Chapter VII: Islam's Success

'A poor shepherd people, roaming in its deserts unnoticed since the creation of the world: a Hero-Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe: see, the unnoticed becomes the world-notable, the small has grown world-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that;--glancing in valour and splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great, life-giving.'--CARLYLE.

[Sidenote: The Wonder of Islam's Success.]

We have not yet exhausted the amazing phenomena of Islam, nor have we solved its greatest riddle. We watched the orphan camel-boy grow into a man; we studied the events which made this man a giant among his fellows; we stood beside him through those long years of conflict, during which he gathered a few followers about him, and won from them a passionate devotion to his person and an unwavering faith in his cause, which made him soon the acknowledged Prophet and master of {96} Arabia. It is a wonderful story, but it is not unintelligible, and there are other stories in history not unlike it. We attribute them to that wonderful and mysterious power which we call personal magnetism. But the amazing wonder of Islam is this, that arising in the heart and mind of one single man, founded apparently upon devotion to his person, centring upon him rather than on any system that he founded (for Mohammed made no provision for a successor), it went forth to work its greatest wonders after he had gone. For a few months, indeed, Arabia wavered, the Bedouin tribes 'started aside like a broken bow' and revolted; but Abu Bakr, by a perfectly magnificent exhibition of fortitude, faith, and skill, proved that he was the successor of the Prophet, inheriting from his master that one thing which carries conviction to every Arab--_success_. United for the first time in their history, the fierce tribes of the desert poured forth to the conquest of the world. Mohammed had stamped Islam upon Arabia. His successors and their wild, earnest armies stamped Islam upon the world. With Arabia, and only Arabia, at their backs, {99} they turned and faced the great empires of the world, and in a few years were stamping them beneath their feet. Neither the legions of the Roman Empire, nor the hosts of Chosroes, the great king of Persia, could stand before them. Like some irresistible prairie fire, Islam spread within one century over Palestine, Syria, Persia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, and from Africa it leapt across to Europe and established itself in Spain; reducing, it is calculated, 36,000 cities, towns, and castles, destroying 4000 Christian churches and replacing them with 1400 mosques.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

{97}

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Sidenote: Progress of Islam from Eleventh Century.]

Nor was this all. Flaming up again in the eleventh century, Islam enveloped Asia Minor and the Balkans, and most of the Great Soudan, and as though driven by some western hurricane, swept eastward over Asia across the Turkestans to China, and from Persia down the passes of the Hindu Koosh to Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. Nor was its fire spent then. The eighteenth century and the nineteenth saw its hungry flame burst forth afresh, spreading further westward across the Great Soudan and southwards into Central Africa. The twentieth century sees Islam spreading {100} with incredible speed, though deprived of its sword, down to Sierra Leone and Lagos in the west, up the Nile Valley and down to South Africa, threatening to engulf the native Christian churches in Uganda, Livingstonia, Nyassaland, and even in British South Africa, offering an example in missionary enthusiasm which the Church of Christ may well covet.

[Sidenote: Present Position.]

We have taken a big leap over 1200 years. We left Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, at the head of his Arab host, marching out upon the world. We find the Moslem still to-day seeking new worlds to conquer, still the same stalwart, virile enthusiast for the Faith. How is it? Whence comes this spirit? What is this spirit that is in him? Can it ever be explained? Can it ever be accounted for?

We shall have the best hope of understanding it if we go back in thought again to the battle of Badr, or join the fierce, eager armies of Abu Bakr or Omar (the second Caliph) as they go forth to war--to fight some of those battles which must ever stand among the greatest of the world's history.

[Sidenote: Causes of Success. (a) Belief in One God.]

(1) As we move amongst these fierce {101} soldiers we realize that beneath their glaring Arab faults, their hot passions, their love of fighting, their love of booty, one strong conviction holds them. They have come to believe in God: a dim consciousness of Him they had had before, now many at least of the 'believers' believe passionately, and with all their hearts, that the one Almighty God had revealed Himself through His Prophet. To believe that, knowing nothing of His mercy, His justice, and His love, is enough to make men fanatics. Every Moslem warrior felt himself to be the 'Sword of God.' Therefore, these men of the desert carried everything before them, because they had a conviction and believed in it with a faith that bore down the superstition of the pagans, the subtleties of the philosophers, and the empty controversies which, alas! had taken the place of a living faith within the Christian Church. The thunder of their cavalry was not more terrible to the enemy than the clamour of their short, sharp battle-cry and creed, 'There is no God but God: Mohammed is the Apostle of God.'

[Sidenote: (b) Plunder and Paradise.]

(2) But however brightly burned the Arab's zeal for God, the cause was not {102} without enticements of a very concrete and attractive nature. The prospect of plunder and Paradise played a big part. These uncivilized, simple-living Arabs were fighting against two mighty, rich, and luxurious empires. The very first battle with Persia revealed such spoils as no Arab had ever even dreamt of. And so, from the very first, the invading armies had the intoxicating hope of spoils that were greater and richer by just so much as Rome and Persia were greater and richer than Arabia. Mohammed knew the Arab heart, and instituted the plan of dividing the spoils among the soldiers; and the captured women were given to them for wives and concubines. These things acted as new wine to the Arabs. God was indeed with them! What wonder that all Arabia believed in the Prophet's doctrine of the Jihâd--the duty of fighting in the path of God--and became one huge depôt for the army of the Faith!

And Paradise. It, too, had come as a new hope to the pagan Arab--a paradise, so the Prophet painted it, where every desire of man would be fulfilled; a place of gardens and flowers and fruits, and {103} maidens such as never were seen, full of sensual delights that appealed to the base appetites of ribald soldiery--and its best places were for those who fell in war for the Faith. So real and so attractive was it to his warriors, that they dashed into the fight heedless whether it was plunder or Paradise that they would gain, choosing often for the latter, never doubting it one single instant. Khâlid, the famous general of the early Caliphate, spoke truly in his splendid message to the Persian general--'A people is upon thee, loving death as thou lovest life.'

We heard Mohammed summoning Medina to the battle of Badr. He did not hesitate then to appeal to the plunder-motive, nor did the early Caliphs and their successors ever since. Mothanna, who led the Moslem soldiers against the army of Persia--their first trial of strength against the organized army of a mighty empire--'haranguing his troops at the outset of the campaign, and, in the very first flush of religious enthusiasm, says much of plunder, captives, concubines, and forfeit lands, but not one word about Islam, God, and the Faith.' Sir William Muir {104} tells the story of a Moslem soldier eighty years old who, seeing a comrade fall by his side, cried out, 'O Paradise, how close thou art beneath the arrow's point and the falchion's flash! O Hâshim, even now I see Heaven opened, and black-eyed maidens all bridally arrayed, who clasp thee in their fond embrace.' True to its formal character, Islam asks no question as to motives of 'belief.' Those who struck for God alone, or for God plus Paradise, or for Paradise and plunder without God, or for plunder pure and simple, were all the 'Blessed of the Lord,' heroes and saints, and, if they perished, martyrs in the 'path of God.'

[Sidenote: (c) Simplicity of Creed and Practice.]

(3) The simplicity of Islam was and always has been part of its charm. That simplicity is without doubt supposed rather than real; still, for the peoples whom the Moslem hosts conquered, and on whom, moreover, they imposed their Faith, it was simple enough--God and His Prophet; Islam--we must submit to God. Once that was acknowledged, the ritual of Moslem religious practice easily followed. It swept away the superstitious fears of pagan peoples, and the sectarian animosities {105} of feeble Christians. It made but the smallest demands upon the character of a man, and gave but the slightest curb to his passions. Then, as now, he might be bandit, assassin, adulterer, anything but a drunkard or a denier of the Prophet, and yet the best of fighting Moslems.

[Sidenote: (d) Patriotism of Arabs.]

(4) No nation that is not utterly degenerate, whatever its government or lack thereof, whatever its divisions, is impervious to a patriotic cry that summons a nation to realize itself, to be united in one common cause and take its place among the other nations of the world. This and more than this Mohammed meant to Arabia, and Draper has showed us how quickly the Arabs passed through the various stages of intellectual and national life.[1] Till almost the end of the Prophet's life (632 A.D.), Arabia was an unknown and quite negligible peninsula to the civilized world. A century later (732 A.D.) the Saracens (as the Moslems came to be called), conquerors of Spain, were fighting a seven days' battle at Tours on the banks of the Loire with Charles Martel, the Frank.

{106}

[Sidenote: (e) Enthusiasm of a Great Cause.]

(5) Is it suggesting another cause, or is it perhaps the sum of these four, to say that, once it was going, it was the enthusiasm of a great campaign that drove the Moslem hosts along? History has shown what this can do in lesser causes. What was it sustained the Carthaginian soldiers as they painfully followed Hannibal through the passes of the Alps? What sustained Napoleon's troops through the miseries of that Russian winter? Was it the purpose, or was it the fact that they had a purpose? Was it discipline and fear, or enthusiasm for their general's name? Before Mohammed's time, an Arab lived to drive his camel and attend his caravan. Now there was a purpose--a Divine purpose--for every Arab's life, a cause demanding all his manhood and perhaps his life. To carry the white standard of the Prophet to the limits of the world in a great and glorious campaign--that was the will of Allah!

There are few things in history more magnificent than the picture of Ugba leading his army across Syria, Egypt, Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco, to the Atlantic shore, and urging his horse into the waves, {107} exclaiming, 'Great God, if I were not stopped by this raging sea, I would go on to the nations of the West, preaching the unity of Thy Name, and putting to the sword those who would not submit.'

There are few things to-day more magnificent than the zeal of the average Moslem for his Faith.

[Sidenote: The 'Method' of Islam.]

Such was the spirit that stirred in the heart of these Moslem hosts and sent them forth upon the world.

Let us see these Moslems at work in the countries that they conquered. Mohammed himself was far more than a warrior, or even than a ruler--first and foremost, he had stood forth as the _Prophet_. And we shall never understand Islam if we regard it only as a battle-cry. The task which Islam set itself was more than the conquest of the nations. That might have left them Zoroastrian or Pagan, Jew or Christian still. Its task was not merely to defeat armies, but to _proclaim a creed_ and win adherents to it. Therefore, as the Caliph's armies marched, conquering province after province, the inhabitants were summoned to declare their faith in Islam and to repeat the creed.

{108}

[Sidenote: Settlement of Conquered Countries.]

The _Korân_ was set up as the law of the land, governing, besides questions of morality and religious ritual, all matters of politics, and government, and administration; and taxation, economy, and criminal and civil law. _Mosques_ were quickly built in every city, from which the call to prayer sounded five times daily. Within a day or two of the capture of Jerusalem, Omar, the second Caliph, laid the foundation stone of the 'Mosque of Omar' upon the rock of Mount Zion. This mosque to-day marks the Moslem's possession of one of the most sacred spots of historic Christianity. _Moslem governors_, or viziers, were appointed to each province to carry out the policy of the Caliph and to collect the tribute for him. _Teachers_ were sent to every country to instruct the people in the Korân and in the observances of the new Faith. _Magistrates_ were ordered to insist that all, whether old or young, were regular in their attendance at public prayer on Fridays, and to see to the observance of the Fast of Ramadân.

The 'conversion' of simple pagan tribes under such conditions was an easy matter. The Zoroastrians of Persia were, for the most part, readily won. The invasion of {109} Christian states came at the time when faith was at a low ebb. Indeed, the one only worthy object of faith was almost hidden by false teaching. Therefore the Church's grip was weak. In Africa, in Arabia, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Syria, and, afterwards, in Spain, whole tribes or local states abandoned Christianity for the new Faith, and even joined the ranks of the Moslem army.

Here and there small Christian states and Churches stood bravely against the rushing tide, like lonely fortresses amid a surging, hostile sea. But the old and illustrious Mediterranean citadels of the Christian faith--Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople--fell into the hands of the Moslems, and Christendom fell back to build her capitals anew on the Atlantic shores--in Gaul, Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia.

[Sidenote: Treatment of Jews and Christians.]

In their administration of these conquered provinces the Moslems displayed some measure of good sense and humanity, though Christians and Jews who refused to become Moslems were by the Korân ordered 'to be brought low by the sword.' They paid tribute, and received in return {110} the protection of the Islamic state for themselves and for their churches.[2] In most provinces Christians were, however, debarred from holding civil office, everywhere they were forbidden to make converts, and Islam then, as, indeed, in many countries to-day, punished with death those who turned from the Prophet to Christ. Conditions changed with the times, and with the character of the Caliph in power. Seldom, however, were Christians left quite unmolested by the Mohammedans around; vexatious and humiliating conditions were imposed upon them, increasing more and more as time went on; pressure of many sorts was brought to bear upon them. For instance, 'Bokhara struggled desperately against the new Faith, and every Bokharan was compelled to share his dwelling with a Moslem Arab, and those who prayed and fasted like good Moslems were rewarded with money.' The position taken {111} by the Moslem conquerors was one which offered many material enticements to those who wavered in their allegiance to the Gospel, and, as we have said, Islam never cared about a man's motives. Above all, there was the force and pressure of such a strong current of opinion, of conviction, of numbers, of obvious success, as has no parallel in history. Had not even Jerusalem fallen to the new religion?

Within a century of the Hegira, the Caliphs of Islam were not only undisputed rulers of the greatest empire the world has ever seen, but the heads of a religion numbering many million followers. Truly, they could say, the world was at their feet. The wealth of Asia, of Africa, of Europe poured into their treasury. The court of the Caliphs, first at Damascus, and then at Baghdad, was one of the most magnificent and lavish in history. Within 150 years of the Hegira, Islam had reached the zenith of its power.

[Sidenote: Rule of the Caliphs of Baghdad.]

The Caliphs of Baghdad especially gave their patronage to science, literature, and art; men of learning gathered round them; not only Arabian and Persian literature was exploited, but the sages of the Greeks {112} were translated into Arabic, and splendid libraries were collected. Scholars and talented translators and scribes were held in high honour. 'The ink of the doctor is equally valuable with the blood of the martyr,' it was said. While Byzantium suppressed medicine, Baghdad cultivated it. The foundation of the science of modern chemistry may be said to have been laid there by the discovery of the acids. A great college was founded and endowed in Baghdad, where it is said 6000 students, from the son of the noble to the son of the mechanic, were taught; and instruction was given in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, alchemy, law, and medicine. Nor was it in the capital only that a new impetus was given to learning, the sciences, and art. One Caliph made a law that, wherever a mosque was built, a school should be founded beside it, and colleges and schools sprang up in the bigger cities of the empire. Spain formed a library of 600,000 volumes, and bears marks to-day of Moslem vigour, taste, and influence in what is still spoken of as 'Moorish architecture.'

But at the same time it should be {113} remembered that both at Baghdad and in Spain the advocates of learning were 'rationalists,' not orthodox Moslems.

The story of the magnificent pomp of the Caliphs of Baghdad in the days of its tawdry glory reads like the fairy picture of another world. Barges and boats of the most superb decoration floated on the Tigris. A tree of gold and silver stood before the palace, upon whose eighteen branches sat birds fashioned with precious stones. The walls of the palace were hung with 38,000 pieces of tapestry, a great number of which were of silk, embroidered with gold. The costly carpets on the floors were 12,000. The Caliph was surrounded by state officers and slaves. Wives, concubines, and eunuchs to the number of several thousand attended on his person. When he took the field he was guarded by 12,000 horsemen whose belts and scimitars were studded with gold.

[Sidenote: Islam's Opportunity.]

If we could close our eyes, our memories, our knowledge, and open them on the Mediterranean sea-board in those days--no more history written, no more history {114} made--looking out upon the elaborate administration of the empire and upon its splendid pomp, what a future we should have predicted! Islam had a fair field before it, if ever religion had. How in the slow march of the centuries strongly and progressively it could work out its faith! To what sublime heights could it not lead a civilized world in six centuries of time!

[Sidenote: Has Islam Failed?]

We open our eyes again in these early years of the twentieth century, when the history of a thousand years has been written, to see whereto this thing has grown, and what its achievements on behalf of mankind. The religion of Islam has more adherents than it had; its dominion is marked by three Moslem empires: Turkey, Persia, and Morocco; it is the religion of Arabia still; its followers predominate in Egypt, in Asia Minor, in Afghanistan, in the East Indies. It numbers many millions throughout Africa, India, China, Russia, and the Philippines; but nowhere, unless it be possibly in some of the most degraded districts of pagan Africa, do Moslems stand above their fellows in enlightenment, in morality, in progress. {115} Has Islam, then, failed to meet men? No, it has touched man, indeed, in some of the deeper regions of his consciousness. But it has met men on their own level, and so it has left them where they were. Why? How?

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER VII

1. Sketch the successes of Islam for 100 years after the death of Mohammed. Why are they surprising?

2. Give the chief motives which inspired the Moslem hosts. To which of these motives do you attach most importance, and why?

3. Which of these motives are right for Christians?

4. Describe the settlement of conquered countries.

5. Give some account of Baghdad in its greatest days.

[1] _The Intellectual Development of Europe_, vol. i.

[2] This description applies more accurately only to the early centuries of Saracen conquests, e.g. in later years the treasuries of the Christian churches and monasteries of Spain were a temptation the Saracens could not refuse. And instances are common enough, even in the early centuries, of Christians persecuted--even to death--for their faith.

{116}