affairs, individual or public, they saw His hand. And, above all,
the new spiritual existence in which they joyed and gloried, was
regarded as the mark of His especial grace, while the unbelief of
their blinded fellow-citizens was the hardening stamp of His
predestined reprobation. Mahomet was the minister of life to
them,--the source under God of their new-born hopes; and to him
they yielded a fitting and implicit submission.

"In so short a period, Mecca had, from this wonderful movement,
been rent into two factions, which, unmindful of the old land-marks
of tribe and family, were arrayed in deadly opposition one against
the other. The believers bore persecution with a patient and
tolerant spirit. And though it was their wisdom so to do, the
credit of a magnanimous forbearance may be freely accorded to
them. One hundred men and women, rather than abjure the precious
faith, had abandoned their homes, and sought refuge, till the storm
should be overpast, in Abyssinian exile. And now even a larger
number, with the Prophet himself, emigrated from their fondly-loved
city, with its sacred temple,--to them the holiest spot on
earth,--and fled to Medîna. There the same wonder-working charm had
within two or three years prepared for them a brotherhood ready to
defend the Prophet and his followers with their blood. Jewish truth
had long sounded in the ears of the men of Medîna, but it was not
till they heard the spirit-stirring strains of the Arabian prophet,
that they too awoke from their slumber, and sprang suddenly into a
new and earnest life."[133]

Further on Sir W. Muir says:--

"And what have been the effects of the system which, established by
such instrumentality, Mahomet has left behind him. We may freely
concede that it banished for ever many of the darker elements of
superstition which had for ages shrouded the Peninsula. Idolatry
vanished before the battle-cry of Islam; the doctrine of the unity
and infinite perfections of God, and of a special all-pervading
Providence, became a living principle in the hearts and lives of
the followers of Mahomet, even as it had in his own. An absolute
surrender and submission to the divine will (the very name of
_Islam_) was demanded as the first requirement of the religion. Nor
are social virtues wanting. Brotherly love is inculcated within the
circle of the faith; orphans are to be protected, and slaves
treated with consideration; intoxicating drinks are prohibited,
and Mahometanism may boast of a degree of temperance unknown to any
other creed."[134]

Dr. Marcus Dods writes:--

"But is Mahommed in no sense a Prophet? Certainly he had two of the
most important characteristics of the prophetic order. He saw truth
about God which his fellowmen did not see, and he had an
irresistible inward impulse to publish this truth. In respect of
this latter qualification Mahommed may stand comparison with the
most courageous of the heroic prophets of Israel. For the truth's
sake he risked his life, he suffered daily persecutions for years,
and eventually banishment, the loss of property, of the goodwill of
his fellow-citizens, and the confidence of his friends--he suffered
in short as much as any man can suffer short of death, which he
only escaped by flight, and yet he unflinchingly proclaimed his
message. No bribe, threat or inducement could silence him. 'Though
they array against me the sun on the right hand, and the moon on
the left, I cannot renounce my purpose.' And it was this
persistency, this belief in his call, to proclaim the Unity of God
which was the making of Islam. Other men have been monotheists in
the midst of idolaters, but no other man has founded a strong and
enduring monotheistic religion. The distinction in his case was his
resolution that other men should believe.... His giving himself out
as a prophet of God was, in the first instance, not only sincere,
but probably correct in the sense in which he himself understood
it. He felt that he had thoughts of God which it deeply concerned
all around him to receive, and he knew that these thoughts were
given him by God, although not, as we shall see, a revelation
strictly so called. His mistake lay by no means in his supposing
himself to be called upon by God to speak for him and introduce a
better religion, but it lay in his gradually coming to insist quite
as much on men's accepting him as a prophet as on their accepting
the great truth he preached. He was a prophet to his countrymen in
so far as he proclaimed the Unity of God, but this was no
sufficient ground for his claiming to be their guide in all matters
of religion, still less for his assuming the lordship over them in
all matters civil as well...."

The learned doctor further on in his book, "Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ," remarks:--

"But as we endeavour to estimate the good and evil of Islam, it
gradually appears that the chief point we must attend to is to
distinguish between its value to Arabia in the seventh century and
its value to the world at large. No one, I presume, would deny that
to Mohammed's contemporaries his religion was an immense advance on
anything they had previously believed in. It welded together the
disunited tribes, and lifted the nation to the forefront of the
important powers in the world. It effected what Christianity and
Judaism had alike failed to effect--it swept away, once and for
ever, idolatry, and established the idea of one true God. Its
influence on Arabia was justly and pathetically put by the Moslem
refugees in Abyssinia, who when required to say why they should not
be sent back to Mecca, gave the following account of their religion
and what it had done for them: 'O king, we were plunged in
ignorance and barbarism; we worshipped idols; we ate dead bodies;
we committed lewdness; disregarded family ties and the duties of
neighbourhood and hospitality; we knew no law but that of the
strong, when God sent among us a messenger of whose truthfulness,
integrity, and innocence we were aware; and he called us to the
unity of God, and taught us not to associate any god with him; he
forbade us the worship of idols, and enjoined upon us to speak the
truth, to be faithful to our trusts, to be merciful, and to regard
the rights of others; to love our relatives and to protect the
weak; to flee vice and avoid all evil. He taught us to offer
prayers, to give alms, and to fast. And because we believed in him
and obeyed him, therefore are we persecuted and driven from our
country to seek thy protection.'"[135]

But after all we have here seen of the opinions of Dr. Marcus Dods and Sir W. Muir, let us turn to what the Rev. Stephens thinks of Mohammad:--

"The aim of Mahomet was to revive among his countrymen the Arabs,
as Moses revived among his countrymen the Jews, the pure faith of
their common forefather Abraham. In this he succeeded to a very
great extent. For a confused heap of idolatrous superstitions he
substituted a pure monotheistic faith; he abolished some of the
most vicious practices of his countrymen, modified others; he
generally raised the moral standard, improved the social condition
of the people, and introduced a sober and rational ceremonial in
worship. Finally he welded by this means a number of wild
independent tribes, mere floating atoms, into a compact body
politic, as well prepared and as eager to subdue the kingdoms of
the world to their rule and to their faith, as ever the Israelites
had been to conquer the land of Canaan.

* * * * *

"The Koran also enjoins repeatedly and in very emphatic language
the duty of showing kindness to the stranger and the orphan, and of
treating slaves, if converted to the faith, with the consideration
and respect due to believers. The duty even of mercy to the lower
animals is not forgotten, and it is to be thankfully acknowledged
that Mohammedanism as well as Buddhism shares with Christianity the
honour of having given birth to hospitals and asylums for the
insane and sick.

* * * * *

"The vices most prevalent in Arabia in the time of Mahomet which
are most sternly denounced and absolutely forbidden in the Koran
were drunkenness, unlimited concubinage and polygamy, the
destruction of female infants, reckless gambling, extortionate
usury, superstitious arts of divination and magic. The abolition of
some of these evil customs, and the mitigation of others, was a
great advance in the morality of the Arabs, and is a wonderful and
honourable testimony to the zeal and influence of the reformer. The
total suppression of female infanticide and of drunkenness is the
most signal triumph of his work."[136]

The reverend gentleman quoted above continues:

"First of all, it must be freely granted that to his own people
Mahomet was a great benefactor. He was born in a country where
political organization, and rational faith, and pure morals were
unknown. He introduced all three. By a single stroke of masterly
genius he simultaneously reformed the political condition, the
religious creed, and the moral practice of his countrymen. In the
place of many independent tribes he left a nation; for a
superstitious belief in gods many and lords many he established a
reasonable belief in one Almighty yet beneficent Being; taught men
to live under an abiding sense of this Being's superintending care,
to look to Him as the rewarder, and to fear Him as the punisher of
evil-doers. He vigorously attacked, and modified and suppressed
many gross and revolting customs which had prevailed in Arabia down
to his time. For an abandoned profligacy was substituted a
carefully regulated polygamy, and the practice of destroying female
infants was effectually abolished.

"As Islam gradually extended its conquest beyond the boundaries of
Arabia, many barbarous races whom it absorbed became in like manner
participators in its benefits. The Turk, the Indian, the Negro, and
the Moor were compelled to cast away their idols, to abandon their
licentious rites and customs, to turn to the worship of one God, to
a decent ceremonial and an orderly way of life. The faith even of
the more enlightened Persian was purified: he learned that good and
evil are not co-ordinate powers, but that just and unjust are alike
under the sway of one All-wise and Holy Ruler, who ordereth all
things in heaven and earth.

"For barbarous nations, then, especially--nations which were more
or less in the condition of Arabia itself at the time of
Mahomet--nations in the condition of Africa at the present day,
with little or no civilisation, and without a reasonable
religion--Islam certainly comes as a blessing, as a turning from
darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God."[137]

[Footnote 133: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, LL.D., Vol. II, pp. 269-71.]

[Footnote 134: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, Vol. IV, pp. 320-21.]

[Footnote 135: Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 17-19 & 119.]

[Footnote 136: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 94, 104, 112, London, 1877.]

[Footnote 137: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by the Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 129-30, London, 1877.]

[Sidenote: Indictment against Mohammad.]

36. What the opponents of Mohammad can possibly say against his mission is his alleged moral declension at Medina.[138] They accuse him of cruelty[139] and sensuality[140] during his sojourn in that city after he had passed without any blame more than fifty-five years of his age, and had led a pious missionary life for upwards of fifteen years. These moral stains cannot be inconsistent with his office of being a prophet or reformer. It is no matter if a prophet morally degrades his character under certain circumstances, or morally degrades his character at the end of his age--after leading for upwards of fifty-five years a life of the highest moral principles, and as a paragon of temperance and high-toned living--while he has faithfully conveyed the message, and has sincerely and honestly preached religious reforms, and the sublimity of his preachings have in themselves the marks of divine truth.

If the said prophet defends his stains or immoral deeds by professed revelations, and justifies himself in his flagrant breaches of morality by producing messages from heaven, just and equally as he does when he teaches the purer theology and higher morality for which he is commissioned, then and from that time only we will consider him as an impostor, guilty of high blasphemy in forging the name of God for his licentious self indulgences.

But in the case of Mohammad, in the first place, the charges of cruelty and sensuality during a period of six or seven years towards the end of his life, excepting three years, are utterly false; and secondly, if proved to have taken place, it is not proved that Mohammad justified himself by alleging to have received a divine sanction or command to the alleged cruelties and flagrant breaches of morality. The charges of assassinations and cruelties to the prisoners of war and others, and of the alleged perfidy and craftiness enumerated by Sir W. Muir, have been examined and refuted by me in this book. _Vide_ pp. 60-73 and pp. 76-97. The cases of Maria, a slave-girl, and Zeinab not coming directly under the object of this book have been treated separately in Appendix B, pp. 211-220 of this work.

Mohammad, in his alleged cruelties towards his enemies, is not represented by Sir W. Muir to have justified himself by special revelation or sanction from on high, yet the Rev. Mr. Hughes, whose work has been pronounced as having "_the rare merit of being accurate_," makes him (Mohammad) to have done them under the sanction of God in the Koran.

"The best defenders of the Arabian Prophet[141] are obliged to
admit that the matter of Zeinab, the wife of Zeid, and again of
Mary, the Coptic slave, are 'an indelible stain' upon his memory;
that he is untrue once or twice to the kind and forgiving
disposition of his best nature; that he is once or twice
unrelenting in the punishment of his personal enemies, and that he
is guilty even more than once of conniving at the assassination of
inveterate opponents; but they do not give any satisfactory
explanation or apology for all this being done _under the supposed
sanction_ of God in the Qurán."[142]

Such is the rare accuracy of Mr. Hughes' work. It is needless for me to repeat here that none of these allegations are either true or facts, or alleged to have been committed under the sanction of God in the Koran.

The Rev. Marcus Dods writes regarding the character of Mohammad:--

"The knot of the matter lies not in his polygamy, nor even in his
occasional licentiousness, but in the fact that he defended his
conduct, when he created scandal, by professed revelations which
are now embodied as parts of the Koran. When his wives murmured,
and with justice, at his irregularities, he silenced them by a
revelation giving him conjugal allowances which he had himself
proscribed as unlawful. When he designed to contract an alliance
with a woman forbidden to him by his own law, an inspired
permission was forthcoming, encouraging him to the
transgression."[143]

Both of these alleged instances given above are mere fabrications. There was no revelation giving Mohammad conjugal allowances which he had himself proscribed as unlawful, nor any permission was brought forward to sanction an alliance forbidden to him by his own law. This subject has been fully discussed by me in my work "Mohammad, the True Prophet," and the reader is referred to that work.[144] A few verses on the marital subject of Mohammad are greatly misunderstood by European writers on the subject, and Dr. Dods shares the generally wrong idea when he says:--

"He rather used his office as a title to license from which
ordinary men were restrained. Restricting his disciples to four
wives, he retained to himself the liberty of taking as many as he
pleased." (Page 23.)

This is altogether a gross misrepresentation of the real state of things. Mohammad never retained to himself the liberty of taking as many wives as he pleased. On the contrary, Sura XXXIII, 52, expressly forbade him all women except those he had already with him, giving him no option to marry in the case of the demise of some or all of them. This will show that he rather used his office as a restraint against himself of what was lawful for the people in general to enjoy. The only so-called privilege above the rest of the believers (Sura XXXIII, 49) was not "to retain to himself the liberty of taking as many wives as he pleased," but to retain the wives whom he had already married and whose number exceeded the limit of four under Sura IV, 3. Other believers having more wives than four as in the case of Kays, Ghailán, and Naofal, were requested to separate themselves from the number exceeding the limit prescribed for the first time. This was before polygamy was declared to have been virtually abolished, _i.e._, between the publication of _vv._ 3 and 128 of Sura IV. There was neither any breach of morality, nor anything licentious in his retaining the marriages lawfully contracted by him before the promulgation of Sara IV, 3. Even this privilege (Sura XXXIII, 49) was counterbalanced by _Ibid_, 52, which runs thus:--

"Women are not allowed thee hereafter, nor to change them for other
women, though their beauty charm thee, except those already
possessed by thee."

Mr. Stanley Lane Poole suffers under the same misrepresentation as other European writers[145] do when he says that:--

"The Prophet allowed his followers only four wives, he took more
than a dozen himself."

He writes:--

"When, however, all has been said, when it has been shown that
Mohammad was not the rapacious voluptuary some have taken him for,
and that his violation of his own marriage-law may be due to
motives reasonable and just from his point of view rather than to
common sensuality."

"Did Mohammad believe he was speaking the words of God equally when
he declared that permission was given him to take unto him more
wives, as when he proclaimed, 'There is no god but God?'"[146]

Mohammad did not violate his own marriage-law, and never pretended that permission was given to him to take more wives than what was allowed for other people. All his marriages (which are wrongly considered to have been about a dozen) were contracted by him before he published the law unjustly said to have been violated by him. He retained these wives after the law was promulgated, and their number exceeded four, but he was interdicted to marry any other women in the place of these in case of their demise or divorce. Other believers were advised after the promulgation of the law to reduce the number of their wives exceeding four, but were at liberty to replace their wives within the limit assigned in the case of their demise or divorce. Mohammad's case had no breach of morality or sensual license in it. It was very wise of Mohammad to retain all the wives he had married before Sura IV, 3, came into force, for the reason that the wives thus repudiated by him might have married some of the unbelievers, even some of his enemies, which would have been derogatory to the Prophet in the eyes of his contemporaries and a laughing-stock for his enemies.

[Footnote 138: "We may readily admit that at the first Mahomet did believe, or persuaded himself to believe, that his revelations were dictated by a divine agency. In the Meccan period of his life there certainly can be traced no personal ends or unworthy motives to belie this conclusion. The Prophet was there, what he professed to be, 'a simple Preacher and a Warner;' he was the despised and rejected teacher of a gainsaying people; and he had apparently no ulterior object but their reformation. Mahomet may have mistaken the right means to effect this end, but there is no sufficient reason for doubting that he used those means in good faith and with an honest purpose.

"But the scene altogether changes at Medîna. There the acquisition of temporal power, aggrandisement, and self-glorification mingled with the grand object of the Prophet's previous life, and they were sought after and attained by precisely the same instrumentality. Messages from Heaven were freely brought forward to justify his political conduct, equally with his religious precepts. Battles were fought, wholesale executions inflicted, and territories annexed, under pretext of the Almighty's sanction. Nay, even baser actions were not only excused, but encouraged by the pretended divine approval or command. A special license was produced, allowing Mahomet a double number of wives; the discreditable affair of Mary the Coptic slave was justified in a separate Sura; and the passion for the wife of his own adopted son and bosom friend was the subject of an inspired message in which the Prophet's scruples were rebuked by God; a divorce permitted, and marriage with the object of his unhallowed desires enjoined."--Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 317-8.]

[Footnote 139: "But the darker shades of character as well as the brighter must be depicted by a faithful historian. Magnanimity or moderation are nowhere discernible as features in the conduct of Mahomet towards such of his enemies as failed to tender a timely allegiance. Over the bodies of the Coreish who fell at Badr he exulted with savage satisfaction; and several prisoners, accused of no crime but that of scepticism and political opposition, were deliberately executed at his command. The prince of Kheibar, after being subjected to inhuman torture for the purpose of discovering the treasures of his tribe, was, with his cousin, put to death on the pretext of having treacherously concealed them; and his wife was led away captive to the tent of the conqueror. Sentence of exile was enforced by Mahomet with rigorous severity on two whole Jewish tribes at Medîna; and of a third like his neighbours, the women and children were sold into distant captivity, while the men amounting to several hundreds were butchered in cold blood before his eyes.

"In his youth Mahomet earned among his fellows the honourable title of 'the Faithful.' But in later years, however much sincerity and good faith may have guided his conduct in respect of his friends, craft and deception were certainly not wanting towards his foes. The perfidious attack at Nakhla, where the first blood in the internecine war with the Coreish was shed, although at first disavowed by Mahomet, for its scandalous breach of the sacred usages of Arabia, was eventually justified by a pretended revelation. Abu Basîr, the freebooter, was countenanced by the Prophet in a manner scarcely consistent with the letter, and certainly opposed to the spirit, of the truce of Hodeibia. The surprise which secured the easy conquest of Mecca was designed with craftiness, if not with duplicity. The pretext on which the Bani Nadhîr were besieged and expatriated (namely, that Gabriel had revealed their design against the prophet's life), was feeble and unworthy of an honest cause. When Medîna was beleaguered by the confederate army, Mahomet sought the services of Nueim, a traitor, and employed him to sow distrust among the enemy by false and treacherous reports; 'for,' said he, 'what else is war but a game at deception?' In his prophetical career, political and personal ends were frequently compassed by the flagrant pretence of _Divine_ revelations, which a candid examination would have shewn him to be nothing more than the counterpart of his own wishes. The Jewish and Christian systems, at first adopted honestly as the basis of his own religion, had no sooner served the purpose of establishing a firm authority, than they were ignored, if not disowned. And what is perhaps worst of all, the dastardly assassination of political and religious opponents, countenanced and frequently directed as they were in all their cruel and perfidious details by Mahomet himself leaves a dark and indelible blot upon his character."--Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 307-9.

"The reader will observe that simultaneously with the anxious desire to extinguish idolatry, and to promote religion and virtue in the world, there was nurtured by the Prophet in his own heart a licentious self-indulgence; till in the end, assuming to be the favourite of Heaven, he justified himself by 'revelations' from God in the most flagrant breaches of morality. He will remark that while Mahomet cherished a kind and tender disposition, 'weeping with them that wept,' and binding to his person the hearts of his followers by the ready and self-denying offices of love and friendship, he could yet take pleasure in cruel and perfidious assassination, could gloat over the massacre of an entire tribe, and savagely consign the innocent babe to the fires of hell."--Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 322-3.]

[Footnote 140: "In domestic life the conduct of Mahomet with one grave exception was exemplary. As a husband his fondness and devotion was entire, bordering, however, at times upon jealousy. As a father he was loving and tender. In his youth he is said to have lived a virtuous life. At the age of twenty-five he married a widow forty years old; and for five and twenty years he was a faithful husband to her alone. Yet it is remarkable that during this period was composed most of those passages of the Coran in which the black-eyed Houris, reserved for believers in Paradise, are depicted in such glowing colours. Shortly after the death of Khadija the Prophet married again; but it was not till the mature age of fifty-four that he made the dangerous trial of polygamy, by taking Ayesha, yet a child, as the rival of Sauda. Once the natural limits of restraint were overpassed, Mahomet fell an easy prey to his strong passion for the sex. In his fifty-sixth year he married Haphsa; and the following year, in two succeeding months, Zeinab bint Khozeima and Omm Salma. But his desires were not to be satisfied by the range of a harem already greater than was permitted to any of his followers; rather as age advanced, they were stimulated to seek for new and varied indulgence. A few months after his nuptials with Zeinab and Omm Salma, the charms of a second Zeinab were by accident discovered too fully before the Prophet's admiring gaze. She was the wife of Zeid, his adopted son and bosom friend; but he was unable to smother the flame she kindled in his breast; and, by _divine_ command, she was taken to his bed. In the same year he married a seventh wife, and also a concubine. And at last, when he was full three score years of age, no fewer than three new wives, besides Mary the Coptic slave, were within the space of seven months added to his already well-filled harem."--Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 309-10.]

[Footnote 141: "_Vide_ Muhammad and Muhammadanism, by Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, M.A., an Assistant Master of Harrow School."]

[Footnote 142: Notes on Muhammadanism, by the Rev. T.P. Hughes, Missionary to the Afghans, Peshawar; Second Edition, page 4, London, 1877.]

[Footnote 143: Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 24 & 25.]

[Footnote 144: _Vide_ pp. 48-61. This work is being printed at Education Society's Press, Byculla, Bombay. It appears that Dr. Dods, in the first instance, had in view Sura XXXIII, 51. This is by no means giving Mohammad conjugal allowances which he himself had proscribed as unlawful. As a preliminary measure to abolish polygamy and to accustom the people to monogamy, Mohammad, when reducing the unlimited polygamy practised in Arabia, had put a strong condition to treat their wives, when more than one, equitably in every sense of the word,--_i.e._, in the matter of social comfort, love and household establishment (Sura IV, 3). When the measure had given a monogamous tendency to the Arab society, it was declared that it was impossible practically to treat equitably in all respects the contemporary wives (Sura IV, 128), and those who had already contracted contemporaneous marriage before the measure referred to above was introduced were absolved from the condition laid down in Sura IV, 3, but were advised, regarding their then existing wives, not to yield wholly to disinclination. Similarly Mohammad was also relieved from that condition in Sura XXXIII, 51, without "giving him any conjugal allowance which he had himself pronounced unlawful." The second instance is of Zeinab's case I suppose. Zeinab was in no way, when divorced by Zeid, "a woman forbidden to him by his own laws."]

[Footnote 145: "The Apostle becomes a creature so exalted that even the easy drapery of Mohammadan morality becomes a garment too tight-fitting for him. 'A peculiar privilege is granted to him above the rest of the believers.' He may multiply his wives without stint; he may and he does marry within the prohibited degrees."--_Islam under the Arabs_, by R.D. Osborn, London 1876, p. 91.]

[Footnote 146: Studies in a Mosque, by S.L. Poole, pp. 77 and 80, London, 1880.]

[Sidenote: Finality of the social reforms of Mohammad.]

[Sidenote: Positive precepts.]

[Sidenote: Ceremonial law.]

[Sidenote: Concrete morals of the Koran.]

[Sidenote: Want of adaptibility of the Koran to surrounding circumstances.]

37. It has been said with much stress regarding the teachings of Mohammad: (1) That although under the degraded condition of Arabia, they were a gift of great value, and succeeded in banishing those fierce vices which naturally accompany ignorance and barbarism, but an imperfect code of ethics has been made a permanent standard of good and evil, and a final and irrevocable law, which is an insuperable barrier to the regeneration and progress of a nation. It has been also urged that his reforms were good and useful for his own time and place, but that by making them final he has prevented further progress and consecrated half measures. What were restrictions to his Arabs would have been license to other men.[147] (2) That Islam deals with positive precepts rather than with principles,[148] and the danger of a precise system of positive precepts regulating the minute detail, the ceremonial worship, and the moral and social relations of life, is, that it should retain too tight a grip upon men when the circumstances which justified it have changed and vanished away, and therefore the imposition of a system good for barbarians upon people already possessing higher sort of civilization and the principles of a purer faith is not a blessing but a curse. Nay more, even the system which was good for people when they were in a barbarous state may become positively mischievous to those same people when they begin to emerge from their barbarism under its influence into a higher condition.[149] (3) That the exact ritual and formal observations of Islam have carried with them their own Nemesis, and thus we find that in the worship of the faithful formalism and indifferences, pedantic scrupulosity and positive disbelief flourish side by side. The minutest change of posture in prayer, the displacement of a simple genuflexion, would call for much heavier censure than outward profligacy or absolute neglect.[150] (4) That morality is viewed not in the abstract, but in the concrete. That the Koran deals much more with sin and virtue in fragmentary details than as a whole. It deals with acts more than principles, with outward practice more than inward motives, with precepts and commands more than exhortation. It does not hold up before man the hatefulness and ugliness of _all_ sin _as a whole_.[151] (5) "That Islam is stationary; swathed in the rigid bands of the Coran, it is powerless, like the Christian dispensation,[152] to adapt itself to the varying circumstances of time and place, and to keep pace with, if not to lead and direct, the progress of society and the elevation of the race. In the body politic the spiritual and secular are hopelessly confounded, and we fail of perceiving any approach to free institutions or any germ whatever of popular government."[153]

[Footnote 147: _Vide_ Islam and its Founder, by J.W.H. Stobart, B.A., page 229, London, 1878; and Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 122-23, London, 1878. Major Osborn writes, "But to the polity erected on these rude lines was given the attribute of finality. In order to enforce obedience and eliminate the spirit of opposition, Mohammad asserted that it was, down to the minutest details, the work of a Divine Legislature."--_Islam under the Arabs_, pp. 45 and 46.]

[Footnote 148: _Vide_ The Faith of Islam, by the Rev. Edward Sell, page 7, London, 1880.]

[Footnote 149: _Vide_ Christianity and Islam, the Bible, and the Koran, by the Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 95 and 131, London, 1877.]

[Footnote 150: _Vide_ Islam and its Founder, by J.W.H. Stobart, B.A., page 237; and Stephens' Christianity and Islam, page 121. Major Osborn writes: "From the hour of his birth the moslem becomes a member of a system in which every act of his life is governed by a minute ritual. He is beset on every side with a circle of inflexible formalities."--_Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad_, pp. 78-9. He further writes in a footnote, p. 79: "Thus prayer is absolutely useless if any matter, legally considered impure, adheres to the person of the worshipper, even though he be unconscious of its presence. Prayer also is null and void unless the men and women praying are attired in a certain prescribed manner."]

[Footnote 151: _Vide_ Christianity and Islam, by W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 122-23. Major Osborn writes: "The Prophet knew of no religious life where the external rite was not deemed of greater importance than the inner state, and, in consequence, he gave that character to Islam also. Hence there are no moral gradations in the Koran. All precepts proceed from the will of God, and all are enforced with the same threatening emphasis. A failure of performance in the meanest trivialities of civil life involves the same tremendous penalties as apostacy and idolatry."--_Islam under Khalifs_, p. 5. He further says: "In their religious aspect, these traditions are remarkable for that strange confusion of thought which caused the Prophet to place on one level of wickedness serious moral crimes, breaches of sumptuary regulations, and accidental omissions in ceremonial observations. Sin, throughout, is regarded as an external pollution, which can, at once, be rectified by the payment of a fine of some kind." _Ibid_, page 62.]

[Footnote 152: "Occasionally our author would seem to write what he certainly does not mean; thus, in the middle of an excellent summary of the causes of Islam's decadence, it is stated,--'Swathed in the rigid bands of the Koran, _Islam is powerless like the Christian dispensation_ to adapt itself to the varying circumstances of time and place.'"--_The Saturday Review_, June 23, 1883.]

[Footnote 153: _Vide_ Annals of the Early Caliphate, by Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D.C.L., page 456, London, 1883.]

[Sidenote: The preceding objections not applicable to the Koran.]

38. All these objections more or less apply rather to the teachings of the Mohammadan Common Law (canon and civil), called _Fiqah_ or _Shara_, than to the Koran, the Mohammadan Revealed Law. Our Common Law, which treats both ecclesiastical and the civil law, is by no means considered to be a divine or unchangeable law. This subject has been treated by me in a separate work[154] on the Legal, Political and Social Reforms to which the reader is referred. The space allowed to me in this Introduction, which has already exceeded its proper limit, does not admit a full and lengthy discussion of the objections quoted above, but I will review them here in as few words as possible.

[Footnote 154: Reforms, Political, Social and Legal, under the Moslem Rule, Bombay Education Society's Press, 1883.]

[Sidenote: Finality of the social reforms of Mohammad.]