Chapter X: In Persia--Controversies with Mohammedans, Soofis, and Jews (2)

About eight o'clock at night we went, and after passing along
many an avenue we entered a fine court, where was a pond, and,
by the side of it, a platform eight feet high, covered with
carpets. Here sat the Moojtahid in state, with a considerable
number of his learned friends--among the rest, I perceived the
Jew. One was at his prayers. I was never more disgusted at the
mockery of this kind of prayer. He went through the evolutions
with great exactness, and pretended to be unmoved at the noise
and chit-chat of persons on each side of him. The Professor
seated Seyd Ali on his right hand, and me on his left.
Everything around bore the appearance of opulence and ease, and
the swarthy obesity of the little personage himself led me to
suppose that he had paid more attention to cooking than to
science. But when he began to speak, I saw reason enough for his
being so much admired. The substance of his speech was flimsy
enough; but he spoke with uncommon fluency and clearness, and
with a manner confident and imposing. He talked for a full hour
about the soul; its being distinct from the body; superior to
the brutes, etc.; about God; His unity, invisibility, and other
obvious and acknowledged truths. After this followed another
discourse. At length, after clearing his way for miles around,
he said that philosophers had proved that a single being could
produce but a single being; that the first thing God had created
was _Wisdom_, a being perfectly one with Him; after that, the
souls of men, and the seventh heaven; and so on till He produced
matter, which is merely passive. He illustrated the theory by
comparing all being to a circle; at one extremity of the
diameter is God, at the opposite extremity of the diameter is
matter, than which nothing in the world is meaner. Rising from
thence, the highest stage of matter is connected with the lowest
stage of vegetation; the highest of the vegetable world with the
lowest of the animal; and so on, till we approach the point from
which all proceeded. 'But,' said he, 'you will observe that,
next to God, something ought to be which is equal to God; for
since it is equally near, it possesses equal dignity. What this
is philosophers are not agreed upon. You,' said he, 'say it is
Christ; but we, that it is the Spirit of the Prophets. All this
is what the philosophers have proved, independently of any
particular religion.' I rather imagined that it was the
invention of some ancient Oriental Christian, to make the
doctrine of the Trinity appear more reasonable. There were a
hundred things in the Professor's harangue that might have been
excepted against, as mere dreams, supported by no evidence; but
I had no inclination to call in question dogmas on the truth or
falsehood of which nothing in religion depended.

He was speaking at one time about the angels, and asserted that
man was superior to them, and that no being greater than man
could be created. Here the Jew reminded me of a passage in the
Bible, quoting something in Hebrew. I was a little surprised,
and was just about to ask where he found anything in the Bible
to support such a doctrine, when the Moojtahid, not thinking it
worth while to pay any attention to what the Jew said, continued
his discourse. At last the Jew grew impatient, and finding an
opportunity of speaking, said to me, 'Why do not you speak? Why
do not you bring forward your objections?' The Professor, at the
close of one of his long speeches, said to me, 'You see how much
there is to be said on these subjects; several visits will be
necessary; we must come to the point by degrees.' Perceiving how
much he dreaded a close discussion, I did not mean to hurry him,
but let him talk on, not expecting we should have anything about
Muhammadanism the first night. But, at the instigation of the
Jew, I said, 'Sir, you see that Abdoolghunee is anxious that you
should say something about Islam.' He was much displeased at
being brought so prematurely to the weak point, but could not
decline accepting so direct a challenge. 'Well,' said he to me,
'I must ask you a few questions. Why do you believe in Christ?'
I replied, 'That is not the question. I am at liberty to say
that I do not believe in any religion; that I am a plain man
seeking the way of salvation; that it was, moreover, quite
unnecessary to prove the truth of Christ to Muhammadans, because
they allowed it.' 'No such thing,' said he; 'the Jesus we
acknowledge is He who was a prophet, a mere servant of God, and
one who bore testimony to Muhammad; not your Jesus, whom you
call God,' said he, with a contemptuous smile. He then
enumerated the persons who had spoken of the miracles of
Muhammad, and told a long story about Salmon the Persian, who
had come to Muhammad. I asked whether this Salmon had written an
account of the miracles he had seen. He confessed that he had
not. 'Nor,' said I, 'have you a single witness to the miracles
of Muhammad.' He then tried to show that, though they had not,
there was still sufficient evidence. 'For,' said he, 'suppose
five hundred persons should say that they heard some particular
thing of a hundred persons who were with Muhammad, would that be
sufficient evidence or not?' 'Whether it be or not,' said I,
'you have no such evidence as that, nor anything like it; but if
you have, as they are something like witnesses, we must proceed
to examine them and see whether their testimony deserves
credit.'

After this the Koran was mentioned; but as the company began to
thin, and the great man had not a sufficient audience before
whom to display his eloquence, the dispute was not so brisk. He
did not indeed seem to think it worth while to notice my
objections. He mentioned a well-known sentence in the Koran as
being inimitable. I produced another sentence, and begged to
know why it was inferior to the Koranic one. He declined saying
why, under pretence that it required such a knowledge of
rhetoric in order to understand his proofs as I probably did not
possess. A scholar afterwards came to Seyd Ali, with twenty
reasons for preferring Muhammad's sentence to mine.

It was midnight when dinner, or rather supper, was brought in:
it was a sullen meal. The great man was silent, and I was
sleepy. Seyd Ali, however, had not had enough. While burying his
hand in the dish of the Professor, he softly mentioned some more
of my objections. He was so vexed that he scarcely answered
anything; but after supper told a very long story, all
reflecting upon me. He described a grand assembly of Christians,
Jews, Guebres, and Sabeans (for they generally do us the honour
of stringing us with the other three), before Imam Ruza. The
Christians were of course defeated and silenced. It was a remark
of the Imam's, in which the Professor acquiesced, that 'it is
quite useless for Muhammadans and Christians to argue together,
as they had different languages and different histories.' To the
last I said nothing; but to the former replied by relating the
fable of the lion and man, which amused Seyd Ali so much that he
laughed out before the great man, and all the way home.

The intervention of the Moojtahid only added to the sensation excited among all classes by the saintly Feringhi. The Shi'ah doctors had their second corrective almost ready. They resolved to check the spirit of inquiry by issuing, eleven days after the Moojtahid's attempt, a defence of Muhammadanism by Mirza Ibrahim, described as 'the preceptor of all the moollas.'[58] The event has an interest of its own, apart from Henry Martyn, in the light of a famous controversy which preceded it, and of spiritually fruitful discussions which followed it, all in India. Before Henry Martyn in this field of Christian apologetic was the Portuguese Jesuit, Hieronymo Xavier, and after him were the Scots missionary, John Wilson of Bombay, and the German agent of the Church Missionary Society, C.G. Pfander.

Among the representatives of all religions whom the tolerant Akbar invited to his court at Agra, that out of their teaching he might form an eclectic cult of his own, was Jerome, the nephew of the famous Francis Xavier, then at Goa. For Akbar P. Hieronymo Xavier wrote in Persian two histories, _Christi_ and _S. Petri_. To his successor, the Emperor Jahangir, in whose suite he was the first European who visited Kashmir, H. Xavier in the year 1609 dedicated his third Persian book, entitled _A Mirror showing the Truth_, in which the doctrines of the Christian religion are discussed, the mysteries of the Gospel explained, and the vanity of (all) other religions is to be seen. He has been pronounced by a good authority[59] a man of considerable ability and energy, but one who trusted more to his own ingenuity than to the plain and unsophisticated declarations of the Holy Scriptures. Ludovicus de Dieu, the Dutch scholar, who translated his two first works into Latin, most fairly describes each on the title-page as 'multis modis contaminata.' Twelve years after, to the third or controversial treatise of P.H. Xavier an answer was published by 'the most mean of those who stand in need of the mercy of a bounteous God, Ahmed ibn Zaín Elábidín Elálooi,' under a title thus translated, _The Divine Rays in refutation of Christian Error_. To this a rejoinder in Latin appeared at Rome in 1631, from the pen of Philip Guadagnoli, Arabic Professor in the Propaganda College there. He calls it _Apologia pro Christiana Religione_. If we except Raimund Lull's two spiritual treatises and _Ars Major_, and Pocock's Arabic translation of the _De Veritate Religionis Christianæ_, which Grotius wrote as a text-book for the Dutch missionaries in the East Indies, Henry Martyn's was the first attempt of Reformed Christendom to carry the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ to the Asiatic races whom the corruptions of Judaism and the Eastern Churches had blinded into accepting the Koran and all its consequences.

Mirza Ibrahim's Arabic challenge to the Christian scholar is pronounced by so competent and fair an authority as Sir William Muir[60] as made by a man of talent and acuteness, and remarkable for its freedom from violent and virulent remarks.

This argument chiefly concerns the subject of miracles, which he
accommodates to the Koran. He defines a miracle as an effect
exceeding common experience, accompanied by a prophetic claim
and a challenge to produce the like; and he holds that it may be
produced by particular experience--that is, it may be confined
to any single art, but must be attested by the evidence and
confession of those best skilled in that art. Thus he assumes
the miracles of Moses and Jesus to belong respectively to the
arts of magic and physic, which had severally reached perfection
in the times of these prophets; the evidence of the magicians is
hence deemed sufficient for the miracles of Moses, and that of
the physicians for those of Jesus; but had these miracles
occurred in any other age than that in which those arts
flourished, their proof would have been imperfect, and the
miracles consequently not binding. This extraordinary
doctrine--which Henry Martyn shows to be founded upon an
inadequate knowledge of history--he proceeds to apply to the
Koran, and proves entirely to his own satisfaction that it
fulfils all the required conditions. This miracle belonged to
the science of eloquence, and in that science the Arabs were
perfect adepts. The Koran was accompanied by a challenge, and
when they accordingly professed their inability to produce an
equal, their evidence, like that of the magicians' and
physicians', became universally binding. He likewise dilates
upon the superior and perpetual nature of the Koran as an
intellectual and a _lasting_ miracle, which will remain
unaltered when all others are forgotten. He touches slightly on
Mohammed's other miracles, and asserts the insufficiency of
proof (except through the Koran) for those of all former
prophets.

To this, which was accompanied by a treatise on the miracles of Mohammed by Aga Akbar, Henry Martyn wrote a reply in three parts. In what spirit he conducted the controversy, and what influence through him the Spirit of Christ had on some of the Shi'ahs and Soofis, this extract from his _Journal_ unconsciously testifies:

_1811, September 12_ to _15_. (Sunday.)--Finished what I had to
say on the evidences of religion, and translated it into
Persian. Aga Akbar sent me his treatise by one of his disciples.
Aga Baba, his brother, but a very different person from him,
called; he spoke without disguise of his dislike to
Mohammedanism and good-will to Christianity. For his attachment
to Mirza Abel, Kasim, his brother, sets him down as an infidel.
Mirza Ibrahim is still in doubt, and thinks that he may be a
Christian, and be saved without renouncing Mohammedanism; asks
his nephew what is requisite to observe; he said, Baptism and
the Lord's Supper. 'Well,' said he, 'what harm is there in doing
that?' At another time Seyd Ali asked me, after a dispute,
whether I would baptize any one who did not believe in the
Divinity of Christ? I said, No. While translating Acts ii. and
iii., especially where it is said all who believed had one heart
and one mind, and had all things in common, he was much
affected, and contrasted the beginning of Christianity with that
of Mohammedanism, where they began their career with murdering
men and robbing caravans; and oh, said he, 'that I were sure the
Holy Spirit would be given to me! I would become a Christian at
once.' Alas! both his faith and mine are very weak. Even if he
were to desire baptism I should tremble to give it. He spake in
a very pleasing way on other parts of the Gospel, and seems to
have been particularly taken with the idea of a new birth. The
state of a new-born child gives him the most striking view of
that simplicity which he considers as the height of wisdom.
Simplicity is that to which he aspires, he says, above all
things. He was once proud of his knowledge, and vain of his
superiority to others, but he found that fancied knowledge set
him at a greater distance from happiness than anything else.

Martyn's first reply in Persian to Mirza Ibrahim thus begins: 'The Christian Minister thanks the celebrated Professor of Islamism for the favour he has done him in writing an answer to his inquiries, but confesses that, after reading it, a few doubts occurred to him, on account of which, and not for the mere purpose of dispute, he has taken upon himself to write the following pages.' The reply is signed, 'The Christian Minister, Henry Martyn.' One Mirza Mahommed Ruza published in 1813, the year after Martyn's death, a very prolix rejoinder. It is unworthy of lengthened notice, according to Sir William Muir, who thus summarises and comments on the defence made by the Christian scholar:

Henry Martyn's first tract refers chiefly to the subject of
miracles: he asserts that, to be conclusive, a miracle must
exceed _universal_ experience; that the testimony and opinion of
the Arabs is therefore insufficient, besides being that of a
party concerned; that, were the Koran allowed to be inimitable,
that would not prove it to be a miracle; and that its being an
_intellectual_ miracle is not a virtue, but, by making it
generally inappreciable, a defect. He concludes by denying the
proof of Mohammed's other miracles, in which two requisites are
wanting: viz., their being recorded at or near the time of their
occurrence, and the narrators being under no constraint.

The second tract directly attacks Mohammed's mission, by
alleging the debasing nature of some of the contents and
precepts of the Koran, holds good works and repentance to be
insufficient for salvation, and opens the subject of the true
atonement as prefigured in types, fulfilled in Christ, and made
public by the spread of Christianity which is mentioned as
itself a convincing miracle.

The last tract commences with an attack on the absurdities of
Soofi-ism, and proceeds to show that the love of God and union
with Him cannot be obtained by contemplation, but only by a
practical manifestation of His goodness towards us, accompanied
by an assurance of our safety; and that this is fulfilled in
Christianity not by the amalgamation of the soul with the Deity,
but by the pouring out of God's Spirit upon His children, and by
the obedience and atonement of Christ. Vicarious suffering is
then defended by analogy, the truth of the Mosaic and Christian
miracles is upheld, and the whole argument closes with proving
the authenticity of the Christian annals by their coincidence
with profane history.

Sir William Muir agrees in the opinion of Professor Lee that, situated as Mr. Martyn was in Persia, with a short tract on the Mohammedan religion before him, and his health precarious, the course which he took was perhaps the only one practicable. Sir William adds: 'In pursuing his argument Henry Martyn has displayed great wisdom and skill, and his reasoning appears to be in general perfectly conclusive; in a few instances, however, he has perhaps not taken up the most advantageous ground.'

The appeal of the Christian defender of the faith, at the close of his second part, on the incarnation and atonement, is marked by a loving courtesy:[61]

It is now the prayer of the humble Henry Martyn that these
things may be considered with impartiality. If they become the
means of procuring conviction, let not the fear of death or
punishment operate for a moment to the contrary, but let this
conviction have its legitimate effect; for the world, we know,
passes away like the wind of the desert. But if what has here
been stated do not produce conviction, my prayer is that God
Himself may instruct you; that as hitherto ye have held what you
believed to be the truth, ye may now become teachers of that
which is really so; and that He may grant you to be the means of
bringing others to the knowledge of the same, through Jesus
Christ, who has loved us and washed us in His own blood, to whom
be the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

_1811, July 26._--Mirza Ibrahim declared publicly before all his
disciples, 'that if I really confuted his arguments, he should
be bound in conscience to become a Christian.' Alas! from such a
declaration I have little hope. His general good character for
uprightness and unbounded kindness to the poor would be a much
stronger reason with me for believing that he may perhaps be a
Cornelius.

_August 2._--Much against his will Mirza Ibrahim was obliged to
go to his brother, who is governor of some town thirty-eight
parasangs off. To the last moment he continued talking with his
nephew on the subject of his book, and begged that, in case of
his detention, my reply might be sent to him.

_August 7._--My friends talked, as usual, much about what they
call Divine love; but I do not very well comprehend what they
mean. They love not the holy God, but the god of their own
imagination--a god who will let them do as they please. I often
remind Seyd Ali of one defect in his system, which is, that
there is no one to stand between his sins and God. Knowing what
I allude to, he says, 'Well, if the death of Christ intervene,
no harm; Soofi-ism can admit this too.'

_August 14._--Returned to the city in a fever, which continued
all the next day until the evening!

_August 15._--Jani Khan, in rank corresponding to one of our
Scottish dukes, as he is the head of all the military tribes of
Persia, and chief of his own tribe, which consists of twenty
thousand families, called on Jaffir Ali Khan with a message from
the king. He asked me a great number of questions, and disputed
a little. 'I suppose,' said he, 'you consider us all as
infidels!' 'Yes,' replied I, 'the whole of you.' He was mightily
pleased with my frankness, and mentioned it when he was going
away.

_August 22._--The copyist having shown my answer to Moodurris,
called Moolla Akbar, he wrote on the margin with great acrimony
but little sense. Seyd Ali having shown his remarks in some
companies, they begged him not to show them to me, for fear I
should disgrace them all through the folly of one man.

_August 23._--Ruza Kooli Mirza, the great-grandson of Nadir Shah
and Aga Mahommed Hasan, called. The prince's nephew, hearing of
my attack on Muhammad, observed that the proper answer to it was
the sword; but the prince confessed that he began to have his
doubts. On his inquiring what were the laws of
Christianity--meaning the number of times of prayer, the
different washings, &c.--I said that we had two commandments:
'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all
thy soul, and all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself.'
He asked, 'What could be better?' and continued praising them.

The Moolla Aga Mahommed Hasan, himself a Moodurris, and a very
sensible, candid man, asked a good deal about the European
philosophy, particularly what we did in metaphysics; for
instance, 'how, or in what sense, the body of Christ ascended
into heaven?' He talked of free-will and fate, and reasoned
high, and at last reconciled them according to the doctrines of
the Soofis by saying, that 'as all being is an emanation of the
Deity, the will of every being is only the will of the Deity, so
that therefore, in fact, free-will and fate are the same.' He
has nothing to find fault with in Christianity, except the
Divinity of Christ. It is this doctrine that exposes me to the
contempt of the learned Mahometans, in whom it is difficult to
say whether pride or ignorance predominates. Their sneers are
more difficult to bear than the brick-bats which the boys
sometimes throw at me; however, both are an honour of which I am
not worthy. How many times in the day have I occasion to repeat
the words:

If on my face, for Thy dear name,
Shame and reproaches be,
All hail, reproach, and welcome, shame,
If Thou remember me.

The more they wish me to give up this one point--the Divinity of
Christ--the more I seem to feel the necessity of it, and rejoice
and glory in it. Indeed, I trust I would sooner give up my life
than surrender it.

In the evening we went to pay a long-promised visit to Mirza
Abulkasim, one of the most renowned Soofis in all Persia. We
found several persons sitting in an open court, in which a few
greens and flowers were placed; the master was in a corner. He
was a very fresh-looking old man with a silver beard. I was
surprised to observe the downcast and sorrowful looks of the
assembly, and still more at the silence which reigned. After
sitting some time in expectation, and being not at all disposed
to waste my time in sitting there, I said softly to Seyd Ali,
'What is this?' He said, 'It is the custom here to think much
and speak little.' 'May I ask the master a question?' said I.
With some hesitation he consented to let me; so I begged Jaffir
Ali to inquire, 'Which is the way to be happy?'

This he did in his own manner; he began by observing that 'there
was a great deal of misery in the world, and that the learned
shared as largely in it as the rest; that I wished therefore to
know what we must do to escape it.' The master replied that 'for
his part he did not know, but that it was usually said that the
subjugation of the passions was the shortest way to happiness.'
After a considerable pause I ventured to ask, 'What were his
feelings at the prospect of death--hope, or fear, or neither?'
'Neither,' said he, and that 'pleasure and pain were both
alike.' I then perceived that the Stoics were Greek Soofis. I
asked 'whether he had attained this apathy.' He said, 'No.' 'Why
do you think it attainable?' He could not tell. 'Why do you
think that pleasure and pain are not the same?' said Seyd Ali,
taking his master's part. 'Because,' said I, 'I have the
evidence of my senses for it. And you also act as if there was a
difference. Why do you eat, but that you fear pain?' These
silent sages sat unmoved.

One of the disciples is the son of the Moojtahid who, greatly to
the vexation of his father, is entirely devoted to the Soofi
doctor. He attended his kalean (pipe) with the utmost humility.
On observing the pensive countenance of the young man, and
knowing something of his history from Seyd Ali, how he had left
all to find happiness in the contemplation of God, I longed to
make known the glad tidings of a Saviour, and thanked God on
coming away, that I was not left ignorant of the Gospel. I could
not help being a little pleasant on Seyd Ali afterwards, for his
admiration of this silent instructor. 'There you sit,' said I,
'immersed in thought, full of anxiety and care, and will not
take the trouble to ask whether God has said anything or not.
No: that is too easy and direct a way of coming at the truth. I
compare you to spiders, who weave their house of defence out of
their own bowels; or to a set of people who are groping for a
light in broad day.'

_August 26._--Waited this morning on Mahommed Nubbee Khan, late
ambassador at Calcutta, and now prime minister of Fars. There
were a vast number of clients in his court, with whom he
transacted business while chatting with us. Amongst the others
who came and sat with us, was my tetric adversary--Aga Akbar,
who came for the very purpose of presenting the minister with a
little book he had written in answer to mine. After presenting
it in due form, he sat down, and told me he meant to bring me a
copy that day--a promise which he did not perform, through Seyd
Ali's persuasion, who told him it was a performance that would
do him no credit.

_August 29._--Mirza Ibrahim begins to inquire about the Gospel.
The objections he made were such as these: How sins could be
atoned for before they were committed? Whether, as Jesus died
for all men, all would necessarily be saved? If faith be the
condition of salvation, would wicked Christians be saved,
provided they believe? I was pleased to see from the nature of
the objections that he was considering the subject. To this last
objection, I remarked that to those who felt themselves sinners,
and came to God for mercy, through Christ, God would give His
Holy Spirit, which would progressively sanctify them in heart
and life.

_August 30._--Mirza Ibrahim praises my answer, especially the
first part.

It was on the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western frontiers of Media, on the high road eastward from Babylonia, that Darius Hystaspes, founder of the civil policy of ancient Persia, carved the wonderful cuneiform inscriptions which made that rock the charter of Achæmenian royalty. At Persepolis only the platform, the pillared colonnade, and the palace seem to have been built by him; the other buildings, with commemorative legends, were erected by Xerxes and Artaxerxes Ochus. Lassen, Westergaard, and our own Sir Henry Rawlinson,[62] did not decipher these inscriptions for some twenty years after Martyn's visit. How deaf had Ormuzd proved all through the centuries to the prayer which Darius the king cut on a huge slab, twenty-six feet in length and six in height, in the southern wall of the great platform at Persepolis: 'Let not war, nor slavery, nor decrepitude, nor lies obtain power over this province.' Henry Martyn thus wrote of his visit:

After traversing these celebrated ruins, I must say that I felt
a little disappointed: they did not at all answer my
expectation. The architecture of the ancient Persians seems to
me much more akin to that of their clumsy neighbours the
Indians, than to that of the Greeks. I saw no appearance of
grand design anywhere. The chapiters of the columns were almost
as long as the shafts:--though they are not so represented in
Niebuhr's plate;--and the mean little passages into the square
court, or room, or whatever it was, make it very evident that
the taste of the Orientals was the same three thousand years ago
as it is now. But it was impossible not to recollect that here
Alexander and his Greeks passed and repassed; here they sat and
sung, and revelled; now all is in silence, generation on
generation lie mingled with the dust of their mouldering
edifices:

Alike the busy and the gay,
But flutter in life's busy day,
In fortune's varying colours drest.

As soon as we recrossed the Araxes, the escort begged me to
point out the Keblah to them, as they wanted to pray. After
setting their faces towards Mecca, as nearly as I could, I went
and sat down on the margin near the bridge, where the water,
falling over some fragments of the bridge under the arches,
produced a roar, which, contrasted with the stillness all
around, had a grand effect. Here I thought again of the
multitudes who had once pursued their labours and pleasures on
its banks. Twenty-one centuries have passed away since they
lived; how short, in comparison, must be the remainder of my
days. What a momentary duration is the life of man! _Labitur et
labetur in omne volubilis ævum_, may be affirmed of the river;
but men pass away as soon as they begin to exist. Well, let the
moments pass:

They'll waft us sooner o'er
This life's tempestuous sea,
And land us on the peaceful shore
Of blest eternity.

The true character of Martyn's Mohammedan and Soofi
controversialists comes out in the fast of Ramazan, the ninth
month of the lunar year, when from dawn to sunset of each day a
strict fast is observed, most trying to the temper, and from
sunset to dawn excess is too naturally the rule, especially, as
in this case, when Ramazan falls on the long hot days of summer.
Of this month the traditions declare that the doors of heaven
are opened and the doors of hell shut, while the devils are
chained. At this time the miracle play of Hasan and Husain[63]
is acted in the native theatres from night to night. In scene
xxxi. are enacted the conversion and murder of an English
ambassador. Dean Stanley used to tell that Henry Martyn,
horrified at the English oaths put into the mouth of the Persian
who represented the ambassador in the tragedy, took him and
taught him to repeat the Lord's Prayer instead.

_September 20._--First day of the fast of Ramazan. All the
family had been up in the night, to take an unseasonable meal,
in order to fortify themselves for the abstinence of the day. It
was curious to observe the effects of the fast in the house. The
master was scolding and beating his servants; they equally
peevish and insolent, and the beggars more than ordinarily
importunate and clamorous. At noon, all the city went to the
grand mosque. My host came back with an account of new vexations
there. He was chatting with a friend, near the door, when a
great preacher, Hajji Mirza, arrived, with hundreds of
followers. 'Why do you not say your prayers?' said the
new-comers to the two friends. 'We have finished,' said they.
'Well,' said the other, 'if you cannot pray a second time with
us, you had better move out of the way.' Rather than join such
turbulent zealots they retired. The reason of this unceremonious
address was, that these loving disciples had a desire to pray
all in a row with their master, which, it seems, is the custom.
There is no public service in the mosque; every man here prays
for himself.

Coming out of the mosque some servants of the prince, for their
amusement, pushed a person against a poor man's stall, on which
were some things for sale, a few European and Indian articles,
also some valuable Warsaw plates, which were thrown down and
broken. The servants went off without making compensation. No
kazi will hear a complaint against the prince's servants.

Hajji Mahommed Hasan preaches every day during the Ramazan. He
takes a verse from the Koran, or more frequently tells stories
about the Imams. If the ritual of the Christian Churches, their
good forms and everything they have, is a mere shadow without a
Divine influence attend on them, what must all this Mahometan
stuff be? and yet how impossible is it to convince the people of
the world, whether Christian or Mahometan, that what they call
religion is merely an invention of their own, having no
connection with God and His kingdom! This subject has been much
on my mind of late. How senseless the zeal of Churchmen against
dissenters, and of dissenters against the Church! The kingdom of
God is neither meat nor drink, nor anything perishable; but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Mirza Ibrahim never goes to the mosque, but he is so much
respected that nothing is said: they conclude that he is
employed in devotion at home. Some of his disciples said to Seyd
Ali, before him: 'Now the Ramazan is come, you should read the
Koran and leave the Gospel.' 'No,' said his uncle, 'he is
employed in a good work: let him go on with it.' The old man
continues to inquire with interest about the Gospel, and is
impatient for his nephew to explain the evidences of
Christianity, which I have drawn up.

_September 22._ (Sunday.)--My friends returned from the mosque,
full of indignation at what they had witnessed there. The former
governor of Bushire complained to the vizier, in the mosque,
that some of his servants had treated him brutally. The vizier,
instead of attending to his complaint, ordered them to do their
work a second time; which they did, kicking and beating him with
their slippers, in the most ignominious way, before all the
mosque. This unhappy people groan under the tyranny of their
governors; yet nothing subdues or tames them. Happy Europe! how
has God favoured the sons of Japheth, by causing them to embrace
the Gospel. How dignified are all the nations of Europe compared
with this nation! Yet the people are clever and intelligent, and
more calculated to become great and powerful than any of the
nations of the East, had they a good government and the
Christian religion.

_September 29._--The Soofi, son of the Moojtahid, with some
others, came to see me. For fifteen years he was a devout
Mahometan; visited the sacred places, and said many prayers.
Finding no benefit from austerities he threw up Mahommedanism
altogether, and attached himself to the Soofi master. I asked
him what his object was, all that time? He said, he did not
know, but he was unhappy. I began to explain to him the Gospel;
but he cavilled at it as much as any bigoted Mahommedan could
do, and would not hear of there being any distinction between
Creator and creature. In the midst of our conversation, the sun
went down, and the company vanished for the purpose of taking an
immediate repast.

Mirza Seyd Ali seems sometimes coming round to Christianity
against Soofi-ism. The Soofis believe in no prophet, and do not
consider Moses to be equal to Mirza Abulkasim. 'Could they be
brought,' Seyd Ali says, 'to believe that there has been a
prophet, they would embrace Christianity.' And what would be
gained by such converts? 'Thy people shall be willing in the day
of Thy power.' It will be an afflicted and poor people that
shall call upon the name of the Lord, and such the Soofis are
not: professing themselves to be wise, they have become fools.

_October 7._--I was surprised by a visit from the great Soofi
doctor, who, while most of the people were asleep, came to me
for some wine. I plied him with questions innumerable; but he
returned nothing but incoherent answers, and sometimes no answer
at all. Having laid aside his turban, he put on his night-cap,
and soon fell asleep upon the carpet. Whilst he lay there his
disciples came, but would not believe, when I told them who was
there, till they came and saw the sage asleep. When he awoke,
they came in, and seated themselves at the greatest possible
distance, and were all as still as if in a church. The real
state of this man seems to be despair, and it will be well if it
do not end in madness. I preached to him the kingdom of God:
mentioning particularly how I had found peace from the Son of
God and the Spirit of God; through the first, forgiveness;
through the second, sanctification. He said it was good, but
said it with the same unconcern with which he admits all manner
of things, however contradictory. Poor soul! he is sadly
bewildered.

As a Persian scholar and controversialist Henry Martyn found a worthy successor in the German, and afterwards Church Missionary Society's missionary, C.G. Pfander, D.D. When for some twelve years stationed at Shushy Fort, on the Russian border of Georgia, he frequently visited Baghdad and travelled through Persia by Ispahan and Teheran. In 1836 the intolerant Russian Government expelled all foreign missionaries from its territories, and Dr. Pfander joined the Church Mission at Agra. In 1835 he first published at Shushy, in Persian, his famous _Mizan ul Haqq_, or _Balance of Truth_. A Hindustani translation was lithographed at Mirzapore in 1843, and Mr. R.H. Weakley, missionary at Constantinople, made an English translation, which was published by the Church Missionary Society in 1867. This, as yet, greatest of works which state the general argument for Christianity and against Islam, was followed by the _Miftah ul Asrar_, in proof of the Divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity, and by the _Tarik ul Hyat_, or the nature of sin and the way of salvation, of both of which Hindustani translations appeared. In his little English _Remarks on the Nature of Muhammadanism_,[64] as shown in the _Traditions_, Dr. Pfander quotes from Martyn's _Controversy_. By these writings and the personal controversy in India, Dr. Pfander, following Henry Martyn, was the means of winning to Christ, in tolerant British India, many Mohammedan moulvies like him who is now the Rev. Imad-ud-din, D.D.[65]

Henry Martyn's description of the Persian is no less applicable to the Indian Mohammedan, in the opinion of Sir William Muir; 'he is a compound of ignorance and bigotry, and all access to the one is hedged up by the other.' The Koran and the whole system of Islam are based on partial truths, plagiarised from Scripture to an extent sufficient to feed the pride of those who hold them. But beyond these corruptions of Judaism and Christianity, for which the dead Eastern Churches of Mohammed's time and since are responsible, Persians, Turks, Arabs, Afghans, and Hindustan Muhammadans know nothing either of history or Christian Divinity. All controversy, from P.H. Xavier's time to Martyn's, Wilson's, and Pfander's, shows that the key of the position is not the doctrine of the Trinity, as the Shi'ah Moojtahids of Shiraz and Lucknow and the Soonnis everywhere make it, but the genuineness and integrity of the Scriptures, by which the truth of the whole Christian faith will follow, the Trinity included. The Bible, in Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic, with its self-evidencing power, is the weapon which Henry Martyn was busied in forging.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] See article in the _Spectator_ for August 17, 1889, by a writer who had recently returned from Persia.

[55] See article on the poet in the _Calcutta Review_ for March 1858 (by Professor E.B. Cowell, L.L.D., Cambridge).

[56] London, 1818, pp. 223-4.

[57] Literally, 'one who strives' to attain the highest degree of Mussulman learning.

[58] Persian form of maulvi, the Arabic for a learned man. The word is said to mean 'filled' with knowledge, from _mala_, to fill.

[59] The Rev. S. Lee, D.D., Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge for many years, in his _Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism_ by the late Rev. Henry Martyn, B.D., and some of the most eminent writers of Persia (1824).

[60] _The Calcutta Review_, No. VIII. vol. iv. Art. VI. 'The Mahommedan Controversy,' pp. 418-76, Calcutta, 1845.

[61] As translated from the Persian by Professor Lee.

[62] Sir Henry, then Major, H.C. Rawlinson, C.B., visited Persepolis in 1835. The _Journals_ of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1846-9 publish his copies of the inscription of Behistun and Persepolis and his translations.

[63] See the Play as collected from oral tradition by the late Sir Lewis Pelly, in two volumes, 1879.

[64] Second edition published by the Church Missionary Society in 1858.

[65] 'Some of our most eminent Native Christians are converts from Mohammedanism. We may particularly mention the Rev. Jani Ali, B.A.; the Rev. Imad-ud-din, D.D.; the Rev. Imam Shah; the Rev. Mian Sadiq; the Rev. Yakub Ali; Maulavi Safdar Ali, a high Government official; Abdullah Athim, also a high official, now retired, and an honorary lay evangelist.'--_Church Missionary Society's Intelligencer_ in 1888.