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THE RELIGION OF THE PROPHET

In a review of the faiths of Egypt, one cannot overlook that which has ruled in the land for more than a thousand years, and still rules, not only in Egypt, but over a large part of Asia and Africa. We arrived in Cairo a few days too late to witness the departure of the pilgrims for Mecca. Once in the year there is a gathering of the faithful for a journey which is the event of their lives. The spectacle is one of the most picturesque in the East, as a long procession, mounted on camels, many of which are richly caparisoned, files through the streets of the city, amid the admiring gaze of the whole population, and takes the way of the desert. Slowly it moves Eastward to the Red Sea, and passing around it, turns South to the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.

A caravan of pilgrims crossing the desert to visit the birthplace of the prophet, is a proof that religious enthusiasm still lives even in this unbelieving age. Perhaps the Moslem spirit is not so bigoted here as at Constantinople. The Turk, with his heavy stolid nature, is a more obstinate religionist than the Arab. And yet Mohammed was not a Turk; he was an Arab, and the faith which he taught still fires the heart of his race.

In one view Cairo may be considered the capital of Islam, as it is the seat of the great University, from which its priests go forth to all parts of the Mohammedan world. This University is nine hundred years old – older than Oxford, and still flourishes with as much vigor as in the palmy days of the Arabian conquest. A visit to it is the most interesting sight in Cairo. There I saw collected together – not one hundred or two hundred students, such as are found in our Theological Seminaries in America – but ten thousand! As one expressed it, "there were two acres of turbans," assembled in a vast inclosure, with no floor but a pavement, and with a roof over it, supported by four hundred columns, and at the foot of every column a teacher, surrounded by pupils, who sat at his feet precisely as Paul sat at the feet of Gamaliel. As we entered there rose a hum of thousands of voices, reciting the Koran. These students are not only from Egypt, but from all parts of Africa, from Morocco to Zanzibar. They come from far up the Nile, from Nubia and Soudan; and from Darfour beyond the Great Desert, and from the western coast of Africa. Asia too is largely represented in students both from Western Asia, from Turkey, Arabia, and Persia; and from Central Asia, from Khiva and Bokhara, and Turkistan and Afghanistan, and the borders of China. They come without staff or scrip. There is no endowment to support them; no Students' Fund or Education Board. They live on the charities of the faithful, and when their studies are ended, those who are to be missionaries on this continent mount their camels, and joining a caravan, cross the Desert, and are lost in the far interior of Africa.

This strange sight has set me a-thinking, and the more I think, the more the wonder grows. A religion that supports great universities from generation to generation; and that sends forth caravans, that are like armies, on long pilgrimages, is not dead; it is full of life, and can bring into the field tremendous forces to uphold its empire in the East. What is the secret of its power, by which it lives on from century to century, and seems as if it could not but by annihilating die? There is no question of more interest to the historical student; and no one which it is more necessary to understand in order to form some just idea of the great Eastern War which is already looming above the horizon. A full recognition of that which is good in Islam, and of that which gives it power, would prevent many mistakes in forecasting the future, although it might abate the sanguine confidence of our missionary friends in the speedy triumph of Christianity over its hereditary foe.

First of all, we must recognize the fact of its existence as one of the great religions of the world. The number of its adherents is variously estimated at from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty millions. It holds but a corner of Europe, but extends its empire over a large part of Asia and Africa. The whole of Africa which is not Pagan, is Moslem. In Asia Islam disputes the sway of Hindooism in India, where the Queen has more Moslem subjects than the Sultan himself, and of Buddhism in the islands of the Malayan Archipelago. Over so large a part of the earth's surface is extended the wide dominion of the Prophet. His followers number one-tenth, perhaps one-eighth, or even one-sixth part of the human race.

Nor is this dominion a merely nominal thing. On the contrary, the true believers are strong believers. It may well be doubted, whether among the nations nominally Christian the mass of the people really believe with half the firmness and the fervor of Mussulmans. The Moslems are as sincere, and in their way as devout, as the adherents of any religion on the face of the globe. No one can enter the mosque of St. Sophia, and see the worshippers turning their faces towards Mecca, not only kneeling but prostrating themselves, touching the pavement with their foreheads, and repeating, in a low, mournful tone, passages from the Koran, without feeling that these men really believe. Those prostrate forms, those wailing voices, are not the signs of hypocrisy, but of a faith that, however mistaken, is at least sincere. In their own minds they are in the presence of the Highest, and offer worship to the unseen God. Indeed they are more than believers, they are zealots, carrying their faith to fanaticism. A body so vast in number, composed of such fierce religionists, is certainly a great power in the political and military, as well as religious, forces, that are yet to contend for the mastery of the Eastern world.

Nor is this power inactive in spreading its faith; it is full of missionary zeal. Max Müller divides all the religions of the world into proselytizing and non-proselytizing. Mohammedanism belongs to the former class as much as Christianity. The days are past when the followers of the Prophet swept over large parts of Asia and Africa, converting tribes and nations by the sword. And yet even at the present day it keeps up a Propaganda as vigorous as that of the Catholics at Rome. Its university here is training ten thousand young apostles. Moslem missionaries preach the Koran, and make proselytes, in all parts of India. But the chief field of their labors is in Africa, where they have penetrated far into the interior, and converted numerous tribes to the faith. It is difficult to obtain accurate statistics in regard to the spread of Islam in Africa. Livingstone thought the reports greatly exaggerated. That is quite possible, and yet, making every allowance, there can be no doubt that it has obtained a success much greater than that of Christian missions.

A religion which has such a foundation on the solid earth, holding nations and empires in its wide dominion; and which has such a history, stretching over twelve centuries; is a subject worthy the closest attention of scholars. Its history is not unlike that of Christianity itself, in the feebleness of its beginning and the greatness of its results. It started in an obscure corner of the world – in the deserts of Arabia – and rapidly conquered the East, overrunning all the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa, and extending along the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar, and thence crossed into Spain, where it maintained itself for eight hundred years against all the power of Europe to expel it. Such conquests show a prodigious vitality – a vitality not yet exhausted, as it still holds the half of Asia and Africa. A faith which commands the allegiance of so large a part of mankind must have some elements of truth to give it such tremendous power. Perhaps we can find the key in the character of its Founder, and in the faith which he taught.

A great deal has been written about the life of Mohammed, but even yet his character is imperfectly understood. Perhaps we cannot fully understand it, for there are in it contradictions which perplex the most patient and candid student. By many he is dismissed at once as a vulgar impostor, a sort of Joe Smith, who invented monstrous lies, and by stoutly sticking to them got others to believe in them, and as soon as he rallied a few followers about him, compelled neighboring tribes to accept his faith by the unsparing use of the sword.

This is an easy way to get rid of a difficult historical question, but unfortunately it does not explain the facts. It is by that sort of cheap reasoning that Gibbon undertakes to explain the rapid spread of Christianity. But if Mohammed had been a cunning impostor, his first claim would have been to work miracles, which on the contrary he never claimed at all, but distinctly repudiated. Nor was he a greedy mercenary; he was a poor man; his followers relate with pride how he mended his own clothes, and even pegged his own shoes. But he combined every element of the visionary and the enthusiast. He had that vivid imagination that conceives strongly of things invisible to the natural sense, to which "things that are not become as things that are," and that ardent temperament that kindles at the sight of these unseen realities. Perhaps this temperament was connected with his bodily constitution; from his youth he was subject to epileptic fits, and his revelations were accompanied with convulsions. Such things are found in other religions. They are quite common in the history of devout and passionate Romanists. Nor are they unknown even among Protestants, who profess to be more sober and rational. Among the Methodists, at camp-meetings, a very frequent effect of religious emotion has been that strong men were so prostrated that they fell to the ground and became as dead, and when they recovered, retained impressions never to be effaced, as if they had seen things which it was not lawful to utter. The revelations of Mohammed were all accompanied by these "physical manifestations." Sometimes the angel spoke to him as one man to another; at other times something within his bosom sounded like a bell, which he said "rent him in pieces." At such times he fell to the ground and foamed at the mouth, or his eyes turned red, and he streamed with perspiration, and roared like a camel, in his struggle to give utterance to the revelation of God. This does not look like imposture, but like insanity. The constitution of such a man is a psychological study.

This natural ardor was inflamed by long seclusion. From his youth he loved solitude. Like the old prophets, he withdrew from the world to be alone with God. Like Elijah, he hid himself in a cave. Every year, during the month of Ramadan, he retired to a cave in Mount Hera, three miles from Mecca, to give himself up to religious contemplation; and there, it is said, amid spasmodic convulsions, he had his first vision, in which the angel Gabriel appeared to him.

This explanation of a mind half disordered, subject to dreams and visions and fanatical illusions, is much more rational than that of supposing in him an artful design to impose a new religion on his countrymen. Like other enthusiasts, he became the victim of his own illusions. His imagination so wrought upon him that he came to accept his visions as Divine revelations. In this he was not playing a part; he was not the conscious hypocrite. No doubt he believed himself what he wished others to believe. Indeed he made them believe, by the very sincerity and intensity of his own convictions.

Mohammedanism may be considered as a system of theology, and as a system of morality. The former seems to have been derived largely from Judaism. Mohammed belonged to the tribe of the Koreishites, who claimed to be descended from Abraham through Ishmael. His family were the keepers of the Caaba, or holy place of Mecca, where is the black stone which was brought from heaven, and the spring Zemzem, which sprang up in the desert to save the life of Hagar and her child. Thus he was familiar from his earliest years with the traditions of the patriarchs.

When a boy of fourteen he made a journey with his uncle into Syria, where he may have learned more of the ancient faith. Much is said of his becoming acquainted with a Nestorian bishop or monk, from whom he is supposed to have learned something of Christianity. But he could not have learned much, for his views of it were always extremely vague. It is doubtful whether he ever saw the New Testament, or had any knowledge of it other than that derived from some apocryphal books. There is no trace in the Koran of the sublime doctrines of the Gospel, or even of its moral precepts. Although Mohammed professed great reverence for Jesus, whom with Moses he considers the greatest of prophets next to himself, yet his ideas of the Religion which He taught were of the most indefinite kind.

But one thing he did learn, which was common to Judaism and Christianity – that there is but one God. The Monotheism of the Hebrews took the stronger hold of him, from its contrast to the worship around him, which had degenerated into gross idolatry. The tribes of Arabia had become as base idolaters as the Canaanites. Even the holy Caaba was filled with idols, and the mission of the prophet – as he regarded it – was to restore the worship of the One Living and True God. His first burst of prophetic fire and prophetic wrath was a fierce explosion against idolatry, and it was a moment of triumph when he was able to walk through the Caaba, and see the idols dashed in pieces.

Here then is the first and last truth of Islam, the existence of one God. The whole is comprehended in this one saying, "God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet."

With the homage due to God, is the respect due to His revealed will. Moslems claim for the Koran what many Christians do not claim for the Bible – a literal and verbal inspiration. Every word is Divine.

And not only is the unity of God the cardinal truth, but it is vital to salvation. In this respect Islam is a Religion. It is not a mere philosophy, the acceptance or rejection of which is a matter of indifference. It is not merely a system of good morals – it is a Divine code for the government of mankind, whose acceptance is a matter of life and death – of salvation or damnation.

The doctrine of retribution is held by the Moslems in its most rigid form – more rigid indeed than in the Christian system: for there is no atonement for sin. The judgment is inexorable; it is absolute and eternal. Before their eyes ever stands the Day of Judgment – the Dies Iræ – when all men shall appear before God to receive their doom.

But in that last day, when unbelievers shall be destroyed, the followers of the prophet shall be saved. They can go to the tribunal of their Maker without trembling. One day riding outside the walls of Constantinople, we approached a cemetery just as a funeral procession drew near, bearing the form of the dead. We stopped to witness the scene. The mourners gathered around the place where the body was laid, and then the ulema approached the grave, and began an address to the dead, telling her (it was a woman) not to be afraid when the angel came to call her to judgment, but to appear before the bar of the Almighty, and answer without fear, for that no follower of the prophet should perish.

The religious observances of the Moslems are very strict. As God is the sole object of worship, so the great act of Religion is communion with Him. Five times a day the voice of the muezzin calls them to prayer. The frequent ablutions were perhaps derived from the Jewish law. Fasting is imposed with a severity almost unknown in the Christian world. The most rigid Catholics hardly observe the forty days of Lent as the Moslems do the month of Ramadan. Almsgiving is not only recommended, but required. Every true believer is commanded to give one-tenth of his income to charity.

As to the moral results of Mohammedanism, it produces some excellent effects. It inculcates the strictest temperance. The Koran prohibits the use of wine, even though wine is one of the chief products of the East. In this virtue of total abstinence the Moslems are an example to Christians.

So in point of integrity; the honesty of the Turk is a proverb in the East, compared with the lying of Christians. Perhaps this comes in part not only from his religion, but from the fact that he belongs to the conquering race. Tyrants and masters do not need to deceive, while falsehood and deceit are the protection of slaves. Subject races, which have no defence before the law, or from cruel masters, seek it in subterfuge and deception. But this claim of integrity may be pushed too far. However it may be in Asia Minor, among simple-minded Turks, who have not been "spoiled by coming in contact with Christians," those who have to do with Turks in the bazaars of Constantinople, are compelled to confess, that if they do not tell lies, they tell very big truths. However, as between the Turk and the Greek, in point of honesty, it is quite possible that those who know them both would give the preëminence to the former.

Whatever the weakness of Mohammedanism, it does not show itself in that sort of vices. His very pride makes the Mussulman scorn these meaner sins. His religion, as it lifts him up with self-esteem, produces an effect on his outward bearing. He has an air of independence which is unmistakable. I think I never saw a Mussulman that was afraid to look me in the face. He has none of the sneaking servility that we see in some races. This is a natural consequence of his creed, according to which God is so great that no man is great in his sight. Islam is at once a theocracy and a democracy. God is sole Lawgiver and King, before whom all men stand on the same level. Hence men of all nations and races fraternize together. In Constantinople blacks and whites, the men of Circassia and the men of Ethiopia, walk arm in arm, and stand on the level of absolute equality.

This democratic spirit is carried everywhere. There is no caste in Islam, not even in India, where it is at perpetual war with the castes of Hindooism. So as it spreads in the interior of Africa, it raises the native tribes to a degree of manliness and self-respect which they had not known before. It "levels up" the African race. Our missionaries in Liberia, who come in contact with certain Moslem tribes from the interior, such as the Mandingoes, will testify that they are greatly superior to those farther South, on the Gold Coast, the Ashantees and the people of Dahomey, who have filled the world with horror by their human sacrifices. All this disappears before the advance of Islam. It breaks in pieces the idols; it destroys devil worship and fetichism and witchcraft, and puts an end to human sacrifices. Thus it renders a service to humanity and civilization.

So far Islam is a pretty good religion – not so good indeed as Christianity, but better than any form of Paganism. It has many elements of truth, derived chiefly from Judaism. So far as Mohammed followed Moses – so far as the Koran followed the Old Testament – they uttered only the truth, and truth which was fundamental. The unity of God is the foundation of religion. It is not only a truth, but the greatest of truths, the first condition of any right religious worship. In declaring this, Mohammed only proclaimed to the Arabs what Moses had proclaimed to the Hebrews: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." But he repeated it with great vehemence and effect, wielding it as a battle-axe to break in pieces the idols of the heathen. And so far – as against idolatry – Islam has served a great purpose in history. But there its utility ends. It teaches indeed that there is but one God. But what a God is that which it presents to our worship! "This God is not our God." The Mohammedan idea of God is very different from the Christian idea of a Father in heaven. It is the idea of the Awful, the Invisible – grand indeed, yet cold and distant and far away, like the stars on the desert, or in the Arctic night, "wildly, spiritually bright," shining with a glittering splendor, but lofty and inaccessible, beyond the cries of human agony or despair. This view of God is so limited and partial as to produce the effect of positive error. In a just religious system there must be included the two ideas of God and man; and these in their proper relation to each other. Exclusive contemplation of either leads astray. When man fastens on the idea of one God, he plants himself on a rock. But he must not bow himself upon the rock, and clasp it so as to forget his own separate individuality, lest the mighty stone roll over upon him and crush him. This the Mussulman does. He dwells so on the idea of God, that his own existence is not only lost sight of, but annihilated. The mind, subdued in awe, is at length overpowered by what it beholds. Man is nothing in that awful presence, as his life is but a point in the Divine eternity.

It cannot be denied that the idea of God, and God alone, may produce some grand effects on human character. It inspires courage. If God be for us, who can be against us? That God is for him, the Mussulman never doubts; and this confidence inspires him in danger, and on the field of battle, so that he fights with desperation. But if the fortune of war be against him, who so well as the devout Mussulman knows how to suffer and to die? He murmurs not; but bows his head, saying "God is great," and submits to his fate. Thus his creed carried out to its logical consequence ends in fatalism. He believes so absolutely in God, that the decrees of the Almighty become a fixed fate, which the will of man is impotent to resist. All this comes from an imperfect idea of God. Here Islam is defective, just where Christianity is complete.

There is nothing in Mohammedanism that brings God down to earth, within the range of human sympathy or even of human conception. There is no incarnation, no Son of God coming to dwell among men, hungry and weary, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, suffering in the garden, and dying on the cross.

The Mussulman does not feel his need of such help. In his prayers there is no acknowledgment of sin, no feeling of penitence, no confession of unworthiness. He knows not how poor and weak he is, with a religion in which there is no Saviour and Redeemer, no Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, no Holy Spirit to help our infirmities, to strengthen our weaknesses.

So with Moslem morality; if we scan it closely, we find it wanting in many virtues. Some writers give the most elevated ideas of it. Says Chambers' Cyclopædia: "Aside from the domestic relations, the ethics of the Mohammedan religion are of the highest order. Pride, calumny, revenge, avarice, prodigality, and debauchery, are condemned throughout the Koran; while trust in God, submission to His will, patience, modesty, forbearance, love of peace, sincerity, frugality, benevolence, liberality, are everywhere insisted upon."

This is very high praise. But mark the exception: "Aside from the domestic relations." That exception takes out of the system a whole class of virtues, and puts a class of vices in their place. Here is the great crime of Islam against humanity – its treatment of woman. We will not charge against it more than belongs to it. The seclusion of woman is not a Mohammedan custom so much as an Oriental one, and one of a very ancient date. When Abraham sent a servant to find a wife for Isaac, and he returned bringing Rebekah, as the caravan drew near home, and Isaac went out to meditate at eventide, as soon as Rebekah saw him in the distance, she lighted off from her camel and "veiled herself." Polygamy too existed before Mohammed: it existed among the patriarchs. It is claimed that Mohammed repressed it, limiting a man to four wives, although he far exceeded the number himself. Gibbon, who never misses an opportunity of making a point against the Bible, says: "If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives." But this pretence of self-restraint is a mockery. It is notorious that Mohammed was a man of the grossest licentiousness; and the horrible and disgusting thing about it is that he grew more wicked as he grew older; and while trying to put restraint upon others put none upon himself. He punished licentiousness with a hundred stripes, and adultery with death, and yet he was a man of unbounded profligacy, and to make it worse, pleaded a Divine revelation to justify it!

This example of the prophet has had its influence on all the generations of his followers. It has trailed the slime of the serpent over them all. Any one who has been in a Mohammedan country must have felt that the position of woman is a degradation. One cannot see them gliding through the streets of Cairo or Constantinople, with their faces veiled as if it were a shame to look on them, and passing swiftly as if indeed it were a sin for them to be seen abroad, without a feeling of pity and indignation.

And in what a position are such women at home, if it can be called a home, where there is no family, no true domestic life! The wife of a Mohammedan – the mother of his children – is little better than a slave. She is never presented to his friends – indeed you could not offer a greater insult to a Turk than to ask after his wife! Of course there is no such thing as society where women are not allowed to appear. Such a society as that of London or Paris, composed of men eminent in government, in science and literature – a society refined and elevated by the presence of women of such education and manners and knowledge of the world as to be the fit companions of such men – could not possibly exist in Constantinople.

But the degradation of woman is not the only crime to be charged to Islam. In fit companionship with it is cruelty. Mohammed had many virtues, but he had no mercy. He was implacable toward his enemies. He massacred his prisoners, not from hard necessity, but with a fierce delight. Fanaticism extinguished natural compassion, and he put his enemies to death with savage joy. In this his followers have "bettered his instructions." The Turks are cruel, perhaps partly by nature, but partly also because any tender sympathies of nature are kept down by a fiery zeal. Their religion does not make them merciful. When a people have become possessed with the idea that they are the people of God, and that others are outcasts, they become insensible to the sufferings of those outside of the consecrated pale.

In the Greek Revolution the people of Scio joined in the rebellion. A Turkish army landed on the island, and in two months put 23,000 of the inhabitants to the sword, without distinction of age or sex; 47,000 were sold into slavery, and 5,000 escaped to Greece. In four months the Christian population was reduced from 104,000 to 2,000.

What the Turks are in Europe and Asia, the Arabs are in Africa. The spread of Mohammedanism is a partial civilization of some heathen tribes. But, alas, the poor natives come in contact with "civilization" and "religion" in another way – in the Arab slave-hunters, who, though they are Mohammedans, and devoutly pray toward Mecca, are the most merciless of human beings. One cannot read the pages of Livingstone without a shudder at the barbarities practised on defenceless natives, which have spread terror and desolation over a large part of the interior of Africa.

These cruel memories rise up to spoil the poetry and romance which some modern writers have thrown about the religion of the prophet. They disturb my musings, when awed or touched by some features of Moslem faith; when I listen to the worship in St. Sophia, or witness the departure of pilgrims for Mecca. Whatever Oriental pomp or splendor may still survive in its ancient worship, at its heart the system is cold, and hard, and cruel; it does not acknowledge the brotherhood of man, but exalts the followers of the prophet into a caste, who can look down on the rest of mankind with ineffable scorn. Outside of that pale, man is not a brother, but an enemy – an enemy not to be won by love, but to be conquered and subdued, to be made a convert or a slave. Not only does the Koran not bid mercy to be shown to unbelievers, but it offers them, as the only alternatives, conversion, or slavery, or death.

Needs it any argument to show how impossible is good government under a creed in which there is no recognition of justice and equality? I think it is Macaulay who says that the worst Christian government is better than the best Mohammedan government. Wherever that religion exists, there follow inevitably despotism and slavery, by which it crushes man, as by its polygamy and organized licentiousness, it degrades and crushes woman. Polygamy, despotism, and slavery form the trinity of woes which Mohammedanism has caused to weigh for ages, like a nightmare, on the whole Eastern world. Such a system is as incompatible with civilization as with Christianity, and sooner or later must pass away, unless the human race is to come to a standstill, or to go backward.

But when and how? I am not sanguine of any speedy change. Such changes come slowly. We expect too much and too soon. In an age of progress we think that all forms of ignorance and superstition must disappear before the advance of civilization. But the vis inertiæ opposes a steady resistance. It has been well said, "We are told that knowledge is power, but who has considered the power of ignorance?" How long it lives and how hard it dies! We hear much of the "waning crescent," but it wanes very slowly, and it sometimes seems as if the earth itself would grow old and perish before that waning orb would disappear from the heavens. Christian Missions make no more impression upon Islam than the winds of the desert upon the cliffs of Mount Sinai.

I do not look for any great change in the Mohammedan world, except in the train of political changes. That religion is so bound up with political power, that until that is destroyed, or terribly shaken, there is little hope of a general turning to a better faith. War and Revolution are the fiery chariots that must go before the Gospel, to herald its coming and prepare its way. Material forces may open the door to moral influences; the doctrines of human freedom and of human brotherhood may be preached on battle plains as well as in Christian temples. When the hard iron crust of Islam is broken up, and the elements begin to melt with fervent heat, the Eastern world may be moulded into new forms. Then will the Oriental mind be brought into an impressible state, in which argument and persuasion can act upon it; and it may yield to the combined influence of civilization and Christianity. The change will be slow. It will take years; it may take centuries. But sooner or later the fountains of the great deep will be broken up. That cold, relentless system must pass away before the light and warmth of that milder faith which recognizes at once the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.

In that coming age there may be other pilgrimages and processions going up out of Egypt. "The dromedaries shall come from far." But then, if a caravan of pilgrims issues from Cairo, to cross the desert, to seek the birthplace of the founder of its religion, it will not turn South to Mecca, but North to Bethlehem, asking with the Magi of old, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him."