THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
THE 
 
 SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION AND 
 IDEALS OF ISLAM 
 
 WITH A LIFE OF THE PROPHET 
 BY 
 
 AMEER ALI, SYED, P.G., LL.D., D.L., CLE. 
 
 MEMBER OF THE JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'A SHORT HISTORY OF THE SARACENS ' 
 
 'MOHAMMEDAN LAW,' ETC. 
 
 " What matters it whether the words thou utterest in 
 prayer are Hebrew or Syrian, or whether the place in 
 which thou seekest God is JiLbalka or Jabalsa." — Samit 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHRISTOPHERS 
 
 22 BERNERS STREET, W. 
 
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 FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM HIS LATE MAJESTY, NASIK-UD-DIN SHAH 
 
TO MY WIFE 
 
 i)UlVJ 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN the following pages I have attempted to give the history 
 of the evolution of Islam as a world-religion ; of its rapid 
 spread and the remarkable hold it obtained over the con- 
 science and minds of millions of people within a short space of 
 time. The impulse it gave to the intellectual development of 
 the human race is generally recognised. But its great work in 
 the uplifting of humanity is either ignored or not appreciated ; 
 nor are its rationale, its ideals and its aspirations properly 
 understood. It has been my endeavour in the survey of 
 Islam to elucidate its true place in the history of religions. 
 The review of its rationale and ideals, however feeble, may be 
 of help to wanderers in quest of a constructive faith to steady 
 the human mind after the strain of the recent cataclysm ; it 
 is also hoped that to those who follow the Faith of Islam it 
 may be of assistance in the understanding and exposition of 
 the foundations of their convictions. 
 
 My outline of the life and ministry of the Prophet is based 
 on the Sirat-ur-Rasul of Ibn Hisham, who died in 213 a.h. 
 (828-9 A.c), barely two hundred years after the death of the 
 Prophet, supplemented by, among other works, Ibn ul-Athir's 
 monumental history, the Chronicles of Tabari, the Insdn 
 ul-'Uyun of al-Halabi (commonly known as Sirat-ul-Halabia). 
 Two new chapters have been added in this edition : one on 
 the Imdmate (" The Apostolical Succession "), the other 
 on " The Idealistic and Mystical Spirit in Islam." Considerable 
 new matter has also been included in the Introduction and 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 Chapter X., Part II. I take this opportunity of expressing 
 my gratitude to my esteemed friend, Professor E. G. Browne 
 of Cambridge, one of our foremost Orientalists, for his most 
 valuable criticisms on the last chapter, and to Mr. Mohammed 
 Iqbal, Government of India Research Scholar at Cambridge, 
 for his careful revision of the proofs and the compilation of 
 the Index. I also desire to express my acknowledgments to 
 Mr. Abdul Qayum Malik for transcribing for the Printers the 
 Arabic quotations for the new chapters and verifying the 
 Koranic references, and to the Publishers for their unvarying 
 courtesy and patience over a difficult publication. 
 
 The work has been carried through the Press under heavy 
 pressure of public duties, and I claim, on that ground, the 
 indulgence of my readers for any mistake that may have passed 
 uncorrected. 
 
 N.B. — A few words are necessary to explain the system of translitera- 
 tion adopted in this work. I have tried to adhere with small modification 
 to the system I have pursued in my previous publications. The letter 
 Cj (pronounced by the Arab with a lisp like th in thin) to a non-Arab 
 conveys a sound almost identical with s in sin, and he accordingly 
 pronounces it as such. Nor, unless an Arabic scholar, does he perceive 
 any difference between d> and stn or ^o (sdd). He pronounces 
 them all alike. Similarly i (zal), j (Zay), lyJ h {Zad — pronounced 
 by the Arab something like dhad), and ]b [zoi), convey to the non- 
 Arab almost identical sounds ; certainly he cannot help pronouncing 
 them identically. He also perceives no difference between y^, (soft /) 
 and As (toi), or between the hard aspirate _, (in Ahmed, Mohammed, 
 Mahmud, etc.) and the softer used in Harun. I have therefore not 
 attempted to differentiate these letters by dots or commas, which, 
 however useful for purposes of translation into Arabic, Persian, Turkish 
 or Urdu, is only bewildering to the general reader unacquainted with the 
 Arabic alphabet and pronunciation. I have given the words as commonly 
 pronounced by non- Arabs. In the case of words spelt with a o in 
 common use in India and Persia such as hadis, masnavi, Isna-'asharia, 
 etc., I have not considered it necessary to denote the Arabic pro- 
 nunciation with a ih. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 The ordinary fat ha I have represented by a (pronounced as u in ' cut ' 
 or ' but '), excepting in such words as are now commonly written in 
 English with an e, as Seljuk (pronounced Saljuk), Merwan (pronounced 
 Marwan), etc. ; the ordinary zamma by u pronounced like u in ' pull,' 
 or in Buldan ; the ordinary kasra with the letter i, as in Misr. Aliph 
 with the fatha is represented by a, as in ' had ' ; Aliph with the zamma, 
 by m as in Abdul-Muttalib ; with a kasva by i as in Ibn Abi'l Jawari. 
 Waw (with a zamma) by o and sometimes by 6. Although like Kufa 
 and several other words, the last syllables in Mahmud, Harun and 
 Mamun are spelt with a waw, to have represented them by an o or 6 
 would have conveyed a wholly wrong notion of the pronunciation, 
 which is like oo ; I have, therefore, used u to represent waw in such 
 words. Waw with a. fatha I have represented by an, as in Maudud. 
 Ya with a kasra, when used in the middle of a word, I have represented 
 by i, as in Arish. But in Ameer I have kept the classical and time 
 honoured ee. Ya with a fatha, similarly situated by ai as in Zaid. Ya 
 with a fatha at the beginning of a word is represented by ye, as in 
 Yezid ; with a zamma by yu, as in Yusuf. Excepting such names 
 as are commonly known to be spelt with an 'ain (c), as Abd in Abdul 
 Malik, Abdur Rahman, Arab, Abbas, Aziz, Irak, etc., I have used the 
 inverted comma to denote that letter. 
 
 With regard to names which have become familiar in certain garbs 
 I have made no alteration, such as Kaaba, Omar, Abdullah, Basra, 
 spelt with a sdd, etc. Ghain (c ) is represented by gh ; but I 
 have not attempted to differentiate between i») and jj, and made 
 no alteration in the time honoured spelling of the Koran. The com- 
 mon g (the Persian gdf) and p have no place in the Arabic alphabet, 
 and therefore the Persian g and p are transformed in Arabic into j or 
 ft and b or ph [f), as in Atabek and Isfahan. ^ is represented by 
 kh. 
 
 The / of at when occurring before certain letters (technically called 
 shamsUh) is assimilated with them in sound, as ash-Shams, ad-din, 
 ar-Riza, as-Salat, etc. I have used the word " Moslem " in preference 
 to " Muslim," as most Europeans unacquainted with Arabic pronounce 
 the " u " in " Muslim " as in public. 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The continuity of religious development — Bactiia (Balkh) supposed 
 to be the original seat of the human race — Dispersion of the races — 
 Fetishism and Pantheism — The Eastern and Western Aryans — The 
 Assyrians — Babylon and the Jews — Hinduism — Zoroastrianism 
 — The Cult of Isis and of Mythra — Judaism — Christianity — 
 Gnosticism — Manich^ism — Degradation of the earlier creeds — 
 The tribes of Arabia, their origin, their diversity of culture and 
 religious conceptions— Idolatry among the Arabs — The folk-lore 
 of Arabia — The advent of Mohammed, a necessity of religious 
 development^ ---------- 
 
 PART I 
 THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF THE PROPHET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MOHAMMED THE PROPHET 
 
 Mecca, its foundations — Kossay, his descendants — Abdul Muttalib 
 — The Meccan decemvirs — The Abyssinian invasion — The Era of 
 the Elephant — The biith of Mohammed — 'Okaz — The depravity 
 of the Arabs — Mohammed's marriage — Formation of the League 
 of the Fuziil — Mohammed's designation of Al-Amin — The period 
 of probation, of communion, of inspiration — Commencement of 
 the Ministry — Persecution by the Koreish — Moral evidences of 
 Mohammed's Mission — Koreishite hostility — The year of mourning I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 Visit to Tayef — Ill-treatment — Return to Mecca — First pledge of 
 'Akaba — Vision of the Ascension — Second pledge of 'Akaba — The 
 days of persecution — The departure for Medina (the Hegira) - 41 
 s.i. xi b 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PROPHET AT MEDINA 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Erection of the first Mosque in Islam — The preachings of the Prophet 
 
 — His personality ---____ --5! 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOSTILITY OF THE KOREISH AND THE JEWS 
 
 Three parties in Medina — Moslems, Mun&fikin, Jews — The charter 
 of the Prophet — Attack by the Koreish — Battle of Badr — Victory 
 of Islam — Ideas regarding angels in Islam and in Christianity - 56 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INVASION OF MEDINA 
 
 Battle of Ohod — Defeat of the Moslems — Barbarities of the Koreish — 
 Jewish treachery — The Bani-Kainuka', their expulsion — The 
 Bani Nazir, their banishment — Coalition against the Moslems 
 — Beleagurement of Medina — Bani-Kuraizha, their defection — 
 Success of the Moslems — Punishment of the Kuraizha - - 66 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PROPHET'S CLEMENCY 
 
 Charter granted to the monks of St. Catherine — Cruelty prohibited — 
 Peace of Hudaibiya — The Prophet's message to Heraclius and 
 Parviz — Murder of the Moslem envoy by the Christians - - 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH 
 
 Continued hostility of the Jews — Expedition against Khaibar — The 
 Jews sue for forgiveness — Pilgrimage of Accomplishment — 
 Violation by the Meccans of the Treaty of Hudaibiya — Fall of 
 Mecca — Treatment of the Meccans — Diffusion of the Faith - - 92 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS 
 
 Deputations to Medina — Apprehension of a Greek Invasion — Ex- 
 pedition to Tabuk — Conversion of Orwa — His martyrdom — The 
 Bani Tay, their conversion — Adoption of the Faith by Ka*b 
 Ibn-Zuhair — His eulogium of the Prophet — Idolaters prohibited 
 from visiting the Kaaba - - - - - - - -101 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHET'S WORK 
 
 PAGES 
 
 His superiority over his predecessors — His appeal to reason — His 
 Sermon on the Mount — Instructions to the governors — The false 
 prophets — Last illness of the Prophet ; his death — His character - 109 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 
 
 The Imamate — The Sunni doctrine of the Caliphate — The title of the 
 
 Osmanli Sultans to the Caliphate- ...... 122 
 
 PART II 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 
 
 Islam, its signification — The ethical principles of Islam — Idea of God- 
 head among the different religionists of the world — Mariolatry 
 and Christolatry — Modern idealistic Christianity — Koranic con- 
 ception of God — Primary aim of the new dispensation — Its morality 137 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Its practical duties — Conception of prayer — Among the Mago-Zoro- 
 astrians and Sabeans, Jews, Christians — Islamic conception of 
 prayer — Of moral purity — Institution of fasting — Of pilgrimage 
 to Mecca — Their raison d'etre — Intoxication and gambling for- 
 bidden — Ethical code of Islam, its disciplinary rules — The Islam 
 of Mohammed, its aims and aspirations — Faith and Charity — 
 Reprobation of hypocrisy and falsehood— No difference between 
 true Christianity and true Islam — Reason of their present diverg- 
 ence — Defects of modern Mohammedanism - - - - 159 
 Sumptuary regulations of Mohammed (Note I.) - - - 187 
 
 CHAPTER III • 
 
 THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 
 
 The idea of a future existence, result of development — The idea of 
 future existence among the Egyptians, the Jews, the Zoroastrians 
 ■ — The Jewish belief in a personal Messiah — Real origin of this 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 belief — Character of the Christian traditions — Strongly-developed 
 idea of an immediate kingdom of heaven in the mind of Jesus and 
 the early disciples — Paradise and Hell, according to the traditional 
 words of Jesus — The millenarian dream — How it has died away 
 — The Islamic conception of a future existence — The parabolic 
 character of many verses of the Koran — Progressive development 
 a necessity of human nature — The Koranic conception of present 
 and future happiness -- -- 
 
 188 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 
 
 Its wars purely defensive — Toleration in Islam — Intolerance of the 
 Jews, Christians, Mago-Zoroastrians and Hindus — Islam opposed 
 to isolation and exclusiveness — Wars of Islam after the Prophet — 
 The capture of Jerusalem by the Moslems compared with its 
 capture by the Crusaders 204 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 
 
 Polygamy, its origin — Practised by all the nations of antiquity — Poly- 
 gamy among the Christians — Opinion of St. Augustine and the 
 German reformers — Polygamy among the Arabs and the Jews — 
 The Prophet's regulations — Monogamy, result of development — 
 Compatibility of the Koranic rule with eveiy stage of develop- 
 ment — Mohammed's marriages examined — Status of women in 
 early Christianity — Conception of Jesus about marriage — Divorce 
 among the Romans and the Jews — Among the Christians — 
 Regulations of the Prophet on the subject — Concubinage forbidden 
 — Custom of female seclusion — Idealisation of womanhood — 
 Prophecy and chivalry, offspring of the desert — The women of 
 Islam — Improvement effected by the Prophet in the status of 
 women ------_.__. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BONDAGE IN ISLAM 
 
 Slavery existed among all ancient nations — Position of slaves among the 
 Romans and the Jews — Slavery among the Christians — Regulations 
 of the Prophet about slavery — Slavery abhorrent to Islam - - 258 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Degraded conditions of humanity at the time of the Prophet's advent 
 — Serfdom and villeinage — Absence of human liberty and equality 
 — Intolerance of Christianity — The Charter of Mohammed — The 
 
CONTENTS xv 
 
 message of the Prophet to the Christians of Najran — The char- paces 
 acter of the early Republic — Administration of the Caliphs Abu 
 Bakr and Omar — Equality of men inculcated by Islam — Spain 
 under the Arabs - - 268 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM 
 
 Owed their origin to clannic and desert-feuds, fostered by dynastic 
 disputes — Osman's partiality for the Ommeyyades — His death — 
 Accession of Ali — Revolt of Mu'awiyah — The battle of Siffin — The 
 arbitrament of Amr ibn-ul-'As and Abu Musa al-Asha'ri — Assas- 
 sination of Ali — The usurpation of Mu'awiyah — The butchery of 
 Kerbela — The triumph of paganism — The sack of Medina — The 
 rise of the Abbasides — The origin of the Sunni Church — Mamun — 
 The question of the Imamate — Shiahism — Sunnism — The principal 
 Shiah sects— The Zaidias — The Isma'ilias — The Isnd-'asharias 
 ■ — -The Paulicians — The doctrine of Abdullah ibn-Maimun al- 
 Kaddah — The Grand Lodge of Cairo — The assassins of Alamut 
 — The Isna-'Asharias divided into UsMis and Akhbdris, their 
 respective doctrines— The Sunnis divided into Hanafis, Mdlikis, 
 Shdfeis, and Hanbalfc — The Khdrijis — Bdbism - 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 The Arabian Prophet's devotion to knowledge and science — His precepts 
 —The Caliph Ali's sayings — Learning and arts among the primi- 
 tive Moslems — The school of Medina — Imam Ja'far as-Sadik 
 — The foundation of Bagdad — Mamun, the Augustus of the 
 Saracens — Al-Mu'iz li-din-illah — The Ddr-ul-Hikmat of Cairo — 
 Astronomy and mathematics among the Arabs — Architecture — 
 History — Poetry — The Koran — The intellectual achievements of 
 the Moslems — Their present stagnation, its causes — the terrible 
 destruction committed by the Tartars — the result of the Crusades 
 — The Usbegs and Afghans -------- 360 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 
 OF ISLAM 
 
 The Koranic teachings about free-will and divine government — The 
 Prophet's sayings — The exposition of the Caliph Ali and of the 
 early descendants of the Prophet — The Jabarias or predestinarians 
 — The Sifdtias — The Mu'tazilas— Mu'tazilaism the same as the 
 teachings of the philosophers of the family of the Prophet— Ration- 
 alism in Islam — The reign of Mamun — Philosophy among the 
 Moslems — Avicenna and Averroes — The fall of rationalism and 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 philosophy in Islam — Its causes — Mutawakkil — His alliance pages 
 with patristicism — The triumph of patristicism — Abu'l Hassan 
 Ali al-Asha'ri — His retrogressive teachings — Abu Hanifa, Malik 
 Shafe'i, and Ibn Hanbal — Ilm-ul-Kaldm — The Ikhwan us-Safa. 
 (" The Brethren of Purity ") — Their teachings - 403 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IDEALISTIC AND MYSTICAL SPIRIT IN ISLAM 
 
 Its origin traceable to the Prophet — The Koranic ideas — The Caliph 
 Ali's Enunciation— Neo-Platonism — The Early Mystics — Imam at 
 Ghazzali — His life and work — The Later Mystics — The Brother- 
 hoods and Lodges — Moslem Idealism 455 
 
 Appendices .... - 479 
 
 General Index - 499 
 
 Bibliographical Index 513 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 
 la* -t i* 
 
 
 J<*J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;<i *j jib 
 
 
 THE continuity of religious progress among mankind 
 is a subject of enthralling interest to the student 
 of humanity. The gradual awakening of the human 
 mind to the recognition of a Personality, of a Supreme Will 
 overshadowing the universe ; the travails through which 
 individuals and races have passed before they arrived at 
 the conception of an Universal Soul pervading, regulating, 
 and guiding all existence, — furnish lessons of the deepest 
 import. The process by which humanity has been lifted 
 from the adoration of material objects to the worship of 
 God, has often been retarded. Masses of mankind and 
 individuals have broken away from the stream of progress, 
 have listened to the promptings of their own desires, have 
 given way to the cravings of their own hearts ; they have gone 
 back to the worship of their passions, symbolised in the idols 
 of their infancy. But though unheard, the voice of God has 
 always sounded the call to truth, and when the time has 
 arrived His servants have risen to proclaim the duties of man to 
 himself and to his Creator. These men have been the veritable 
 
xviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 " messengers of Heaven." They came among their people 
 as the children of their time ; they represented the burning 
 aspirations of the human soul for truth, purity, and justice. 
 Each was an embodiment of the spiritual necessities of his 
 age ; each came to purify, to reform, to elevate a degraded 
 race, a corrupted commonwealth. Some came as teachers of 
 a smaller culture, to influence a smaller sphere ; others came 
 with a world-wide message — a message not confined to one race 
 or nation, but intended for all humanity. Such was 
 Mohammed. His mission was not to the Arabs alone. He 
 was not sent for one age or clime, but " for all mankind to the 
 end of the world." The advent of this great Teacher, whose 
 life from the moment of his Ministry is a verifiable record, was 
 not a mere accident, an unconnected episode in the history 
 of the world. The same causes, the same crying evils, the same 
 earnest demand for an " assured trust " in an all-pervading 
 Power, which led to the appearance on the shores of Galilee, 
 in the reign of Augustus Caesar, of a Prophet whose life is a 
 tragedy, operated with greater force in the seventh century 
 of the Christian era. The beginning of the seventh century, 
 as has been rightly said, was an epoch of disintegration" — 
 national, social, and religious : its phenomena were such as 
 have always involved a fresh form of positive faith, to recall 
 all wandering forces to the inevitable track of spiritual evolution 
 "towards the integration of personal worship." They all pointed 
 to the necessity of a more organic revelation of divine govern- 
 ment than that attained by Judaism or Christianity. The holy 
 flames kindled by Zoroaster, Moses, and Jesus had been 
 quenched in the blood of man. A corrupt Zoroastrianism, 
 battling for centuries with a still more corrupt Christianity, 
 had stifled the voice of humanity, and converted some of the 
 happiest portions of the globe into a veritable Aceldama. 
 Incessant war for supremacy, perpetual internecine strife, 
 combined with the ceaseless wrangling of creeds and sects, 
 had sucked the life-blood out of the hearts of nations, and the 
 people of the earth, trodden under the iron heels of a lifeless 
 sacerdotalism, were crying to God from the misdeeds of their 
 masters. Never in the history of the world was the need so 
 great, the time so ripe, for the appearance of a Deliverer. In 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 order, therefore, to appreciate thoroughly the achievement 
 of Mohammed in the moral world, it is necessary to take a 
 rapid survey of the religious and social condition of the nations 
 of the earth previous to, and about the time of, the Islamic 
 Dispensation. 
 
 The high table-land of Bactria, appropriately styled by Arab 
 geographers Umm ul-Bildd, or " mother of countries," is 
 supposed to be the cradle of humanity, the original birth-place 
 of creeds and nations. Through the faint and shadowy light, 
 which comparative ethnology throws on the infancy of man- 
 kind, we perceive groups of families congregated in this primeval 
 home of the human race, gradually coalescing into clans and 
 tribes, and then forced by the pressure of increasing popula- 
 tion, issuing in successive waves to people the face of the 
 globe. The Hamitic branch were apparently the first to 
 leave their ancient habitations. They were followed by the 
 Turanians, or, as they are sometimes called, the Ugro-Finnish 
 tribes, supposed to be an offshot of the Japhetic family. Some 
 of them apparently proceeded northwards, and then spreading 
 themselves in the East, founded the present Mongolian branch 
 of the human race. Another section proceeded westward 
 and settled in Azarbaijan, Hamadan, and Ghilan, countries 
 to the south and south-west of the Caspian, better known in 
 ancient history as Media. A portion of these descending 
 afterwards into the fertile plains of Babylonia, enslaved the 
 earlier Hamitic colonies, and in course of time amalgamating 
 with them, formed the Accadian nation, the Kushites of the 
 Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This composite race created 
 Babylon, and gave birth to a form of religion which, in its 
 higher phases, was akin to natural pantheism. In its lower 
 phases, with its pan-dsemonism, its worship of the sun-gods 
 and moon-gods, closely associated with the phallic cult and 
 the sexual instincts, the sacrifice of children to Baal and 
 Moloch, of virginity to Beltis and Ashtoreth, it marks an 
 epoch when high material civilisation was allied to gross 
 licentiousness, and cruelty was sanctioned by religion. 
 
 The Semites were the next to leave the primeval home. 
 They also, following in the footsteps of the Turanians, migrated 
 towards the West, and apparently settled themselves in the 
 
xx THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 northern part of the Mesopotamian Delta. Increasing in 
 numbers and strength, they soon overthrew the Babylonian 
 kingdom, and founded a far-reaching empire which wielded 
 its sway over all the neighbouring States. In their seat of 
 power between the two great rivers of Western Asia, the 
 Assyrians at times rose to a positive monotheistic conception. 
 Their system of celestial hierarchy furnishes indications of a 
 distinct recognition of one Supreme Personality. 
 
 Whilst the main body of the Semitic colony was developing 
 itself in the upper parts of the Delta, a small section had 
 penetrated far into a district called Ur, within the boundaries 
 of the Chaldaean monarchy. 1 The patriarch of this tribe, whose 
 self-imposed exile and wanderings have passed into the religious 
 legends of more than one creed, became the father of the 
 future makers of history. 2 
 
 The Japhetic family seems to have tarried longest in its 
 ancient habitation. Whilst the other races, which had broken 
 away from the original stock, were forming empires and evolving 
 creeds, the Japhetic branch underwent a development peculiar 
 to itself. But the march of nations once set on foot was 
 never to cease ; actuated by that spirit of unrest which works 
 in barbarous tribes, or influenced by the pressure of population 
 and the scarcity of space in their old haunts for the pursuit 
 of their pastoral avocations, tribe after tribe moved away 
 towards the West. Among the first were the Pelasgians and 
 the Celts. Other tribes followed, until the Aryans proper 
 were left alone in the old haunts. One section apparently 
 had its abode near Badakhshan, the other towards Balkh 
 proper, where for centuries they lived almost isolated from 
 the neighbouring nations, unaffected by their wars or their 
 movements. The light of history which has dawned on the 
 Western races, the founders of kingdoms and civilisations, also 
 falls upon these ancient dwellers of the earth, and reveals, 
 though indistinctly and as through a mist, several clans 
 gathered together on that plateau ; just emerged from 
 
 1 Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, p. 23. 
 
 2 In the Arabian traditions the father of Abraham is called Azar, which is 
 evidently the same as Asshur ; and the beautiful idols of Azar are frequently 
 referred to in Moslem literature. These traditions confirm the belief that 
 Abraham was of Assyrian origin. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 savageness into barbarism, they are becoming alive to the sense 
 of an Universal Ideality. Innumerable idealities are taking the 
 place of the natural objects, hitherto worshipped with fear and 
 trembling. With some of them the host of abstractions and 
 personifications of the powers of nature are subordinated to 
 two comprehensive principles — Light and Darkness. The 
 sun, the bright harbinger of life and light, becomes the symbol 
 of a beneficent Divinity, whose power, though held in check, 
 is eventually to conquer the opposing principle of Evil and 
 Darkness. With others, the idealities which they now impress 
 on the fetish they worshipped before, merge in each other ; 
 at one time standing forth as distinct personal entities, at 
 another time resolving themselves into a hylozoic whole. 
 Gradually the clouds lift, and we see the tribal and clan- 
 formations giving way to monarchical institutions ; agriculture 
 taking by slow degrees the place of pastoral avocations ; 
 primitive arts being cultivated ; the use of metals gaining 
 ground, and, above all, the higher conception of a Supreme 
 Personality forcing itself upon the yet unopened mind. 
 Kaiumurs, Hoshang, and the other old kings of whom Firdousi 
 sings with such wondrous power, are types of an advancing 
 civilisation. The introduction of the monarchical institutions 
 among the Aryans proper seems to be coeval with that religious 
 conflict between the two branches of the Aryan family which 
 led to the expulsion of the Eastern branch from their Bactrian 
 home. A powerful religious revolution had been inaugurated 
 among the Western Aryans by a teacher whose name has been 
 preserved in the literature of his religion as Citama Zarathustra. 
 The sharp religious conflict, which resulted from this move- 
 ment, has left its mark in the deep imprecations heaped by 
 the Vedic hymn-singers on the enemy of their race and creed, 
 the Djaradashti of the Vedas. The attitude of the Vedic 
 hymn-singers towards the reformed faith, even more than the 
 extraordinary coincidence in names, furnishes the strongest 
 proof that the religious divergence was the immediate cause 
 of the split between the two branches of the Aryans proper. 
 In this, probably the first religious war waged among man- 
 kind, the Western dualistic clans were successful in driving 
 their half-polytheistic, half-pantheistic brethren across the 
 
xxii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Paropamisadae. The Eastern Aryans burst into India, driving 
 before them the earlier black races, massacring and enslaving 
 them, treating them always as inferior beings, Dasyus and 
 Sudras, slaves and serfs. The difference between the Vedic 
 and the Zoroastrian religions was, however, purely relative. 
 Zoroastrianism substituted for the worship of the phenomena, 
 the adoration of the cause. It converted the gods of the 
 Vedas into demons and the deva-worshippers into infidels ; 
 whilst the Vedic hymn-singer, on his side, called the Ahura of 
 the Avesta an evil god, an Asura, a power hostile to the gods, 
 and heaped burning maledictions on the head of Djaradashti. 
 
 Whilst the place and time of the early Zoroaster's birth 
 are enwrapt in mystery, under Darius Hystaspes arose another 
 teacher, who, under the same name, revived, organised, and 
 enlarged the basis of the ancient teachings. 
 
 Retracing our steps for a moment, we see the tide of Aryan 
 conquest in India flowing eastward and southward for centuries. 
 The old Aryan religion, which the invaders had brought from 
 their ancient homes, consisted chiefly in the worship of the 
 manes and the adoration of the powers of Nature symbolised 
 in visible phenomena. In the land of the Five Rivers the 
 spiritual conception developed further ; we can read in the 
 Vedas the march of progress until we arrive at the zenith 
 of Hindu religious ideas in the Upanishads, which often in the 
 intensity of spiritual yearning approach the highest monotheism. 
 The Upanishads dwell not only on the immanence of God, a 
 conception which gave birth in later times to the material 
 pantheism of India ; but also teach that the Supreme Spirit 
 is the protector of all beings and sovereign over all creation, 
 that he dwells in the hearts of men, and finally absorbs the 
 individual soul in infinity " as the ocean absorbs the river " ; 
 when that absorption takes place the human soul loses all 
 consciousness of its experience in the earthly frame. But 
 these interesting records of human progress contained within 
 themselves unquestioned germs of spiritual decadence which 
 soon reversed the process of evolution ; and thus instead of 
 observing a further uplifting, we see a progressive declension. 
 The Upanishads make way for the Puranic cults, which again 
 succumb to the power of the Tantric worship. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 The idea to which the Upanishads frequently give expression 
 that the Supreme Spirit manifests Himself in various forms 
 gave rise to the conception of the Avatars or incarnations. 
 Just as in the Western pagan world philosophy failed to satisfy 
 the craving of the popular mind for a personal God who had 
 dwelt among mankind and held familiar discourse with them, 
 the theistic aspirations of the Upanishads did not appeal to 
 the heart or touch the emotions of the masses of India. And a 
 hero-god was soon found in a member of the warrior caste, 
 who came before long to be identified with the Supreme Spirit 
 and to be regarded in his earthly existence as an incarnate 
 god. 
 
 The development of the Krishna-cult, like that of its rival, the 
 worship of the " dread Mother," illustrates forcibly not merely 
 the religious welter which prevailed in India in the seventh 
 century of the Christian era, but also the gulf which divided 
 the minds of the philosophers who composed the Upanishads 
 and the Bhagavad-Gita ; " the Song of Faith," l from the 
 thoughts and feelings of the populace. It is abundantly clear 
 that long before they burst into Hindustan proper, the Aryan 
 settlers in the Punjab or their priests and religious teachers 
 made the most stringent rules to prevent the intermixture of 
 the invaders and their descendants with the races they had 
 conquered and enslaved in their steady and prolonged march 
 towards the East. The touch of the latter, who were turned 
 into the lowest and servile caste, was pollution ; all the 
 religious rites peculiar to the three higher castes were strictly 
 forbidden to them. 
 
 Among all the flow and ebb of Aryan-Hindu thought in 
 the region of pantheism the worship of the manes has always 
 clung to the Hindu mind as an essential part of his religio- 
 social system. The Sudra was permitted to offer oblations to 
 his dead ancestors, but no Brahman could officiate at the rites 
 without incurring the heaviest penalties. If a Sudra over- 
 heard a Brahman reciting the Vedas, he was to be punished by 
 having molten lead poured into his ears ; if he happened to 
 sit on the same bench with the Brahman he was liable to be 
 
 1 A recent writer remarks that the Bhagavad-Gita no doubt shows traces of 
 theism, but this theism is blended with other and non-theistic elements. 
 
xxiv THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 branded. Whilst unions, legitimate or illegitimate, between 
 the " twice born," as the three superior castes were called, 
 and the Sudras were interdicted under the cruellest penalties. 
 No legislation, however, could prevent their religious ideas 
 and practices being influenced by the primitive beliefs. In 
 course of time the divinities of the pre-Aryan tribes and races 
 were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon, and their worship 
 became part of the Hindu daily ritual. The amalgamations 
 of diverse beliefs of unequal growth and varying tendencies 
 had their inevitable result in the debasement of the complex 
 and abstruse pantheism the philosophers were endeavouring 
 through ages to evolve. 
 
 Before the followers of Islam lifted the veil behind which 
 India had lived enshrouded in mystery for thousands of years, 
 she possessed no history. It is impossible to say when Vasu- 
 deva-Krishna lived, or to judge of his personality. There are 
 innumerable legends which verge on the absurd and puerile, 
 legends evidently manufactured by the priests, who had 
 become the equals, if not the superiors, of the gods ; and whose 
 interest it was to keep the minds of the vulgar fascinated and 
 enthralled. The place which Vasudeva-Krishna occupies in 
 the Hindu pantheon is that of the incarnation of Vishnu, 
 and as such he forms the central figure in the devotional part 
 of the Bhagavad-Gita. He is evidently a composite divinity ; 
 one of the man-gods associated with him being the gay hero 
 who lived among the cowherds of Gokul and disported him- 
 self in the famous groves of Brindabun with his merry 
 companions. 1 
 
 The cult of Vasudeva-Krishna inculcated absolute dharma 
 or faith as the key to salvation ; the believer in this incarnate 
 Vishnu, whatever his conduct in life, was assured of eternal 
 happiness. 
 
 The doctrine of perfect faith gave birth to practices and 
 beliefs which are still current in India. As righteousness 
 
 1 Krishna is usually called the Gopala- Krishna or Cowherd Krishna ; his 
 female companions are called the gopis, the " milkmaids." Many a pretty 
 legend is woven round the adventures of this hero-god of the Ahirs, the cow- 
 herd caste of Upper India. Krishna has been somewhat inaptly called the 
 Apollo of the Hindus, though it is difficult to clothe him with the poetry 
 which generally envelopes the Greek god. 
 

 INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 consists in the concentration of the mind in one's self as identical 
 with the Supreme Spirit represented in Krishna, the gymno- 
 sophic ascetic practices acquired in the eyes of the people a 
 superlative merit. To sit for 3'ears in the forest with the 
 eyes fixed on one spot of the human body and the mind on 
 Krishna ; to stand for years on one leg ; to be swung round by 
 hooks fixed in the flesh were acts of devotion which cured all 
 sins. To expiate a sin or to fulfil a vow a man might be 
 employed to measure by the length of his body the distance 
 from the abode of the penitent to the temple of the deity. 
 To read the Bhagavad-Gita with true faith or to bathe in the 
 Ganges or any holy pool, absolved every man or woman from 
 all breaches of the moral laws. 
 
 It is difficult to tell when Saktism acquiied the predominant 
 hold it now possesses on large masses of the Hindu population. 
 The Sakti is the female half and active creative side of each 
 Hindu deity. The Sakti, or spouse of Siva, is the dread goddess 
 known under various names, such as Parbati, Bhavani, 
 Kali, Maha-Kali, Durga, Chamunda. The worship of this 
 goddess, as described in the drama of Bhavabhuti, written 
 apparently in the seventh century of the Christian era, was 
 celebrated with human sacrifices and other revolting rites. 
 There is nothing of the " mater dolorosa " in the spouse of 
 Siva, by whatever name she is invoked or in whatever form she 
 is worshipped ; she possesses none of the attributes of human 
 pity or sympathy with human suffering, the Alexandrian 
 worshipper associated with Isis " the goddess of myriad names." 
 This awe-inspiring, not to say, awful concept of a decadent 
 religious mind, evidently borrowed from the pre-Aryan races, 
 who delights in human blood and revels in human misery, 
 has few parallels in the paganism of the world ; for even 
 Cybele, the magna mater of the Romans, was not so merciless 
 or took so much pleasure in inflicting pain as the Sakti of the 
 " God of destruction " 1 This deity is worshipped according 
 to the ritual of the Tantras, which may be regarded as the 
 bible of Saktism. Many of the Tantric hymns are imbued 
 with considerable devotional spirit, and the invocations ad- 
 dressed to the goddess often appeal to her pity ; but whatever 
 
 1 Siva. 
 
xxvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 mystical meaning the Tantras may possess for the philosopher, 
 the people commonly accept the worship in its most literal 
 sense. 1 
 
 From the two great epics, one of which tells the story of the 
 war between the Pandus and the Kurus, and the other the legend 
 of the abduction of Sita by the king of Ceylon, we can form a 
 fairly accurate idea of the popular creeds of the time. Both 
 represent a developed society and considerable material 
 progress combined with great moral decadence. Thus long 
 before the appearance of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, 
 religious worship among the masses of India had sunk into 
 mere mechanical performance of sacrifices and oblations at 
 which the ability of the ministering priest, without whose 
 services their observance was not permissible, to perform the 
 " god-compelling " rites with the appropriate incantations, 
 rather than the conduct or piety of the worshipper, supplied 
 the test of merit. The revolt of Gautama and of Mahavira 
 (Mahabir) represented the natural uprise of the Hindu mind 
 against a selfish sacerdotalism. Both deny a Creative Principle 
 and the existence of a Supreme Intelligence governing and 
 regulating the universe, both affirm the eventual annihilation 
 of individual life ; both dwell on the merit of work in bringing 
 about this blissful consummation. But whilst Jainism has 
 hung on to the skirts of Brahmanism and is now practically 
 a Brahmanical sect, Buddhism struck out boldly a new path 
 for itself. It placed Karma in the forefront of its scheme of 
 salvation ; and its great teacher tried to fulfil its claims in 
 his own life. Its conception of the destiny of man after 
 
 1 There are two chief divisions of Tantric worshippers : the Dakhshina- 
 chari and Vamachari, or right and left hand ritualists ; the worship of the 
 former is public, and not otherwise noticeable than as addressed to other 
 goddesses, such as Lakshmi or Mahalakshini, the Sakti of Vishnu. In the 
 left hand worship, specially called Tantrika, the exclusive object of 
 adoration is Kali. This worship is private and is said to be celebrated 
 with impure practices. This particular cult has an enormous number of 
 followers all over India and branches into various subdivisions. In the 
 season of the Durga Puja, which is usually celebrated in the month of August, 
 the image of Durga is carried about seated on a throne. In Upper India she 
 is painted as yellow of complexion ; in Bengal she is represented as absolutely 
 black, with four hands, seated on a tiger. In the temple of Kalighat (from 
 which Calcutta derives its name) dripping skulls might be seen hanging from 
 her neck. In one of the temples at Jeypore the goddess may be seen with her 
 head twisted round ; the tradition is that the lady turned her face in disgust 
 when a goat was offered to her in sacrifice instead of a human being. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 death was quite opposed to Brahmanical doctrines ; and 
 its occult mysticism soon passed into other creeds. But 
 in the land of its birth, after a short but glorious 
 existence Buddhism met with a cruel fate ; and the 
 measure of punishment that was meted out to it by a 
 triumphant Brahmanism is depicted on the temples of Southern 
 India. It must be admitted, however, that in its pristine 
 garb Buddhism did not possess the attractions Hinduism 
 offered to its votaries. It never claimed to be a positive 
 religion, and its " rewards " and " sanctions," its promise of 
 bliss in a future existence, its penalties for failure to perform 
 duties in this life, were too shadowy to stir the heart of the 
 masses. It had soon to abandon its contest with the outside 
 world or to arrive at a compromise with the religion it had 
 tried to supplant ; and it was not long before the religion that 
 Buddha preached had to allow its lay-votaries to substitute 
 prayer-wheels for pious work, or to take to Tantrism to supple- 
 ment its own barren efforts. Its failure under the most 
 favourable circumstances in the land of its nativity sealed its 
 fate as a rousing religious system, although in some of its 
 mystical aspects it exercised considerable influence on the 
 philosophies of Western Asia and Egypt. 
 
 On the expulsion of Buddhism from India, Brahmanism 
 regained its supremacy ; the long shadow under which it 
 had lived whilst the religion of Buddha dominated the country 
 had brought no improvement in its spiritual conceptions ; 
 and the lifeless formalism against which Buddha had revolted 
 was now re-established on a stronger foundation ; the lives 
 of men and women were under the restored Brahmanical 
 regime regulated more closely than ever by a sacrificial cult 
 which appealed to their senses, perhaps to their emotions, rather 
 than to their spiritual instincts. Among the masses religious 
 worship became a daily round of meaningless ritual. For 
 them " the chief objects of worship were the priests, the manes 
 and, for form's sake, the Vedic gods." Fetishism, as a part 
 of the aboriginal belief, was never eradicated from the Indian 
 continent by philosophical Hinduism or by practical Buddhism. 
 It now entered into the inner life of all castes ; trees, stones 
 and other natural objects, along with the idols in which the 
 
xxviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 family gods, the household penates and the ancient divinities 
 were symbolised, shared the adoration of the populace. The 
 great Code of Manu, of which Hinduism is justly proud, and 
 which became in later centuries the model for the legal doctrines 
 of other Eastern races, represents a legislation for a state of 
 society where a great advance in material civilisation was 
 combined with the absolute domination of the priestly caste 
 and an astonishing moral decadence amongst the masses. 
 Like the priest the king was now a divinity. In the second 
 century of the Christian era, whilst Manu's Code was still held 
 in reverence and treated as the final authority, its place was 
 taken by the Commentary of Yajnavalkya, " the Contemplative 
 Master." To him caste was as iron-bound as to Manu ; and 
 the Sudra as impure as in early times. 
 
 Female infanticide, as among the pagan Arabs, was common. 
 There is no record when widow-burning was first intro- 
 duced, but it must have been common in the seventh century 
 of the Christian era. To the widow death, however terrible, 
 must have been a welcome release, for. unless she was the 
 mother of children her lot was one of dire misery. 
 
 A woman was debarred from studying the Vedas or partici- 
 pating in the oblations to the manes, or in the sacrifices to the 
 deities. The wife's religion was to serve her lord ; her eternal 
 happiness depended on the strict performance of that duty. 
 And the faithful wife, who sacrificed herself on the funeral 
 pyre of her dead spouse, found a niche in the hearts of all the 
 votaries of Hinduism as one of the best and noblest of her sex ; 
 and often became herself the object of worship. 
 
 Whilst thinking minds saw in the puerile practices of the 
 religion a deeper meaning; whilst their souls floated far above the 
 ceremonialism of the creed they professed, not one philosopher 
 or priest viewed with horror the cruel immolations of the 
 helpless widow, usually no more than a child. Religious 
 associations, generally composed of both sexes and not always 
 remarkable for austerity of life, had already sprung up ; and 
 numerous celibate brotherhoods worshipping different divinities 
 had come into existence. They invariably congregated in 
 monasteries into which women were admitted as lay members. 
 Among them, as among the mendicant fraternities that were 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 established about the same time, the professed celibacy was 
 more nominal than real, honoured in its breach rather than 
 in its observance. Large numbers of the mendicant brother- 
 hoods lived in comfort and ease in temples and muths. Others, 
 like the begging friars of the Middle Ages and the vulgar cynics 
 of the Flavian period, wandered in search of merit from the 
 doles of the devout. Their sole recommendation to the 
 charity of the pious consisted in their matted locks, their 
 unkempt beard, the ochre-coloured shirt that hung over their 
 shoulders, the ash-covered naked bodies and the inevitable 
 beggar's gourd and staff. 
 
 As the divinities loved music and dancing, a large number 
 of dancing girls were attached to the temples, who were by no 
 means vestal, and whose services were at the disposal of the 
 ministrants of the cult. Women occupied a very inferior 
 position in early Hindu legislation, and Manu's extreme 
 denunciation of the sex can be compared only to the fanatical 
 pronouncement of the Christian Saint Tertullian, " Women," 
 says Manu, " have impure appetites ; they show weak flexi- 
 bility and bad conduct. Day and night must they be kept in 
 subjection." 
 
 As regards the Sudras, he declared, almost in the words of 
 the Pandects, that the Creator had made them slaves and that 
 a man belonging to that caste, even when he is emancipated 
 by his master, cannot be free ; for bondage being natural to 
 him, who can deliver him from it ? 
 
 Such in brief was the religious and social condition among 
 the people of one of the most gifted sections of the Aryan race 
 at the time when the Prophet of Islam brought his Message to 
 the world. 
 
 Let us turn now to Persia — a country which, by its proximity 
 to the birthplace of Islam, and the powerful influence it has 
 always exercised on Mohammedan thought, not to speak of 
 the character and tone it communicated to Judaism and 
 Christianity, deserves our earnest attention. 
 
 Consolidated into a nation and with a new spiritual develop- 
 ment, the western Aryans soon burst their ancient bounds, and 
 spread themselves over the regions of modern Persia and 
 Afghanistan. They appear to have conquered or destroyed 
 
xxx THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 most of the Hamitic and Kushite races inhabiting those tracts, 
 and gradually reached the confines of the Caspian, where they 
 found the more tenacious and hardy Turanians settled in 
 Media and Susiana. Before, however, they had succeeded in 
 subjugating the Turanians, they themselves fell under the 
 yoke of a foreign invader, Kushite or Assyrian, more probably 
 the latter, under whose iron sway they remained for a consider- 
 able time. 1 With the expulsion of the foreigners commenced 
 that conflict between Iran and Turan which lasted with varying 
 fortunes for centuries, and ended with the partial subjugation 
 of the Turanians in Media and Susiana. 2 The frequent contact 
 of the followers of Afrasiab and Kai-Kaus in the field and the 
 hall exercised a lasting effect on the Persic faith. The extreme 
 materialism of the Turanians did not fail to degrade the yet 
 undeveloped idealism of their Iranian rivals and neighbours, 
 who, whilst they succeeded in superimposing themselves on 
 the ancient settlers of Media, had partially to incorporate 
 Turanian worship with their own. And thus, whilst in Persia, 
 Ormuzd alone was adored and Ahriman held up to execration, 
 in Media, the good and the evil principle were both adored 
 at the altars. Naturally, the Turanian population was more 
 inclined to worship their ancient national god than the deity 
 of their Aryan conquerors ; and in the popular worship, 
 Ahriman, or Afrasiab, took precedence of Ormuzd. 
 
 The Assyrian empire had fallen before a coalition, the first 
 of its kind known in history, of the Medes and the Babylonians, 
 but the religion of Asshur, from its long domination over many 
 of the parts occupied by the Aryans, left an ineffaceable mark 
 on the conceptions of the Zoroastrians. The complex system 
 of celestial co-ordination and the idea prevalent among the 
 Assyrians of a divine hierarchy engrafted itself on Zoroastrian- 
 ism. Ormuzd was henceforth worshipped as a second Asshur ; 
 and the Persian's symbol of the God of light, the all-beneficent 
 power, became a winged warrior, with bow and lifted hand, 
 enclosed in the world-circle. Their symbol of growth also, 
 
 1 According to' the Persian traditions, Zahhak ruled over Iran for over a 
 thousand years, and this is supposed by several scholars to represent the exact 
 period of Assyrian domination. The rise of Faridun would, according to 
 this view, be synchronous with the downfall of Nineveh. 
 
 2 Lenormant, Ancient Hist, of the East, p. 54. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 the tree with the candelabra branches ending upwards in the 
 pine-cone, was converted into the Persian fir-cone. Before 
 the rise of Cyrus in Farsistan and his consolidating conquests, 
 the symbolic worship in vogue among the early emigrants 
 and settlers became degraded among the masses into pyrolatry, 
 or took the form of Chaldseo-Assyrian Sabaeism. 
 
 The city of Asshur, — which had ruled Western Asia up to 
 the confines of India for nearly a thousand years, and almost 
 wrested from the Pharaohs the empire of Egypt, — the city 
 of the mighty Sargon and the great Sennacherib, had fallen 
 before the combined forces of the Babylonian and the Mede, 1 
 never again to raise its head among the nations of the world. 
 Babylon, which after its early rivalry with Nineveh had been 
 reduced to a dependency of Assyria, became again the centre 
 of Asiatic civilisation. She gathered up the arts and sciences 
 of a thousand years of growth, and the product of " interfused 
 races and religions, temples and priesthoods," and supplied 
 the connecting link between the inorganic faiths of antiquity 
 and the modern beliefs. Assyria had, with the civilisation 
 and literature of the early Accadians, also borrowed much of 
 their religion. Babylon, rising into more potent grandeur 
 from the ashes of Nineveh, centred in herself the essence of 
 the Assyrian and Chaldaean cults. Under Nebuchadnezzar 
 the empire of Babylonia attained the zenith of its power ; 
 Judaea fell, and the flower of the nation was carried into cap- 
 tivity to lament by the waters of Babylon the downfall of the 
 kingdom of Jehovah. The mighty conqueror penetrated into 
 Arabia, and overwhelmed and nearly destroyed the Ishmaelites; 
 he smote the Tyrians, and broke the power of the Egyptian 
 Pharaoh. In spite of the maledictions heaped upon her head 
 by the Hebrew patriot, Babylon was by no means such a hard 
 taskmaster as Egypt. 2 The Israelites themselves bear testi- 
 mony to the generosity of their treatment. Not until the 
 redeemer was nigh with his mighty hosts, marching to the 
 conquest of the doomed city, did the children of Israel raise 
 their voice against Babylon. Then burst forth the storm of 
 imprecations, of predictions of woe, which displayed the 
 characteristics of the race in its pristine savagery. " By the 
 
 1 606 B.C. * Jer. xlix. 27 to 29. 
 
xxxii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 rivers of Babylon, there we sat down ; yea, we wept when we 
 remembered Zion. Daughter of Babylon ! happy shall he 
 be who dasheth thy little ones against the stones." 1 
 
 Under Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was indisputably the 
 centre of all existing civilisations. And the influence wielded 
 by her priesthood did not cease with the empire of Babylonia. 
 The mark of the Babylonian conceptions is traced in unmis- 
 takable characters in both the Judaical and Christian systems. 
 The long exile of the Jews among the Chaldaean priesthood, 
 the influence which some of the Hebrews obtained in the court 
 of the Babylonian king, and the unavoidable interfusion of 
 the two peoples, tended to impart a new character to later 
 Judaism. They were carried to Babylon in a state of semi- 
 barbarism ; they returned to Zion after their long probation 
 in the land of exile a new people, advanced in faith and doctrine, 
 with larger aspirations and their political vision extended. 
 
 With the conquest of Babylon begins a new era in religious 
 development. Henceforth the religion of dualism holds the 
 empire of Asia. The grand toleration which Cyrus extended 
 towards the Jews naturally led to his exaltation as " the 
 Messiah," " the Redeemer," " the anointed Saviour of the 
 world." The captivity of the Hebraic tribes, and their enforced 
 settlement near the seat of Persian domination, and their sub- 
 sequent intermixture under Cyrus with the Persians, most 
 probably gave impetus to that religious reform among the 
 Zoroastrians which occurred during the reign of Darius IJys- 
 taspes. There was mutual action and reaction. The Israelites 
 impressed on renovated Zoroastrianism a deep and abiding 
 conception of a Divine Personality overshadowing the universe. 
 They received from the Iranians the notion of a celestial 
 hierarchy, and the idea of a duality of principles in the creation 
 of good and evil. Henceforth it is not the Lord who puts a 
 lying spirit into the mouths of evil-doers ; Satan, like 
 Ahriman, from this time takes a prominent part in the religious 
 and moral history of the Hebrews. 
 
 The reign of Cyrus was one of conquest, hardly of organisation. 
 The reign of Darius was one of consolidation ; stern worshipper 
 of Ormuzd, to whom he ascribes all his victories, he endeavoured 
 
 1 Ps. cxxxvii. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 to purify the faith of Zoroaster of all its foreign excrescences, 
 to stamp out the Magism of the Medes from its stronghold, 
 and to leave Aryan Persia the dominant power of the civilised 
 world. Nothing, however, could arrest the process of decay. 
 Before a hundred years had gone by, Zoroastrianism had 
 imbibed to the full the evils which it had fought against in its 
 infancy. The scourgers of idolatry, the uncompromising 
 iconoclasts, who, in their fiery zeal, had slaughtered the 
 Egyptian Apis and overturned its shrine, soon absorbed into 
 the worship of Ormuzd the Semitic gods of their subject states. 
 The old Magian element-worship was revived, and Artaxerxes 
 Mnemon, one of the immediate successors of Darius, introduced 
 among the Zoroastrians the worship of that androgynous 
 Mythra — the Persian counterpart of the Chaldaean Mylitta or 
 Anaitis, with its concomitant phallic cult. The development 
 of this Mythra-cult into the gorgeous worship of the beautiful 
 Sun-God is one of the marvels of history. The resplendent 
 Sun ascending over the cleft mountains, chasing the Bull into 
 its lair and with its blood atoning human sins, is a conception 
 which has left its ineffaceable mark on one of the dominant 
 religions of the world. This worship of Mythra was carried 
 by the Roman legionaries from the valley of the Euphrates 
 to the furthest corners of Europe, and in the reign of 
 Diocletian it became the state-religion of Rome. 
 
 Never was the condition of woman so bad, never was she 
 held under greater subjection, — a slave to the caprice of man, — 
 than under the Mago-Zoroastrians. The laws of Manu imposed 
 certain rules of chastity, and the stringency of primitive ex- 
 ogamy exercised a restraining effect upon human passions. 
 The Persian in the relations of the sexes recognised no law 
 but that of his own will. He could marry his nearest kindred, 
 and divorce his wives at his pleasure. The system of female 
 seclusion was not confined to the Persians alone. Among the 
 Ionic Greeks, women were confined within the gynaikonitis , 
 often kept under lock and key, and never allowed to appear 
 in public. But the Greek gynaikonomoi were not, until later 
 times, mutilated specimens of humanity. In Persia, the 
 custom of employing eunuchs to guard the women prevailed 
 from the remotest antiquity. As in Greece, concubinage was 
 
xxxiv THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 a recognised social institution, and was interwoven with the 
 foundations of society. The Persian, however, never allowed 
 lewdness to be incorporated with the national worship. He 
 worshipped no Aphrodite Pandemos ; nor was Zoroastrian 
 society tainted with that " moral pestilence," 1 the most 
 degrading of all vices, which was universal in Greece, which 
 spread itself afterwards in Rome, and was not even rooted out 
 by Christianity. 
 
 With the downfall of the Achsemenian Empire ended the 
 vitality of Zoroastrianism as a motive power in the growth 
 of the world. The swarms of conquerors, who swept like 
 whirlwinds over the face of Persia, destroyed all social and 
 moral life. The Macedonian conquest, with the motley 
 hordes which followed on its footsteps, the influx of all the 
 dregs of Lesser Asia, Cilicians, Tyrians, Pamphylians, Phrygians, 
 and various others, half Greeks, half Asians, obeying no moral 
 law, the hasty and reckless temper of the conqueror himself, — 
 all led to the debasement of the Zoroastrian faith. The Mobeds, 
 the representatives of the national life, were placed under the 
 ban of persecution by the foreigner, the aim of whose life was 
 to hellenise Asia. 
 
 Alexander's career was splendidly meteoric. Shorn of the 
 legends which have surrounded his life and turned it into an 
 epopee, he stands before us a man of gigantic conceptions and 
 masterly purposes, possessed of a towering ambition, a genius 
 which overpowered all opposition, and a personality which 
 enabled him to mould the minds of all around him according 
 to his own will. His was a nature full of contradictions. A 
 disciple of Aristotle, who aimed at the hellenisation of Asia, 
 with himself as the central figure in the adoration of the world, 
 an associate of philosophers and wise men, his life was dis- 
 graced by excesses of a revolting type. " The sack of Tyre 
 and the enslavement of its population, the massacres and 
 executions in India and Bactria, the homicide of Clytus, the 
 death warrants of Philotas and the faithful Parmenio, the 
 burning of Persepolis and the conflagration of its splendid 
 library at the instigation of a courtezan, are acts," says an 
 apologist and an admirer, " for which no historian has found 
 
 1 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 239. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 a palliation." With the conquest of Alexander and the 
 extinction of the Achsemenian dynasty, Zoroastrianism gave 
 way to Hellenism and the worst traditions of Chaldaean 
 civilisation. The extreme partiality of the hero of many 
 legends towards Babylon, and his anxious desire to resuscitate 
 that city and make it the centre of a mightier and more com- 
 plete civilisation, led him to discourage all creeds and faiths, 
 all organisations, religious or political, which militated with 
 his one great desire. Under the Seleucidae, the process of 
 denationalisation went on apace. Antiochus Epiphanes, the 
 cruel persecutor of the worshippers of Jehovah, won for himself 
 from them as well as the Zoroastrians, the unenviable designa- 
 tion of Ahriman. Even the rise of the Parthian power tended 
 to accelerate the decline and ruin of Zoroastrianism. The 
 Seleucidae ruled on the Tigris and the Orontes ; the Parthians 
 formed for themselves a kingdom in the middle portion of the 
 Achaemenian empire ; the Graeco-Bactrian dynasties were in 
 possession of the eastern tracts, viz. Bactria and the northern 
 part of Afghanistan. The state-religion of the Seleucidae was 
 a mixture of Chaldaeo-Hellenism. The Jews and Zoroastrians 
 were placed under the ban and ostracised. Under the Parthians, 
 Mazdism, though not actually extinguished, was compelled 
 to hide itself from the gaze of the rulers. In quiet and settled 
 parts, Zoroastrianism became mixed with the old Sabaeism of 
 the Medes and the Chaldaeans ; or, where kept alive in its 
 pristine character, it was confined to the hearts of some of those 
 priests who had taken refuge in the inaccessible recesses of 
 their country. But with Parthia enlarged into an empire, 
 and the Parthian sovereigns aspiring to the title of Shah-in- 
 shah, persecution gave way to toleration, and Mago-Zoroastrian- 
 ism again raised its head among the religions of the world. 
 And the rise of the Sasanides gave it another spell of power. 
 The founder of the new empire placed the Mobeds at the head 
 of the State. Last sad representatives of a dying faith ! 
 Around them clustered the hopes of a renovated religious 
 existence under the auspices of the Sasanide dynasty. How 
 far the brilliant aspirations of Ardeshir Babekan (Artaxerxes 
 Longimanus), the founder of the new empire, were realised, 
 is a matter of history. The political autonomy of Persia — 
 
xxxvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 its national life — was restored, but the social and religious life 
 was lost beyond the power of rulers to revive. The teachings 
 of yore lived perhaps in books, but in the hearts of the people 
 they were as dead as old Gushtasp or Rustam. 
 
 Under the Sasanides, the Zoroastrians attained the zenith 
 of their power. For centuries they competed with Rome for 
 the empire of Asia. Time after time they defeated her armies, 
 sacked her cities, carried away her Caesars into captivity, 
 and despoiled her subjects of their accumulated riches ; but 
 the fire of Zoroastrianism as a moral factor was extinct. It 
 burnt upon the high altars of the temples, but it had died out 
 from the heart of the nation. The worship of the true God had 
 given place to a Chaldaeo-Magian cult, and the fierce intolerance 
 with which Ardeshir and his successors persecuted rival creeds, 
 failed to achieve its purpose. The Persian empire, under the 
 later Sasanides, only rivalled in the turmoil of its sects and 
 the licentiousness of its sovereigns, in the degeneration of its 
 aristocracy and the overweening pride of its priesthood, the 
 empire of the Byzantines. The kings were gods ; they were 
 absolute masters over the person and property of their subjects, 
 who possessed no rights, and were virtual serfs. The climax 
 of depravity was reached when Mazdak, in the beginning 
 of the sixth century of the Christian era, preached the com- 
 munism with which modern Europe has now become familiar, 
 and " bade all men to be partners in riches and women, just as 
 they are in fire, water, and grass ; private property was not 
 to exist ; each man was to enjoy or endure the good and bad 
 lots of this world." x The lawfulness of marriages with sisters 
 and other blood relations had already been recognised by 
 Mago-Zoroastrianism. The proclamation of this extreme 
 communism revolted the better minds even among the Persians. 
 The successor of Zoroaster, as Mazdak styled himself, was put 
 to death ; but his doctrines had taken root, and from Persia 
 they spread over the West. 
 
 All these evils betokened a complete depravity of moral 
 life, and foreshadowed the speedy extinction of the nation in 
 its own iniquities. This doom, though staved off for a time 
 
 1 The Dabistan-i-Mazahib of Mohsini Fani ; see also Shaikh Muhammad 
 Iqbal's Development of Metaphysics in Persia, p. 18. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxvii 
 
 by the personal character of Kesra Anushirvan, became 
 inevitable after his death. But a Master had already appeared, 
 destined to change the whole aspect of the world ! 
 
 Eleven centuries had passed over the Jews since their return 
 from the Babylonian captivity, and witnessed many changes 
 in their fortunes. The series of disasters which one after 
 another had befallen the doomed nation of Moses, had culmin- 
 ated in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. Pagan Rome had 
 destroyed their temple, and stamped out in fire and blood their 
 existence as a nation. Christian Constantinople persecuted 
 them with an equally relentless fury, but the misfortunes of 
 the past had no lessons for them in the future. Their own 
 sufferings at the hands of ruthless persecutors had failed to 
 teach them the value of humanity and peace. The atrocious 
 cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of 
 Cyprus and Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous harmony 
 with the unsuspecting natives, take away all sense of pity for 
 their future fate. The house of Israel was a total wreck ; 
 its members were fugitives on the face of the earth, seeking 
 shelter far and wide, but carrying everywhere their indomitable 
 pride, their rebellious hardness of heart, denounced and 
 reprehended by an endless succession of prophets. The Jews, 
 in their safe retreats in foreign lands,, re-enacted the scenes 
 of past times. The nation lived in hope, but the hope was 
 mixed with rigid uncompromising bigotry on the one hand, 
 and a voluptuous epicureanism on the other. Jesus had come 
 and gone, without producing any visible effect upon them. 
 The child of his age, he was imbued with the Messianic ideas 
 floating in the atmosphere in which he lived and moved. 
 The Book of Daniel, written during one of the greatest travails 
 of the nation, with its hopes and aspirations, could not but 
 make a deep impression on the mind of the Teacher mourning 
 over the sight of his stricken people. The fierce intolerance 
 of the Zealots seated in their mountain homes, the lifeless 
 ceremonialism of the Sadducees, the half-hearted liberalism 
 of the Pharisees, the dreamy hopefulness of the Essenes, with 
 one hand extended towards Alexandria and the other towards 
 Buddhistic India, the preachings and denunciations of the 
 wild Dervish, whose life became a sacrifice to the depravity 
 
xxxviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 of the Herodian court, all appealed to the heart of Jesus. But 
 the Eagle's talons were clutched on the heart of Judaea and its 
 legions crushed out all hope of a violent change. The quietism 
 of Jesus, and his earnest anticipation of a kingdom of heaven, 
 to be ushered in by the direct instrumentality of God, were the 
 outcome of his age. Among a nation of furious and relentless 
 bigots, he had come as the messenger of universal brotherhood 
 and love. In the midst of a proud and exclusive race, he trod 
 the path of humility and meekness ; kind and gentle to his 
 immediate followers, devoted to the cause of all, he left behind 
 him the impress of an elevated, self-denying spirit. Among 
 the powerful, the rich, and the ruling classes, he had roused 
 only feelings of hatred, fear, and opposition ; among the 
 poor, the despised, the ignorant and the oppressed, the deep 
 compassion of the great Teacher had awakened sentiments of 
 gratitude and love. One bright sunny morning he had entered 
 the stronghold of Jewish fanaticism full of hope in his ministry 
 as the promised Messiah ; before a fortnight had run out, he 
 was sacrificed to the vested interests of his day. 
 
 Amidst the legends which surround his life, so much at least 
 is clear. Born among the poor, his preachings were addressed 
 to the poor. Deeply versed in the Rabbinical lore, his short 
 ministry was devoted almost exclusively to the humble denizens 
 of the country side — the poverty-stricken peasantry and the 
 fishermen of Galilee. His disciples were poor, ignorant folk. 
 In spite of their credulous natures, and the vivid — not to say 
 weird — effect exercised on their imaginations by the untimely 
 disappearance of the Master, they never regarded him as 
 anything more than a man. It was not until Paul adopted 
 the creed of him whose execution he had witnessed, that the 
 idea of an incarnate God or angel was introduced into Christi- 
 anity. In spite of the promise attached to the " effusion of 
 the Holy Ghost," " it was found necessary," says the historian 
 of Ecclesiasticism, " that there should be some one defender 
 of the gospel who, versed in the learned arts, might be 
 able to combat the Jewish doctors and the pagan philosophers 
 with their own arms. For this purpose Jesus himself, by an 
 extraordinary voice from heaven, had called to his service a 
 thirteenth apostle, whose name was Saul (afterwards Paul), 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 and whose acquaintance both with Jewish and Grecian learning 
 was very considerable." * 
 
 The Mago-Zoroastrian believed in an angel-deliverer, in the 
 Surush who was to appear from the East ; the Buddhist, in 
 an incarnate god born of a virgin ; the Alexandrian mystic 
 inculcated the doctrine of the Logos and the Demiurge. The 
 esoteric conceptions regarding the birth, death, and resur- 
 rection of Osiris, the idea of the Isis-Ceres, the virgin mother 
 " holding in her arms the new-born sun-god Horus," 2 were 
 in vogue both in Egypt and Syria. And Paul, the Pharisee 
 and the scholar, was deeply imbued with these half-mystical, 
 half-philosophical notions of his time. A visionary and 
 enthusiast by nature, not free from physical ailments, as 
 Strauss suggests, he, who had never come in actual contact 
 with the Master, was easily inclined to attach to him the 
 attributes of a Divinity — of an Angel Incarnate. He infused 
 into the simple teachings of Jesus the most mysterious 
 principles of Neo-Pythagoreanism, with its doctrine of intelli- 
 gences and its notion of the triad, borrowed from the far East. 
 
 The jealousy between the home and the foreign, the Judaical 
 and the anti- Judaical party, was shown in the curious though 
 well-known antipathy of the two apostles, Peter and Paul. 3 
 The Ebionites most probably represented the beliefs of the 
 original companions of the Prophet of Nazareth. He had 
 conversed with them familiarly, and "in all the actions of 
 rational and animal life " had appeared to them as of the same 
 nature as themselves. They had marked him grow from 
 infancy to youth and from youth to manhood ; they had 
 seen him increase in stature and wisdom. Their belief was 
 tempered by their knowledge of him as a man. The deprava- 
 tion of ideas from this original faith, through various inter- 
 mediate phases like those of the Docetes, the Marcionites, the 
 Patripassians, 4 and various others down to the decisions of the 
 
 1 Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 63. 
 
 2 Comp. Mr. Ernest de Bunsen's Essay on Mohammed's Place in the 
 Church, Asiatic Quarterly Review, April 1889. 
 
 3 Milner, Hist, of the Church of Christ, vol. i. pp. 26, 27. 
 
 4 The Docetes believed Jesus to be a pure God. The Marcionites regarded 
 him as a being " most like unto God, even his Son Jesus Christ, clothed with 
 a certain shadowy resemblance of a body, that he might thus be visible to 
 
xl THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Council of Nice in 328, forms a continuous chain. The prevalent 
 belief in aeons and emanations predisposed all classes of people, 
 especially those who had never beheld the Prophet, observed 
 his humanity, or noted his everyday life, to accept his divinity 
 without any question. 
 
 At the time Jesus began his preaching the Empire of Rome 
 stretched over more than half Europe, and included almost 
 the whole of Northern Africa and a large part of Western 
 Asia. This vast area by an accident became, in the coming 
 centuries, the seed-ground of Christianity and the battlefield 
 of contending sects. 
 
 Exactly a century before the Phrygian Cybele * was brought 
 to Rome, Ptolemy Soter, the most fortunate and probably the 
 most far-sighted of Alexander's generals, had become master 
 of Egypt. With the object of fusing the Egyptians and 
 Greeks into a homogeneous nation by the unifying bond of a 
 common religion he conceived the design of establishing a 
 worship in the practice of which the two peoples would join 
 hands. The same idea occurred to Akbar some two thousand 
 years later ; but where the great Akbar failed, Ptolemy 
 succeeded, for all the conditions were in his favour. The 
 Greeks worshipped Zeus, Demeter and Apollo or Dionysus ; 
 the Egyptians, Osiris, Isis and Horus ; the trinitarian belief 
 was common to both. The Egyptian faith revolved round the 
 Passion and Resurrection of Horus, the Son ; the Greek in 
 the Passion and Resurrection of Dionysus. The Greek had 
 his Eleusinian mysteries with all the mystic rites of initiation 
 and communion ; the Egyptian hierophant, the mysteries of 
 Isis with similar rites and similar significance. To neither it 
 mattered under what names the gods were worshipped or the 
 rituals were conducted. So long as the main idea was main- 
 tained they were indifferent to mere names. Thus was born 
 the great cult of the Serapeum. Serapis took the place of 
 Zeus among the Greeks, of Osiris among the Egyptians ; 
 Isis who became the " mater dolorosa " of the votaries of the 
 
 mortal eyes." The Patripassians believed that the Father suffered with the 
 Son on the -cross (Mosheim and Gibbon, in loco ; and Neander, vol. ii. pp. 
 150, 301 et seq). 
 
 1 The worship of Cybele has a very close analogy to the cult of the famous 
 Hindu goddess Durga or Kali. 
 
INTRODUCTION xli 
 
 Alexandrian cult, displaced Demeter ; and Horus Happocrates 
 absorbed the adoration hitherto rendered to Dionysus. This 
 deity does not seem, however, to have lost his hold among the 
 inhabitants of the sea-board of Asia Minor ; and the prevailing 
 belief that a god had lived among mankind, had suffered and 
 died and risen again made easy in later centuries the spread 
 of Christianity. 
 
 The worship of Isis, whose glory had overshadowed the 
 personality of her consort, was brought to Rome, it is said, 
 some eighty years before the birth of Jesus. It seized at once 
 the fancy both of the populace and of the cultivated classes. 
 Its gorgeous ritual, its tonsured, clean-shaven priests, the 
 young acolytes in white, carrying lighted tapers, the 
 solemn processions in which nothing was wanting to stimulate 
 the emotions, the passionate grief at the suffering and death 
 of Osiris-Horus, the frenzied joy at his resurrection, the 
 mysteries with all their mystical meanings, the initiation, 
 above all the promise of immortality, appealed vividly to a 
 world whose old gods were mute and which yearned for a 
 closer touch with the eternal problem of the Universe. It is 
 not surprising that Isis took a strong hold on the heart of the 
 Roman people. 1 
 
 Although the worship of Isis, " the bestower on the wretched 
 the sweet affection of a mother " never lost its power on their 
 emotions, the more virile cult of Mythra the beautiful sun-god, 
 with all its mystic rites, its doctrine of atonement, its insistence 
 on the direct touch of its god with humanity, was held in 
 special favour among the Roman soldiers ; and wherever the 
 legionaries were quartered they appear to have left the 
 memorials of their worship. 
 
 To form a just estimate of the superlative and exclusive 
 claim advanced by Christianity to enrol under her banner and 
 to dominate the conscience of all mankind, it is necessary to 
 bear in mind the causes that helped in the diffusion of the 
 Galilean faith before the ascension of Constantine to the throne. 
 The promise of the second advent of Jesus with the immediate 
 ushering in of the Kingdom of God," when the poor would 
 
 1 Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus A urelius, chapter v. ; Legge's 
 Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 87. 
 
xlii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 be exalted, and Lazarus would take the place of Dives in the 
 enjoyment of heavenly gifts, created among the humble folk 
 a wild excitement. The fervent anticipations of the immediate 
 disciples and followers of Jesus naturally communicated them- 
 selves to the neighbouring peoples ; and as the missionaries 
 of the faith multiplied they carried this vivid belief far and 
 wide. The religion that held forth the promise of an early 
 adjustment of inequalities and redress of wrongs and injustice 
 received a ready acceptance among the masses. So strong 
 a hold did the belief in the establishment of the kingdom of 
 God with the second advent acquire among the populace, that 
 although the fulfilment of the promise, which was assured to 
 take place within the lifetime of the early disciples, receded as 
 decades went by into dim futurity, the anticipations and hopes 
 to which it gave birth did not lose their force until the final 
 collapse of the Crusades. After a thousand years, first of 
 travail and later of success, the warriors of Christianity 
 went forth to destroy the professors of another faith in the 
 full belief that the second coming of their Lord was nigh. 
 
 Besides this there were other causes equally potent which 
 helped the diffusion of Christianity in the shape it assumed 
 after the death or, according to Ebionite and Moslem belief, 
 the disappearance of the Master. 
 
 As already observed, among all the peoples of Asia Minor, 
 Syria and the Mediterranean littoral, excepting the Jews, 
 the idea of a god who had died and risen again, and of a divine 
 Trinity, was universal. It was an essential part of the 
 Serapean cult ; and with the spread of Isis-worship every 
 part of the Roman world was permeated by the trinitarian 
 conception ; there was no difficulty arising from sentiment 
 or religious predilection to the acceptance of the principal 
 doctrines of post-Jesus Christianity. 
 
 The philosophers at the same time, albeit unconsciously 
 and without the intention of helping Christianity, even without 
 any knowledge of its tenets, furthered its cause. Their 
 speculations with regard to the nature of God and of a life after 
 death undermined the faith of many thinking pagans in the 
 mysteries of Isis and Mythra, and in the rites and practices of 
 the old cults. And yet the hold of the Alexandrian divinities 
 
INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 and of the Sun-god on the hearts of the cultivated classes, 
 who looked askance at the revolutionary doctrines of the new 
 cult, was so strong that for nearly three centuries the spread 
 of Christianity was confined to the ignorant and uneducated. 
 Not until the Christian Church had incorporated with its 
 theology and ecclesiastical system many dogmas borrowed 
 from its great and fascinating rivals, and almost all their 
 rites and ceremonialism, and practices and institutions, did 
 it make any headway among people of culture. And when 
 these, under the stress ot religious persecution or imperial 
 pressure, began entering the fold they brought with them all 
 the elements that have gone to mould modern Christianity 
 with its multitudinous sects. 1 Relentless persecution lasting 
 for centuries secured, however, in the early period of its growth 
 a certain uniformity of faith and doctrines. 
 
 Among the masses Isis-worship was transformed into 
 Mariolatry ; and Mary the mother of Jesus became, instead 
 of the Egyptian goddess, " the haven of peace," and " the 
 altar of pity." Thenceforth she was worshipped, as she still 
 is among the Latin races, as the " madre de dios." 
 
 Asceticism was a favoured institution among the votaries 
 of the Alexandrian divinities ; it was practised by the Pytha- 
 goreans and Orphics, who had derived much of their inspiration 
 from the hierophants of the Gangetic Delta, among whom it 
 was a common practice ; the Christian Church adopted and 
 sanctified this institution for both sexes. From the simple 
 immersion used by John the Baptist, baptism under the 
 influence of the cult of Isis grew into a mystical and cumbrous 
 rite. Communion took the place of initiation ; and even the 
 dogma connected with the mysteries of Isis regarding the 
 change of wine into the blood of the mourned god was absorbed 
 into the Christian system. In the tonsured clean-shaven, 
 pale-clad priests, the white robed acolytes, in the gorgeous 
 rituals, " in the form of the sacraments, in the periods of the 
 fasts and festivals " 2 of the Christian Church, looking back 
 through the vista of ages, one is forcibly reminded of the older 
 cults ; and the religions which Christianity displaced rise 
 
 1 Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, chapter v. 
 
 2 Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, in loco. 
 s.i. d 
 
xliv THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 before us in all their pomp and pageantry. We seem to hear 
 once more in the litanies of the Church the beautiful touching 
 hymns sung to the Alexandrian goddess (the Mater dolorosa 
 of the Western pagan world), by a thousand white-robed boys 
 and girls, and it requires but little effort of fancy to carry 
 back the imagination from St. Peter's or St. Paul's to the 
 Serapeum. 
 
 The religion of Jesus, as taught by his chief disciples, had, 
 besides these borrowed and adventitious recommendations, 
 distinct and independent claims to draw to itself the homage 
 of those who, in the welter of spiritual conceptions and religious 
 beliefs, were groping in semi-darkness for a resting place where 
 high and low, ignorant and educated, should stand on the 
 same plane. In its higher phases, it appealed to the nobler 
 instincts of mankind if not more forcibly than the Isiac or 
 Mythraic creeds, certainly with greater assurance. Its promise 
 of a life after death was less veiled in mysteries ; its doctrines 
 were more positive and concrete than the abstract speculations 
 of the philosophers. It brought solace and comfort to the 
 down-trodden and held forth a promise — not yet fulfilled — of 
 equality and brotherhood among mankind, with an assured 
 trust in future salvation to rich and poor alike among those who 
 accepted its doctrines. Whilst the dogmatism of its preachers 
 often assisted by secular force silenced questioning minds, 
 it satisfied the yearnings of those who, turning from the 
 mysticism of the older cults or fleeing from the hidden inde- 
 cencies associated with Nature-worship, hungered for an assur- 
 ance that the existence on earth was but part of a larger life. 
 The whole of the Western pagan world was in short in an 
 expectant mood, waiting for a positive and direct revelation ; 
 and all the teachings of the past had attuned its mind to the 
 reception of a call. The Galilean faith seized the opportunity, 
 and after appropriating and absorbing the ritual and doctrinal 
 legacies left by its " Forerunners and Rivals," gradually 
 monopolised the homage of the peoples who had been subjected 
 by Rome. Whether this adaptation of the simple teachings 
 of Jesus, to make them more readily acceptable, was a develop- 
 ment or the reverse must remain for the present unanswered. 
 But the charge the Moslems make against his followers that 
 
INTRODUCTION xlv 
 
 they corrupted his faith can hardly be said to be altogether 
 unwarranted. 
 
 The early cessation of the ministry of Jesus and the absence 
 of any organic teaching, whilst it allowed a freer scope to 
 imagination, perhaps " a freer latitude of faith and practice," x 
 as shown in the lives of even the early Christians, furnished an 
 open ground for contending factions to dispute not only about 
 doctrines and discipline, but also as to the nature of their 
 Teacher. The expulsion of the Jews and the Christians from 
 Jerusalem, which abounded in so many traditions relating to 
 Jesus as a man ; the intermixture of his followers with the 
 non- Judaic people who surrounded them on all sides, and 
 among whom the Neo-Pythagorean or Platonic ideas as to the 
 government of the universe were more or less prevalent ; the 
 very vagueness which surrounded the figure of Jesus in the 
 conception of his followers — soon gave birth to an infinite 
 variety of doctrines and sects. And age after age everything 
 human, " everything not purely ideal, was smoothed away 
 from the adored image of an incarnate God," the essentially 
 pathetic history of Jesus was converted into a " fairy tale," 
 and his life so surrounded with myths that it is now impossible 
 for us to know " what he really was and did." 
 
 The fantastic shapes assumed by Christianity in the centuries 
 which preceded the advent of Mohammed are alike interesting 
 and instructive. 
 
 The Gnostic doctrines, which were wholly in conflict with 
 the notions of the Judaic Christians, are supposed to have 
 been promulgated towards the end of the first century, almost 
 simultaneously with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem 
 by Hadrian. Cerinthus, the most prominent of the Gnostic 
 teachers in this century, inculcated among his followers the 
 dual worship of the Father and the Son, whom he supposed 
 to be totally distinct from the man Jesus, " the creator of the 
 world." 
 
 The narrowness of Pauline Christianity, and its futile endeav- 
 ours to reconcile its doctrines with the philosophy of the 
 Alexandrian schools, gave birth about the same time to the 
 Neo-Platonic eclecticism of Ammonius Saccas, adopted after- 
 
 1 Mosheim, p. 121. 
 
xlvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 wards by Origen and other leading Christians. This versatile 
 writer, whose impress is visible in the writings of almost all 
 the prominent thinkers of Christendom in the earlier centuries, 
 endeavoured to bring about a general concordance among all 
 the existing creeds and sects. In some respects, Ammonius 
 was the prototype of Mini, or Manes, and was undoubtedly 
 above the level of his contemporaries. He succeeded in 
 forming a school, but his teachings never regulated the morals 
 or influenced the faith of a community. 
 
 The second century of the Christian era was ushered in in 
 strife and disorder. Divisions and heresies were rife throughout 
 the Christian Church. Gnosticism was in great force, and 
 left its character indelibly impressed on Christianity. Some 
 of the sects which came into prominence in this century deserve 
 a passing notice, as they show not only the evils which flowed 
 from the teachings of the Church, but also the influence 
 exercised upon Christianity by Zoroastrianism, Neo-Pytha- 
 goreanism, and the ancient Sabasism of the Chaldaeans. 
 
 The Marcionites, who were perhaps the most important of the 
 early Gnostics, believed in the existence of two principles, the 
 one perfectly good and the other perfectly evil. Between these 
 there existed the Demiurge, an intermediate kind of deity, 
 neither perfectly good nor perfectly evil, but of a mixed nature, 
 who administered rewards and inflicted punishments. The 
 Demiurge was, according to the Marcionite doctrines, the 
 creator of this inferior world, and engaged in perpetual conflict 
 with the Principle of Evil, — mark the impress of the Zoroastrian 
 ideas ! The Supreme Principle, in order to terminate this 
 warfare and to deliver from their bondage the human souls, 
 whose origin is celestial and divine, sent to the Jews, " a being 
 most like unto Himself, even His Son Jesus Christ," clothed 
 with a certain shadowy resemblance of a body, that thus he 
 might be visible to mortal eyes. The commission to this 
 celestial messenger was to destroy the empire, both of the Evil 
 Principle and of the Author of this world, and to bring back 
 wandering souls to God. ' ' On this account he was attacked with 
 inexpressible violence and fury by the Principle of Evil " and 
 by the Demiurge, but without effect, since, having a body only 
 in appearance, he was thereby rendered incapable of suffering. 
 
INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 The Valentinians, whose influence was more lasting, taught 
 that " the supreme God permitted Jesus, His Son, to descend 
 from the upper regions to purge mankind of all the evils into 
 which they had fallen, clothed, not with a real, but with a 
 celestial and aerial body." The Valentinians believed Jesus 
 to be an emanation from the Divine Essence come upon earth 
 to destroy the dominion of the Prince of Darkness. 
 
 The Ophites, who flourished in Egypt, entertained the same 
 notions as the other Egyptian Gnostics concerning the aeons, 
 the eternity of matter, the creation of the world in opposition 
 to the will of God, the tyranny of the Demiurge, and " the 
 divine Christ united to the man Jesus in order to destroy the 
 empire of this usurper." They also maintained that the 
 serpent, by which Adam and Eve were deceived, was either 
 Christ himself, or Sophia, disguised as a serpent. 
 
 Whilst the Gnostic creeds were springing into existence under 
 the influence of Chaldaean philosophy, the Greeks on their 
 side endeavoured to bring about a certain harmony between 
 the Pauline doctrine concerning " the Father, Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, and the two natures united in Christ," and their 
 own philosophical views as to the government of the world. 
 Praxeus was the first of these sophistical preachers of Christi- 
 anity, and he set the ball rolling by denying any real distinction 
 between the " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," and maintained 
 that the Father was so intimately united with the man Christ, 
 His Son, that He suffered with him the anguish of an afflicted 
 life, and the torments of an ignominious death ! 
 
 " These sects," says Mosheim, " were the offspring of philo- 
 sophy. A worse evil was to befall the Christian Church in the 
 person of Montanus, a native of Phrygia." This man, who 
 disdained all knowledge and learning, proclaimed himself 
 the Paraclete promised by Jesus. He soon succeeded in 
 attaching to himself a large body of followers, the most famous 
 of whom were Priscilla and Maximilla, the prophetesses, 
 " ladies more remarkable for their opulence than for their 
 virtue." They turned Northern Asia into a slaughter-house, 
 and by their insensate fury inflicted terrible sufferings on the 
 human race. 
 
 Whilst the Marcionites, Valentinians, Montanists, and the 
 
xiviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 other Gnostic sects were endeavouring to spread their doctrines 
 throughout the empire of Rome, there arose in Persia a man 
 whose individuality has impressed itself in ineffaceable char- 
 acters on the philosophy of two continents. Mani was, to all 
 accounts, the most perfect embodiment of the culture of his 
 age. He was an astronomer, a physicist, a musician, and an 
 artist of eminence. The stories relating to his art-gallery * 
 have passed into a proverb. 
 
 Thoroughly acquainted with the Jewish Cabbala and the 
 teachings of the Gnostic masters, imbued with the ancient 
 philosophy and mysticism of the East, a Magi by birth and 
 Christian by education, he rose in revolt against the jarring 
 discord which surrounded him on all sides, and set himself 
 to the task of creating, from the chaos of beliefs, an eclectic 
 faith which would satisfy all demands, the aspirations of all 
 hearts. The audacity with which Mani applied himself to 
 undermine the current faiths by an outward profession, joined 
 to a subtle criticism, which destroyed all foundations of belief 
 in the neophyte — a process afterwards imitated by his congeners, 
 the Isma'ilias, 2 — and his assertion, like the Batinis, of an 
 esoteric insight into all religious doctrines, armed against him 
 every creed and sect ; and naturally, wherever he or his 
 disciples appeared, they were persecuted with unparalleled 
 ferocity. 
 
 The doctrine of Mani was a fantastic mixture of the tenets 
 of Christianity with the ancient philosophy of the Persians and 
 the Chaldseans. According to him, Matter and Mind are 
 engaged in perpetual strife with each other. In the course 
 of this conflict human beings were created by the Principle 
 of Matter endowed with two natures, one divine, the other 
 material, the former being a part of the light or spirit which 
 had been filched from heaven. In order to release the struggling 
 divine soul from the prison in which it was confined, the 
 Supreme God sent from the solar regions an Entity created 
 from His own substance — which was called Christ. Christ 
 accordingly appeared among the Jews clothed with the shadowy 
 form of a human body, and during his ministry taught mortals 
 how to disengage the rational soul from the corrupt body — 
 
 1 Arzang-i-Mdni. 2 See post, part ii. chap. x. 
 
INTRODUCTION xlix 
 
 to conquer the violence of malignant matter. The Prince of 
 Darkness having incited the Jews to put him to death, he was 
 apparently, but not in reality, crucified. On the contrary, 
 having fulfilled his mission, he returned to his throne in the sun. 
 
 The Manichaean Christ thus could neither eat, drink, suffer, 
 nor die ; he was not even an incarnate God, but an illusory 
 phantasm — " the all-pervading light-element imprisoned in 
 nature, striving to escape matter, without assuming its forms." 
 However blasphemous and irrational these doctrines may seem, 
 they appear hardly more so to Moslems than the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, the changing of the eucharistic elements 
 into the actual flesh and blood of the Deity. 
 
 Manes divided his disciples into two classes ; one, the 
 " elect," and the other, the " hearers." The " elect " were 
 compelled to submit to a rigorous abstinence from all animal 
 food and intoxicating drink, to abjure wedlock and all gratifica- 
 tions of the senses. The discipline appointed for the " hearers " 
 was of a milder kind. They were allowed to possess houses, 
 lands, and wealth, to feed upon flesh, to enter into the bonds of 
 conjugal relationship ; but this liberty was granted them 
 with many limitations, and under the strictest conditions of 
 moderation and temperance. 
 
 Manes, or Mani, was put to death by Bahram-G6r, but his 
 doctrines passed into Christianity and were visible in all the 
 struggles which rent the Church in later times. 
 
 About the middle of the third century arose the sect of the 
 Sabellians, which marked a new departure in the religion of 
 Jesus. They regarded Jesus as only a man, and believed that 
 a certain energy proceeding from the Supreme Father had 
 united itself with the man Jesus, thus constituting him the 
 son of God. This peculiar doctrine, which Gibbon regards as 
 an approach to Unitarianism, was the cause of serious disorders 
 in the Christian Church, and led to the promulgation in the 
 early part of the fourth century, by Origen, of the doctrine of 
 three distinct personalities in the Godhead. Tritheism was 
 only a modification of the ancient paganism suited to the 
 character of the people who had adopted the creed of Jesus. 
 Polytheism was ingrained in their nature, and tritheism was 
 a compromise between the teachings of Jesus and the ancient 
 
1 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 worship of a number of personalities. In the course of time, 
 tritheism merged into the doctrine of the trinity, but not 
 before it had given birth to the most philosophic sect of 
 Christianity. 1 
 
 The rise of Arianism is due principally to the revolt of the 
 human intellect from the irrational teachings of the Church. 
 In Alexandria, which was at that time the most fanatical of 
 Christian cities, Arius had the boldness to preach, in opposition 
 to his own bishop, that Christ was not of the same essence with 
 God. Arianism soon spread itself in Egypt and Northern 
 Africa, and in spite of violent and frequent persecution, kept 
 its hold in these parts as well as Spain until his followers were 
 taken into the fold of Islam. 2 
 
 The troubles generated by the schism of Arius induced 
 Constantine, in a.c. 325, to assemble the Council of Nice, in 
 Bithynia. In this general council, after many violent efforts 
 on both sides, the doctrine of Arius was condemned, and 
 ' ' Christ was declared consubstantial with the Father. ' ' 3 What- 
 ever may have been the condition of the Christian Church 
 before, henceforth its history presents a constant and deplorable 
 record of trouble and violence, of internecine strife and 
 wrangling, of fearful and cruel persecutions, of bitter hatred 
 and a perpetual endeavour to crush out reason and justice 
 from the minds of men. The vices of the regular clergy 
 assumed monstrous proportions, and the luxury, arrogance, 
 and voluptuousness of the sacerdotal order became the subject 
 of complaint on all sides. The asceticism of the early times 
 had given place to monasticism, and the licentiousness of the 
 monks became a byword. They were the free lance of the 
 Church, — always foremost in fomenting tumults and seditions, 
 and the streets of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome 
 frequently ran with blood in consequence of their unruliness 
 and turbulence. 
 
 1 Mosheim, p. 411. 
 
 2 In the latter part of the sixteenth century of the Christian era Socinus of 
 Sienna (in Italy) revived and amplified the doctrines of Arius. The unitarians 
 of the present day are the direct spiritual descendants of the Socinians, who 
 denied the divinity of Jesus. They also repudiated the doctrine of original 
 sin and atonement. To them God alone was the object of adoration. 
 
 3 Gibbon, vol. iv. 307. 
 
INTRODUCTION" li 
 
 The disputes of Nestorius with Cyril, the murderer of 
 Hypatia, forms a prominent chapter in the history of Christi- 
 anity. The second Council of Ephesus was convoked partly 
 with the object of conciliating the various parties which had 
 sprung up in the Church ; but " the despotism of the Alex- 
 andrian Patriarch," says Gibbon, " again oppressed the 
 freedom of debate. The heresy of the two natures was for- 
 mally condemned. ' May those who divide Christ, be divided 
 with the sword.' ' May they be hewn in pieces.' ' May they 
 be burned alive ! ' were the charitable wishes of a Christian 
 synod." 
 
 At the Council of Chalcedon, which was convened at the 
 instance of the Bishop of Rome, the doctrine of the incarnation 
 of Christ in one person but in two natures was definitely settled. 
 
 The Monophysites and Nestorians, revolting from the 
 doctrine of incarnation, endeavoured to make a stand against 
 the decree of Chalcedon. But they succumbed under the 
 furious onslaught of the orthodox, who had succeeded in 
 solving the mystery of their Teacher's nature. Jerusalem 
 was occupied by an army of monks ; in the name of one 
 incarnate nature they pillaged, they murdered ; the sepulchre 
 of Christ was defiled with blood. The Alexandrian Christians, 
 who had murdered a woman, did not hesitate to massacre 
 their Patriarch in the baptistery, committing his mangled 
 corpse to the flames and his ashes to the wind. 
 
 About the middle of the sixth century the drooping fortunes 
 of the Monophysites revived under the guidance of one of their 
 leaders, Jacob, bishop of Edessa. Under him and his successor 
 they acquired overwhelming predominance in the Eastern 
 empire, and by their unrelenting persecution of the Nestorians 
 and their bitter quarrels with the orthodox or the Chalcedonians, 
 plunged the Christian Church into internecine warfare and 
 bloodshed. To a non-Christian, the doctrines of the Mono- 
 physites, who taught that " the divine and human nature of 
 Christ were so founded as to form only one nature, yet without 
 any change, confusion, or mixture of the two natures," seem 
 to be in no way different from those laid down by the Council 
 of Chalcedon. And yet this distinction without a difference 
 was the cause of untold misery to a large number of the human 
 
Hi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 race. At last, in 630 A.c, Heraclius tried to allay the disorders 
 by starting a new sect, that of the Monothelites, whose doctrines 
 were no less monstrous and fantastical. The Monothelites 
 maintained that " Christ was both perfect God and perfect 
 man, and that in him were two distinct natures so united as to 
 cause no mixture or confusion, but to form by their union 
 only one person." Instead, however, of bringing peace into 
 the bosom of the Church of Jesus, the rise of this sect intensi- 
 fied the evil ; and Western Asia, Northern Africa, and various 
 parts of Europe continued to be the scene of massacres and 
 murders and every kind of outrage in the name of Christ. 
 
 Such was the religious condition of Christendom during the 
 centuries which preceded the advent of Islam. 
 
 With the apparent conversion of Constantine, Christianity 
 became the dominant power in the Roman empire. The fate 
 of paganism was sealed. Its downfall, though staved off for 
 a time by the greatest and most sincere of the Roman emperors, 
 had become inevitable. " After the extinction of paganism," 
 says Gibbon, " the Christians, in peace and piety, might have 
 enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle of discord 
 was alive in their bosom, and they were more solicitous to 
 explore the nature than to practise the laws of their founder." * 
 The whole of Christian Europe was immersed in absolute 
 darkness, and the Church of Jesus was rent with schisms and 
 heresies. The religious conception of the masses had not 
 advanced beyond the pagan stage ; the souls of the dead were 
 worshipped in numbers, and the images of those who were 
 honoured in life were objects of adoration. Relic and saint 
 worship had become universal ; Christianity had reverted to 
 heathenism. 
 
 The social and political condition of the nations subject to 
 the sway of Christianity was equally deplorable. Liberty of 
 thought and freedom of judgment were crushed out from 
 among mankind. And the reign of Christ was celebrated by 
 the sacrifice of heretics who ventured to differ from any idea 
 which predominated for the time. 
 
 1 The Emperor Julian (the so-called Apostate) is reported to have said : 
 " No wild beasts are so hostile to man as Christian sects in general are to one 
 another." 
 
INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 In the streets of Alexandria, before the eyes of the civilised 
 world, the noblest woman of antiquity was slaughtered with 
 nameless horrors by a Christian who bears the title of saint 
 in the annals of Christendom, and who, in modern times, has 
 found an apologist. The eloquent pages of Draper furnish 
 a vivid account of the atrocious crime which will always 
 remain one of the greatest blots on Christianity. A beautiful, 
 wise, and virtuous woman, whose lecture-room was full to 
 overflowing with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria, was 
 attacked as she was coming out of her academy by a mob of 
 the zealous professors of Christianity. Amidst the fearful 
 yelling of these defenders of the faith she was dragged from her 
 chariot, and in the public street stripped naked. Paralysed 
 with fear, she was haled into an adjoining church, and there 
 killed by the club of a " saint." The poor naked corpse was 
 outraged and then dismembered ; but the diabolical crime was 
 not completed until they had scraped the flesh from the bones 
 with oyster shells and cast the remnants into the fire. Christen- 
 dom honoured with canonisation the fiend who instigated this 
 terrible and revolting atrocity, and the blood of martyred 
 Hypatia was avenged only by the sword of Amru ! l 
 
 The condition of Constantinople under Justinian, the 
 Christian and the glorified legislator, is the best index to the 
 demoralised and degraded state of society all over Christendom. 
 Public or private virtue had no recognition in the social con- 
 ceptions ; a harlot sat on the throne of the Caesars, and shared 
 with the emperor the honours of the State. Theodora had 
 publicly plied her trade in the city of Constantine, and her 
 name was a byword among its dissolute inhabitants. And 
 now she was adored as a queen in the same city by " grave 
 magistrates, orthodox bishops, victorious generals, and captive 
 monarchs." The empire was disgraced by her cruelties, which 
 recognised no religious or moral restraint. Seditions, out- 
 breaks, and sanguinary tumults, in which the priesthood 
 always took the most prominent part, were the order of the day. 
 On these occasions every law, human or divine, was trampled 
 under foot ; churches and altars were polluted by atrocious 
 murders ; no place was safe or sacred from depredations ; 
 
 1 'Amr(u) ibn al-'Asi or 'As of Arabian history. 
 
liv THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 the bonds of society were rent asunder, and revolting 
 outrages were perpetrated in broad daylight. Nothing, how- 
 ever, can equal the horrors which were inflicted upon this 
 unholy city during the Nika riots in the fifth year of Justinian's 
 reign. The horrible anarchy of the circus, with its incessant 
 bloodshed and sensuality, stimulated to its worst excesses 
 by the support and encouragement which the imperial cham- 
 pions of orthodoxy extended to the most barbarous of the 
 factions, was unparalleled in any heathen land. 
 
 As compared with Constantinople at this period, Persia was 
 a country of order and law. 
 
 Humanity revolts from the accounts of the crimes which 
 sully the annals of Christian Constantinople. Whilst the 
 Prophet of Islam was yet an infant, one of the most virtuous 
 emperors who ever ascended the throne of Byzantium was 
 massacred, with his children and wife, with fearful tortures 
 at the instance of a Christian monarch. The emperor was 
 dragged from his sanctuary, and his five sons were successively 
 murdered before his eyes ; and this tragic scene closed with 
 the execution of the emperor himself. The empress and her 
 daughters were subjected to nameless cruelties and then 
 beheaded on the very ground which had been stained with the 
 blood of the poor Emperor Maurice. The ruthless treatment 
 meted out to the friends, companions and partisans of the 
 imperial victim, serves as an index to the morality of the 
 Byzantine Christians. Their eyes were pierced, their tongues 
 were torn from the root, their hands and feet were amputated ; 
 some expired under the lash, others in the flames, others again 
 were transfixed with arrows. " A simple, speedy death," 
 says Gibbon, " was a mercy which they could rarely obtain." 
 
 The Byzantine empire, slowly bleeding unto death, torn by 
 political and religious factions, distracted with theological 
 wranglings, and " crazed by an insane desire to enforce uni- 
 formity of religious belief," offered a wretched spectacle of 
 assassinations, dissoluteness, and brutality. 1 
 
 1 Milman thus describes the Christianity of those days : " The Bishop of 
 Constantinople was the passive victim, the humble slave, or the factious 
 adversary of the Byzantine emperor ; rarely exercised a lofty moral control 
 upon his despotism. The lower clergy, whatever their more secret beneficent 
 or sanctifying workings on society, had sufficient power, wealth, and rank 
 
INTRODUCTION lv 
 
 The countries included in Asiatic Turkey westward of the 
 Euphrates, devastated alternately by the Parthians and the 
 Romans, and then by the Persians and the Byzantines, pre- 
 sented a picture of utter hopelessness. The moral misery of 
 the people was surpassed by their material ruin. The followers 
 of Jesus, instead of alleviating, intensified the evil. Mago- 
 Zoroastrianism combating with a degraded Christianity in 
 Mesopotamia, the Nestorians engaged in deadly conflict with 
 the orthodox party, the earlier contests of Montanus and 
 the prophetesses, had converted Western Asia into a wilderness 
 of despair and desolation. 
 
 The whirlwinds of conquest which had passed over Africa, 
 the massacres, the murders, the lawlessness of the professors 
 and teachers of the Christian religion, had destroyed every 
 spark of moral life in Egypt and in the African provinces of 
 the decaying empire. In Europe the condition of the people 
 was, if possible, still more miserable. In the open day, in 
 the presence of the ministers of religion and the people, Narses, 
 the benefactor of his country, was burnt alive in the market- 
 place of Constantinople. In the streets of Rome, under the 
 eyes of the Exarch, the partisans of rival bishops waged war, 
 and deluged churches with the blood of Christians. Spain 
 exhibited a heart-rending scene of anarchy and ruin. The 
 rich, the privileged few, who held the principal magistracies 
 of the province under the emperors, or who were dignified 
 with the title of magistrates, were exempt from all burdens. 
 They lived in extreme luxury in beautiful villas, surrounded 
 by slaves of both sexes ; spending their time in the baths, 
 which were so many haunts of immorality ; or at the gaming 
 
 to tempt ambition or to degrade to intrigue ; not enough to command the 
 public mind for any great salutary purpose, to repress the inveterate immor- 
 ality of an effete age, to reconcile jarring interests, to mould together hostile 
 races ; in general they ruled, when they did rule, by the superstitious fears, 
 rather than by the reverence and attachment of a grateful people. They sank 
 downward into the common ignorance, and yielded to the worst barbarism — 
 a worn-out civilisation. Monasticism withdrew a great number of those who 
 might have been energetic and useful citizens into barren seclusion and 
 religious indolence ; but except when the monks formed themselves, as they 
 frequently did, into fierce political or polemic factions, they had little effect 
 on the conditions of society. They stood aloof from the world — the anchorites 
 in their desert wildernesses, the monks in their jealously-barred convents ; 
 and secure, as they supposed, of their own salvation, left the rest of mankind 
 to inevitable perdition." — Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i, Introd. p. 4. 
 
lvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 table, when not engaged in eating and drinking. The sight 
 of this luxury and opulence offered a terrible contrast to the 
 miseries of the masses. The middle class, the free population 
 of the cities and the villages, were ground to the earth by the 
 tyranny of the Romans. Agrarian slavery had disappeared ; 
 its place was taken by the colonists, occupying an intermediate 
 position between freedom and slavery. They were in some 
 respects happier than the slaves. They could contract valid 
 marriages ; they obtained a limited share of the produce of 
 the lands they cultivated ; and their patrons could not take 
 their goods and chattels from them. But in all other respects 
 they were the slaves of the soil. Their personal services were 
 at the disposal of the State. They were liable to corporal 
 chastisement, like the domestic slaves ; * slaves, not of an 
 individual, but of the soil, they remained attached to the 
 lands they cultivated by an indissoluble and hereditary tie. 
 The condition of the slaves, who formed the bulk of the popula- 
 tion, was miserable beyond description. They were treated 
 with pitiless cruelty, worse than cattle. The invasion of the 
 barbarians brought with it a dire punishment upon the ill- 
 fated land. In their wake followed desolation, terrible and 
 absolute ; they ravaged, they massacred, they reduced into 
 slavery the women, children, and the clergy. 
 
 A vast number of Jews were settled in the peninsula for 
 centuries. The terrible persecutions which they suffered at 
 the hands of the ecclesiastics in the reign of the Visigoth 
 Sisebut in the year 616 a.c, lasted until Islam brought emanci- 
 pation to the wretched victims of ignorance and fanaticism. 
 It was Islam which rendered possible for Judaism to produce 
 such men as Maimonides or Ibn Gebrol. 
 
 Let us turn now to Arabia, that land of mystery and romance, 
 which has hitherto lain enwrapt in silence and solitude, isolated 
 from the great nations of the world, unaffected by their wars 
 or their polity. The armies of the Chosroes and the Caesars 
 had for centuries marched and re-marched by her frontiers 
 without disturbing her sleep of ages. And though the mutter- 
 ings of the distant thunder, which so frequently rolled across 
 
 1 Three hundred lashes was the usual allowance for trivial faults. See 
 Dozy, Hist, des Musulmans d'Espagne, vol. ii. p. 87. 
 
INTRODUCTION lvii 
 
 the dominions of the Byzantine and the Persian, often reached 
 her ears, they failed to rouse her from her slumber. Her 
 turn, however, was come, and she found her voice in that 
 of the noblest of her sons. 
 
 The chain of mountains which, descending from Palestine 
 towards the Isthmus of Suez, runs almost parallel to the Red 
 Sea down to the southern extremity of the Arabian peninsula, 
 is designated in the Arabic language, Hijaz, or Barrier, and 
 gives its name to all the country it traverses until it reaches 
 the province of Yemen. At times the mountains run close to 
 the sea, at times they draw far away from the coast, leaving 
 long stretches of lowland, barren, desolate, and inhospitable, 
 with occasional green valleys and rich oases formed in 
 the track of the periodical rain-torrents. Beyond this range, 
 and eastward, stretches the steppe of Najd — the " highland " 
 of Arabia — a vast plateau, with deserts, mountain gorges, and 
 here and there green plantations refreshing to the eye. In 
 Hijaz, the barrier-land, lie the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, 
 the birthplace and cradle of Islam. 
 
 This vast region is divided into four tolerably well-defined 
 countries. First, to the north lies Arabia Petraea, including 
 the countries of the ancient Edomites and the Midianites. 
 Then comes Hijaz proper, containing the famous city of Yathrib, 
 known afterwards in history as the City of the Prophet, — 
 Medina't un-Nabi, or Medina. South of Hijaz proper lies the 
 province of Tihama, where are situated Mecca and the port of 
 Jeddah, — the landing-place of the pilgrims of Islam. The 
 fourth and the southernmost part is called Asyr, bordering on 
 Yemen. Yemen, properly so called, is the country forming 
 the south-western extremity of the Arabian Peninsula, bounded 
 on the west by the Red Sea, on the south by the Indian Ocean, 
 on the north by Hijaz, and on the east by Hazramaut (Hadh- 
 ramaut). The name of Yemen is often applied to southern 
 Arabia generally. It then includes, besides Yemen proper, 
 Hazramaut and the district of Mahra to the east of Hazramaut. 
 Beyond Mahra, at the south-east corner of the peninsula, is 
 Oman, and to the north of this al-Bahrain, or al-Ahsa, on the 
 Persian Gulf. This latter country is also called Hijr, from the 
 name of its principal province. 
 
lvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 table, when not engaged in eating and drinking. The sight 
 of this luxury and opulence offered a terrible contrast to the 
 miseries of the masses. The middle class, the free population 
 of the cities and the villages, were ground to the earth by the 
 tyranny of the Romans. Agrarian slavery had disappeared ; 
 its place was taken by the colonists, occupying an intermediate 
 position between freedom and slavery. They were in some 
 respects happier than the slaves. They could contract valid 
 marriages ; they obtained a limited share of the produce of 
 the lands they cultivated ; and their patrons could not take 
 their goods and chattels from them. But in all other respects 
 they were the slaves of the soil. Their personal services were 
 at the disposal of the State. They were liable to corporal 
 chastisement, like the domestic slaves ; * slaves, not of an 
 individual, but of the soil, they remained attached to the 
 lands they cultivated by an indissoluble and hereditary tie. 
 The condition of the slaves, who formed the bulk of the popula- 
 tion, was miserable beyond description. They were treated 
 with pitiless cruelty, worse than cattle. The invasion of the 
 barbarians brought with it a dire punishment upon the ill- 
 fated land. In their wake followed desolation, terrible and 
 absolute ; they ravaged, they massacred, they reduced into 
 slavery the women, children, and the clergy. 
 
 A vast number of Jews were settled in the peninsula for 
 centuries. The terrible persecutions which they suffered at 
 the hands of the ecclesiastics in the reign of the Visigoth 
 Sisebut in the year 616 a.c, lasted until Islam brought emanci- 
 pation to the wretched victims of ignorance and fanaticism. 
 It was Islam which rendered possible for Judaism to produce 
 such men as Maimonides or Ibn Gebrol. 
 
 Let us turn now to Arabia, that land of mystery and romance, 
 which has hitherto lain enwrapt in silence and solitude, isolated 
 from the great nations of the world, unaffected by their wars 
 or their polity. The armies of the Chosroes and the Caesars 
 had for centuries marched and re-marched by her frontiers 
 without disturbing her sleep of ages. And though the mutter- 
 ings of the distant thunder, which so frequently rolled across 
 
 1 Three hundred lashes was the usual allowance for trivial faults. See 
 Dozy, Hist, des Musuhnans d'Espagne, vol. ii. p. 87. 
 
INTRODUCTION lvii 
 
 the dominions of the Byzantine and the Persian, often reached 
 her ears, they failed to rouse her from her slumber. Her 
 turn, however, was come, and she found her voice in that 
 of the noblest of her sons. 
 
 The chain of mountains which, descending from Palestine 
 towards the Isthmus of Suez, runs almost parallel to the Red 
 Sea down to the southern extremity of the Arabian peninsula, 
 is designated in the Arabic language, Hijaz, or Barrier, and 
 gives its name to all the country it traverses until it reaches 
 the province of Yemen. At times the mountains run close to 
 the sea, at times they draw far away from the coast, leaving 
 long stretches of lowland, barren, desolate, and inhospitable, 
 with occasional green valleys and rich oases formed in 
 the track of the periodical rain-torrents. Beyond this range, 
 and eastward, stretches the steppe of Najd — the " highland " 
 of Arabia — a vast plateau, with deserts, mountain gorges, and 
 here and there green plantations refreshing to the eye. In 
 Hijaz, the barrier-land, lie the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, 
 the birthplace and cradle of Islam. 
 
 This vast region is divided into four tolerably well-defined 
 countries. First, to the north lies Arabia Petraea, including 
 the countries of the ancient Edomites and the Midianites. 
 Then comes Hijaz proper, containing the famous city of Yathrib, 
 known afterwards in history as the City of the Prophet, — 
 Medina't un-Nabi, or Medina. South of Hijaz proper lies the 
 province of Tihama, where are situated Mecca and the port of 
 Jeddah, — the landing-place of the pilgrims of Islam. The 
 fourth and the southernmost part is called Asyr, bordering on 
 Yemen. Yemen, properly so called, is the country forming 
 the south-western extremity of the Arabian Peninsula, bounded 
 on the west by the Red Sea, on the south by the Indian Ocean, 
 on the north by Hijaz, and on the east by Hazramaut (Hadh- 
 ramaut). The name of Yemen is often applied to southern 
 Arabia generally. It then includes, besides Yemen proper, 
 Hazramaut and the district of Mahra to the east of Hazramaut. 
 Beyond Mahra, at the south-east corner of the peninsula, is 
 Oman, and to the north of this al-Bahrain, or al-Ahsa, on the 
 Persian Gulf. This latter country is also called Hijr, from the 
 name of its principal province. 
 
lviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Najd, the highland, is the large plateau which, commencing 
 westward on the eastern side of the mountains of Hijaz, 
 occupies the whole of Central Arabia. That portion of Najd, 
 which borders on Yemen, is called the Najd of Yemen, and the 
 northern part simply Najd. These two divisions are separated 
 by a mountainous province called Yemama, famous in the 
 history of Islam. North of Najd, stretches the Syrian desert, 
 not really a part of Arabia, but where the Arab tribes now roam, 
 free and wild, leading a nomadic life like their ancient Aramaean 
 predecessors. North-east are the deserts of Irak (Barriyat 
 ul-Irak), bordering the fertile territory of Chaldaea on the right 
 bank of the Euphrates, and separating it from the cultivated 
 portions of Arabia. Eastward, Najd is separated from al-Ahsa 
 by one of those strips of desert called Nafud by the Arabs. 
 Towards the south lies the vast desert of Dahna. It separates 
 Najd from Hazramaut and Mahra. 
 
 This vast region, which embraces an area twice the size of 
 France in the height of its power, was then as now inhabited 
 by two different types of people, " the people of the town " 
 and " the dwellers of the desert." The virtues and the defects 
 of the Bedawee, his devotion to his clan, his quixotic sense of 
 honour, with his recklessness and thirst for revenge, and his 
 disregard for human life, have been portrayed in vivid and 
 sympathetic colours by eminent writers like Burton and 
 Poole. But whatever the difference between the Bedouin 
 and the citizen, the Arab is peculiarly the child of the desert. 
 His passionate love of freedom and his spiritual exaltation 
 are the outcome of the free air which he breathes and of the 
 wide expanse which he treads, — conscious of his own dignity 
 and independence. In spite of the annual gatherings at Mecca 
 and 'Ukaz, the tribes and nationalities which inhabited 
 the soil of Arabia were far from homogeneous. Each was 
 more or less distinct from the other in development and 
 religion. This diversity was mainly due to the diversity 
 of their origin. Various races had peopled the peninsula 
 at various times. Many of them had passed away, but 
 their misdeeds or their prowess were fresh in the memory 
 of successive generations, and these traditions formed the 
 history of the nation. The Arabs themselves divide the 
 
INTRODUCTION lix 
 
 races who have peopled the peninsula into three grand sub- 
 divisions, viz. : (i) the Arab ul-Bdidah, the extinct Arabs, 
 under which are included the Hamitic colonies (Kushites), 
 which preceded the Semites in the work of colonisation, as also 
 the Aramaean populations of Syria, Phoenicia, and other parts ; 
 (2) the 'Arab ul-'Ariba, or Mut'ariba, original Arabs, true 
 Semites, whom tradition represents to be descended from 
 Kahtan, or Joktan, and who, in their progress towards the 
 south, destroyed the aboriginal settlers. The Joktanite 
 Arabs, nomads by nature, super-imposed themselves in those 
 countries on the primitive inhabitants, the Hamitic astral- 
 worshippers. Their original cradle was the region whence also 
 came the Abrahamites, and is precisely indicated by the 
 significant names of two of the direct ancestors of Joktan, 
 Arphaxad, " border of the Chaldaean," and Eber, " the man 
 from beyond (the river)," in reference to Babylon, or the 
 district now called Irak-Araby, on the right bank of the 
 Euphrates. 1 (3) The 'Arab ul-Must' ariba, " or naturalised 
 Arabs," Abrahamitic Semites, who, either as peaceful immi- 
 grants or as military colonists, introduced themselves into the 
 peninsula, and who intermarried and settled among the 
 Joktanite Arabs. 2 These three names, 'Ariba, Mut'ariba, 
 and Must'ariba, are derived from the same root, and by the 
 modification of their grammatical form indicate the periods 
 when these races were naturalised in the country. 3 
 
 Among the 'Arab ul-'Ariba, the races which require special 
 mention in connection with the history of Islam are the Bani- 
 'Ad, 4 the 'Amalika, the Bani-Thamud, 5 and Bani-Jadis (the 
 Thamudiens and Jodicites of Diodorus Siculus and Ptolemy). 
 The Bani-'Ad, Hamitic in their origin, were the first settlers 
 and colonists in the peninsula, and they were established 
 
 1 Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 293. 
 
 2 Ibn-ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 55-58. 
 
 3 Caussin de Perceval regards the Bdidah as the same as 'Ariba, and puts 
 the Muf ariba as forming the second group. In the following pages I adopt 
 his classification. 
 
 4 The 'Adites are said to have been overwhelmed, conquered, and destroyed 
 by the Joktanite Arabs ; the Thamudites, " that strange race of troglodytes," 
 by the Assyrians under Chedorlaomer (Khozar al-Ahmar). 
 
 6 With a d±. 
 
lx THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 principally in that region of Central Arabia, which is called by 
 Arab historians and geographers, the Ahsdf ur-ramal, contigu- 
 ous to Yemen, Hazramaut, and Oman. They appear during 
 one period of their existence to have formed a powerful and 
 conquering nation. One of the sovereigns of this race, Shaddad, 
 whose name is preserved in the Koran, seems to have extended 
 his power even beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula. 
 He is said to have conquered Irak, and even approached the 
 borders of India. This tradition probably points to the 
 invasion of Babylonia or Chaldaea by the Arabs more than 
 2000 years before Christ, and possibly might be referred to 
 the same event which, in Persian traditions, is called the 
 invasion of Zahhak. The same Shaddad, or one of his successors 
 bearing the same name, carried his arms into Egypt and farther 
 west. This invasion of Egypt by the Arabs has been identified 
 with the irruption of the Hyksos into that country. And the 
 way in which the nomadic invaders were ultimately driven 
 out of Africa by a combination of the princes of the Thebaid, 
 with the assistance of their Ethiopian or Kushite neighbours 
 towards the south, gives some degree of corroboration to the 
 theory. 
 
 The bulk of the 'Adites are said to have been destroyed by a 
 great drought which afflicted their country. A small remnant 
 escaped and formed the second 'Adite nation, which attained 
 considerable prosperity in Yemen. These later 'Adites, 
 however, were engulfed in the Joktanide wave. 
 
 The Bani-'Amalika, supposed by Lenormant to be of 
 Aramaean origin, who are undoubtedly the same as the Amale- 
 kites of the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures — the Shashu 
 of the Egyptian monuments — expelled from Babylonia by the 
 early Assyrian sovereigns, entered Arabia, and gradually 
 spread themselves in Yemen and Hijaz, as well as Palestine 
 and Syria. They appear to have penetrated into Egypt, and 
 gave her several of her Pharaohs. The 'Amalika of Hijaz 
 were either destroyed or driven out by the Bani-Jurhum, a 
 branch of the Bani-Kahtan, who had originally settled in the 
 south, and subsequently moving northwards, overwhelmed the 
 Amalika. 
 
 The Bani-Thamud, who, like the Bani-'Ad, were Kushite 
 
INTRODUCTION lxi 
 
 or Hamitic, inhabited the borders of Edom and afterwards 
 the country named Hijr, situated to the east of Arabia Petraea, 
 and between Hijaz and Syria. These people were troglodytes, 
 and lived in houses carved in the side of rocks. Sir Henry 
 Layard, in his Early Travels, has described the ruins of these 
 rocky habitations, and one can fix the exact location of the 
 Thamudites by comparing the Arabian traditions with the 
 accounts of modern travellers and the results of recent dis- 
 coveries. As the " indispensable middlemen " of the com- 
 merce between Syria and Najd or Hijaz, the Thamudites 
 attained a high degree of prosperity. They were, ultimately, 
 in great part exterminated by Chedorlaomer (Khuzar al- 
 Ahmar), the great Elamite conqueror, in the course of his 
 victorious campaigns in Syria and Arabia. The terrible fate 
 which overtook these ancient cave-dwellers, who, in their solid 
 habitations, considered themselves safe from divine wrath, 
 is often referred to in the Koran as a warning to the Koreishites. 
 
 After this disaster, the rest of the Bani-Thamud retreated to 
 Mount Seir, on the north of the Elamitic Gulf, where they 
 lived in the times of Isaac and Jacob. But they soon dis- 
 appeared, doubtless absorbed by the neighbouring tribes, and 
 their place was taken by the Edomites who held Mount Seir 
 for a time. 1 These Edomites were apparently succeeded in 
 their possessions by a body of Arabs driven from Yemen by 
 the Bani-Kahtan. In the days of Diodorus Siculus, under the 
 same name as their predecessors they furnished contingents 
 to the Roman armies. 
 
 Leaving the Tasm and Jadis and other smaller tribes, as 
 too unimportant to require any specific mention, we come to 
 the Bani-Jurhum, who, also, are classed under the head of 
 'Arab ul-'Ariba, and who appear to have overwhelmed, 
 destroyed, and replaced the 'Amalika in Hijaz. There seem 
 to have been two tribes of that name, one of them, the most 
 ancient, and contemporaneous with the 'Adites, and probably 
 Kushite in their origin ; the other, descendants of Kahtan, 
 who, issuing from the valley of Yemen in a season of great 
 sterility, drove out the 'Amalekite tribes of Hijaz, and estab- 
 lished themselves in their possessions. The irruption of the 
 
 1 Gen. xiv. 4, 6. 
 
lxii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Bani-Jurhum, of Kahtanite origin, is said to have taken 
 place at a time when the Ishmaelitic Arabs were acquiring 
 prominence among the 'Amalika, in whose country they had 
 been long settled. The Ishmaelites entered into amicable 
 relations with the invading hordes, and lived side by side with 
 them for a period. Before the advancing tide of the descend- 
 ants of Ishmael, the Jurhumites began gradually to lose their 
 hold over the valley, and before a century was well over the 
 dominion of Hijaz and Tihama passed into the hands of the 
 Abrahamitic Arabs. The development of the Must'ariba 
 Arabs suffered a temporary check from the inroad of the 
 Babylonian monarch, but, as we shall see later, they soon 
 recovered their vitality, and spread themselves over Hijaz, 
 Najd, and the deserts of Irak and Mesopotamia, where they 
 finally absorbed the descendants of Kahtan, their predecessors. 
 
 The 'Arab ul-Mut' ariba were tribes sprung from Kahtan, 
 son of Eber, 1 and were chiefly concentrated in Yemen. The 
 descendants of Kahtan had burst into Arabia from its north- 
 east corner, and had penetrated down into the south, where 
 they lived for a time along with the 'Adites of the race of Kush, 
 subject to their political supremacy, and at last became the 
 governing power. The population sprung from Kahtan 
 was not, however, exclusively confined to Southern Arabia. 
 Their primitive cradle lay in Mesopotamia. In moving south- 
 ward from that locality to Yemen, the Kahtanite tribes must 
 have passed through the whole length of the Arabian peninsula, 
 and no doubt left some settlements behind them along their 
 route. 
 
 According to the Arab historians, the wave which entered 
 the peninsula at this period was headed by two brothers, 
 Kahtan and Yaktan, the sons of Eber or Heber. And it was 
 the son of Kahtan, Yareb, whom they regard as the first prince 
 of Yemen, who gave his name to all his descendants and to 
 the whole of the peninsula. Yareb is said to have been 
 succeeded by his son Yeshhad, founder of Mareb, the ancient 
 capital oi the realm, and father of the famous Abd ush-Shams, 
 surnamed Saba. This surname, which means Capturer, was 
 given to him on account of his victories. The posterity of 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir calls him Ghabir or 'Abir, 
 
INTRODUCTION ixiii 
 
 Saba became the progenitors of the various tribes of Kahtanite 
 descent, famous in Arab traditions. Saba left two sons, 
 Himyar (which means red) * and Kuhlan. The former suc- 
 ceeded to his father's throne, and it was after him that the 
 dynasty of Saba were called Himyary or Himyarite. 2 His 
 descendants and those of Kuhlan, his brother and successor, 
 alternately ruled Yemen until the century before Mohammed. 
 To this dynasty belonged the great Zu'lkarnain, and the 
 celebrated Bilkis, who went to Jerusalem in the time of 
 Solomon. 3 
 
 1 From the red mantle which he used to wear in imitation of the Pharaohs. 
 
 2 The Himyarite sovereigns of Yemen, who were styled Tobbas, seem to 
 have been from the earliest times in communication both with Persia and 
 Byzantium. 
 
 3 There is considerable doubt as to the identity of Zu'lkarnain. Several 
 Mohammedan historians have thought that the Zu'lkarnain referred to in the 
 Koran is identical with Alexander of Macedon. This opinion, however, is 
 open to question. Zu'lkarnain in its primitive sense means " the lord of two 
 horns." When we remember the head-dress worn by the ancient Sabaean 
 sovereigns, the crescent-shaped moon with its two horns, borrowed probably 
 from Egypt about the period of this king, there can be little room for doubt 
 that the reference in the Koran is to some sovereign of native origin, whose 
 extensive conquests became magnified in the imagination of posterity into a 
 world-wide dominion. 
 
 Lenormant thinks that Shaddad, Zu'lkarnain, and Balkis were all Kushites. 
 
 Judaism was strongly represented among the subjects of the Himyarite 
 sovereigns, and in the year 343 a.c, at the instance of an ambassador sent to 
 Yemen by the Emperor Constantine, several Christian churches were erected 
 in their dominions. But the bulk of the nation adhered to the primitive 
 Semitic cult. 
 
 Towards the end of the fifth century, Zu-Nawas, known to the Byzantines 
 as Dimion, made himself the master of Yemen and its dependencies, after 
 slaying the ferocious usurper, Zu-Shinatir. His cruel persecution of the 
 Christians, under the instigation of the Jews, whose creed he had adopted, 
 drew upon him the vengeance of the Byzantine emperor. Instigated from 
 Constantinople, an Abyssinian army, under the command of Harith or Aryat, 
 landed on the shores of Yemen, defeated and killed Zu-Nawas, and made 
 themselves masters of Yemen. This occurred about 525 a.c. 
 
 Shortly afterwards (537 a.c.) Aryat was killed by Abraha al-Ashram, who 
 subsequently became the Abyssinian viceroy. It was under Abraha that the 
 Christian Abyssinians made their abortive attempt to conquer Hijaz. Yemen 
 remained under the Abyssinian domination for nearly half a century, when 
 M'adi Karib, the son of the famous Saif zu'l Yezen, whose heroic deeds are 
 sung up to the present day by the Arabs of the desert, restored the Himyarite 
 dynasty (573 a.c.) with the help of an army furnished by Kesra. Anushirvan. 
 On M'adi Karib's assassination by the Christians in 597, Yemen came under 
 the direct domination of Persia, and was ruled by viceroys appointed by the 
 court of Ctesiphon. Wahraz was the first Marzban. Under him Yemen, 
 Hazramaut, Mahra, and Oman were added to the Persian empire. The last 
 of these viceroys was Bazan, who became Marzban under Khusru Parviz 
 towards the year 606. It was during the viceroyalty of Bazan that Islam 
 was introduced into Yemen, and he himself accepted the Faith. The Persian 
 
Ixiv THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 The traditions respecting the early Ishmaelite settlement 
 in Arabia relate back to the time of Abraham and his expulsion 
 or expatriation from Chaldaea. The descendants of Ishmael 
 prospered and multiplied in Hijaz until they, with their allies 
 the Jurhumites, were overwhelmed and almost destroyed by 
 the formidable king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar, who, of 
 all the monarchs that endeavoured to attack the heart of 
 Arabia, was alone successful in wounding it seriously. The 
 foundation of Mecca was apparently co-eval with the establish- 
 ment of the Abrahamitic Arabs in the peninsula, for according 
 to the Arab traditions a Jurhumite chief named Meghass 
 ibn-Amr, whose daughter was married to the progenitor of 
 the Must'ariba Arabs, Ishmael or Isma'il, was the founder of 
 the city. About the same time was built the temple which 
 gave Mecca an overwhelming predominance over the other 
 cities of Arabia. Built by Abraham, that " Saturnian father 
 of the tribes," in the remotest antiquity, the Kaaba ever 
 remained the holiest and most sacred of the temples of the 
 nation. Here were ranged the three hundred and sixty idols, 
 one for each day, round the great god Hobal, carved of red 
 agate, the two ghazdlas, gazelles of gold and silver, and the 
 image of Abraham and of his son. Here the tribes came, 
 year after year, " to kiss the black stone which had fallen 
 from heaven in the primeval days of Adam, and to make the 
 seven circuits of the temple naked." Mecca was thus from the 
 earliest times the centre, not only of the religious associations 
 of the Arabs, but also of their commercial enterprises. Stand- 
 ing on the highway of the commerce of antiquity, it gathered 
 to itself the wealth and culture of the neighbouring countries. 
 Not even the Babylonian monarch could touch her mercantile 
 prosperity ; for, from the necessity of their situation, the 
 Arabs of Hijaz became the carriers of the nations of the world. 
 
 Mecca was the centre of the commercial activity which has 
 distinguished the Arabs at all times from the other nations of 
 the East. From Mecca eradiated the caravans which carried 
 to the Byzantine dominions and to Persia the rich products of 
 
 domination of Yemen was extremely mild. All religions enjoyed equal 
 toleration, and the chiefs of the different tribes exercised their authority in 
 their different tracts, subject to the control of the Marzban. 
 
INTRODUCTION lxv 
 
 Yemen and the far-famed Ind, and brought from Syria the 
 silks and stuffs of the Persian cities. But they brought with 
 them more than articles of trade ; in the train of these caravans 
 came all the luxurious habits and vices which had corroded 
 the very heart of the neighbouring empires. Grecian and 
 Persian slave girls, imported from Syria and Irak, beguiled 
 the idle hours of the rich with their dancing and singing, or 
 ministered to their vices. The poet, whose poems formed the 
 pride of the nation, sung only of the joys of the present life, 
 and encouraged the immorality of the people. And no one 
 bethought himself of the morrow. 
 
 The Arabs, and especially the Meccans, were passionately 
 addicted to drinking, gambling, and music. Dancing and 
 singing, as in other Eastern countries, were practised by a class 
 of women occupying a servile position, who were called Kiydn, 
 or, in the singular, Kayna, and whose immorality was pro- 
 verbial. And yet they were held in the highest estimation, 
 and the greatest chiefs paid public court to them. 1 As among 
 the Hindus, polygamy was practised to an unlimited extent, 
 A widow (other than the mother) was considered an integral 
 part of her deceased husband's patrimony, and passed into the 
 use of the son ; and the atrocious and inhuman practice of 
 burying female infants was universal. 
 
 The Jews, chased successively from their native homes by 
 the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Romans, had found among 
 the Arabs safety and protection. But they had brought 
 with their religion that bitter spirit of strife which was perhaps 
 the cause of the greater portion of their misfortunes. They 
 had succeeded, however, in gaining in Arabia a considerable 
 body of proselytes ; and at the time when Mohammed pro- 
 ceeded to announce his mission, Judaism was professed in 
 Yemen by a notable fraction of the descendants of Himyar 
 
 1 The moral depravity of the people is evidenced by the fact that these 
 women used to give receptions, which were attended by all the men of light 
 and leading in the city. 
 
 The town Arab was so passionately addicted to dice that he would 
 frequently, like the Germans of Tacitus, stake away his own liberty. It was 
 on account of these evils, and the immoralities associated with their practice, 
 that Mohammed wisely prohibited to his followers gambling, dancing, and 
 drinking of wine. The Ommeyyades revived all the three evils ; they repre- 
 sented, in fact, the uprise of the old paganism, which had been stamped out 
 with such labour by the great Prophet. 
 
Ixvi THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 and Kinda, issue of Kuhlan ; at Khaibar and at Yathrib, 
 by the Kuraizha and the Nazir, tribes of Ishmaelite origin, 
 but naturalised as Arabs from very ancient times. The 
 Nestorians and the Jacobite Christians had also founded 
 colonies in Arabia. The deadly rivalry between these two 
 creeds to dominate over Arabia occasioned sanguinary wars 
 in the most fertile provinces. 1 Christianity had commenced 
 to introduce itself among some families of the race of Rabi'a 
 son of Nizar, such as the Taglibites established in Mesopotamia, 
 and the Bani Abd ul-Kais who were settled in al-Bahrain. 
 It flourished at Najran among the Bani-1-Harith ibn Ka'b ; 
 in Irak, among the Ibad ; in Syria, among the Ghassanides 
 and some Khuzaite families ; at Dumat ul-Jandal, among the 
 Saconi and Bani-Kalb. And some of the tribes who roamed 
 over the desert that lay between Palestine and Egypt were also 
 Christians. Magism and Sabaeism had also their representatives 
 among the Arabs, and specially among the Himyarites : the 
 Bani-Asad worshipped Mercury ; the Jodham, Jupiter ; 
 the Bani-Tay, Canopus ; the descendants of Kais-Aylan, 
 Sirius ; 2 a portion of the Koreish, the three moon-goddesses — 
 al-Lat, the bright moon, al-Manat the dark, and al-'Uzza, the 
 union of the two, — who were regarded as the daughters of the 
 high god {Bandt-ullah). Mecca was, at this time, the centre 
 of a far-reaching idolatry, ramifications of which extended 
 throughout the tribes of the peninsula. The Kinana, closely 
 allied to the Koreish politically and by blood, besides the star 
 Aldobaran, served the goddess 'Uzza, represented by a tree 
 at a place called Nakhla, a day and a half's journey from 
 Mecca. The Hawazin, who roamed towards the south-east 
 of Mecca, had for their favourite idol the goddess Lat, located 
 at Tayef. Manat was represented by a rock on the caravan 
 road between Mecca and Syria. The worship of these idols 
 was chiefly phallic, similar in character to that which prevailed 
 among the ancient Semites, the Phoenicians and the Baby- 
 lonians. But the majority of the nation, especially the tribes 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. p. 308 et seq. ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire, vol. vi. pp. 114, 115 ; Caussin de Perceval, Hist, des Arabes, vol. i. 
 pp. 128-131. 
 
 2 Koran, sura xli. 37. 
 
INTRODUCTION (xvii 
 
 belonging to the race of Mozar, were addicted to fetishism 
 of a very low type. Animals and plants, the gazelle, the 
 horse, the camel, the palm-tree, inorganic matter like pieces 
 of rock, stones, etc., formed the principal objects of adoration. 
 The idea of a Supreme Divinity, however, was not unrecognised ; 
 but its influence was confined to an inappreciable few, who, 
 escaping from the bondage of idolatry, betook themselves to a 
 philosophical scepticism, more or less tinged with the legendary 
 notions, religious and secular, of their neighbours, the Sabseans, 
 the Jews, or the Christians. Among these some distinctly 
 recognised the conception of the supreme Godhead, and, revolt- 
 ing at the obscenities and gross materialism of their day, 
 waited patiently for the appearance of a Deliverer who, they 
 felt in their hearts, would soon appear. 
 
 Among some tribes, in the case of a death, a camel was 
 sacrificed on the tomb, or allowed to die from starvation, in 
 the belief that it would serve as a conveyance for the deceased 
 in a future existence. Some believed that when the soul 
 separated itself from the body, it took the shape of a bird called 
 Hama or Sada. If the deceased was the victim of a violent 
 death, the bird hovered over the grave, crying askuni, " Give 
 me drink," until the murder was avenged. Belief in J ins, 
 ghoals, and oracles rendered by their idols, whom they con- 
 sulted by means of pointless arrows, called Azldm or Kiddh, 
 was universal. Each tribe had its particular idols and particular 
 temples. The priests and hierophants attached to these 
 temples received rich offerings from the devotees. And often, 
 there arose sanguinary conflicts between the followers or the 
 worshippers of rival temples. 1 
 
 But the prestige of the Kaaba, the chapel of Abraham and 
 Ishmael, stood unimpeached among all. Even the Jews and 
 the Sabaeans sent offerings there. The custody of this temple 
 was an object of great jealousy among the tribes, as it conferred 
 on the custodians the most honourable functions and privileges 
 in the sight of the Arabs. At the time of Mohammed's birth 
 
 1 Among others, the temple of Zu'1-Khulasa in Yemen, belonging to the 
 tribe of Bani-Khatham ; the temple of Rodha in Najd, belonging to the Bani- 
 Rabi'a; the temple of Zu Sabat in Irak; and that of Manat at Kodayd, not 
 far from the sea, belonging to the tribe of Aus and Khazraj, domiciled at 
 Yathrib — were the most famous. 
 
lxviii THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 this honour was possessed by his family ; and his grandfather 
 was the venerable chief of the theocratic commonwealth which 
 was constituted round the Kaaba. Human sacrifices were 
 frequent. Besides special idols located in the temples each 
 family had household penates which exacted rigorous observ- 
 ances. 
 
 Such was the moral and religious condition of the Arabs. 
 Neither Christianity nor Judaism had succeeded in raising them 
 in the scale of humanity. " After five centuries of Christian 
 evangelization," says Muir, " we can point to but a sprinkling 
 here and there of Christians ; — the Bani Harith of Najran ; 
 the Bani Hanifa of Yemama ; some of the Bani Tay at Tayma, 
 and hardly any more. Judaism, vastly more powerful, had 
 exhibited a spasmodic effort of proselytism under Zu Nawas ; 
 but, as an active and converting agent the Jewish faith was no 
 longer operative. In fine, viewed thus in a religious aspect, the 
 surface of Arabia had been now and then gently rippled by the 
 feeble efforts of Christianity ; the sterner influences of Judaism 
 had been occasionally visible in a deeper and more troubled 
 current ; but the tide of indigenous idolatry and of Ishmaelite 
 superstition, setting from every quarter with an unbroken and 
 unebbing surge towards the Kaaba, gave ample evidence that 
 the faith and worship of Mecca held the Arab mind in a thral- 
 dom, rigorous and undisputed." * 
 
 The divisions and jealousies of the tribes, 2 combined with 
 the antagonistic feelings which actuated one against the other 
 from religious and racial differences, had enabled the Assyrians, 
 the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Persians, and Abyssinians, 
 to become masters of various provinces in the north, in the 
 east, and in the south-west. The Abyssinians had even gone 
 so far as to invade Hijaz, with the intention of destroying the 
 national temple. But their power was broken before Mecca 
 by the sturdy patriotism of Abd ul-Muttalib. After twenty 
 years' oppression, they were driven out of Yemen with the 
 assistance of Persia, by a native prince, the son of the celebrated 
 Saif zu'1-Yezen. On his assassination by the Christians, the 
 
 1 Muir, vol i.Tntrod. p. ccxxxix. 
 
 2 These tribal jealousies and family feuds, which I shall have to describe 
 later, were the causes which led to the ruin of the Arab empire. 
 
INTRODUCTION lxix 
 
 sovereignty he had enjoyed under the auspices of the great 
 Anushirvan passed entirely into Persian hands, and Yemen 
 became tributary to Persia. 1 
 
 Besides the direct domination which the rival empires of 
 Constantinople and Ctesiphon exercised over the various 
 provinces of Arabia, two of the greatest chieftains, the kings 
 of Ghassan and of Hira, divided their allegiance between the 
 Caesars and the Chosroes ; and in the deadly wars, profitless 
 and aimless, which Persian and Byzantine waged against 
 each other, sucking out the lifeblood oi their people from 
 mere lust of destruction, though oftener the right was on the 
 side of the Zoroastrian than the Christian, the Ghassanide and 
 Hirite stood face to face in hostile array, or locked in mortal 
 combat. 2 
 
 The heterogeneous elements of which the Arabian peninsula 
 was thus composed gave an extremely varied character to the 
 folklore of the country. Among uncultured nations, the 
 tendency is always to dress facts in the garb of legends. Im- 
 agination among them not only colours with a roseate hue, 
 but magnifies distant objects. And the variety of culture 
 multiplies legends, more or less based on facts. The Hamitic 
 colonies of Yemen and of the south-west generally ; the true 
 Semites who followed in their footsteps, like the Aryans in 
 the East; the Jews, the Christians, — all brought their traditions, 
 their myths, their legends with them. In the course of ages, 
 these relics of the past acquired a consistency and character, 
 but however unsubstantial in appearance, on analysis there is 
 always to be found underlying them a stratum of fact. In 
 the legend of Shaddad and his garden of Irem, we see in the 
 hazy past the reflection of a mighty empire, which even con- 
 quered Egypt — " of a wealthy nation, constructors of great 
 buildings, with an advanced civilisation analogous to that of 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 324, 327 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. i. p. 138 
 et seq. ; Tabari (Zotenberg's transl.), vol. ii. pp. 217, 218. 
 
 2 The sedentary portion of the Arab population of Yemen, of Bahrain and 
 Irak, obeyed the Persians. The Bedouins of these countries were in reality 
 free from all yoke. The Arabs of Syria were subject to the Romans ; those 
 of Mesopotamia recognised alternately the Roman and Persian rule. The 
 Bedouins of Central Arabia and of Hijaz, over whom the Himyarite kings had 
 exercised a more or less effective sovereignty, had nominally passed under 
 Persian rule, but they enjoyed virtual independence. 
 
Ixx THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Chaldaea, professing a religion similar to the Babylonian ; 
 a nation, in short, with whom material progress was allied to 
 great moral depravity and obscene rites." * In the traditional, 
 half-legendary, half-historic destruction of the 'Adites and the 
 Thamudites, we see the destructive fate which overwhelmed 
 these Hamitic races before the Semitic tide, Assyrian and 
 Arab. 2 
 
 The children of Jacob, flying from their ruthless enemies, 
 brought their legends and traditions with them, and thus 
 contributed their quota to the folklore of the Peninsula. The 
 last of the Semitic colonies that entered Arabia was acknow- 
 ledged by themselves as well as their neighbours to be descended 
 from Abraham ; and tradition had handed down this belief, 
 and given it a shape and character. 
 
 Manicheism, stamped out from Persia and the Byzantine 
 dominions, had betaken itself to Arabia. 3 The early Docetes, 
 the Marcionites, the Valentinians, all had their representatives 
 in this land of freedom. They all disseminated their views and 
 traditions, which in course of time became intermixed with 
 the traditions of the country. These Christians, more consis- 
 tent in their views than their orthodox persecutors, believed 
 that the God incarnate, or at least the Son of God, His Word, 
 born in the bosom of eternity, an /Eon, an Emanation issuing 
 from the Throne of Light, could not, did not, die on the cross ; 
 that the words of agony which orthodox Christian traditions 
 put into the mouth of Jesus did not, and could not, escape 
 from his lips ; in short, that the man who suffered on the cross 
 was a different person from the Divine Christ, who escaped 
 from the hands of his persecutors and went away to the regions 
 whence he had come. 4 This doctrine, however fanciful, was 
 more consistent with the idea of the sonship of Jesus, and in 
 itself appears to have been based on some strong probabilities. 
 The intense desire of Pilate, whom Tertullian calls a Christian 
 at heart, to save Jesus ; 5 even the unwillingness of Herod 
 
 1 Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 296. 
 
 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. i. pp. 55-58. 
 
 3 Beausobre, Hist, du M anicheisme , pt. i. 1. ii. chap. iv. 
 * Mosheim and Gibbon, in loco. 
 
 5 Blunt, History of the Christian Church, p. 138. 
 
INTRODUCTION lxxi 
 
 to incur more odium by the murder of the Prophet of 
 Nazareth ; the darkness of the short hours when that great 
 benefactor of humanity was led forth for the consummation 
 of the frightful scenes which had continued throughout the 
 night ; the preternatural gloom which overshadowed the earth 
 at the most awful part of this drama ; l all these coincident 
 circumstances lend a strong probability to the belief that the 
 innocent escaped and the guilty suffered. 2 
 
 Before the Advent of Mohammed, all these traditions, based 
 on fact though tinged by the colourings of imagination, must 
 have become firmly imbedded in the convictions of the people, 
 and formed essential parts of the folklore of the country. 
 Mohammed, when promulgating his faith and his laws, found 
 these traditions current among his people ; he took them up 
 and adopted them as the lever for raising the Arabs and the 
 surrounding nations from the depths of social and moral 
 degradation into which they had fallen. 
 
 The light that shone on Sinai, the light that brightened the 
 lives of the peasants and fishermen of Galilee, is now aflame 
 on the heights of Faran ! 3 
 
 1 Comp. Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 348-362. 
 
 2 If anything could lend stronger probability to this curious belief, it ought 
 to be the circumstantial account of Luke xxiv. 36 et seq., about Jesus allowing 
 himself to be touched and felt (after the resurrection) in order to calm his 
 affrighted disciples, who believed him to be a spirit ; and his asking for 
 " meat," and partaking of " a broiled fish and of a honey-comb." 
 
 3 The tradition which I have paraphrased into English is as follows : — - 
 
 " Sa'ir," says Yakut in his Geographical Encyclopaedia, " is a hill in 
 Palestine and Faran is the hill of Mecca ; " Mu'jam ul-Biilddn, vol. iii. p. 834. 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE LIFE AND MINISTRY OF THE 
 PROPHET 
 
CHAPTER I 
 MOHAMMED THE PROPHET 
 
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 THESE lines, untranslatable in their beauty, do not in 
 the least exaggerate the gentleness of disposition, 
 the nobility of character, of the man whose life, 
 career, and teachings we propose to describe in the following 
 pages. At the dawn of the seventh century of the Christian 
 era, in the streets of Mecca might often be seen a quiet 
 thoughtful man, past the meridian of life, his Arab mantle 
 thrown across his shoulders, his tailasdn x drawn low over 
 his face ; sometimes gently sauntering, sometimes hurrying 
 along, heedless of the passers-by, heedless of the gay scenes 
 around him, deeply absorbed in his own thoughts — yet withal 
 never forgetful to return the salutation of the lowliest, or 
 to speak a kindly word to the children who loved to throng 
 around him. This is al-Amin, " the Trusty." He has so 
 honourably and industriously walked through life, that he 
 has won for himself from his compatriots the noble designa- 
 tion of the true and trusty. But now, owing to his strange 
 
 1 A scarf thrown over the head usually covering the turhan, and brought 
 round under the chin and passed over the left shoulder. 
 S.I. A 
 
?. THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 preaching, his fellow-townsmen are beginning to look 
 suspiciously upon him as a wild visionary, a crazed revolutionist, 
 desirous of levelling the old landmarks of society, of doing 
 away with their ancient privileges, of making them abandon 
 their old creeds and customs. 
 
 Mecca was, at this time, a city of considerable importance and 
 note among the townships of Arabia, both from its associations 
 and its position. Situated in a low-lying valley stretching 
 north to south, bordered on the west by a range of hills, on the 
 east by high granite rocks — the Kaaba in its centre, its regular 
 and paved streets, its fortified houses, its public hall opening 
 on to the platform of the temple, the city presented an unusual 
 appearance of prosperity and strength. The guardianship of 
 the Kaaba, originally an appanage of the children of Ishmael, 
 had in consequence of the Babylonian attack, passed into the 
 hands of the Jurhumites. The combination of the secular and 
 religious power enabled the chiefs of the Bani-Jurhum to assume 
 the title of malik or king. In the early part of the third century 
 the Jurhumites were overwhelmed by the irruption of a Kahta- 
 nite tribe, called the Bani-Khuza'a, who, issuing from Yemen, 
 possessed themselves of Mecca and the southern parts of 
 Hijaz. In the meantime, the race of Ishmael, which had 
 suffered. so terribly at the hands of the Babylonian king, was 
 gradually regaining its former strength. 'Adnan, one of the 
 descendants of Ishmael, who flourished about the first century 
 before Christ, had, like his ancestor, married the daughter of the 
 Jurhumite chief, and established himself at Mecca, and his son 
 Ma'add became the real progenitor of the Ishmaelites inhabit- 
 ing Hijaz and Najd. Fihr, surnamed Koreish, a descendant 
 of Ma'add, who flourished in the third century, was the ancestor 
 of the tribe which gave to Arabia her Prophet and Legislator. 
 
 The Khuzaites remained in possession of the temple, and of 
 all the pre-eminence it conferred on them, for more than two 
 centuries. Upon the death of Holayl, the last of the Khuzaite 
 chiefs, Kossay, a descendant of Fihr, 1 who had married Holayl's 
 daughter, drove the Khuzaites out of Mecca, and possessed 
 
 1 Kossay was the fifth in descent from Fihr, and was born about 398 a.c. 
 The word Koreish is derived from Karash, to trade, as Fihr and his descendants 
 were addicted to commerce. 
 
i. KOSSAY— THE FOUNDER OF MECCA 3 
 
 himself of the entire power, both secular and religious, in the 
 city, and thus became the virtual ruler of Hijaz. 1 We now 
 arrive on absolutely historical grounds. 
 
 Kossay appears to have made himself the master of Mecca 
 about the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era, and 
 he at once set himself to the task of placing the administration 
 of the city upon an organised basis. Until Kossay's time, the 
 different Koreishite families had lived dispersed in separate 
 quarters, at considerable distances from the Kaaba, and the 
 extreme sanctity they attached to the temple had prevented 
 their erecting any habitation in its neighbourhood. Perceiving 
 the dangers to which the national pantheon was exposed from 
 its unprotected condition, he induced the Koreish to settle in 
 its vicinity, leaving a sufficient space free on the four sides of 
 the temple for the tawdf (circumambulation) . The families, to 
 whom the lands were allotted, dwelt in strongly fortified quarters. 
 
 Kossay built for himself a palace, the door of which opened 
 on the platform of the temple. This palace was called the Dan. 
 sP'ml-Nadwd, 2 " the council hall," where, under the presidency of 
 Kossay, public affairs were discussed and transacted. To this 
 hall, no man under the age of forty, unless a descendant of 
 Kossay, could gain admission. Here also were performed all 
 civil functions. At the Ddr un-Nadwd, the Koreishites, when 
 about to engage in a war, received from the hands of Kossay 
 the standard, liwa. Kossay himself attached to the end of a 
 lance a piece of white stuff, and handed it, or sent it by one of 
 his sons, to the Koreishite chiefs. This ceremony, called the 
 AM ul-liwa, continued in vogue from the time of its inaugura- 
 tion by Kossa}^ until the very end of the Arab empire. Another 
 of Kossay's institutions endured much longer. By representing 
 to the Koreish the necessity of providing food for the poor 
 pilgrims who annually visited Mecca, and by impressing on 
 them the duties of hospitality, Kossay succeeded in making 
 them submit to the payment of an annual poor-tax, called the 
 Rifdda, which he applied in feeding the poorer pilgrims during 
 
 1 The next we hear of the Khuzaites is when the Koreish invoked their 
 assistance against the Prophet. 
 
 2 This building, after having been renewed several times, was ultimately 
 converted into a mosque, under Abdul Malik II. (one of the Ommeyyades). 
 
4 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 the Ayydm id-Mind x — the day of the sacrificial feast, and the 
 two following days which they passed at Mina. This usage 
 continued after the establishment of Islam, and was the origin 
 of the distribution of food which was made at Mina each year 
 during the pilgrimage, in the name of the Caliphs and the 
 Sultans, their successors. The words nadwa, liwa and rifdda 
 denote the functions exercised by Kossay, being the right of 
 convoking and presiding at the council of the nation, of bestow- 
 ing the standard, — the symbol of military command, — and of 
 levying imposts, raised for the purpose of supplying food to 
 the pilgrims. With these dignities, Kossay also held the 
 administration of the water supplied by the wells in Mecca and 
 its neighbourhood (sikdya) and the custody of the keys of the 
 Kaaba (hijdba), with the ministration to the worship of the gods. 
 
 Kossay thus united in his own person all the principal 
 religious, civil, and political functions. He was king, magistrate 
 and chief pontiff. His power, which was almost royal, threw 
 great lustre on the tribe of Koreish, of whom he was the 
 acknowledged chief, and from his time the Koreish acquired 
 a marked preponderance among the other descendants of 
 Ishmael. 
 
 Kossay died at an advanced age, about the year 480 a.c. 
 
 He had in his lifetime designated his eldest son Abd ud-Dar 
 as his successor, and after his death the son succeeded quietly, 
 and without dispute, to the high position of the father. Upon 
 the death of Abd ud-Dar, serious disputes broke out between 
 his grandchildren and the sons of Abd(u)Manaf, his brother. 
 The various clans and their allies and neighbours ranged 
 themselves on opposite sides. The dispute, however, was 
 amicably settled for the time. By the compromise thus 
 effected, the sikdya and the rifdda were intrusted to Abd 
 us-Shams, the son of Abd(u)Manaf, whilst the hijdba, nadwa, 
 and liwa remained in the hands of the children of Abd ud-Dar. 
 Abd us-Shams, who was comparatively a poor man, transferred 
 the duties which had been intrusted to him to his brother 
 Hashim, a man of great consequence as well as riches among 
 the Koreish. Hashim was the receiver of the tax imposed 
 on the Koreishites by Kossay for the support of the pilgrims, 
 
 1 Mina (the ' i ' is pronounced very short) is a suburb of Mecca. 
 
i. KOSSAY— THE FOUNDER OF MECCA 5 
 
 and the income derived from their contributions joined to his 
 own resources, was employed in providing food to the 
 strangers who congregated at Mecca during the season of the 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 Like the majority of the Meccans, Hashim was engaged in 
 commerce. It was he who founded among the Koreishites the 
 custom of sending out regularly from Mecca two caravans, one 
 in winter to Yemen, and the other in summer to Syria. Hashim 
 died in the course of one of his expeditions into Syria, in the 
 city of Ghazza, about the year 510 a. a, leaving an only son, 
 named Shayba, by an Yathribite lady of the name of Salma. 
 The charge of the rifdda and the sikdya passed, upon his death, 
 to his younger brother Muttalib, who had won for himself a 
 high place in the estimation of his compatriots, and the noble 
 designation of al-Faiz (the Generous) by his worth and munifi- 
 cence. Muttalib brought Shayba, the white-haired youth, from 
 Yathrib, to Mecca. Mistaking Shayba for a slave of Muttalib, 
 the Meccans called him Abd ul-Muttalib and history recognises 
 the grandfather of the Prophet under no other name than that 
 of Abd ul-Muttalib, " the slave of Muttalib." x 
 
 Muttalib died at Kazwan, in Yemen, towards the end of 520 
 a. a, and was succeeded by his nephew, Abd ul-Muttalib, as the 
 virtual head of the Meccan commonwealth. The government 
 of Mecca was at this time vested in the hands of an oligarchy 
 composed of the leading members of the house of Kossay. 
 After the discovery of the sacred well of Zemzem by Abd ul- 
 Muttalib, and the settlement of the disputes regarding its 
 superintendence, the governing body consisted of ten senators, 
 who were styled Sharif s. These decemvirs occupied the first 
 place in the State, and their offices were hereditary in favour 
 of the eldest member, or chief, of each family. These dignities 
 were — 
 
 (1). The Hijdba, the guardianship of the keys of the Kaaba, 
 a sacerdotal office of considerable rank. It had been allotted to 
 the house of Abd ud-Dar, and at the time when Mecca was 
 converted to Islam, it was held by Osman, the son of Talha. 
 
 1 Of the sons of Abd(u)Manaf, Hashim died first, at Ghazza ; then died 
 Abd ush-Shams at Mecca ; then Muttalib at Kazwan ; and lastly, Naufal, 
 some time after Muttalib, at Silman, in Irak. 
 
6 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 (2). The Sikdya, or the intendance of the sacred wells of 
 Zemzem, and of all the water destined for the use of the pil- 
 grims. This dignity belonged to the house of Hashim, and was 
 held at the time of the conquest of Mecca, by Abbas, the 
 uncle of the Prophet. 
 
 (3). The Diyat, or the civil and criminal magistracy, which 
 had, for a long time, belonged to the house of Taym ibn- 
 Murra, and, at the time of the Prophet's advent, was held by 
 Abdullah ibn-Kuhafa, surnamed Abu Bakr. 
 
 (4). The Sifdrah, or legation. The person to whom this 
 office belonged was the plenipotentiary of the State, authorised 
 to discuss and settle the differences which arose between the 
 Koreish and the other Arab tribes, as also with strangers. 
 This office was held by Omar. 
 
 (5). The Lima, or the custody of the standard under which 
 the nation marched against its enemies. The guardian of this 
 standard was the general-in-chief of all the forces of the State. 
 This military charge appertained to the house of Ommeyya, 
 and was held by Abu Sufian, the son of Harb, the most im- 
 placable enemy of Mohammed. 
 
 (6). The Rifdda, or the administration of the poor tax. 
 Formed with the alms of the nation, it was employed to provide 
 food for the poor pilgrims, whether travellers or residents, 
 whom the State regarded as the guests of God. This duty, 
 after the death of Abu Talib, upon whom it had devolved 
 after Abd ul-Muttalib, was transferred to the house of Naufal, 
 son of Abd(u)Manaf, and was held at the time of the Prophet 
 by Harith, son of Amr. 
 
 (7). The Nadwa, the presidency of the national assembly. 
 The holder of this office was the first councillor of the State, 
 and under his advice all public acts were transacted. Aswad, 
 of the house of Abd ul-'Uzza, son of Kossay, held this dignity 
 at the time of the Prophet. 
 
 (8) . The Kha'immeh, the guardianship of the council chamber. 
 This function, which conferred upon the incumbent the right 
 of convoking the assembly, and even of calling to arms the 
 troops, was held by Khalid, son of Walid, of the house of 
 Yakhzum, son of Marra. 
 
 (9). Khdzina, or the administration of the public finances, 
 
r. THE KOREISHITE OLIGARCHY 7 
 
 belonged to the house of Hasan, son of Kaab, and was held by 
 Harith, son of Kais. 
 
 (10). The Azldm, 1 the guardianship of the divining arrows by 
 which the judgment of the gods and goddesses was obtained. 
 Safwan, brother of Abu Sufian, held this dignity. At the same 
 time it was an established custom that the oldest member 
 exercised the greatest influence, and bore the title of Rais or 
 Syed, chief and lord par excellence. Abbas was at the time 
 of the Prophet the first of these senators. 
 
 In spite, however, of this distribution of privilege and power, 
 the personal character and influence of Abd ul-Muttalib gave 
 him an undoubted pre-eminence. The venerable patriarch, 
 who had, in accordance with the custom of his nation, vowed 
 to the deities of the Kaaba the sacrifice of one of his male 
 children, was blessed with a numerous progeny. 2 And in 
 fulfilment of his vow he proceeded to offer up to the inexorable 
 gods of his temple the life of his best beloved son, Abdullah. 
 But this was not to be. The sacrifice of the human life was 
 commuted, by the voice of the Pythia attached to the temple, 
 to a hundred camels — thenceforth the fixed Wehrgeld, or price 
 of blood. 
 
 Abdullah was married to Amina, a daughter of Wahb, the 
 chief of the family of Zuhri. The year following the marriage 
 of Abdullah was full of momentous events. At the beginning 
 of the year the whole of Arabia was startled by an event which 
 sent a thrill through the nation. Abraha al- Ashram, the 
 Abyssinian viceroy of Yemen, had built a church at San'a, and 
 was anxious to divert into his own city the wealth which the 
 sanctity of the Kaaba attracted to Mecca. The desecration 
 of the church by a Meccan furnished him with an ostensible 
 
 1 With a j (zay), plural of zalam. 
 
 1 Abd ul-Muttalib had twelve sons and six daughters. Of the sons, Harith, 
 born towards a.c. 538, was the eldest ; the others were Abd ul-'Uzza, alias Abd 
 Lahab, the persecutor of the Prophet ; Abd(u) Manaf, better known as A bit 
 Tdlib (born in a.c. 540, died in 620 a.c.) ; Zubair and Abdullah (54.5), born 
 of Fatima, the daughter of 'Amr, the Makhzumi ; Dhirarand Abbas (566-652), 
 born of Nutayla ; Mukawwim, Jahm, surnamed al-Ghaydak (the liberal), and 
 Hamzah, born of Hala. The daughters were Atika, Omayma, Arwa, Barra, 
 and Umm-i-Hakim, surnamed al-Bayza (the fair), by Fatima, and Safiya, born 
 of Hala, who married Awwam, the grandfather of the famous Abdullah ibn- 
 Zubair, who played such an important part in the history of Islam. The 
 names of the other two sons of Abd ul-Muttalib are not known, probablv 
 because they left no posterity. 
 
8 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 motive, and he marched a large army to the destruction of the 
 temple, himself riding at the head of his troops on a magnifi- 
 cently caparisoned elephant. The sight of the huge animal 
 striding solemnly in the midst of the vast force so struck the 
 imagination of the Arabian tribes, that they dated an era 
 from this event, and named it as the Era of the Elephant (570 
 a. a). On the approach of the Abyssinians, the Koreish, with 
 their women and children, retired to the neighbouring moun- 
 tains, and from there watched the course of affairs, hoping all 
 the while that the deities of the Kaaba would defend their 
 dwelling place. The morning dawned brightly as the Abys- 
 sinians advanced towards Mecca, when, lo and behold, say the 
 traditionists, the sky was suddenly overcast by an enormous 
 flight of small birds, swallows, which poured small stones 
 over the ill-fated army. These stones, penetrating through 
 the armour of men and horses, created terrible havoc among 
 the invaders. At the same time the flood-gates of heaven 
 were opened, and there burst forth torrents of rain, carrying 
 away the dead and dying towards the sea. 
 
 Abraha fled to San 'a covered with wounds, and died there 
 soon after his arrival. Ibn-Hisham, after narrating this 
 prodigy, adds, " it was in the same year that small-pox mani- 
 fested itself for the first time in Arabia." " This indication 
 explains the miracle," says Caussin de Perceval. One can 
 well understand the annihilation of Abraha's army by some 
 terrible epidemic, similar to the fate which overtook Senna- 
 cherib, to which was joined perhaps one of those grand down- 
 pours of rain which often produce terrible inundations in the 
 valley of Mecca. 
 
 Shortly after this event, Abdullah died in the course of a 
 journey to Yathrib, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. 1 And, 
 a few days after, the afflicted wife gave birth to a son who was 
 named Mohammed. Mohammed was born on the 12th of 
 Rabi I., in the year of the Elephant, a little more than fifty 
 days after the destruction of the Abyssinian army, or the 29th 
 of August 570. 2 His birth, they say, was attended with signs 
 
 1 He was buried in the quarter occupied by the sons of ' Adi, his maternal uncles. 
 
 2 Towards the end of the fortieth year of the reign of Kesra Anushirvun, 
 and the end of the year 880 of the era of the Seleucidae. 
 
i. THE CHILDHOOD OF MOHAMMED 9 
 
 and portents from which the nations of the earth could know 
 that the Deliverer had appeared. The rationalistic historian 
 smiles, the religious controversialist, who, upon a priori reason- 
 ing, accepts without comment the accounts of the wise men 
 following the star, scoffs at these marvels. To the critical 
 student, whose heart is not devoid of sympathy with earlier 
 modes of thought, and who is not biased with pre-conceived 
 notions, " the portents and signs " which the Moslem says 
 attended the birth of his Prophet are facts deserving of historical 
 analysis. We, moderns, perceive, in the ordinary incidents 
 in the lives of nations and individuals, the current of an 
 irresistible law ; what wonder then that 1400 years ago they 
 perceived in the fall of a nation's memorial the finger of God, 
 pointing to the inevitable destiny, which was to overtake it 
 in its iniquity. In accordance with the custom of the Arabs, 
 the child was confided during his early infancy to a Bedouin 
 woman 1 of the tribe of Bani-Sa'd, a branch of the Hawazin, 
 and upon being returned by her to his mother, was brought 
 up by Amina with the tenderest care. But she died not long 
 after, and the doubly-orphaned child was thus thrown upon 
 the care of his grandfather, Abd ul-Muttalib, who, during the 
 few years that he survived the mother, watched his grandson 
 with the utmost tenderness. But nothing could make up for 
 the loss of that parental care and love which are the blessings 
 of childhood. His father had died before he was born. He 
 was bereft of his mother when only six years of age, and this 
 irreparable loss made a deep impression on the mind of the 
 sensitive child. Three or four years later he lost his grand- 
 father also. Abd ul-Muttalib died towards the year 579 
 A.c., 2 shortly after his return from a journey to San'a, where he 
 had gone as the representative of the Koreish to congratulate 
 
 1 In after life, when this poor Bedouin woman was brought by the Koreish 
 as a captive to Mecca, Mohammed recognised her with tears of joy, and 
 obtained for her from his rich wife an ample provision for her life. 
 
 2 Of the two duties of the Sikdya and Rifdda held by Abd ul-Muttalib, the 
 Sikdya, with the custody of the Zemzem, passed to his son Abbas. The 
 second devolved on Abu Talib, who enjoyed at Mecca great authority and 
 consideration. Abu Talib, however, did not transmit the Rifdda to his 
 children. This dignity was transferred, upon his death, to the branch of 
 Naufal, son of Abd(u) Manaf ; and at the time Mecca surrendered to the 
 Prophet, Harith, the son of 'Amr, and the grandson of Naufal, exercised, as 
 we have said before, the functions of the Rifdda ; /airii, vol. i. p. 14. 
 
io THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 Saif the son of Zu'l Yezen on his accession to the throne of the 
 Tobbas, with the help of the Persians. 
 
 With the death of Abd ul-Muttalib opens another epoch in 
 the life of the orphan. On his death-bed the old grandfather 
 had confided to Abu Talib the charge of his brother's child, 
 and in the house of Abu Talib Mohammed passed his early life. 
 We can almost see the lad with his deep wistful eyes, earnest 
 and thoughtful, looking, as it were, into futurity, moving 
 about in the humble unpretentious household of his uncle, or 
 going often into the desert to gaze upon the beauteous face of 
 nature ; sweet and gentle of disposition, painfully sensitive to 
 human suffering, this pure-hearted child of the desert was the 
 beloved of his small circle, and there ever existed the warmest 
 attachment between uncle and nephew. " The angels of God 
 had opened out his heart, and filled it with light." His early 
 life was not free from the burden of labour. He had often to go 
 into the desert to watch the flocks of his uncle. The princely 
 munificence of Hashim and Abd ul-Muttalib had told upon the 
 fortunes of their heirs, and the Hashimites, owing to the lack 
 of means, were fast losing their commanding position. The 
 duty of providing the pilgrims with food was given up to the 
 rival branch of Ommeyya, who had always entertained the 
 bitterest jealousy towards the children of Hashim. 
 
 Mohammed was but a child when the " Sacrilegious Wars " 
 — the Ghazwat ul-Fijdr, which continued with varying fortunes 
 and considerable loss of human life for a number of years — 
 broke out at 'Ukaz between the Koreish and the Bani-Kinana 
 on one side, and the Kais-Aylan on the other. 'Ukaz lies 
 between Tayef and Nakhla, three short journeys from Mecca. 
 At this place, famous in Arab history, was held a great annual 
 fair in the sacred month of Zu'1-ka'da, when it was forbidden to 
 engage in war or shed human blood in anger — " a sort of God's 
 truce." Other fairs were held at Majna near Marr uz-Zuhran, 
 not far from Mecca, and at Zu'l Majaz at the foot of Mount 
 'Arafat ; but the gathering at 'Ukaz was a great national affair. 
 Here, in the sacred month, when all enmity and tribal vendetta 
 was supposed to lie buried for the time, flowed from all parts 
 of Arabia and even more distant lands, the commerce of the 
 world. Here came the merchants of " Araby the blest," of 
 
I. THE CHILDHOOD OF MOHAMMED n 
 
 Hijaz, of Najd ; the poet-heroes of the desert ; and the actors, 
 often disguised from the avengers of blood, in masks or veils, 
 to recite their poems and win the applause of the nations 
 gathered there. 'Ukaz was " the Olympia of Arabia " ; 
 here they came, not for trade only, but to sing of their prowess, 
 of their glory — to display their poetical and literary talents. 
 The Kasidas, which won the admiration of the assembled 
 multitude, were inscribed in letters of gold (Muzahhabdt, golden), 
 and hung up in the national pantheon as a memorial to posterity. 1 
 During these weeks, 'Ukaz presented a gay scene of pleasure 
 and excitement. But there was also another side to the pic- 
 ture. The dancing women, like their modern representatives 
 the almas and ghawdzin of Egypt, moving from tent to tent, 
 exciting the impetuous son of the desert by their songs and their 
 merriment ; the congregation of Corinthians, who did not 
 even pretend to the calling of music ; the drunken orgies, 
 frequently ending in brawls and bloodshed ; the gaming-tables, 
 at which the Meccan gambled from night till morning ; the 
 bitter hatred and ill-feeling evoked by the pointed personalities 
 of rival poets, leading to sudden affrays and permanent and 
 disastrous quarrels, deepened the shadows of the picture, and 
 made a vivid impression on the orphan child of Amina. 
 
 During the interval between the first and second of those 
 fratricidal wars, named sacrilegious from the violation of the 
 sanctity of the month in which all quarrel was forbidden, 
 Mohammed accompanied his uncle and guardian on one of 
 his mercantile journeys to Syria. 2 Here was opened before 
 him a scene of social misery and religious degradation, the 
 sight of which never faded from his memory. Silently and 
 humbly, with many thoughts in his mind, the solitary orphan 
 boy grew from childhood to youth and from youth to manhood. 
 
 Deeply versed in the legendary lore of his nation, education 
 in the modern sense of the term he had none. With all his 
 affection for his people, in his ways and mode of thought he 
 seemed far removed from them, isolated in the midst of a 
 
 1 Hence also called the Mu'allakat, or " suspended poems." 
 
 2 Abu Talib, like his father and grandfather, carried on a considerable 
 trade with Syria and Yemen. He transported to Damascus, to Basra, and 
 other places in Syria the dates of Hijaz and Hijr and the perfumes of Yemen, 
 and in return brought back with him the products of the Byzantine empire. 
 
12 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 chaotic society with his eyes fixed intently on the moving 
 panorama of an effete and depraved age. The lawlessness 
 rife among the Meccans, the sudden outbursts of causeless 
 and sanguinary quarrels among the tribes frequenting the 
 fairs of 'Ukaz, the immorality and scepticism of the Koreish, 
 naturally caused feelings of intense horror and disgust in the 
 mind of the sensitive youth. 
 
 In the twenty-fifth year of his age, Mohammed travelled 
 once more into Syria as the factor or steward of a noble 
 Koreishite lady named Khadija, a kinswoman of his. The 
 prudence with which he discharged his duties made a favourable 
 impression on Khadija, which gradually deepened into attach- 
 ment. A marriage, which proved a singularly happy one, was 
 soon after arranged between Mohammed and his noble kins- 
 woman, and was solemnised amidst universal rejoicings. In 
 spite of the disparity of age between Mohammed and his wife, 
 who was much the senior of her husband, there alwa}'S existed 
 the tenderest devotion on both sides. This marriage " brought 
 him that repose and exemption from daily toil which he needed 
 in order to prepare his mind for his great work. But beyond 
 that it gave him a loving woman's heart, that was the first to 
 believe in his mission, that was ever ready to console him in his 
 despair, and to keep alive within him the thin flickering flame 
 of hope when no man believed in him — not even himself — and 
 the world was black before his eyes." 
 
 Khadija is a notable figure, an exemplar among the woman- 
 hood of Islam. The calumny which is levelled at Mohammed's 
 system, that it has degraded the female sex, is sufficiently 
 refuted by the high position which his wife and youngest daughter, 
 our " Lady of Light," occupy in the estimation of the Moslem. 
 Khadija bore Mohammed several children — three sons and 
 four daughters ; but the sons all died in infancy, and their loss, 
 which wrung the heart of the bereaved father so tenderly and 
 devotedly attached to them, supplied the hostile Koreish later 
 with an abusive epithet to apply to the Prophet. 1 The 
 daughters long survived the new Dispensation. With the 
 exception of an occasional appearance in public when the 
 exigencies of his position or the necessities of the city of his 
 
 1 Al-abtar, literally without a tail ; in its secondary sense, one without issue. 
 
I. THE PERIOD OF PROBATION 13 
 
 birth demanded it, the next fifteen years after his marriage is a 
 silent record of introspection, preparation, and spiritual com- 
 munion. Since the death of Abd ul-Muttalib authority in 
 Mecca had become more or less divided. Each of the senators 
 enjoyed a somewhat limited authority, and among the different 
 functions there was no such institution as a magistracy to 
 insure the peaceable enjoyment by individuals of their rights 
 and property. The ties of blood and family esprit do corps 
 afforded some degree of protection to every citizen against 
 injustice and spoliation, but strangers were exposed to all kinds 
 of oppression. They would often find themselves robbed, not 
 only of their goods and chattels, but also of their wives and 
 daughters. A famous poet of the name of Hanzala of the 
 tribe of Bani'l Kayn, better known as Abu Tamahan, was 
 publicly robbed in the streets of Mecca, notwithstanding that 
 he had entered the city as a client of a Koreishite notable, 
 Abdullah ibn Juda'an. Another similar act of lawlessness 
 brought matters to a crisis. At the instance of Mohammed, 
 the descendants of Hashim and of Muttalib and the principal 
 members of the family of Zuhra and Taym bound themselves 
 by a solemn oath to defend every individual, whether Meccan 
 or stranger, free or slave, from any wrong or injustice to which 
 he might be subjected in Meccan territories, and to obtain 
 redress for him from the oppressor. This chivalrous league 
 received the name of the Hilf ul-Fuzul, or the Federation of the 
 Fuzul, in memory of an ancient society instituted with a 
 similar object among the Jurhum, and composed of four 
 personages, named Fazl, Fazal, Muffazzal, and Fuzail, col- 
 lectively Fuzul. Mohammed was the principal member of this 
 new association, which was founded about 595 A. a, shortly after 
 his marriage. "The League of the Fuzul" exercised efficient 
 protection over the weak and oppressed, and during the first 
 year of its institution the simple threat of its intervention was 
 sufficient to repress the lawlessness of the strong, and to afford 
 redress to the helpless. The League continued to exist in full 
 force for the first half-century of Islam. It was some years 
 after the establishment of the Hilf ul-Fuzul, and towards the 
 commencement of the seventh century of the Christian era, 
 that an attempt was made by Osman, son of Huwairith, backed 
 
14 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 by Byzantine gold, to convert Hijaz into a Roman dependency. 
 His attempt failed chiefly through the instrumentality of 
 Mohammed, and Osman was obliged to fly into Syria, where 
 he was subsequently poisoned by 'Amr, the Ghassanide prince. 
 In 605 A.c, when Mohammed was thirty-five, the Koreish took 
 in hand the reconstruction of the Kaaba. In the course of this 
 work a dispute among the different families engaged in the 
 building of the temple, which at one time seemed likely to 
 lead to great bloodshed, was happily settled by the ready 
 intervention of Mohammed. These are all we know of his 
 public acts within these fifteen years. His gentle disposition, his 
 austerity of conduct, the severe purity of his • life, his scrupu- 
 lous refinement, his ever-ready helpfulness towards the poor and 
 the weak, his noble sense of honour, his unflinching fidelity, 
 his stern sense of duty had won him, among his compatriots, 
 the high and enviable designation of al-Amin, the Trusty. 
 
 It was at this period that he tried to discharge some portion 
 of the debt of gratitude and obligation he owed his uncle Abu 
 Talib, by charging himself with the education of Ali, one of 
 his sons. Abu Talib's endeavour to maintain the old position 
 of his family had considerably straitened his circumstances. 
 Mohammed, rich by his alliance with Khadija, and Abbas, 
 the brother of Abu Talib, were the most opulent citizens of 
 Mecca. During a severe famine which afflicted the country, 
 Mohammed persuaded his uncle Abbas, to adopt one of the sons 
 of Abu Talib, whilst he adopted another. Thus Abbas took 
 Ja'far ; Mohammed, Ali, and 'Akil remained with his father. 1 
 Mohammed had lost all his sons in early infancy. In the 
 love of Ali he found some consolation for their loss ; and the 
 future marriage of the son of Abu Talib with the youngest 
 daughter of Mohammed, Fatima, 2 sealed the bond of love 
 and devotedness. 
 
 Mohammed about this time set an example to his fellow- 
 citizens by an act of humanity which created a salutary effect 
 upon his people. A young Arab of the name of Zaid, son of 
 Harith, was brought as a captive to Mecca by a hostile tribe, 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 109; al-Halabi, Insan-ul-'Uyun, vol. 212; Ibn ul-Athir, 
 vol. ii. p. 42. 
 
 2 Born in 606 A.c. 
 
I. THE PERIOD OF COMMUNION 15 
 
 and sold to a nephew of Khadija, who presented the young 
 lad to her. Mohammed obtained Zaid as a gift from Khadija, 
 and immediately enfranchised him. This kindness on the one 
 side gave rise to absolute devotion on the other, and the Arab 
 boy could not be induced, even by his own father, to return 
 to his tribe or forsake Mohammed. 
 
 Thus passed the fifteen years of trial and probation, years 
 marked by many afflictions and yet full of sympathy with 
 human suffering and sorrow. 
 
 Before him lay his country, bleeding and torn by fratricidal 
 wars and inter-tribal dissensions, his people sunk in ignorance, 
 addicted to obscene rites and superstitions, and, with all their 
 desert virtues, lawless and cruel. His two visits to Syria had 
 opened to him a scene of unutterable moral and social desola- 
 tion ; rival creeds and sects tearing each other to pieces, 
 wrangling over the body of the God they pretended to worship, 
 carrying their hatred to the valleys and deserts of Hijaz, and 
 rending the townships of Arabia with their quarrels and 
 bitterness. The picture before him was one of dreary hope- 
 lessness. The few who, abandoning their ancient beliefs, were 
 groping in the dark for some resting-place, represented a 
 general feeling of unrest. 1 In their minds there was nothing 
 capable of appealing to the humanity beyond themselves. 
 Mohammed's soul was soaring aloft, trying to peer into the 
 mysteries of creation, of life and death, of good and evil, to 
 find order out of chaos. And God's words uttered to his soul 
 became at last the life-giving power of the world. For years 
 after his marriage it had been his wont to betake himself, 
 sometimes with his family, at other times alone, for praj'er 
 and meditation to a cave on the Mount Hira, 2 " a huge barren 
 
 1 Four men, Zaid, Waraka, son of Naufal and a cousin of Khadija, and two 
 others (Obaidullah and Osman), abandoning the fetishism of their countrymen, 
 had betaken themselves to a search for the true faith. Zaid was the principal 
 person among them. Before the Prophet retired into the wilderness, like 
 Jesus, to commune with God, he had come in contact with Zaid, and learnt 
 to esteem his abhorrence of idolatry. When Zaid's cousin asked the Prophet 
 in later times to supplicate divine mercy for him, Mohammed, who would not 
 pray for his own grandfather, as he had died in idolatry, willingly did so for 
 Zaid. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 145. 
 
 2 Now called the Mount of Light. Ibn-Hisham, Ibn ul-Athir, and Abulfeda 
 mention the month of Ramazan as the month which Mohammed usually 
 spent at Hira in prayer and the succour of the poor and famished wayfarers 
 of the desert. Tabari mentions Rajab. 
 
16 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing out solitary 
 in the full white glare of the desert sun, shadowless, flowerless, 
 without well or rill." Solitude had indeed become a passion 
 with him. Here in this cave he often remained whole nights 
 
 plunged in profoundest thought, deep in communion ( cJ^-'i ) 
 with the unseen yet all-pervading God of the Universe. Slowly 
 the heaven and earth fill with pre-destined vision and command. 
 A voice seems to issue even from the inanimate objects around 
 him, the stones and rocks and trees, calling on him to fulfil 
 the task an Almighty Power was directing him to undertake. 1 
 Can the poetry of the soul go further ? The mental visions 
 and the apparitions of angels at these moments were the bright, 
 though gradual, dawnings of those truths with which he was 
 to quicken the world into life. Often in the dark and benighted 
 pathways of concrete existence, the soul of every great man has 
 been conscious of unrealised yet not unseen influences, which 
 have led to some of the happiest achievements of humanity. 
 From Samuel, that ancient Seer, wild and awful as he stands, 
 deep in the misty horizon of the Past, to Jesus in the wilderness, 
 pondering over the darksome fate of his people and the magni- 
 tude of his work, listening to the gentle accents of the God of 
 Truth, — from Jesus to Mohammed in the solitude of his 
 mountain retreat, there is no break in the action of these 
 influences. 2 In the still hours of the night, in the calm- 
 ness of the early dawn, in the depth of solitude, when no 
 human sympathy is near, a Voice comes to him from heaven, 
 softly as the sough of the morning breeze : " Thou art the 
 man, Thou art the Prophet of God " ; or, when wrapt in 
 thought it comes in mighty waves : " Cry in the name of thy 
 Lord." 3 The over- wrought mind at these moments raises a 
 vision before the eye, a vision of the celestial ministrants who 
 are believed to form the medium of inter-communication 
 between the God of Heaven and the man on earth. " The 
 Father of Truth chooses His own prophets, and He speaks to 
 them in a voice stronger than the voice of thunder. It is the 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 151. 
 
 2 Koran, sura xcvi. 2 ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 153; Al-Halabi, Insan-ul-'Uyxin, 
 vol. i. p. 249 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 34. 
 
 3 Comp. Isa. xl. 6. 
 
I. THE INSPIRATION 17 
 
 same inner voice through which God speaks to all of us. That 
 voice may dwindle away, and become hardly audible ; it may 
 lose its divine accent, and sink into the language of worldly 
 prudence ; but it may also from time to time assume its real 
 nature with the chosen of God, and sound in their ears as a 
 voice from heaven." 1 
 
 " The natural relations of Mahomet's vast conception of the 
 personality of God with the atmosphere of his age," says a 
 great writer, 2 " is the only explanation of that amazing sober- 
 ness and self-command with which he entertained his all- 
 absorbing visions " ; and then adds, " it could not have been 
 accidental that the one supreme force of the epoch issued from 
 the solitudes of that vast peninsula round which the tides of 
 empire rose and fell. Every exclusive prophetic claim in the 
 name of a sovereign Will has been a cry from the desert. The 
 symbolic meaning given to Arabia by the withdrawal of the 
 Christian apostle to commune with a power above flesh and 
 blood, in Mahomet became more than a symbol. Arabia was 
 itself the man of the hour, the prophet of Islam its concentrated 
 word. To the child of her exalted traditions, driven by secret 
 compulsion out into the lonely places of the starry night, his 
 mouth in the dust, the desert spoke without reserve." 
 
 One night — " the Night of Power and Excellence " — when a 
 divine peace rests on creation, and all nature is lifted up towards 
 its Lord — in the middle of that night the Book was opened to 
 the thirsting soul. Whilst lying self-absorbed, he is called by a 
 mighty Voice, surging like the waves of the ocean, to cry. 
 Twice the Voice called, and twice he struggled and waived its 
 call. But a fearful weight was laid on him, and an answer 
 was wrung out of his heart. " Cry ! " called out the Voice 
 for the third time. 
 
 And he said, " What shall I cry ? " Came the answer : 
 " Cry — in the name of thy Lord ! " 
 
 When the Voice had ceased to speak, telling him how from 
 minutest beginnings man had been called into existence and 
 lifted up by understanding and knowledge of the Lord, who is 
 
 1 Professor Muller, quoted from Dean Stanley's Lectures on the History of 
 the Jewish Church, Part i. Lect. xviii. p. 394. 
 
 2 Johnson, Oriental Religions, p. 561. 
 
 s.i. b 
 
18 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 most beneficent, and who by the Pen had revealed that which 
 men did not know, 1 Mohammed woke from his trance, and felt 
 as if the words spoken to his soul had been written on his heart. 
 A great trembling came upon him, and he hastened home to 
 his wife, and said, " O Khadija ! What has happened to me ? " 
 He lay down, and she watched by him. When he recovered 
 from his paroxysm he said, " O Khadija ! he of whom one 
 would not have believed it (meaning himself) has become either 
 a soothsayer 2 (Kdhin) or one possessed — mad." She replied, 
 " God is my protection, O Abu'l-Kasim ! (a name of Mohammed, 
 derived from one of his boys), He will surely not let such a 
 thing happen unto thee ; for thou speakest the truth, dost not 
 return evil for evil, keepest faith, art of a good life, and kind to 
 thy relations and friends. And neither art thou a babbler 
 in the market-places. What has befallen thee ? Hast thou 
 seen aught terrible ? " Mohammed replied, " Yes." And he 
 told her what he had seen. Whereupon she answered and 
 said, " Rejoice, O dear husband, and be of good cheer. He, 
 in whose hands stands Khadija's life, is my witness that thou 
 wilt be the Prophet of this people." Then she arose and went 
 to her cousin Waraka, son of Naufal, who was old and blind, 
 and " knew the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians." When 
 she told him what she had heard, he cried out, " Knddusiin, 
 Kuddusun ! Holy, holy ! Verily this is the Ndmus al-akbar 3 
 who came to Moses and Jesus. He will be the Prophet of 
 his people. Tell him this. Bid him be of brave heart." 
 
 In the midst of the wreck of empires and nations, in the wild 
 turmoil of tribes and clans, there was a voice in the air — east 
 and west, north and south — that God's message was close 
 at hand : the shepherd was nigh who was to call back the 
 
 1 Sura xcvi. vers. 1-5. " Ikra " is usually rendered into " read " ; but I 
 have preferred to follow the rendering suggested by Deutsch, as more in 
 accordance with the call to the Prophet ; see Rodwell also, and compare 
 Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf). 
 
 2 Diviners and soothsayers were his particular aversions ; most of them 
 were attached to the temples. 
 
 3 The primary signification of the word NdmUs in Arabic is a messenger, 
 one who communicates a secret message. It also means law, as the Greek 
 vo/j.os. " In Talmudical phraseology," says Deutsch, " it signifies the revealed 
 law. In Waraka's mind these different significations were combined ; the 
 messenger and the message, both divine, had come to Mohammed even as 
 they had come to Moses and Jesus," 
 
I. COMMENCEMENT OF THE MINISTRY 19 
 
 erring flock into the Master's fold. It had spoken to the 
 heart of Waraka. 
 
 And when the two men met subsequently in the streets, the 
 blind old reader of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, who had 
 searched in them for consolation and found none, but who 
 knew of the promise held out to mankind of a Deliverer, spoke 
 of his faith and trust. " I swear by Him in whose hand War- 
 aka's life is," said the old man, " God has chosen thee to be 
 the prophet of this people ; the Ndmus al-akbar has come to 
 thee. They will call thee a liar, they will persecute thee, they 
 will banish thee, they will fight against thee. Oh, that I 
 could live to those days ! I would fight for thee." 1 And he 
 kissed him on his forehead. These words of hope and trust 
 brought comfort to the troubled soul. 2 And then followed a 
 period of waiting for the Voice to come again — the inspiration 
 of Heaven to fall once more on the anxious mind. 
 
 We can appreciate the spiritual throes, the severe mental 
 conflicts, the doubts, hopes, and misgivings which alternately 
 wrung the heart of Mohammed, when we are told that before 
 he had himself realised his Mission he was driven to the verge 
 of self-destruction, when the angel of God recalled him to his 
 duty to mankind. 3 It spoke to the poor grieved heart, agitated 
 by doubt and fear, — of hope and trust, of the bright future 
 when he should see the people of the earth crowding into the 
 one true Faith. 
 
 Saved by the gracious monition, he hurries home from the 
 desert, exhausted in mind and body, to the bosom of his 
 devoted wife, praying only to be covered from the overwhelming 
 Presence. 
 
 His was not the communion with God of those egoists who 
 bury themselves in deserts or forests, and live a life of quietude 
 for themselves alone. His was the hard struggle of the man 
 who is led onwards by a nobler destiny towards the liberation 
 of his race from the bondage of idolatry. His destiny was 
 unfolded to him when, wrapt in profound meditation, melan- 
 choly and sad, he felt himself called by that Voice from heaven 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 103; al-Halabi, Insdn-ul-'Uyun, vol. i. p. 256. 
 
 2 Waraka died soon after this event. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 104. 
 
 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 35, 36 ; Tibri (Zotenberg's transl.), vol. ii. p. 392. 
 
20 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 which had called those who had gone before him, to arise and 
 preach. " O thou, enwrapped in thy mantle, arise and warn, 
 and glorify thy Lord." 1 And he arose and girded himself for 
 the work to which he was called. Thenceforth his life is 
 devoted to humanity. Preaching with unswerving purpose 
 amidst unremitting persecution, insulted and outraged, he held 
 on in his path of reproof and reform. 
 
 Khadija was the first to accept his Mission. She was the 
 first to believe in the revelation, to abandon the idolatry of her 
 people, and to join with him in purity of heart in offering up 
 prayers to the All-Merciful. Not only was she the first to 
 believe in him and his divine message, but in the struggle which 
 was to follow she was his true consoler ; and " God," says 
 tradition, " comforted him through her when he returned to 
 her, for she roused him up again and made his burden more 
 light to him, assuring him of her own faith in him, and repre- 
 senting to him the futility^ of men's babble." 
 
 In the beginning Mohammed opened his soul only to those 
 who were attached to him, and tried to wean them from the 
 gross practices of their forefathers. After Khadija, Ali was 
 the next disciple. 2 Often did the Prophet go into the depths 
 of the solitary desert around Mecca, with his wife and young 
 cousin, that they might together offer up their heartfelt thanks 
 to the God of all nations for His manifold blessings. Once 
 they were surprised in the attitude of prayer by Abu Talib, 
 the father of Ali. And he said to Mohammed, " son of my 
 brother, what is this religion that thou art following ? " "It 
 is the religion of God, of His angels, of His prophets, and of 
 our ancestor Abraham," answered the Prophet. " God has 
 sent me to His servants to direct them towards the truth ; 
 and thou, O my uncle, art the most worthy of all. It is meet 
 that I should thus call upon thee, and it is meet that thou 
 shouldst accept the truth and help in spreading it." " Son of 
 my brother," replied Abu Talib, in the true spirit of the sturdy 
 old Semite, " I cannot abjure the religion of my fathers ; but 
 by the Supreme God, whilst I am alive none shall dare to injure 
 
 1 Koran, sura lxxiv. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 155 ; al-Halabi, Insdn.ul-'Uyun, vol. i. p. 285. 
 
i. COMMENCEMENT OF THE MINISTRY 21 
 
 thee." Then turning towards Ali, his son, the venerable 
 patriarch inquired what religion was his. ' ' O father, ' ' answered 
 Ali, " I believe in God and His Prophet, and go with him." 
 " Well, my son," said Abu Talib, " he will not call thee to 
 aught save what is good, wherefore thou art free to cleave 
 unto him." 1 
 
 Soon after Zaid, the son of Harith, who notwithstanding his 
 freedom had cast in his lot with Mohammed, became a convert 
 to the new faith. He was followed by a leading member of 
 the Koreishite community of the name of Abdullah, son of 
 Abu Kuhafa, who afterwards became famous in history as 
 Abu Bakr. 2 A member of the important family of Taym 
 ibni-Murra, a wealthy merchant, a man of clear, calm judgment, 
 at the same time energetic, prudent, honest, and amiable, he 
 enjoyed great consideration among his compatriots. He was 
 but two years younger than the Prophet, and his unhesitating 
 adoption of the new faith was of great moral effect. Five 
 notables followed in his footsteps, among them Osman, son of 
 Affan, of the family of Ommeyya, who afterwards became the 
 third caliph ; Abdur Rahman, son of 'Auf ; Sa'd, son of Abi 
 Wakkas, afterwards the conqueror of Persia ; Zubair, son of 
 Awwam and nephew of Khadija, presented themselves before 
 the Prophet and accepted Islam at his hands. Several prose- 
 lytes also came from the humbler walks of life. It is a noble 
 feature in the history of the Prophet of Arabia, and one which 
 strongly attests the sincerity of his character, the purity of 
 his teachings and the intensity of his faith and trust in God, 
 that his nearest relations, his wife, his beloved cousin, and 
 intimate friends, were most thoroughly imbued with the truth 
 of his Mission and convinced of his inspiration. Those who 
 knew him best, closest relations and dearest friends, people 
 who lived with him and noted all his movements, were his 
 sincere and most devoted followers. If these men and women, 
 noble, intelligent, and certainly not less ' educated than the 
 fishermen of Galilee, had perceived the slightest sign of 
 
 x The above is a praraphrase of the account given by Ibn Hisham, pp. 159, 
 160 ; and Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 42, 43. 
 
 2 Desvergers in a note (p. 108) mentions that before his conversion to Islam, 
 he was called Abd ul-Kaaba, " servant of the Kaaba." 
 
22 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 earthliness, deception, or want of faith in the Teacher himself, 
 Mohammed's hopes of moral regeneration and social reform 
 would all have been crumbled to dust in a moment. They 
 braved for him persecution and dangers ; they bore up against 
 physical tortures and mental agony, caused by social excom- 
 munication, even unto death. Would this have been so had 
 they perceived the least backsliding in their master ? But 
 even had these people not believed in Mohammed with such 
 earnest faith and trust, it would furnish no reason for doubting 
 the greatness of his work or the depth of his sincerity. For the 
 influence of Jesus himself was least among his nearest relations. 
 His brothers never believed in him, 1 and they even went so 
 far as once to endeavour to obtain possession of his person, 
 believing him to be out of his mind. 2 Even his immediate 
 disciples were not firm in their convictions. 3 
 
 Perhaps this unsteadiness may have arisen from weakness 
 of character, or it may have resulted, as Milman thinks, 4 from 
 the varying tone of Jesus himself ; but the fact is undeniable. 5 
 The intense faith and conviction on the part of the immediate 
 followers of Mohammed is the noblest testimony to his sincerity 
 and his utter self-absorption in his appointed task. 
 
 For three weary long years he laboured quietly to wean his 
 people from the worship of idols. But polytheism was deeply 
 rooted among them ; the ancient cult offered attractions, which 
 the new Faith in its purity, did not possess. The Koreish 
 had vested interests in the old worship ; and their prestige was 
 involved in its maintenance. Mohammed had thus to contend, 
 not only with the heathenism of his city sanctified by ages of 
 observance and belief but also with the opposition of the 
 oligarchy which ruled its destinies, and with whom like the 
 generality of their people, superstition was allied to great 
 scepticism. With these forces fighting against him, little 
 wonder that the life and death-struggle of the three years drew 
 
 1 John vii. 5. 2 Mark iii. 21. 
 
 3 And these were the men whom Jesus called " his mother and brethren," 
 in preference to his own mother and brothers, Matt. xii. 45-48 ; Mark iii. 32, 33. 
 
 4 Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 254, 255. 
 
 4 Sir W. Muir admits this in the most positive terms (vol. ii. p. 274) ; 
 he says, " the apostles fled at the first sound of danger." 
 
I. THE DEVOTION OF THE DISCIPLES 23 
 
 only thirty followers. But the heart of the great Teacher 
 never failed. Steadfast in his trust in the Almighty Master 
 whose behests he was carrying out, he held on. Hitherto he 
 had preached quietly and unobtrusively. His compatriots 
 had looked askance at him, had begun to doubt the sanity of 
 al-Amin, thought him crazed or " possessed," but had not 
 interfered with his isolated exhortations. He now determined 
 to appeal publicly to the Koreish to abandon their idolatry. 
 With this object he convened an assembly on the hill of Safa, 
 and there spoke to them of the enormities of their crimes in 
 the sight of the Lord, their folly in offering adoration to carved 
 idols. He warned them of the fate that had overtaken the 
 races which had passed unheeded the words of the preachers 
 of bygone days, and invited them to abjure their old impious 
 worship, and adopt the faith of love and truth and purity. 
 But the mockers mocked his words, laughed at the enthusiasm 
 of young Ali, and departed with taunts and scoffs on their 
 lips, and fear in their hearts at the spirit of revolution which 
 had risen in their midst. Having thus failed to induce the 
 Koreish to listen to the warnings of Heaven, he turned his 
 attention to the strangers visiting the city for trade or pilgrim- 
 age. To them he endeavoured to convey God's words. But 
 here again his efforts were frustrated by the Koreish. When 
 the pilgrims began to arrive on the environs of the city, the 
 Koreishites posted themselves on the different routes and 
 warned the strangers against holding any communication with 
 Mohammed, whom they represented as a dangerous magician. 
 This machination led, however, to a result little expected by 
 the Meccans. As the pilgrims and traders dispersed to their 
 distant homes, they carried with them the news of the advent 
 of the strange, enthusiastic preacher, who, at the risk of his 
 own life, was calling aloud to the nations of Arabia to give up 
 the worship of their fathers. 
 
 If the Koreish were under the impression that Mohammed 
 would be abandoned by his own kith and kin, they were soon 
 undeceived by a scathing denunciation hurled at them by 
 Abu Talib. The old patriarch, who had refused, with char- 
 acteristic persistency, to abandon his ancient creed, or to adopt 
 the new faith rebelled at the injustice and intolerance of his 
 
24 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 compatriots towards the reformer, and with true desert chivalry 
 he deplored, in a poem which lies embalmed in history, the 
 enormities of the Koreish towards one who was the benefactor 
 of the orphan and the widow — al-Amin, who never failed in 
 word or deed ; and declared that the children of Hashim and 
 of Muttalib would defend the innocent with their lives. About 
 the same time an Yathribite chief wrote to the Koreish of 
 Mecca, and, holding up the examples of bygone ages, exhorted 
 them not to embroil themselves with civil dissensions and 
 warfare. He advised them to give a hearing to the new 
 preacher : " An honourable man has adopted a certain religion, 
 why persecute him ? for it is only the Lord of the Heaven who 
 can read the heart of man ! " His counsel had some effect, 
 and occasioned a change of tactics among the Koreish. For 
 a time accordingly, calumnies and vilifications, exasperating 
 contumelies and petty outrages were substituted for open 
 and violent persecution. The hostile Koreish stopped the 
 Prophet from offering his prayers at the Kaaba ; they pursued 
 him wherever he went ; they covered him and his disciples 
 with dirt and filth when engaged in their devotions. They 
 incited the children and the bad characters of the town to follow 
 and insult him. They scattered thorns in the places which 
 he frequented for devotion and meditation. In this act of 
 refined cruelty the lead was always taken by Umm ul-Jamil, 
 the wife of Abu Lahab, one of Mohammed's uncles. She was 
 the most inveterate of his persecutors. Every place which he 
 or his disciples frequented for devotion she covered with thorns. 
 This exasperating conduct brought down upon her the designa- 
 tion of being " the bearer of faggots " (hammdlat ul-hatab) 
 [to hell]. 
 
 Amidst all these trials Mohammed never wavered. Full of 
 the intensest confidence in his Mission, he worked steadily on. 
 Several times he was in imminent danger of his life at the 
 hands of the Koreish. On one occasion he disarmed their 
 murderous fury by his gentle and calm self-control. But 
 persecution only added to the strength of the new faith. " The 
 blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," is a truth not 
 confined to one creed. The violence of the Koreish towards 
 Mohammed, their burning and bitter intolerance, led to the 
 
I. THE DEVOTION OF THE DISCIPLES 25 
 
 conversion of the redoubtable Hamza, the youngest son of 
 Abd ul-Muttalib. This intrepid warrior, brave, generous, and 
 true, whose doughty sword was held in dread by all the Koreish, 
 about this time came to the Prophet, adopted his faith, and 
 became thenceforth a devoted adherent of Islam, and finally 
 laid down his life in the cause. 
 
 Amidst all this persecution Mohammed never ceased calling 
 to the nation so wedded to iniquity to abandon their evil ways 
 and abominations. He threw his heart and soul into his 
 preachings. He told them in burning words that seared 
 into the hearts of the listeners, the punishment which had 
 alighted on the tribes of 'Ad and Thamud who had heeded not 
 the warnings of God's messengers, of the outpouring of Heaven's 
 wrath at the iniquities of Noah's people. He adjured them 
 by the wonderful sights of nature, by the noon-day brightness, 
 by the night when she spreadeth her veil, by the day when 
 it appeareth in glory, to listen to the warning before a like 
 destruction came upon them. He told them of the day of 
 reckoning, when the deeds done by man in this world shall be 
 weighed before the Eternal Judge, when the children who had 
 been buried alive shall be asked for what crime they had been 
 put to death, and when heaven and earth shall be folded up 
 and none be near but God. He spoke to them of the rewards 
 and punishments of the Hereafter, describing to his material- 
 istic people the joys of Paradise and the pains of hell " with 
 all the glow of Eastern imagery." He told them what the 
 unbelievers were like — " They are like unto one who kindleth 
 a fire, and when it hath thrown its light on all around him, 
 God taketh away the light and leaveth him in darkness and they 
 cannot see." 
 
 " Deaf, dumb, blind, therefore they shall not retrace their 
 steps." 
 
 " They are like those who, when there cometh a storm-cloud 
 of heaven big with darkness, thunder, and lightning, thrust 
 their fingers into their ears because of the thunder-clap for 
 fear of death. God is round about the infidels." 
 
 " The lightning almost snatcheth away their eyes ; so oft 
 as it gleameth on them, they walk on in it ; but when darkness 
 closeth upon them, they stop ; and if God pleased, of their 
 
26 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 ears and of their eyes would He surely deprive them : verily 
 God is Almighty." * 
 
 "As to the infidels, their works are like the Sardb on the 
 plain, 2 which the thirsty [traveller] thinketh to be water, and 
 then when he cometh thereto, he findeth it [to be] nothing ; 
 but he findeth God round about him, and He will fully pay 
 him his account ; for swift in taking an account is God." 
 
 " Or, as the darkness over a deep sea, billows riding upon 
 billows below, and clouds above ; one darkness over another 
 darkness ; when a man stretcheth forth his hand he is far 
 from seeing it ; he to whom God doth not grant light, no light 
 at all hath he." 3 
 
 The people were awestruck, and conversions grew frequent. 
 
 The Koreish were now thoroughly alarmed ; Mohammed's 
 preaching betokened a serious revolutionary movement. 
 Their power and prestige were at stake. They were the 
 custodians of the idols whom Mohammed threatened with 
 destruction ; they were the ministers of the worship which 
 Mohammed denounced — their very existence depended upon 
 their maintaining the old institutions intact. If his predictions 
 were fulfilled, they would have to efface themselves as a nation 
 pre-eminent among the nationalities of Arabia. The new 
 preacher's tone was intensely democratic ; in the sight of his 
 Lord all human beings were equal. This levelling of old 
 distinctions was contrary to all their traditions. They would 
 have none of it, for it boded no good to their exclusive privileges. 
 Urgent measures were needed to stifle the movement before 
 it gained further strength. 
 
 They accordingly decided upon an organised system of 
 persecution. In order, however, not to violate their laws of 
 vendetta, each family took upon itself the task of strangling 
 the new religion within its own circle. Each household tortured 
 its own members, or clients, or slaves, who were supposed to 
 have attached themselves to the new faith. Mohammed, 
 owing to the protection of Abu Talib and his kinsmen, Abu 
 Bakr and a few others, who were either distinguished by their 
 rank or possessed some influential friend or protector among 
 the Koreish, were, for the time, exempt from immediate 
 
 1 Sura ii. 2 i.e. the mirage of the desert. 3 Sura xxiv. 39, 40. 
 
I. THE KOREISH TEMPTING MOHAMMED 27 
 
 violence. The others were thrown into prison, starved, and 
 then beaten with sticks. The hill of Ramdha and the place 
 called Batha became thus the scenes of cruel tortures. 1 The 
 men or women whom the Koreish found abandoning the 
 worship of the idol-gods, were exposed to the burning heat 
 of the desert on the scorching sand, where, when reduced to 
 the last extremity by thirst, they were offered the alternative 
 of adoring the idols or death. Some recanted only to profess 
 Islam once more when released from their torments ; but the 
 majority held firmly to their faith. Such a one was Bilal, 
 the first Muezzin, of Islam. His master, Ommeyya, son of 
 Khalaf, conducted him each day to Batha when the heat of 
 the sun was at its greatest, and there exposed him bare-backed 
 with his face to the burning sun, and placed on his chest a 
 large block of stone with the words, " There shalt thou 
 remain until thou art dead or thou hast abjured Islam." 
 As he lay half -stifled under his heavy weight, dying with 
 thirst, he would only answer, " Ahadun, ahadun," " one 
 [God], one." This lasted for days, until the poor sufferer was 
 reduced to the verge of death, when he was ransomed by Abu 
 Bakr, who had in like manner purchased the liberty of six 
 other slaves. They killed with excruciating torments Yasar 
 and Samiya his wife ; they inflicted fearful tortures on 'Ammar 
 their son. Mohammed was often an eye-witness to the 
 sufferings of his disciples — sufferings borne with patience and 
 fortitude as became martyrs in the cause of truth. And 
 these were not the only martyrs in the early history of Islam. 2 
 Like the Pharisees tempting Jesus, the Koreish came to 
 Mohammed with temptations of worldly honour and aggrand- 
 isement, to draw him from the path of duty. One day, says 
 the chronicler, he was sitting in the Kaaba, at a little distance 
 from an assembly of the antagonistic chiefs, when one of them, 
 'Otba, son of Rab'ia, a man of moderate views came to him 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 50 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 205-209. 
 
 2 E.g. Khobaib bin 'Adi, who, being perfidiously sold to the Koreish, was 
 by them put to death in a cruel manner by mutilation and cutting off his 
 flesh piece-meal. In the midst of his tortures, being asked whether he did 
 not wish Mohammed in his place, answered, " / would not wish to be with my 
 family, my substance, and my children on condition that Mohammed was only 
 to be pricked with a thorn." 
 
28 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 and said, " O son of my brother, thou art distinguished by thy 
 qualities and thy descent. Now thou hast sown division 
 among our people, and cast dissension in our families ; thou 
 denouncest our gods and goddesses ; thou dost tax our 
 ancestors with impiety. We have a proposition to make to 
 thee ; think well if it will not suit thee to accept it." " Speak, 
 O father of Walid," * said the Prophet, " I listen, O son of my 
 brother." Commenced 'Otba : " If thou wishest to acquire 
 riches by this affair, we will collect a fortune larger than is 
 possessed by any of us ; if thou desirest honours and dignity,' 
 we shall make thee our chief, and shall not 4o a thing without 
 thee ; if thou desirest dominion, we shall make thee our king ; 
 and if the spirit (demon) which possesses thee cannot be over- 
 powered, we will bring thee doctors and give them riches till 
 they cure thee." And when he had done, " Hast thou finished, 
 O father of Walid ? " asked the Prophet. " Yes," replied he. 
 " Then listen to me." " I listen," he said. " In the name of 
 the most merciful God," commenced the Warner, " this is a 
 revelation from the most Merciful : a book, the verses whereof 
 are distinctly explained, an Arabic Koran, for the instruction 
 of people who understand ; bearing good tidings, and denounc- 
 ing threats : but the greater part of them turn aside, and 
 hearken not thereto. And they say, ' Our hearts are veiled 
 from the doctrine to which thou invitest us ; and there is a 
 deafness in our ears, and a curtain between us and thee : 
 wherefore act thou as thou shalt think fit ; for we shall act 
 according to our own sentiments.' Say ' verily I am only a 
 man like you. It is revealed unto me that your God is one 
 God : wherefore direct your way straight unto Him ; and ask 
 pardon of Him for what is past.' And woe be to the idolaters, 
 who give not the appointed alms, and believe not in the life 
 to come ! 2 But as to those who believe and work righteous- 
 ness, they shall receive an everlasting reward." 3 When the 
 Prophet finished this recitation, he said to 'Otba, " Thou 
 
 1 Walid being a son of 'Otba. It was usual, and is so even now, among the 
 Arabs to call a man as the father of so-and-so, instead of using his own name, 
 as a mark of consideration. 
 
 2 Whilst hospitality was regarded as a great virtue, charity was considered 
 a weakness among the Arabs ; and a future life, an old woman's fable. 
 
 3 Koran, Sura xli. 
 
i. THE HOSTILITY OF THE KOREISH 29 
 
 hast heard, now take the course which seemeth best to 
 thee." ' 
 
 Profoundly afflicted by the sufferings of his disciples, whose 
 position, as time went on, became more and more unbearable, 
 he advised them to seek a refuge in the neighbouring Christian 
 kingdom of Abyssinia, where ruled a pious sovereign, till God 
 in His mercy wrought a change in the feelings of the Koreish. 
 He had heard of the righteousness of this Christian king, 
 of his tolerance and hospitality, and was certain of a welcome 
 for his followers. 
 
 Some immediately availed themselves of the advice, and 
 sailed, to the number of fifteen, to the hospitable shores of the 
 Negus (Najashi). This is called the first Exile (muhdjarat) 
 in the history of Islam, and occurred in the fifth year of 
 Mohammed's Mission (615 A.c). These emigrants were soon 
 joined by many more of their fellow-sufferers and labourers 
 in the cause of truth, until their number amounted to eighty- 
 three men and eighteen women. 2 But the untiring hostility 
 of the Koreish pursued them even here. They were furious 
 at the escape of their victims, and sent deputies to the king to 
 demand the delivery of these refugees that they might be put 
 to death. They stated the chief charges against the poor 
 fugitives to be the abjuration of their old religion, and the 
 adoption of a new one. The Negus sent for the exiles, and 
 inquired of them whether what their enemies had stated was 
 true. " What is this religion for which you have abandoned 
 your former faith," asked the king, " and adopted neither 
 mine nor that of any other people ? " Ja'far, son of Abu 
 Talib, and brother of Ali, acting as spokesman for the fugitives, 
 spoke thus : " O king, we were plunged in the depth of ignor- 
 ance and barbarism ; we adored idols, we lived in unchastity ; 
 we ate dead bodies, and we spoke abominations ; we disre- 
 garded every feeling of humanity, and the duties of hospitality 
 and neighbourhood ; we knew no law but that of the strong, 
 when God raised among us a man, of whose birth, truthfulness, 
 honesty, and purity we were aware ; and he called us to the 
 unity of God, and taught us not to associate anything with 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 185, 186. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 208 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 58 ; Abulfeda, p. 20. 
 
3 o THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 Him ; * he forbade us the worship of idols ; and enjoined us 
 to speak the truth, to be faithful to our trusts, to be merciful, 
 and to regard the rights of neighbours ; he forbade us to speak 
 evil of women, or to eat the substance of orphans ; he ordered 
 us to fly from vices, and to abstain from evil ; to offer prayers, 
 to render alms, to observe the fast. We have believed in him, 
 we have accepted his teachings and his injunctions to worship 
 God, and not to associate anything with Him. For this 
 reason our people have risen against us, have persecuted us 
 in order to make us forego the worship of God and return to 
 the worship of idols of wood and stone and other abominations. 
 They have tortured us and injured us, until finding no safety 
 among them, we have come to thy country, and hope thou 
 wilt protect us from their oppression." 2 
 
 The demands of the Koreish were scouted by the king, and 
 the deputies returned in confusion to Mecca. 
 
 Whilst the disciples of Mohammed were seeking safety in 
 other lands from the persecution of their enemies, he himself 
 stood bravely at his post, and amidst every insult and outrage 
 pursued his mission. Again they came to him with promises 
 of honour and riches, to seduce him from his duty ; the reply 
 was as before, full of life, full of faith : "I am neither desirous 
 of riches nor ambitious of dignity nor of dominion ; I am sent 
 by God, who has ordained me to announce glad tidings unto 
 you. I give you the words of my Lord ; I admonish you. 
 If you accept the message I bring you, God will be favourable 
 to you both in this world and in the next ; if you reject my 
 admonitions, I shall be patient, and leave God to judge between 
 you and me." They mocked him, scoffed at him, tried by 
 insidious questions to expose the fallacy of his teachings. 3 
 His simple trust and sublime faith in his Master rose superior 
 to all their materialistic scepticism. They asked him to 
 cause wells and rivers to gush forth, to bring down the heaven 
 
 1 The idolaters are almost always called " Associaters," Mushrikin, in the 
 Koran, or men who associate other beings with God. 
 
 2 Can there be a better summary of Mohammed's work or of his teachings ? 
 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 6i ; and Ibn-Hisham, pp. 219, 220. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 188. A Christian historian goes into raptures at the 
 subtlety of the idolaters ; see Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, 
 
I. MORAL EVIDENCES OF MOHAMMED'S MISSION 31 
 
 in pieces, to remove mountains, to have a house of gold erected, 
 to ascend to heaven by a ladder. 1 It was a repetition of the 
 old story, with this difference, that in the case of Jesus his own 
 followers insisted upon his performing miracles to satisfy 
 them of the truth of his mission. " His immediate disciples," 
 says Professor Momerie, " were always misunderstanding him 
 and his work : wanting him to call down fire from heaven ; 
 wanting him to declare himself king of the Jews ; wanting to 
 sit on his right hand and on his left hand in his kingdom ; 
 wanting him to show them the Father, to make God visible 
 to their bodily eyes ; wanting him to do, and wanting to do 
 themselves, anything and everything that was incompatible 
 with his great plan. This was how they treated him until 
 the end. When that came, they all forsook him, and 
 fled." 
 
 To these unsatisfied, lukewarm spirits, whose craving for 
 wonders was no less strong than that of the Koreish, and who 
 afterwards clothed the revered figure of Jesus in a mist, a legacy 
 which even modern idealistic Christianity cannot shake off, 
 the Master was wont to reply, at times angrily, that it was an 
 evil and adulterous age which sought after a sign, and that no 
 sign should be given to it ; and that if a man believed not in 
 Moses and the prophets, he would not repent even though one 
 rose from the dead. 2 
 
 It must be said to the credit of the disciples of the Arabian 
 Teacher, that they never called for a miracle from their Master. 
 They — scholars, merchants, and soldiers — looked to the moral 
 evidences of his mission. They ranged themselves round the 
 friendless preacher at the sacrifice of all their worldly interests 
 and worldly hopes, and adhered to him through life and death 
 with a devotion to his human personality to which there is 
 scarcely a parallel in the history of the world. 
 
 In an age when miracles were supposed to be ordinary 
 occurrences at the beck of the commonest saint, when the 
 
 1 Sura xvii. 92-96. 
 
 2 Patristic Christianity has held, and still holds, to the miracles as a proof 
 of the divinity of Jesus ; modern Christianity calls them Aberglanbe. It may 
 well be, as the author of Literature and Dogma says, that the miracles are 
 doomed, and that the miracle-saga of Christianity must, sooner or later, go 
 with all legends, Eastern or Western. 
 
32 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 whole atmosphere was surcharged with supernaturalism, not 
 only in Arabia, but in the neighbouring countries where 
 civilisation had made far greater progress, the great Pioneer of 
 rationalism unhesitatingly replies to the miracle-seeking 
 heathens — " God has not sent me to work wonders ; He has 
 sent me to preach to you. My Lord be praised ! Am I more 
 than a man sent as an apostle ? . . . Angels do not commonly 
 walk the earth, or God would have despatched an angel to 
 preach His truth to you. 1 I never said that Allah's treasures 
 are in my hand, that I knew the hidden things, or that I was 
 an angel. ... I who cannot even help or trust myself, unless 
 God pleaseth." ... No extraordinary pretensions, no indulg- 
 ence in hyperbolical language, no endeavour to cast a glamour 
 round his character or personality. " I am only a preacher 
 of God's words, the bringer of God's message to mankind," 
 repeats he always. From first to last no expression escapes 
 him " which could be construed into a request for human 
 worship " ; 2 from first to last there is unvarying soberness of 
 expression, which, considering the age and surrounding, is 
 more marvellous ; from first to last the tone is one of simple, 
 deep humility before the Creator. And in the moment of his 
 greatest exaltation the feeling is one of humble, sweet thank- 
 fulness : — 
 
 " In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate ! 
 Whatsoever is in heaven and on earth praises God the King, 
 the Holy One, the Almighty, the All-wise. It is He who out 
 of the midst of the illiterate Arabs has raised an apostle to show 
 unto them His signs, and to sanctify them, and to teach them 
 the Scripture and the Wisdom, them who before had been 
 in great darkness. . . . This is God's free grace, which 
 He giveth unto whomsoever He wills. God is of great 
 mercy ! " 3 
 
 Disclaiming every power of wonder-working, the Prophet 
 of Islam ever rests the truth of his divine commission entirely 
 upon his Teachings. He never resorts to the miraculous to 
 assert his influence or to enforce his warnings. He invariably 
 appeals to the familiar phenomena of nature as signs of the 
 
 1 Sura xvii. 95-98 ; sura lxxii. 21-24. 2 Professor Momerie. 
 
 3 Sura lxii. vv. 1-10. 
 
i. MOHAMMED'S APPEAL TO REASON 33 
 
 divine presence. 1 He unswervingly addresses himself to the 
 inner consciousness of man, to his reason, and not to his weak- 
 ness or his credulity. Look round yourself : is this wonderful 
 world, the sun, the moon, and the stars, holding their swift silent 
 course in the blue vault of heaven, the law and system prevailing 
 in the universe ; the rain-drops falling to revive the parched 
 earth into life ; the ships moving across the ocean, beladen 
 with what is profitable to mankind ; the beautiful palm 
 covered with its golden fruit — are these the handiwork of your 
 wooden or stone gods ? 2 
 
 Fools ! do you want a sign, when the whole creation is full 
 of the signs of God ? The structure of your body, how wonder- 
 fully complex, how beautifully regulated ; the alternations 
 of night and day, of life and death ; your sleeping and awaking ; 
 your desire to accumulate from the abundance of God ; the 
 winds driving abroad the pregnant clouds as the forerunners 
 of the Creator's mercy ; the harmony and order in the midst 
 of diversity ; the variety of the human race, and yet their 
 close affinity ; fruits, flowers, animals, human beings them- 
 selves — are these not signs enough of the presence of a Master- 
 Mind ? 3 
 
 To the Prophet of Islam, nature in itself is a revelation and 
 a miracle. 
 
 " There is a tongue in every leaf, 
 A voice in every rill, 
 A voice that speaketh everywhere, 
 / In flood and fair, through earth and air, 
 A voice that's never still." * 
 
 The Prophet of Monotheism is pre-eminently the Prophet of 
 Nature. His ethical appeal and his earnest assertion of divine 
 
 1 The passage of Sir W. Muir on this point is, to say the least, remarkable. 
 He says : " Whether the idolatry of Mecca would not have succumbed with- 
 out a struggle before such preaching as Mahomet's, sustained by reasonable 
 evidence, may be matter for speculation " (the italics are his own), vol. ii. p. 
 144. like the Koreish, Sir W. Muir is not satisfied with the teachings, unless 
 supported by wonder-workings. 
 
 2 Sura xxv. 49-59 ; sura 1. 9, etc. 
 
 3 Sura vi. 96-99, li. 20, xv. 20, xx. 50-57, xxxiv. 20-28, 39, etc. 
 
 4 Comp. ±f if iSj j£ J) i<±s»j * Oi}) eJ-f^r J' ** <^4 j*> 
 " Every blade that springs from the earth bears testimony to the unity of 
 God." 
 
 s.i. c 
 
34 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 Unity are founded upon the rational and intellectual recognition 
 of all-pervading order, of the visible presence of one Mind, one 
 Will, regulating, guiding, and governing the Universe. His 
 grandest miracle is the Book in which he has poured forth with 
 an inspired tongue all the " revelations of nature, conscience, 
 and prophecy." Ask you a greater miracle than this, O 
 unbelieving people ! than to have your vulgar tongue chosen 
 as the language of that incomparable Book, one piece of which 
 puts to shame all your golden poesy and suspended songs — to 
 convey the tidings of universal mercy, the warnings to pride 
 and tyranny ! 
 
 But to all his exhortations the Koreish turned a deaf ear. 
 They were blind to the signs of God, blind to the presence of a 
 Divine Personality in nature, deaf to the call of the Seer to 
 come back to righteousness, to forego the crimes and abomina- 
 tions of antiquity. Their answer to him breathes a fierce 
 animosity paralleled only by the darkest days of Arian or 
 Pelagian persecution in Christendom. " Know this, O Moham- 
 med," said they, " we shall never cease to stop thee from 
 preaching till either thou or we perish." 
 
 During this interval occurred an incident which has been 
 differently construed by the Moslem historians and the Christian 
 biographers of the Prophet. One day, in one of his prophetic 
 trances, Mohammed was reciting within the Kaaba some 
 verses which now form part of the fifty-third chapter of the 
 Koran. When he came to the words, " What think ye of 
 al-Lat, al-'Uzza, and Manat ? the third besides," an idolater 
 who was present on the occasion, and whom tradition has 
 converted into the devil, anxious to avert the threatened 
 denunciation called out, " They are exalted damsels, and their 
 intercession with God may be hoped for." These words were 
 supposed to form part of the Prophet's revelation. And the 
 Koreish, overjoyed either at the trick or at Mohammed's 
 supposed concession, hastened to express their willingness to 
 come to terms. When Mohammed learnt what had happened, 
 he immediately proclaimed the words, " They are nought but 
 empty names, which you and your fathers have invented." 
 This is the version given by Mohammedan historians and 
 traditionists. According to the Christian biographers, the 
 
I. PERSECUTION CONTINUES 35 
 
 incident is supposed to indicate a momentary desire on the 
 part of the Prophet to end the strife with the Koreish by some 
 compromise. The bigot calls it "a lapse " and " a fall " ; 
 but the generous and unbiased historian considers the episode 
 as throwing additional lustre on the Prophet of Arabia. 
 Persecution was becoming fiercer and fiercer every day, the 
 sufferings of his followers were increasing, and the whole city 
 was up in arms against them. The sight of his poor disciples 
 afflicted him deeply ; his weary struggle with the Arabian 
 idolatry filled him with grief. What wonder that a momentary 
 thought crossed his mind to end the conflict by making a slight 
 concession to the bigotry of his enemies. " And so Mohammed 
 made his first and last concession. He recited a revelation 
 to the Koreish, in which he spoke respectfully of the three 
 moon-goddesses, and asserted that their intercession with 
 God might be hoped for : ' Wherefore bow down before God 
 and serve Him ' ; and the whole audience, overjoyed at the 
 compromise, bowed down and worshipped at the name of the 
 God of Mohammed — the whole city was reconciled to the 
 double religion. But this dreamer of the desert was not the 
 man to rest upon a lie. At the price of the whole city of Mecca 
 he would not remain untrue to himself. He came forward 
 and said he had done wrong — the devil had tempted him. 
 He openly and frankly retracted what he had said ; and 
 ' as for their idols, they were but empty names which they 
 and their fathers had invented.' " 
 
 " Western biographers have rejoiced greatly over ' Moham- 
 med's fall.' Yet it was a tempting compromise, and few 
 would have withstood it. And the life of Mohammed is not 
 the life of a god, but of a man ; from first to last it is intensely 
 human. But if for once he was not superior to the temptation 
 of gaining over the whole city, and obtaining peace where 
 before had been only bitter persecution, what can we say of 
 his manfully thrusting back the rich prize he had gained, 
 freely confessing his fault, and resolutely giving himself over 
 again to the old indignities and insults ? If he was once 
 insincere — and who is not ? — how intrepid was his after 
 sincerity ! He was untrue to himself for a while, and he is 
 ever referring to it in his public preaching with shame and 
 
36 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 remorse ; but the false step was more than atoned for by his 
 magnificent recantation." x 
 
 Upon the promulgation that Lat, 'Uzza, and Manat were 
 but empty names, the persecution burst out anew with re- 
 doubled fury. 
 
 Supported, however, by a firm conviction of divine assistance, 
 and upheld by the admonitions of the heavenly voice within, 
 conveyed to him by the ministrators of heavenly mercy, he 
 continued his preaching undeterred by the hostility of his 
 enemies, or by the injuries they inflicted upon him. In spite 
 of all opposition, however, slowly but surely the new teachings 
 gained ground. The seeds of truth thus scattered could not 
 fail to fructify. The wild Arab of the desert, the trading 
 citizen of distant townships who came to the national fair, heard 
 the words of the strange man whom his enemies thought 
 possessed, listened to the admonitions in which he poured 
 forth his soul, listened with awe and wonder to his denunciations 
 of their divinities and of their superstitions, of their unright- 
 eousness, of their evil ways, and carried back to their far-off 
 homes new light and new life, even unconsciously to themselves. 
 And the satires, the ill-names his enemies heaped upon 
 Mohammed, only tended to make his words more extensively 
 known. 
 
 The Meccans, on their side, were by no means quiet. Several 
 times the Koreish sent deputations to Abu Talib, asking him 
 to stop his nephew from preaching against their religion. At 
 first Abu Talib turned them away with soft and courteous 
 words. But as Mohammed persisted in his fiery denunciations 
 against their godlessness and impiety, they expelled him from 
 the Kaaba where he had been wont to preach, and then 
 came in a body to his uncle. 2 " We respect thy age and thy 
 rank," said they, " but our respect for thee has bounds, and 
 verily we can have no further patience with thy nephew's 
 abuse of our gods, and his ill words against our ancestors ; 
 wherefore do thou either prevent him from so doing, or thyself 
 take part with him, so that we may settle the matter by fight 
 
 1 Stanley Lane-Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. xlix. 
 
 2 Tabari, vol. ii. p. 406 ; according to this author's authorities, ver. 214 of 
 chap. xxi. of the Koran was revealed about this period. 
 
I. KOREISHITE LEAGUE AGAINST MOHAMMED 37 
 
 until one of the two parties is exterminated." x Having thus 
 spoken, they departed. Abu Talib was unwilling to separate 
 himself from his people, neither did he like abandoning his 
 nephew to the idolaters. Sending for Mohammed, he informed 
 him of the speech of the Koreish, and begged him to renounce 
 his task. Mohammed thought his uncle wished to withdraw 
 his protection ; but his high resolve did not fail him even at 
 this moment. Firmly he replied : " O my uncle, if they 
 placed the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left, to 
 force me to renounce my work, verily I would not desist there- 
 from until God made manifest His cause, or I perished in the 
 attempt." But overcome by the thought of desertion by his 
 kind protector, he turned to depart. Then Abu Talib called 
 aloud : " Son of my brother, come back " ; and he came. 
 And Abu Talib said : " Say whatsoever thou pleasest ; for 
 by the Lord, I shall not abandon thee, nay, never." 2 The 
 Koreish made another attempt to persuade Abu Talib to deliver 
 up his nephew to them. They offered in exchange a young 
 man of the family of Makhzum, but it was of no avail. 3 The 
 declared intention of Abu Talib to support his nephew excited 
 their fury, and they renewed their menaces of violence. The 
 venerable patriarch appealed to the sense of honour of the 
 Bani-Hashim and Bani-Muttalib, the kinsmen of Mohammed, 
 to protect a distinguished member of their family from falling 
 a victim to the^Jiatred of rival clans. And the appeal was 
 nobly responded to, with the solitary exception of the squint- 
 eyed Abu Lahab, " the Father of the Flame," as the sequel 
 will show. 
 
 At this time the new Faith gained a valuable adherent in 
 Omar, whose energy of character made him an important 
 factor in the future commonwealth of Islam. His services to 
 the religion of Mohammed have engraved his name on the 
 pages of history. A distinguished member of the family of 
 'Adi ibn-Ka'b, and the son of Khattab, notorious for the 
 persecution of the Moslems, he was hitherto a violent opponent 
 of Islam, and a bitter adversary of the Prophet. His 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 47 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 167, 168. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 168 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 48 ; Abulfeda, p. 17. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 169 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 48. 
 
38 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 conversion is said to have been worked by the magic effect 
 on his mind of a chapter of the Koran which he heard recited 
 in his sister's house, where he had gone in a furious rage and 
 with murderous intent. 
 
 Struck with the words which he had heard, he went straight 
 to the Prophet with the naked sword in his hand with which 
 he had meant to slay Mohammed and his disciples, causing 
 considerable consternation among the assembly of the Faithful 
 listening to the Preacher. He kissed the Master's hand, and 
 then demanded to be taken into the fold of God ; and heartfelt 
 thanks went up to heaven from the Moslems for the grace 
 that had fallen on Omar. After his conversion he became 
 one of the bulwarks of the Faith. 
 
 Islam need no more hide its head in byways and corners, go 
 about in concealment, or offer its prayers to God in secret and 
 trepidation. Besides a large following taken from the humbler 
 walks of life, there were now gathered round the Prophet a 
 chosen band of apostles, consisting, not of ignorant folk, but 
 of men of energy, talent, and worth, like Hamza, Abu Bakr, 
 and Omar. And though Ali was in his youth, he was fast 
 rising into prominence. 
 
 These important adhesions gave heart to the Moslems, and 
 they now ventured to perform their devotions in public. The 
 Koreish, who were at first thunderstruck at the conversion of 
 Omar, saw the gravity of the situation. And yet they waited 
 to strike the decisive blow. 
 
 The return of the deputies, however, from Abyssinia, and the 
 announcement of their unsuccessful mission, roused them to 
 frenzy. They determined at last to exterminate with one 
 stroke the entire clan of Hashim and Muttalib. With that 
 purpose they, in the 7th year of the Mission, towards the 
 end of 616 A. a, formed a league against the descendants of 
 Hashim and Muttalib. They bound themselves by a solemn 
 document, which was deposited in the Kaaba, not to enter 
 into any contract of marriage with the Hashimites, or to buy 
 and sell with them. The Hashimites and Muttalibites, 
 Musulmans as well as idolaters, were struck with dismay, 
 and fearful that this might be the prelude to some other attack, 
 judged it safer to abandon their houses dispersed in the city, 
 
I. THE YEAR OF MOURNING 39 
 
 and concentrate themselves at one point. They betook 
 themselves accordingly to the Shi'b (or quarter) of Abu Talib 
 — a long, narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of 
 Mecca, cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one 
 narrow gateway. Abu Lahab alone remained aloof, and 
 ranged himself on the side of the enemy. 
 
 They lived in this defensive position with Mohammed in 
 their midst for nearly three years, beleaguered by the Koreish, 
 and subjected to every privation. The provisions which they 
 had carried with them were soon exhausted, and the cries of 
 the starving children could be heard outside. Probably they 
 would have entirely perished but for the occasional help they 
 received surreptitiously from less bigoted compatriots. Some 
 of the chiefs, however, were beginning to be ashamed of their 
 injustice. Towards the tenth year of the Mission (619 a. a), 
 Hisham, son of 'Amr, who took a lively interest in the Hashi- 
 mites, tried to bring about a reconciliation between the 
 Koreishites and the two families of Hashim and Muttalib. 
 He succeeded in winning over Zubair, son of Abu Ommeyya, 
 to his side ; and, seconded by him and others, the pact was 
 annulled, and the two families were taken back to the enjoy- 
 ment of the communal rights, and were allowed to return to 
 Mecca. 
 
 During the period Mohammed was shut up in the Shi'b with 
 his kinspeople, Islam made no progress outside. In the 
 sacred months, when violence was considered a sacrilege, the 
 Teacher would come out of his prison and endeavour to obtain 
 hearers among the pilgrims ; but the squint-eyed " Father of 
 the Flame " followed him about, and made his words nought 
 by calling him " a liar and a Sabean." 
 
 The year which followed is called in the history of Islam 
 " the Year of Mourning " for the loss of Abu Talib and Khadija, 
 who followed each other to the grave within a short interval. 
 In Abu Talib, Mohammed lost the guardian of his youth, who 
 had hitherto stood between him and his enemies. The death 
 of Khadija was a severe blow. When none believed in him, 
 when he himself had not yet awakened to the full consciousness 
 of his mission, and his heart was full of doubts, when all around 
 him was dark and despairing, her love, her faith had stood by 
 
40 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 him. " She was ever his angel of hope and consolation." 
 To the end of his life he retained the tenderest recollection of 
 her love and devotion. 
 
 Note to Chapter I. 
 
 Sir W. Muir thinks M. Caussin de Perceval has made a 
 mistake in supposing Batha. to be the name of a place. He 
 thinks it signifies the nature of the soil over which these 
 people were tortured ; vol. ii. p. 128. To corroborate M. 
 Caussin de Perceval and myself, I have only to add that the 
 existence of this place is an undoubted fact ; and Batha 
 especially has been frequently referred to by Mohammedan 
 authors as a place in the immediate vicinity of Mecca. For 
 example, the celebrated Hakim Sanai says : 
 
 Cho 'ilmat hast khidmat kun cho 
 
 bi-'ilman, ke zisht aid, 
 Girifta Chinian ihram, wa Mekki 
 
 khufta dar Batha. 
 
 " If thou possessest knowledge, serve like those who are 
 ignorant ; for it is unseemly that people from China should 
 adopt the Ihram (that is to say, come on a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca), and the native of Mecca should lie sleeping at Batha." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HEGIRA 
 
 O ' '•> 
 
 t £ 
 
 THE children of Ommeyya and other hostile clans, 
 actuated as much by their attachment to the old cult 
 as by their jealousy of, and hatred towards, the 
 Hashimites, considered this a favourable opportunity to crush 
 out Islam in Mecca ; and the death of Abu Talib, whose 
 personal influence and character had restrained their fury 
 within some limits, became the signal for the Koreish to 
 redouble their persecutions. 1 
 
 Weighed down by the loss of his venerable protector and of 
 his cherished wife, hopeless of turning the Koreish from 
 idolatry, with a saddened heart, and yet full of trust, he 
 determined to turn to some other field for the exercise of his 
 ministry. Mecca had rejected the words of God, hapless 
 Tayef may listen to them. Accompanied by his faithful 
 servant Zaid, he arrived among the Thakif. 2 He spoke to 
 them about his Mission ; told them about their iniquities, and 
 called them to the worship of God. His words caused a storm 
 of indignation. Who was this crazy man, said they, who 
 invited them to abandon the beautiful divinities they wor- 
 shipped with such lightness of heart and such freedom of 
 morals ? They drove him from the city ; and the rabble and 
 the slaves followed, hooting and pelting him with stones until 
 the evening, when they left him to pursue his way alone. 
 Wounded and bleeding, footsore and weary, he betook himself 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 69. - The people of Tayef. 
 
42 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 to prayer under the shade of some palm trees, which afforded 
 a welcome shelter to the thirsty and famished wayfarer. 
 Raising his hands towards heaven, he cried : " O Lord ! I 
 make my complaint unto Thee, out of my feebleness, and the 
 vanity of my wishes, I am insignificant in the sight of men. 
 
 Thou most merciful ! Lord of the weak ! Thou art my 
 Lord ! Do not forsake me. Leave me not a prey to strangers, 
 nor to mine enemies. If Thou art not offended, I am safe. 
 
 1 seek refuge in the light of Thy countenance, by which all 
 darkness is dispersed, and peace comes here and hereafter. 
 Let not Thy anger descend on me ; solve my difficulties as 
 it pleaseth Thee. There is no power, no help, but in 
 Thee." » 
 
 Mohammed returned to Mecca sorely stricken in heart. He 
 lived here for some time, retired from his people, preaching 
 occasionally, but confining his efforts mainly to the strangers 
 who congregated in Mecca and its vicinity during the season 
 of the annual pilgrimage, hoping, as Tabari expresses it, to find 
 among them some who would believe in him, and carry the 
 truth to their people. 
 
 One day, whilst thus sadly but yet hopefully working among 
 these half-traders, half-pilgrims, he came upon a group of six 
 men from the distant city of Yathrib conversing together. 
 He asked them to sit down and listen to him ; and they sat 
 down and listened. Struck by his earnestness and the truth 
 of his words, they became his proselytes (620 a.c.) ; 2 and 
 returning to their city, they spread the news, with lightning 
 rapidity, that a Prophet had risen among the Arabs who was 
 to call them to God, and put an end to their dissensions, which 
 had lasted for centuries. 
 
 The next year these Yathribites returned, and brought six 
 more of their fellow-citizens as deputies from the two principal 
 tribes who occupied that city. 3 
 
 On the self-same spot which had witnessed the conversion 
 of the former six, the new-comers gave in their adhesion to 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 279, 280 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 70, 71. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 286, 287 ; Tabari (Zotenberg's transl.), vol. ii. p. 438. 
 a Aus and Khazraj. 
 
ii. THE FIRST PLEDGE OF 'ARAB A 43 
 
 Mohammed. This is called the first Pledge of 'Akaba, from the 
 name of the hill on which the conference was held. 1 
 
 The pledge they took was as follows : " We will not associate 
 anything with God ; we will not steal, nor commit adultery, 
 nor fornication ; we will not kill our children ; we will abstain 
 from calumny and slander ; we will obey the Prophet in 
 everything that is right ; and we will be faithful to him in weal 
 and in sorrow." 2 
 
 After the pledge, they returned home with a disciple of 
 Mohammed to teach them the fundamental doctrines of the 
 new religion, which rapidly spread among the inhabitants of 
 Yathrib. 
 
 The interval which elapsed between the first and second 
 pledge is remarkable as one of the most critical periods of 
 Mohammed's Mission. The sublime trust of Mohammed in 
 God, and the grandeur of his character, never stand forth 
 more prominently than at this period. He was sad at the 
 sight of his people so sternly wedded to idolatry ; 3 but his 
 sorrow was assuaged by the hope that the truth would in the 
 end prevail. 4 He might not live to see it ; 5 but as surely 
 as darkness flies before the rays of the sun, so surely falsehood 
 will vanish before truth. 6 Regarding this epoch, a few words 
 of unconscious admiration escape even the lips of Muir : 
 "Mahomet, thus holding his people at bay, waiting, in the 
 still expectation of victory, to outward appearance defenceless, 
 and with his little band, as it were, in the lion's mouth, yet 
 trusting in His Almighty power whose messenger he believed 
 himself to be, resolute and unmoved — presents a spectacle of 
 sublimity paralleled only in the sacred records by such scenes 
 as that of the prophet of Israel, when he complained to his 
 Master, ' I, even I only, am left.' " 7 
 
 1 In the history of Islam, this pledge is also called the " Pledge of Women," 
 in contradistinction to the second pledge, in which the deputies of Yathrib 
 took an oath to assist the Moslems, even by arms against the attacks and 
 outrages of their enemies. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 289 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol ii. pp. 73, 74. 
 
 3 Koran, sura vi. ver. 107. 
 
 4 Koran, sura xl. ver. 78, xliii. ver. 40, etc. 
 
 5 Koran, sura xxi. ver. 18. 
 
 6 Koran, sura xvii. ver. 18. ' Life of Mahomet, vol ii. p. 228. 
 
44 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 This period of anxious waiting is also remarkable for that 
 notable Vision of the Ascension which has furnished worlds 
 of golden dreams for the imaginative genius of poets and 
 traditionists. They have woven beautiful and gorgeous 
 legends round the simple words of the Koran : " Praise be 
 to Him who carried His servant by night from the sacred 
 temple to the temple that is more remote, whose precincts 
 We have blessed, that We might show him some of our signs ! 
 for He is the Hearer, the Seer." " And again : " And remember 
 we said to thee, Verily, thy Lord is round about mankind ; 
 We ordained the Vision which We showed thee." * In spite 
 of the beautiful garb in which the traditionists have dressed 
 this incident, "it is still a grand vision full of glorious 
 imagery, fraught with deep meaning." 2 
 
 The following year (622 a.c), the Yathribites who had adopted 
 the new religion repaired to Mecca, to the number of seventy- 
 five, in company with their idolatrous brethren, to invite the 
 Prophet to their city ; 3 but the idolaters had no knowledge 
 ot the intention of their companions. 
 
 In the stillness of night, 4 when all hostile elements appeared 
 slumbering, these pioneers of the new faith met under the hill 
 which had witnessed the first pledge. Mohammed appeared 
 among them, accompanied by his uncle Abbas, who, though 
 not a convert, yet took a warm interest in the progress of 
 Islam. He opened the conference, and vividly described to 
 the Yathribites the risk they incurred by adopting Islam and 
 inviting its Teacher to their city. They replied with one 
 
 1 Koran, chap. xvii. ver. i. " All that Mohammedans must believe res- 
 pecting the Meraj is, that the Prophet saw himself, in a vision, transported 
 from Mecca to Jerusalem, and that in such vision he really beheld some of 
 the greatest signs of his Lord. It must be evident to the reader that the 
 visions also of a prophet are a mode of divine inspiration." — Syed Ahmed 
 Khan, Ess. xi. p. 34. Muir says that " the earliest authorities point only to 
 a vision, not to a real bodily journey," vol. ii. p. 221, note. Compare the early 
 traditions given by Ibn-Hisham, p. 267, which support this view. It may, I 
 think, be fairly asked why Christians, who believe in the bodily resurrection 
 and bodily ascension of Jesus and of Elijah, should look upon those Moslems 
 who believe in the bodily ascension of Mohammed as less rational than them- 
 selves ? 
 
 2 Stanley Lane- Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. lvi. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 296 ; al-Halabi, Insdn nl-'Uy&n, vol. i. p. 389. 
 
 4 In the night of the first and second day of the Tashrik, the period of 
 three days which follow immediately the celebration of the rites of the 
 pilgrimage. 
 
II. THE SECOND PLEDGE OF 'AKABA 45 
 
 voice, that they adopted the religion fully conscious of the 
 dangers that surrounded them. " Speak, O Prophet of God," 
 said they, " and exact any pledge for thyself and thy Lord." 
 The Prophet began, as was his wont, by reciting several passages 
 of the Koran ; he then invited all present to the service of 
 God, and dwelt upon the blessings of the new dispensation. 1 
 The former pledge was repeated, that they would worship 
 none but God ; that they would observe the precepts of Islam ; 
 that they would obey Mohammed in all that was right, and 
 defend him and his, even as they would their women and 
 children. 2 " And," said they, "if we die in the cause of God, 
 what shall be our return ? " " Happiness hereafter," was the 
 reply. 3 " But," said they, " thou wilt not leave us in the 
 hour of prosperity to return to thy people ? " The Prophet 
 smiled and said : " Nay never ; your blood is my blood ; lam 
 yours, you are mine." " Give us then thy hand " ; and each 
 one placing his hand on that of the Prophet, swore allegiance 
 to him and his God. Scarcely had the compact been concluded, 
 when the voice of a Meccan, who had been watching this 
 scene from a distance, came floating on the night air, striking 
 a sudden panic into the self-denying hearts there assembled. 
 The firm words of Mohammed restored their presence of mind. 
 
 Mohammed then selected twelve men from among them — 
 men of position, pointed out to him by the voice of the people 
 — as his delegates (Nakibs). i Thus was concluded the second 
 Pledge of 'Akaba. 
 
 The Meccan spy had, already spread the news of this confer- 
 ence through the city. Astounded at the temerity of Moham- 
 med and his followers, the Koreish proceeded in a body to the 
 caravan of the Yathribites to demand the men who had entered 
 into the pledge with him. Finding no clue, however, as to 
 the persons who had taken part at the meeting, they allowed 
 the caravan to depart unmolested. But this apparent modera- 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 296 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 76. 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 77. 
 
 4 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 297-300. Seventy- five people, men and women, took 
 part in this Pledge. This event occurred in the month of Zu'1-Hijja, and the 
 Prophet stopped at Mecca throughout the remainder of this month, and 
 Muharram and Safar. In Rabi I. he left for Medina ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. 
 p. 78. 
 
46 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 tion on the part of the Koreish formed only a prelude to a 
 furious persecution of Mohammed and his disciples. The 
 position of the latter became every day more and more perilous. 
 The Prophet, fearing a general massacre, advised his followers 
 to seek immediate safety at Yathrib ; whereupon about one 
 hundred families silently disappeared by twos and threes from 
 Mecca and proceeded to Yathrib, where they were received 
 with enthusiasm. Entire quarters of the city thus became 
 deserted ; and 'Otba, the son of Rab'ia, at the sight of these 
 vacant abodes, once so full of life, " sighed heavily," and 
 recited the old verse : " Every dwelling-place, even if it has 
 been blessed ever so long, will one day become a prey to 
 unhappiness and bitter wind " ; " And," he sorrowfully 
 added, " all this is the work of the son of our brother, who has 
 scattered our assemblies, ruined our affairs, and created 
 dissension amongst us." 1 
 
 As it was with Jesus, so it was with Mohammed ; only with 
 this difference, that in one case the Teacher himself says : 
 " Think not that I came to send peace on earth ; I came not 
 to send peace, but a sword : for I am come to set a man at 
 variance against his father, and the daughter against her 
 mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." 2 
 In Mohammed's case it was one of his most persevering oppon- 
 ents who accused him of creating dissension in families. 
 
 Throughout this period, when the storm was at its height 
 and might at any moment have burst over his head, Mohammed 
 never quailed. All his disciples had left for Yathrib ; alone 
 he remained bravely at his post, with the devoted Ali and the 
 venerable Abu Bakr. 
 
 Meanwhile the clouds were gathering fast. Fearful of the 
 escape of the Prophet, an assembly of the Koreish met in all 
 despatch in the town-hall (Dar un-Nadwa), and some chiefs 
 of other clans were invited to attend. The matter had become 
 one of life and death. Stormy was the meeting, for fear had 
 entered their hearts. Imprisonment for life, expulsion from 
 the city, each was debated in turn. Assassination was then 
 proposed ; but assassination by one man would have exposed 
 him and his family to the vengeance of blood. The difficulty 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 316. 2 Matt. x. 34, 35. 
 
ii. THE HEGIRA 47 
 
 was at last solved by Abu Jahl, 1 who suggested that a number 
 of courageous men, chosen from different families, should 
 sheathe their swords simultaneously in Mohammed's bosom, in 
 order that the responsibility of the deed might rest upon all, 
 and the relations of Mohammed might consequently be unable 
 to avenge it. This proposal was accepted, and a number of 
 noble youths were selected for the sanguinary deed. As the 
 night advanced, the assassins posted themselves round the 
 Prophet's dwelling. Thus they watched all night long, waiting 
 to murder him when he should leave his house in the early 
 dawn, peeping now and then through a hole in the door to 
 make sure that he still lay on his bed. But, meanwhile, the 
 instinct of self-preservation, the instinct which had often led 
 the great Prophet of Nazareth to evade his enemies, 2 had 
 warned Mohammed of the danger. In order to keep the 
 attention of the assassins fixed upon the bed, he put his own 
 green garment upon the devoted and faithful Ali, bade him 
 lie on his bed, 3 " and escaped, as David had escaped, through 
 the windows." He repaired to the house of Abu Bakr, and 
 they fled together unobserved from the inhospitable city of 
 their birth. They lay hid for several days in a cavern of 
 Mount Thaur, a hill to the south of Mecca. 4 
 
 The fury of the Koreish was now unbounded. The news 
 that the would-be assassins had returned unsuccessful, and 
 Mohammed had escaped, aroused their whole energy. Horsemen 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 323-325 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 79 ; the Koran, sura 
 viii. ver. 30. According to Ibn-Hisham, this proposal of Abu Jahl, one of 
 the Koreish, was seconded by a stranger, in the guise of a venerable Sheikh 
 from Najd whom tradition has resolved into Satan himself. Abu Jahl was 
 one of the bitterest enemies of the Prophet. His real name was 'Amr and he 
 was surnamed, for his sagacity, Abu'l Hikam (" father of wisdom," in the 
 plural). Owing to his fanaticism and bigotry, which prevented his perceiving 
 any good in the new Teachings, Mohammed called him instead Abu Jahl 
 (" father of ignorance "). Ignorance has in all ages posed as the champion 
 of orthodoxy. Abu Jahl has thus become a type. It is to this fact Hakim 
 Sanai, the great mystical poet, refers in the following couplet : — 
 
 " Ahmed-i-Mursal nishista kai rawa ddrad Khirad. 
 
 Dil asir-i-sirat-i-Bu Jahl-i-Kdfir ddshlan." 
 " Ahmed the Prophet is sitting (in your midst), how can reason allow 
 " The heart to become captive of the qualities of Bu-Jahl the unbeliever." 
 
 2 Comp. Milman, Hist, of Christianity, vol. i. p. 253. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 325 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 80. 
 
 1 See Desvergers' note (57) to his Abulfeda, p. 116. 
 
48 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 scoured the country. A price was set upon Mohammed's 
 head. 1 Once or twice the danger approached so near that the 
 heart of old Abu Bakr quaked with fear. " We are but two," 
 said he. " Nay," said Mohammed, " we are three, God is 
 with us ; " and He was with them. After three days the 
 Koreish slackened their efforts. All this time Mohammed 
 and his companion were sustained by food brought to them 
 at night by a daughter of Abu Bakr. 2 On the evening of the 
 third day the fugitives left the cavern, and, procuring with 
 great difficulty two camels, endeavoured to reach Yathrib by 
 unfrequented paths. But even here the way was full of 
 danger. The heavy price set upon Mohammed's head had 
 brought out many horsemen from Mecca, and they were still 
 diligently seeking for the helpless wanderer. One, a wild and 
 fierce warrior, actually caught sight of the fugitives and 
 pursued them. Again the heart of Abu Bakr misgave him, 
 and he cried, " We are lost." " Be not afraid," said the 
 Prophet, " God will protect us." As the idolater overtook 
 Mohammed, his horse reared and fell. Struck with sudden 
 awe, he entreated the forgiveness of the man whom he was 
 pursuing and asked for an attestation of his pardon. This 
 was given to him on a piece of bone by Abu Bakr. 3 
 
 The fugitives continued their journey without further 
 molestation and after three days' journeying reached the 
 territories of Yathrib. It was a hot day in June, 622 of the 
 Christian era, when Mohammed alighted from his camel upon 
 the soil which was thenceforth to become his home and his 
 refuge. A Jew watching on a tower first espied him, 4 and 
 thus were the words of the Koran fulfilled : " They, to whom 
 the Scriptures have been given, recognise him as they do their 
 own children." 5 Mohammed and his companion rested for a 
 few days 6 at a village called Koba, 7 situated only two miles 
 to the south of Yathrib, and remarkable for its beauty and 
 
 1 Of a hundred camels, Ibn-Hisham, p. 328 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 81. 
 
 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 81. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 331, 332 ; Ibn ul-Athir, ibid. 
 
 4 Ibn-Hisham,. p. 330. 5 Koran, sura vi. ver. 20. 
 
 6 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Ibn-Hisham, p. 335 ; 
 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 83. 
 
 7 See Desvergers' Abulfeda, p. 116, note 59. 
 
ii. THE HEGIRA 49 
 
 fertility. Here he was joined by Ali, who had been severely 
 maltreated by the idolaters after their disappointment at 
 Mohammed's escape. 1 Ali fled from Mecca and journeyed 
 on foot, hiding himself in the daytime and travelling only at 
 night, lest he should fall into the hands of the Koreish. 2 
 
 The Bani 'Amr bin-'Auf, to whom the village belonged, 
 invited the Prophet to prolong his stay amongst them. 
 But his duty lay before him ; and he proceeded towards 
 Yathrib, attended by a numerous body of his disciples. He 
 entered the city on the morning of a Friday, 16th of Rabi 
 I., corresponding (according to M. Caussin de Perceval) with 
 the 2nd of July 622. 3 
 
 Thus was accomplished the Hijrat, called in European annals 
 " the flight of Mohammed," from which dates the Mohammedan 
 calendar. 
 
 Note i to Chapter II 
 
 The " Hegira," or the era of the Hijrat, was instituted 
 seventeen years later by the second Caliph. The commence- 
 ment, however, is not laid at the real time of the departure 
 from Mecca, which happened on the 4th of Rabi I., but on the 
 first day of the first lunar month of the year, viz. Muharram 
 — which day, in the year when the era was established, fell 
 on the 15th of July. 
 
 But though Omar instituted the official era, the custom of 
 referring to events as happening before or after the Hijrat 
 originated, according to some traditions, with the Prophet 
 himself ; this event naturally marking the greatest crisis in 
 the history of his Mission. — Comp. al-Halabi, Insdn-ul-'Uyun, 
 in loco. 
 
 Note 2 to Chapter II 
 
 The twelve Moslem months are ; Muharram (the sacred 
 month), Safar (the month of departure), Rabi I. (first month 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 80. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. ii. 82. 
 
 3 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 17-20; Ibn-Hisham, p. 335. 
 
 S.I. D 
 
50 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 of the spring), Rabi II. (second month of the spring), Jumadi 
 I. (first dry month), Jumadi II. (second dry month), Rajab 
 {respected, called often Rajab ul-Murajjab), Sha'ban (the month 
 of the budding of trees), Ramazan (month of heat), Shawwal 
 (month of junction), Zu'1-Ka'da (month of truce, rest, or 
 relaxation), Zu'l Hijja (month of pilgrimage). The ancient 
 Arabs observed the lunar year of 354 days, 8 hours, 48 seconds, 
 divided into twelve months of 29 and 30 days alternately. 
 In order to make them agree with the solar year of their neigh- 
 bours, the Greeks and the Romans, and also in order to make 
 the months fall in the right season, they added a month every 
 third year. This intercalation was called Nasi ; and although 
 it was not perfectly exact, it served to maintain a sort of 
 correlation between the denomination of the months and the 
 seasons. Since the suppression of the Nasi, on account of the 
 orgies and various heathen rites observed in the intercalary 
 years, the names of the months have no relation to the seasons. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE PROPHET AT MEDINA 
 
 FEW Musulmans of the present day understand the 
 full import of the mystical verses quoted at the 
 head of this chapter, but all appreciate the deep 
 devotion to the grand Seer implied in those words. And 
 this devotion is not one which has) twined itself round a 
 mythical ideal, or has grown with the lapse of time. From 
 the moment of his advent into Yathrib he stands in the 
 full blaze of day — the grandest of figures upon whom the 
 light of history has ever shone. The minutest details of 
 his life are carefully noted and handed down to posterity, 
 to become crystallised, often against the spirit of his own 
 Teachings, which aimed at the perpetual growth of the 
 human race. We have seen this wonderful man as an orphan 
 child who had never known a father's love, bereft in infancy 
 of a mother's care, his early life so full of pathos, growing up 
 from a thoughtful childhood to a still more thoughtful youth. 
 His youth as pure and true as his boyhood ; his manhood as 
 austere and devout as his youth. His ear ever open to the 
 sorrows and sufferings of the weak and the poor ; his heart 
 ever full of sympathy and tenderness towards all God's creatures. 
 He walks so humbly and so purely, that men turn round and 
 
52 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 point, there goes al-Amin, the true, the upright, the trusty. 
 A faithful friend, a devoted husband ; a thinker intent on the 
 mysteries of life and death, on the responsibilities of human 
 actions, the end and aim of human existence, — he sets himself 
 to the task of reclaiming and reforming a nation, nay, a world, 
 with only one loving heart to comfort and solace him. Baffled, 
 he never falters ; beaten, he never despairs. He struggles 
 on with indomitable spirit to achieve the work assigned to him. 
 His purity and nobleness of character, his intense and earnest 
 belief in God's mercy, bring round him ultimately many a 
 devoted heart ; and when the moment of the severest trial 
 comes, like the faithful mariner, he remains steadfast at his 
 post until all his followers are safe, and then betakes himself 
 to the hospitable shore : such we have seen him. We shall 
 see him now the king of men, the ruler of human hearts, chief, 
 lawyer, and supreme magistrate, and yet without any self- 
 exaltation, lowly and humble. His history henceforth is 
 merged in the history of the commonwealth of which he was 
 the centre. Henceforth the Preacher who with his own 
 hands mended his clothes, and often went without bread, was 
 mightier than the mightiest sovereigns of the earth. 
 
 " Mohammed had shown men what he was ; the nobility 
 of his character, his strong friendship, his endurance and 
 courage, above all, his earnestness and fiery enthusiasm for 
 the truth he came to preach — these things had revealed the 
 hero ; the master whom it was alike impossible to disobey 
 and impossible not to love. Henceforward it is only a question 
 of time. As the men of Medina come to know Mohammed, 
 they too will devote themselves to him body and soul ; and 
 the enthusiasm will catch fire and spread among the tribes, 
 till all Arabia is at the feet of the Prophet of the one God. 
 ' No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak 
 of his own clouting.' He had the gift of influencing men, and 
 he had the nobility only to influence them for good." 
 
 Medina, the " illuminated " x — the city of many names — 
 is situated about eleven days' journey to the north of Mecca. 
 Now a walled city of considerable strength, in those days it 
 was completely open and exposed to outside attacks until the 
 
 1 Munawwarih. 
 
in. THE PROPHET AT MEDINA 53 
 
 Prophet made the famous moat as a defence against the 
 Koreishites. The city is said to have been established by an 
 'Amalekite chief, whose name it bore until the advent of the 
 Prophet. In early times Yathrib l and its environs were 
 inhabited by the 'Amalekites ; these are said to have been 
 overwhelmed and destroyed by successive colonies of Jews, 
 who, flying before Babylonian and Greek and Roman perse- 
 cutors or avengers, entered Arabia and established themselves 
 in the northern part of Hijaz. The most important of these 
 colonies were the Bani-Nazir at Khaibar, the Bani-Kuraizha 
 at Fidak, the Bani-Kainuka'a near Medina itself. Living in 
 fortified cantons, they had domineered over the neighbouring 
 Arab tribes, until the establishment of two Kahtanite tribes, 
 Aus and Khazraj at Yathrib. These two tribes, who yielded 
 at first some sort of obedience to the Jews, were able to reduce 
 them to a state of clientage. Before long, however, they 
 commenced quarrelling among themselves, and it was only 
 about the time when the Prophet announced his Mission at 
 Mecca that, after long years of decimating warfare, they had 
 succeeded in patching up a peace. 
 
 Such was the political condition of Yathrib when the Prophet 
 made his appearance among the. Yathribites. With his 
 advent a new era dawned upon the city. 
 
 The two tribes of Aus and Khazraj, forgetting their inveterate 
 and mortal feuds in the brotherhood of the Faith, rallied round 
 the standard of Islam and formed the nucleus of the Moslem 
 commonwealth. The old divisions were effaced, and the honor- 
 able designation of Ansdr (Helpers) became the common title 
 of all who had helped Islam in its hour of trial. The faithful 
 band who had forsaken their beloved birthplace, and every tie of 
 home, received the name of Muhdjirin (Emigrants or Exiles). 
 
 In order to unite the Ansdr and the Muhdjirin in closer 
 bonds, the Prophet established a brotherhood between them, 
 which linked them together in sorrow and in happiness. 
 
 Yathrib changed its ancient name, and was henceforth 
 styled Medinat un-Nabt, the City of the Prophet, or shortly, 
 Medina, the city par excellence. 
 
 1 With a Ci* (pronounced by the Arabs like th in thin, by all non-Arabs 
 like s). 
 
54 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 A mosque was soon built, in the erection of which Mohammed 
 assisted with his own hands ; and houses for the accom- 
 modation of the exiles rose apace. Two brothers, who owned 
 the land on which it was proposed to build the mosque, had 
 offered it as a free gift ; but as they were orphans, the Prophet 
 paid them its value. 
 
 The building was simple in form and structure, suited to the 
 unostentatious religion he taught. The walls were of brick 
 and earth, and the roof of palm leaves. A portion of the 
 mosque was set apart as a habitation for those who had no 
 home of their own. 
 
 Everything in this humble place of worship was conducted 
 with the greatest simplicity. Mohammed preached and 
 prayed standing on the bare ground or leaning against a 
 palm tree, and the devoted hearts around him beat in unison 
 with his soul-stirring words. 
 
 " He who is not affectionate to God's creatures and to his 
 own children," he would say, " God will not be affectionate to 
 him. Every Moslem who clothes the naked will be clothed by 
 God in the green robes of Paradise." 1 
 
 In one of his sermons he thus dwelt on the subject of charity : 
 " When God created the earth, it shook and trembled, until 
 He put mountains upon it to make it firm. Then the angels 
 asked, ' O God, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than 
 these mountains ? ' And God replied, ' Iron is stronger than 
 the mountains, for it breaks them.' ' And is there anything 
 in Thy creation stronger than iron ? ' ' Yes ; fire is stronger 
 than iron, for it melts it.' 'Is there anything in Thy creation 
 stronger than fire ? ' ' Yes, water, for it quenches fire.' ' O 
 Lord, is there anything in Thy creation stronger than water ? ' 
 ' Yes ; wind, for it overcomes water and puts it in motion.' 
 ' Oh, our Sustainer, is there anything in Thy creation stronger 
 than wind ? ' ' Yes ; a good man giving alms ; if he give 
 with his right hand and conceal it from his left, he overcomes 
 all things.' " 
 
 His definition of charity embraced the wide circle of kindness : 
 " Every good act," he would say, " is charity. Your smiling 
 in your brother's face is charity ; an exhortation addressed to 
 
 1 From Abu Huraira, Mishkat, book xii. chap. iii. part i. 
 
in. THE PROPHET AT MEDINA 55 
 
 your fellow-men to do virtuous deeds is equal to alms-giving. 
 Putting a wanderer in the right path is charity ; assisting the 
 blind is charity ; removing stones and thorns and other 
 obstructions from the road is charity ; giving water to the 
 thirsty is charity." l "A man's true wealth hereafter is the 
 good he does in this world to his fellow-men^ When he dies, 
 people will ask, What property has he left behind him ? But 
 the angels, who examine him in the grave, 2 will ask, What good 
 deeds hast thou sent before thee ? " 
 
 " Oh Prophet ! " said one of his disciples, " my mother, 
 Umm Sa'd, is dead ; what is the best alms I can give away 
 for the good of her soul ? " " Water ! " replied Mohammed, 
 bethinking himself of the panting heat of the desert. " Dig 
 a well for her, and give water to the thirsty." The man 
 dug a well in his mother's name, and said, " This is for my 
 mother, that its blessings may reach her soul." 
 
 " Charity of the tongue," says Irving, " that most important 
 and least cultivated of charities, was likewise earnestly incul- 
 cated by Mahomet." Abu Jariya, an inhabitant of Basra, 
 coming to Medina, and being convinced of the apostolic office 
 of Mohammed, begged of him some great rule of conduct. 
 " Speak evil of no one," answered the Prophet. " From that 
 time," says Abu Jariya, " I never abused any one, whether 
 freeman or slave." 
 
 The teachings of Islam extended to the courtesies of life. 
 Make a salutation to the dwellers of a house on entering and 
 leaving it. 3 Return the salute of friends and acquaintances, 
 and wayfarers on the road. He who rides must be the first to 
 make the salute to him who walks ; he who walks to him 
 who is sitting ; a small party to a large party, and the young 
 to the old." 4 
 
 1 From Abu Sa'id Khazri. 2 See post, pt. ii. chap. x. 
 
 3 Compare Koran, chap. xxiv. vers. 27, 28, 61 and 62. 
 
 4 From Abu Hurairah, Mishkat, Bk. xxii. chap. i. part 1. Besides the 
 references already given, consult the Kitab ul-Mnstatraf, chaps, iv. v. x. xiii. 
 xix. xxii. xxiii. and xxv The Mustatraf gives fully the references to Tirmizi, 
 Muslim, and Bukhari. Consult also the Majdlis ul-Abrdr, Majlis (seance), 84. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE HOSTILITY OF THE KOREISH AND THE JEWS 
 
 i A.H. = igth April 622-yth May 623 A.C. 
 
 v-J^ yj** ^f ^- iJ 
 
 3... 
 
 **jJ1 >tk*j >liv-, t^r^' y/***-' 
 
 AT this time there were three distinct parties in Medina. 
 The Muhajirin (the Exiles) and the Ansar (the Helpers) 
 L formed the kernel of Islam. Their devotion to the 
 Prophet was unbounded. The Exiles had forsaken their 
 1 A.H.=i9th homes, and abandoned, contrary to all Arab 
 April 622 to 7th traditions, the ties of kith and kin, in the 
 cause of the Faith. They had braved all 
 sufferings, withstood all temptations in the service of the 
 Lord. Many of them had come to the City of Safety 
 without means. They had been received with open arms 
 by the Medinite converts, who in many cases shared their 
 worldly goods with the poorer of the new-comers. The 
 brotherhood of Faith, so wisely established by the Prophet, 
 whilst it prevented the growth of jealousy, gave rise to a 
 
iv. THE PROPHET IN MEDINA 57 
 
 generous emulation, both among the Ansar and the Muhajiiin, 
 as to who would bring the greatest sacrifice in the service of 
 God and His Prophet. The enthusiasm and earnestness with 
 which these men and women devoted themselves to the new 
 awakening, the zeal with which they laid down their lives, 
 was a manifestation such as had not been seen sincS the best 
 days of the Christian phase of religious development. The 
 second, and at first by no means an unimportant party, was 
 composed principally of lukewarm converts to the Faith, 
 who retained an ill-concealed predilection for idolatry ; and 
 was headed by Abdullah ibn-Ubayy, a chief of some position 
 in the city, who aspired to the kinghood of Medina. With 
 this object he had gathered round him, like Abu Sufian at 
 Mecca, a strong body of partizans. Everything was ripe 
 for him to seize the reins of power, when the arrival of the 
 Prophet upset his designs. The popular enthusiasm compelled 
 him and his followers to make a nominal profession of Islam ; 
 but, ever ready as they were to turn against the Moslems at the 
 least opportunity, they were a source of considerable danger 
 to the new-born commonwealth, and required unceasing 
 watchfulness on the part of the Prophet. Towards them he 
 always showed the greatest patience and forbearance, hoping 
 in the end to win them over to the Faith. And this expectation 
 was fully justified by the result. With the death of Abdullah 
 ibn-Ubayy his party, which has been stigmatised x as the party 
 of the Munafikin (the Disaffected), disappeared for a time 
 from view. / 
 
 But the Jews, who may be said to have formed the third 
 party, constituted the most serious element of danger. They 
 had close business relations with the Koreish, and their 
 ramifications extended into various parts hostile to the 
 Faith. At first they were inclined to look with some favour on 
 the preachings of Mohammed. He could not, of course, be 
 their promised Messiah, but perhaps a weak dreamer, a humble 
 preacher, dependent upon the hospitality of their old enemies, 
 
 1 Koran, sura xlii. ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 363, 411. The Munafikin or the 
 Irreconcilables have never disappeared completely from the Islamic body 
 politic. Ever and anon they have exercised the most disastrous effects in 
 Islam. In later times they posed as the champions of orthodoxy ; note for 
 example, the Khurijis of Africa. 
 
58 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 now their patrons, the Aus and the Khazraj, might become 
 their avenger, help them in conquering the Arabs, and found 
 for them a new kingdom of Judah. With this aim in view, 
 they had joined with the Medinites in a half-hearted welcome 
 to the Prophet. And for a time they maintained a pacific 
 attitude. But it was only for a time ; for barely a month had 
 gone by before the old spirit of rebellion, which had led them 
 to crucify their prophets, found vent in open seditions and 
 secret treachery. One of the first acts of Mohammed after 
 his arrival in Medina was to weld together the heterogeneous 
 and conflicting elements of which the city and its suburbs 
 were composed, into an orderly confederation. With this 
 object he had granted a charter to the people, by which the 
 rights and obligations of the Moslems inter se, and of the 
 Moslems and Jews, were clearly defined. And the Jews, borne 
 down for the moment by the irresistible character of the 
 movement, had gladly accepted the Pact. This document, 
 which has been carefully preserved in the pages of Ibn-Hisham, 
 reveals the Man in his real greatness — a master-mind, not only 
 of his own age, as Muir calls him, but of all ages. No wild 
 dreamer he, bent upon pulling down the existing fabrics of 
 society, but a statesman of unrivalled powers, who in an age 
 of utter and hopeless disintegration, with such materials and 
 such polity as God put ready to his hands, set himself to the 
 task of reconstructing a State, a commonwealth, a society, 
 upon the basis of universal humanity. " In the name of the 
 most merciful and compassionate God," says this first charter 
 of freedom of conscience, " given by Mohammed, the Prophet, 
 to the Believers, whether of the Koreish or of Yathrib, and all 
 individuals of whatever origin who have made common cause 
 with them, all these shall constitute one nation." Then, 
 after regulating the payment of the Diyat 1 by the various clans, 
 and fixing some wise rules regarding the private duties of 
 Moslems as between themselves, the document proceeds thus : 
 " The state of peace and war shall be common to all Moslems ; 
 no one among them shall have the right of concluding peace 
 with, or declaring war against, the enemies of his co-religionists. 
 
 1 Diyat, Wehrgeld, price which a homicide had to pay to the family of the 
 victim, if they consented to it. 
 
iv. THE CHARTER OF MOHAMMED 59 
 
 The Jews who attach themselves to our commonwealth shall 
 be protected from all insults and vexations ; they shall have 
 an equal right with our own people to our assistance and good 
 offices : the Jews of the various branches of 'Auf, Najjar, 
 Harith, Jashm, Th'alaba, Aus, and all others domiciled in 
 Yathrib, shall form with the Moslems one composite nation ; 
 they shall practise their religion as freely as the Moslems ; 
 the clients 1 and allies of the Jews shall enjoy the same security 
 and freedom ; the guilty shall be pursued and punished ; the 
 Jews shall join the Moslems in defending Yathrib (Medina) 
 against all enemies ; the interior of Yathrib shall be a sacred 
 place for all who accept this Charter ; the clients and allies 
 of the Moslems and the Jews shall be as respected as the 
 patrons ; all true Moslems shall hold in abhorrence every man 
 guilty of crime, injustice, or disorder : no one shall uphold the 
 culpable, though he were his nearest kin." Then, after some 
 other provisions regarding the internal management of the 
 State, this extraordinary document concluded thus : " All 
 future disputes between those who accept this Charter shall 
 be referred, under God, to the Prophet." 2 
 
 A death-blow was thus given to that anarchic custom of the 
 Arabs, which had hitherto obliged the aggrieved and the injured 
 to rely upon his own or his kinsmen's power in order to exact 
 vengeance, or satisfy the requirements of justice. It constituted 
 Mohammed the chief magistrate of the nation, as much by his 
 prophetic function as by a virtual compact between himself 
 and the people. 
 
 The Jewish tribes of the Bani-un-Nazir, 3 Bani-Kuraizha, 
 and Bani-Kainuka'a settled in the vicinity of 
 Medina, were not at first included in this J 2 A - H - 7th May 
 
 -».,.- , . , 623 to 26th April 
 
 Charter ; but after a short time they, too, 624 a.c. 
 gratefully accepted its terms. 
 
 No kindness or generosity, however, on the part of the 
 Prophet would satisfy the Jews ; nothing could conciliate the 
 bitter feelings with which they were animated. Enraged that 
 they could not use him as their instrument for the conversion 
 
 1 I.e. the protected. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 341-343. This is a paraphrase of an important historical 
 document. 
 
 3 With a zad. 
 
60 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 of Arabia to Judaism, and that his belief was so much simpler 
 than their Talmudic legends, they soon broke off, and ranged 
 themselves on the side of the enemies of the new Faith. And 
 when asked which they preferred, idolatry or Islam, they, 
 like many Christian controversialists, declared they preferred 
 idolatry, with all its attendant evils, to the creed of Mohammed. 
 They reviled him; they "twisted their tongues" and mis- 
 pronounced the Koranic words and the daily prayers and 
 formulae of Islam, rendering them meaningless, absurd, or 
 blasphemous ; and the Jewish poets and poetesses, of whom 
 there existed many at the time, outraged all common decency 
 and the recognised code of Arab honour and chivalry by 
 lampooning in obscene verse the Moslem women. But these 
 were minor offences. Not satisfied with insulting the women 
 of the Believers and reviling the Prophet, they sent out 
 emissaries to the enemies of the State, the protection of which 
 they had formally accepted. The Koreish, who had sworn 
 Mohammed's death, were well acquainted, thanks to the 
 party of Abdullah-ibn-Ubayy and the faithless Israelites, with 
 the exact strength of the Moslems. They also knew that the 
 Jews had accepted Mohammed's alliance only from motives 
 of temporary expediency, and that the moment they showed 
 themselves in the vicinity of Medina the worshippers of 
 Jehovah would break away from him and join the idolaters. 
 And now came the moment of severest trial to Islam 
 Barely had the Prophet time to put the city in a state of 
 defence and organise the Believers, before the blow descended 
 upon him. 1 Medina itself was honeycombed by sedition 
 and treachery. And it became the duty of Mohammed to 
 take serious measures to guard against that dreaded catastrophe 
 which a rising within, or a sudden attack from without, would 
 have entailed upon his followers. He was not simply a preacher 
 of Islam ; he was also the guardian of the lives and liberties 
 of his people. As a Prophet, he could afford to ignore the 
 revilings and the gibes of his enemies ; but as the head of the 
 State, " the general in a time of almost continual warfare," 
 when Medina was kept in a state of military defence and under 
 
 1 Koran, sura ix. ver. 13 ; Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), Egypt, ed., pp. 
 314, 315 ; al-Halabi, Insdn-nl-'Uyiln, vol. ii. 
 
iv. THE BATTLE OF BADR 61 
 
 a sort of military discipline, he could not overlook treachery. 
 He was bound by his duty to his subjects to suppress a party 
 that might have led, and almost did lead to the sack of the 
 city by investing armies. The safety of the State required the 
 proscription of the traitors, who were either sowing the seeds 
 of sedition within Medina or carrying information to the 
 common enemy. Some half a dozen were placed under the 
 ban, outlawed, and executed. We are, however, anticipating 
 the course of events in referring to these executions. 
 
 The Koreish army was afield before Mohammed received 
 God's command to do battle to His enemies. 
 
 He who never in his life had wielded a weapon, to whom the 
 sight of human suffering caused intense pain and pity, and who, 
 against all the canons of Arab manliness, wept bitterly at the 
 loss of his children or disciples, whose character ever remained 
 so tender and so pathetic as to cause his enemies to call him 
 womanish, 1 — this man was now compelled, from the necessities 
 of the situation, and against his own inclination, to repel the 
 attacks of the enemy by force of arms, to organise his followers 
 for purposes of self-defence, and often to send out expeditions 
 to anticipate treacherous and sudden onslaughts. Hitherto, 
 Arab warfare consisted of sudden and murderous forays, often 
 made in the night or in the early morn ; isolated combats or a 
 general melee, when the attacked were aware of the designs 
 of the attacking party. Mohammed, with a thorough know- 
 ledge of the habits of his people, had frequently to guard 
 against these sudden onslaughts by sending forth reconnoitring 
 parties. 
 
 The Meccans and their allies commenced raiding up to the 
 very vicinity of Medina, destroying the fruit-trees of the 
 Moslems, and carrying away their flocks. A force, consisting 
 of a thousand well-equipped men, marched under the noted 
 Abu Jahl, " the Father of Ignorance," towards Medina to 
 destroy the Moslems, and to protect one of their caravans 
 bringing munitions of war. The Moslems received timely 
 notice of the movement, and a body of three hundred disciples 
 proceeded at once to forestall the heathens by occupying the 
 valley of Badr, upon which Abu Jahl was moving. When 
 
 1 Compare Dozy, Histoire des Musalmans d'Espagne, vol. i. p. 32. 
 
62 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 Mohammed saw the infidel army arrogantly advancing into 
 the valley, raising his hands towards heaven, like the prophets 
 of Israel, he prayed that the little band of the Faithful might 
 not be destroyed : " O Lord, forget not Thy promise of assist- 
 ance. O Lord, if this little band were to perish, there will be 
 none to offer unto Thee pure worship." x 
 
 Three of the Koreish advanced into the open space which 
 divided the Moslems from the idolaters, and, according to 
 Arab usage, challenged three champions from the Moslem 
 ranks to single combat. Hamza, Ah, and Obaidah accepted 
 the challenge, and came out conquerors. The engagement 
 then became general. At one time the fortunes of the field 
 wavered, but Mohammed's appeal to his people decided the 
 fate of the battle. " It was a stormy winter day. A piercing 
 blast swept across the valley." It seemed as if the angels 
 of heaven were warring for the Moslems. Indeed, to the 
 earnest minds of Mohammed and his followers, who, like the 
 early Christians, saw God's providence " in all the gifts of 
 nature, in every relation of life, at each turn of their affairs, 
 individual or public," — to them those blasts of wind and 
 sand, the elements warring against the enemies of God, at that 
 critical moment appeared veritable succour sent from heaven ; 
 as angels riding on the wings of the wind, and driving the 
 faithless idolaters before them in confusion. 2 The Meccans 
 were driven back with great loss ; many of their chiefs were 
 slain ; and Abu Jahl fell a victim to his unruly pride. 3 
 
 A large number remained prisoners in the hands of the 
 Moslems, but only two of them were executed. They had 
 been noted for their virulent animosity towards the followers 
 of the new Faith, and by the laws of war among the Arabs 
 they now paid the penalty of their conduct. 4 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 444 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 97. 
 
 2 Koran, Sura viii. ver. 9, and Sura iii. vers. 11, 121-128. Comp. also Muir, 
 vol. iii. p. 106. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 443 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 26 et seq. Sir W. 
 Muir mentions that when the head of Abu Jahl was brought to Mohammed, 
 he said, "It is more acceptable to me than the choicest camel in Arabia." 
 This passage, which is not to be found either in Ibn-Hisham, Ibn ul-Athir, 
 Abulfeda. or Tabari, is apocryphal 
 
 4 Nazr, son of Harith, referred to in ver. 32 of Sura viii. of the Koran, was 
 one of these men. 
 
iv. THE VICTORY OF THE MOSLEMS 63 
 
 The rest of the prisoners, contrary to all the usages and 
 traditions of the Arabs, were treated with the greatest human- 
 ity. The Prophet gave strict orders that respect should be 
 paid to their misfortunes, and that they should be treated 
 with kindness. The Moslems, to whose care he confided them, 
 faithfully obeyed his instructions. They shared their own 
 food with the prisoners, giving them the bread which forms the 
 best part of their repast, and contenting themselves with 
 dates alone. 1 
 
 The division of the spoil gave rise to sharp dissensions among 
 the Moslem soldiery. For the present, Mohammed calmed 
 their disputes by dividing it equally amongst all. 2 But as 
 such dissensions among an unruly people were likely to lead 
 to mischief, the Prophet, with a view to prevent all future 
 quarrels over spoil acquired in war, promulgated a special 
 ordinance, which is incorporated in the chapter of the Koran 
 entitled al-Anfdl (the Spoils). By this law the division of the 
 spoils was left to the discretion of the chief of the common- 
 wealth ; a fifth being reserved for the public treasury for the 
 support of the poor and indigent. 3 
 
 The remarkable circumstances which led to the victory of 
 Badr, and the results which followed from it, made a deep 
 impression on the minds of the Moslems. They firmly believed 
 that the angels of heaven had battled on their side against the 
 unbelieving host. 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 459, 460 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 79. Muir 
 speaks thus : " In pursuance of Mahomet's commands, the citizens of Medina, 
 and such of the refugees as possessed houses, received the prisoners, and 
 treated them with much consideration. ' Blessings be on the men of Medina ! 
 said one of these prisoners in later days ; ' they made us ride, while they 
 themselves walked ; they gave us wheaten bread to eat when there was little 
 of it ; contenting themselves with dates,' " vol. iii. p. 122. 
 
 2 " It is remarkable," says Sale, " that the dispute among Mohammed's 
 men about sharing the booty at Badr arose on the same occasion as did that 
 among David's soldiers in relation to the spoils taken from the Amalekites ; 
 those who had been in the action insisting that they who tarried by the stuff 
 should have no part of the spoil ; and that the same decision was given in 
 both cases, which became a law for the future, to wit, that they should part 
 alike." Prel. Disc. sec. vi. 
 
 1 Koran, chap. viii. ver. 41. Though the distribution was left to the dis- 
 cretion of the chief of the State, certain customs were invariably observed 
 which under the Caliphs became precedents, and thus gave a more definite 
 shape to the law. Compare M. Querry's splendid work, entitled Droit Mussul- 
 man (Paris 1871), tome i. p. 335. 
 
64 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 The few simple touches in the Koran which bring into vivid 
 prominence the poetic element involved in the conception of 
 the angels fighting the battle of the Lord, will not yield in 
 beauty or sublimity to the most eloquent words of the Psalmist. 
 Indeed, the same poetic character is perceptible in both. 1 
 
 Probably Mohammed, like Jesus and other teachers, believed 
 in the existence of intermediate beings, celestial messengers 
 from God to man. The modern disbelief in angels furnishes 
 no reason for ridiculing the notions of our forefathers. Our 
 disbelief is as much open to the name of superstition as their 
 belief ; only one is negative, the other positive. What we, 
 in modern times, look upon as the principles of nature, they 
 looked upon as angels, ministrants of heaven. Whether there 
 exist intermediate beings, as Locke thinks, between God and 
 man, just as there are intermediate beings between man and 
 the lowest form of animal creation, is a question too deep to be 
 fathomed by the reason of man. 
 
 Mohammed also, like Jesus, probably believed in the existence 
 of the Principle of Evil as a personal entity. But an analysis 
 of his words reveals a more rationalistic element, a subjective 
 conception clothed in language suited for the apprehension 
 of his followers. When somebody asked him where Satan 
 lived, he replied " In the heart of man," whilst Christian 
 tradition converts the Pharisee who tempted Jesus, into the 
 veritable Prince of Hell. 2 
 
 The belief in angels and devils has given rise to an extra- 
 ordinary number of legends both in Islam and in Christianity. 
 The saints of heaven and angels fight for the Christian. The 
 Moslem only accepts the assistance of angels in the battles of 
 life. 
 
 1 Ps. xviii. 
 
 2 All the Schleicrmacher school believe the tempter to have been the head 
 priest. Milman mentions this view as well as the patristic and orthodox one, 
 but dexterously leaves for the reader to choose which he likes. The chapter 
 of Reuss on Angels (History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age, English 
 translation, note i, pp. 401-404), with the mass of references arrayed therein, 
 distinctly proves that the early Christians, the immediate disciples of Jesus, 
 firmly believed the angels and devils to be personal entities, beings slightly 
 ethereal, but in every way human-like ; and this belief those disciples of Jesus 
 must have received from the Master himself, who, indeed, as Renan says, 
 could not have been, in these respects, intellectually different from the people 
 of his age ; Vie de Jesus, 3rd ed. 1867, p. 267. 
 
iv. CALUMNY AGAINST MOHAMMED 65 
 
 Note to Chapter IV 
 
 The story of Mohammed's inhuman reply to the appeal of 
 'Okba, son of Abu Mu'ait, when he was being led forward to 
 execution, is utterly false ; it is said that on 'Okba's asking, 
 " Who will take care of my little children ? " Mohammed 
 answered, " Hell fire." This story is so preposterous in itself, 
 so opposed to Mohammed's true character (one of whose 
 noblest traits was his love for children, and who always in- 
 culcated love and protection of orphans as an absolute duty, 
 and an act most acceptable to God), that it is hardly necessary 
 to search for its true origin. Christian writers, however, seem 
 to gloat over it, and hence it becomes needful to examine how 
 the story arose. 
 
 It originated most probably from the sobriquet of Sibyat 
 un-N&r (children of fire), applied to the children of 'Okba. 
 'Okba himself belonged to the tribe of 'Ajlan, 1 a branch of 
 which inhabited certain valleys near Safra, and were known by 
 the name of Bani un-Nar (children or descendants of fire) . The 
 sobriquet was probably derived from this circumstance ; and 
 the story of Mohammed's reply from the nickname. 
 
 Another story of Mohammed's having bitterly apostrophised 
 the dead of the idolaters on their burial is, to say the least, 
 distorted. Tabari thus narrates the circumstances which have 
 given rise to this calumny : " The Prophet placed himself 
 by the side of the large grave or pit which had been prepared 
 for the corpses ; and as the bodies were lowered, the names 
 were called out, and Mohammed then uttered these words, 
 ' You, my kindred, you accused me of lying, when others 
 believed in me ; you drove me from my home, when others 
 received me ; what destiny has been yours ! Alas ! all that 
 God threatened is fulfilled.' " These words, which were 
 palpably meant to express pity, have been distorted to imply 
 bitterness. 
 
 ^ghani, according to C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 79. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INVASION OF MEDINA BY THE KOREISH 
 
 2 A.H.^624 A.C. 
 
 SUCCESS is always one of the greatest criterions of truth. 
 Even in the early days of Christianity, the good 
 Pharisee said, " Let them alone ; if these men be false, 
 they will come to nought, or else you yourselves shall perish." 
 If Constantine had not seen, or fancied he had 
 seen, the notable cross in the heavens ; if he 
 had not marched to success under its auspices ; if it had not 
 led him on to victory and to the throne — we can hardly conceive 
 what would have been the fate of Christianity. What the 
 victory of Badr was for Islam, the victory of the Milvian 
 Bridge was for Christianity. 1 It thenceforth ruled from the 
 throne of the Caesars. 
 
 For the Moslems the victory of Badr was indeed most 
 auspicious. It was not surprising that they, like the Israelites 
 or Christians of yore, saw the hand of Providence in their 
 success over the idolaters. Had the Moslems failed, we can 
 imagine what their fate would have been — a universal massacre. 
 Whilst Mohammed was engaged in this expedition, he lost 
 
 1 The Christians themselves look upon the defeat of Maxentius by Con- 
 stantine (312 a.c.) as the greatest triumph of their faith. The chapter of 
 Gibbon, vol. iii. chap, xx., mingled satire and history, shows how the success 
 of Christianity dates from that event. 
 
v HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS AND ARABS 67 
 
 one of his favourite daughters, Rukaiya, married to Osman, 
 who had only recently returned from the Abyssinian exile. 
 But the desire for revenge with which the idolaters were 
 burning allowed him no time to indulge in domestic sorrow. 
 As soon as all the Koreishite prisoners had returned home, Abu 
 Sufian issued forth from Mecca with two hundred horsemen, 
 vowing solemnly never to return until he had avenged himself 
 on Mohammed and his followers. Scouring the country to 
 within a few miles of Medina, he came down with a fell swoop 
 on the unprepared Moslems, slaying the people, and ravaging 
 date-groves which furnished the staple food of the Arabs. 
 The Meccans had provided themselves with bags of " sawik " 1 
 for the foray. As soon, however, as the Moslems sallied forth 
 from Medina to avenge the murders, the Meccans turned bridle 
 and fled, dropping the bags in order to lighten their beasts : 
 whence this affair was derisively called by the Moslems, Ghazwat 
 us-sawik, " the battle of the meal-bags." 2 
 
 It was on this occasion that an incident happened to the 
 Prophet, which has been exceedingly well told 
 by Washington Irving. Mohammed was sleep- J^ t ApriuJT 
 ing one day alone at the foot of a tree, at a 
 distance from his camp, when he was awakened by a noise, 
 and beheld Durthur, a hostile warrior, standing over him with 
 a drawn sword. " O Mohammed," cried he, " who is there 
 now to save thee ? " " God ! " replied the Prophet. The wild 
 Bedouin was suddenly awed, and dropped his sword, which 
 was instantly seized upon by Mohammed. Brandishing the 
 weapon, he exclaimed in turn, " Who is there now to save thee, 
 O Durthur ? " " Alas, no one ! " replied the soldier. " Then 
 learn from me to be merciful." So saying, he returned the 
 sword. The Arab's heart was overcome ; and in after years 
 he proved one of the staunchest adherents of the Prophet. 3 
 
 1 Sawik is the old and modern Arabic name for a dish of green grain, toasted, 
 pounded, mixed with dates or sugar, and eaten on journeys when it is found 
 difficult to cook. 
 
 2 The place where the affair took place bears now the name of Suwayka — a 
 few hours' journey to the south-west of Medina. 
 
 3 The last month of this year was marked by the death of Osman, son 
 of Mahzun, and the marriage of Ali, son of Abu Talib, to Fatima, Mohammed's 
 daughter. 
 
 Osman was one of the earliest believers, and he was the first of the 
 
68 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 But this skirmish, between the idolaters and the Moslems, 
 like others which followed, proved only a prelude to the great 
 drama that was about to be enacted. 
 
 The idolaters were burning for revenge. They made formid- 
 able preparations for another war upon the 
 
 3 a.h. =26th Moslems. Their emissaries succeeded in ob- 
 Aprii 625 a.c. taining the assistance of the tribes of Tihama 
 and Kinana, and their united forces soon 
 amounted to three thousand well-equipped soldiers (of whom 
 seven hundred were mailed warriors), animated with but one 
 desire, that of revenge. This army was as formidable to the 
 petty tribes of Arabia as the multitudinous hordes of Xerxes 
 to the Grecian States. 
 
 Marching under the command of the relentless Abu Sufian, 
 and meeting with no opposition from any side, they took up a 
 well-chosen position to the north-east of Medina, where only 
 the hill of Ohod and a valley separated them from the devoted 
 city. From this safe vantage-ground they ravaged the fields 
 and fruit groves of the Medinites. 
 
 Forced by the enthusiasm of his followers, and by their fury 
 at the destruction of their property, Mohammed marched out 
 of Medina with a thousand men. The ill-concealed enmity of 
 the Jews led to the defection of Abdullah ibn-Ubayy, the leader 
 of the Munafikin (the Disaffected), with three hundred of his 
 followers. This desertion reduced the strength of Mohammed's 
 small force to seven hundred men, who only possessed two 
 horses amongst them. But still this gallant band marched 
 steadily forward. Advancing quietly through groves of fruit 
 trees, they soon gained the hill of Ohod. They passed the 
 night in the defile, and in the morning, after offering prayers as 
 they stood to arms, they debouched into the plain. Mohammed 
 now took up his position immediately under the hill. 1 Posting 
 
 Muhajirin who died at Medina, and was interred at Baki, a suburb of Medina, 
 where lie buried a number of illustrious and saintly people, whose tombs are 
 up to the present day venerated by the Moslems. 
 
 Ali had been betrothed to Fatima several days before the expedition to 
 Badr, but the marriage was only celebrated three months later, Ali being in 
 his twenty-first, and Fatima in her fifteenth year. 
 
 1 Burton thus describes the spot : " This spot, so celebrated in the annals 
 of El Islam, is a shelving strip of land, close to the southern base of Mount 
 Ohod. The army of the infidels advanced from the fiumara in crescent shape, 
 
v. THE BATTLE OF OHOD 69 
 
 a few archers on a height behind the troops, he gave them 
 strict injunctions not to abandon their place whatever happened 
 but to harass the cavalry of the enemy and protect the flanks 
 of the Moslems. The idolaters, confident in their numbers, 
 marched down into the plain with their idols in the centre of 
 their army, and the wives of the chiefs chanting their war- 
 songs and beating their timbrels. 1 The first violent onslaught 
 of the Koreish was bravely repulsed by the Moslems, led by 
 Hamza, who, taking advantage of the confusion of the enemy, 
 dashed into the midst of the Koreishites, dealing havoc on all 
 sides. Victory had almost declared for the Moslems, when the 
 archers, forgetting the injunctions of the Prophet, and seeing 
 the enemy in flight, dispersed in search of plunder. 2 And what 
 happened in later days at Tours happened at Ohod. Khalid 
 bin Walid, one of the Koreish, at once perceived their error, 
 and rallying his horse, fell on the rear of the Moslems. 3 The 
 infantry of the Koreish also turned, and the Moslem troops, taken 
 both in rear and front, had to renew the battle at fearful odds. 
 Some of the bravest chiefs in the Moslem army fell fighting. 
 The intrepid Hamza, with several others, was killed ; Ali, who 
 had chivalrously answered the first call of defiance (Rajz) of the 
 idolaters, 4 and Omar and Abu Bakr were severely wounded. 
 
 with Abu Sufiyan, the general, and his idols in the centre. It is distant 
 about three miles from El Medinah in a northerly direction. All the visitor 
 sees is hard gravelly ground, covered with little heaps of various coloured 
 granite, red sandstone, and bits of porphyry, to denote the different places 
 where the martyrs fell and were buried. Seen from this point, there is some- 
 thing appalling in the look of the holy mountain. Its seared and jagged 
 flanks rise like masses of iron from the plain, and the crevice into which the 
 Moslem host retired, when the disobedience of the archers in hastening to 
 plunder enabled Khalid ben Walid to fall upon Mohammed's rear, is the 
 only break in the grim wall. Reeking with heat, its surface produces not 
 one green shrub or stunted tree ; not a bird or beast appeared upon its in- 
 hospitable sides, and the bright blue sky glaring above its bald and sullen 
 brow made it look only the more repulsive." — Burton's Pilgrimage to Mecca, 
 vol. ii. pp. 236, 237. 
 
 1 Extracts from their war-songs are given by Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 118. 
 " Courage ! Ye sons of Abd ud-Dar ; courage ! defenders of women ! strike 
 home with the edges of your swords." Another runs thus : " We are daughters 
 of the Star of the Morn (Tarik) ; we tread softly on silken cushions (namdrik) ; 
 face the enemy boldly, and we shall press you in our arms ; fly, and we shall 
 shun you, shun you with disgust." 
 
 2 This disobedience is referred to in the Koran, sura iii. ver. 146. 
 
 3 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. 119 ; al-Halabi, Insdn ul-'Uyuv, vol. ii. p. 239. 
 
 4 Tabari says that Talha, the standard-bearer of the idolaters, a man of 
 heroic bravery, placed himself before Ali, and brandishing his sabre, defied 
 
70 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 The efforts of the idolaters were, however, principally directed 
 towards Mohammed, who, surrounded by a few disciples and 
 separated from the main body of his people, became now the 
 chief object of their assaults. His friends fell fast around him. 
 Though wounded and bleeding he did not forget their loving 
 hearts, and blessed the hand that tried to stanch the blood 
 which flowed from his forehead. 1 But rescue was nigh. The 
 brave warriors who under Ali had been fighting in the centre 
 with the energy of despair, succeeded in retreating to a point 
 on the hill, where they were secure from the attacks of the 
 enemy, but full of consternation at the loss, as they supposed, 
 of their great Master. Seeing, however, their brethren still 
 fighting in another part of the field, they rushed down into the 
 midst of the idolaters. Penetrating to the place where the 
 small group of Moslems yet defended the Prophet, and finding 
 that he still lived, they succeeded, after great exertions, in 
 retreating with him to the heights of Mount Ohod, where they 
 breathed again. Ali fetched water in his shield from the hollow 
 of a rock. With this he bathed Mohammed's face and wounds, 
 and with his companions offered up the mid-day prayers sitting. 
 
 The Koreish were too exhausted to follow up their advantage, 
 either by attacking Medina or driving the Moslems from the 
 heights of Ohod. They retreated from the Medinite territories 
 after barbarously mutilating their slain enemies. The wife of 
 Abu Sufian, Hind, the daughter of 'Otba, with the other 
 Koreishite women, showed the greatest ferocity in this savage 
 work of vengeance, tearing out the heart of Hamza, and making 
 bracelets and necklaces of the ears and noses of the dead. 
 
 The barbarities practised by the Koreish on the slain 
 created among the Moslems a feeling of bitter exasperation. 
 Even Mohammed was at first so moved by indignation as to 
 
 him, crying, " You Moslems say that our dead will go to hell, and yours to 
 heaven ; let me see whether I cannot send thee to heaven." Upon this Ali 
 replied, " Be it so ' " and they fought, and Talha was struck to the ground. 
 " Mercy, O son of my uncle," cried he. Ali replied, " Mercy be it ; thou dost 
 not deserve the fire." — Vol. iii. p. 25. 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 114, and Abulfeda, p. 44, mention the date of the 
 battle of Ohod as the 7th of Shawwal ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 21, mentions the 8th ; 
 Ibn-Hisham, the 5th ; and several others the nth. C. de Perceval, however, 
 calculates the nth to have been the real date of the battle, as according to 
 all the chroniclers the day was a Saturday, and the nth of Shawwal (26th of 
 January) fell on a Saturday. — Hist, des Arabes, vol. iii. p. 96, note. 
 
v. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS 71 
 
 declare that the dead of the Koreish should in future be treated 
 in like manner. 1 But the gentleness of his nature conquered the 
 bitterness of his heart. " Bear wrong patiently," he preached ; 
 " verily, best it will be for the patiently enduring." 2 And 
 from that day the horrible practice of mutilation which pre- 
 vailed among all the nations of antiquity was inexorably 
 forbidden to the Moslems. 3 
 
 On his return to Medina the Prophet directed a small body 
 of the disciples to pursue the retreating enemy, and to impress 
 on them that the Moslems, though worsted in battle, were yet 
 unbroken in spirit, and too strong to be attacked again with 
 impunity. Abu Sufian, hearing of the pursuit, hastened back 
 to Mecca, having first murdered two Medinites whom he met 
 on his route. He, however, sent a message to the Prophet, 
 saying that he would soon return to exterminate him and his 
 people. The reply as before was full of trust and faith — " God 
 is enough for us, a good guardian is He ! " 4 
 
 The moral effect of this disastrous battle was at once visible 
 in the forays which the neighbouring nomads prepared to 
 make on the Medinite territories. Most of them, however, 
 were repressed by the energetic action of Mohammed, though 
 some of the hostile tribes succeeded in enticing Moslem 
 missionaries into their midst, under the pretence of embracing 
 Islam, and then massacred them. On one such occasion 
 seventy Moslems were treacherously murdered near a brook 
 called Bir-Ma'iina, within the territories of two tribes, the 
 Bani-'Amir and the Bani-Sulaim, chiefly through the instru- 
 mentality of the latter. One of the two survivors of the 
 slaughter escaped towards Medina. Meeting on the way two 
 unarmed Arabs belonging to the Bani-'Amir who were 
 travelling under a safe-conduct of the Prophet, and mistaking 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 580 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 1 15-126; Tabari, 
 vol. iii. p. 16 et seq. ; al-Halabi, Insdn ul-'Uyiin, vol. ii. p. 242. 
 
 2 Koran, sura xvii. ver. 127 ; Ibn-Hisham, pp. 584, 585 ; Zamakhshari 
 (the Kashshdf), Egypt, ed., p. 446. 
 
 3 The Jews used to burn their prisoners alive, and most barbarously 
 mutilate the slain. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Persians all practised 
 similar barbarities. Christianity effected no improvement in these frightful 
 customs, for as late as the sixteenth century we read of the most horrible 
 mutilations. 
 
 4 Ibn-Hisham, p. 590 ; Koran, sura iii. ver. 167. 
 
72 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED L 
 
 them for enemies, he killed them. When Mohammed heard of 
 this he was deeply grieved. A wrong had been committed by 
 one of his followers, though under a mistake, and the relatives 
 of the men that were killed were entitled to redress. Accord- 
 ingly orders were issued for collecting the diyat (the W eh r geld) 
 from the Moslems and the people who had accepted the Charter. 1 
 The Jewish tribes of the Bani un-Nazir, the Kuraizha, and 
 others were bound equally with the Moslems to contribute 
 towards this payment. 2 Mohammed himself, accompanied by 
 a few disciples, proceeded to the Bani un-Nazir, and asked 
 from them their contribution. They seemingly agreed to the 
 demand, and requested him to wait awhile. Whilst sitting 
 with his back to the wall of a house, he observed sinister move- 
 ments amongst the inhabitants, which led him to divine their 
 intention of murdering him. 
 
 But to explain the hostility of the Jews we must trace back 
 the course of events. We have seen with what bitter animosity 
 they dogged Mohammed's footsteps from the moment of his 
 arrival at Medina. They tried to sow disaffection among his 
 people. They libelled him and his followers. They mis- 
 pronounced the words of the Koran so as to give them an 
 offensive meaning. But this was not all. By their superior 
 education and intelligence, by their union with the party of 
 the Munafikin (the Disaffected), and by the general unanimity 
 which prevailed among them (so different from the disunion 
 of the Arabs), the Jews formed a most dangerous element 
 within the federated State which had risen under the Teacher 
 of Islam. Among unadvanced nations poets occupy the 
 position and exercise the influence of the press in modern 
 times. 3 The Jewish poets by their superior culture naturally 
 
 1 See ante, pp. 58-59. 
 
 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. iii. p. 133 ; Tabari, vol. iv. p. 50. Muir and Sprenger 
 have strangely garbled this part of the affair. Sir W. Muir does not find 
 any authority for M. C. de Perceval's saying, that the Jews were bound by 
 treaty to contribute towards the Diyat. If he had referred to Tabari he would 
 have seen the following statement* "En suite il ordonna de reunir cette 
 somme, ou la repartissant sur la ville de Medine, et d'y faire contribuer egale- 
 ment les Juifs, tels que les Beni-Nadhir, les Koraizha et ceux de Fadak, qu'y 
 etaient obliges par le traite." — Zotenberg's transl. vol. iii. p. 50. So also 
 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133. 
 
 3 An example of the influence which poets and rhapsodists exercise among 
 unprogressed nations is afforded by one of the episodes connected with the 
 
v. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS 73 
 
 exercised a vast influence among the Medinites ; and this 
 influence was chiefly directed towards sowing sedition among 
 the Moslems, and widening the breach between them and the 
 opposing faction. The defeat of the idolaters at Badr was felt 
 as keenly by the Jews as by the Meccans. Immediately after 
 this battle a distinguished member of their race, calleoVKa'b, 
 the son of Ashraf, belonging to the tribe of Nazir, publicly 
 deploring the ill-success of the idolaters, proceeded towards 
 Mecca. Finding the people there plunged in grief, he spared 
 no exertion to revive their courage. By his satires against the 
 Prophet and his disciples, by his elegies on the Meccans who 
 had fallen at Badr, he succeeded in exciting the Koreish to that 
 frenzy of vengeance which found vent on the plains of Ohod. 
 Having attained his object, he returned to his home near 
 Medina in the canton of Nazir, where he continued to attack 
 Mohammed and the Musulmans in ironical and obscene verses, 
 not sparing even the women of the Believers, whom he addressed 
 in terms of the grossest character. His acts were openly 
 directed against the commonwealth of which he was a member. 
 He belonged to a tribe which had entered into the Compact 1 
 with the Moslems, and pledged itself for the internal as well as 
 the external safety of the State. Another Jew of the Nazir, 
 Abu Raf 'e Sallam, son of Abu'l Hukaik, was equally wild and 
 bitter against the Musulmans. He inhabited, with a fraction 
 of his tribe, the territories of Khaibar, four or five da}'s' journey 
 to the north-west of Medina. Detesting Mohammed and the 
 Musulmans, he made use of every endeavour to excite the 
 neighbouring Arab tribes, such as the Sulaim and the Ghatafan, 
 against them. It was impossible for the Musulman Common- 
 wealth to tolerate this open treachery on the part of those to 
 
 war of Ohod. Whilst preparing for this eventful campaign, the Koreish 
 requested a poet of the name of Abu 'Uzza to go round the tribes of the desert, 
 and excite them by his songs and poetry against the Moslems, and persuade 
 them to join the confederacy, formed under the auspices of the Meccans, for 
 the destruction of Mohammed and his followers This man had been taken 
 prisoner by the Moslems in the battle of Badr, but was released by the Prophet, 
 without ransom, on pledging himself never again to take up arms against the 
 Medinites. In spite of this, he was tempted to break his word, and went 
 round the tribes, rousing them to arms by his poetry ; and it is said he was 
 eminently successful in his work. After Ohod he was again taken prisoner 
 and executed by the Moslems; Ibn-Hisham, p. 591. 
 
 1 See ante, p. 58. 
 
74 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 whom every consideration had been shown, with the object of 
 securing their neutrality, if not their support. The very 
 existence of the Moslem community was at stake ; and every 
 principle of safety required that these traitorous designs 
 should be quietly frustrated. The sentence of outlawry was 
 executed upon them by the Medinites themselves — in one 
 case by a member of the tribe of Aus, in the other by a 
 Khazrajite. 
 
 Christian controversialists have stigmatised these executions 
 as ' ' assassinations. ' ' And because a Moslem was sent secretly to 
 kill each of the criminals, in their prejudice against the Prophet, 
 they shut their eyes to the justice of the sentence, and the 
 necessity of a swift and secret execution. There existed then 
 no police court, no judicial tribunal, nor even a court-martial, 
 to take cognisance of individual crimes. In the absence of a 
 State executioner any individual might become the executioner 
 of the law. These men had broken their formal pact ; it was 
 impossible to arrest them in public, or execute the sentence in 
 the open before their clans, without causing unnecessary blood- 
 shed, and giving rise to the feud of blood, and everlasting 
 vendetta. The exigencies of the State required that whatever 
 should be done should be done swiftly and noiselessly upon 
 those whom public opinion had arraigned and condemned. 1 
 The existence of the republic, and the maintenance of peace 
 and order within the city, depended upon the prompt execution 
 of the sentence passed upon the culprits before they could rally 
 their clansmen round them. 
 
 The fate of these two traitors, and the expulsion of their 
 
 2 ah Shaw- brethren the Bani-Kainuka' from the Medinite 
 wal, February territories, had given rise to a bitter feeling of 
 
 24 AC ' animosity among the Nazir against the 
 
 Prophet. The circumstances connected with the banishment 
 of the Kainuka' require a brief notice. Whilst the other 
 Jewish tribes were chiefly agricultural, the Banu-Kainuka' 
 hardly possessed a single field or date plantation. They were 
 
 1 Our Christian historians forget that the " wise " Solon himself, for the 
 safety of his small city, made it obligatory on the Athenians to become 
 executioners of the law, by pursuing the factious, or taking one or two sides 
 in a public riot. They also forget that even the laws of Christian England 
 allow any person to pursue and kill " an outlaw." 
 
v. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS 75 
 
 for the most part artisans employed in handicraft of all kinds. 1 
 Seditious and unruly, always ready for a broil like their co- 
 religionists of Alexandria, the Banu-Kainuka* were also noted 
 for the extreme laxity of their morals. One day a young girl 
 from the country came to their bazaar or market (Suk) to^sell 
 milk. The Jewish youths insulted her grossly. A Moslem 
 passer-by took the part of the girl, and in the fray which ensued 
 the author of the outrage was killed ; whereupon the entire 
 body of the Jews present rose and slaughtered the Moslem. A 
 wild scene then followed. The Moslems, enraged at the murder 
 of their compatriot, flew to arms, blood flowed fast, and many 
 were killed on both sides. At the first news of the riots, 
 Mohammed hastened to the spot, and, by his presence, suc- 
 ceeded in restraining the fury of his followers. He at once 
 perceived what the end would be of these seditions and disorders 
 if allowed to take their course. Medina would be turned into 
 an amphitheatre, in which members of hostile factions might 
 murder one another with impunity. The Jews had openly and 
 knowingly infringed the terms of their compact. It was 
 necessary to put a stop to this with a firm hand, or farewell to 
 all hope of peace and security. Consequently Mohammed 
 proceeded at once to the quarter of the Bani-Kainuka', and 
 required them to enter definitely into the Moslem Common- 
 wealth by embracing Islam, or to vacate Medina. The reply 
 of the Jews was couched in the most offensive terms. " O, 
 Mohammed, do not be elated with the victory over thy 
 people (the Koreish). Thou hast had an affair with men 
 ignorant of the art of war. If thou art desirous of 
 having any dealings with us, we shall show thee that 
 we are men." 2 They then shut themselves up in their fortress, 
 and set Mohammed's authority at defiance. But their reduc- 
 tion was an absolute duty, and siege was accordingly laid to 
 their stronghold without loss of time. After fifteen days they 
 surrendered. At first it was intended to inflict some severe 
 punishment on them, but the clemency of Mohammed's nature 
 
 1 Tabari, vol. iii. p. 8. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 545. Tabari gives the speech of the Kainuka' with a 
 slight variation. But all historians agree in its being defiant and offensive. 
 I cannot understand whence Gibbon obtained the excessively meek reply he 
 puts into the mouth of these people. 
 
76 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 overcame the dictates of justice, and the Bani-Kainuka' were 
 simply banished. 
 
 All these circumstances were rankling within the breasts of 
 the Bani un-Nazir. They only waited for a favourable 
 opportunity to rid themselves of Mohammed, and therefore 
 looked upon his arrival amongst them as providential. But 
 their sinister designs, as we have before said, did not escape the 
 eye of the Prophet. He immediately left the place without 
 raising the suspicions of the Jews, and thus saved himself and 
 his disciples from almost certain destruction. 1 
 
 The Bani un-Nazir had now placed themselves in exactly 
 the same position as the Bani-Kainuka' had previously done. 
 They had by their own act put themselves outside the pale of 
 the Charter ; and therefore on his arrival at Medina, Mohammed 
 sent them a message of the same import as that which was sent 
 to the Kainuka'. Relying on the support of the Munarikin 
 and Abdullah ibn-Ubayy, the Bani un-Nazir returned a 
 defiant answer. Disappointed, however, in the promised 
 assistance of Abdullah, and of their brethren, the Bani- 
 Kuraizha, after a siege of fifteen days 2 they sued for terms. 
 The previous offer was renewed, and they agreed to evacuate 
 their territories. They were allowed to take all their movables 
 with them, with the exception of arms. 3 In order to prevent 
 the Moslems from occupying their dwellings, they destroyed 
 these before leaving. 4 
 
 Their lands, warlike materials, etc., which they could not 
 
 Rabi I 4. a h carry away, were distributed by the Prophet 
 
 = junetoJuiy with the consent and cordial approval of the 
 
 625 a.c. Ansar, among the Muhajirin, who, up to this 
 
 time had been entirely dependent for support on the generosity 
 
 of the Medinites. Notwithstanding the strong brotherly love 
 
 which existed between the " Refugees " and the " Helpers," 5 
 
 Mohammed knew that the assistance of the Medinites afforded 
 
 1 As any betrayal of suspicion by Mohammed or his disciples of the intents 
 of the Jews would have made these people desperate, and precipitated matters, 
 the Prophet went away by himself, leaving his followers behind, which led the 
 Jews to suppose he was not gone far, and would quickly return. 
 
 2 Tabari says eleven days (vol. iii p. 54). 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 652, 653 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133 ; Abulfeda, p. 49. 
 
 4 Koran, sura lix. ver. 5. 5 See ante, p. 53. 
 
v. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS 77 
 
 but a precarious means of subsistence. He accordingly 
 assembled the principal men from among the Ansar, and asked 
 them whether they had any objection to his distributing among 
 their poor brethren who had followed him from Mecca the goods 
 left behind by the Jews. With one voice they answered, 
 " Give to our brothers the goods of the Jews ; assign to them 
 even a portion of ours : we willingly consent." Upon this the 
 Prophet divided the property among the Muhajirin and two 
 of the Ansar who were extremely poor. 1 
 
 The expulsion of the Bani un-Nazir took place in the month 
 of Rabi I. of the fourth year. 2 The remaining portion of this 
 year and the early part of the next were passed in repressing 
 the spasmodic hostile attempts of the nomadic tribes against 
 the Moslems, and in inflicting punishments for various 
 murderous forays on the Medinite territories. 3 
 
 Meanwhile the enemies of the Faith were by no means idle. 
 Far and wide the idolaters had sent their H _ d 
 
 emissaries to stir up the tribes against the May 626 to 23rd 
 Moslems. The Jews were the most active in pn 27 
 these efforts. Some of the Bani-Nazir had remained behind 
 with their brethren settled near Khaibar, and there, fired with 
 the hope of vengeance, had set themselves to the work of 
 forming another league for the destruction of the Believers. 4 
 Their efforts were successful beyond their utmost hopes. A 
 formidable coalition was soon formed ; and an army, con- 
 sisting of ten thousand well-appointed men, marched upon 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 654 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 133 ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 54. 
 A principle was henceforth established that any acquisition, not made in 
 actual warfare, should belong to the State, or the chief of the State ; and 
 that its application should depend upon his discretion (vide Droit Musalman 
 by M. Querry, p. 337). Sura lix. of the Koran treats almost entirely of the 
 circumstances connected with the banishment of the Bani un-Nazir. 
 
 2 According to Ibn-Hisham, p. 653, and Abulfeda, p. 49 ; Tabari, vol. iii. 
 p. 55, says it was the month of Safar. 
 
 3 Of this nature was the expedition against the Christian Arabs of Dumat 
 ul-Jandal (a place according to Abulfeda, about seven days' journey to the 
 south of Damascus), who had stopped the Medinite traffic with Syria and 
 even threatened a raid upon Medina ; these marauders, however, fled on the 
 approach of the Moslems, and Mohammed returned to Medina, after conclud- 
 ing a treaty with a neighbouring chief, to whom he granted permission of 
 pasturage on the Medinite territories. — C. de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 129 ; Tabari, 
 vol. iii. p. 60. 
 
 4 Ibn-lsham, p. 903 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 639 ; Tabari, vol. iii. pp. 60, 61. 
 
78 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 Medina, under the command of the relentless Abu Sufian. 
 Meeting no opposition on their way, they soon encamped 
 within a few miles of Medina, on its most vulnerable side, 
 towards Ohod. To oppose this host the Moslems could only 
 Shawwai a h nrnster a body of three thousand men. 1 Forced 
 =2 February thus by their inferiority in numbers, as well as 
 by the factious opposition of the Munafikin 
 within the city, 2 to remain on the defensive, they dug a deep 
 trench round the unprotected quarters of Medina, and, leaving 
 their women and children for safety in their fortified houses, 
 they encamped outside the city, with the moat in front of them. 
 In the meantime they relied for the safety of the other side, if 
 not upon the active assistance, at least upon the neutrality of 
 the Bani-Kuraizha, who possessed several fortresses at a short 
 distance, towards the south-east, and were bound by the 
 Compact to assist the Moslems against every assailant. These 
 Jews, however, were persuaded by the idolaters to violate their 
 pledged faith, and to join the Koreish. As soon as the news of 
 their defection reached Mohammed, he deputed " the two 
 Sa'ds," Sa'd ibn-Mu'az and Sa'd ibn-'Ubada, to entreat them 
 to return to their duty. The reply was defiant and sullen : 
 " Who is Mohammed, and who is the Apostle of God that we 
 should obey him ? There is no bond or compact betwixt us 
 and him." 3 
 
 As these Jews were well acquainted with the locality, and 
 could materially assist the besiegers by showing them the 
 weak points of the city, the consternation among the Moslems 
 became great, whilst the disaffected body within the walls 
 increased the elements of danger. 4 
 
 The idolaters and the Jews, failing in all their attempts to 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 678. 
 
 2 Referred to in the Koran, sura xxxiii. vers. 12, 13, 14, etc. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 675 ; Muir, vol. hi. p. 259. 
 
 4 The whole scene is so beautifully painted in the Koran, sura xxxiii. (Surat 
 ul-Ahzab, " The Confederates "), that I cannot resist quoting a few verses 
 here : " When they assailed you from above you and from below you, and 
 when your eyes became distracted, and your hearts came up into your throats, 
 and ye thought divers thoughts of God, then were the Faithful tried, and 
 with strong quaking did they quake ; and when the disaffected and diseased 
 of heart (with infidelity) said, ' God and His Apostle have made us but a 
 cheating promise.' " 
 
v. THE FATE OF THE BANI-KURAIZHA 79 
 
 draw the Moslems into the open field, or to surprise the city 
 under the direction of Jewish guides, determined upon a 
 regular assault. The siege had already lasted twenty days. 
 The restless tribes of the desert, who had made common cause 
 with the Koreish and their Jewish allies, and who had expected 
 an easy prey, were becoming weary of this protracted campaign. 
 Great efforts were made at this critical moment by the leaders 
 of the beleaguering host to cross the trench and fall upon the 
 small Moslem force. Every attempt was, however, repulsed 
 by untiring vigilance on the part of the Prophet. The elements 
 now seemed to combine against the besieging army ; their 
 horses were perishing fast, and provisions were becoming 
 scanty. Disunion was rife in their midst, and the far-seeing 
 chief of the Moslems, with matchless prudence, fomented it 
 into actual division. Suddenly this vast coalition, which had 
 seemed to menace the Moslems with inevitable destruction, 
 vanished into thin air. In the darkness of night, amidst a 
 storm of wind and rain, their tents overthrown, their lights 
 put out, Abu Sufian and the majority of his formidable army 
 fled, the rest took refuge with the Bani-Kuraizha. 1 Mohammed 
 had in the night foretold to his followers the dispersion of their 
 enemies. Daybreak saw his prognostications fulfilled, and the 
 Moslems returned in joy to the city. 2 
 
 But the victory was hardly achieved in the opinion of the 
 Moslems as long as the Bani-Kuraizha 
 
 . ° , . 5 A.H. =28th 
 
 remained so near, and in such dangerous February 626 to 
 proximity to the city of Islam. They had 2 4 March 62 7 
 proved themselves traitors in spite of their 
 sworn alliance, and had at one time almost surprised Medina 
 from their side, — an event which, if successful, would have 
 involved the general massacre of the faithful. The Moslems 
 therefore felt it their duty to demand an explanation of 
 the treachery. This was doggedly refused. The consequence 
 was that the Jews were besieged, and compelled to surrender 
 at discretion. They made only one condition, that their 
 punishment should be left to the judgment of the Ausite 
 chief, Sa'd ibn-Mu'az. This man, a fierce soldier who had been 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 683 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 140. 
 
 2 In Moslem annals this war is called the " War of the Trench." 
 
nd that 
 of the 
 } "It 
 
 80 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 wounded in the attack, and indeed died from his wounds the 
 next day, infuriated by their treacherous conduct, gave 
 sentence that the fighting men should be put to death, and that 
 the women and children should become the slaves 
 Moslems ; and this sentence was carried into execution, 
 was a harsh, bloody sentence," says Lane-Poole, " worthy of 
 the episcopal generals of the army against the Albigenses, or 
 of the deeds of the Augustan age of Puritanism ; but it must 
 be remembered that the crime of these men was high treason 
 against the State during a time of siege ; and those who have 
 read how Wellington's march could be traced by the bodies 
 of deserters and pillagers hanging from the trees, need not be 
 surprised at the summary execution of a traitorous clan." 2 
 
 The punishment inflicted on the various Jewish tribes has 
 furnished to the Christian biographers of the Prophet, like 
 Muir, Sprenger, Weil and Osborn, a ground for attack. The 
 punishment meted out to the Bani-Kainuka' and Bani un-dV 
 Nazir was far below their deserts. The Bani-Kuraizha alone 
 were treated with severity. 
 
 Human nature is so constituted that, however criminal the 
 acts of an individual may be, the moment he is treated with a 
 severity which to our mind seems harsh or cruel, a natural 
 revulsion of feeling occurs, and the sentiment of justice gives 
 place to pity within our hearts. No doubt the sentence on the 
 Bani-Kuraizha, from our point of view, was severe. But, 
 however much we may regret that the fate of these poor people 
 should have been, though at their own special request, left in 
 the hands of an infuriated soldier — however much we may 
 regret that the sentence of this man should have been so carried 
 into effect — we must not, in the sentiment of pity, overlook 
 the stern question of justice and culpability. We must bear 
 in mind the crimes of which they were guilty — their treachery, 
 their open hostility, their defection from an alliance to which 
 they were bound by every sacred tie. Nor must we altogether 
 forget the temptations which they, the worshippers of the 
 pure Jehovah, held out to the heathen Arabs to continue in the 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 686-690; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 141 et seq. ; Tabari, 
 vol. iii p. 68 et seq. 
 
 2 Selections from the Koran, Introd. p. lxv. 
 
v. HOSTILITY OF THE JEWS 81 
 
 practice of idolatry. Some Moslems might naturally be 
 inclined to say, with the Christian moralist : "It is better that 
 the wicked should be destroyed a hundred times over than that 
 they should tempt those who are yet innocent to join their 
 company." * 
 
 These Moslems might say with him, with only the variation 
 of a word : " Let us but think what might have been our fate, 
 and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, 
 had the sword of the Arab 2 done its work more sparingly. 
 The Arab's sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work 
 of mercy for all the countries of the earth to the very end of 
 the world." If the Christian's argument is correct and not 
 inhuman, certainly the Moslem's argument cannot be other- 
 wise. Other Moslems, however, might look upon this fearful 
 sentence on the Bani-Kuraizha in the same light as Carlyle 
 looks upon the order of Cromwell for the promiscuous massacre 
 of the Irish inhabitants of Drogheda : "An armed soldier 
 solemnly conscious of himself that he is the soldier of God the 
 Just, — a consciousness which it well beseems all soldiers and 
 all men to have always, — armed soldier, terrible as death, 
 relentless as doom ; doing God's judgment on the enemies of 
 God." 
 
 We, however, are not disposed to look at the punishment of 
 these Jews from either of these points of view. We simply look 
 upon it as an act done in complete accordance with the laws 
 of war as then understood by the nations of the world : "a 
 strict application of admitted customs of war in those days." 3 
 These people brought their fate upon themselves. If they had 
 been put to death, even without the judgment of Sa'd, it would 
 have been in consonance with the principles which then pre- 
 vailed. But they had themselves chosen Sa'd as the sole 
 arbiter and judge of their fate ; they knew that his judgment 
 was not at all contrary to the received notions, and accordingly 
 never murmured. They knew that if they had succeeded they 
 would have massacred their enemies without compunction. 
 People judge of the massacres of King David according to the 
 
 1 Arnold's Sermons, 4th Sermon, " Wars of the Israelites," pp. 35, 36. 
 
 2 In the original, of course, Israelites. 
 
 3 An observation of Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. vi. p. 499. 
 
 S.I. F 
 
82 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 " lights of his time." x Even the fearful slaughters committed 
 by the Christians in primitive times are judged according to 
 certain " lights." Why should not the defensive wars of the 
 early Moslems be looked at from the same standpoint ? But, 
 whatever the point of view, an unprejudiced mind 2 will 
 perceive that no blame can possibly attach to the Prophet in 
 the execution of the Bani-Kuraizha. 
 
 The number of men executed could not have been more than 
 200 or 250. 
 
 In the distribution of the surviving people, it is said, a young 
 Jewess of the name of Raihana was allotted to the Prophet. 
 Some say she was previously set apart. The Christian 
 historians, always ready to seize upon any point which to their 
 mind offers a plausible ground for attacking Mohammed, have 
 not failed to make capital of this story. Leaving the examina- 
 tion of the question of slavery to a later chapter, we will here 
 only observe that the allotment of Raihana, even if true, 
 furnishes no ground for modern attack, as it was perfectly 
 consonant with the customs of war recognised in those days. 
 The story about Raihana becoming a wife of the Prophet is a 
 fabrication, for, after this event, she disappears from history 
 and we hear no more of her, whilst of others we have full and 
 circumstantial accounts. 
 
 1 2 Sam. viii. 2 : " The conquered Ammonites he treated with even greater 
 ferocity, tearing and hewing some of them in pieces with harrows, axes, and 
 saws ; and roasting others in brick-kilns " (xii. 31) ; Maitland, Jewish 
 Literature and Modern Education, p. 21. Compare also Stanley's Lectures on 
 the Jewish Church, vol. ii. p. 99. 
 
 2 I can only remember M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Mr. Johnson, and Mr. 
 Stanley Lane- Poole among Europeans who have not been carried away by 
 prejudice. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 MOHAMMED'S CLEMENCY 
 
 THE formidable coalition formed by the Jews and the 
 idolaters to compass the destruction of the new 
 commonwealth of Medina had utterly failed, well 
 might the Moslems say, miraculously. 1 But the surrounding 
 tribes of the desert, wild and fierce, were 6 a.h. =2^6. 
 committing depredations, accompanied with April 627 to 12th 
 murders, on the Medinite territories : and the pn 
 existence of the State required the employment of stern 
 measures for their repression. Several expeditions were 
 despatched against these marauders, but the slippery sons 
 of the desert generally evaded the approach of the Moslems. 
 The Bani-Lihyan, who had requested Mohammed to send 
 a few of his disciples among them to teach the precepts 
 of Islam, and who, on the arrival of the missionaries, 
 had killed some and sold the rest to the Meccans — had, up to 
 this period, remained unpunished. But the time had come 
 when this crime should be avenged. In the month of Jumadi 
 I. of this year, a body of troops, under the personal command 
 of the Prophet, marched against the Bani-Lihyan. The 
 marauders, however, receiving timely notice of the Prophet's 
 approach, fled into the mountains, and the Moslems returned 
 to Medina without having accomplished their purpose. 2 
 
 1 Comp. Koran, sura xxxiii. ver. 9. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 718; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 143; Tabari, vol. iii. 
 p. 72. 
 
84 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 A few days had only elapsed when a chief of the Bani- 
 Fizara, a branch of the nomad horde of Ghatafan (Khail- 
 Ghatafan), suddenly fell upon the open suburbs of the city, 
 and drove off a large herd of camels, murdering the man who 
 had charge of them, and carrying off his wife. The Moslems 
 were immediately on their track, and a few of the animals were 
 recovered ; but the Bedouins escaped into the desert with the 
 larger portion of their booty. 
 
 It was about this time that the Prophet granted to the monks 
 of the monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai, and to all 
 Christians, a Charter which has been justly designated as one 
 of the noblest monuments of enlightened tolerance that the 
 history of the world can produce. This remarkable document, 
 which has been faithfully preserved by the annalists of Islam, 
 displays a marvellous breadth of view and liberality of con- 
 ception. By it the Prophet secured to the Christians privileges 
 and immunities which they did not possess even under 
 sovereigns of their own creed ; and declared that any Moslem 
 violating and abusing what was therein ordered, should be 
 regarded as a violater of God's testament, a transgressor of 
 His commandments, and a slighter of His faith. He under- 
 took himself, and enjoined on his followers, to protect the 
 Christians, to defend their churches, the residences of their 
 priests, and to guard them from all injuries. They were not 
 to be unfairly taxed ; no bishop was to be driven out of his 
 bishopric ; no Christian was to be forced to reject his religion ; 
 no monk was to be expelled from his monastery ; no pilgrim 
 was to be detained from his pilgrimage. Nor were the Christian 
 churches to be pulled down for the sake of building mosques 
 or houses for the Moslems. Christian women married to 
 Moslems were to enjoy their own religion, and not to be 
 subjected to compulsion or annoyance of any kind on that 
 account. If Christians should stand in need of assistance for 
 the repair of their churches or monasteries, or any other matter 
 pertaining to their religion, the Moslems were to assist them. 
 This was not to be considered as taking part in their religion, 
 but as merely rendering them assistance in their need, and 
 complying with the ordinances of the Prophet which were made 
 in their favour by the authority of God and of His Apostle. 
 
vi. MOHAMMED'S CLEMENCY 85 
 
 Should the Moslems be engaged in hostilities with outside 
 Christians, no Christian resident among the Moslems should be 
 treated with contempt on account of his creed. Any Moslem 
 so treating a Christian should be accounted recalcitrant to the 
 Prophet. 
 
 Man always attaches an idea of greatness to the character of 
 a person who, whilst possessing the power of returning evil for 
 evil, not only preaches but practises the divine principle of 
 forgiveness. Mohammed, as the chief of the State and guardian 
 of the life and liberty of the people, in the exercise of justice 
 sternly punished every individual guilty of crime. Mohammed 
 the Prophet, the Teacher, was gentle and merciful even to his 
 greatest enemies. In him were combined the highest attributes 
 that the human mind can conceive — justice and mercy. 
 
 A chief of the tribe of Hanifa, named Thumama, son of 
 Uthal, was taken prisoner by the Moslems in one of their 
 expeditions against the unruly Arabs of the desert. He was 
 brought to Medina, where he was so affected by the kindness 
 of the Prophet, that from an enemy he soon became the most 
 devoted follower. Returning to his people he stopped the 
 transport to Mecca of provisions from Yemama, and this 
 stoppage by Thumama reduced the Meccans to the direst 
 straits. Failing to move the Hanafites, they at last addressed 
 themselves to Mohammed, and besought him to intercede for 
 them. The Prophet's heart was touched with pity, and he 
 requested Thumama to allow them to have whatever they 
 wanted ; and at his word the convoys were again permitted to 
 reach Mecca. 
 
 Endless instances might be cited of Mohammed's merciful 
 nature. We will, however, only instance two. A daughter of 
 his — a beloved child — was, after the treaty of Hudaibiya, fleeing 
 from Mecca. She was far advanced in pregnancy, and as she 
 was mounting her camel, a Koreish named Habrar, with 
 characteristic ferocity, drove the butt end of his lance against 
 her, throwing her to the ground, and eventually causing her 
 death. On the conquest of Mecca the murderer was pro- 
 scribed. After hiding for some time he presented himself 
 before the Prophet, and threw himself on the mercy of the 
 bereaved father. The wrong was great ; the crime was 
 
86 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 atrocious — but the injury was personal. The man was to all 
 appearance sincere in his penitence and the profession of the 
 Faith. Pardon was unconditionally granted. The Jewess who 
 attempted his life at Khaibar, and Ikrima, the son of Abu Jahl, 
 who was bitterly personal in his animosity towards the Prophet, 
 were freely forgiven. 
 
 A tribe of Christian Bedouins (the Bani-Kalb), settled about 
 Divmat ul-Jandal, had, in their depredations, appeared on the 
 Medinite territories. An expedition was now despatched to 
 summon them to embrace Islam and forego their lawless 
 practices. Whilst delivering his injunctions to the captain who 
 headed this small force, Mohammed used the memorable words, 
 " In no case shalt thou use deceit or perfidy, nor shalt thou kill 
 any child." 1 
 
 In his instructions to the leaders of the expeditions against 
 marauding and hostile tribes and people, he invariably enjoined 
 them in peremptory terms never to injure the weak. " In 
 avenging the injuries inflicted upon us," he said to his troops, 
 whom he despatched against the Byzantines, " molest not the 
 harmless inmates of domestic seclusion ; spare the weakness 
 of the female sex ; injure not the infant at the breast, or those 
 who are ill in bed. Abstain from demolishing the dwellings of 
 the unresisting inhabitants ; destroy not the means of their 
 subsistence, nor their fruit trees ; and touch not the palm." 
 Abu Bakr, following his master, thus enjoined his captain : 
 " O Yezid ! be sure you do not oppress your own people, nor 
 make them uneasy, but advise with them in all your affairs, 
 and take care to do that which is right and just ; for those that 
 do otherwise shall not prosper. When you meet your enemies 
 quit yourselves like men, and do not turn your backs ; and if 
 you gain the victory, kill not little children, nor old people, nor 
 women. Destroy no palm trees, nor burn any fields of corn. 
 Cut down no fruit trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 992. Compare these injunctions of the Arabian Prophet 
 as also the historic words of Abu Bakr (the first Caliph) to Yezid bin Abu 
 Sufian, when despatching him against the Byzantines, with the commands of 
 the Israelite Prophet : " Thus saith the Lord of Hosts . . . Now go and 
 smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; 
 but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and 
 ass," I. Sam. xv. 3 ; " Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little 
 children, and women." Ezek. ix. 6. 
 
vi. MOHAMMED'S CLEMENCY 87 
 
 as you kill for the necessity of subsistence. When you make 
 any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as good as your 
 word. As you go on, you will find some religious persons that 
 live retired in monasteries, who propose to themselves to serve 
 God that way. Let them alone, and neither kill them nor 
 destroy their monasteries." 1 These injunctions contrast 
 strangely with the fearful denunciations of the Christians, 
 Catholic, Protestant and Greek, from the days of St. Lactantius 
 to those of the Covenanters. 2 The followers of the " Prince of 
 Peace " burnt and ravished, pillaged and murdered pro- 
 miscuously, old and young, male and female, without com- 
 punction, up to recent times. And his vicegerents on earth, 
 popes and patriarchs, bishops, priests, and presbyters, approved 
 of their crimes, and frequently granted plenary absolution for 
 the most heinous offences. 
 
 In the month of Sha'ban of this year (November-December, 
 627) an expedition was directed against the Bani-Mustalik. 
 These people had up to this time been on friendly terms with 
 the Moslems. But, recently, instigated by their chief Harith, 
 the son of Abu Zirar, 3 they had thrown off their allegiance, 
 and committed forays on the suburbs of Medina. The 
 expedition was entirely successful, and several prisoners were 
 taken, amongst whom was a daughter of Harith, called 
 Juwairiya. 
 
 Six years had now passed since the exiles of Mecca had left 
 their homes and their country for the sake of their faith, and 
 of him who had infused into them a new consciousness such as 
 they had never felt before, awakening in them the spirit of 
 union, love, and brotherhood. People flocked from every part 
 of Arabia to listen to the words of the wondrous man who had 
 achieved all this ; to ask his counsel in the affairs of everyday 
 life, even as the sons of Israel consulted of old the prophet 
 Samuel. 4 
 
 1 Compare Mill's History of Muhamtnedanism, pp. 45, 46 ; and Gagnier, 
 Vie de Mahomet, in loco. 
 
 2 The massacre of 5000 Chinese men, women and children at Blagovestchenk 
 in Manchuria in the twentieth century by the troops of a great Christian power 
 needs no mention. 
 
 3 With a zad ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 725 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 146. 
 
 4 Stanley's Lectures on the Jewish Church, vol. i. in loco. 
 
88 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 But the hearts of these exiles still yearned sadly for the 
 place of their birth. Driven from their homes, they had found 
 refuge in a rival city ; expelled from the precincts of the sacred 
 Kaaba, which formed the glorious centre of all their associa- 
 tions, — the one spot round which gathered the history of their 
 nation, — for six years had they been denied the pilgrimage of 
 the holy shrine, a custom round which time, with its hoary 
 traditions, had cast the halo of sanctity. The Teacher himself 
 longed to see the place of his nativity with as great a yearning. 
 The temple of the Kaaba belonged to the whole Arab nation. 
 The Koreish were merely the custodians of this shrine, and 
 were not authorised by the public law of the country to interdict 
 the approach even of an enemy, if he presented himself without 
 any hostile design, and with the avowed object of fulfilling a 
 religious duty. 1 
 
 The season of the pilgrimage had approached ; the Prophet 
 accordingly announced his intention of visiting the holy places. 
 At once a thousand voices responded to the call. Preparations 
 were rapidly made, and, accompanied by seven hundred 
 Moslems, Ansar and Muhajirin, all perfectly unarmed, he set 
 out on the pilgrimage. 2 The animosity of the Koreish, how- 
 ever, was not yet extinguished. They posted themselves, with 
 a large army, some miles in advance of Mecca, to bar the way, 
 but soon after fell back on the city, in order to keep every 
 point of access closed to the Moslems. They swore solemnly 
 not to allow the followers of the Prophet to enter the shrine, 
 and maltreated the envoy who was sent to them to solicit 
 permission to visit the Kaaba. A body of the Meccans went 
 round the Prophet's encampment with the avowed object of 
 killing any unwary Moslem who might leave the camp. They 
 even attacked the Prophet with stones and arrows. 3 Finding 
 
 1 Tabari, vol. iii. p. 84 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 174, 175 et seq. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisharn, p. 740; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 84 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 152. 
 Abulfeda, p. 60, mentions the number as 1400. 
 
 3 When some of these men were seized and brought before the Prophet, he 
 pardoned and released them, Ibn-Hisham, p. 745. It was on this occasion 
 that the Moslems took the pledge, called " The Agreeable Pledge " (Bai at-ur- 
 Rizwan), or " The Pledge of the Tree " (Bai'at-ush-Shajara). Osman being sent 
 to the Koreish to repeat the request for permission, they seized and detained 
 him. The Moslems, fearful of his murder, nocked round Mohammed, and 
 solemnly swore to avenge his death. Ibn-Hisham, p. 746 ; Koran, sura 
 xlviii. ver. 17; comp. also Muir, vol. iv. p. 32. 
 
vi. THE PEACE OF HUDAIBIYA 89 
 
 the idolaters immovable, and wishful himself to end the state 
 of warfare between the Moslems and the Koreish, Mohammed 
 expressed himself willing to agree to any terms the Meccans 
 might feel inclined to impose. After much difficulty a treaty 
 was concluded, by which it was agreed that all hostilities 
 should cease for ten years ; that anyone coming from the 
 Koreish to the Prophet without the permission of the guardian 
 or chief, should be re-delivered to the idolaters ; that any 
 individual from among the Moslems going over to the Meccans 
 should not be surrendered ; that any tribe desirous of entering 
 into alliance, either with the Koreish or with the Moslems, 
 should be at liberty to do so without hindrance ; that the 
 Moslems should retrace their steps on this occasion, without 
 advancing farther ; that they should be permitted in the 
 following year to visit Mecca and to remain there for three 
 days with their travelling arms, namely, their " scimitars in 
 sheaths." l 
 
 The moderation and magnanimity displayed by Mohammed 
 in concluding this treaty caused some discontent among the 
 more impulsive of his followers, in whose hearts the injuries 
 and cruelties inflicted by the Koreish yet rankled. In virtue 
 of the third stipulation of the treaty, by which the Moslems 
 bound themselves to surrender every idolater who came over 
 to their cause without the permission of their patron or chief, 
 the Koreish demanded the surrender of several of the Prophet's 
 disciples ; and their demand was immediately complied with 
 by Mohammed, in spite of the murmurs of some of the 
 Moslems. 2 
 
 On his return to Medina, Mohammed, in pursuance of the 
 catholic wish by which he was inspired, that his religion should 
 
 1 I.e. the Sildh-ur-rdkib ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 747 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 
 156 ; Mishkdt, bk xvii. chap. 10, part i. It was on the occasion of this peace 
 that a Koreishite envoy who was sent to the Moslem encampment, struck with 
 the profound reverence and love shown to the Prophet by his followers, on 
 his return to the Koreish, told them he had seen sovereigns like the Chosroes 
 (Kesra), the Caesar (Kaiser), and the Negus (Najashi), surrounded with all the 
 pomp and circumstance of royalty ; but he had never witnessed a sovereign 
 in the midst of his subjects receiving such veneration and obedience as was 
 paid to Mohammed by his people ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 745 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. 
 p. 154 ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 87 ; and Abulfeda, p. 61. 
 
 2 As women were not included in the treaty, the demand of the idolaters 
 for the surrender of the female Moslems was peremptorily declined. 
 
go THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 embrace all humanity, 1 despatched several envoys to invite 
 the neighbouring sovereigns and their subjects to drink of the 
 cup of life offered to them by the Preacher of Islam. Two of 
 the most noted embassies were to Heraclius, the Emperor of 
 the Greeks, and to Khusru Parviz, the Kesra of Persia. The 
 King of Kings was amazed at the audacity of the fugitive of 
 Mecca in addressing him, the great Chosroes, on terms of 
 equality, and enraged at what he considered the insolence of 
 the letter, tore it to pieces, and drove the envoy from his 
 presence with contumely. When the news of this treatment 
 was brought to the Prophet, he quietly observed, " Thus will 
 the empire of Kesra. be torn to pieces." 2 The fulfilment of 
 the prophecy is engraved on the pages of history. Heraclius, 
 more polite or more reverential, treated the messenger with 
 great respect, and returned a gracious and careful reply. 
 Before, however, leaving Syria he tried to acquaint himself 
 better with the character of the man who had sent him the 
 message. With this object he is said to have summoned to 
 his presence some Arab merchants who had arrived at Gaza 
 with a caravan from Arabia. Among them was the notorious 
 Abu Sufian, still one of the bitterest enemies of the Prophet. 
 The Greek emperor appears to have questioned him with 
 regard to Mohammed, and his replies, as preserved in the 
 traditions, are almost identical with the summary which 
 Ja'far gave to the Negus of the teachings of Mohammed. 
 " What are the doctrines Mohammed advances ? " asked 
 Heraclius of Abu Sufian. " He bids us abandon the worship 
 of our ancient idols and to adore one God ; to bestow alms ; 
 to observe truth and purity ; to abstain from fornication and 
 vice, and to flee abominations." Asked if his followers were 
 increasing in number, or if they were falling off, the reply was, 
 " his adherents are increasing incessantly, and there has not 
 been one who has forsaken him." 
 
 Another ambassador sent soon afterwards to the Ghassanide 
 prince, a feudatory of Heraclius, residing at Busra, near 
 Damascus, instead of receiving the reverence and respect due 
 to an envoy, was cruelly murdered by another chief of the 
 
 1 Koran, sura vii. vers. 157, 158. 
 
 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 163, 164. 
 
 
vi. MESSAGE TO HERACLIUS AND PARVIZ 91 
 
 same family, and Ameer of a Christian tribe subject to Byzan- 
 tium. This wanton outrage on international obligations 
 became eventually the cause of that war which placed Islam 
 in conflict with the whole of Christendom. But of this we 
 shall treat later. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH 
 
 fi .l))\ juyi fji 0* **» u - ^ji jjlj] jul j'i; d 
 
 THE Jewish tribes, in spite of the reverses they had 
 already suffered were still formidable, — still busy with 
 their machinations to work the destruction of the 
 Moslems. They possessed, at the distance of three or four 
 7 ah =i2th days' journey to the north-east of Medina, a 
 April 628 to 1st strongly fortified territory, studded with castles, 
 May 629 a.c. the principal f which) called a l-Kamus, was 
 
 situated on an almost inaccessible hill. This group of fortresses 
 was called Khaibar, a word signifying a fortified place. The 
 population of Khaibar included several branches of the Bani- 
 Nazir and the Kuraizha, who had taken refuge there. The 
 Jews of Khaibar had shown an active and implacable hatred 
 towards Mohammed and his followers, and since the arrival of 
 their brethren among them, this feeling had acquired greater 
 force. The Jews of Khaibar united by an ancient alliance with 
 the Bedouin horde of the Bani-Ghatafan, and other cognate 
 tribes, worked incessantly for the formation of another coalition 
 against the Moslems. 1 These latter were alive to the power 
 possessed by the desert-races to injure them, and prompt 
 measures were needed to avert the evils of another league 
 against Medina. Accordingly, early in the month of Muharram 
 of this year, an expedition, consisting of about 1400 men, was 
 despatched against Khaibar. The Jews now solicited the 
 assistance of their allies. The Bani-Fizara hastened to their 
 
 1 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 193, 194. 
 
vii. THE FALL OF KHAIBAR 93 
 
 support, but afraid of the Moslems turning their flank, and 
 surprising their flocks and herds in their absence, speedily 
 retreated. The Jews were thus left alone to bear the brunt of 
 the war. Terms were offered to them by the Moslems, but 
 were refused. In spite of the most determined resistance on 
 the part of the Jews, fortress after fortress opened its gate. At 
 last came the turn of the most formidable castle, al-Kamus. 
 After a spirited defence, it also fell into the hands of the Moslems. 
 The fate of this, their principal fortress, brought the remaining 
 Jewish townships to see the utter futility of further resistance. 
 They sued for forgiveness, which was accorded. Their lands and 
 immovable property were guaranteed to them (on condition 
 of good conduct), together with the free practice of their 
 religion ; and, as they were exempt from the regular taxes, the 
 Prophet imposed upon them the duty of paying to the Common- 
 wealth, in return for the protection they would thenceforth 
 enjoy, half the produce of their lands. The movable property 
 found in the fortress which the Moslems reduced by regular 
 sieges and battles, was forfeited to the army, and distributed 
 among the men according to the character of their arms ; thus, 
 for instance, three shares were given to a horseman, whilst a 
 foot-soldier received only one. 1 
 
 Towards the end of the seventh year of the Hegira, Moham- 
 med and his disciples availed themselves of their truce with 
 the Koreish to accomplish the desire of their hearts 2 — the 
 pilgrimage to the holy places. This journey, in Moslem history, 
 is reverently styled " the Pilgrimage, or Visit of Accomplish- 
 ment." 3 It was in March 629 that the Prophet, accompanied 
 by 2000 Moslems, proceeded to Mecca to perform the rites of the 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 764 and 773 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 169. The story 
 of Kinana being tortured for the sake of disclosing the concealed treasures is 
 false. 
 
 Frequent attempts were made about this time to assassinate the Prophet. 
 On his entry into Khaibar, a Jewess, animated with the same vengeful feeling 
 as the Judith of old, spread a poisoned repast for him and some of his followers. 
 One of them died immediately after he had taken a few mouthfuls. The life 
 of the Prophet was saved, but the poison permeated his system, and in after- 
 life he suffered severely from its effects, and eventually died thereof. In 
 spite of this crime, Mohammed forgave the woman, and she was allowed to 
 remain among her people unharmed ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 104 ; Ibn ul-Athir, 
 vol. ii. p. 170. 
 
 2 See Koran, sura xlviii. ver. 27. 3 'Umrat-ul-Kazd. 
 
94 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 Lesser Pilgrimage — rites which every pilgrim of Islam has now 
 to observe. The Koreish would, however, have nothing to say 
 to the pilgrims, and hold no converse with them. For the three 
 days during which the ceremonies lasted, they evacuated the 
 city, and from the summits of the neighbouring heights watched 
 the Moslems performing the rites. " It was surely a strange 
 sight," says Muir, with an unconscious thrill, " which at this 
 time presented itself in the vale of Mekka, — a sight unique in 
 the history of the world. The ancient city is for three days 
 evacuated by all its inhabitants, high and low, every house 
 deserted ; and, as they retire, the exiled converts, many years 
 banished from their birthplace, approach in a great body, 
 accompanied by their allies, revisit the empty homes of their 
 childhood, and within the short allotted space, fulfil the rites 
 of pilgrimage. The outside inhabitants, climbing the heights 
 around, take refuge under tents, or other shelter among the 
 hills and glens ; and, clustering on the overhanging peak of 
 Aboo-Kubeys, thence watch the movements of the visitors 
 beneath, as with the Prophet at their head they make the 
 circuit of the Kaabeh, and the rapid procession between 
 Es-Safa and Marwah ; and anxiously scan every figure if 
 perchance they may recognise among the worshippers some 
 long-lost friend or relative. It was a scene rendered possible 
 only by the throes which gave birth to Islam." * In strict 
 conformity with the terms of the treaty, they left Mecca after 
 a sojourn of three days. This peaceful fulfilment of the day- 
 dream of the Moslems was followed by important conversions 
 among the Koreish. The self-restraint and scrupulous 
 regard for their pledged word displayed by the Believers 
 created a visible impression among the enemies of Islam. 
 Many of those who were most violent among the Koreish 
 in their opposition to the Prophet, men of position and 
 influence, who had warred against him, and reviled him, 
 struck by Mohammed's kindness of heart and nobility of 
 nature, which overlooked all crimes against himself, adopted 
 the Faith. 2 
 
 1 Muir, Life of Mohammed, vol. iii. 402. 
 
 2 For instance, Khalid bin-Walid, who commanded the Koreish cavalry at 
 Ohod, and 'Amr(u) ibn al-'Asi, famous as Amru. 
 
vii. THE FALL OF MECCA 95 
 
 The murder of the Moslem envoy by a feudatory l of the 
 Greek emperor was an outrage which could not be passed over 
 in silence, and unpunished. An expedition, consisting of three 
 thousand men, was despatched to exact reparation from the 
 Ghassanide prince. The lieutenants of the Byzantine emperor, 
 instead of disavowing the crime, adopted it, and thus made the 
 quarrel an imperial one. Uniting their forces, they attacked 
 the Moslems near Muta, a village not far from Balka in Syria, 
 the scene of the murder. The Byzantines and their allies were 
 repulsed, but the disparity of numbers was too great, and the 
 Moslems retreated to Medina.' 2 
 
 It was about this time that the Koreish and their allies the 
 Bani-Bakr, in violation of the terms of peace concluded at 
 Hudaibiya, attacked the Bani-Khuza'a, who were under the 
 protection of, and in alliance with, the Moslems. They 
 massacred a number of the Khuza'a, and dispersed the rest. 
 The Banu-Khuza'a brought their complaints to Mohammed, 
 and asked for justice. The reign of iniquity and oppression 
 had lasted long at Mecca. The Meccans had themselves 
 violated the peace, and some of their chief men had taken part 
 in the massacre of the Khuza'a. The Prophet immediately 
 marched ten thousand men against the idolaters. With the 
 exception of a slight resistance by Ikrima, 3 and Safwan 4 at 
 the head of their respective clans, in which several Moslems 
 were killed, Mohammed entered Mecca almost unopposed. 
 
 Thus, at length, Mohammed entered Mecca as a conqueror. 
 He, who was once a fugitive and persecuted, now came to prove 
 his mission by deeds of mercy. The city which had treated 
 him so cruelly, driven him and his faithful band for refuge 
 amongst strangers, which had sworn his life and the lives of his 
 devoted disciples, lay at his feet. His old persecuters, relentless 
 and ruthless, who had disgraced humanity by inflicting cruel 
 
 1 According to Caussin de Perceval, the name of this chieftain was 
 Shurahbil, son of 'Amr (and not, as Abulfeda mentions it, 'Amr, son of 
 Shurahbil). — Vol. ii. p. 253, and vol. hi. p. 211. 
 
 2 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 211 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 178- 
 180. In this battle, Zaid, the son of Harith, who commanded the Moslem 
 troops, Ja'far, the cousin of Mohammed, and several other notables were killed. 
 
 3 The son of Abu Jahl, who fell at Badr. 
 5 The son of Ommeyya. 
 
96 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 outrages upon inoffensive men and women, and even upon the 
 lifeless dead, were now completely at his mercy. But in the 
 hour of triumph every evil suffered was forgotten, every 
 injury inflicted was forgiven, and a general amnesty was 
 extended to the population of Mecca. Only four criminals, 
 " whom justice condemned," made up Mohammed's proscrip- 
 tion list when he entered as a conqueror the city of his bitterest 
 enemies. The army followed his example, and entered gently 
 and peaceably ; no house was robbed, no woman was insulted. 
 Most truly has it been said that through all the annals of 
 conquest, there has been no triumphant entry like unto this 
 one. But the idols of the nation were unrelentingly struck 
 down. Sorrowfully the idolaters stood round and watched the 
 downfall of the images they worshipped. And then dawned 
 upon them the truth, when they heard the old voice, at which 
 they were wont to scoff and jeer, cry, as he struck down the 
 idols, " Truth has come, and falsehood vanisheth ; verily 
 falsehood is evanescent," J how utterly powerless were their 
 gods! 
 
 After destroying these ancient idols and abolishing every 
 pagan rite, Mohammed delivered a sermon to the assembled 
 people. He dwelt first upon the natural equality and brother- 
 hood of mankind, in the words of the Koran, 2 and then pro- 
 ceeded as follows : " Descendants of Koreish, how do you 
 think I should act towards you ? " " With kindness and pity, 
 gracious brother and nephew," replied they. 3 At these words, 
 says Tabari, tears came into the eyes of the Prophet, and he 
 said, " I shall speak to you as Joseph spake unto his brothers, 
 ' I shall not reproach you to-day ; God will forgive,' He is the 
 most merciful and compassionate." i 
 
 And now was enacted a scene of which there is no parallel 
 in the history of the world. Hosts upon hosts came and 
 adopted the religion of Mohammed. Seated on the hill of 
 Safa, he received the old pledge, exacted before from the 
 Medinites : " They would not adore anything ; they would not 
 
 1 Koran, sura xvii. ver. 83 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 192. 
 
 2 Koran, sura xlix. ver. 10. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 821 ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 134. 
 
 4 Koran, sura xii. ver. 31. 
 
vii. THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH 97 
 
 commit larceny, adultery, or infanticide ; they would not utter 
 falsehood, nor speak evil of women." x 
 
 Thus were the words of the Koranic prophecy fulfilled, 
 " When arrives victory and assistance from God, and seest 
 thou men enter in hosts the religion of God, then utter the 
 praise of thy Lord, and implore His pardon ; for He loveth to 
 turn in mercy (to those who seek Him)." 2 Mohammed now 
 saw his Mission all but completed. His principal disciples 
 were despatched in every direction to call the wild tribes of 
 the desert to Islam, and with strict injunctions to preach peace 
 and good-will. Only in case of violence were they to defend 
 themselves. These injunctions were loyally obeyed with one 
 exception. The men of Khalid bin-Walid, under the orders of 
 this fierce and newly-converted warrior, killed a few of the 
 Bani Jazima 3 Bedouins, apparently mistaking them for hostile 
 soldiers ; but the other Moslems interfering, prevented further 
 massacre. The news of this wanton bloodshed deeply grieved 
 the Prophet, and he cried, raising his hands towards heaven, 
 " O Lord ! I am innocent of what Khalid has done." He 
 immediately despatched Ali to make every possible reparation 
 to the Bani Jazima for the outrage committed on them. This 
 was a mission congenial to Ali's nature, and he executed it 
 faithfully. He made careful inquiries as to the number of 
 persons killed by Khalid, their status, and the losses incurred 
 by their families, and paid the Diyat strictly. When every loss 
 was made good, he distributed the remainder of the money he 
 had brought among the kinsmen of the victims and other 
 members of the tribe, gladdening every heart, says the 
 chronicler, by his gentleness and benevolence. Carrying with 
 him the blessings of the whole people, he returned to the 
 Prophet, who overwhelmed him with thanks and praises. 4 
 
 The formidable Bedouin tribes, the Hawazin, the Thakif, 5 
 and various others who pastured their flocks on the territories 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 292 ; Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 234. 
 
 2 Koran, sura ex.; comp. Zamakhshari (the Kashsh&f), Egypt, ed., pt. ii. 
 pp. 490, 491. The verse is given at the head of Chapter IX. post. 
 
 3 With a j {zdl) . 
 
 4 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 834, 835 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 195 ; Tabari, vol. iii. 
 p. 141. 
 
 5 With a o 
 
 S.I. G 
 
98 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 bordering Mecca, and some of whom possessed strongly- 
 fortified towns like Tayef, unwilling to render obedience to the 
 Moslems without resistance, formed a league, with the intention 
 of overwhelming Mohammed before he could make prepara- 
 tions to repulse their attack. His vigilance, however, dis- 
 appointed them. After a well-contested battle fought near 
 Hunain, a deep and narrow defile about ten miles to the 
 north-east of Mecca, 1 the idolaters were defeated with great 
 loss. 2 Separating their forces, one body of the enemy, con- 
 sisting principally of the Thakif, took refuge in their city of 
 Tayef, which only eight or nine years before had driven the 
 Prophet from within its walls with insults ; the rest fled to a 
 fortified camp in the valley of the Autas. This was forced, 
 and the families of the Hawazin, with all their worldly effects, — 
 their flocks and herds, — fell into the hands of the Moslems. 
 Tayef was then besieged, but after a few days Mohammed 
 raised the siege, well knowing that the pressure of circum- 
 stances would soon force the Tayefites to submit without 
 bloodshed. Returning to the place where the captured 
 Hawazin were left for safety, he found a deputation from this 
 powerful tribe awaiting his return to solicit the restoration of 
 their families. Aware of the sensitiveness of the Arab nature 
 regarding their rights, Mohammed replied to the Bedouin 
 deputies that he could not force his people to abandon all the 
 fruits of their victory, and that they must at least forfeit their 
 effects if they would regain their families. To this they 
 consented, and the following day, when Mohammed was 
 offering the mid-day prayers, 3 with his disciples ranged behind 
 him, they came and repeated the request : " We supplicate the 
 Prophet to intercede with the Moslems, and the Moslems to 
 intercede with the Prophet, to restore us our women and 
 children." Mohammed replied to the deputies, " My own 
 share in the captives, and that of the children of Abd ul- 
 
 1 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 248 ; in the Kdmus, Hunain is merely 
 said to be on the road from Mecca to Tayef. In the Mu'jam ul-Bulddn the 
 distance between Mecca and Hunain (lying to the south of Zu'l Majaz) is 
 given as three nights' journey ; vol. ii. p. 35. 
 
 2 This battle is referred to in the Koran, sura ix. vers. 25, 26 ; Ibn-Hisham, 
 p. 840 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 200, 201. 
 
 3 Tabari says morning prayer, vol. iii. p. 155. 
 
vii. THE DIFFUSION OF THE FAITH 99 
 
 Muttalib, I give you back at once." His disciples, catching 
 his spirit, instantaneously followed his example, and six 
 thousand people were in a moment set free. 1 This generosity 
 won the hearts of many of the Thakif, 2 who tendered their 
 allegiance, and became earnest Moslems. The incident which 
 followed after the distribution of the forfeited flocks and herds 
 of the Hawazin, shows not only the hold the Prophet had over 
 the hearts of the Medinites, and the devotion he inspired them 
 with, but it also proves that at no period of his career had he 
 any material reward to offer to his disciples. In the division 
 of the spoil a larger proportion fell to the share of the newly- 
 converted Meccans than to the people of Medina. Some of 
 the Ansar looked upon this as an act of partiality, and their 
 discontent reaching the ear of the Prophet, he ordered them to 
 be assembled. He then addressed them in these words : "Ye 
 Ansar, I have learnt the discourse ye hold among yourselves. 
 When I came amongst you, you were wandering in darkness, 
 and the Lord gave you the right direction ; you were suffering, 
 and He made you happy ; at enmity amongst yourselves, and 
 He has filled your hearts with brotherly love and concord. 
 Was it not so, tell me ? " " Indeed, it is even as thou sayest," 
 was the reply ; "to the Lord and His Prophet belong bene- 
 volence and grace." " Nay, by the Lord," continued the 
 Prophet, " but ye might have answered, and answered truly, 
 for I would have testified to its truth myself. ' Thou earnest to 
 us rejected as an impostor, and we believed in thee ; thou earnest 
 as a helpless fugitive, and we assisted thee : poor, and an outcast, 
 and we gave thee an asylum ; comfortless, and we solaced thee.' 
 Ye Ansar, v/hy disturb your hearts because of the things of this 
 life ? Are ye not satisfied that others should obtain the flocks 
 and the camels, while ye go back unto your homes with me in 
 your midst ? By Him who holds my life in His hands, I shall 
 never abandon you. If all mankind went one way and the 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 876 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 206 ; Tabari, vol. iii. p. 155. 
 
 2 The people of Tayef were so called. The story told by Muir (vol. iv. 
 p. 149), as a curious illustration of the Prophet's mode of life, is apocryphal. 
 It must be remembered, firstly, that the division of the booty had not taken 
 place, and consequently the Prophet could not have given away as gift part 
 of his own share ; but this he had promised to the deputies before the 
 division to restore to the Hawazin. The story is a fabrication, and utterly 
 worthless. 
 
THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED 
 
 Ansar another, verily I would join the Ansar. The Lord be 
 favourable unto them, and bless them, and their children, 
 and their children's children ! " At these words, says the 
 chronicler, they all wept until the tears ran down upon their 
 beards. And they all cried with one voice, " Yea, Prophet of 
 God, we are well satisfied with our share." Thereupon they 
 retired happy and contented. 1 
 
 Mohammed soon after returned to Medina. 
 
 1 Ibn-Hishani, p. 886 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 208 ; Abulfeda, p. 82. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS 
 
 -. ,3i 'o (, > ^ ,/ <,- » 
 
 i- - * * ' 
 
 Kasidat-ul-Burda. 
 
 aj i\ — ^; ; , — j j^yi ^J 
 
 J f • f f (, f , . 
 
 BAnat Suad. 
 
 THE ninth year of the Hegira was noted for the embassies 
 which flocked into Medina to render homage to the 
 Prophet of Islam. The cloud which so long had rested 
 over this land, with its wild chivalry, its blood-feuds, and its 
 heathenism, is now lifted for ever. The age 
 of barbarism is past. . 9 a.h. 20th 
 
 _, r , , _ , • -, , , r r April 630 to 9th 
 
 The conquest of Mecca decided the fate of April 631 a. c. 
 idolatry in Arabia. The people, who still 
 regarded with veneration those beautiful moon-goddesses, 
 Manat, Lat, and 'Uzza, and their peculiar cult, were pain- 
 fully awakened by the fall of its stronghold. Among the 
 wild denizens of the desert the moral effect of the submis- 
 sion of the Meccans was great. Deputations began to arrive 
 
ib2 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 from all' sides- to tender the allegiance and adherence of 
 tribes hitherto most inimical to the Moslems. 1 The principal 
 companions of the Prophet, and the leading citizens of Medina, 
 at his request, received these envoys in their houses, and enter- 
 tained them with the time-honoured hospitality of the Arabs. 
 On departure, they always received an ample sum for the 
 expenses of the road, with some additional presents, corre- 
 sponding to their rank. A written treaty, guaranteeing the 
 privileges of the tribe, was often granted, and a teacher in- 
 variably accompanied the departing guests to instruct the 
 newly-converted people in the duties of Islam, and to see that 
 every remnant of idolatry was obliterated from their midst. 
 
 Whilst thus engaged in consolidating the tribes of Arabia 
 under the new gospel, the great Seer was alive to the dangers 
 which threatened the new confederation from outside. 
 
 The Byzantines seem about this time to have indulged in 
 those dreams of Arabian conquests which had, once before, 
 induced the founder of the Roman Empire to despatch expedi- 
 tions into that country. 2 Heraclius had returned to his 
 dominions elated by his victories over the Persians. His 
 political vision could not have been blind to the strange events 
 which were taking place in Arabia, and he had probably not 
 forgotten the repulse of his lieutenants, at the head of a large 
 army, by a handful of Arabs. During his stay in Syria he had 
 directed his feudatories to collect an overwhelming force for 
 the invasion of Arabia. The news of these preparations was 
 soon brought to Medina, and caused some consternation among 
 the Moslems. If the report was true it meant a serious danger 
 to the Islamic commonwealth. Volunteers were summoned 
 from all quarters to repel the threatened attack. Unfor- 
 tunately, a severe drought had lately afflicted Hijaz and Najd ; 
 the date crops had been ruined, and the beasts of burden had 
 died in large numbers ; and the country people at large were 
 unwilling to engage at this juncture on an expedition far from 
 their homes. To some, the time of the year seemed unseason- 
 able ; whilst the intensity of the heat, the hardships of the 
 journey and the marvellous stories regarding the power of the 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 934 et seq. ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 219. 
 
 2 I allude to the expedition of /Elius Gallus under Augustus. 
 
viii. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS 103 
 
 Byzantine empire added largely to the fears of the timorous. 
 Many applied to be exempted from service ; and the Prophet 
 acceded to the prayers of those who were either too weak or 
 too poor to take up arms or leave their homes, and such others 
 as had no one besides themselves to look after their families. 1 
 
 The unwillingness of the lukewarm was aggravated by the 
 machinations of the Mundfikin, who spared no endeavours to 
 fan it into discontent. 2 The example, however, of the principal 
 disciples and other sincere followers of the Faith, infused 
 vitality into the hearts of the timorous, and shamed the back- 
 sliders into enthusiasm which soon spread among the people. 
 Contributions poured in from all sides. Abu Bakr offered all he 
 possessed towards the expenses of the expedition ; Osman 
 equipped and supplied at his own expense a large body of 
 volunteers, and the other prominent and affluent Moslems were 
 equally generous. The women brought their ornaments and 
 jewelleries and besought the Prophet to accept the same for 
 the needs of the State. A sufficient force was eventually 
 collected, 3 and accompanied by the Prophet the volunteers 
 marched towards the frontier. 
 
 During his absence from Medina the Prophet left Ali in 
 charge of the city. The Mundfikin, with Abdullah ibn-Ubayy, 
 had proceeded with the army as far as "the Mount of Farewell," 4 
 but they quietly fell back from there and returned to the city. 
 Here they spread the report that the Prophet had not taken 
 his cousin with him as he was apprehensive of the dangers of 
 the expedition. Stung by the malicious rumour, Ali seized his 
 arms and hastened after the army. Overtaking the troops, he 
 told the Prophet what he had heard. Mohammed pronounced 
 
 1 These were called the al-Bakkaun, the Weepers, as they were distressed 
 by their inability to join in the sacred enterprise of repelling a dangerous 
 enemy. — Ibn-Hisham, p. 791 ; al-Halabi, Insdn ul-'Uy-un, vol. iii. p. 75. 
 
 2 The machinations of the Disaffected are censured in Sura IX, v. 82. These 
 secret conspirators had for their rendezvous the house of a Jew named 
 Suwailim near the suburb of Jasum. This house was ultimately rased to 
 the ground. It was at this time that the great Teacher made the prophecy 
 that there will always be Mundfikin in Islam to thwart the endeavours of the 
 true followers of the Faith to do good to their people. 
 
 3 It was called the Jaish-ttl-'usra, " the army of distress," owing to the 
 difficulties with which it was collected ; Ibn-Hisham, p. 795. 
 
 1 Tftiniat-ul-Wadu' with a o % , Mn'jam ul-Bitldan, vol. i. p. 937. 
 
104 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 it to be a base calumny. " I have appointed thee my Vice- 
 gerent (Khalifa) and left thee in my stead. Return then to 
 thy post, and be my deputy over my people and thine. O Ali, 
 art thou not content that thou art to me what Aaron was to 
 Moses." l Ali accordingly returned to Medina. 
 
 The sufferings of the troops from heat and thirst were 
 intense. After a long and painful march they reached Tabuk, 
 a place situated midway between Medina and Damascus, 2 
 where they halted. Here they learnt to their amazement, and 
 perhaps to their relief, that the apprehended attack was a 
 Grecian dream, and that the emperor had his hands full at 
 home. Finding, therefore, nothing at the moment to threaten 
 the safety of the Medinite commonwealth, the Prophet ordered 
 the Moslems to retrace their steps. 3 After a sojourn of twenty 
 days at Tabtik, where they found abundance of water for them- 
 selves and forage for their famished beasts of burden, the 
 Moslems returned to Medina in the month of Ramazan. 4 
 
 The Prophet's return to Medina was signalised by the arrival 
 of a deputation from the refractory and hard-hearted idolaters 
 of Tayef, the very people who had driven the poor Preacher 
 from their midst with insults and violence. 'Orwa, the Tayefite 
 chief, who had been to Mecca after the Hudaibiya incident as 
 the Koreishite envoy, was so impressed with the words of the 
 Teacher and his kindness, that shortly after the accomplish- 
 ment of his mission he had come to the Prophet and embraced 
 his religion. Though repeatedly warned by Mohammed of the 
 dangers he ran among the bigoted of his city, he hastened back 
 to Tayef to proclaim his abjuration of idolatry, and to invite 
 
 Ibn-Hisham * c y~>* er* Oj)l* &>UJ ^v* ^Q m] y U ^y Kjf 
 
 p- 897. 
 
 According to the Shiahs, the Prophet distinctly indicated in these words 
 that Ali should be his successor. 
 
 2 Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. pp. 285, 286. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 904 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 215 ; Abulfeda, p. 85. 
 
 4 According to C. de Perceval, middle of December 630 a.c. Chapter iv. 
 of the Koran treats vividly of these events. At Tabuk Mohammed received 
 the submission of manv of the neighbouring chiefs ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. 
 p. 215. 
 
viii. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS 105 
 
 his fellow-citizens to share in the blessings imparted by the 
 new Faith. Arriving in the evening, he made public his 
 conversion and called upon the people to join him. The 
 following morning he again addressed them ; but his words 
 roused the priests and worshippers of 'Uzza into frenzy, and 
 they literally stoned him to death. With his dying breath he 
 said he had offered up his blood unto his Master for the good of 
 his people, and he thanked God for the honour of martyrdom, 
 and as a last wish prayed his friends to bury him by the side 
 of the Moslems who had fallen at Hunain. 1 The dying words 
 of 'Orwa had a greater effect upon his compatriots than all his 
 endeavours whilst living. The martyr's blood blossomed into 
 faith in the hearts of his murderers. Seized with sudden 
 compunction, perhaps also wearying of their hostility with the 
 tribes of the desert, the Tayefites sent the deputation to which 
 we have referred above, to pray for forgiveness and permission 
 to enter the circle of Islam. They begged, however, for a short 
 respite for their idols. First they asked two years, then one 
 year, and then six months, but all to no purpose. The grace of 
 one month might surely be conceded, they argued as a last 
 appeal. Mohammed was immovable. Islam and the idols 
 could not exist together. They then begged for exemption 
 from the daily prayers. Mohammed replied that without 
 devotion religion could be nothing. 2 Sorrowfully, at last, they 
 submitted to all that was required of them. They were 
 excused, however, from destroying the idols with their own 
 hands, and the notorious Abu Sufian, the son of Harb, the 
 father of the well-known Mu'awiyah, the Judas Iscariot of 
 Islam, one of those who have been stigmatised as the Muallafat 
 ul-Kulub (the nominal believers) — for they had adopted the 
 Faith from policy, — and Mughira, the nephew of 'Orwa, were 
 selected for that work. They executed their commission 
 amidst uproarious cries of despair and grief from the women of 
 Tayef. 3 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 914, 915 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 216. 
 
 2 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 217. 
 
 3 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 917, 918 ; Tabari, vol. iii. pp. 161-163. The great number 
 of deputations received by Mohammed in the ninth year has led to its being 
 called the "Year of Deputations"; (ivuftid, pi. of wafad). The principal 
 adhesions which followed immediately upon the conversion of the Thakif 
 
106 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 The tribe of Tay had about this time proved recalcitrant, 
 and their disaffection was fostered by the idolatrous priesthood. 
 A small force was despatched under Ali to reduce them to 
 obedience and to destroy their idols. 'Adi, the son of the 
 famous Hatim, whose generosity and munificence have been 
 sung by poets and minstrels throughout the Eastern world, 
 was the chief of his tribe. On the approach of Ali he fled to 
 Syria ; but his sister, with some of his principal clansmen, fell 
 into the hands of the Moslems. They were conducted, with 
 every mark of respect and sympathy, to Medina. Mohammed 
 at once set the daughter of Hatim and her people at liberty, 
 and bestowed on them many valuable gifts. She proceeded to 
 Syria, and told her brother of the nobleness of Mohammed. 
 Touched by gratitude, 'Adi hastened to Medina to throw 
 himself at the feet of the Prophet, and eventually embraced 
 Islam. Returning to his people, he persuaded them to abjure 
 idolatry ; and the Bani-Tay, once so wedded to fetishism, 
 became thenceforth devoted followers of the religion of 
 Mohammed. 1 
 
 Another notable conversion which took place about the same 
 time as that of the Bani-Tay is deserving of more than passing 
 notice. Ka'b ibn-Zuhair, a distinguished poet of the tribe of 
 Mozayna, had placed himself under the ban by trying to incite 
 hostilities against the Moslems. His brother was a Moslem 
 
 were of the Himyarite princes of Yemen, of Mahra, of Oman, of the country 
 of the Bahrain, and of the tribes domiciled in Yemama. 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 948, 949 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 218 ; Ins&n nl-'Uydn, 
 vol. iii. p. 234. The conversion of 'Adi occurred in Rabi II. of the ninth year 
 (July- August, 630 a.c), and accordingly, ought to have been placed before 
 the expedition to Tabuk. But I have followed the order of the Arab historians. 
 When the daughter of Hatim, whose name was Sufana, came before the 
 Prophet, she addressed him in the following words : " Apostle of God, my 
 father is dead ; my brother, my only relation, fled into the mountains on the 
 approach of the Moslems. I cannot ransom myself ; it is thy generosity 
 which I implore for my deliverance. My father was an illustrious man, the 
 prince of his tribe, a man who ransomed prisoners, protected the honour of 
 women, nourished the poor, consoled the afflicted, never rejected any demand. 
 I am Sufana, daughter of Hatim." " Thy father," answered Mohammed, 
 'had the virtues of a Musulman ; if it were permitted to me to invoke the 
 mercy of God on any one whose life was passed in idolatry, I would pray to 
 God for mercy for the soul of Hatim." Then addressing the Moslems around 
 him, he said : " The daughter of Hatim is free, her father was a generous and 
 humane man ; God loves and rewards the merciful." And with Sufana, all 
 her people were set at liberty. The Persian poet Sa'di has some beautiful 
 lines in the Bostdn concerning this touching episode. 
 
viii. THE YEAR OF DEPUTATIONS 107 
 
 and had counselled him strongly to renounce idolatry and 
 embrace Islam. Ka'b, following the advice of his brother, 
 came secretly to Medina, and proceeded to the mosque where 
 Mohammed was wont to preach. There he saw a man sur- 
 rounded by Arabs listening to his words with the greatest 
 veneration. He at once recognised the Prophet, and penetrat- 
 ing into the circle, said aloud, " Apostle of God, if I should 
 bring before thee Ka'b as a Musulman, would you pardon 
 him ? " " Yes," answered Mohammed. "It is I who am 
 Ka'b, the son of Zuhair." Several people around the Prophet 
 wanted leave to put him to death. " No," said the Prophet, 
 " I have given him grace." Ka'b then begged permission to 
 recite a Kasida x (poem) which has always been considered a 
 masterpiece of Arabic poetry. When he came to the lines 2 
 quoted at the head of this chapter, the Prophet bestowed on 
 the poet his own mantle, which was afterwards sold by his 
 family to Mu'awiyah for 40,000 dirhems, and, after passing into 
 the hands of the Ommeyades and Abbasides, is now in the 
 possession of the Ottoman Caliphs. 3 
 
 Hitherto no prohibition had issued against the heathens 
 entering the Kaaba, or performing their old idolatrous rites 
 within its sacred precincts. It was now decided to put an end 
 to this anomalous state, and remove once for all any possibility 
 
 1 Called the Kasida of Banal Su'ad from the opening words of the poem, 
 which begins with the prologue usual in Arabic Kasidas. The poet tells 
 his grief at the departure of Su'ad (his beloved) ; she has left him, his heart 
 is drooping, distracted and unhappy, following her train like a captive in 
 chains. He praises her beauty, her sweet soft voice, her bright laughter, her 
 winsome smile. The theme suddenly changes, and the poet reaches the 
 climax when he bursts forth into a song of praise of his great subject. The 
 language throughout is sonorous and virile — a quality often wanting in the 
 poems of later times, and the rhythmical swing and cadence are maintained, 
 with extraordinary evenness, up to the last. 
 
 2 " The Prophet is the torch which has lighted up the world ; he is the 
 sword of God for destroying ungodliness." 
 
 3 Called the Khirkai-sharif (the Holy Mantle) which is taken out as the 
 national standard in times of great emergency. The Kasida of Bdnat Su'ad, 
 which is sometimes also called the Kasidat-ul-Burda (the Kasida of the 
 Mantle), is different from the Kasidat-ul-Burda of Abu Abdullah Mohammed 
 ibn-Sa'id, who flourished in the reign of Malik Zahir, which opens with the 
 following lines : — 
 
 gn u*« ^ ^ u*j J^; . £ ^. ^ Jg j^ 
 
 For translation see Appendix. 
 
io8 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 of a relapse into idolatry on the part of those upon whom the 
 new and pure creed hung somewhat lightly. Accordingly, 
 towards the end of this year, during the month of pilgrimage, 
 Ali was commissioned to read a proclamation to the assembled 
 multitudes, on the day of the great Sacrifice (Yeum-un-Nahr), 
 which should strike straight at the heart of idolatry and the 
 immoralities attendant upon it : "No idolater shall, after this 
 year, perform the pilgrimage ; no one shall make the circuit 
 (of the temple) naked ; x whoever hath a treaty with the 
 Prophet, it shall continue binding till its termination ; for the 
 rest, four months are allowed to every man to return to his 
 territories ; after that there will exist no obligation on the 
 Prophet, except towards those with whom treaties have been 
 concluded." 2 
 
 This " Declaration of Discharge," as it is styled by Moslem 
 writers, was a manifestation of far-sighted wisdom on the part 
 of the Prophet. It was impossible for the state of society and 
 morals which then existed to continue ; the idolaters mixing 
 year after year with the Moslem pilgrims, if allowed to perform 
 the lascivious and degrading ceremonies of their cult, would 
 soon have undone what Mohammed had so laboriously 
 accomplished. History had already seen another gifted, yet 
 uncultured, branch of the same stock as the Arabs, settling 
 amongst idolaters ; their leaders had tried to preserve the 
 worship of Jehovah by wholesale butcheries of the worshippers 
 of Baal. They had failed miserably. The Israelites had not 
 only succumbed under the evil influences which surrounded 
 them, but had even surpassed those whom they at first despised 
 in the practice of nameless abominations. Mohammed felt 
 that any compromise with heathenism would nullify all his 
 work. He accordingly adopted means seemingly harsh, but 
 yet benignant in their ultimate tendency. The vast concourse 
 who had listened to Ali returned to their homes, and before the 
 following year was over the majority of them were Moslems. 
 
 1 Alluding to a disgraceful custom of the idolatrous Arabs. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, pp. 921, 922 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 222 ; Abulfeda, p. 87. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED'S MISSION 
 
 C'V 
 
 ^UJI \ji^i\; s * iftJl ; AliJ^ai >U lj! 
 
 /i * ( 
 
 O 0' o 
 
 U ] y ^ *■>! Nflii-I; u£>; ^♦=v^ ^*-*i * UJ,jl a1! 
 
 DURING this year, 1 as in the preceding, numerous 
 embassies poured into Medina from every part of 
 Arabia to testify to the adhesion of their chiefs and 
 their tribes. To the teachers, whom Mohammed sent into 
 the different provinces, he invariably gave 
 the following injunctions : " Deal gently with A *° A "' 9 5 
 
 _ , , , , , , April 631 to 29th 
 
 the people, and be not harsh ; cheer them, March 632 a. c. 
 and contemn them not. And ye will meet 
 with many people of the books 2 who will question thee, 
 what is the key to heaven ? Reply to them (the key to 
 heaven is) to testify to the truth of God, and to do good 
 work." 3 
 
 The mission of Mohammed was now achieved. In the midst 
 of a nation steeped in barbarism a Prophet had arisen " to 
 rehearse unto them the signs of God to sanctify them, to teach 
 them the scriptures and knowledge, — them who before had 
 been in utter darkness." 4 He found them sunk in a degrading 
 and sanguinary superstition ; he inspired them with the belief 
 in one sole God of truth and love. He saw them disunited, 
 
 1 In the tenth year of the Hegira took place the conversions of the remain- 
 ing tribes of Yemen and of Hijaz. Then followed the conversions of the tribes 
 of Hazramut and Kinda 
 
 2 Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. 3 Ibn-Hisham, p. 907. 
 4 Koran, sura lxii. vers. 2-5. 
 
no THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED I. 
 
 and engaged in perpetual war with each other ; he united them 
 by the ties of brotherhood and charity. From time immemorial 
 the Peninsula had been wrapped in absolute moral darkness. 
 Spiritual life was utterly unknown. Neither Judaism nor 
 Christianity had made any lasting impression on the Arab 
 mind. The people were sunk in superstition, cruelty, and 
 vice. Incest and the diabolical custom of female infanticide 
 were common. The eldest son inherited his father's widows, 
 as property, with the rest of the estate. The worse than 
 inhuman fathers buried alive their infant daughters ; and this 
 crime, which was most rife among the tribes of Koreish and 
 Kinda, was regarded, as among the Hindu Rajpoots, a mark 
 of pride. The idea of a future existence, and of retribution of 
 good and evil, were, as motives of human action, practically 
 unknown. Only a few years before, such was the condition 
 of Arabia. What a change had these few years witnessed ! 
 The angel of heaven had veritably passed over the land, and 
 breathed harmony and love into the hearts of those who had 
 hitherto been engrossed in the most revolting practices of semi- 
 barbarism. What had once been a moral desert, where all 
 laws, human and divine, were contemned and infringed with- 
 out remorse, was now transformed into a garden. Idolatry, 
 with its nameless abominations, was utterly destroyed. Islam 
 furnishes the only solitary example of a great religion which 
 though preached among a nation and reigning for the most part 
 among a people not yet emerged from the dawn of an early 
 civilisation, had succeeded in effectually restraining its votaries 
 from idolatry. This phenomenon has been justly acknow- 
 ledged as the pre-eminent glory of Islam, and the most remark- 
 able evidence of the genius of its Founder. Long had 
 Christianity and Judaism tried to wean the Arab tribes from 
 their gross superstition, their inhuman practices, and their 
 licentious immorality. But it was not till they heard " the 
 spirit-stirring strains " of the " Appointed of God " that they 
 became conscious of the God of Truth, overshadowing the 
 universe with His power and love. Henceforth their aims are 
 not of this earth alone ; there is something beyond the grave — 
 higher, purer, and diviner — calling them to the practice of 
 charity, goodness, justice, and universal love. God is not 
 
ix. FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED'S MISSION in 
 
 merely the God of to-day or of to-morrow, carved out of wood 
 or stone, but the mighty, loving, merciful Creator of the world. 
 Mohammed was the source, under Providence, of this new 
 awakening, — the bright fountain from which flowed the stream 
 of their hopes of eternity ; and to him they paid a fitting 
 obedience and reverence. They were all animated with one 
 desire, namely, to serve God in truth and purity ; to obey His 
 laws reverently in all the affairs of life. The truths and 
 maxims, the precepts which, from time to time during the past 
 twenty years, Mohammed had delivered to his followers, were 
 embalmed in their hearts, and had become the ruling principles 
 of every action. Law and morality were united. " Never, 
 since the days when primitive Christianity startled the world 
 from its sleep, and waged a mortal conflict with heathenism, 
 had men seen the like arousing of spiritual life, — the like faith 
 that suffered sacrifices, and took joyfully the spoiling of goods 
 for conscience' sake." 1 
 
 The Mission of Mohammed was now accomplished. And in 
 this fact — the fact of the whole work being achieved in his 
 lifetime — lies his distinctive superiority over the prophets, 
 sages, and philosophers of other times and other countries. 
 Jesus, Moses, Zoroaster, Sakya-Muni, Plato, all had their 
 notions of realms of God, their republics, their ideas, through 
 which degraded humanity was to be elevated into a new moral 
 life ; all had departed from this world with their aspirations 
 unfulfilled, their bright visions unrealised ; or had bequeathed 
 the task of elevating their fellow-men to sanguinary disciples 
 or monarch pupils. 2 It was reserved for Mohammed to fulfil 
 his mission, and that of his predecessors. It was reserved for 
 him alone to see accomplished the work of amelioration— no 
 royal disciple came to his assistance with edicts to enforce the 
 new teachings. May not the Moslems justly say, the entire 
 work was the work of God ? 
 
 The humble preacher, who had only the other day been 
 hunted out of the city of his birth, and been stoned out of the 
 
 1 Muir, vol. ii. p. 269. Coming from an avowed enemy of Islam, this 
 observation is of the utmost value. 
 
 2 A Joshua among the Israelites ; an Asoka among the Buddhists ; a 
 Darius among the Zoroastrians ; a Constantine among the Christians. 
 
ii2 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 place where he had betaken himself to preach God's words, 
 had, within the short space of nine years, lifted up his people 
 from the abysmal depths of moral and spiritual degradation to 
 a conception of purity and justice. 
 
 His life is the noblest record of a work nobly and faithfully 
 performed. He infused vitality into a dormant people ; he 
 consolidated a congeries of warring tribes into a nation inspired 
 into action with the hope of everlasting life ; he concentrated 
 into a focus all the fragmentary and broken lights which had 
 ever fallen on the heart of man. Such was his work, and he 
 performed it with an enthusiasm and fervour which admitted 
 no compromise, conceived no halting ; with indomitable 
 courage which brooked no resistance, and allowed no fear of 
 consequences ; with a singleness of purpose which thought of 
 no self. The religion of divine unity preached on the shores 
 of Galilee had given place to the worship of an incarnate God ; 
 the old worship of a female deity had revived among those who 
 professed the creed of the Master of Nazareth. The Recluse 
 of Hira, the unlettered philosopher — born among a nation of 
 unyielding idolaters — impressed ineffaceably the unity of God 
 and the equality of men upon the minds of the nations who 
 once heard his voice. His " democratic thunder " was the 
 signal for the uprise of the human intellect against the tyranny 
 of priests and rulers. In " that world of wrangling creeds and 
 oppressive institutions," when the human soul was crushed 
 under the weight of unintelligible dogmas, and the human body 
 trampled under the tyranny of vested interests, he broke down 
 the barriers of caste and exclusive privileges. He swept away 
 with his breath the cobwebs which self-interest had woven in 
 the path of man to God. He abolished all exclusiveness in 
 man's relations to his Creator. This unlettered Prophet, whose 
 message was for the masses, proclaimed the value of knowledge 
 and learning. By the Pen, man's works are recorded. By 
 the Pen, man is to be judged. The Pen is the ultimate arbiter 
 of human actions in the sight of the Lord. His persistent and 
 unvarying appeal to reason and to the ethical faculty of man- 
 kind, his rejection of miracles, " his thoroughly democratic 
 conception of divine government, the universality of his 
 religious ideal, his simple humanity," — all serve to differentiate 
 
ix. FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED'S MISSION 113 
 
 him from his predecessors, " all affiliate him," says the author 
 of Oriental Religions, " with the modern world." His life and 
 work are not wrapt in mystery. No fairy tale has been woven 
 round his personality. 
 
 When the hosts of Arabia came flocking to join his faith, 
 the Prophet felt that his work was accomplished, 1 and under 
 the impression of his approaching end, he determined to make 
 a farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. On the 25th of Zu'1-Ka'da 
 (23rd February 632) , the Prophet left Medina with an immense 
 concourse of Moslems. 3 On his arrival at Mecca, and before 
 completing all the rites of the pilgrimage, he addressed the 
 assembled multitude from the top of the Jdbal ul-' Arafat (8th 
 Zu'1-Hijja, 7th March), in words which should ever live in the 
 hearts of all Moslems. 
 
 " Ye people ! listen to my words, for I know not whether 
 another year will be vouchsafed to me after this year to find 
 myself amongst you at this place." 
 
 " Your lives and property are sacred and inviolable amongst 
 one another until ye appear before the Lord, as this day and 
 this month is sacred for all ; and (remember) ye shall have to 
 appear before your Lord, who shall demand from you an 
 account of all your actions. ... Ye people, ye have rights over 
 your wives, and your wives have rights over you. . . . Treat 
 your wives with kindness and love. Verily ye have taken 
 them on the security of God, and have made their persons 
 lawful unto you by the words of God." " Keep always faithful 
 to the trust reposed in you, and avoid sins." " Usury is for- 
 bidden. 3 The debtor shall return only the principal ; and the 
 beginning will be made with (the loans of) my uncle Abbas, 
 
 1 Koran, sura ex. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisha.ni, p. 966 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 230. It is said that from 
 90,000 to 140,000 people accompanied the Prophet. This pilgrimage is called 
 the Hajjat-al-Balagh, the Great Hajj, or Hajjat-ul-Islam, the Hajj of Islam, 
 and sometimes Hajjat-ul-Wadd'a, Pilgrimage of Farewell. 
 
 3 Ribd or interest in kind was prohibited but not legitimate profit on 
 advances or loans for purposes of business or trade. No one who realises the 
 economic condition of Arabia can fail to appreciate the wisdom of this rule. 
 In fact the same reasons which impelled the great Prophet to forbid usury in 
 his country, induced the Christian divines, up to nearly the end of the seven- 
 teenth century of the Christian era, to anathematise against usury. The 
 elder Disraeli's chapter on this subject in his Curiosities of Literature is most 
 interesting. 
 
 S.I. H 
 
ii4 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 son of Abd ul-Muttalib. 1 . . . Henceforth the vengeance of 
 blood practised in the days of paganism (Jdhilyat) is prohibited ; 
 and all blood-feud abolished, commencing with the murder of 
 Ibn Rabi'a 2 son of Harith son of Abd ul-Muttalib . . . 
 
 " And your slaves-! See that ye feed them with such food 
 as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear ; 
 and if they commit a fault which ye are not inclined to forgive, 
 then part from them, for they are the servants of the Lord, and 
 are not to be harshly treated." 
 
 " Ye people ! listen to my words and understand the same. 
 Know that all Moslems are brothers unto one another. Ye are 
 one brotherhood. Nothing which belongs to another is lawful 
 unto his brother, unless freely given out of good-will. Guard 
 yourselves from committing injustice." 
 
 " Let him that is present tell it unto him that is absent. 
 Haply he that shall be told may remember better than he who 
 hath heard it." 3 
 
 This Sermon on the Mount, less poetically beautiful, certainly 
 less mystical, than the other, appeals by its practicality and 
 strong common-sense to higher minds, and is also adapted to 
 the capacity and demands of inferior natures which require 
 positive and comprehensible directions for moral guidance. 
 
 Towards the conclusion of the sermon, the Prophet, over- 
 come by the sight of the intense enthusiasm of the people 
 as they drank in his words, exclaimed, " O Lord ! I have 
 delivered my message and accomplished my work." The 
 assembled host below with one voice cried, " Yea, verily 
 thou hast." "O Lord, I beseech Thee, bear Thou witness 
 unto it." 
 
 With these words the Prophet finished his address, which, 
 according to the traditions, was remarkable for its length, its 
 eloquence, and enthusiasm. Soon after, the necessary rites of 
 
 1 This shows that Abbas must have been a rich man. In the application 
 of the rule against Ribd and blood-feud, the Prophet set to his fiery people the 
 example of self-denial in his own family. 
 
 2 Ibn Rabi'a, a cousin of the Prophet. He was confided, in his infancy, to 
 the care of a family of the Bani Laith. This child was cruelly murdered by 
 members of the tribe of Huzail, but the murder was not yet avenged. 
 
 3 After each sentence the Prophet stopped and his words were repeated in 
 a stentorian voice by Rabi'a, the son of Ommeyya, son of Khalaf, who stood 
 below, so that whatever was said was heard by the entire assembled host. 
 
ix. FULFILMENT OF MOHAMMED'S MISSION 115 
 
 the pilgrimage being finished, the Prophet returned with his 
 followers to Medina. 1 
 
 The last year of Mohammed's life was spent in that city. He 
 settled the organisation of the provinces and 
 tribal communities which had adopted Islam , ", A - H - 2 9 th 
 
 -,-, ,1 , e 7i tit 1 March 6 ^2 to 1 8th 
 
 and become the component parts of the Moslem March 633 a.c. 
 federation. In fact, though the Faith had not 
 penetrated among the Arab races settled in Syria and Meso- 
 potamia, most of whom were Christians, the whole of Arabia 
 now followed the Islamic Faith. Officers were sent to the 
 provinces and to the various tribes for the purpose of teaching 
 the people the duties of Islam, administering justice, and collect- 
 ing the tithes or zakdt. Mu'az ibn-Jabal was sent to Yemen, 
 and Mohammed's parting injunction to him was to rely on his 
 own judgment in the administration of affairs in the event of 
 not finding any authority in the Koran. To Ali, whom he 
 deputed to Yemama, he said, " When two parties come before 
 you for justice, do not decide before hearing both." 
 
 Preparations were also commenced for sending an expedition 
 under Osama, the son of Zaid, who was killed at Muta, against 
 the Byzantines to exact the long-delayed reparation for the 
 murder of the envoy in Syria. In fact, the troops were already 
 encamped outside the city ready for the start. But the poison 
 which had been given to the Prophet by the Jewess at Khaibar, 
 and which had slowly penetrated into his system, began now to 
 show its effects, and it became evident that he had not long to 
 live. The news of his approaching end led to the stoppage of 
 the expedition under Osama. It had also the effect of pro- 
 ducing disorder in some of the outlying provinces. Three 
 pretenders started up claiming divine commission for their 
 reign of licentiousness and plunder. They gave themselves 
 out as prophets, and tried by all kinds of imposture to win over 
 their tribes. One of these, the most dangerous of all, was 
 Ayhala ibn-Ka'b, better known as al-Aswad (the black). He 
 
 1 Abdullah the son of Ubayy, the head of the MunafiUn, died in the month 
 of Zu'l Ka'da (February, 631 a.c). In his last moments he solicited the 
 Prophet to say the funeral prayers over him. Mohammed, who never rejected 
 the wishes of a dying man, against the remonstrances of Omar, who reminded 
 him of the persistent opposition and calumny of Abdullah, offered the prayers 
 and with his own hands lowered the body into the grave. 
 
n6 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 was a chief of Yemen, a man of great wealth and equal sagacity, 
 and a clever conjuror. Among his simple tribesmen, the 
 conjuring tricks he performed invested him with a divine 
 character. He soon succeeded in gaining them over, and, with 
 their help, reduced to subjection many of the neighbouring 
 towns. He killed Shahr, who had been appointed by Moham- 
 med to the governorship of Sana' in the place of Bazan, his 
 father, who had just died. Bazan had been the viceroy of 
 Yemen under the Chosroes of Persia, and after his adoption 
 of Islam was continued in his viceroyalty by the Prophet. He 
 had during his lifetime exercised great influence, not only over 
 his Persian compatriots settled in Yemen, who were called by 
 the name of Abnd, but also over the Arabs of the province. 
 His example had led to the conversion of all the Persian settlers 
 of Yemen. Al-Aswad, the impostor, had massacred Shahr, 
 and forcibly married his wife Marzbana. He was killed by the 
 A bnd, assisted by Marzbana, when he was lying drunk, after one 
 of his orgies. The other two pretenders, Tulaiha, son of Khu- 
 wailid, and Abu Thumama Haran, son of Habib, commonly 
 called Mosailima, were not suppressed until the accession of 
 Abu Bakr to the Caliphate. Mosailima had the audacity to 
 address the Prophet in the following terms : " From Mosailima, 
 prophet of God, to Mohammed, prophet of God, salutations ! 
 I am your partner : the power must be divided between us : 
 half the earth for me, the other half for your Koreishites. But 
 the Koreishites are a grasping people, not given to justice." 
 Mohammed's reply reveals his sterling nature. " In the name 
 of God the merciful and compassionate, from Mohammed, the 
 Prophet of God, to Mosailima the Liar. 1 Peace is on those 
 who follow the right path. The earth belongs to God ; He 
 bestows it on such of His servants as He pleaseth. The future 
 is to the pious [i.e. only those prosper who fear the Lord] ! " 
 
 The last days of the Prophet were remarkable for the calm- 
 ness and serenity of his mind, which enabled him, though weak 
 and feeble, to preside at the public prayers until within three 
 days of his death. One night, at midnight, he went to the 
 place where his old companions were lying in the slumber of 
 death, and prayed and wept by their tombs, invoking God's 
 
 1 Kazzab, superlative of Kdzib. 
 
ix. THE LAST ILLNESS OF THE PROPHET 117 
 
 blessings for his " companions resting in peace." He chose 
 'Ayesha's house, close to the mosque, for his stay during his 
 illness, and, as long as his strength lasted, took part in the 
 public prayers. The last time he appeared in the mosque he 
 was supported by his two cousins, Ali and Fazl, the son of 
 Abbas. A smile of inexpressible sweetness played over his 
 countenance, and was remarked by all who surrounded him. 
 After the usual praises and hymns to God, he addressed the 
 multitude thus : " Moslems, if I have wronged any one of you, 
 here I am to answer for it ; if I owe aught to any one, all I may 
 happen to possess belongs to you." Upon hearing this, a man 
 in the crowd rose and claimed three dirhems which he had 
 given to a poor man at the Prophet's request. They were 
 immediately paid back, with the words, " Better to blush in 
 this world than in the next." The Prophet then prayed and 
 implored heaven's mercy for those present, and for those who 
 had fallen in the persecutions of their enemies ; and recom- 
 mended to all his people the observance of religious duties 
 and the practice of a life of peace and good-will, and concluded 
 with the following words of the Koran : " The dwelling of the 
 other life we will give unto them who do not seek to exalt 
 themselves on earth or to do wrong ; for the happy issue shall 
 attend the pious." 1 
 
 After this, Mohammed never again appeared at public 
 prayers. His strength rapidly failed. At noon on Monday 
 (12th of Rabi I., n a.h. — 8th June 632 a.c), whilst praying 
 earnestly in whisper, the spirit of the great Prophet took flight 
 to the " blessed companionship on high." 2 
 
 So ended a life consecrated, from first to last, to the service 
 of God and humanity. Is there another to be compared to 
 his, with all its trials and temptations ? Is there another which 
 has stood the fire of the world, and come out so unscathed ? 
 The humble preacher had risen to be the ruler of Arabia, the 
 equal of Chosroes and of Caesar, the arbiter of the destinies of 
 a nation. But the same humility of spirit, the same nobility 
 
 1 Koran, sura xxviii. ver. 83 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. p. 241 ; Tabari, vol. iii. 
 p. 207 et seq. 
 
 2 Ibn-Hisham, p. 1009 ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. ii. pp. 244, 245 ; Abulfeda, p. 91. 
 Comp. Caussin de Perceval, vol. iii. p. 322 and note ; al-Halabi , in loco. 
 
n8 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 of soul and purity of heart, austerity of conduct, refinement 
 and delicacy of feeling, and stern devotion to duty which had 
 won him the title of al-Amin, combined with a severe sense of 
 self-examination, are ever the distinguishing traits of his 
 character. Once in his life, whilst engaged in a religious con- 
 versation with an influential citizen of Mecca, he had turned 
 away from a humble blind seeker of the truth. He is always 
 recurring to this incident with remorse, and proclaiming God's 
 disapprobation. 1 A nature so pure, so tender, and yet so 
 heroic, inspires not only reverence, but love. And naturally 
 the Arabian writers dwell with the proudest satisfaction on the 
 graces and intellectual gifts of the son of Abdullah. His 
 courteousness to the great, his affability to the humble, and 
 his dignified bearing to the presumptuous, procured him 
 universal respect and admiration. His countenance reflected 
 the benevolence of his heart. Profoundly read in the volume 
 of nature, though ignorant of letters, with an expansive mind, 
 elevated by deep communion with the Soul of the Universe, he 
 was gifted with the power of influencing equally the learned 
 and the unlearned. Withal, there was a majesty in his face, 
 an air of genius, which inspired all who came in contact with 
 him with a feeling of veneration and love. 2 
 
 His singular elevation of mind, his extreme delicacy and 
 refinement of feeling, his purity and truth, form the constant 
 theme of the traditions. He was most indulgent to his inferiors, 
 
 1 The Sura in connection with this incident is known by the title of "He 
 frowned," and runs thus : — - 
 
 "The Prophet frowned, and turned aside, 
 
 Because the blind man came to him. 
 
 And how knowest thou whether he might not have been cleansed from 
 his sins. 
 
 Or whether he might have been admonished, and profited thereby ? 
 
 As for the man that is rich, 
 
 Him thou receivest graciously ; 
 
 And thou carest not that he is not cleansed. 
 
 But as for him that cometh unto thee earnestly seeking his salvation, 
 
 And trembling anxiously, him dost thou neglect. 
 
 By no means shouldst thou act thus." 
 After this, whenever the Prophet saw the poor blind man, he used to go 
 out of his way to do him honour, saying, " The man is thrice welcome on 
 whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me " ; and he made him twice 
 governor of Medina. See the remark of Bosworth Smith on Muir about this 
 incident. 
 
 2 Mishkat, Bk. xxiv. chap. 3, pt. 2. 
 
ix. THE CHARACTER OF THE PROPHET 119 
 
 and would never allow his awkward little page to be scolded 
 whatever he did. " Ten years," said Anas, his servant, " was 
 I about the Prophet, and he never said so much as ' Uff ' to 
 me." x He was very affectionate towards his family. One of 
 his boys died on his breast in the smoky house of the nurse, a 
 blacksmith's wife. He was very fond of children. He would 
 stop them in the streets, and pat their little cheeks. He never 
 struck any one in his life. The worst expression he ever made 
 use of in conversation was, " What has come to him ? May 
 his forehead be darkened with mud ! " 2 When asked to curse 
 some one, he replied, " I have not been sent to curse, but to 
 be a mercy to mankind." 
 
 He visited the sick, followed every bier he met, accepted the 
 invitation of a slave to dinner, mended his own clothes, milked 
 his goats, and waited upon himself, relates summarily another 
 tradition. 3 He never first withdrew his hand from another's 
 palm, and turned not before the other had turned. His hand 
 was the most generous, his breast the most courageous, his 
 tongue the most truthful ; he was the most faithful protector 
 of those he protected ; the sweetest and most agreeable in 
 
 1 Ibid. Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 1. 
 
 - Ibid. Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 1. 
 
 Mr. Poole's estimate of Mohammed is so beautiful and yet so truthful that 
 I cannot resist the temptation to quote it here : " There is something so 
 tender and womanly, and withal so heroic, about the man, that one is in peril 
 of finding the judgment unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and 
 well-nigh love that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone braved 
 for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to with- 
 draw his hand from another's clasp ; the beloved of children, who never passed 
 a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and a kind word 
 for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice. The frank friend- 
 ship, the noble generosity, the dauntless courage and hope of the man, all 
 tend to melt criticism into admiration." 
 
 " He was an enthusiast in that noblest sense when enthusiasm becomes the 
 salt of the earth, the one thing that keeps men from rotting whilst they live. 
 Enthusiasm is often used despitefully, because it is joined to an unworthy 
 cause, or falls upon barren ground and bears no fruit. So was it not with 
 Mohammed. He was an enthusiast when enthusiasm was the one thing 
 needed to set the world aflame, and his enthusiasm was noble for a noble cause. 
 He was one of those happy few who have attained the supreme joy of making 
 one great truth their very life-spring. He was the messenger of the one God ; 
 and never to his life's end did he forget who he was, or the message which was 
 the marrow of his being. He brought his tidings to his people with a grand 
 dignity sprung from the consciousness of his high office, together with a most 
 sweet humility, whose roots lay in the knowledge of his own weakness." 
 
 3 Mishkat, Bk. xxiv. chap. 4, pt. 2. 
 
120 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 conversation ; those who saw him were suddenly filled with 
 reverence ; those who came near him loved him ; they who 
 described him would say, " I have never seen his like, either 
 before or after." He was of great taciturnity ; and when he 
 spoke, he spoke with emphasis and deliberation, and no one 
 could ever forget what he said. " Modesty and kindness, 
 patience, self-denial, and generosity pervaded his conduct, and 
 riveted the affections of all around him. With the bereaved 
 and afflicted he sympathised tenderly ... He shared his food 
 even in times of scarcity with others, and was sedulously 
 solicitous for the personal comfort of every one about him." 
 He would stop in the streets listening to the sorrows of the 
 humblest. He would go to the houses of the lowliest to 
 console the afflicted and to comfort the heart-broken. The 
 meanest slaves would take hold of his hand and drag him to 
 their masters to obtain redress for ill-treatment or release from 
 bondage. 1 He never sat down to a meal without first invoking 
 a blessing, and never rose without uttering a thanks-giving. 
 His time was regularly apportioned. During the day, when 
 not engaged in prayers, he received visitors and transacted 
 public affairs. At night he slept little, spending most of the 
 hours in devotion. He loved the poor and respected them, 
 and many who had no home or shelter of their own slept at 
 night in the mosque contiguous to his house. Each evening it 
 was his custom to invite some of them to partake of his humble 
 fare. The others became the guests of his principal disciples. 2 
 His conduct towards the bitterest of his enemies was marked 
 by a noble clemency and forbearance. Stern, almost to 
 severity, to the enemies of the State, mockings, affronts, 
 outrages, and persecutions towards himself were, in the hour 
 of triumph — synonymous with the hour of trial to the human 
 heart — all buried in oblivion, and forgiveness was extended to 
 the worst criminal. 
 
 Mohammed was extremely simple in his habits. His mode 
 of life, his dress and his belongings, retained to the very last a 
 character of patriarchal simplicity. Many a time, Abu Huraira 
 reports, had the Prophet to go without a meal. Dates and 
 
 1 Hayat-ul-Kulub (Shiah) and the Rouzat-ul-Ahbab (Sunni). 
 
 2 Abulfeda, p. 99; al-Halabi, Insan ul-'Uytin, vol. iii. p. 362. 
 
ix. THE CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 121 
 
 water frequently formed his only nourishment. Often, for 
 months together, no fire could be lighted in his house from 
 scantiness of means. God, say the Moslem historians, had 
 indeed put before him the key to the treasures of this world, 
 but he refused it ! 
 
 The mind of this remarkable Teacher was, in its in- 
 tellectualism and progressive ideals, essentially modern. 
 Eternal " striving " was in his teachings a necessity of human 
 existence : " Man cannot exist without constant effort " ; 1 
 " The effort is from me, its fulfilment comes from God." 2 
 The world, he taught, was a well-ordered Creation, regulated 
 and guided by a Supreme Intelligence overshadowing the 
 Universe — " Everything is pledged to its own time," 3 he 
 declared. And yet human will was free to work for its own 
 salvation. His sympathy was universal ; it was he who 
 invoked the mercy of the Creator on all living beings. 4 It 
 was he who pronounced the saving of one human life as 
 tantamount to the saving of humanity. 
 
 His social conception was constructive not disintegrating. 
 In his most exalted mood he never overlooked the sanctity of 
 family life. To him the service of humanity was the highest 
 act of devotion. His call to his faithful was not to forsake 
 those to whom they owed a duty ; but in the performance of 
 that duty to earn " merit " and reward. Children were a 
 trust from God, to be brought up in tenderness and affection ; 
 parents were to be respected and loved. The circle of duty 
 embraced in its fold kindred, neighbour, and the humble being 
 " whose mouth was in the dust." 
 
 Fourteen centuries have passed since he delivered his 
 message, but time has made no difference in the devotion 
 he inspired, and to-day as then the Faithful have in their 
 hearts and on their lips those memorable words : — 
 
 " May my life be thy sacrifice, O Prophet of God." 
 
 r&vj'l '^)^x>--^ ^Y-^ dnlLi) «>'. 
 

 CHAPTER X 
 THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 
 
 THE spiritual life the Prophet had infused into his 
 people did not end with his life. From the first it was 
 an article of faith that he was present in spirit with the 
 worshippers at their prayers, and that his successors in 
 the ministry were his representatives. The immanence of the 
 Master's spirit during the devotions establishes the harmony 
 between the soul of man and the Divine Essence. Amongst 
 all the dynastic rivalries and schismatic strife this mystical 
 conception of his spiritual presence at the prayers has imparted 
 a force to the Faith which cannot be over-estimated. 
 
 The two great sects into which Islam became divided at an 
 early stage are agreed that the religious efficacy of the rites 
 and duties prescribed by the Law (the Shari'at) depends on 
 the existence of the vice-gerent and representative of the 
 Prophet, who, as such, is the religious Head (Imam) of the 
 Faith and the Faithful. 
 
 The adherents of the Apostolical Imams have a development 
 and philosophy of their own quite distinct from " the followers 
 of the traditions." According to them the spiritual heritage 
 bequeathed by the Prophet devolved on Ali and his descend- 
 ants by Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. They hold that the 
 Imamate descends by Divine appointment in the apostolic 
 line. They do not regard the Pontificate of Abu Bakr, Omar 
 and Osman as rightful ; they consider that Ali, who. was 
 indicated by the Prophet as his successor, was the first rightful 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 123 
 
 Caliph and Imam of the Faithful, and that after his assassina- 
 tion the spiritual headship descended in succession to his 
 and Fatima's posterity in " the direct male line " until it came 
 to Imam Hasan al-'Askari, eleventh in descent from Ali, 
 who died in the year 874 A.c. or 260 of the Hegira in the reign 
 of the Abbaside Caliph Mu'tamid. Upon his death the 
 Imamate devolved upon his son Mohammed, surnamed al- 
 Mahdi (the " Guide "), the last Imam. The story of these 
 Imams of the House of Mohammed is intensely pathetic. 
 The father of Hasan was deported from Medina to Samarra 
 by the tyrant Mutawakkil, and detained there until his death. 
 Similarly, Hasan was kept a prisoner by the jealousy of 
 Mutawakkil's successors. His infant son, barely five years 
 of age, pining for his father, entered in search of him a cavern 
 not far from their house. From that cavern the child never 
 returned. The pathos of this calamity culminated in the 
 hope, the expectation, which fills the hearts of all Shiahs, 
 that the child may return to relieve a sorrowing and sinful 
 world of its burden of sin and oppression. So late as the 
 fourteenth century of the Christian era, when Ibni Khaldun x 
 was writing his great work, the Shiahs were wont to assemble 
 at eventide at the entrance of the cavern and supplicate the 
 missing child to return to them. After a long and wistful 
 waiting, they dispersed to their homes, disappointed and sorrow- 
 ful. This, says Ibn Khaldun, was a daily occurrence. " When 
 they were told it was hardly possible the child could be alive," 
 they answered that, "as the Prophet Khizr 2 was alive why 
 should not their Imam be alive also?" This Imam bears 
 among the Shiahs the titles, the Muntazar, the Expected — 
 the Hujja or the Proof (of the Truth), and the Kdim, the 
 Living. 
 
 The philosophical student of religions will not fail to observe 
 the strange similarity of the Shiah and the Sunni beliefs 
 to older ideas. Among the Zoroastrians the persecution 
 of the Seleucidae engendered the belief that a divinely appointed 
 Saviour, whose name was Sosiosch, would issue from Khorasan 
 to release them from the hated bondage of the foreigner. 
 The same causes gave birth to that burning anticipation 
 
 1 See post, p. 126. 2 See Appendix III. 
 
124 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 among the Jews in the advent of the Messiah. The Jew 
 believes that the Messiah is yet to come ; the Sunni, like him, 
 believes that the Saviour of Islam is still unborn. The 
 Christian believes that the Messiah has come and gone, and 
 will come again ; the Asna-'asharia, 1 like the Christian, awaits 
 the reappearance of the Mahdi, the Guide, who is to save the 
 world from evil and oppression. The origin of these conceptions 
 and the reasons of their diversity are traceable to like causes. 
 The phenomena of the age in which the idea of the Mahdi 
 took shape in its two distinct forms were similar to those 
 visible in the history of the older faiths. Every eventide 
 the prayer goes up to heaven in Islam, as in Judaism and 
 Christianity, for the advent of the divinely-appointed Guide, 
 to redeem the world from sorrow and sin. 
 
 The Shiah believes that the Imam though ghdib (absent), 
 is always present in spirit at the devotions of his fold. The 
 expounders of the law and the ministers of religion are his 
 representatives on earth ; and even the secular chiefs represent 
 him in the temporal affairs of the world. Another point of 
 difference between them and the Sunnis consists in the qualities 
 required for the Imamate. According to the Shiahs the 
 Imam must be sinless or immaculate {m'asum), a quality which 
 their Imams alone possess, and that he must be the most ex- 
 cellent (afzal) of mankind. 
 
 The Sunni doctrines which govern the lives, thoughts, and 
 conduct of the bulk of the Moslem world are diametrically 
 opposed to the Shiah conception. The Sunni religious law 
 insists that the Imam must be actually present in person to 
 impart religious efficacy to the devotions of the Faithful ; 
 and that, where it is not possible for him to lead the prayers, 
 he should be represented by persons possessing the necessary 
 qualifications. 
 
 These doctrines are enunciated in detail in most works on 
 jurisprudence and scholastic theology. The Khildfat, it is 
 explained, is the Vice-gerency of the Prophet ; it is ordained 
 by Divine Law for the perpetuation of Islam and the continued 
 observance of its laws and rules. For the existence of Islam, 
 therefore, there must always be a Caliph, an actual and direct 
 
 1 See post, p. 344. 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 125 
 
 representative of the Master. The Imamate is the spiritual 
 leadership ; but the two dignities are inseparable ; the Vice- 
 gerent of the Prophet is the only person entitled to lead the 
 prayers when he can himself be present. No one else can 
 assume his functions unless directly or indirectly " deputed " 
 by him. Between the Imam and the mdmum x or congregation, 
 there is a spiritual tie which binds the one to the other in the 
 fealty to the Faith. There is no inconsistency between this 
 dogma and the rule that there is no priesthood in Islam. 
 Each man pleads for himself before his Lord, and each soul 
 holds communion with God without the intermediation of any 
 other human being. The Imam is the link between the 
 individual worshipper and the evangel of Islam. This mystical 
 element in the religion of Islam forms the foundation of its 
 remarkable solidarity. 
 
 The above remarks serve to emphasise the statement in the 
 Durr-ul-Mukhtdr that Imamate is of two kinds, the Imdmat- 
 al-Kubrd and the Imdmat-as-Sughrd, the supreme spiritual 
 Headship and the minor derivative right to officiate at the 
 devotions of the Faithful. The Imam al-Kabir, the supreme 
 Pontiff, is the Caliph of the Sunni world. He combines in his 
 person the spiritual and temporal authority which devolves 
 on him as the vicegerent of the Master. Secular affairs are 
 conducted by him in consultation with councillors as under 
 the first four Caliphs, or, as in later times, by delegates, collect- 
 ively or individually. Similarly with religious and spiritual 
 matters. But in the matter of public prayers, unless physically 
 prostrate, he is bound to conduct the congregational service 
 in person. 
 
 Among the Shiahs, even Friday prayers and prayers offered 
 at the well-known festivals, may validly be performed indi- 
 vidually and in private. According to the Sunni doctrines 
 congregational prayers, where mosques or other places of 
 public worship are accessible, are obligatory ; abstention from 
 attendance without valid reason is a sin, and the defaulters 
 incur even temporal penalties. In Najd, under the rule of 
 the Wahabis, who have been called the Covenanters of Islam, 
 
 1 This is the term used in the Fatawai-A lamgiri . The individual follower 
 is usually called the Muktadi. 
 
126 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 laggards were whipped into the mosque. And to-day under 
 Ibni S'aud, his followers who designate themselves Ikhwdn, or 
 " Brothers in faith," pursue the same method for enforcing 
 the observance of religious rites. Prayers bi'l jama at being 
 obligatory (farz'ain) naturally made the presence of the Imam 
 absolutely obligatory. 1 
 
 The Sunnis affirm that when stricken by his last illness the 
 Prophet deputed Abu Bakr to lead the prayers. On his 
 death, but before he was consigned to his grave, the Master's 
 nomination was accepted by the " congregation " and Abu 
 Bakr was installed as his vicegerent by the unanimous suffrage 
 of the Moslems. And this has ever since been the universal 
 practice in all regular lines. 
 
 Amongst the qualifications necessary for occupying the 
 pontifical seat, the first and most essential is that he must 
 be a Moslem belonging to the Sunni communion, capable of 
 exercising supreme temporal authority, free of all outside 
 control. The Sunnis do not require that the Imam should 
 be via' sum, or that he should be " the most excellent 
 of mankind," nor do they insist on his descent from the 
 Prophet. According to them he should be an independent 
 ruler, without any personal defects, a man of good character, 
 possessed of the capacity to conduct the affairs of State, and to 
 lead at prayers. The early doctors, on the authority of a saying 
 of the Prophet, have included a condition which comes at the 
 end of the passage relating to the qualities necessary for the 
 Imamate — viz., that the Caliph-Imam should be a Koreish by 
 birth . The avowed ob j ect of inserting this condition , as is stated 
 both in the Durr-ul-Mukhtdr and the Radd-ul-Muhtdr, was to 
 nullify the Shiah contention that the Imamate was restricted 
 to the House of Mohammed, the descendants of Ali and Fatima, 
 and to bring in the first three Caliphs, and the Ommeyyade 
 and the Abbaside Caliphs, into the circle of legitimate Imams. 
 The great jurist and historian, Ibn Khaldun, 2 a contemporary 
 of Tamerlane, who died in the year 1406 A.c, long before the 
 
 1 There is absolute consensus on these points among the different Sunni 
 schools. The Jurist Khalil ibn Ishak, the author of the monumental work 
 on Maliki Law, enunciates the rules in the same terms as the Hanafis and 
 the Shafei's. 
 
 - For many years Malikite Chief Kazi of Cairo. 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 127 
 
 House of Othman attained the Caliphate, has dealt at great 
 length with this condition in his Mukaddamdt (Prolegomena). 
 He does not dispute the genuineness of the saying on which 
 it is based, but explains that it was a mere recommendation 
 which was due to the circumstances of the times. He points 
 out that when the Islamic Dispensation was given to the world 
 the tribe of Koreish were the most advanced and most powerful 
 in Arabia ; and in recommending or desiring that the temporal 
 and spiritual guardianship of the Moslems should be confined 
 to a member of his own tribe, the Prophet was thinking of the 
 immediate future rather than of laying down a hard and fast 
 rule of succession. At that time a qualified and capable ruler 
 of Islam could only be found among the Koreish ; hence the 
 recommendation that the Caliph and Imam should be chosen 
 from among them. This view eloquently expressed by one of 
 the most learned of Sunni Jurisconsults is universally accepted 
 by the modern doctors (the Mutdkherin), that subject to the 
 fulfilment of all other conditions the law imposes no tribal or 
 racial restriction in the choice of an Imam. Abu Bakr before 
 his death had nominated Omar his successor in the Vice- 
 gerency, and the appointment was accepted by the " univer- 
 sality " of the people, including the House of Mohammed. 
 Omar died from the effects of a mortal wound inflicted on 
 him by a Christian or Magian fanatic who considered himself 
 aggrieved by the acts of this great Caliph. To avoid all 
 imputation of favouritism Omar had, before his death, 
 appointed an electoral committee consisting of six eminent 
 members of the Moslem congregation to choose his successor. 
 Their choice fell on Osman, a descendant of Ommeyya, who 
 was installed as Caliph with the suffrage of the people. On 
 Osman's unhappy death, Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet, 
 who, according to the Shiahs, was entitled by right to the 
 Imamate in direct succession to the Prophet, was proclaimed 
 Caliph and Imam. The husband of Fatima united in his 
 person the hereditary right with that of election. But his 
 endeavour to remedy the evils which had crept into the 
 administration under his aged predecessor raised against him 
 a host of enemies. Mu'awiyah, an Ommeyyade by descent, 
 who held the governorship of Syria under Osman, raised the 
 
128 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 standard of revolt. Ali proceeded to crush the rebellion 
 but, after an indecisive battle, was struck down by the hand 
 of an assassin whilst at his devotions in the public Mosque of 
 Kufa in 'Irak. With 'Ali ended what is called by the early 
 Sunni doctors of law and theologians, the Khildfat-al-Kdmila, 
 " the Perfect Caliphate," for in each case their title to the 
 rulership of Islam was perfected by the universal suffrage of 
 the Moslem nation. 
 
 On Ali's death Mu'awiyah obtained an assignment of the 
 Caliphate from Hasan, the eldest son of Ali, who had been 
 elected to the office by the unanimous voice of the people of 
 Kufa and its dependencies ; and received the suffrage of the 
 people of Syria to his assumption of the high office. This 
 happened in 661 a.c. 
 
 It should be noted here that the Ommeyyades and 
 Hashimides were two offshoots from one common stock, that 
 of Koreish. Bitter rivalry existed between these families 
 which it was the great aim of the Prophet throughout his 
 ministry to remove or reconcile. The Hashimides owe their 
 designation to Hashim, the great grandfather of the Prophet. 
 His son Abdul Muttalib had several sons ; one of them, 
 x\bbas, was the progenitor of the Abbaside Caliphs. Abu 
 Talib, another son, was the father of Ali the Caliph, whilst 
 the youngest, Abdullah, was the Prophet's father. 
 
 Mu'awiyah was the first Caliph of the House of Ommeyya. 
 On the death of Mu'awiyah's grandson, another member of 
 the same family belonging to the Hakamite branch, named 
 Merwan, assumed the Caliphate. Under his son 'Abdul Malik 
 and grandson Walid, the Sunni Caliphate attained its widest 
 expansion ; it extended from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean 
 and from the Tagus to the sands of the Sahara and the confines 
 of Abyssinia. In 749 a.c. Abu'l Abbas, surnamed Saffah, a 
 descendant of Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet, overthrew the 
 Ommeyyade dynasty and was installed as Caliph, in place of 
 Merwan II., the last Pontiff of that House, in the Cathedral 
 Mosque of Kufa, where he received the Bai'at x of the people. 
 He then ascended the pulpit, recited the public sermon which 
 the Imam or his representative delivers at the public prayers. 
 
 1 The sacramental oath of fealty. 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 129 
 
 This notable address, religiously preserved by his successors, 
 is to be found in the pages of the Arab historian Ibn-ul-Athir. 
 It is in effect a long vindication of the rights of the children 
 of Abbas to the Caliphate. Abu'l Abbas was henceforth 
 the legitimate ruler of the Sunni world and the rightful 
 spiritual Head of the Sunni Church. His first six successors 
 were men of remarkable ability ; those who followed were of 
 varying capacity, but a few possessed uncommon talent and 
 learning. Mansiir, the brother of Saffah, who succeeded him 
 in the Caliphate, founded Bagdad, which became their capital 
 and seat of Government, and was usually called the Ddr-ul- 
 Khildfat and the Ddr-us-saldm, " The Abode of the Caliphate " 
 and ' ' The Abode of Peace. ' ' Here the house of Abbas exercised 
 undisputed spiritual and temporal authority for centuries. 
 Their great rivals of Cairo became extinct in Saladin's time ; 
 the brilliant Ommeyyade dynasty of Cordova disappeared 
 in the first decade of the eleventh century. The Almohades, 
 the Almoravides, and the many Berber and Arab dynasties 
 which, on the decline of the Almoravides, followed each other 
 in succession in Morocco, had no valid title to the headship 
 of the Sunni Church. The right of the Abbasides to the 
 Sunni Imamate stood unchallenged from the Atlantic to the 
 Ganges, from the Black Sea and the Jaxartes to the Indian 
 Ocean. In 493 of the Hegira (1099 a.c.) Yusuf bin Tashfin, 
 the Almohade conqueror after the epoch-making battle of 
 az-Zallaka, where the Christian hordes were decisively beaten, 
 obtained from the Abbaside Caliph al-Muktadi, a formal 
 investiture with the title of Ameer-al-Muslimin ; and this was 
 confirmed to him by the Caliph al-Mustazhir. It should be 
 borne in mind that neither the " Caliphs " of Cordova nor any 
 of the Moslem sovereigns in after ages assumed the dignity of the 
 representative of the Prophet (Khalifat-ar-Rasul) or arrogated 
 the title of Ameer-ul-Mominin. 
 
 For full five centuries Bagdad was the centre of all intel- 
 lectual activity in Islam ; and here the rules and regulations 
 appertaining to the Caliphate, as also to other matters, secular 
 and religious, were systematised. And the conception that the 
 Caliph-Imam was the divinely-appointed Vice-gerent of the 
 Prophet became, as it is to-day, welded into the religious life of 
 
130 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 the people. It will thus be seen that according to the Sunni 
 doctrines the Caliph is not merely a secular sovereign ; he is 
 the religious head of a Church and a commonwealth, the 
 actual representative of Divine government. 1 
 
 The Abbaside Caliphate lasted for five centuries from its 
 first establishment until the destruction of Bagdad by the 
 Mongols in 1258 of the Christian era. At that time Musta'sim 
 b'lllah was the Caliph, and he, together with his sons and the 
 principal members of his family, perished in the general 
 massacre ; only those scions of the House of Abbas escaped 
 the slaughter who were absent from the capital, or succeeded 
 in avoiding detection. 
 
 For two years after the murder of Musta'sim b'lllah the 
 Sunni world felt acutely the need of an Imam and Caliph ; 
 both the poignancy of the grief at the absence of a spiritual 
 Head of the Faith, and the keenness of the necessity for a 
 representative of the Prophet to bring solace and religious 
 merit to the Faithful, are pathetically voiced by the Arab 
 historian of the Caliphs. 2 The devotions of the living were 
 devoid of that religious efficacy which is imparted to them by 
 the presence in the world of an acknowledged Imam ; the 
 prayers for the dead were equally without merit. Sultan 
 Baibars felt with the whole Sunni world the need of a Caliph 
 and Imam. The right to the Caliphate had become vested 
 by five centuries of undisputed acknowledgment in the 
 House of Abbas ; and a member of this family, Abu'l Kasim 
 Ahmed, who had succeeded in making his escape from the 
 massacre by the Mongols, was invited to Cairo for installation 
 in the pontifical seat. On his arrival in the environs of 
 Cairo, the Sultan, accompanied by the judges and great officers 
 of State, went forth to greet him. The ceremony of installa- 
 tion is described as imposing and sacred. His descent had to 
 be proved first before the Chief Kazi or Judge. After this was 
 done, he was installed in the chair and acknowledged as Caliph, 
 under the title of al-Mustansir b'lllah, " Seeking the help of 
 the Lord." The first to take the oath of Bai'at was the Sultan 
 Baibars himself ; next came the Chief Kazi Taj-ud-din, the 
 principal sheikhs and the ministers of State, and lastly the 
 
 1 Suyuti. * Ibid. 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 131 
 
 nobles, according to their rank. This occurred on May 12th, 
 1261, and the new Caliph's name was impressed on the coinage 
 and recited in the Khutba. On the following Friday he rode 
 to the mosque in procession, wearing the black mantle of the 
 Abbasides, 1 and delivered the pontifical sermon. As his 
 installation as the Caliph of the Faithful was now complete, 
 he proceeded to invest the Sultan with the robe and diploma 
 so essential in the eyes of the orthodox for legitimate 
 authority. 
 
 The Abbaside Caliphate thus established in Cairo lasted for 
 over two centuries and a-half. During this period Egypt was 
 ruled by sovereigns who are designated in history as the 
 Mameluke Sultans. Each Sultan on his accession to power 
 received his investiture from the Caliph and " Imam of his 
 time " (I mdm-ul-W akt) and he professed to exercise his 
 authority as the lieutenant and delegate of the Pontiff. The 
 appointment of ministers of religion and administrators of 
 justice was subject to the formal sanction of the Caliph. 
 Though shorn of all its temporal powers, the religious prestige 
 of the Caliphate was so great, and the conviction of its necessity 
 as a factor in the life of the people so deep-rooted in the 
 religious sentiments of the Sunni world, that twice after the 
 fall of Bagdad the Musulman sovereigns of India received 
 their investiture from the Abbaside Caliphs. The account 
 of the reception in 1343 a.c. of the Caliph's envoy by Sultan 
 Mohammed Juna Khan Tughlak, the founder of the gigantic 
 unfinished city of Tughlakabad, gives us an idea of the venera- 
 tion in which the Pontiffs were held even in Hindustan, in 
 those days said to be full six months' journey from Egypt. 
 On the approach of the envoy the King, accompanied by the 
 Syeds and the nobles, went out of the capital to greet him ; 
 and when the Pontiff's missive was handed to the Sultan he 
 received it with the greatest reverence. The formal diploma 
 of investiture l egitimised the authority of the King. The 
 whole of this incident is celebrated in a poem still extant 
 in India by the poet laureate, the famous Badr-ud-din 
 Chach. 
 
 1 Black was the colour of the Abbasides, white of the Ommeyyades and 
 green of the Fatimides, the descendants of Mohammed. 
 
132 THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED i. 
 
 About the end of the fifteenth century the star of Selim I., 
 also surnamed Saffah, of the House of Othman, rose in the 
 horizon. His victories over the enemies of Islam had won for 
 him the title of " Champion of the Faith " ; and no other 
 Moslem sovereign — not even his great rival Shah Isma'il, 
 the founder of the Sufi dynasty in Persia and the creator of 
 the first orthodox Shiah State, — equalled the Osmanli monarch 
 in greatness and power. 
 
 The closing decades of that century had witnessed a vast 
 change in the condition of Egypt, and the anarchy that had set 
 in under the later Mameluke Sultans reached its climax some 
 years later. Invited by a section of the Egyptian people to 
 restore order and peace in the distracted country, Selim easily 
 overthrew the incompetent Mamelukes, and incorporated 
 Egypt with his already vast dominions. At this period the 
 Caliph who held the Vice-gerency of the Prophet bore the 
 pontifical name of Al-Mutawakkil 'ala- Allah (" Contented 
 in the grace of the Lord "). According to the Sunni records, 
 he perceived that the only Moslem sovereign who could com- 
 bine in his own person the double functions of Caliph and 
 Imam, and restore the Caliphate of Islam in theory and in 
 fact, and discharge effectively the duties attached to that 
 office, was Selim. He accordingly, in 1517, by a formal deed 
 of assignment, transferred the Caliphate to the Ottoman 
 conqueror, and, with his officials and dignitaries, " made the 
 Bai'at on the hand of the Sultan." In the same year Selim 
 received the homage of the Sharif of Mecca, Mohammed 
 Abu'l Barakat, a descendant of Ali, who presented by his son 
 Abu Noumy on a silver salver the keys of the Kaaba and took 
 the oath by the same proxy. The combination in Selim of the 
 Abbaside right by assignment and by Bai'at, and the adhesion 
 of the representative of the Prophet's House who held at the 
 time the guardianship of the Holy Cities, perfected the Ottoman 
 Sultan's title to the Caliphate, "just as the adhesion of (the 
 Caliph) Ali had completed the title of the first three Caliphs." 
 The solemn prayers. with the usual Khutbas offered in Mecca 
 and Medina. for the Sultan gave the necessary finality to the 
 right of Selim. Henceforth Constantinople, his seat of govern- 
 ment, became the Ddr-ul-Khildfat, and began to be called 
 
x. THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION 133 
 
 " Islambol," " The City of Islam." Before long envoys arrived 
 in Selim's Court and that of his son, Solyman the Magnificent, 
 from the rulers of the Sunni States to offer their homage ; 
 and thus, according to the Sunnis, the Caliphate became the 
 heritage of the House of Othman, which they have enjoyed 
 for four centuries without challenge or dispute. 
 
PART II. 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 
 
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 THE religion of Jesus bears the name of Christianity, 
 derived from his designation of Christ ; that of Moses 
 and of Buddha are known by the respective names 
 of their teachers. The religion of Mohammed alone has a 
 distinctive appellation. It is Islam. 
 
 In order to form a just appreciation of the religion of 
 Mohammed it is necessary to understand aright the true 
 significance of the word Islam. Salam (salama), in its primary 
 sense, means, to be tranquil, at rest, to have done one's duty, 
 to have paid up, to be at perfect peace ; in its secondary sense, 
 
 1 For translation, see Appendix. 
 
138 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 to surrender oneself to Him with whom peace is made. The 
 noun derived from it means peace, greeting, safety, salvation. 
 The word does not imply, as is commonly supposed, absolute 
 submission to God's will, but means, on the contrary, striving 
 after righteousness. 
 
 The essence of the ethical principles involved and embodied 
 in Islam is thus summarised in the second chapter of the 
 Koran : " There is no doubt in this book — a guidance to the 
 pious, who believe in the Unseen, who observe the prayers, 
 and distribute (charity) out of what We have bestowed on 
 them ; and who believe in that which We have commissioned 
 thee with, and in that We commissioned others with before thee, 
 and who have assurance in the life to come ; — these have 
 received the direction of their Lord." 1 
 
 The principal bases on which the Islamic system is founded 
 are (i) a belief in the unity, immateriality, power, mercy, and 
 supreme love of the Creator ; (2) charity and brotherhood 
 among mankind ; (3) subjugation of the passions ; (4) the 
 outpouring of a grateful heart to the Giver of all good ; and 
 (5) accountability for human actions in another existence. 
 The grand and noble conceptions expressed in the Koran of 
 the power and love of the Deity surpass everything of their 
 kind in any other language. The unity of God, His immateri- 
 ality, His majesty, His mercy, form the constant and never- 
 ending theme of the most eloquent and soul-stirring passages. 
 The flow of life, light, and spirituality never ceases. But 
 throughout there is no trace of dogmatism. Appeal is made to 
 the inner consciousness of man, to his intuitive reason alone. 
 
 Let us now take a brief retrospect of the religious conceptions 
 of the peoples of the world when the Prophet of Islam com- 
 menced his preachings. Among the heathen Arabs the idea 
 of Godhead varied according to the culture of the individual 
 or of the clan. With some it rose, comparatively speaking, 
 to the " divinisation " or deification of nature ; among others 
 it fell to simple fetishism, the adoration of a piece of dough, 
 a stick, or a stone. Some believed in a future life ; others 
 had no idea of it whatever. The pre-Islamite Arabs had their 
 groves, their oracle-trees, their priestesses, like the Syro- 
 
 1 Koran, sura ii. 1-6. 
 
i. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 139 
 
 Phoenicians. Phallic worship was not unknown to them ; 
 and the generative powers received adoration, like the hosts 
 of heaven, under monuments of stone and wood. The wild 
 denizens of the desert, then as now, could not be impervious 
 to the idea of some unseen hand driving the blasts which swept 
 over whole tracts, or forming the beautiful visions which rose 
 before the traveller to lure him to destruction. And thus there 
 floated in the Arab world an intangible, unrealised conception 
 of a superior deity, the Lord of all. 1 
 
 The Jews, those great conservators of the monotheistic 
 idea, as they have been generally regarded in history, probably 
 might have assisted in the formation of this conception. But 
 they themselves showed what strange metamorphoses can take 
 place in the thoughts of a nation when not aided by a historical 
 and rationalistic element in their religious code. 
 
 The Jews had entered Arabia at various times, and under 
 the pressure of various circumstances. Naturally, the con- 
 ceptions of the different bodies of emigrants, refugees, or 
 colonists would vary much. The ideas of the men driven out 
 by the Assyrians or Babylonians would be more anthropo- 
 morphic, more anthropopathic, than of those who fled before 
 Vespasian, Trajan, or Hadrian. The characteristics which 
 had led the Israelites repeatedly to lapse into idolatry in their 
 original homes, when seers were in their midst to denounce 
 their backslidings, would hardly preserve them from the 
 heathenism of their Arab brothers. With an idea of " the 
 God of Abraham " they would naturally combine a material- 
 istic conception of the deity, and hence we find them rearing 
 " a statue representing Abraham, with the ram beside him 
 ready for sacrifice," in the interior of the Kaaba. 
 
 Amongst the later comers the Shammaites and the Zealots 
 formed by far the largest proportion. Among them the 
 worship of the law verged upon idolatry, and the Scribes and 
 Rabbins claimed a respect almost approaching adoration. 
 They believed themselves to be the guardians of the people, 
 the preservers of law and tradition, " living exemplars and 
 mirrors, in which the true mode of life, according to the law, 
 
 1 Shahristani ; Tiele calls the religion of the pre-Islamite Arabs " animistic 
 polydae monism." 
 
140 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n, 
 
 was preserved." x They looked upon themselves as the 
 " flower of the nation," and they were considered, through 
 their intercourse with God, to possess the gift of prophecy. 
 In fact, by their people as well as by themselves they were 
 regarded as the prime favourites of God. 2 The veneration of 
 the Jews for Moses went so far, says Josephus, that they 
 reverenced his name next to that of God ; and this veneration 
 they transferred to Ezra, the restorer of national life and law 
 under the Kyanian dynasty. 3 
 
 Besides, the mass of the Jews had never, probably, thoroughly 
 abandoned the worship of the Teraphim, a sort of household 
 gods made in the shape of human beings, and consulted on all 
 occasions as domestic oracles, or regarded perhaps more as 
 guardian penates. 4 This worship must have been strengthened 
 by contact with the heathen Arabs. 
 
 When Jesus made his appearance in Judaea, the doctrine of 
 divine unity and of a supreme Personal Will, overshadowing the 
 universe with its might and grace, received acceptance only 
 among one race — the worshippers of Jehovah. And even 
 among them, despite all efforts to the contrary, the conception 
 of the divinity had either deteriorated by contact with heathen 
 nations, or become modified by the influence of pagan phil- 
 osophies. On the one hand, Chaldaeo-Magian philosophy 
 had left its finger-mark indelibly impressed on the Jewish 
 traditions ; on the other, their best minds, whilst introducing 
 among the Greek and Roman philosophers the conception of a 
 great Primal Cause, had imbibed, in the schools of Alexandria, 
 notions hardly reconcilable with their monotheistic creed. 
 
 The Hindus, with their multitudinous hordes of gods and 
 goddesses ; the Mago-Zoroastrians, with their two divinities 
 struggling for mastery ; the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, 
 with their pantheons full of deities whose morality was below 
 that of the worshippers, — such was the condition of the civilised 
 world when Jesus commenced his preachings. With all his 
 dreams and aspirations, his mind was absolutely exempt from 
 
 1 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 308. 
 
 * Josephus, Antiquities, xvii. 24. They were, so to speak, the Brahmans of 
 Judaism. 
 
 3 Ezra vii. 10 el seq. ♦ Judges xviii. 14. 
 
i. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 141 
 
 those pretensions which have been fixed on him by his over- 
 zealous followers. He never claimed to be a " complement 
 of God," or to be a " hypostasis of the Divinity." 
 
 Even modern idealistic Christianity has not been able yet to 
 shake itself free from the old legacy bequeathed by the anthro- 
 pomorphism of bygone ages. Age after age everything human 
 has been eliminated from the history of the great Teacher, 
 until his personality is lost in a mass of legends. The New 
 Testament itself, with " its incubation of a century," leaves 
 the revered figure clothed in a mist. And each day the old 
 idea of " an ^Eon born in the bosom of eternity," gathers force 
 until the Council of Nice gives it a shape and consistency, and 
 formulates it into a dogma. 
 
 Many minds, bewildered by the far-ofmess of the universal 
 Father, seek a resting-place midway in a human personality 
 which they call divine. It is this need of a nearer object of 
 adoration which leads modern Christianity to give a name to 
 an ideal, clothe it with flesh and blood, and worship it as a 
 man-God. 
 
 The gifted author of the Defects of Modem Christianity con- 
 siders the frequency with which the Nazarene Prophet asserted 
 that he was " the Son of God," and demanded the same worship 
 as God Himself, a proof of his Divinity. That Jesus ever 
 maintained he was the Son of God, in the sense in which it has 
 been construed by Christian divines and apologists, we totally 
 deny. Matthew Arnold has shown conclusively that the New 
 Testament records are in many respects wholly unreliable. 
 So far as the divinity of Christ is concerned, one can almost 
 see the legend growing. But assuming that he made use of 
 the expressions attributed to him, do they prove that he claimed 
 to be " the only-begotten of the Father " ? Has the apologist 
 not heard of the Eastern dervish, famous now as al-Hallaj, 
 who claimed to be God Himself ? " An-al-Hakk," " I am 
 God — I am the Truth," said he ; and the Musulman divines, 
 like the Jewish Sanhedrim, pronounced him guilty of blas- 
 phemy, and condemned him to death ? A poor simple heart, 
 kindling with an exalted mysticism, was thus removed from 
 earth. The Babi still believes that his master, " the Gate " 
 to eternal life, was not killed, but miraculously removed to 
 
142 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 heaven. Can it be said that when Abu Mughis al-Hallaj 1 
 and the Bab called themselves " Truth " and the " Gate to 
 heaven," they meant to imply that they were part of the 
 Divinity, or, if they did, that their " claim " is tantamount to 
 proof ? But, as we said before, we deny that Jesus, whose 
 conceptions, when divested of the Aberglaube of his followers, 
 were singularly free from exaggeration as to his own character 
 or personality, ever used any expression to justify the demand 
 attempted to be fixed upon him. His conception of the 
 " Fatherhood " of God embraced all humanity. All mankind 
 were the children of God, and he was their Teacher sent by the 
 Eternal Father. 2 The Christian had thus a nobler exemplar 
 before him. The teachings of the Prophet of Nazareth should 
 have elevated him to a purer conception of the Deity. But six 
 centuries had surrounded the figure of Jesus with those myths 
 which, in opposition to his own words, resolved him into a 
 manifestation of the Godhead. The " Servant " took the 
 place of the Master in the adoration of the world. The vulgar 
 masses, unable to comprehend or realise this wonderful 
 mixture of Neo-Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Judaeo-Hellen- 
 istic philosophy, and the teachings of Jesus, adored him as 
 God incarnate, or reverted to the primitive worship of relics 
 and of a tinselled goddess who represented the pure mother 
 of Jesus. 3 The Collyridians, who were by no means an un- 
 important sect, went so far as to introduce in the Christian 
 pantheon the Virgin Mary for God, and worship her as such, 
 offering her a sort of twisted cake called collyris, whence the 
 sect had its name. At the Council of Nice which definitely 
 settled the nature of Jesus, there were men who held that 
 besides " God the Father," there were two other gods— 
 
 1 Abu Mughis ibn Mansur, al-Hallaj, died in the prime of life. He was a 
 man of pure morals, great simplicity, a friend of the poor, but a dreamer and 
 an enthusiast. For an account of the Bab and Babism, see Gobineau, Les 
 Religions et les Philosophies dans I'Asie Centrale and the History of the Bab 
 by Professor E. G. Browne. 
 
 2 The use of the word " Father " in relation to God was cut out from Islam 
 owing to the perversion of the idea among the then Christians. 
 
 3 The Isaurian sovereigns, indirectly inspired by Islam, for over a century 
 battled against the growing degradation of Christianity, strived with all their 
 might to make it run back in the channel pointed out by the great Teacher, 
 but to no purpose. 
 
I. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 143 
 
 Christ and the Virgin Mary. 1 And the Romanists even now, 
 it is said, call the mother of Jesus the complement of the Trinity. 
 
 In the long night of superstition the Christians had wandered 
 far away from the simplicity of the Nazarene teachings. The 
 worship of images, saints, and relics had become inseparably 
 blended with the religion of Jesus. The practices which he 
 had denounced, the evils which he had reprehended, were, 
 one by one, incorporated with his faith. The holy ground 
 where the revered Teacher had lived and walked was involved 
 in a cloud of miracles and visions, and " the nerves of the mind 
 were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief." 2 
 
 Against all the absurdities we have described above, the 
 life-aim of Mohammed was directed. Addressing, with the 
 voice of truth, inspired by deep communion with the God of 
 the Universe, the fetish-worshippers of the Arabian tribes on 
 one side and the followers of degraded Christianity and Judaism 
 on the other, Mohammed, that " master of speech," as he has 
 been truly called, never travelled out of the province of reason, 
 and made them all blush at the monstrousness of their beliefs. 
 Mohammed, the grand apostle of the unity of God, thus stands 
 forth in history in noble conflict with the retrogressive tendency 
 of man to associate other beings with the Creator of the 
 universe. Ever and anon in the Koran occur passages, fervid 
 and burning, like the following : " Your God is one God ; 
 there is no God but He, the Most Merciful. In the creation of 
 the heaven and earth, and the alternation of night and day, 
 and in the ship which saileth on the sea, laden with what is 
 profitable to mankind ; and in the rain-water which God 
 sendeth from heaven, quickening again the dead earth, and the 
 animals of all sorts which cover its surface ; and in the change 
 of winds, and the clouds balanced between heaven and earth, — 
 
 1 Mosheim, vol. i. p. 432. 
 
 - Mosheim's Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. i. p. 432 ; comp. also Hallam, Const. 
 Hist, of England, chap. ii. p. 75. From the text it will be seen how much 
 truth there is in the assertion that Islam derived " everything good it contains " 
 from Judaism or Christianity. " It has been the fashion," says Deutsch, 
 " to ascribe whatever is good in Mohammedanism to Christianity. We fear 
 this theory is not compatible with the results of honest investigation. For 
 of Arabian Christianity at the time of Mohammed, the less said, perhaps, the 
 better ... By the side of it . . . even modern Amharic Christianity, of which 
 we possess such astounding accounts, appears pure and exalted." — Quarterly 
 Review, No. 954, p. 315. 
 
i 4 4 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 are signs to people of understanding ; yet some men take idols 
 beside God, and love them as with the love due to God." 1 
 What a depth of sympathy towards those benighted people 
 do these words convey ! Again : " It is He who causeth the 
 lightning to appear unto you (to strike) fear and (to raise) 
 hope ; and formeth the pregnant clouds. The thunder 
 celebrateth His praise, and the angels also. ... He launcheth 
 His thunderbolts, and striketh therewith whom He pleaseth 
 while they dispute concerning Him. ... It is He who of right 
 ought to be invoked, and those (the idols) whom they invoke 
 besides Him shall not respond to them at all ; otherwise than 
 as he who stretched forth his hands to the water that it may 
 ascend to his mouth when it cannot ascend (thither). 2 He 
 hath created the heavens and the earth to (manifest His) 
 justice ; far be that from Him which they associate with Him. 
 He hath created man . . . and behold he is a professed disputer. 
 He hath likewise created the cattle for you, and they are a 
 credit unto you when they come trooping home at evening- 
 time, or are led forth to pasture in the morn. . . . And He 
 hath subjected the night and day to your service ; and the sun 
 and the moon and the stars are all bound by His laws. ... It 
 is He who hath subjected the sea unto you, and thou seest the 
 ships ploughing the deep . . . and that ye might render thanks. 
 . . . Shall He therefore who createth be as he who createth 
 not ? Do ye not therefore take heed ? If ye were to reckon 
 up the blessings of God, ye shall not be able to compute their 
 number ; God is surely gracious and merciful. He knoweth 
 that which ye conceal and that which ye publish. But those 
 [the idols] whom ye invoke, besides the Lord, create nothing, 
 but are themselves created. They are dead and not 
 living." 3 
 
 " God ! there is no God but He — the Living, the Eternal. 
 No slumber seizeth Him. Whatsoever is in heaven or in earth 
 is His. Who can intercede with Him but by His own permis- 
 sion ? He knows what has been before, and what shall be 
 after them ; yet nought of His knowledge shall they grasp 
 but He willeth. His Throne reacheth over the heavens and 
 
 1 Sura ii. 158-160. 2 Sura xiii. 13-15. 
 
 8 Sura xvi. 3-21. 
 
I. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 145 
 
 the earth, and the upholding of them both burdeneth Him 
 not, . . . l He throweth the veil of night over the day, pursuing 
 it quickly. He created the sun, moon, and stars subjected to 
 laws by His behest. Is not all creation and all empire His ? 
 Blessed be the Lord of the worlds. 2 Say, He alone is God : 
 God the Eternal. He begetteth not, and He is not begotten ; 
 there is none like unto Him. Praise be to God, the Lord of the 
 worlds, the Compassionate, the Merciful, King on the day of 
 reckoning ; Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry 
 for help. Guide us on the straight path, — the path of those 
 to whom Thou art gracious, with whom Thou art not angry ; 
 such as go not astray. 3 . . . Against the evil in His creation 
 I betake me to the Lord of the daybreak." " Thou needest 
 not raise thy voice, for He knoweth the secret whisper, and what 
 is yet more hidden. Say, Whose is what is in the heavens and 
 the earth ? Say, God's who has imposed mercy on Himself. 4 
 . . . With Him are the keys of the unseen. None knows them 
 save He ; He knows what is in the land and in the sea ; no 
 leaf falleth but He knoweth it ; nor is there a grain in the 
 darkness under the earth, nor a thing, green or sere, but it is 
 recorded by itself. He taketh your souls in the night, and 
 knoweth what the work of your day deserveth ; then He 
 awaketh you, that the set life-term may be fulfilled ; then 
 unto Him shall ye return, and then shall He declare unto you 
 what you have wrought. 5 Verily, God it is who cleaves out 
 the grain and the date-stone ; He brings forth the living from 
 the dead, and it is He who brings the dead from the living. 
 There is God ! How then can ye be beguiled ? " 
 
 "It is He who cleaves out the morning, and makes night a 
 repose, and the sun and the moon two reckonings ; that is the 
 decree of the Mighty, the Wise. 6 
 
 " There is God for you, your Lord ! There is no God but 
 He, the Creator of everything ; then worship Him, for He over 
 everything keeps guard ! " 
 
 1 Sura ii. 255. 2 Sura vii. 54. 
 
 3 This is the Surat-ul-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Koran. 
 
 4 Sura vi. 12. 6 Sura vi. 59, 60. 
 6 Sura vi. 97. 
 
 s.i. K 
 
146 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 " Sight perceives Him not, but he perceives men's sights ; 
 for He is the knower of secrets the Aware." * 
 
 " Say, Verily my prayers and my devotion, and my life and 
 my death, belong to God, the Lord of the worlds." 2 
 
 " Dost thou not perceive that all creatures both in heaven 
 and earth praise God ; and the birds also ? 
 
 " Every one knoweth His prayer and His praise. 
 
 " Unto God belongeth the kingdom of heaven and earth ; 
 and unto God shall be the return. 
 
 " Whose is the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth ? 
 There is no God but He ! He maketh alive and killeth. 3 . . . 
 He is the Living One. No God is there but He. Call then 
 upon Him, and offer Him a pure worship. Praise be to God, 
 the Lord of the worlds ! . . . My prayers and my worship 
 and my life and my death are unto God, Lord of the worlds. 
 He hath no associate. 4 It is He who hath brought you forth, 
 and gifted you with hearing and sight and heart ; yet how few 
 are grateful ! . . . It is He who hath sown you in the earth, 
 and to Him shall ye be gathered. 5 ... O my Lord, place me 
 not among the ungodly people. 6 ... He it is who ordaineth 
 the night as a garment and sleep for rest, and ordaineth the 
 day for waking up to life." 7 
 
 " Is not He the more worthy who answereth the oppressed 
 when they cry to Him, and taketh off their ills, and maketh 
 you to succeed your sires on the earth ? 8 God the Almighty, 
 the All-knowing, Forgiver of Sin, and Receiver of Penitence." 9 
 
 " Shall I seek any other Lord than God, when He is Lord of 
 all things ? No soul shall labour but for itself, and no burdened 
 one shall bear another's burden." 10 
 
 " At last ye shall return to your Lord, and He will declare 
 that to you about which you differ. 10 Knower of the hidden 
 and the manifest ! the Great, the Most High ! . . . Alike to 
 Him is that person among you who concealeth his words, and 
 
 1 Sura vi. 104. 2 Sura vi. 163. 
 
 3 Sura vii. 158. 4 Sura vii. v. 158. 
 
 5 Sura lxvii. 23, 24. 6 Sura xxiii. 94. 
 
 7 Sura xxv. 47. 8 Sura xxvii. 62. 
 
 • Sura xl. 1-2. 10 Sura ii, 286. 
 
I THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 147 
 
 he that telleth them abroad ; he who hideth him in the night, 
 and he who cometh forth in the day." 1 
 
 " God is the light of the heavens and the earth ; His light 
 is as a niche in which is a lamp, and the lamp is in a glass ; 
 the glass is as though it were a glittering star ; it is lit from a 
 blessed tree, an olive neither of the east nor of the west, the 
 oil of which would well-nigh give light though no fire touched 
 it — light upon light ! God guides to His light whom He 
 pleases ; and God strikes out parables for men, and God all 
 things doth know." 
 
 ' ' In the houses God has permitted to be reared and His name 
 to be mentioned therein, His praises are celebrated therein 
 mornings and evenings." 
 
 " Men whom neither merchandise nor selling divert from 
 the remembrance of God, and steadfastness in prayer and 
 giving alms, who fear a day when hearts and eyes shall be 
 upset, that God may recompense them for the best they have 
 done, and give them increase of His grace ; for God provides 
 whom He pleases without count." 
 
 " But those who misbelieve, their works are like the mirage 
 in a plain, — the thirsty counts it water till when he comes to 
 it he finds nothing, but he finds that God is with him, and He 
 will pay him his account, for God is quick to take account." 
 
 " Or like darkness on a deep sea ; there covers it a wave, 
 above which is a wave, above which is a cloud, — darknesses one 
 above the other, — when one puts out his hand he can scarcely 
 see it, for he to whom God has given no light he has no light." 
 
 ' ' Hast thou seen that God ? All who are in the heavens and 
 the earth celebrate His praises, and the birds, too, spreading 
 out their wings ; each one knows its prayer and its praise, and 
 God knows what they do." 
 
 " Hast thou not seen that God drives the clouds, and then 
 reunites them, and then accumulates them, and thou mayest 
 see the rain coming forth from their midst ; and He sends down 
 from the sky mountains with hail therein, and He makes it 
 fall on whom He pleases, and He turns it from whom He 
 pleases ; the flashing of His lightning well-nigh goes off with 
 their sight." 
 
 1 Sura xiii. 9, 10, 11. 
 
148 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 " God interchanges the night and the day ; verily in that is 
 a lesson to those endowed with sight." 
 
 The chapter entitled " The Merciful," which has been well 
 called the Benedicite of Islam, furnishes one of the finest ex- 
 amples of the Prophet's appeal to the testimony of nature. 
 
 " The sun and the moon in their appointed time, 
 
 The herbs and the trees adore, 
 
 And the heavens He raised them, and set the Balance that 
 ye should not be outrageous in the balance ; 
 
 But weigh ye aright and stint not the measure. 
 
 And the earth, He has set it for living creatures ; 
 
 Therein are fruits, and palms with sheaths, and grain with 
 chaff and frequent shoots. 
 
 He created man of crackling clay like the potter's, and He 
 created the firmament from the smokeless fire. 
 
 The Lord of the two easts and the Lord of the two wests, 
 He has let loose the two seas that meet together ; between 
 
 them is a barrier they cannot pass. 
 He brings forth from each pearls both great and small ! 
 
 His are the ships which rear aloft in the sea like mountains. 
 Every one upon it is transient, but the face of thy Lord 
 endowed with majesty and honour shall endure. 
 
 Of Him whosoever is in the heaven and in the earth does 
 beg ; every day is He in [some fresh] work. 
 
 Blessed be the name of thy Lord, possessed of majesty and 
 glory." 
 
 " Every man's actions have we hung round his neck, and on 
 the last day shall be laid before him a wide-opened Book." i . . . 
 " By a soul, and Him who balanced it, and intimated to it 
 its wickedness and its piety, blest now is he who hath kept it 
 pure, and undone is he who hath corrupted it." 2 . . . "No 
 defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of mercy ; 
 
 1 Sura xvii. 13. 2 Sura xci. 7-9. 
 
I. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 149 
 
 repeat the gaze, seest thou a single flaw, then twice more 
 repeat the gaze, thy gaze shall return to thee dulled and 
 weary." l . . . "He quickeneth the earth when it is dead ; 
 so too shall you be brought to life." 
 
 " The heavens and the earth stand firm at His bidding ; 
 hereafter when at once He shall summon you from the earth, 
 forth shall ye come." 2 . . . " When the sun shall be folded 
 up, and the stars shall fall, and when the mountains shall be 
 set in motion ; when the she-camels shall be left, and the wild 
 beasts shall be gathered together ; when the seas shall boil, 
 and souls be re-paired [with their bodies] ; when the female 
 child that was buried alive shall be asked for what crime she 
 was put to death ; when the leaves of the Book shall be un- 
 rolled, and the heavens shall be stripped away, and the fire 
 of hell blaze forth, and paradise draw nigh, then shall every 
 soul know what it hath done." 3 . . . " What knowledge hast 
 thou [Mohammed] of the hour ? Only God knoweth its period. 
 It is for thee only to warn those who fear it." . . . " What 
 shall teach thee the inevitable ? Thamud and Ad treated 
 the Day of Decision as a lie. They were destroyed with 
 thunderbolts and roaring blasts." 
 
 And yet with all His might, His tender care and pity are 
 all-embracing : 
 
 " By the noonday brightness, and by the night when it 
 darkeneth, thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither hath He 
 been displeased. Surely the future shall be better for thee 
 than the past ; and in the end He shall be bounteous to thee, 
 and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an orphan, 
 and give thee a home ; erring, and guided thee ; needy, and 
 enriched thee ? As to the orphan, then, wrong him not ; 
 and chide not away him that asketh of thee, and tell abroad 
 the favours of thy Lord." 4 " Did ye think We had made you 
 for sport, and that ye should not be brought back again to us ? 
 " O our God, punish us not if we forget and fall into sin ; 
 blot out our sins and forgive us." " Have mercy, O Lord, 
 for of the merciful, Thou art the best." 5 " The heavy laden 
 
 1 Sura lxvii. 4. * Sura xxx. 25. 
 
 3 Sura lxxxi. 4 Sura xciii. 
 
 6 Sura xxiii. 118. 
 
150 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 shall not bear another's load. We never punished till we had 
 sent an apostle." " This clear Book, behold, on a blessed 
 night have we sent it down for a warning to mankind." " Not 
 to sadden thee have we sent it thee." 
 
 And so on goes this wonderful book, appearing to the nobler 
 feelings of man, — his inner consciousness and his moral sense, 
 proving and manifesting the enormity of idolatrous beliefs. 
 Scarcely a chapter but contains some fervid passages on the 
 power, mercy, and unity of God. The Islamic conception of 
 the Almighty has been misunderstood by Christian writers. 
 The God of Islam is commonly represented as "a pitiless 
 tyrant, who plays with humanity as on a chess-board, and works 
 out His game without regard to the sacrifice of the pieces." 
 Let us see if this estimate is correct. The God of Islam is the 
 All-mighty, the All-knowing, the All-just, the Lord of the 
 worlds, the Author of the heavens and the earth, the Creator 
 of life and death, in whose hand is dominion and irresistible 
 power ; the great, all-powerful Lord of the glorious Throne. 
 God is the Mighty, the Strong, the Most High, the Producer, 
 the Maker, the Fashioner, the Wise, the Just, the True, the 
 Swift in reckoning, who knoweth every ant's weight of good 
 and of ill that each man hath done, and who suffereth not the 
 reward of the faithful to perish. But the Almighty, the All- 
 wise, is also the King, the Holy, the Peaceful, the Faithful, 
 the Guardian over His servants, the Shelterer of the orphan, 
 the Guide of the erring, the Deliverer from every affliction, 
 the Friend of the bereaved, the Consoler of the afflicted ; 
 in His hand is good, and He is the generous Lord, the Gracious, 
 the Hearer, the Near-at-Hand, the Compassionate, the Merciful, 
 the Very-forgiving, whose love for man is more tender than 
 that of the mother-bird for her young. 
 
 The mercy of the Almighty is one of the grandest themes of 
 the Koran. The very name [Ar-Rahman] with which each 
 chapter opens, and with which He is invoked, expresses a deep, 
 all-penetrating conviction of that love, that divine mercy 
 which enfolds creation. 1 
 
 The moral debasement of the followers of the two previous 
 Dispensations wrings the Teacher's heart, and then burst forth 
 
 1 Sura iii. 124, xxv. 50, xxviii. 74, xlii. 3, etc. etc. 
 
i. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 151 
 
 denunciations on the Christians and the Jews for the super- 
 stitious rites they practised in defiance of the warnings of their 
 prophets. The fire of religious zeal, that had burned in the 
 bosoms of Isaiah and Jeremiah, was rekindled in the breast 
 of another and far greater man. He denounces ; but above 
 the wail, the cry of agony at the degradation of humanity, is 
 heard the voice of hope. 
 
 The Koran severely censures the Jews for their " worship 
 of false gods and idols," the teraphim before referred to, and 
 for their exaggerated reverence for the memory of Ezra ; 
 the Christians, for their adoration of Jesus and his mother. 
 " Hast thou not seen those to whom a portion of the Scriptures 
 have been given ? They believe in false gods and idols. They 
 say to the unbelievers they are better directed in the right 
 way than those that believe [the Moslems]." 1 " The Jews 
 say, Ezra is the son of God ; the Christians say, al-Masih 
 (Jesus) is the son of God. How infatuated they are ! They 
 take their priests and their monks for their lords besides 
 God. . . . They seek to extinguish the light of God with 
 their mouths." 2 . . . " The Jews and the Christians say, 
 We are the children of God, and His beloved." 3 " Many 
 of those unto whom the Scriptures have been given 4 desire 
 to render you again unbelievers, after ye have believed. . . . 
 Be constant in prayer, and give alms ; and what good ye have 
 sent before you for your souls, ye shall find it with God." . . . 
 " They say, Verily, none shall enter paradise except those who 
 are Jews or Christians. . . . Say, Produce your proof if ye 
 speak the truth. Nay, but he who directeth towards God, 
 and doth that which is right, he shall have his reward with 
 his Lord." 5 
 
 " O ye who have received the Scriptures, exceed not the just 
 bounds in your religion, neither say of God otherwise than the 
 truth. Verily, al-Masih, the son of Mary, is the apostle of 
 God and His word. Believe therefore in God and His apostles, 
 and say not, There are three Gods ; forbear this . . . al-Masih 
 doth not proudly disdain to be a servant unto God." 6 " It 
 
 1 Sura iv. 45. * Sura ix. 30-32. 3 Sura v. 18. 
 
 4 The Jews, the Christians, and the Zoroastrians. 6 Sura v. 105, 106. 
 
 • Sura iv. 171, 
 
152 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 beseemeth not a man, that God should give him the Scriptures, 
 and the wisdom, and the gift of prophecy, and that then he 
 should say to his followers, ' Be ye worshippers of me, as well 
 as of God,' but rather, ' Be ye perfect in things pertaining 
 to God, since ye know the Scriptures, and have studied 
 deep.' " 
 
 The following passage shows the feeling with which such 
 religious conceptions were regarded : " They say the God of 
 mercy hath gotten to himself a son. 1 Now have ye uttered a 
 grievous thing ; and it wanted but little that the heaven should 
 be torn open, and that the earth cleave asunder, and the 
 mountains fall down, for that they attribute children unto the 
 Merciful ; whereas it is not meet for God to have children. 
 Verily there is none in heaven or on earth but shall approach 
 the Merciful as His servant. He encompasseth them." 2 . . . 
 
 But the inspired Preacher whose mission it is to proclaim 
 the Truth does not confound the good with the bad : " Yet 
 they are not all alike ; there are of those who have received 
 the Scriptures, upright people ; they meditate on the signs 
 of God in the night season, and worship ; they believe in God 
 and the last day ; and command that which is just ; and 
 forbid that which is unjust, and zealously strive to excel in 
 good works ; these are of the righteous." 3 
 
 The mutual and burning hatred of Jew and Christian, the 
 savage wars of Nestorian and Monophysite, the meaningless 
 wrangle of the sects, the heartless and heart-rending logomachy 
 of the Byzantine clergy, ever and anon bring down denuncia- 
 tions like the following : 
 
 " To Jesus and other apostles we gave manifest signs ; and 
 if God had pleased, their followers would not have fallen into 
 these disputes. But God doeth what He will ! " " Mankind 
 was but one people, and God sent them prophets of warning 
 and glad tidings, and the Book of Truth to settle all disputes. 
 Yet none disputed like those to whom the Book had been sent ; 
 for they were filled with jealousy of each other." " O people 
 of the Book, why wrangle about Abraham ? Why contend 
 about that whereof ye know nothing ? " 
 
 The primary aim of the new Dispensation was to infuse or 
 
 1 Sura hi. 78. a Sura xix. 91-94. 3 Sura iii. 112. 113. 
 
i. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 153 
 
 revive in the heart of humanity a living perception of truth 
 in the common relations of life. " The moral ideal of the new 
 gospel," to use the phraseology of an eminent writer, " was 
 set in the common sense of duty and the familiar instances of 
 love." 
 
 " Verily, those people 1 have now passed away ; they have 
 the reward of their deeds ; and ye shall have the meed of 
 yours; of their doings ye shall not be questioned." 2 "Every 
 soul shall bear the good and the evil for which it has laboured ; 
 and God will burden none beyond its power." " Blessed is 
 he who giveth away his substance that he may become pure, 
 and who offereth not favours to any one for the sake of recom- 
 pense . . . but only as seeking the approval of his Lord the 
 Most High." 3 
 
 " They are the blest who, though longing for it themselves, 
 bestowed their food on the poor and the orphan and the 
 captive [saying], ' We feed you for the sake of God : we seek 
 from you neither recompense nor thanks.' " 4 
 
 " Worship God alone ; be kind to kindred and servants, 
 orphans and the poor ; speak righteously to men, pray, and 
 pay alms." " Defer humbly to your parents ; with humility 
 and tenderness say, O Lord, be merciful to them, even as they 
 brought me up when I was helpless." " Abandon the old 
 barbarities, blood-vengeance, and child-murder, and be united 
 as one flesh." " Do thy alms openly or in secret, for both 
 are well." Give of that which hath been given you before 
 the day cometh when there shall be no trafficking, nor friend- 
 ship, nor intercession." " Wouldst thou be taught the steep 
 [path] ? It is to ransom the captive, to feed the hungry, the 
 kindred, the orphan, and him whose mouth is in the dust." 
 "Be of those who enjoin steadfastness and compassion on 
 others." 5 " Woe to them that make show of piety, and 
 refuse help to the needy." " Make not your alms void by 
 reproaches or injury." " Forgiveness and kind speech are 
 better than favours with annoyance." " Abandon usury." 
 " He who spendeth his substance to be seen of men, is like a 
 
 1 I.e. Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, and the tribes. 
 
 2 Sura ii. 128. s Sura xcii. 18, 20. 
 4 Sura lxxvi. 8, 9. 5 Sura xc. 12-17. 
 
154 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 rock with thin soil over it, whereon the rain falleth and leaveth 
 it hard. But they who expend their substance to please God 
 and establish their souls, are like a garden on a hill, on which 
 the rain falleth and it yieldeth its fruits twofold ; and even 
 if the rain doth not fall, yet is there a dew." 
 
 " Judge between men with truth, and follow not thy passions, 
 lest they cause thee to err from the way of God." x " Covet 
 not another's gifts from God." " There is no piety in turning 
 the face east or west, but in believing in God only and doing 
 good." " Make the best of all things ; enjoin justice and avoid 
 the foolish ; and if Satan stir thee to evil, take refuge in God." 
 " Touch not the goods of the orphan. 2 Perform your covenant, 
 and walk not proudly on the earth." " The birth of a 
 daughter brings dark shadows on a man's face." ... " Kill 
 not your children for fear of want : for them and for you will 
 We provide. Verily the killing them is a great wickedness." 3 
 " God hath given you wives that ye may put love and tender- 
 ness between you." 
 
 " Reverence the wombs that bear you." " Commit not 
 adultery ; for it is a foul thing and an evil way." 4 " Let the 
 believer restrain his eyes from lust ; let women make no 
 display of ornaments, save to their own kindred." 
 
 " Know ye that this world's life is a cheat, the multiplying 
 of riches and children is like the plants that spring up after 
 rain, rejoicing the husbandman, then turn yellow and wither 
 away. In the next life is severe chastisement, or else pardon 
 from God and His peace." " Abandon the semblance of 
 wickedness and wickedness itself. They, verily, whose only 
 acquirement is iniquity, shall be rewarded for what they 
 shall have gained." 5 " Those who abstain from vanities and 
 the indulgence of their passions, give alms, offer prayers, and 
 tend well their trusts and their covenants, these shall be the 
 heirs of eternal happiness." 6 " Show kindness to your parents, 
 whether one or both of them attain to old age with thee : and 
 say not to them ' Fie ! ' neither reproach them ; but speak to 
 them both with respectful speech and tender affection." 7 
 
 1 Sura xxxviii. 25. 2 Sura xvii. 37. 3 Sura xvii. 33. 
 
 4 Sura xvii. 32. i Sura vi. 121. 6 Sura xxiii. 8. 
 
 7 Sura xvii. 23. 
 
I. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 155 
 
 " And to him who is of kin render his due, and also to the poor 
 and to the wayfarer ; yet waste not wastefully." 1 
 
 " And let not thy hand be tied up to thy neck ; nor yet 
 open it with all openness, lest thou sit thee down in rebuke in 
 beggary." 2 " Enjoin my servants to speak in kindly sort." 3 
 " Turn aside evil with that which is better." 4 " Just balances 
 will We set up for the day of the Resurrection, neither shall any 
 soul be wronged in aught ; though were a work but the weight 
 of a grain of mustard seed, We would bring it forth to be weighed : 
 and Our reckoning will suffice." 5 " Seek pardon of your Lord 
 and be turned unto Him : verily, my Lord is merciful, loving." 6 
 " And your Lord saith, ' Call upon me, I will hearken unto 
 you." 7 " Say : O my servants who have transgressed to 
 your own injury, despair not of God's mercy, for all sins doth 
 God forgive. Gracious, merciful is He ! " 8 " The good 
 word riseth up to Him, and the righteous deed will He 
 exalt." 9 
 
 " Truly my Lord hath forbidden filthy actions, whether 
 open or secret, and iniquity, and unjust violence." 10 
 
 " Call upon your Lord with lowliness and in secret, for He 
 loveth not transgressors. And commit not disorders on the 
 well-ordered earth after it hath been well ordered ; and call 
 on Him with fear and longing desire : Verily the mercy of God 
 is nigh unto the righteous." n " Moreover, We have enjoined 
 on man to show kindness to his parents. With pain his 
 mother beareth him ; with pain she bringeth him forth ; and 
 he saith, ' O my Lord ! stir me up to be grateful for Thy 
 favours wherewith Thou hast favoured me and my parents, 
 and to good works which shall please Thee ; and prosper me 
 in my offspring : for to Thee am I turned, and am resigned to 
 Thy will.' " 12 " For them is a dwelling of peace with their 
 Lord ; and in recompense for their works shall He be their 
 protector." 13 " Lost are they who, in their ignorance, have 
 foolishly slain their children, and have forbidden that which 
 
 1 Sura xvii. 26. 2 Sura xvii. 29. 3 Sura xvii. 53. 
 
 4 Sura xxiii. 96. * Sura xxi. 47. 6 Sura xi. 90. 
 
 ' Sura xl. 60. 8 Sura xxxix. 53. 9 Sura xxxv. 10. 
 
 10 Sura vii. 33. " Sura vii. 55-58. 12 Sura xlvi. 15. 
 13 Sura vi. 28. 
 
156 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 God hath given them for food, devising an untruth against 
 God ! Now have they erred ; and they were not rightly 
 guided." 1 
 
 " The likeness of those who expend their wealth for the 
 cause of God, is that of a grain of corn which produceth seven 
 ears, and in each ear a hundred grains ; they who expend their 
 wealth for the cause of God, and never follow what they have 
 laid out with reproaches or harm, shall have their reward with 
 their Lord ; no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they 
 be put to grief. A kind speech and forgiveness is better than 
 alms followed by injury." 2 
 
 " God will not burden any soul beyond its power. It shall 
 enjoy the good which it hath acquired, and shall bear the evil 
 for the acquirement of which it laboured." ... " O Lord ! 
 punish us not if we forget, or fall into sin, O our Lord ! and 
 lay not on us a load like that which Thou hast laid on those who 
 have been before us, O our Lord ! And lay not on us that for 
 which we have not strength : but blot out our sins and forgive 
 us and have pity on us." 3 " The patient and the truthful, 
 the lowly and the charitable, they who seek pardon at each 
 daybreak " : 4 . . . " Who give alms, alike in prosperity and 
 in success, and who master their anger, and forgive others ! 
 God loveth the doers of good " ; 5 [theirs a goodly home with 
 their Lord.] " O our Lord ! forgive us then our sin, and hide 
 away from us our evil deeds, and cause us to die with the 
 righteous " : 6 . . . " And their Lord answereth them, ' I 
 will not surfer the work of him among you that worketh, 
 whether of male or female, to be lost, the one of you is the 
 issue of the other.' " 7 " And fear ye God, in whose name ye 
 ask favours of each other — and respect women." 8 
 
 " And marry not women whom your fathers have married : 
 for this is a shame, and hateful, and an evil way." 9 
 
 " Covet not the gifts by which God hath raised some of you 
 above others." 10 
 
 " Be good to parents, and to kindred, and to orphans, and 
 
 1 Sura vi. 141. * Sura ii. 261-263. 
 
 3 Sura ii. 286. * Sura iii. 16. 5 Sura iii. 128. 
 
 6 Sura iii. 192. » Sura iii. 194. 8 Sura iv. 1. 
 
 9 Sura iv. 22. 10 Sura iv. 32. 
 
i. THE IDEAL OF ISLAM 157 
 
 to the poor, and to a neighbour, whether kinsman or new- 
 comer, and to a fellow-traveller, and to the wayfarer, and to 
 the slaves whom your right hands hold ; verily, God loveth 
 not the proud, the vain boaster." 1 "He who shall mediate 
 between men for a good purpose shall be the gainer by it. 
 But he who shall mediate with an evil mediation shall reap 
 the fruit of it. And God keepeth watch over everything." 2 
 " O ye Moslems ! stand fast to justice, when ye bear witness 
 before God, though it be against yourselves, or your parents 
 or your kindred, whether the party be rich or poor. God 
 is nearer than you to both. Therefore follow not passion, 
 lest ye swerve from truth." 3 
 
 Do the preachings of this desert-born Prophet, addressing a 
 larger world and a more advanced humanity, in the nobility of 
 their love, in their strivings and yearnings for the true, the 
 pure, and the holy, fall short of the warnings of Isaiah or 
 " the tender appeals of Jesus ? 
 
 The poor and the orphan, the humble dweller of the earth 
 " with his mouth in the dust," the unfortunate being bereft 
 in early life of parental care, are ever the objects of his tenderest 
 solicitude. Ever and again he announces that the path which 
 leads to God is the helping of the orphan, the relieving of the 
 poor, and the ransoming of the captive. His pity and love 
 were not confined to his fellow-beings, the brute creation 
 shared with them his sympathy and tenderness. 
 
 " A man once came to him with a bundle, and said : ' O 
 Prophet, I passed through a wood and heard the voice of the 
 young of birds, and I took them and put them in my carpet, 
 and their mother came fluttering round my head.' And the 
 Prophet said : ' Put them down ' ; and when he had put them 
 down the mother joined the young. And the Prophet said : 
 ' Do you wonder at the affection of the mother towards her 
 young ? I swear by Him who has sent me, Verily, God is more 
 loving to His servants than the mother to these young birds. 
 Return them to the place from which ye took them, and let 
 their mother be with them.' " " Fear God with regard to 
 animals," said Mohammed ; " ride them when they are fit to 
 be ridden, and get off when they are tired. Verily, there are 
 
 1 Sura iv. 36. * Sura iv. 85. 3 Sura iv. 135. 
 
158 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 rewards for our doing good to dumb animals, and giving them 
 water to drink." 
 
 In the Koran, animal life stands on the same footing as 
 human life in the sight of the Creator. " There is no beast on 
 earth," says the Koran, " nor bird which flieth with its wings, 
 but the same is a people like unto you — unto the Lord shall 
 they return." It took centuries for Christendom to awaken to 
 a sense of duty towards the animal creation. Long before the 
 Christian nations ever dreamt of extending towards animals 
 tenderness and humanity, Mohammed proclaimed in impressive 
 words the duty of mankind towards their dumb and humble 
 servitors. These precepts of tenderness so lovingly embalmed 
 in the creed are faithfully rendered into a common duty of 
 everyday life in the world of Islam. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 
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 FOR the conservation of a true religious spirit, Mohammed 
 attached to his precepts certain practical duties, of 
 which the following are the principal : (i) prayer, (2) 
 fasting, (3) alms-giving, and (4) pilgrimage. 
 
 Man's consciousness of a supreme, all-pervading Power ; 
 his helplessness in the eternal conflict of nature ; his sense of 
 
160 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 benefaction, — all lead him to pour out the overflowing senti- 
 ments of his heart in words of gratitude and love, or repentance 
 and solicitation, to One who is every-wakeful and merciful. 
 Prayers are only the utterance of the sentiments which fill 
 the human heart. All these emotions, however, are the result 
 of a superior development. The savage, if supplications do 
 not answer his purpose, resorts to the castigation of his fetish. 
 But every religious system possessing any organic element 
 has recognised, in some shape, the efficacy of prayer. In 
 most, however, the theurgic character predominates over the 
 moral ; in some, the moral idea is entirely wanting. 
 
 The early Hindu worship consisted of two sets of acts — 
 oblations and sacrifice accompanied with invocations. In 
 the infancy of religious thought the gods are supposed to 
 possess the same appetites and passions as human beings ; 
 and thus whilst man needs material benefits, the gods require 
 offerings and propitiation. This idea often finds expression 
 in the old hymns of the Rig Veda. With the development of 
 religious conceptions, it is probable that, among at least the 
 more advanced or thoughtful minds, the significance attached 
 to oblations and sacrifice underwent considerable modification. 
 But as the hold of the priestly caste, which claimed the posses- 
 sion of a " secret virtue " transmissible only through the blood, 
 strengthened on the minds of the masses, Brahmanism crystal- 
 lised into a literally sacrificial cult. The sacrifice could be 
 performed only by the priest according to rigid and unalterable 
 formulae ; whilst he recited the mantras and went through the 
 rites in a mechanical spirit, without religious feeling or 
 enthusiasm, the worshipper stood by, a passive spectator of 
 the worship which was performed on his behalf. The smallest 
 mistake undid the efficacy of the observances. The devotional 
 spirit, however, could not have been entirely wanting, or the 
 Bhagavad Gita could not have been composed. But for the 
 people as a whole, their worship had become a vast system of 
 sacrifice, the value of which depended not so much upon the 
 moral conduct of the individual worshipper as upon the 
 qualification of the officiating priest. The former had only 
 to believe in the efficacy of the rite and be in a state of legal 
 purity at the time. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 161 
 
 The Mago-Zoroastrian and the Sabsean lived in an atmos- 
 phere of prayer. The Zoroastrian prayed when he sneezed, 
 when he cut his nails or hair, while preparing meals, day and 
 night, at the lighting of lamps, etc. Ormuzd was first invoked, 
 and then not only heaven, earth, the elements and stars, but 
 trees, especially the moon-plant, 1 and beasts. The formulae 
 were often to be repeated as many as twelve hundred times. 2 
 The moral idea, however pure with the few, would be perfectly 
 eliminated from the minds of the common people. But even 
 the sort of spiritual life enjoyed by exceptional minds was 
 monopolised by the ministers of religion. The barriers of 
 special holiness which divided the priesthood from the laity, 
 shut out the latter from all spiritual enjoyments of a nobler 
 type. The Magians, like the Ophici, had two forms of worship, 
 or rather, two modes of understanding the objects of worship : 
 one esoteric, especially reserved for the priestly classes ; the 
 other exoteric, in which alone the vulgar could participate. 3 
 
 The Mosaic law contained no ordinances respecting prayers ; 
 only on the payment of tithes to the priests, and the domestic 
 solemnity of the presentation of the firstlings, was there a 
 prescribed formula of a prayer and acknowledgment, when 
 the father of the house, on the strength of his having obediently 
 performed the behests of the law, supplicated blessings from 
 Jehovah on Israel, " even as He had sworn unto their fathers." 4 
 But, with the rise of a more spiritual idea of the Deity among 
 the people and the teachers, and the decline of an uncompro- 
 mising anthropomorphism, the real nature of prayer, as the 
 medium of intercommunication between God and man, began 
 to be understood. Tradition and custom, in default of any 
 express regulation by the law, made the Jews at last, as Dollinger 
 says, a people of prayer. 5 Three hours daily were consecrated 
 to devotional exercises, viz. nine, twelve, and three o'clock. 
 The necessity, however, for the service of priests, combined 
 
 1 Called Soma by the Sanscritic, and Homo, or Haoma by the Zend races. 
 
 3 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. p. 398. The Zend Avesta itself 
 is a grand repertory of prayers, hymns, invocations, etc., to a multitude of 
 deities, among whom Ormuzd ranks first. In fact, it is a book of liturgies. 
 Comp. Clarke, Ten Great Religions, pp. 187, 202 
 
 3 Reland, Dissertationes Miscellance, part i. p. 191 i Shahristani. 
 
 J Deut. xxvi. 12-15. 5 Dollinger, vol. ii. p. 372. 
 
 S.I. L 
 
162 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 with the absence of any positive precedent coming down 
 from the Lawgiver himself, tended to make prayer, in the 
 majority of cases, merely mechanical. Phylacteries were in 
 use in the time of Jesus, and the Koran reproaches the Jews 
 in bitter terms for " selling the signs of God." 1 
 
 The teachings of Jesus, representing a later development of 
 the religious faculty in man, recognised the true character of 
 prayer. He consecrated the practice by his own example. 2 
 The early disciples, in the spirit of their Master, laid great 
 stress on the habit of devotion and thanksgiving to God. 3 
 But the want of some definite rule for the guidance of the 
 masses, in process of time, left them completely adrift in all 
 that regarded the practice of devotion, and under subjection 
 to the priests, who monopolised the office of regulating the 
 number, length, and the terminology of prayers. Hence 
 missals, liturgies, councils, and convocations to settle articles 
 of faith and matters of conscience ; hence also, the mechanical 
 worship of droning monks, and the hebdomadal flocking into 
 churches and chapels on one day in the week to make up for 
 the deficiency of spiritual food during the other six ; hence 
 also the " presbyter," who, merely a " servant " at first, 4 
 came to regard himself as " the Lord of the spiritual heritage " 
 bequeathed by Jesus. 
 
 All these evils had culminated to a point in the seventh 
 century, when the Prophet of Arabia began to preach a re- 
 formed religion. In instituting prayers, Mohammed recognised 
 the yearning of the human soul to pour out its love and gratitude 
 to God, and by making the practice of devotion periodic, he 
 impressed that disciplinary character on the observance of 
 prayer which keeps the thoughts from wandering into the 
 regions of the material. 5 The formula?, consecrated by his 
 example and practice, whilst sparing the Islamic world the 
 evils of contests regarding liturgies, leave to the individual 
 worshipper the amplest scope for the most heartfelt outpouring 
 of devotion and humility before the Almighty Presence. 
 
 1 Sura ii. 42. 2 Luke ix. 1-4. 
 
 3 E.g. Eph. vi. 18 ; Col. i. 12 et seq. 
 
 * Mosheim, vol. i. 99 et seq. 
 
 5 Comp. Oelsner, Des Effets de la Religion de Mohammed, p. 6. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 163 
 
 The value of prayer as the means of moral elevation and the 
 purification of the heart, has been clearly set forth in the 
 Koran : 
 
 " Rehearse that which hath been revealed unto thee of the 
 Book, and be constant at prayer, for prayer preserveth from 
 crimes and from that which is blameable ; and the remembering 
 of God is surely a most sacred duty." x 
 
 The forms of the supplicatory hymns, consecrated by the 
 example of the Prophet, evince the beauty of the moral element 
 in the teachings of Islam : 
 
 " O Lord ! I supplicate Thee for firmness in faith and direction 
 towards rectitude, and to assist me in being grateful to Thee, 
 and in adoring Thee in every good way : and I supplicate 
 Thee for an innocent heart, which shall not incline to wicked- 
 ness ; and I supplicate Thee for a true tongue, and for that 
 virtue which Thou knowest ; and I pray Thee to defend me 
 from that vice which Thou knowest, and for forgiveness of 
 those faults which Thou knowest. O my Defender ! assist 
 me in remembering Thee and being grateful to Thee, and in 
 worshipping Thee with the excess of my strength. O Lord ! I 
 have injured my own soul, and no one can pardon the faults of 
 Thy servants but Thou ; forgive me out of Thy loving-kindness, 
 and have mercy on me ; for verily Thou art the forgiver of 
 offences and the bestower of blessings on Thy servants." 2 
 
 Another traditional prayer, called the prayer of David, runs 
 thus ; " O Lord, grant to me the love of Thee ; grant that I 
 may love those that love Thee ; grant that I may do the deeds 
 that may win Thy love ; make Thy love to be dearer to me 
 than self, family or than wealth." 3 
 
 The two following prayers of Ali (the Caliph) evince the 
 highest devotional spirit. 
 
 " Thanks be to my Lord ; He the Adorable, and only to be 
 adored. My Lord, the Eternal, the Ever-existing, the Cherisher, 
 the True Sovereign whose mercy and might overshadow the 
 universe ; the Regulator of the world, and Light of the creation. 
 His is our worship ; to Him belongs all worship ; He existed 
 before all things, and will exist after all that is living has 
 
 1 Koran xxix. 45. a Mishkat, bk. iv. chap. 18, parts 2, 3. 
 
 3 Tasfsir-JaldH, p. 288. 
 
164 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 ceased. Thou art the adored, my Lord ; Thou art the Master, 
 the Loving and Forgiving ; Thou bestowest power and might 
 on whom Thou pleasest ; him whom Thou hast exalted none 
 can lower ; and him whom Thou hast lowered none can exalt. 
 Thou, my Lord, art the Eternal, the Creator of all, All-wise 
 Sovereign Mighty ; Thy knowledge knows everything ; Thy 
 beneficence is all-pervading ; Thy forgiveness and mercy are 
 all-embracing. O my Lord, Thou art the Helper of the 
 afflicted, the Reliever of all distress, the Consoler of the broken- 
 hearted ; Thou art present everywhere to help Thy servants. 
 Thou knowest all secrets, all thoughts, art present in every 
 assembly, Fulfiller of all our needs, Bestower of all blessings. 
 Thou art the Friend of the poor and bereaved ; my Lord, 
 Thou art my Fortress ; a Castle for all who seek Thy help. 
 Thou art the Refuge of the weak ; the Helper of the pure and 
 true. O my Lord, Thou art my Supporter, my Helper, the 
 Helper of all who seek Thy help. ... O my Lord, Thou art 
 the Creator, I am only created ; Thou art my Sovereign, I 
 am only Thy servant ; Thou art the Helper, I am the beseecher ; 
 Thou, my Lord art my Refuge ; Thou art the Forgiver, I am 
 the sinner ; Thou, my Lord, art the Merciful, All-knowing, 
 All-loving ; I am groping in the dark ; I seek Thy knowledge 
 and love. Bestow, my Lord, all Thy knowledge and love and 
 mercy ; forgive my sins, O my Lord, and let me approach 
 Thee, my Lord." 
 
 " O my Lord, Thou the Ever-praised, the Eternal, Thou 
 art the Ever-present, Ever-existing, the Ever-near, the All- 
 knowing. Thou livest in every heart, in every soul, all-pervad- 
 ing ; Thy knowledge is ingrained in every mind." " He 
 bears no similitude, has no equal, One, the Eternal ; thanks 
 be to the Lord whose mercy extends to every sinner, who 
 provides for even those who deny Him. To Him belong the 
 beginning and the end, all knowledge and the most hidden 
 secret of the heart. He never slumbers, the Ever-just, the 
 Ever-wakeful. He forgiveth in His mercy our greatest sins, — 
 loveth all creation. I testify to the goodness of my Lord, to 
 the truth of His Messenger's message, blessings on him and his 
 descendants and his companions." 1 
 
 1 Sahifai-Kdmila. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 165 
 
 " It is one of the glories of Islam," says an English writer, 
 " that its temples are not made with hands, and that its 
 ceremonies can be performed anywhere upon God's earth or 
 under His heaven." 1 Every place in which the Almighty 
 is faithfully worshipped is equally pure. The Moslem, whether 
 he be at home or abroad, when the hour of prayer arrives, pours 
 forth his soul in a brief but earnest supplicatory address ; 
 his attention is not wearied by the length of his prayers, the 
 theme of which is always self-humiliation, the glorification of 
 the Giver of all good, and reliance on His mercy. 2 The intensity 
 of the devotional spirit embalmed in the church of Mohammed 
 has hardly been realised by Christendom. Tradition, that 
 faithful chronicler of the past, with its hundred corroborative 
 witnesses, records how the Prophet wept during his prayers 
 with the fervour of his emotions ; how his noble cousin and 
 son-in-law became so absorbed in his devotions that his body 
 grew benumbed. 
 
 The Islam of Mohammed recognises no caste of priesthood, 
 allows no monopoly of spiritual knowledge or special holiness 
 to intervene between man and his God. Each soul rises to its 
 Creator without the intervention of priest or hierophant. No 
 sacrifice, 3 no ceremonial, invented by vested interests, is 
 needed to bring the anxious heart nearer to its Comforter. 
 Each human being is his own priest ; in the Islam of Mohammed 
 no one man is higher than the other. 
 
 European rationalists have complained of the complex 
 character of the Moslem prayers, but the ritual of the Koran 
 is astonishing in its simplicity and soberness. It includes 
 the necessary acts of faith, the recital of the creed, prayer, 
 almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, but lays down scarcely 
 any rules as to how they are to be performed. " Observe the 
 prayers and the mid-day prayer, and stand ye at tent before 
 God ; seek aid from patience and prayer. Verily, God is 
 with the patient ; " but nothing is said regarding the manner 
 in which the prayers should be offered. " When ye journey 
 
 1 Hunter, Our Indian Musalmans, p. 179. 
 
 2 Sura ii. 127, 239, etc., vii. 204, 205, xvii. 79, xx. 130, xxx. 16, 17, etc. etc. 
 See the Kitdb ul-Mustalraf. 
 
 3 The annual sacrifice at the Hajj and the Bairam is a mere memorial 
 observance. 
 
166 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 about the earth," says the Koran, " it is no crime to you that 
 ye come short in prayer if ye fear that those that disbelieve 
 will set upon you. God pardons everything except associating 
 aught with Him." 
 
 The practice of the Prophet has, however, attached certain 
 rites and ceremonies to the due observance of prayers. At 
 the same time it is pointed out in unmistakeable terms that it 
 is to the devotional state of the mind the Searcher of the spirit 
 looks : " It is not the flesh or the blood of that which ye 
 sacrifice which is acceptable to God : it is your piety which is 
 acceptable to the Lord." * " It is not righteousness," con- 
 tinues the Koran, " that ye turn your faces in prayer towards 
 the east or the west ; but righteousness is of him who believeth 
 in God ; . . . who giveth money for God's sake unto his kindred, 
 and unto orphans, and the needy, and the stranger, and those 
 who ask, and for the redemption of captives ; who is constant 
 at prayers and giveth alms ; and of those who perform their 
 covenant, when they have covenanted ; and who behave 
 themselves patiently in hardship and adversity, and in times 
 of violence : these are they who are true." 2 . . . 
 
 It was declared that prayer without " the presence of the 
 heart " was of no avail, and that God's words which were 
 addressed to all mankind and not to one people, should be 
 studied with the heart and lips in absolute accord. And the 
 Caliph Ali held that devotion offered without understanding 
 was useless and brought no blessing. 3 The celebrated Imam 
 al-Ghazzali 4 has pronounced that in reading the sacred book 5 
 heart and intelligence must work together ; the lips only utter 
 the words ; intelligence helps in the due apprehension of their 
 meaning ; the heart, in paying obedience to the dictates of 
 duty. 6 "It is not a sixth nor a tenth of a man's devotion," 
 said the Prophet, " which is acceptable to God, but only such 
 portion thereof as he offers with understanding and true 
 devotional spirit." 7 
 
 The practice of baptism in the Christian Church, even the 
 
 1 Sura xxii. 37. 2 Sura ii. 177. 
 
 3 Ghurrar wa'd Durrar. 4 See post, chap. xx. 
 
 5 The Koran. 6 The Kitdb ul-Mnstatraf, chap. i. 
 
 7 From Muaz ibn Jabal, reported by Abu Daud and Nisai. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 167 
 
 lustrations, which the Egyptians, the Jews, or the hierophants 
 of the heathen religions in the East and the West, required as 
 preliminary to the performance of devotional or religious 
 exercises, show the peculiar sanctity which was attached to 
 external purifications. Mohammed, by his example, conse- 
 crated this ancient and beneficent custom. He required 
 cleanliness as a necessary preliminary to the worship and 
 adoration of God. 1 At the same time, he especially inculcated 
 that mere external, or rather physical, purity does not imply 
 true devotion. He distinctly laid down that the Almighty 
 can only be approached in purity and humility of spirit. 2 
 Imam al-Ghazzali expressly says, as against those who are only 
 solicitous about external purifications, and have their hearts 
 full of pride and hypocrisy, that the Prophet of God declared 
 the most important purification to be the cleansing of the 
 heart from all blameable inclinations and frailties, and the 
 mind from all vicious ideas, and from all thoughts which 
 distract attention from God. 3 
 
 In order to keep alive in the Moslem world the memory of 
 the birthplace of Islam, Mohammed directed that during 
 prayers the Moslem should turn his face towards Mecca, as the 
 glorious centre which saw the first glimmerings of the light of 
 regenerated truth. 4 With the true instinct of a prophet he 
 perceived the consolidating effect of fixing a central spot round 
 which, through all time, should gather the religious feelings of 
 his followers ; and he accordingly ordained that everywhere 
 throughout the world the Moslem should pray looking towards 
 the Kaaba. " Mecca is to the Moslem what Jerusalem is to 
 the Jew. It bears with it all the influence of centuries of 
 associations. It carries the Moslem back to the cradle of his 
 faith, the childhood of his Prophet, it reminds him of the 
 struggle between the old faith and the new, of the overthrow 
 of the idols, and the establishment of the worship of the one 
 
 1 Sura v. 6. 
 
 The Koran, in its universality, speaks of ablutions, but where water is not 
 available it allows any cleansing substitute for lavation, but nowhere lays 
 down the details of the Wuztt. As usual, the manner of performing the 
 lavations or ablutions, derived from the practice of the Prophet, has given 
 rise to considerable discussions and difference among the theologians. 
 
 2 Sura vii. 206. 3 Compare the Kitab ul-Mustatraf, chap. i. sec. I. 
 4 Sura ii. 139, 144, etc. 
 
168 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 God ; and, most of all, it bids him remember that all his 
 brother Moslems are worshipping towards the same sacred 
 spot ; that he is one of a great company of believers, united 
 by one faith, filled with the same hopes, reverencing the same 
 things, worshipping the same God. Mohammed showed his 
 knowledge of the religious emotions in man when he preserved 
 the sanctity of the temple of Islam." 1 But that this rule is 
 not an essential requisite for devotion, is evident from the 
 passage of the Koran quoted above. 2 
 
 The institution of fasting has existed more or less among all 
 nations. But it may be said that throughout the ancient world 
 the idea attached to it was, without exception, more of penit- 
 ence than of abstinence. Even in Judaism the notion of 
 fasting as an exercise of self-castigation or self-abnegation was 
 of later growth. The Essenians (from their connection with 
 the Pythagoreans, and, through them, with the asceticism 
 of the further East) were the first among the Jews to grasp 
 this moral element in the principle of fasting ; and Jesus 
 probably derived this idea, like other conceptions, from them. 
 
 The example of Jesus consecrated the custom in the Church. 
 But the predominating idea in Christianity, with respect to 
 fasts generally, is one of penitence or expiation ; 8 and partially, 
 of precedent. 1 Voluntary corporal mortifications have been 
 as frequent in the Christian Church as in other Churches ; 
 but the tendency of such mortifications has invariably been 
 the destruction of mental and bodily energies, and the fostering 
 of a morbid asceticism. The institution of fasting in Islam, 
 on the contrary, has the legitimate object of restraining the 
 passions, by diurnal abstinence for a limited and definite 
 
 1 Stanley Lane-Poole, Introd. to the Selections from the Koran, p. lxxxv. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 166. 
 
 3 Mosheim, vol. i. p. 131. Mosheim distinctly says that fasting came early 
 to be regarded " as the most effectual means of repelling the force, and dis- 
 concerting the stratagems of evil spirits, and of appeasing the anger of an 
 offended deity." Vol. i. p. 398. 
 
 4 " The weekly and yearly festivals of the Christians," says Neander, 
 " originated in the same fundamental idea, . . . the idea of imitating Christ, 
 the crucified and risen Saviour." And, again, " by the Christians — who were 
 fond of comparing their calling to a warfare, a militia Christi — such fasts, 
 united with prayers, were named stationes, as if they constituted the watches 
 of the soldiers of Christ (the milites Christi) " ; Neander, Church Hist. vol. i. 
 pp. 408, 409. 
 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 169 
 
 period, from all the gratifications of the senses, and directing 
 the overflow of the animal spirits into a healthy channel. 
 Useless and unnecessary mortification of the flesh is discounte- 
 nanced, nay, condemned. Fasting is prescribed to the able- 
 bodied and the strong, as a means of chastening the spirit by 
 imposing a restraint on the body. For the weak, the sickly, 
 the traveller, the student (who is engaged in the pursuit of 
 knowledge — the Jihdd-ul-Akbar), the soldier doing God's 
 battle against the assailants of the faith, and women in their 
 ailments, it is disallowed. Those who bear in mind the 
 gluttony of the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, and the 
 pre-Islamite Arabs, their excesses in their pleasures as well 
 as their vices, will appreciate the value of the regulation, and 
 comprehend how wonderfully adapted it is for keeping in 
 check the animal propensities of man, especially among semi- 
 civilised races. 
 
 Mark the wisdom of the rule as given in the Koran : " O 
 ye that have believed, a fast is ordained to you . . . that ye 
 may practise piety, a fast of a computed number of days. 
 But he among you who shall be ailing, or on a journey, (shall 
 fast) an equal number of other days ; and they that are able 
 to keep it (and do not), shall make atonement by maintaining 
 a poor man. . . . But if ye fast, it will be better for you if 
 ye comprehend ; . . . God willeth that which is easy for you." 1 
 
 This rule of abstinence is restricted to the day ; in the night, 
 in the intervals of prayer and devotion, the Moslem is allowed, 
 perhaps indeed; is bound, to refresh the system by partaking 
 in moderation of food and drink, and otherwise enjoying himself 
 lawfully. In the true spirit of the Teacher, the legists invari- 
 ably laid down the rule that, during the fast, abstinence of 
 mind from all base thoughts is as incumbent as the abstinence 
 of the body. 2 
 
 No religion of the world prior to Islam had consecrated 
 charity, the support of the widow, the orphan, and the helpless 
 poor, by enrolling its principles among the positive enactments 
 of the system. 
 
 The agapce, or feasts of charity among the early Christians, 
 depended on the will of individuals ; their influence, therefore, 
 
 1 Sura ii. 183-4. - The Kitah ul-Mustatraf, chap. i. sec. 4. 
 
170 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 could only be irregular and spasmodic. It is a matter of 
 history that this very irregularity led to the suppression of the 
 " feasts of charity or love-feasts " only a short time after their 
 introduction. 1 
 
 By the laws of Islam every individual is bound to contribute 
 a certain part of his substance towards the help and assistance 
 of his poorer neighbours. This portion is usually one part of 
 forty, or 2§ per cent, on the value of all goods, chattels, emble- 
 ments, on profits of trade, mercantile business, etc. But alms 
 are due only when the property amounts to a certain value, 2 
 and has been in the possession of a person for one whole year ; 
 nor are any due from cattle employed in agriculture or in the 
 carrying of burdens. Besides, at the end of the month of 
 Ramazan (the month of fasting), and on the day of the Id-ul- 
 Fitr, the festival which celebrates the close of the Moslem 
 Lent, each head of a family has to give away in alms, for him- 
 self and for every member of his household, and for each guest 
 who breaks his fast and sleeps in his house during the month, 
 a measure of wheat, barley, dates, raisins, rice, or any other 
 grain, or the value of the same. 
 
 The rightful recipients of the alms, as pointed out by the 
 practice of Mohammed and his disciples, are (i) the poor and 
 the indigent ; (2) those who help in the collection and distri- 
 bution of the obligatory alms ; (3) slaves, who wish to buy 
 their freedom and have not the means for so doing ; (4) debtors, 
 who cannot pay their debts ; (5) travellers and strangers. 3 
 General charity is inculcated by the Koran in the most forcible 
 terms. 4 But the glory of Islam consists in having embodied 
 the beautiful sentiment of Jesus 5 into definite laws. 
 
 1 Neander, vol. i. p. 450 et seq. ; Mosheim, vol. ii. p. 56. I do not mean 
 to say that this was the only form in which Christian charity expressed itself. 
 The support of the widow, the poor, and orphan was as much insisted upon 
 in Christianity as in Islam. But even this divine charity taught by Jesus 
 received an impress of exclusiveness from the disciples, in whose hands he left 
 his work. The widow, in order to claim the benefits of charity, was required 
 to be " threescore years of age, to have been the wife of one man, to have 
 brought up children," etc. Compare throughout Blunt's History of the 
 Christian Church, p. 27 et seq. 
 
 2 For example, no alms are due from a man unless he own twenty camels. 
 
 3 Jamaa ut-Tirmizi, chapter on " Alms-giving " ; Jdmaa-Abbasi ; Querry, 
 Droit Mitsulman. Comp. also the Mabs-ut. 
 
 4 Sura ii. 267, 270, 271, etc., ix. 60, etc. 5 Matt. xxv. 35, 36. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 171 
 
 The wisdom which incorporated into Islam the time-honoured 
 custom of annual pilgrimage to Mecca and to the shrine of the 
 Kaaba, has breathed into Mohammed's religion a freemasonry 
 and brotherhood of faith in spite of sectarian divisions. The 
 eyes of the whole Moslem world fixed on that central spot, 
 keep alive in the bosom of each some spark of the celestial 
 fire which lighted up the earth in that century of darkness. 
 Here, again, the wisdom of the inspired Lawgiver shines forth 
 in the negative part of the enactment, in the conditions neces- 
 sary to make the injunction obligatory : — (1) ripeness of 
 intelligence and discernment ; (2) perfect freedom and liberty ; 
 (3) possession of the means of transport and subsistence during 
 the journey ; (4) possession of means sufficient to support the 
 pilgrim's family during his absence ; (5) the possibility and 
 practicability of the voyage. 1 
 
 Owing to the minute regulations, almost Brahminical in 
 their strictness, in force among the heathen Arabs regarding 
 the lawful or unlawful character of various kinds of food, the 
 Teacher of Islam had frequently to admonish his followers 
 that, with certain exceptions, all food was lawful. " And 
 eat of what God hath given you for food that which is lawful 
 and wholesome : and fear God, in whom ye believe." 2 " Say," 
 says the Koran, " I find not in what hath been revealed to me 
 aught forbidden to the eater to eat, except it be that which 
 dieth of itself, or blood poured forth, or swine's flesh, for that 
 is an abomination, and meat which has been slain in the name 
 of other than God [idols]." This is amplified in the fifth sura, 
 which is also directed against various savage and idolatrous 
 practices of the pagan Arabs. " That which dieth of itself, 
 and blood, and swine's .flesh, and all that hath been sacrificed 
 under the invocation of any other name than that of God, 3 
 and the strangled, and the killed by a blow or by a fall, or by 
 goring, 4 and that which hath been eaten by beasts of prey, 
 
 1 Radd-ul-mnhtdr , chapter on Hajj ; Querry, Droit Musulman, vol. i. ; the 
 MabsHt. 
 
 * Sura v. 98. 
 
 3 The heathen Arabs, when killing any animal for food, used to consecrate 
 it by invoking the names of their gods and goddesses. 
 
 4 The idolatrous Arabs had different savage methods of killing animals. 
 This prohibition has reference to the brutal processes employed by them. 
 
172 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 unless ye give the death-stroke yourselves, and that which 
 hath been sacrificed on the blocks of stone, 1 is forbidden to 
 you : and to make division of the slain by consulting the 
 arrows, is impiety in you." 2 " Eat ye of the good things 
 wherewith we have provided you and give thanks to God." 3 
 
 Intoxication and gambling, the curse of Christian com- 
 munities, and the bane of all uncultured and inferior natures, 
 and excesses of all kinds, were rigorously prohibited. 
 
 Nothing can be simpler or more in accord with the advance 
 of the human intellect than the teachings of the Arabian 
 Prophet. The few rules for religious ceremonial which he 
 prescribed were chiefly with the object of maintaining discipline 
 and uniformity, so necessary in certain stages of society ; 
 but they were by no means of an inflexible character. He 
 allowed them to be broken in cases of illness or other causes. 
 " God wishes to make things easy for you, for," says the 
 Koran, " man was created weak." The legal principles which 
 he enunciated were either delivered as answers to questions 
 put to him as the Chief Magistrate of Medina, or to remove or 
 correct patent evils. The Prophet's Islam recognised no 
 
 1 Sacrificial stones placed round the Kaaba or at the entrance of houses 
 over which the offerings were made to the idols. 
 
 2 Sura v. 3. 
 
 3 Things by nature abhorrent to man, such as the flesh of carnivorous 
 animals, birds of prey, snakes, etc., required no specific prohibition. The 
 idea prevalent in India, borrowed from the Hindus, that Moslems should not 
 partake of food with Christians, is entirely fallacious, and opposed to the 
 precept contained in the following passage of the Koran (sura v. 5) : " This 
 day things healthful are legalised to you, and the meats of those who have 
 received the Scriptures are allowed to you, as your meats are to them." With 
 regard to the sumptuary regulations, precepts, and prohibitions of Mohammed, 
 it must be remembered that they were called forth by the temporary cir- 
 cumstances of the times and people. With the disappearance of * such 
 circumstances, the need for these laws has also disappeared. To suppose, 
 therefore, that every Islamic precept is necessarily immutable, is to do an 
 injustice to history and the development of the human intellect. Ibn 
 Khaldun's words are, in this connection, deserving of our serious consideration : 
 " It is only by an attentive examination and well-sustained application that 
 we can discover the truth, and guard ourselves against errors and mistakes. 
 In fact, if we were merely to satisfy ourselves by reproducing the records 
 transmitted by tradition without consulting the rules furnished by experience, 
 the fundamental principles of the art of government, the nature, even, of the 
 particular civilisation, or the circumstances which characterise the human 
 society ; if we are not to judge of the wants which occurred in distant times 
 by those which are occurring under our eyes, if we are not to compare the past 
 with the present we can hardly escape from falling into errors and losing the 
 way of truth." Prolegomenes d'Ibn Khaldoun, traduits par M. de Slane, 
 Premiere Par tie, p. 13. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 173 
 
 ritual likely to distract the mind from the thought of the one 
 God ; no law to keep enchained the conscience of advancing 
 humanity. 
 
 The ethical code of Islam is thus summarised in the fourth 
 Sura : " Come, I will rehearse what your Lord hath enjoined 
 on you — that ye assign not to Him a partner ; that ye be good 
 to your parents ; and that ye slay not your children because 
 of poverty : for them and for you will We provide ; and that 
 ye come not near to pollutions, outward or inward ; and that 
 ye slay not a soul whom God hath forbidden, unless by right 
 . . . and draw not nigh to the wealth of the orphan, save so 
 as to better it . . . and when ye pronounce judgment then be 
 just, though it be the affair of a kinsman. And God's compact 
 fulfil ye ; that is, what He hath ordained to you. Verily, 
 this is my right way ; follow it, then." x And again, " Blessed 
 are they who believe and humbly offer their thanks-giving to 
 their Lord . . . who are constant in their charity, and who 
 guard their chastity, and who observe their trust and covenants 
 . . . Verily, God bids you do justice and good, and give to 
 kindred their due ; and He forbids you to sin and to do wrong 
 and oppress." 
 
 " Faith and charity," to use the words of the Christian 
 historian, " are not incompatible with external rites and 
 positive institutions, which, indeed, are necessary in this 
 imperfect state to keep alive a sense of religion in the common 
 mass." 2 And, accordingly, Mohammed had attached a few 
 rites to his teachings in order to give a more tangible conception 
 to the generality of mankind. Jesus himself had instituted 
 two rites, baptism and the " Holy Supper." 3 Probably, had 
 he lived longer, he would have added more. But one thing is 
 certain, that had a longer career been vouchsafed to him, he 
 would have placed his teachings on a more systematic basis. 
 This fundamental defect in Christianity has been, in fact, 
 the real cause of the assembling of councils and convocations 
 for the establishment of articles and dogmas, which snap 
 asunder at every slight tension of reason and free thought. 
 The work of Jesus was left unfinished. It was reserved for 
 another Teacher to systematise the laws of morality. 
 
 1 Sura iv. 155 et seq. 2 Mosheim, vol. i. p. 124. 3 Ibid. 
 
174 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Our relations with our Creator are matters of conscience ; 
 our relations with our fellow-beings must be matters of positive 
 rules ; and what higher sanction — to use a legal expression — 
 can be attached to the enforcement of the relative duties of 
 man to man than the sanction of religion. Religion is not to 
 be regarded merely as a subject for unctuous declamations by 
 " select preachers," or as some strange theory for the peculiar 
 gratification of dreamy minds. Religion ought to mean the 
 rule of life ; its chief object ought to be the elevation of human- 
 ity towards that perfection which is the end of our existence. 
 The religion, therefore, which places on a systematic basis the 
 fundamental principles of morality, regulating social obligations 
 and human duties, which brings us nearer and nearer, by its 
 compatibility with the highest development of intellect, to the 
 All-Perfect — that religion, we say, has the greatest claim to 
 our consideration and respect. It is the distinctive character- 
 istic of Islam, as taught by Mohammed, that it combines within 
 itself the grandest and the most prominent features in all 
 ethnic and catholic 1 religions compatible with the reason and 
 moral intuition of man. It is not merely a system of positive 
 moral rules, based on a true conception of human progress, 
 but it is also " the establishment of certain principles, the 
 enforcement of certain dispositions, the cultivation of a certain 
 temper of mind, which the conscience is to apply to the ever- 
 varying exigencies of time and place." The Teacher of Islam 
 preached, in a thousand varied ways, universal love and 
 brotherhood as the emblem of the love borne towards God. 
 " How do you think God will know you when you are in His 
 presence — by your love of your children, of your kin, of your 
 neighbours, of your fellow-creatures ? " 2 " Do you love 
 your Creator ? love your fellow-beings first." 3 "Do you wish 
 to approach the Lord ? love His creatures, love for them what 
 you love yourself, reject for them what you reject for yourself, 
 do unto them what you wish to be done unto you." He 
 condemned in scathing language the foulness of impurity, the 
 meanness of hypocrisy, and the ungodliness of self-deceit. 
 
 1 For the use' of these words see Clarke, Ten Great Religions, chap. i. 
 
 2 Mishkat, bks. xxii., xxiii. chaps, xv. and xvi. 
 
 3 Comp. Kastalani's Commentary on the Sahih of Bukhdri, pt. i. p. 70. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 175 
 
 He proclaimed, in unmistakable terms, the preciousness of 
 truth, charity, and brotherly love. 
 
 The wonderful adaptability of Islamic precepts to all ages 
 and nations ; their entire concordance with the light of reason ; 
 the absence of all mysterious doctrines to cast a shade of 
 sentimental ignorance round the primal truths implanted in 
 the human breast, — all prove that Islam represents the latest 
 development of the religious faculties of our being. Those 
 who have ignored the historic significance of some of its precepts 
 have deemed that their seeming harshness, or unadaptability 
 to present modes of thought ought to exclude it from any 
 claim to universality. But a little inquiry into the historic 
 value of laws and precepts, a little more fairness in the exam- 
 ination of facts, would evince the temporary character of such 
 rules as may appear scarcely consonant with the requirements 
 or prejudices of modern times. The catholicity of Islam, its 
 expansiveness, and its charity towards all moral creeds, has 
 been utterly mistaken, perverted, or wilfully concealed by the 
 bigotry of rival religions. 
 
 " Verily," says the Koran, " those who believe (the Moslems), 
 and those who are Jews, Christians, or Sabaeans, whoever hath 
 faith in God and the last day (future existence), and worketh 
 that which is right and good, — for them shall be the reward 
 with their Lord ; there will come no fear on them ; neither 
 shall they be grieved." l 
 
 The same sentiment is repeated in similar words in the fifth 
 Sura ; and a hundred other passages prove that Islam does not 
 confine " salvation " to the followers of Mohammed alone : — 
 " To every one have we given a law and a way. . . . And if 
 God had pleased, He would have made you all (all mankind) 
 one people (people of one religion). But He hath done other- 
 wise, that He might try you in that which He hath severally 
 given unto you : wherefore press forward in good works. Unto 
 God shall ye return, and He will tell you that concerning which 
 ye disagree." 2 
 
 Of all the religions of the world that have ruled the conscience 
 
 1 Sura v. 69. Compare the spirit of these teachings with that of the 
 Athanasian Creed. 
 
 2 Sura v. 48. Compare also xxix. 46, xxxii. 23, 24, xxxix. 41, xl. 13, etc. 
 
176 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 of mankind, the Islam of Mohammed alone combines both the 
 conceptions which have in different ages furnished the main- 
 spring of human conduct, — the consciousness of human dignity, 
 so valued in the ancient philosophies, and the sense of human 
 sinfulness, so dear to the Christian apologist. The belief that 
 man will be judged by his work solely, throws the Moslem on 
 the practice of self-denial and universal charity ; the belief 
 in Divine Providence, in the mercy, love, and omnipotence 
 of God, leads him to self-humiliation before the Almighty, 
 and to the practice of those heroic virtues which have given 
 rise to the charge that the virtues of Islam are stoical," x 
 patience, resignation, and firmness in the trials of life. It 
 leads him to interrogate his conscience with nervous anxiety, 
 to study with scrupulous care the motives that actuate him, 2 
 to distrust his own strength, and to rely upon the assistance of 
 an Almighty and All-Loving Power in the conflict between 
 good and evil. 
 
 In some religions the precepts which inculcated duties have 
 been so utterly devoid of practicability, so completely wanting 
 in a knowledge of human nature, and partaking so much of the 
 dreamy vagueness of enthusiasts, as to become in the real 
 battles of life simply useless. 3 The practical character of a 
 religion, its abiding influence on the common relations of 
 mankind, in the affairs of everyday life, its power on the 
 masses, are the true criteria for judging of its universality. 
 We do not look to exceptional minds to recognise the nature 
 of a religion. We search among the masses to understand its 
 true character. Does it exercise deep power over them ? 
 does it elevate them ? does it regulate their conception of 
 rights and duties ? does it, if carried to the South Sea islander, 
 or preached to the Caffrarians, improve or degrade them ? — 
 are the questions we naturally ask. In Is] am is joined a 
 lofty idealism with the most rationalistic practicality. It 
 did not ignore human nature ; it never entangled itself in the 
 tortuous pathways which lie outside the domains of the actual 
 
 1 Clarke, Ten Great Religions, p. 484. 
 
 2 Compare the first Apologue in the Akhlak (Ethics) of Husain Waiz on 
 I k Mas. 
 
 3 Compare M. Ernest Havet's remarks in his valuable and learned work, 
 Le Christianisme et ses Origines, Pref. p. xxxix. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 177 
 
 and the real. Its object, like that of other systems, was the 
 elevation of humanity towards the absolute ideal of perfection ; 
 but it attained, or tries to attain, this object by grasping the 
 truth that the nature of man is, in this existence, imperfect. 
 If it did not say, " If thy brother smite thee on one cheek, 
 turn thou the other also to him " ; if it allowed the punishment 
 of the wanton wrong-doer to the extent of the injury he had 
 done, 1 it also taught, in fervid words and varied strains, the 
 practice of forgiveness and benevolence, and the return of good 
 for evil : — " Who speaketh better," says the Koran, " than 
 he who inviteth unto God, and worketh good ? . . . Good and 
 evil shall not be held equal. Turn away evil with that which 
 is better." 2 And again, speaking of paradise, it says, " It 
 is prepared for the godly, who give alms in prosperity and 
 adversity, who bridle their anger, and forgive men ; for God 
 loveth the beneficent." 3 
 
 The practice of these noble precepts does not lie enshrined 
 in the limbo of false sentimentalism. With the true follower 
 of the Prophet they form the active principles of life. History 
 has preserved, for the admiration of wondering posterity, 
 many examples of patience under suffering exhibited by the 
 followers of other creeds. But the practice of the virtue of 
 patient forgiveness is easier in adversity, when we have no 
 power to punish the evil-doer, than in prosperity. It is related 
 of Husain, the noble martyr of Kerbela, that a slave having 
 once thrown the contents of a scalding dish over him as he sat 
 at dinner, fell on his knees and repeated the verse of the Koran, 
 " Paradise is for those who bridle their anger." " I am not 
 angry," answered Husain. The slave proceeded, " and for 
 those who forgive men." " I forgive you." The slave, how- 
 ever, finished the verse, adding, " for God loveth the beneficent." 
 " I give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver," 
 replied Husain. 4 
 
 1 Koran, sura xxii. 39, 40. Thonissen's remark, that Mohammed allowed 
 the punishment of the wilful wrong-doer for the purpose of preventing 
 enormous evils, must always be borne in mind. — L'Hist. du Droit Criminel 
 des Peuples Anciens, vol. ii. p. 67. 
 
 2 Koran, sura xli. 33, 34. 3 Koran, sura xlii. 37. 
 
 1 This anecdote has been told by Sale in a note to the third chapter of his 
 translation of the Koran, and also by Gibbon ; but both have, by mistake, 
 
 S.I. M 
 
178 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 The author of the Kashshdf thus sums up the essence of the 
 Islamic teachings : " Seek again him who drives you away ; 
 give to him who takes away from you ; pardon him who 
 injures you : 1 for God loveth that you should cast into the 
 depth of your soul the roots of His perfections." 2 
 
 In the purity of its aspiration, can anything be more beautiful 
 than the following : " The servants of the Merciful are they 
 that walk upon the earth softly ; and when the ignorant 
 speak unto them, they reply, Peace ! they that spend the night 
 worshipping their Lord, prostrate, and standing, and resting : 
 those that, when they spend, are neither profuse nor niggardly, 
 but take a middle course : . . . those that invoke not with God 
 any other God, and slay not a soul that God hath forbidden 
 otherwise than by right ; and commit not fornication : . . . 
 they who bear not witness to that which is false ; and when 
 they pass by vain sport, they pass it by with dignity : who 
 say, ' Oh, our Lord, grant us of our wives and children such as 
 shall be a comfort unto us, and make us examples unto the 
 pious,' — these shall be the rewarded, for that they persevered ; 
 and they shall be accosted in paradise with welcome and 
 salutation : — For ever therein, — a fair abode and resting- 
 place ! " 3 
 
 This is the Islam of Mohammed. It is not " a mere creed ; 
 it is a life to be lived in the present " — a religion of right-doing, 
 right-thinking, and right-speaking, founded on divine love, 
 universal charity, and the equality of man in the sight of the 
 Lord. However much the modern professors of Islam may 
 have dimmed the glory of their Prophet (and a volume might 
 also be written on the defects of modern Mohammedanism), 
 the religion which enshrines righteousness and " justification 
 by work " 4 deserves the recognition of the lovers of humanity. 
 
 applied the episode to Hasan, the brother of Husain. See the Tafsir- 
 Husaini, Mirat Ed. p. 199. 
 
 1 Compare this with the precept of Mohammed reported by Abu Darda, 
 Mishkdt, bk. iv. chap. i. part ii., and the whole chapter on " Forgiveness " 
 (chap, xxxvi.) in the Mustatraf. 
 
 2 Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), Egypt. Ed. part i. p. 280. 
 
 3 Koran, sura xxv. 63-76. 
 
 4 Mr. Cotter Morrison, in his Service of Man, calls the other doctrine the 
 most disastrous to human morality. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 179 
 
 J* J y. ^ J — J V )' ^9' ^ 
 
 " Wishest thou to approach God ? 
 Live purely, and act righteously." 
 
 Jalal ud-din Rumi says, — 
 
 " Thou partakest of the nature of the beast as well as the angel ; 
 Leave the nature of the beast, that thou mayest surpass the angel." 
 
 The present life was the seed-ground of the future. To work 
 in all humility of spirit for the human good, to strive with all 
 energy to approach the perfection of the All-Perfect, is the 
 essential principle of Islam. The true Moslem is a true 
 Christian, in that he accepts the ministry of Jesus, and tries 
 to work out the moral preached by him. Why should not the 
 true Christian do honour to the Preacher who put the finishing 
 stroke to the work of the earlier Masters ? Did not he call 
 back the wandering forces of the world into the channel of 
 progress ? 
 
 Excepting for the conception of the sonship of Jesus, there is 
 no fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. 
 In their essence they are one and the same ; both are the 
 outcome of the same spiritual forces working in humanity. 
 One was a protest against the heartless materialism of the 
 Jews and the Romans ; the other a revolt against the degrading 
 idolatry of the Arabs, their ferocious customs and usages. 
 Christianity, preached among a more settled and civilised 
 people subject to an organised government, had to contend 
 with comparatively milder evils. Islam, preached among 
 warring tribes and clans, had to fight against all the instincts 
 of self-interest and ancient superstition. Christianity, arrested 
 in its progress towards the East by a man of cultured but 
 bizarre character, who, though a Jew by birth, was by education 
 an Alexandrian Greek, was carried to Greece and Rome, and 
 there gathering up the pagan civilisation of centuries, gave 
 
180 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 birth to new ideas and doctrines. Christianity ceased to be 
 Christian the moment it was transplanted from the home of 
 its birth. It became the religion of Paul, and ceased to be that 
 of Jesus. The pantheons of ancient paganism were tottering 
 to their fall. Greek and Alexandrian philosophy had prepared 
 the Roman world for the recognition of an incarnate God — a 
 demiurgus, an iEon born in the bosom of eternity, and this 
 conception imbedded itself in Pauline Christianity. Modern 
 idealistic Christianity, which is more a philosophy than a 
 positive religion, is the product of centuries of pre-Christian 
 and post-Christian civilisation. Islam was preached among 
 a people, among conditions social and moral, wholly divergent. 
 Had it broken down the barrier which was raised against it by 
 a degraded Christianity, and made its way among the higher 
 races of the earth, its progress and its character would have 
 presented a totally different aspect from what it now offers 
 to the observer among the less cultured Moslem communities. 
 Like rivers flowing through varied tracts, both these creeds 
 have produced results in accordance with the nature of the 
 soil through which they have found their course. The Mexican 
 who castigates himself with cactus leaves, the idol-worshipping 
 South American, the lower strata of Christian nations, are 
 hardly in any sense Christians. There exists a wide gulf 
 between them and the leaders of modern Christian thought. 
 Islam, wherever it has found its way among culturable and 
 progressive nations, has shown itself in complete accord with 
 progressive tendencies, it has assisted civilisation, it has 
 idealised religion. 1 
 
 A religion has to be eminently positive in its " command- 
 ments and prohibitions " to exercise an abiding salutary 
 influence on the ignorant and uncultured. The higher and 
 more spiritualised minds are often able to forge on the anvils 
 of their own hearts, lines of duty in relation to their fellow 
 creatures without reference to outside directions. They are 
 
 1 The faith which could give birth to the heroic devotion of Ali, the gentle- 
 ness of Ja'far (the Sadik), the piety and patience of Musa, the divine purity 
 of Fatima, the saintliness of Rabi'a ; the religion which could produce men 
 like Ibn-Sina, Al-Beiruni, Ibn-Khaldun, Sanai, Jalal ud-din Rumi, Farid 
 ud-din (the Attar), Ibrahim Adham, and a host of others, suiely contains 
 every element of hopefulness. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 181 
 
 in commune with God and are guided by the consciousness of 
 right and wrong, of truth and purity which had grown up with 
 their being. Plato and Aristotle, who had never received the 
 light of the Semitic revelations, spoke to the world of the 
 highest principles of morality in as distinct terms as the great 
 prophets. They too had heard the voice of God, and were 
 lifted up to Him by their own thoughts. 
 
 To the mass of mankind, however, sunk either in ignorance 
 or barbarism, for the uncultured and the sodden, moral enuncia- 
 tions convey no meaning unless they are addressed in a positive 
 form and formulated with the precision of enactments 
 surrounded with definite sanctions. The ethical side of a 
 religion does not appeal to their feelings or sentiments ; and 
 philosophical conceptions exercise no influence on their minds, 
 their daily conduct or their lives. 
 
 They are swayed far more by authority and precedent than 
 by sermons on abstract principles. They require definite 
 prescriptions to regulate not only their relations towards their 
 fellow-beings but also towards their Creator whom, in the 
 absence of such rules, they are apt to forget. 
 
 The success of Islam in the seventh century of the Christian 
 era, and its rapid and marvellous diffusion over the surface 
 of the globe, were due to the fact that it recognised this essential 
 need of human nature. To a world of wrangling sects and 
 creeds, to whom words were of far greater importance than 
 practice, it spoke in terms of positive command from an 
 Absolute Source. Amidst the moral and social wreck in which 
 it found its birth, it aimed at the integration of the worship 
 of a Personal Will, and thereby to recall humanity to the 
 observance of duty which alone pointed to the path of 
 spiritual development. And by its success in lifting up 
 the lower races to a higher level of social morality it proved 
 to the world the need of a positive system. It taught them 
 sobriety, temperance, charity, justice and equality as the 
 commandments of God. Its affirmation of the principle of 
 equality of man and man and its almost socialistic tendency 
 represented the same phase of thought that had found 
 expression on the shores of Galilee. But even in his most 
 exalted mood the great Teacher of Islam did not forget the 
 
182 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 limitations imposed on individual capacity which occasion 
 economic inequalities. 
 
 Alas for the latter-day professors of Islam ! The blight of 
 patristicism has ruined the blossom of true religion and a true 
 devotional spirit. 
 
 A Christian preacher has pointed out with great force the 
 distinction between religion and theology, and the evils which 
 have followed in his Church from the confusion of the two. 1 
 What has happened in Christianity has happened in Islam. 
 Practice has given way to the mockery of profession, cere- 
 monialism has taken the place of earnest and faithful work, — 
 doing good to mankind for the sake of doing good, and for the 
 love of God. Enthusiasm has died out, and devotion to God 
 and His Prophet are meaningless words. The earnestness 
 without which human existence is no better than that of the 
 brute creation, earnestness in right-doing and right-thinking, 
 is absent. The Moslems of the present day have ignored the 
 spirit in a hopeless love for the letter. Instead of living up to 
 the ideal preached by the Master, instead of " striving to 
 excel in good works," " of being righteous " ; instead of loving 
 God, and for the sake of His love loving His creatures, — they 
 have made themselves the slaves of opportunism and outward 
 observance. It was natural that in their reverence and 
 admiration for the Teacher his early disciples should stereotype 
 his ordinary mode of life, crystallise the passing incidents of a 
 chequered career, imprint on the heart orders, rules, and 
 regulations enunciated for the common exigencies of the day 
 in an infant society. But to suppose that the greatest 
 Reformer the world has ever produced, the greatest upholder 
 of the sovereignty of Reason, the man who proclaimed that the 
 universe was governed and guided by law and order, and that 
 the law of nature meant progressive development, ever con- 
 templated that even those injunctions which were called forth 
 by the passing necessities of a semi-civilised people should 
 become immutable to the end of the world, is doing an injustice 
 to the Prophet of Islam. 
 
 No one had a keener perception than he of the necessities of 
 this world of progress with its ever-changing social and moral 
 
 1 Professor Momerie in his Defects of Modem Christianity. 
 
II. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 183 
 
 phenomena, nor of the likelihood that the revelations vouch- 
 safed to him might not meet all possible contingencies. When 
 Muaz was appointed as governor of Yemen, he was asked by 
 the Prophet by what rule he would be guided in his administra- 
 tion of that province. " By the law of the Koran," said Muaz. 
 " But if you find no direction therein ? " " Then I will act 
 according to the example of the Prophet." " But if that 
 fails ? " " Then I will exercise my own judgment." The 
 Prophet approved highly of the answer of his disciple, and 
 commended it to the other delegates. 
 
 The great Teacher, who was fully conscious of the exigencies 
 of his own times, and the requirements of the people with whom 
 he had to deal, — people sunk in a slough of social and moral 
 despond, — with his keen insight and breadth of views, perceived, 
 and one may say foretold, that a time would come when the 
 accidental and temporary regulations would have to be differ- 
 entiated from the permanent and general. " Ye are in an 
 age," he declared, " in which, if ye abandon one-tenth of what 
 is ordered, ye will be ruined. After this, a time will come 
 when he who shall observe one-tenth of what is now ordered 
 will be redeemed." x 
 
 IS- 1 ti j«>1 lx>j&£ pV<*> J+* ^/e ^Ccj J&i +i cJU <*J^x>? Co jLfi S\*> yjjj 
 
 .. *« ' - «. I u >' O . ° >« «. i t,*''- 
 
 As we have already observed, the blight which has fallen on 
 Musulman nations is not due to the teachings of the Master. 
 No religion contained greater promise of development, no 
 faith was purer, or more in conformity with the progressive 
 demands of humanity. 
 
 The present stagnation of the Musulman communities is 
 principally due to the notion which has fixed itself on the 
 minds of the generality of Moslems, that the right to the 
 exercise of private judgment ceased with the early legists, 
 
 1 This authentic tradition is given in the J&ma' nt-Tirmizi and is to be 
 found also in the Mishkdt. 
 
184 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 that its exercise in modern times is sinful, and that a Moslem 
 in order to be regarded as an orthodox follower of Mohammed 
 should belong to one or the other of the schools established by 
 the schoolmen of Islam, and abandon his judgment absolutely 
 to the interpretations of men who lived in the ninth century, 
 and could have no conception of the necessities of the twentieth. 
 
 Among the Sunnis, it is the common belief that since the 
 four Imams, 1 no doctor has arisen qualified to interpret the 
 laws of the Prophet. No account is taken of the altered 
 circumstances in which Moslems are now placed ; the con- 
 clusions at which these learned legists arrived several centuries 
 ago are held to be equally applicable to the present day. 
 Among the Shiahs, the Akhbari will not allow his judgment to 
 travel beyond the dictates of " the expounders of the law." 
 The Prophet had consecrated reason as the highest and noblest 
 function of the human intellect. Our schoolmen and their 
 servile followers have made its exercise a sin and a crime. 
 
 As among Christians, so among Moslems. The lives and 
 conduct of a large number of Moslems at the present day are 
 governed less by the precepts and teachings of the Master, 
 and more by the theories and opinions of the mujtahids and 
 imams who have tried, each according to his light, to construe 
 the revelations vouchsafed to the Teacher. Like men in a 
 crowd listening to a preacher who from a lofty position addresses 
 a large multitude and from his vantage ground overlooks a 
 vast area, they observed only their immediate surroundings, 
 and, without comprehending the wider meaning of his words 
 or the nature of the audience whom he addressed, adapted his 
 utterances to their own limited notions of human needs and 
 human progress. Oblivious of the universality of the Master's 
 teachings, unassisted by his spirit, devoid of his inspiration, 
 they forgot that the Prophet, from the pinnacle of his genius, 
 had spoken to all humanity. They mixed up the temporary 
 with the permanent, the universal with the particular. Like 
 many of the ecclesiastics of Christendom, not a few were the 
 servants of sovereigns and despots whose demands were not 
 consistent with the precepts of the Master. Canons were 
 invented, theories started, traditions discovered, and glosses 
 
 1 Abu Hanifa, Shafe'i, Malik, and Ibn Hanbal. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 185 
 
 put upon his words utterly at variance with their spirit. And 
 hence it is that most of the rules and regulations which govern 
 now the conscience of so many professors of the faith are 
 hardly derived from any express and positive declarations of 
 the Koran, but for the most part from the lego-religious books 
 with which the Islamic world was flooded in the later centuries. 
 " Just as the Hebrews deposed their Pentateuch in favour of 
 the Talmud," justly observes an English writer, " so the 
 Moslems have abolished the Koran in favour of the traditions 
 and decisions of the learned." " We do not mean to say," 
 he adds most pertinently, " that any Mohammedan if asked 
 what was the text-book of his religion, would answer anything 
 but the ' Koran ' ; but we do mean that practically it is not 
 the Koran that guides his belief or practice. In the Middle 
 Ages of Christendom it was not the New Testament, but the 
 Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, that decided questions 
 of orthodoxy ; and in the present day, does the orthodox 
 churchman usually derive his creed from a personal investiga- 
 tion of the teaching of Christ in the Gospels ? Probably, if 
 he refers to a document at all, the Church Catechism contents 
 him ; or if he be of a peculiarly inquiring disposition, a perusal 
 of the Thirty-nine Articles will resolve all doubts. Yet he too 
 would say his religion was drawn from the Gospels, and would 
 not confess to the medium through which it was filtered. In 
 precisely the same way modern Mohammedanism is constructed, 
 and a large part of what Moslems now believe and practise 
 is not to be found in the Koran at all." 
 
 And yet each system, each school contains germs of improve- 
 ment, and if development is now stopped, it is not even the 
 fault of the lawyers. It is due to a want of apprehension of 
 the spirit of the Master's enunciations, and even of those of 
 the fathers of the Church. 1 
 
 In the Western world, the Reformation was ushered in by 
 the Renaissance and the progress of Europe commenced when 
 
 1 The Radd ul-Muhtdr of Mohammed Amin the Syrian, and the Majma' 
 ul-Anhdr of the Shaikh Zadeh are as much in advance of the Multeka and the 
 Hedaya as the views of an Eldon or Mansfield upon those of a Coke or Black- 
 stone. The opinions of Shaikh Murtaza, in their liberal and liberalising 
 tendencies, are far above those of the narrow-minded self-opinionated Mohak- 
 kik. But the servile Akhbari follows the latter in preference to the former. 
 
186 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 it threw off the shackles of Ecclesiasticism. In Islam also, 
 enlightenment must precede reform ; and, before there can be 
 a renovation of religious life, the mind must first escape from 
 the bondage which centuries of literal interpretation and the 
 doctrine of " conformity " have imposed upon it. The 
 formalism that does not appeal to the heart of the worshipper 
 must be abandoned ; externals must be subordinated to the 
 inner feelings ; and the lessons of ethics must be impressed 
 on the plastic mind ; then alone can we hope for that enthusiasm 
 in the principles of duty taught by the Prophet of Islam. The 
 reformation of Islam will begin when once it is recognised that 
 divine words rendered into any language retain their divine 
 character and that devotions offered in any tongue are accept- 
 able to God. The Prophet himself had allowed his foreign 
 disciples to say their prayers in their own tongue. 1 He had 
 expressly permitted others to recite the Koran in their respective 
 dialects ; and had declared that it was revealed in seven 
 languages. 
 
 In the earliest ages of Islam there was a consensus of opinion 
 that devotion without understanding was useless. Imam 
 Abu Hanifa considered the recitation of the namdz and also of 
 the Khutba or sermon, lawful and valid in any language. 2 
 The disciples of Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf and Mohammed, 
 have accepted the doctrine of their master with a certain 
 variation. They hold that when a person does not know 
 Arabic, he may validly offer his devotions in any other 
 language. 3 
 
 There is, however, one great and cogent reason why the 
 practice of reciting prayers in Arabic should be maintained 
 wherever it is possible and practicable. Not because it was 
 the language of the Prophet, but because it has become the 
 language of Islam and maintains the unity of sentiment 
 
 1 Salman the Persian, whom Ali had saved from a lion, was the first to 
 whom this permission was granted. 
 
 % Jawdhir ul-Akhldti ; Durr ul-Mukhtdr, Bdb us-Saldt (Chapter on Prayer). 
 This view is also given in the Tajnis. Tahtawi states that the Imam's opinion 
 is authoritative and should be followed. The commentator of the Durr 
 ul-Mukhtdr also recognises the validity of reciting prayers in Persian. 
 
 3 This is construed by the Ulemas of the present day to mean, when the 
 worshipper is unable to pronounce Arabic words ! The absurdity of the 
 explanation is obvious. 
 
ii. THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF ISLAM 187 
 
 throughout the Islamic world. And wherein lies more strength 
 than in unity ? 
 
 Note I. 
 
 The sumptuary prohibitions of Mohammed may be divided 
 into two classes, qualitative and quantitative. The prohibition 
 against excess in eating and drinking and others of the like 
 import belong to the latter class. They were called forth in 
 part by the peculiar semi-barbarous epicureanism which was 
 coming into fashion among the Arabs from their intercourse 
 with the demoralised Syrians and Persians, and in part by 
 circumstances of which only glimpses are afforded us in the 
 Koran. The absolute prohibition of swine's flesh, which may 
 be classed under the head of qualitative prohibitions, arose, 
 as is evident, from hygienic reasons and this prohibition must 
 remain unchanged as long as the nature of the animal and the 
 diseases engendered by the eating of the flesh remain as at 
 present. The prohibition against dancing was directed against 
 the orgiastic dances with which the heathen Arabs used to 
 celebrate the Syro-Phcenician worship of their Ashtoreth, 
 Moloch and Baal. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 
 
 THE idea of a future existence — of an existence after 
 the separation of the living principle of our nature 
 from the mortal part — is so generally shared by races 
 of men, otherwise utterly distinct from each other, that it has 
 led to the belief that it must be one of the first elementary 
 constituents of our being. A more careful examination of 
 facts, however, connected with the infancy of races and tribes, 
 leads us to the conclusion that the conception of a future 
 existence is also the result of the natural development of the 
 human mind. 
 
 The wild savage has scarcely any idea of a life separate and 
 distinct from that which he enjoys on earth. He looks upon 
 death as the end of existence. Then comes a later stage when 
 man has passed out of his savage state, his hopes and aspirations 
 are bounded no more by an earthly death ; he now anticipates 
 another course of existence after the course here has been 
 fulfilled. But even in this stage the conception of immortality 
 does not rise out of the groove of daily life. Life after death 
 is a mere continuation of life on earth. This idea of a continued 
 life beyond the grave must have been developed from the yet 
 unconscious longing of the human soul for a more extended 
 
 1 See translation at end of this chapter. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 189 
 
 sphere, where the separation of dear friends, so painful to both 
 savage and civilised man, should end in reunion. 
 
 The next stage is soon reached ; man comes to believe that 
 present happiness and misery are not, cannot be, the be-all and 
 end-all of his existence ; that there will be another life, or that 
 there is another life after death, where he will be happy or 
 miserable in proportion to his deserts. 
 
 Now we have reached a principle and a law. 
 
 The mind of man goes no further towards developing the 
 idea of future existence. The nihilistic philosopher makes no 
 discovery, asserts no new position. He is only treading in the 
 footsteps of our savage ancestor, whose field of vision was 
 restricted to this life alone. 
 
 It is a well-authenticated fact, however, that all those ideas 
 which represent the various stages, from a subjective point of 
 view, exist simultaneously not only among different nations 
 but even in the same nation, in different combinations, accord- 
 ing to the individual development. 
 
 The Egyptians are said to have been the first to recognise 
 the doctrine of a future life, or, at least, to base the principles 
 of human conduct on such a doctrine. 1 With an idea of 
 metempsychosis they joined an idea of future recompense and 
 punishment. Man descended into the tomb only to rise again. 
 After his resurrection he entered on a new life, in company 
 with the sun, the principle of generation, the self -existent 
 cause of all. The soul of man was considered immortal like 
 the sun, and as accomplishing the same pilgrimages. All 
 bodies descended into the lower world, but they were not all 
 assured of resurrection. The deceased were judged by Osiris 
 and his forty-two assessors. Annihilation was often believed 
 to be the lot of those adjudged guilty. The righteous, 
 purified from venial faults, entered into perfect happiness, 
 and as the companions of Osiris, were fed by him with 
 delicious food. 2 
 
 We might naturally expect that the long stay of the Israelites 
 in Egypt would introduce among them some conception of a 
 
 1 Rawlinson's History of Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 423. 
 
 2 Comp. Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. i. pp. 319-322 ; and 
 Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 102 et seq. 
 
igo THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 future life with its concomitant idea of rewards and punish- 
 ments. But pure Mosaism (or the teachings which pass under 
 that name) does not recognise a state of existence differing 
 from the present. The pivot on which the entire system of 
 Mosaic legislation turns consists of tangible earthly rewards and 
 punishments. 1 The vitality of the laws is confined within a 
 very small compass. The doctrine of a resurrection, with the 
 ideas arising from it, which appears in later Judaism, — especially 
 in the writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, — is evidently a fruit of 
 foreign growth derived from Zoroastrian sources. Even the 
 descriptions of Sheol, the common sojourn of departed beings, 
 equally of the just and unjust, which appear in comparatively 
 early writings, do not seem of true Hebraic origin. In Sheol 
 man can no longer praise God or remember His loving-kindness. 2 
 It is a shadow-realm, a Jewish counterpart of the heathen 
 Hades, in which the souls lead a sad, lethargic, comfortless 
 existence ; knowing nothing of those who were dear to them 
 on earth, mourning only over their own condition. 3 
 
 But later Judaism is full of the strongest faith in a future 
 life. Tradition revels in the descriptions of the abodes of bliss, 
 or of the horrors of the damned. 4 Zoroastrianism thus acted 
 on the Hebraic race in a double way. It not only developed 
 in them a purer and more spiritual conception of a future 
 existence, but later Mago-Zoroastrianism, itself a product of 
 Chaldseism, strongly coloured the Rabbinical beliefs with 
 materialistic ideas of punishments and rewards hereafter. 5 It 
 was, however, among the Aryan nations of the East that the 
 doctrine of a future life after visible death was distinctly and 
 vividly recognised. In one branch of the Aryan family, it took 
 the shape either of an eternal metempsychosis, a ceaseless whirl 
 of births and deaths, or of utter absorption after a prolonged 
 probation in absolute infinity, or endless unfathomable space, 
 
 1 Comp. Alger, History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 157 ; also Milman's 
 Christianity, vol. i. pp. 21, 25, 75, etc. 
 
 2 Ps. vi. 5. 
 
 3 Job xiv. 22. Comp. Dollinger, vol. ii. p. 389 ; and Alger, History of the 
 Doctrine of a Future Life, pp. 151, 152 et seq. 
 
 4 See Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 242, notes. 
 
 5 See the chapter of Alger, tracing the influence of the Persian system on 
 later Judaism, p. 165 el seq. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 191 
 
 or nothing. 1 In the other branch, this doctrine was clothed 
 in the shape of a graduated scale of rewards and punishments, 
 in the sense in which human accountability is understood 
 by the modern Christian or Moslem. Whether the Mago- 
 Zoroastrians from the beginning believed in a corporeal resur- 
 rection is a question on which scholars are divided. Dollinger, 
 with Burnouf and others, believes that this notion was not 
 really Zoroastric, and that it is of later growth, if not derived 
 from Hebrews. 2 
 
 However this be, about the time of the Prophet of Arabia, 
 the Persians had a strong and developed conception of future 
 life. The remains of the Zend-Avesta which have come down 
 to us expressly recognise a belief in future rewards and punish- 
 ments. The Zoroastrianism of the Vendidad and the Bunde- 
 hesh, enlarging upon the beliefs of the Avesta, holds that after 
 a man's death the demons take possession of his body, yet 
 on the third day consciousness returns. Souls that in their 
 lifetime have yielded to the seductions of evil cannot pass the 
 terrible bridge Chine vad, to which they are conducted on the 
 day following the third night after their death. The good 
 successfully pass it, conducted by the Yazatas (in modern 
 Persian, Izad), and, entering the realms of bliss, join Ormuzd 
 and the Amshaspands in their abode, where seated on thrones 
 of gold, they enjoy the society of beautiful fairies (Hoordn-i- 
 Behisht) and all manner of delights. The wicked fall over the 
 bridge or are dragged down into the gulf of Duzakh where they 
 are tormented by the Dcbvcis. The duration of this punishment 
 is fixed by Ormuzd, and some are redeemed by the prayers 
 and intercessions of their friends. Towards the end of the 
 world a prophet is to arise, who is to rid the earth of injustice 
 
 1 And yet the Brahmanical priests painted the horrors of hell and the 
 pleasures of heaven with the vividness of a thoroughly morbid imagination. 
 The Arabic scholar is referred to the appreciative account of the Buddhistic 
 doctrines (not so much regarding future life as generally) in Shahristani, 
 p. 446. 
 
 2 Alger has furnished us with strong reasons for supposing that the early 
 Zoroastrians believed in a bodily resurrection. The extreme repugnance with 
 which the Mago-Zoroastrians regarded corpses is no reason for discarding 
 this conclusion, as most probably this repugnance arose under Manichaean 
 influences ; see Alger, p. 138 et seq. Apropos of the repugnance with which 
 the Persians in Mohammed's time looked upon corpses, consult Dollinger, 
 vol. ii. p. 409. 
 
192 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 and wickedness, and usher in a reign of happiness — the 
 Zoroastrian millennium, Ormuzd's kingdom of heaven. 1 
 After this, a universal resurrection will take place, and friends 
 and relatives will meet again. After the joys of recognition 
 there will follow a separation of the good from the bad. The 
 torments of the unrighteous will be fearful. Ahriman will 
 run up and down Chinevad overwhelmed with anguish. A 
 blazing comet, falling on the earth, will ignite the world. 
 Mountains will melt and flow together like liquid metal. All 
 mankind, good and bad alike, will pass through this glowing 
 flood, and come out purified. Even Ahriman will be changed 
 and Duzakh purified. Evil thenceforth will be annihilated, 
 and all mankind will live in the enjoyment of ineffable delights. 
 
 Such is the summary of a religion which has influenced the 
 Semitic faiths in an unmistakable manner, and especially the 
 eclectic faith of Mohammed. 
 
 About the time when Jesus of Nazareth made his appearance, 
 the Phoenicians and Assyrians had passed away. The hellenised 
 Roman ruled the world, checked in the East, however, by 
 triumphant and revived Mago-Zoroastrianism. 
 
 The Jew had lost his independence for ever. A miserable 
 sycophant occupied the throne of David. A mightier power 
 than that of the Seleucidae kept in subjection his spirit of 
 unruliness. Like every nation animated by a fierce love of 
 their country, creed, and individuality, the Jews, as their fate 
 grew darker and darker, became more and more inspired with 
 the hope that some heaven-commissioned ministrant, like 
 Gideon or Maccabeus, would restore their original glory, and 
 enable them to plant their foot on the necks of their many 
 oppressors. 2 The appearance of a Messiah portrayed in vivid 
 colours by all their patriotic seers, the Jewish bards, was 
 founded on one grand aspiration — the restoration of the 
 
 1 Shahristani calls this prophet Ushizerbeka. (Cureton's ed. p. 188) ; but 
 according to Western authors his name is said to be Sosiosch, who is to be 
 preceded by two other prophets, called Oscheder Bami and Oschedermah 
 (Dollinger v. ii. p. 401). De Sacy calls him Pashoutan (Sur Div. Ant. de la 
 Perse, p. 95). 
 
 2 It is not necessary, as Alger supposes, that because the Jews looked 
 forward to the reappearance of Elijah or some other prophet among them 
 for these national purposes, we must conclude that they believed in trans- 
 migration. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 193 
 
 kingdom of Israel. Under the influences of the Mago-Zoro- 
 astrians and Chaldaeans in the East, and the Grecian schools of 
 philosophy in the West, among some classes of society 
 (especially among those whom the hellenising tendencies of 
 Herod had withdrawn from the bosom of Israel), the belief in 
 a personal Messiah was either faint and indistinct, or a mere 
 echo from the vulgar masses. But, as Milman beautifully 
 observes, the Palestinian Jews had about this time moulded 
 out of various elements a splendid though confused vision of 
 the appearance of the Messiah, the simultaneous regeneration 
 of all things, the resurrection of the dead, and the reign of 
 Messiah upon earth. All these events were to take place at 
 once, or to follow close upon each other. 1 The Messiah was to 
 descend from the line of David ; he was to assemble all the 
 scattered descendants of the tribes, and to expel and destroy 
 their hateful alien enemies. Under the Messiah a resurrection 
 would take place, but would be confined to the righteous of 
 their race. 2 
 
 Amidst all this enthusiasm and these vague aspirations, the 
 hopes of eternal life and future bliss were strangely mingled. 
 The extremes of despair and enthusiastic expectation of 
 external relief always tend to the development of such a state 
 of mind among the people. One section appears to look 
 forward to an unearthly kingdom, a reign of peace and law 
 under divine agency, as an escape from the galling yoke of 
 brute force ; the other looks forward to the same or cognate 
 means for securing the kingdom of heaven by the blood of 
 aliens and heathens. 3 
 
 The traditions which record the sayings of Jesus have gone 
 
 1 Milman, History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 76. 
 
 2 The similarity between the Zoroastrian idea of a deliverer and restorer 
 of religion and order on earth, and the Messianic conception among the Jews, 
 is, to say the least, wonderful. The Jews, it is certain, derived this concep- 
 tion from the Zoroastrians ; and in their misfortunes developed it in more 
 vivid terms. But I am strongly disposed to think that the idea of a Sosiosch, 
 whatever its prophetic significance, arose among the Persians also when 
 labouring under a foreign yoke — whether of the Semitic Assyrians or the Greek 
 Macedonians it is difficult to say. The very country in which the scene of 
 his appearance is laid — Kanguedez in Khorasan, according to De Sacy, 
 Cansoya, according to Dollinger's authorities — shows that the Persians, in their 
 misfortunes, looked to the East, especially to the " Land of the Sun," for 
 assistance and deliverance. 
 
 3 Like the modern, though obscure, sect of Christadelphians. 
 
 s.i. n 
 
194 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 through such a process of elimination and selection, that it is 
 hardly possible at the present moment to say which are really 
 his own words and which are not. 1 But taking them as they 
 stand, and on the same footing as we regard other religious 
 documents (without ignoring their real spirit, yet without 
 trying to find mysterious meanings like the faithful believer), 
 we see that throughout these traditional records the notion of 
 an immediate advent of a new order of things, " of a kingdom 
 of heaven," is so predominant in the mind of Jesus as to over- 
 shadow all other ideas. The Son of Man has appeared, the 
 kingdom of God is at hand ; such is the burden of every hopeful 
 word. 2 This kingdom was to replace the society and govern- 
 ment which the Prophet of Nazareth found so imperfect and 
 evil. At times his words led the disciples to conclude that the 
 new Teacher was born to lead only the poor and the famished 
 to glory and happiness ; that under the hoped-for theocratic 
 regime these alone would be " the blessed," and would con- 
 stitute the predominating element, for " woe " is denounced 
 in awful terms against the rich and the well-fed. 3 At other 
 times, the realm of God is understood to mean the literal 
 fulfilment of the apocalyptic visions or dreams connected with 
 the appearance of the Messiah. Sometimes, however, the 
 kingdom of God is a realm of souls, and the approaching 
 deliverance is merely a spiritual deliverance from the bondage 
 
 1 Milman himself admits that the traditions regarding the acts and sayings 
 of Jesus, which were floating about among the Christian communities, were 
 not cast into their present shape till almost the close of the first half of the 
 second century (History of Christianity, vol. i. p. 126). Necessarily, therefore, 
 the ancient collectors and modellers of the Christian Gospels, or as Milman 
 regards them, rude and simple historians, must have exercised a discretionary 
 latitude in the reception of the traditions. They must have decided every- 
 thing on dogmatic grounds. " If a narrative or scripture was, in its tone and 
 substance, agreeable to their (preconceived) views, they looked upon defective 
 external evidence as complete ; if it was not agreeable, the most sufficient 
 was explained away as a misunderstanding." Hence a great many additions 
 were made, though unconsciously, to the sayings and doings of Jesus. On 
 this point the testimony of Celsus, with every allowance for exaggeration, 
 must be regarded as conclusive when he says the Christians were in the habit 
 of coining and remodelling their traditional accounts (Origen c. Celsus, ii. 27). 
 And this on the principle laid down by Sir W. Muir in Canon III. p. lxxxi. 
 vol. i. {Life of Mahomet). 
 
 2 Matt. iv. 17, x. 7, etc. 
 
 3 Luke vii. 20 et seq. In Matthew " the poor in spirit " are mentioned. 
 But the simpler statement of Luke, from a comparison of all the circum- 
 stances, seems more authentic. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 195 
 
 of this mundane existence. All these conceptions appear at 
 one period to have existed in the mind of Jesus simultaneously. 1 
 But the fierceness and bigotry of the dominant party and the 
 power of the Roman eagle made any immediate social change 
 impossible. As every hope of present amelioration died away, 
 hopes and aspirations of a brighter future took possession of 
 the heart. Jesus felt the present state could not last long ; 
 that the time of the regeneration of mankind was at hand, 2 
 when he himself would appear in the clouds of heaven, clothed 
 in divine garments, seated on a throne, surrounded by angels 
 and his chosen disciples. 3 The dead would rise from their 
 graves, 4 and the Messiah would sit in judgment. The angels 
 would be the executors of his sentence. He would send the 
 elect to a delightful abode prepared from the beginning of the 
 world, and the unrighteous into " everlasting fire prepared for 
 the devil and his angels," 5 where there would be weeping and 
 gnashing of teeth. The chosen, not numerically large, 6 would 
 be taken into an illuminated mansion, where they would 
 partake of banquets presided over by the father of the race of 
 Israel, the patriarchs, and the prophets, 7 and in which Jesus 
 himself will share. 8 
 
 1 Renan, Vie de Jesus, p. 282. 
 
 2 Matt. xix. 18. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Jesus himself believed in a corporeal resur- 
 rection, and in tangible rewards and punishments in a future life. He often 
 spoke of " the blessed " in his kingdom eating and drinking at his table. But 
 whilst in the early traditions passing under the name of the four apostles, 
 the accounts, owing to careful pruning, are meagre enough, later traditionists 
 enlarge upon the descriptions of paradise and hell, and revel in the most 
 gorgeous fantasies, which go under the name of revelations {vide Rev. xxi. 
 8-21, xxii. 1, 2). In puerility even the Christian traditionists do not fall 
 short of the followers of other creeds. The tradition handed down by 
 Irenaeus on the authority of John declares Jesus to have said, " Days shall 
 come in which there shall be vines, which shall have each ten thousand 
 branches, and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand lesser 
 branches, and every one of these branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and 
 every one of these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and in 
 every one of these clusters there shall be ten thousand grapes, and every one 
 of these grapes being pressed shall yield two hundred and seventy-five gallons 
 of wine ; and when a man shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, 
 another bunch shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the 
 Lord by me," etc. 
 
 3 Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 30, 31, xxv. 31 et seq. etc. 
 
 4 Rev. xx. 12, 13. Compare these notions with the Zoroastrian belief. 
 
 5 Matt. xxv. 41. B Luke xiii. 23. 
 
 7 Matt. viii. 11 ; Luke xiii. 28, xxii. 30. s Matt. xxvi. 29. 
 
196 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 That the inauguration of the new regime with the second 
 advent of Jesus and the resurrection of the human race was 
 considered not to be distant, is apparent from the words of 
 the Master himself, when he impressed upon his hearers the 
 approach of the kingdom of God, and the utter futility of every 
 provision for the occupations and exigencies of the present 
 life. 1 
 
 The words of the Teacher, acting in unison with the state 
 of mind engendered by the circumstances of the age, 2 had sunk 
 deep into the hearts of his disciples, and all looked forward, 
 with a vividness of expectation hardly surpassed in the annals 
 of human beliefs, to the literal fulfilment of the prophecies 
 concerning the millennium. 
 
 " If the first generation of the Christians had a profound and 
 constant belief, it was that the world was approaching its end, 
 and that the great ' revelation ' of Christ was to happen soon." 3 
 It is only when the Christian Church becomes a regular 
 organisation that the followers of Jesus expand their views 
 beyond the restricted horizon of the Judaic world, and, for- 
 getting their millenarian dream, they pass into the Greek and 
 Roman system, and extend the empire of their creed over 
 untold legions of barbarians fresh from their forests, who 
 looked upon Jesus and his mother as the counterparts of their 
 own Odin and Freya worshipped in their primeval homes. 
 
 But ever and anon the Christian world has been agitated in 
 moments of convulsions and disasters by the millenary excite- 
 ment and fierce expectation of the apocalyptic appearance of 
 the great Prophet of Nazareth. The idea, however, of the 
 realm of God has, with the lapse of ages and the progress of 
 thought, taken either a spiritual shape or utterly faded away 
 from the mind, or, where it has been retained, derives its 
 character from the surroundings of the individual believers. 
 The Jew, the Mago-Zoroastrian, and the Christian all believed 
 in a bodily resurrection. The crude notions of primitive 
 Mosaism had made way for more definite ideas derived chiefly 
 
 1 Matt. x. 23 ; Mark xiii. 30 ; Luke xiii. 35 ; Matt. vi. 25-34, viii. 22. 
 
 2 Mark the bitter term which Jesus applies to his generation. 
 
 3 Renan, Vie de Jesus, p. 287. Comp. also Milman's History of Christianity, 
 vol. i. p. 378. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 197 
 
 from the Chaldaeo-Zoroastrian doctrines. We know how among 
 the Persians the old worship of the mountains, the simple 
 teachings of the early teachers, had grown, under the magic 
 wands of the Babylonian wizards, into a complex system of 
 graduated rewards and punishments, — how Chaldasan philo- 
 sophy had permeated Mago-Zoroastrianism to its innermost 
 core. Primitive Christianity, with its vivid belief in the 
 immediate advent of the material kingdom of Christ, had 
 imbibed notions from Chaldaean, Mago-Zoroastrian, and 
 Alexandrian sources which had considerably altered the old 
 conceptions. Jew, Christian, and Zoroastrian all looked, more 
 or less, to material rewards and punishments in a future 
 existence. 
 
 The popular Christian notion, fostered by ecclesiasticism , 
 that Mohammed denied souls to women, is by this time, we 
 believe, exploded. It was a calumny concocted to create an 
 aversion against Islam. But the idea that the Arabian Prophet 
 promised his followers a sensual paradise with hooris, and a 
 graduated scale of delights, still lingers. It is a sign alike of 
 ignorance and ancient bigotry. There is no doubt that in the 
 Suras of the intermediate period, before the mind of the Teacher 
 had attained the full development of religious consciousness, 
 and when it was necessary to formulate in language intelligible 
 to the common folk of the desert, the realistic descriptions of 
 heaven and hell, borrowed from the floating fancies of Zoro- 
 astrian, Sabaean, and the Talmudical Jew, attract the attention 
 as a side picture, and then comes the real essence — the adoration 
 of God in humility and love. The hooris are creatures of 
 Zoroastrian origin, so is paradise, 1 whilst hell in the severity of 
 its punishment is Talmudic. The descriptions are realistic, 
 in some places almost sensuous ; but to say that they are 
 sensual, or that Mohammed, or any of his followers, even the 
 ultra-literalists accepted them as such, is a calumny. The wine 
 " that does not inebriate " and the attendants " that come not 
 nigh," can hardly be said to represent sensual pleasures ! 
 
 The chief and predominating idea in Islam respecting a future 
 life is founded upon the belief that, in a state of existence here- 
 after, every human being will have to render an account of his 
 
 1 In Persian, firdous. 
 
ig8 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 or her actions on earth, and that the happiness or misery of 
 individuals will depend upon the manner in which they have 
 performed the behests of their Creator. His mercy and grace 
 are nevertheless unbounded, and will be bestowed alike upon 
 His creatures. This is the pivot on which the whole doctrine 
 of future life in Islam turns, and this is the only doctrinal point 
 one is required to believe and accept. All the other elements, 
 caught up and syncretised from the floating traditions of the 
 races and peoples of the time, are mere accessories. Setting 
 aside from our consideration the question of subjectivity 
 involved in all ideas of future rewards and punishments, we 
 may say, in all ideas of a life after death, we must bear in mind 
 that these ideas have furnished to the moral teachers of the 
 world the most powerful instrument for influencing the conduct 
 of individuals and nations. But though every religion, more 
 or less, contains the germ of this principle of future account- 
 ability in another state, all have failed thoroughly to realise 
 its nature as a continuous agency for the elevation of the masses. 
 Virtue, for its own sake, can only be grasped by minds of 
 superior development ; for the average intellect, and for the 
 uneducated, sanctions, more or less comprehensible, will always 
 be necessary. 
 
 To turn now to the nature of these sanctions, it must be 
 remembered that it is scarcely ever possible to convey an idea 
 of spiritual pleasure or spiritual pain to the apprehensions of the 
 generality of mankind without clothing the expressions in the 
 garb of tangible personalities, or introducing sensible objects 
 into the description of such pleasure or pain. Philosophy has 
 wrangled over abstract expressions, not dressed in tangible 
 phraseology. Such expressions and conceptions have seen 
 their day, have flourished, and have died without making them- 
 selves felt beyond a restricted circle of dreamers, who lived in 
 the indefinable vagueness of their own thoughts. 
 
 Mohammed was addressing himself not only to the advanced 
 minds of a few idealistic thinkers who happened to be then 
 living, but to the wide world around him engrossed in 
 materialism of every type. He had to adapt himself to the 
 comprehensions of all. To the wild famished Arab, what more 
 grateful, or what more consonant to his ideas of paradise than 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 199 
 
 rivers of unsullied incorruptible water, or of milk and honey ; 
 or anything more acceptable than unlimited fruit, luxuriant 
 vegetation, inexhaustible fertility ? He could conceive of no 
 bliss unaccompanied with these sensuous pleasures. This is 
 the contention of that portion of the Moslem world which, 
 like Sanai and Ghazzali, holds that behind the descriptions of 
 material happiness portrayed in objects like trees, rivers, and 
 beautiful mansions with fairy attendants, lies a deeper meaning ; 
 and that the joy of joys is to consist in the beatific visions of 
 the soul in the presence of the Almighty, when the veil which 
 divides man from his Creator will be rent, and heavenly glory 
 revealed to the mind untrammelled by its corporeal, earthly 
 habiliments. In this they are upheld by the words of the 
 Koran as well as the authentic sayings of the Prophet. " The 
 most favoured of God," said Mohammed, " will be he who shall 
 see his Lord's face (glory) night and morning, a felicity which 
 will surpass all the pleasures of the body, as the ocean surpasses 
 a drop of sweat." One day, talking to his friend, Abu Huraira, 
 the Prophet said, " God has prepared for His good people what 
 no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the 
 heart of anyone," and then recited the following verse of the 
 Koran : "No soul knoweth the joy which is secretly prepared 
 for it as a reward for that it may have wrought." x Another 
 tradition 2 reports that Mohammed declared the good will 
 enjoy the beatific vision of God, to which reference, he said, 
 is made in the following verse of the Koran : " And God 
 inviteth unto the dwelling of peace . . . For those who do good 
 there is excellent reward and superabundant addition." 3 
 
 As to the parabolical nature of the Koranic expressions, this 
 school of thinkers bases its convictions on the following passage 
 of the inspired Book : " It is He who hath sent down unto thee 
 ' the Book.' Some of the signs (verses) are firm (i.e. per- 
 spicuous or clear to understand) — these are the basis (or 
 fundamental part) of the book — and others are figurative." 4 
 
 1 Koran xxxii. 17 ; Mishkat, bk. xxiii. chap. xiii. pt. i. 2 From Suhaib. 
 
 3 Koran x. 26. Consult here Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), Egyp. Ed., pt. i. 
 p. 244 ; he gives the fullest references to the opinions of the different theo- 
 logians and schools, and especially mentions the doctrines of the Mush- 
 habbahas and the Jabarias. 
 
 * Koran iii. 5. 
 
200 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Another section looks upon the joys and pains of the Here- 
 after as entirely subjective. It holds that as extreme mental 
 pain is far more agonising than physical pain, so is mental 
 pleasure of the higher type far more rapturous than any 
 sensuous pleasure ; that as, after physical death, the indi- 
 vidual soul " returns," to use the Koranic expression, to the 
 Universal Soul, all the joys and pains, portrayed in vivid 
 colours by the inspired Teacher to enable the masses to grasp 
 the truth, will be mental and subjective. This section includes 
 within its bosom some of the greatest philosophers and mystics 
 of the Moslem world. 
 
 Another, and by far perhaps the larger class, however, believe 
 in the literal fulfilment of all the word-paintings of the Koran. 
 
 Without venturing to pass any opinion on these different 
 notions, we may take this occasion to state our own belief 
 with regard to the Koranic conception of future rewards and 
 punishments. 
 
 A careful study of the Koran makes it evident that the mind 
 of Mohammed went through the same process of development 
 which marked the religious consciousness of Jesus. Moham- 
 med and Jesus are the only two historic Teachers of the world, 
 and for this reason we take them together. How great this 
 development was in Jesus is apparent, not only from the 
 idealised conception towards the end of his earthly career 
 regarding the Kingdom of Heaven, but also from the change 
 of tone towards the non-Israelites. Thoroughly exclusive at 
 first, 1 with a more developed religious consciousness wider 
 sympathies awaken in the heart. 2 
 
 As with Jesus so with Mohammed. 
 
 The various chapters of the Koran which contain the ornate 
 descriptions of paradise, whether figurative or literal, were 
 delivered wholly or in part at Mecca. Probably in the infancy 
 of his religious consciousness, Mohammed himself believed in 
 some or other of the traditions which floated around him. But 
 with a wider awakening of the soul, a deeper communion with 
 the Creator of the Universe, thoughts, which bore a material 
 
 1 Matt. x. 5, xv. 22-26. 
 
 2 Matt, xxviii. 19, etc. ; comp. throughout Strauss, New Life of Jesus (1865), 
 vol. i. p. 296 et seq. 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 201 
 
 aspect at first, became spiritualised. The mind of the Teacher 
 progressed not only with the march of time and the develop- 
 ment of his religious consciousness, but also with the progress 
 of his disciples in apprehending spiritual conceptions. Hence, 
 in the later suras we observe a merging of the material in the 
 spiritual, of the body in the soul. The gardens " watered by 
 rivers," perpetual shade, 1 plenty and harmony, so agreeable to 
 the famished denizen of the parched, shadeless, and waterless 
 desert, at perpetual discord with himself and all around him, 
 — these still form the groundwork of beautiful imageries ; but 
 the happiness of the blessed is shown to consist in eternal peace 
 and goodwill in the presence of their Creator. " But those," 
 says the Koran, " who are pious shall dwell in gardens, amidst 
 fountains ; they shall say unto them, ' Enter ye therein in 
 peace and security ' ; and all rancour will we remove from their 
 bosoms ; they shall sit as brethren, face to face, 2 on couches ; 
 weariness shall not affect them therein, neither shall they be 
 repelled thence for ever." 3 
 
 What can be nobler or grander in its conception or imagery, 
 or give a better idea of the belief in the Prophet's mind 
 when conveying his final message concerning the nature 
 of the present and future life, than the following passage : 
 " It is He who enableth you to travel by land and by sea ; so 
 that ye go on board of ships, which sail on with them, with 
 favourable breeze, and they rejoice therein. But if a tem- 
 pestuous wind overtake, and the waves come on them from 
 every side, and they think they are encompassed therewith, 
 they call on God, professing unto Him sincere religion ; (saying) 
 wouldst Thou but rescue us from this, then we will ever be 
 indeed of the thankful. But when We have rescued them, 
 Behold ! they commit unrighteous excesses on the earth. O 
 men ! verily the excesses ye commit to the injury of your own 
 souls are only for the enjoyment of this earthly life ; soon shall 
 ye return to Us, and We will declare unto you that which ye 
 have done. Verily, the likeness of this present life is not 
 otherwise than the water which We send down from heaven ; 
 and the productions of the earth, of which men and cattle eat, 
 
 1 Koran xiii. 34, xlvii. 16, 17. Comp. also chaps, ix., x., and xiv. 
 
 2 I.e. with peace and good-will in their hearts. 3 Koran xv. 48. 
 
202 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 are mixed therewith, till the earth has received its beautiful 
 raiment, and is decked out, and they who inhabit it imagine 
 they have power over it ! (But) Our behest cometh unto it 
 by night or by day, and We make it as if it had been mown, as 
 though it had not teemed (with fertility) only yesterday. Thus 
 do we make our signs clear unto those who consider. And 
 God inviteth unto the abodes of peace, and guideth whom He 
 pleaseth into the right way. 1 For those who do good is 
 excellent reward and superabundant addition of it ; neither 
 blackness nor shame shall cover their faces. These are the 
 inhabitants of paradise ; therein do they abide for ever. But 
 those who have wrought evil shall receive the reward of evil 
 equal thereunto ; 2 and shame shall cover them (for there will 
 be none to protect them against God) as though their faces 
 were covered with a piece of the night of profound darkness." 3 
 
 Then again, what can be purer in its aspirations than the 
 following : 
 
 " Who fulfil the covenant of God and break not their com- 
 pact ; and who join together what God hath bidden to be 
 joined ; and who fear their Lord and dread an ill-reckoning ; 
 and who, from a sincere desire to please their Lord, 4 are constant 
 amid trials, and observe prayers and give alms, in secret and 
 openly, out of what We have bestowed on them ; and turn 
 aside evil with good : for them there is the recompense of that 
 abode, gardens of eternal habitation, into which they shall 
 enter, together with such as shall have acted rightly from 
 among their fathers, their wives, and their posterity ; and the 
 angels shall go in unto them by every portal, (saying) ' Peace 
 be with you ! because ye have endured with patience.' Excellent 
 is the reward in that abode ! " 5 
 
 Enough has been said to show the utter falsehood of the 
 theory that Mohammed's pictures of future life were all 
 
 1 Baizawi explains the expression " whom He pleaseth," as " those who 
 repent " (p. 67, n. 1, chap. iv). Compare Zamakhshari (the Kashshaf). 
 
 - Observe the reward of virtue will not be confined to an exact measure 
 of man's works ; it will far exceed his deserts ; but the recompense of evil 
 will be strictly proportioned to what one has done. 
 
 3 Koran x. 23-27. 
 
 4 This may also be translated as " from a desire to see the face (glory) of 
 their Lord." 
 
 5 Koran xiii. 20-24. Compare throughout Zamakhshari (the Kashshdf), 
 
in. THE IDEA OF FUTURE LIFE IN ISLAM 203 
 
 sensuous. We will conclude this chapter with the following 
 passage from the Koran to show the depth of spirituality in 
 Islam, and the purity of the hopes and aspirations on which it 
 bases its rule of life : " O thou soul which art at rest, return 
 unto thy Lord, pleased and pleasing Him, enter thou among 
 my servants, and enter thou my garden of felicity." l 
 
 1 Koran lxxxix. 27-30. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 
 
 . ^*« ^ *l/l > 
 
 
 li IssJU. J*r ; t iJ| f ,xJI ; *UIL 
 
 THE extraordinary rapidity with which the religion of 
 the Arabian Prophet spread over the surface of 
 the globe is one of the most wonderful phenomena 
 in the history of religions. For centuries Christianity had 
 hidden itself in byways and corners ; not until it had largely 
 absorbed and assimilated paganism, not until a half-pagan 
 monarch had come to its assistance with edicts and orders, 
 was it able to rear its head among the creeds of the world. 
 Islam, within thirty years of the death of its Teacher, 
 found its way into the hearts of millions of people. And 
 before a century was well over the voice of the Recluse of 
 Hira had rolled across three continents. The legions of the 
 Caesars and the Chosroes, who endeavoured to stop the onrush 
 of the new democracy preached in Arabia, were shattered to 
 pieces by the children of the desert. Its remarkable success and 
 marvellous effect upon the minds of men have given rise to the 
 charge that, as a religion of the sword, Islam was propagated 
 
 1 Sura ii. 261, " Let there be no compulsion in religion." 
 
 2 Sura v. 69; seep. 175. Compare this with the thunders of the Athanasian 
 Creed. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 205 
 
 by the sword and upheld by the sword. We propose, therefore, 
 carefully to examine the circumstances and facts connected 
 with the rise of Islam, to see whether there is any truth in the 
 statement. 
 
 At the time of the Prophet's advent into Medina, the two 
 tribes of Aus and Khazraj, who had been engaged in deadly 
 conflict for years, had just ended their strife by a hollow peace. 
 There was every prospect of the war breaking out again with 
 fiercer animosity. The Jews, who after the onslaught of Jabala 
 had accepted the clientage of the Medinite Arabs, were fast 
 recovering their strength and were openly threatening their 
 pagan compatriots with the vengeance of the Messiah, whose 
 appearance was hourly expected. The surrounding tribes, 
 among whom the influence of the Koreish was supreme, were 
 arrayed in all their desert ferocity against Medina. The 
 moment Mohammed appeared among the Medinites the 
 elements of danger which threatened the new religion became 
 apparent. The Meccan disciples who had braved death, and 
 now faced destitution and exile for their Master and the light 
 which he had brought to their hearts, were few and weak. His 
 Medinite followers were not many ; they were divided amongst 
 themselves, actuated by tribal jealousies. An important 
 faction, headed by an influential chieftain, an aspirant to the 
 throne of Medina, worked in the city on the side of the heathens. 1 
 The Jews, compact and united, jealously and relentlessly, with 
 poison and with treachery, opposed him in every direction. 
 But the heart, which did not fail when the Koreish threatened 
 him with death, was not daunted when the existence of others 
 depended on him. He at once set himself to the task of 
 organising into a social entity the varied elements which had 
 gathered round him as the minister of God. He substituted 
 referees for the old tribal vendetta ; he abolished the dis- 
 tinction of Aus and Khazraj ; he comprehended the Jews and 
 Christians in his little commonwealth, and planted germs of 
 cordial relations among all believers ; he proclaimed that a Jew, 
 Sabaean, or Christian, whoever believed in God and future life 
 and acted righteously, " on him shall come no fear." To a 
 people wedded to the worst type of heathenism, to a race with 
 1 See antej-p. 57. 
 
206 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM it. 
 
 whom the shedding of blood was a second nature, he taught 
 purity and truth, self-restraint, charity, and love of one's kind. 
 " It shall be an expiation with God," he said to them, " when 
 one shall drop his right of retaliation." " He who shall mediate 
 between men for a good purpose shall be the gainer thereby, 
 but the mediator for evil shall reap the fruit of his doing." ' 
 
 Whilst engaged in this divine work of humanising his people, 
 raising them from the abyss of degradation, purifying them from 
 abominations, he is attacked by his enemies, ruthless and un- 
 tiring in their vengeance. They had sworn his death and the 
 extirpation of his creed. The apostates from the faith of their 
 fathers, as the Koreish regarded Mohammed and his followers 
 to be, had betaken themselves to the rival city, to plant the 
 germs of revolutionary doctrines. United Arabia must annihi- 
 late these crazy enthusiasts who had forsaken home and wealth 
 for the sake of an unseen God, so exacting in His worship, so 
 insistent on the common duties of love, charity, and benevolence, 
 on purity of thought and deed. From the moment of his entry 
 into Medina, Mohammed's destiny had become intertwined 
 with that of his people, and of those who had invited and 
 welcomed him into their midst. His destruction meant the 
 destruction of the entire body of people who had gathered 
 round the minister of God. Surrounded by enemies and 
 traitors, the whole of Arabia responding to the call of the 
 Koreish, the ancient servitors of the national gods marching to 
 their slaughter, his followers would have inevitably perished 
 but for the swords in their hands. And it was not until their 
 enemies were upon them that it was declared, " The infidels 
 regard not in a believer either ties of blood or covenant ; when 
 they break their oaths of alliance, and attack you, defend 
 yourself " ; and again, " Defend yourself against your enemies ; 
 but attack them not first : God hateth the aggressor." 2 To 
 the Moslems self-defence had become a question of self- 
 preservation. They must either submit to be massacred or 
 fight when they were attacked. They chose the latter alter- 
 native, and succeeded, after a long struggle, in subduing their 
 enemies. 
 
 The bitter animosity of the Jews, their repeated violations of 
 
 1 Sura iv. 85. 2 Sura ii. 190. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 207 
 
 the most solemn engagements, their constant seditiousness, and 
 their frequent endeavours to betray the Moslems to the idolaters, 
 led naturally to severe chastisement. It was essentially neces- 
 sary for the safety of the weak and small community, more as 
 a deterrent warning than as a vindictive punishment. 
 
 We have no right to assume that because some of the great 
 teachers who have from time to time appeared on earth have 
 succumbed under the force of opposing circumstances and 
 become martyrs, that because others have created in their 
 brains an unrealised Utopia, that because dreamers have 
 existed, and enthusiasts have suffered, Mohammed was bound 
 to follow their example, and leave the world before he had 
 fulfilled his mission. Nor was he obliged to sacrifice himself 
 and the entire community over which he was called to preside, 
 for the sake of carrying out what, in the present time, would 
 be called an ' Idea.' 
 
 Let us compare the struggles of the Moslems in self-defence, 
 and for self-preservation, with the frightful wars of the Jews 
 and the Christians, and even of the gentle Parsis, for the 
 propagation of their respective faiths. In the case of the Jews, 
 aggression and extirpation were sanctified by religion. They 
 were cursed for sparing. 
 
 In the case of the early Christians, the doctrine of humility 
 and meekness, preached by the Prophet of Nazareth, was soon 
 forgotten in the pride of power. From the moment Christianity 
 became a recognised force, — the dominant faith of a community, 
 — it became aggressive and persecuting. Parallels have been 
 drawn between Jesus and Mohammed by different writers. 
 Those fully penetrated with the conviction of the godhead of 
 Jesus have recognised in the " earthly " means employed by 
 the Arabian Prophet for the regeneration of his people the 
 result of " Satanic suggestions," while the non-employment of 
 such means (perhaps from want of opportunity to use them) 
 has been looked upon as establishing the divinity of the Prophet 
 of Nazareth. We shall furnish reasons to show that such com- 
 parisons are unfair, based as they are on what is not only false 
 to history, but false to human nature. 
 
 The circumstances attending the lives of Jesus and 
 Mohammed were wholly different. During his short ministry 
 
208 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 the influence of Jesus remained confined to a small body of 
 followers, taken chiefly from the lower and uneducated ranks. 
 He fell a victim x to the passions he had evoked by his scathing 
 denunciations of the lifeless sacerdotalism of the priestly classes 
 — to the undying hatred of a relentless race— before his followers 
 had become either numerous or influential enough to require 
 practical rules for their guidance, or before they could form an 
 organisation, either for purposes of spiritual teaching, or as a 
 safeguard against the persecutions of the dominant creed. 
 Drawn from among a people with settled laws, the observance 
 of which was guaranteed by the suzerain power, the followers 
 of Jesus had no occasion to constitute themselves into an 
 organised body, nor had the Teacher any need to frame rules 
 of practical positive morality. The want was felt when the 
 community became more extensive, and the genius of a scholar, 
 well-versed in the Neo-Platonic lore, destroyed the individuality 
 and simplicity of the teachings of the Master. 
 
 Mohammed, like Jesus, was followed from the commence- 
 ment of his career as a preacher and reformer by the hostility 
 and opposition of his people. His followers also, in the 
 beginning, were few and insignificant. He also was preceded 
 by men who had shaken off the bondage of idolatry, and had 
 listened to the springs of the life within. He, too, preached 
 gentleness, charity, and love. 
 
 But Mohammed appeared among a nation steeped in barbar- 
 ous usages, who looked upon war as the object of life, — a nation 
 far removed from the materialising, degrading influences of the 
 Greeks and the Romans, yet likewise far from their humanising 
 influences. At first his enunciations evoked scorn, and then 
 vengeful passions. His followers, however, increased in number 
 and strength until at last the invitation of the Medinites 
 crowned his glorious work with success. From the moment he 
 accepted the asylum so nobly proffered, from the moment he 
 was called upon to become their chief magistrate as well as 
 
 1 I write according to the generally received opinion among Western 
 scholars ; that Mohammed, in accordance with the traditions current in his 
 time, believed that Jesus miraculously disappeared, there is no doubt. In 
 spite of this so-called apocryphal Gnostic tradition being opposed to the 
 general body of Christian traditions, there is as much historic probability on 
 one side as the other. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 209 
 
 their spiritual teacher, his fate became involved in theirs ; 
 from that time the hostilities of the idolaters and their allies 
 required an unsleeping vigilance on the part of the Moslems. 
 A single city had to make head against the combined attacks 
 of the multitudinous tribes of Arabia. Under these circum- 
 stances, energetic measures were often necessary to sustain the 
 existence of the Moslem commonwealth. When persuasion 
 failed, pressure was required. 
 
 The same instinct of self-preservation which spoke so warmly 
 within the bosom of the great Prophet of Nazareth, 1 when he 
 advised his disciples to look to the instruments of defence, 
 caused the persecuted Moslems to take up arms when attacked 
 by their relentless enemies. 
 
 Gradually, by gentle kindness and energy, all the disjointed 
 fragments of the Arabian tribes were brought together to the 
 worship of the true God, and then peace settled upon the land. 
 Born among a people the most fiery of the earth, then as now 
 vehement and impulsive by nature, and possessed of passions 
 as burning as the sun of their desert, Mohammed impressed 
 on them habits of self-control and self-denial such as have 
 never before been revealed in the pages of history. 
 
 At the time of Mohammed's advent international obligations 
 were unknown. When nations or tribes made war upon each 
 other, the result usually was the massacre of the able-bodied, 
 the slavery of the innocent, and plunder of the household 
 penates. 
 
 The Romans, who took thirteen centuries to evolve a system 
 of laws which was as comprehensive as it was elevated in con- 
 ception, 2 could never realise the duties of international morality 
 or of humanity. They waged war for the sole purpose of 
 subjugating the surrounding nations. Where they succeeded, 
 they imposed their will on the people absolutely. The sacred- 
 ness of treaties was unknown ; pacts were made and broken, 
 just as convenience dictated. The liberty of other nations 
 was never of the slightest importance in their estimation. 3 The 
 
 1 Luke xxii. 256. 
 
 2 In justice to the Semitic races, I must say that almost all the great jurists 
 of Rome were Semites,— Phoenicians, Syrians, or Carthaginians. 
 
 3 Compare Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, throughout on this subject. 
 
 s.i. o 
 
210 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 introduction of Christianity made little or no change in the 
 views entertained by its professors concerning international obli- 
 gations. War was as inhuman and as exterminating as before ; 
 people were led into slavery without compunction on the part 
 of the captors ; treaties were entered into and broken just as 
 suited the purpose of some designing chieftain. Christianity 
 did not profess to deal with international morality, and so left 
 its followers groping in the dark. 
 
 Modern thinkers, instead of admitting this to be a real 
 deficiency in the Christian system, natural to the unfinished 
 state in which it was left, have tried to justify it. A strange 
 perversion of the human intellect ! Hence, what is right in the 
 individual comes to be considered wrong in the nation, and 
 vice versa. Religion and morality, two convertible terms, are 
 kept apart from the domain of law. Religion, which claims 
 to regulate the ties of individual men, ignores the reciprocal 
 relations of the various aggregates of humanity. Religion is 
 thus reduced into mere sentimentalism, an object of gushing 
 effusion, or mutual laudation at debating societies, albeit 
 sometimes rising to the dignity of philosophical morality. 
 
 The basis of international obligations consists in the recogni- 
 tion of nations as individuals, and of the fact that there is not 
 one standard for individuals and another for nations ; for as 
 individuals compose a nation, so nations compose humanity ; 
 and the rights of nations and their obligations to each other 
 in nowise differ from those existing between individuals. 1 
 
 True it is, that the rise of the Latin Church in the West, and 
 the necessary augmentation of the power of the bishops of 
 Rome, introduced in the Latin Christian world a certain degree 
 of international responsibility. But this was absolutely con- 
 fined to the adherents of the Church of Rome, or was occasion- 
 ally extended as a favour to Greek Christianity. The rest of 
 the world was unconditionally excluded from the benefits of 
 such responsibility. " The name of religion served as the plea 
 and justification of aggression upon weaker nations ; it led to 
 their spoliation and enslavement." Every act of violation 
 was sanctified by the Church, and, in case of extreme iniquity, 
 
 1 Comp. David Urquhart's essay on the " Effects of the Contempt of Inter- 
 national Law," reprinted from The East and West, Feb. 1867. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 211 
 
 absolution paved the criminal's way to heaven. From the 
 first slaughters of Charlemagne, with the full sanction of the 
 Church, to the massacre and enslavement of the unoffending 
 races of America, there is an unbroken series of the infringement 
 of international duties and the claims of humanity. This 
 utter disregard of the first principles of charity led also to the 
 persecution of those followers of Jesus who ventured to think 
 differently from the Church. 1 
 
 The rise of Protestantism made no difference. The wars 
 and mutual persecutions of the several religious factions form 
 a history in themselves. " Persecution," says Hallam, " is 
 the deadly original sin of the Reformed Church, that which 
 cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion as 
 his reading becomes more expansive." 2 
 
 But, however much the various new-born Churches disagreed 
 among themselves, or from the Church of Rome, regarding 
 doctrinal and theological points, they were in perfect accord 
 with each other in denying all community of interests and 
 rights to nations outside the pale of Christendom. 3 
 
 The spirit of Islam, on the contrary, is opposed to isolation 
 and exclusiveness. In a comparatively rude age, when the 
 world was immersed in darkness, moral and social, Mohammed 
 preached those principles of equality which are only half- 
 realised in other creeds, and promulgated laws which, for their 
 expansiveness and nobility of conception, would bear com- 
 parison with the records of any faith. " Islam," says an able 
 writer, " offered its religion, but never enforced it ; and the 
 acceptance of that religion conferred co-equal rights with the 
 conquering body, and emancipated the vanquished States from 
 the conditions which every conqueror, since the world existed 
 up to the period of Mohammed, had invariably imposed." 
 
 1 Compare Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 352, and Lecky, History of 
 Rationalism in Europe, chap, on " Persecution." 
 
 2 Hallam's Const. Hist, of England, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 62. When Calvin 
 burnt Servetus for his opinions regarding the Trinity, his act was applauded, 
 says Lecky, by all sections of Protestants. Melanchthon, Bullinger, and 
 Farel wrote to express their warm approbation of the crime. Beza defended 
 it in an elaborate treatise ; Lecky, Hist, of Rationalism, vol. ii. p. 49. A 
 study of the penal laws of England against the Catholics, Dissenters, and 
 non-Conformists is enough to shock any candid mind. 
 
 3 Grotius, the founder, perhaps, of international law in Europe, formally 
 excepted the Moslems from all community of rights with the European nations. 
 
212 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 By the laws of Islam, liberty of conscience and freedom of 
 worship were allowed and guaranteed to the followers of every 
 other creed under Moslem dominion. The passage in the 
 Koran, " Let there be no compulsion in religion," x testifies to 
 the principle of toleration and charity inculcated by Islam. 
 " If thy Lord had pleased, verily all who are in the world 
 would have believed together." " Wilt thou then force men 
 to believe when belief can come only from God ? " — " Adhere 
 to those who forsake you ; speak truth to your own heart ; do 
 good to every one that does ill to you " : these are the precepts 
 of a Teacher who has been accused of fanaticism and intolerance. 
 Let it be remembered that these are the utterances, not of a 
 powerless enthusiast or philosophical dreamer paralysed by the 
 weight of opposing forces. These are the utterances of a man 
 in the plenitude of his power, of the head of a sufficiently strong 
 and well-organised State, able to enforce his doctrines with the 
 edge of his reputed sword. 
 
 In religion, as in politics, individuals and sects have preached 
 toleration, and insisted upon its practice only so long as they 
 have been powerless and feeble. The moment they have 
 acquired strength enough to battle with the forces which they 
 wish to supersede, tolerance gives way to persecution. With 
 the accession of Constantine to the throne of the Caesars, 
 Christianity was safe from molestation. But from that period 
 commenced a system of religious persecution in its atrocity 
 paralleled only by that of the Jews. " From the very moment," 
 says Lecky, " the Church obtained civil power under Con- 
 stantine, the general principle of coercion was admitted and 
 acted on, both against the Jews, the heretics, and pagans." 2 
 They were tortured with every refinement of cruelty ; they 
 were burnt at a slow-consuming fire to enable them to think 
 of the charity and humanity of the church of Christ. Father 
 after father wrote about the holiness of persecution. One of 
 the greatest saints of the Church, " a saint of the most tender 
 and exquisite piety " — supplied arguments for the most 
 atrocious persecution. Except during the titanic struggles in 
 Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Christian 
 
 1 Sura ii. 257 (a Medina sura). 
 
 2 Comp. Hallam, Const. Hist, of England, vol. i. chap. iii. p. 98. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 213 
 
 church, purporting to derive its authority from the Apostles, 
 has never hesitated to encourage war, 1 — or to give its sanction, 
 in the name of religion and " the glory of Christ," to exter- 
 minating enterprises against heretics and heathens. These 
 had no claims on Christian humanity or the law of nations ; 
 nor have the poor black races now ! In the fifteenth century, 
 the Pope granted a special charter by which the non-Christian 
 world was allotted to the Portuguese and Spaniards in equal 
 shares with absolute power to convert the inhabitants in any 
 way they chose ! History records how liberally they construed 
 the permission. And all the atrocious doctrines relating to 
 persecution and the treatment of non-Christians are unjustly 
 based upon the words of Jesus himself ! Did not the Master 
 say, " Compel them to come in " ? 
 
 In the hour of his greatest triumph, when the Arabian 
 Prophet entered the old shrine of Mecca and broke down the 
 idols, it was not in wrath or religious rage, but in pity, that he 
 said — " Truth is come, darkness departeth," — announcing 
 amnesty almost universal, commanding protection to the weak 
 and poor, and freeing fugitive slaves. 
 
 Mohammed did not merely preach toleration ; he embodied 
 it into a law. To all conquered nations he offered liberty of 
 worship. A nominal tribute was the only compensation they 
 were required to pay for the observance and enjoyment of their 
 faith. Once the tax or tribute was agreed upon, every inter- 
 ference with their religion or the liberty of conscience was 
 regarded as a direct contravention of the laws of Islam. 2 
 Could so much be said of other creeds ? Proselytism by the 
 sword was wholly contrary to the instincts of Mohammed, and 
 wrangling over creeds his abhorrence. Repeatedly he exclaims, 
 " Why wrangle over that which you know not ; try to excel in 
 good works ; when you shall return to God, He will tell you 
 about that in which you have differed." 
 
 We must now return to our examination of the wars of the 
 Prophet. We have seen that the various conflicts of the 
 
 1 In the colossal and devastating struggle of the twentieth century, in 
 which all the great nations of Christendom were engaged, the ministers of 
 religion on both sides took vehement part in fostering the warlike spirit. 
 
 2 See chapter on The Political Spirit of Islam. 
 
214 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Moslems under Mohammed with the surrounding tribes were 
 occasioned by the aggressive and unrelenting hostility of the 
 idolaters, and were necessary for self-defence. 
 
 The battle of Miita and the campaign of Tabuk, the earliest 
 demonstrations against a foreign State, arose out of the 
 assassination of an envoy by the Greeks. Probably we should 
 not have heard of the promulgation of Islam by the sword had 
 the Moslems not punished the eastern Christians for this 
 murder. The battle of Muta was indecisive, and the campaign 
 of Tabuk, which was entirely defensive in its nature (being- 
 undertaken to repulse the gathering of the forces of Heraclius) , 
 left this international crime unpunished during the lifetime of 
 the Prophet ; but his successors did not forget it, and a heavy 
 penalty was exacted. 
 
 The extent of the Greek empire brought the Moslems into a 
 state of belligerency with the greatest portion of Christendom. 
 Besides, the anomalous position occupied by the governors of 
 the provinces under the waning suzerainty of the Byzantine 
 emperors rendered it impossible for the Moslem Chiefs to put 
 an end to this condition of affairs by means of treaty-stipula- 
 tions with any one of them. Before one could be subdued and 
 brought to terms another committed some act of hostility, 
 and compelled the Moslems to punish him. Hence the career 
 once entered upon, they were placed in just warfare with nearly 
 the whole of Christendom. 1 
 
 Religion has often furnished to designing chieftains, among 
 Moslems as among Christians, a pretext for the gratification of 
 ambition. The Moslem casuists, like the Christian jurists and 
 divines, have divided the world into two regions — the Ddr 
 
 1 See Urquhart's Isldm as a Political System. I do not mean to assert that 
 the Moslems were never actuated by the spirit of aggression or by cupidity. 
 It would be showing extreme ignorance of human nature to make such an 
 assertion. It was hardly possible, that after the unprecedented progress 
 they had made against their enemies and assailants, and after becoming 
 aware of the weakness of the surrounding nations, they should still retain 
 their moderation, and keep within the bounds of the law. Nor do I shut 
 my eyes to the fact that there have been wars among the followers of Moham- 
 med perhaps as cruelly waged as among the Christians. But these wars have 
 been invariably dynastic. The persecutions to which certain sects have been 
 subjected have arisen also, for the most part, from the same cause. The 
 persecution of the descendants of Mohammed, the children of Ali and Fatima, 
 by the Ommeyyades, found its origin in the old hatred of the Koreish to 
 Mohammed and the Hashimis, as I shall show hereafter. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 215 
 
 ul-Harb and the Ddr ul-Isldm, the counterparts of Heathendom 
 and Christendom. An examination, however, of the principles 
 upon which the relations of Moslem states with non-Moslem 
 countries were based, shows a far greater degree of liberality 
 than has been evinced by Christian writers on international 
 law. It is only in recent times, and under stress of circum- 
 stances that non-Christian states have been admitted into the 
 " comity of nations." The Moslem jurists, on the other hand, 
 differentiate between the condition of belligerency and that of 
 peace. The expression, Ddr ul-Harb, 1 thus includes countries 
 with which the Moslems are at war ; whilst the States with 
 which they are at peace are the Ddr ul-Amdn. 2 The harbi, the 
 inhabitants of the Ddr ul-Harb, is an alien, pure and simple. 
 He has no right to enter Islamic States without express permis- 
 sion. But once he receives the amdn or guarantee of safety 
 from even the poorest Moslem, he is perfectly secure from 
 molestation for the space of one year. On the expiration of 
 that period, he is bound to depart. The inhabitant of the 
 Ddr ul-Amdn is a mustdmin. The amdn may be for ever or for 
 a limited duration ; but so long as it lasts, the mustdmin's 
 treatment is regulated in strict accordance with the terms of 
 the treaty with his country. 3 The mustdmins were governed 
 by their own laws, were exempt from taxation and enjoyed 
 other privileges. 
 
 The spirit of aggression never breathed itself into that code 
 which formally incorporated the Law of Nations with the 
 religion ; and the followers of Mohammed, in the plenitude of 
 their power, were always ready to say to their enemies, " Cease 
 all hostility to us, and be our allies, and we shall be faithful to 
 you ; or pay tribute, and we will secure and protect you in all 
 your rights ; or adopt our religion, and you shall enjoy every 
 privilege we ourselves possess." 
 
 The principal directions of Mohammed, on which the Moslem 
 laws of war are founded, show the wisdom and humanity 
 which animated the Islamic system : " And fight for the 
 religion of God against those who fight against you ; but 
 
 1 Lit. The country of war. 2 The country of peace. 
 
 3 These Am&ns formed the origin of the Capitulations which have proved 
 the ruin of Turkish resources. 
 
216 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 transgress not (by attacking them first), for God loveth not 
 the transgressors ; ... if they attack you, slay them ; „ . . but 
 if they desist, let there be no hostility, except against the 
 ungodly." x 
 
 In turning their arms against Persia the Moslems were led 
 on by circumstances. The Munzirs, a dynasty of semi- Arab 
 kings who reigned under the shadow of the Persian monarchy, 
 though politically hostile, were allied to the Byzantines by ties 
 of faith and community of interests. The first conflicts of the 
 Moslems with the Greeks naturally re-acted on the Hirites, the 
 subjects of the Munzirs. The Hirite territories comprehended 
 a large tract of country, from the banks of the Euphrates west- 
 ward, overlapping the desert of Irak, and almost reaching the 
 pasturage of the Ghassanide Arabs, who owned allegiance to 
 the Byzantines. 
 
 The position of Hira under the Persians was similar to that 
 of Judaea under Augustus or Tiberias. About the time of the 
 Moslem conquest a Persian nominee ruled this principality ; 
 but the jealousy of the Chosroes associated a marzbdn, or 
 satrap, with the successor of the Munzirs, whose subjects, as 
 impatient of control then as their descendants now, engaged 
 in predatory raids on the neighbouring tribes, and became 
 involved in hostilities with the Moslems. A strong government 
 under the guidance of a single ruler, whose power had become 
 doubly consolidated after the suppression of the revolts of the 
 nomads on the death of the Prophet, was little inclined to 
 brook quietly the insults of the petty dependency of a tottering 
 empire. A Moslem army marched upon Hira ; the marzbdn 
 fled to Madain (Ctesiphon), the capital of the Persian empire, 
 and the Arab chief submitted, almost without a struggle, to 
 the Moslems under Khalid bin-Walid. 
 
 The conquest of Hira brought the Moslems to the threshold 
 of the dominions of the Chosroes. Persia had, after a long 
 period of internecine conflict, signalised by revolting murders 
 and atrocities, succeeded in obtaining an energetic ruler, in the 
 person of Yezdjard. Under the directions of this sovereign, 
 the Persian general brought an imposing force to bear on the 
 Moslems. The great Omar who now ruled at Medina, before 
 
 1 Sura ii. 186, compare ver. 257. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 217 
 
 taking up the challenge, offered to Yezdjard, through his 
 deputies, the usual terms by which war might be avoided. 
 These terms were, the profession of Islam, which meant the 
 reform of the political abuses that had brought the Sasanian 
 empire so low ; the reduction of all those heavy taxes and 
 perquisites, 1 which sucked out the life-blood of the nation ; 
 and the administration of justice by the code of Mohammed, 
 which held all men, without distinction of rank or office, equal 
 in the eye of the law. The alternative offer was the payment 
 of tribute in return for protection. These terms were disdain- 
 fully refused by the Persian monarch and the days of Kadesia 
 followed. After the conquest of Madain (Ctesiphon), the 
 Caliph promulgated peremptory orders that under no circum- 
 stance should the Moslems cross the Tigris towards the East, 
 and that that river should for ever form the boundary between 
 the Persian and the Saracenic empires. Upon this basis a 
 peace was concluded. But Iran chafed under the loss of 
 Mesopotamia ; and the successive breaches of faith by the 
 Persians led to Nehavend. The Kesra's power was irretrievably 
 shattered ; many of his nobles and the chiefs of the priesthood, 
 whose interest it was to keep up the reign of disorder and 
 oppression, were cut off, and he himself became a fugitive like 
 another Darius. The nation at large hailed the Moslems as 
 their deliverers. 2 The advance of the Saracens from the Tigris 
 to the Elburz and from the Elburz to Transoxiana was not 
 different from that of the British in India and due to similar 
 causes. 
 
 The general conversion of the Persians to the religion of 
 Mohammed is often taken as a proof of the intolerant character 
 of Islam. But, in the blindness of bigotry, even scholars forget 
 the circumstances under which the Moslems entered the 
 country. Every trace of religious life was extinct among the 
 people ; the masses were ground down by the worst of all 
 evils, a degenerate priesthood and a licentious oligarchy. The 
 Mazdakian and Manichaean heresies had loosened every rivet 
 
 1 Save the tenth on landed property, and 2| per cent, of every man's means 
 for the poor, the distribution of which would have been left to himself and 
 his officers. 
 
 2 Yezdjard, like Darius, was assassinated by his own people. See The 
 Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan, 1921), p. 32. 
 
218 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 in the social fabric. Kesra Anushirvan had only postponed 
 for a time the general disruption of society. 
 
 The consequence was, that as soon as the Moslems entered 
 the country as the precursors of law and order, a general con- 
 version took place, and Persia became for ever attached to 
 Islam. 1 
 
 An impartial analyst of facts will now be able to judge for 
 himself how much truth there is in the following remark of 
 Muir : "It was essential to the permanence of Islam that its 
 aggressive course should be continuously pursued, and that its 
 claim to an universal acceptance, or, at the least, to an universal 
 supremacy, should be enforced at the point of the sword." 2 
 Every religion, in some stage of its career, has, from the 
 tendencies of its professors, been aggressive. Such also has 
 been the case with Islam ; but that it ever aims at proselytism 
 by force, or that it has been more aggressive than other religions, 
 must be entirely denied. 3 
 
 Islam seized the sword in self-defence, and held it in self- 
 defence, as it will ever do. But Islam never interfered with 
 the dogmas of any moral faith, never persecuted, never 
 established an Inquisition. It never invented the rack or the 
 stake for stifling difference of opinion, or strangling the human 
 conscience, or exterminating heresy. No one who has a com- 
 petent knowledge of history can deny that the Church of 
 Christ, when it pretended to be most infallible, " shed more 
 innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed 
 among mankind " ; whilst the fate of the man or woman who 
 forsook the Church, or even expressed a preference for any 
 other creed, was no less cruel. 4 In 1521, death and confisca- 
 tion of property was decreed by Charles V. against all heretics. 
 Burnings and hangings, and tearing out and twisting of tongues 
 
 1 As a testimony to the spirit which animated the Moslems, we quote the 
 following from Gibbon : " The administration of Persia was regulated by an 
 actual survey of the people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth ; and this 
 monument, which attests the vigilance of the Caliphs, might have instructed 
 the philosophers of every age." — Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. v. 
 p. 97. See also Suyuti, Tdrikh ul-Khulafd (History of the Caliphs). 
 
 2 Muir, Life of Mahomet, vol. iii. p. 251. 
 
 3 Compare Niebuhr's remarks in his Description de I'Arabie. 
 
 4 In the seventeenth century a young man was hanged for having said, it is 
 stated, that he did not think Mohammed was a bad man. 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 219 
 
 were the usual penalties of refusal to adopt the orthodox 
 communion. In England, after it became Protestant, the 
 Presbyterians, through a long succession of reigns, were 
 imprisoned, branded, mutilated, scourged, and exposed in the 
 pillory. In Scotland, they were hunted like criminals over 
 the mountains ; their ears were torn from the roots ; they 
 were branded with hot irons ; their fingers were wrenched 
 asunder by thumbkins ; the bones of their legs were shattered 
 in the boots. Women were scourged publicly through the 
 streets. The Catholics were tortured and hanged. Anabaptists 
 and Arians were burnt alive. But as regards non-Christians, 
 Catholics and Protestants, orthodox and un-orthodox, were in 
 perfect accord. Musulmans and Jews were beyond the pale 
 of Christendom. In England, the Jews were tortured and 
 hanged. In Spain, the Moslems were burnt Marriages between 
 Christians and Jews, and Christians and " infidels," were null 
 and void, in fact prohibited under terrible and revolting 
 penalties. Even now, Christian America burns alive a Christian 
 negro marrying a Christian white woman ! Such has been the 
 effect produced by Christianity. 
 
 To this day, wherever scientific thought has not infused a 
 new soul, wherever true culture has not gained a foothold, the 
 old spirit of exclusiveness and intolerance, the old ecclesiastical 
 hatred of Islam, displays itself in writings, in newspaper 
 attacks, in private conversations, in public speeches. The 
 spirit of persecution is not dead in Christianity ; it is lying 
 dormant, ready to burst into flame at the touch of the first 
 bigot. 
 
 Let us turn from this picture to the world of Islam. Whilst 
 orthodox Christianity persecuted with equal ferocity the Jews 
 and Nestorians, — the descendants of the men who were sup- 
 posed to have crucified its Incarnate God, and the men who 
 refused to adore his mother, — Islam afforded them both 
 shelter and protection. Whilst Christian Europe was burning 
 witches and heretics, and massacring Jews and " infidels," 
 the Moslem sovereigns were treating their non-Moslem subjects 
 with consideration and tolerance. They were the trusted 
 subjects of the State, councillors of the empire. Every secular 
 office was open to them along with the Moslems. The Teacher 
 
220 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 himself had declared it lawful for a Moslem to intermarry with 
 a Christian, Hebrew, or Zoroastrian. The converse was not 
 allowed, for obvious political reasons. Moslem Turkey and 
 Persia entrust their foreign interests to the charge of their 
 Christian subjects. In Christendom, difference of faith has 
 been a crime ; in Islam it is an accident. " To Christians," 
 says Urquhart, " a difference of religion was indeed a ground 
 for war, and that not merely in dark times and amongst 
 fanatics." From the massacres, in the name of religion, of the 
 Saxons, the Frisians and other Germanic tribes by Charle- 
 magne ; from the burning to death of the thousands of innocent 
 men and women ; from the frightful slaughters of the Arians, 
 the Paulicians, the Albigenses and the Huguenots, from the 
 horrors of the sacks of Magdeburg and Rome, from the san- 
 guinary scenes of the Thirty Years' War, down to the cruel 
 persecutions of Calvinistic Scotland and Lutheran England, 
 there is an uninterrupted chain of intolerance, bigotry, and 
 fanaticism. Can anything be more heart-rending than the 
 wholesale extermination of the unoffending races of America 
 in the name of Christ ? 
 
 It has been said that a warlike spirit was infused into 
 mediaeval Christianity by aggressive Islam ! The massacres 
 of Justinian and the fearful wars of Christian Clovis in the 
 name of religion, occurred long before the time of Mohammed. 
 
 Compare, again, the conduct of the Christian Crusaders with 
 that of the Moslems. " When the Khalif Omar took Jeru- 
 salem, a.d. 637, he rode into the city by the side of the 
 Patriarch Sophronius, conversing with him on its antiquities. 
 At the hour of prayer, he declined to perform his devotions in 
 the Church of the Resurrection, in which he chanced to be, but 
 prayed on the steps of the Church of Constantine ; for, said he 
 to the Patriarch, ' had I done so, the Musulmans in a future 
 age might have infringed the treaty, under colour of imitating 
 my example.' But in the capture by the Crusaders, the brains 
 of young children were dashed out against the walls ; infants 
 were pitched over the battlements ; men were roasted at fires ; 
 some were ripped up, to see if they had swallowed gold ; the 
 Jews were driven into their synagogue, and there burnt ; a 
 massacre of nearly 70,000 persons took place ; and the pope's 
 
iv. THE CHURCH MILITANT OF ISLAM 221 
 
 legate was seen partaking in the triumph ! " x When Saladin 
 recaptured the city, he released all Christians, gave them money 
 and food, and allowed them to depart with a safe-conduct. 2 
 
 Islam " grasped the sword " in self-defence ; Christianity 
 grasped it in order to stifle freedom of thought and liberty of 
 belief. With the conversion of Constantine, Christianity had 
 become the dominant religion of the Western world. It had 
 thenceforth nothing to fear from its enemies ; but from the 
 moment it obtained the mastery, it developed its true character 
 of isolation and exclusiveness. Wherever Christianity pre- 
 vailed, no other religion could be followed without molestation. 
 The Moslems, on the other hand, required from others a simple 
 guarantee of peace and amity, tribute in return for protection, 
 or perfect equality, — the possession of equal rights and 
 privileges, — on condition of the acceptance of Islam. 
 
 1 Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. ii. p. 22. 
 
 2 For a full account, see The Short History of the Saracens, p. 356. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 
 
 IN certain stages of social development, polygamy, or more 
 properly speaking, polygyny, — the union of one man with 
 several women, — is an unavoidable circumstance. The 
 frequent tribal wars and the consequent decimation of the male 
 population, the numerical superiority of women, combined 
 with the absolute power possessed by the chiefs, originated 
 the custom which, in our advanced times, is justly regarded as 
 an unendurable evil. 
 
 Among all Eastern nations of antiquity, polygamy was a 
 recognised institution. Its practice by royalty, which every- 
 where bore the insignia of divinity, sanctified its observance 
 to the people. Among the Hindus, polygamy, in both its 
 aspects, prevailed from the earliest times. There was, 
 apparently, as among the ancient Medes, Babylonians, 
 Assyrians, and Persians, no restriction as to the number of 
 wives a man might have. A high caste Brahman, even in 
 modern times, is privileged to marry as many wives as he 
 chooses. Polygamy existed among the Israelites before the 
 time of Moses, who continued the institution without imposing 
 any limit on the number of marriages which a Hebrew husband 
 might contract. In later times, the Talmud of Jerusalem 
 restricted the number by the ability of the husband to main- 
 tain the wives properly ; and though the Rabbins counselled 
 that a man should not take more than four wives, the Karaites 
 
 1 " Paradise is at the foot of the mother ; " the Prophet. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 223 
 
 differed from them, and did not recognise the validity of any 
 limitation. 
 
 To the Persians, religion offered a premium on the plurality 
 of wives. 1 
 
 Among the Syro-Phcenician races, whom the Israelites dis- 
 placed, conquered, or destroyed, polygamy was degraded into 
 bestiality. 2 
 
 Among the Thracians, Lydians, and the Pelasgian races 
 settled in various parts of Europe and Western Asia, the 
 custom of plurality of marriages prevailed to an inordinate 
 extent, and dwarfs all comparison with the practice prevailing 
 elsewhere. 3 
 
 Among the Athenians, the most civilised and most cultured 
 of all the nations of antiquity, the wife was a mere chattel 
 marketable and transferable to others, and a subject of testa- 
 mentary disposition. She was regarded in the light of an evil, 
 indispensable for the ordering of a household and procreation 
 of children. An Athenian was allowed to have any number of 
 wives ; and Demosthenes gloried in the possession by his 
 people of three classes of women, two of which furnished the 
 legal and semi-legal wives. 4 
 
 Among the Spartans, though the men were not allowed, 
 unless under especial circumstances, to have more than one 
 wife, the women could have, and almost always had, more 
 than one husband. 5 
 
 The peculiar circumstances under which the Roman State 
 was originally constituted probably prevented the introduction 
 of legal polygamy at the commencement of its existence. 
 Whatever the historical truth of the Rape of the Sabines, the 
 very existence of the tradition testifies to the causes which 
 helped to form the primitive laws of the Romans on the subject 
 of matrimony. In the surrounding states generally, and 
 especially among the Etruscans, plurality of marriage was a 
 privileged custom. The contact, for centuries, with the other 
 
 1 Doliinger, The Gentile and the Jew, pp. 405, 406. 2 Lev. xviii. 24. 
 
 3 Encyclopedic Universale, art. " Manage " ; Doliinger, The Gentile and the 
 Jew, vol. ii. p. 233. 
 
 4 Doliinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. pp. 233-238. 
 
 5 Grote, History of Greece, vol. vi. p. 136. 
 
224 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 nations of Italy, the wars and conquests of ages, combined 
 with the luxurious habits which success engendered, at last 
 resulted in making the sanctity of marriage a mere by-word 
 amongst the Romans. Polygamy was not indeed legalised, 
 but " after the Punic triumphs the matrons of Rome aspired 
 to the common benefits of a free and opulent republic, and 
 their wishes were gratified by the indulgence of fathers and 
 lovers." * Marriage soon became a simple practice of pro- 
 miscuous concubinage. Concubinage recognised by the laws 
 of the State acquired the force of a privileged institution. The 
 freedom of women, the looseness of the tie which bound them 
 to men, the frequency with which wives were changed or 
 transferred, betoken in fact the prevalence of polygamy, only 
 under a different name. 
 
 In the meantime, the doctrines of primitive Christianity 
 preached on the shores of Galilee began to irradiate the whole 
 Roman world. The influence of the Essenes, which is reflected 
 visibly in the teachings of Jesus, combined with an earnest 
 anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven, had led the Prophet 
 of Nazareth to depreciate matrimony in general, although he 
 never interdicted or expressly forbade its practice in any 
 shape. 
 
 Polygamy flourished in a more or less pronounced form 
 until forbidden by the laws of Justinian. But the prohibition 
 contained in the civil law effected no change in the moral ideas 
 of the people, and polygamy continued to be practised until 
 condemned by the opinion of modern society. The wives, 
 with the exception of the one first married, laboured under 
 severe disabilities. Without rights, without any of the safe- 
 guards which the law threw around the favoured first one, they 
 were the slaves of every caprice and whim of their husbands. 
 Their children were stigmatised as bastards, precluded from 
 all share in the inheritance of their father, and treated as 
 outcasts from society. 
 
 Morganatic and left-handed marriages were not confined to 
 the aristocracy. Even the clergy, frequently forgetting their 
 vows of celibacy, contracted more than one legal or illegal 
 union. History proves conclusively that, until very recent 
 
 1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 206. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 225 
 
 times, polygamy was not considered so reprehensible as it is 
 now. St. Augustine x himself seems to have observed in it no 
 intrinsic immorality or sinfulness, and declared that polygamy 
 was not a crime where it was the legal institution of a country. 
 The German reformers, as Hallam points out, even so late as 
 the sixteenth century, admitted the validity of a second or a 
 third marriage contemporaneously with the first, in default of 
 issue and other similar causes. 
 
 Some scholars, whilst admitting that there is no intrinsic 
 immorality in a plurality of wives, and that Jesus did not 
 absolutely or expressly forbid the custom, hold that the present 
 monogamous practice, in one sense general throughout Europe, 
 arose from the engrafting of either Germanic or Hellenic- 
 Roman notions on Christianity. 2 The latter view is distinctly 
 opposed to fact and history and deserves no credit. As regards 
 the Germans, the proof of their monogamous habits and customs 
 rests upon the uncorroborated testimony of one or two Romans, 
 of all men the most untrustworthy witnesses to facts when it 
 was to their interest to suppress them. Besides, we must 
 remember the object with which Tacitus wrote his Manners of 
 the Germans. It was a distinct attack upon the licentiousness 
 of his own people, and, by contrasting the laxity of the Romans 
 with the imaginary virtues of barbarians, was intended to 
 introduce better ideas into Rome. Again, supposing that 
 Tacitus is right, to what cause should we ascribe the poly- 
 gamous habits of the higher classes of the Germans, even up 
 to the nineteenth century ? 3 
 
 Whatever may have been the custom of the Romans in 
 early times, it is evident that in the latter days of the republic 
 and the commencement of the empire, polygamy must have 
 been accepted as an institution, or, at least, not regarded as 
 illegal. Its existence is assumed, and its practice recognised, 
 by the edict which interfered with its universality. How far 
 the Praetorian Edict succeeded in remedying the evil, or divert- 
 ing the current of public opinion, appears from the rescript of 
 
 1 St. Augustine, lib. ii. cont. Faust, ch. xlvii. 
 
 2 M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire appears to hold the opinion that monogamy 
 was engrafted upon Christianity from Hellenic and Roman sources. 
 
 s Comp. Encyclopidie Universelle, art. Mariage. 
 s.i, p 
 
226 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 the Emperors Honorius and Arcadius towards the end of the 
 fourth century, and the practice of Constantine and his son, 
 both of whom had several wives. The Emperor Valentinian 
 II., by an edict, allowed all the subjects of the empire, if they 
 pleased, to marry several wives ; nor does it appear from the 
 ecclesiastical history of those times that the bishops and the 
 heads of the Christian Churches made any objection to this 
 law. 1 Far from it, all the succeeding emperors practised 
 polygamy, and the people generally were not remiss in following 
 their example. 
 
 This state of the laws continued until the time of Justinian, 
 when the concentrated wisdom and experience of thirteen 
 centuries of progress and development in the arts of life resulted 
 in the proclamation of the laws which have shed a factitious 
 lustre on his infamous reign. But these laws owed little to 
 Christianity, at least directly. The greatest adviser of 
 Justinian was an atheist and a pagan. Even the prohibition 
 of polygamy by Justinian failed to check the tendency of the 
 age. The law represented the advancement of thought ; its 
 influence was confined to a few thinkers, but to the mass it 
 was a perfectly dead letter. 
 
 In the western parts of Europe, the tremendous upheaval of 
 the barbarians, the intermingling of their moral ideas with 
 those of the people among whom they settled, tended to 
 degrade the relations between man and wife. Some of the 
 barbaric codes attempted to deal with polygamy, 2 but example 
 was stronger than precept, and the monarchs, setting the 
 fashion of plurality of wives, were quickly imitated by the 
 people. 3 Even the clergy, in spite of the recommendation to 
 perpetual celibacy held out to them by the Church, availed 
 themselves of the custom of keeping several left-handed wives 
 by a simple licence obtained from the bishop or the head of 
 their diocese. 4 
 
 1 Comp. Encyclopedic Universelle, art. Manage and Davenport, Apology 
 for Mahomet. 
 
 2 Like the laws of Theodoric. But they were based on advanced Byzantine 
 notions. 
 
 3 For polygamy among the Merovingian and Carlovingian sovereigns, see 
 The Short History of the Saracens, p. 626. 
 
 4 Comp. Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 87, and note ; 
 Middle Ages, p. 353 (1 vol. ed.). 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 227 
 
 The greatest and most reprehensible mistake committed by 
 Christian writers is to suppose that Mohammed either adopted 
 or legalised polygamy. The old idea of his having introduced 
 it, a sign only of the ignorance of those who entertained that 
 notion, is by this time exploded ; but the opinion that he 
 adopted and legalised the custom is still maintained by the 
 common masses, as well as by many of the learned in Christen- 
 dom. No belief can be more false. 
 
 Mohammed found polygamy practised, not only among his 
 own people, but amongst the people of the neighbouring 
 countries, where it assumed some of its most degrading aspects. 
 The laws of the Christian empire had indeed tried to correct 
 the evil, but without avail. Polygamy continued to flourish 
 unchecked, and the wretched women, with the exception of 
 the first wife, selected according to priority of time, laboured 
 under severe disabilities. 
 
 The corruptness of morals in Persia about the time of the 
 Prophet was deplorable. There was no recognised law of 
 marriage, or, if any existed, it was completely ignored. In the 
 absence of any fixed rule in the Zend-Avesta as to the number 
 of wives a man might possess, the Persians indulged in a 
 multitude of regular matrimonial connections, besides having 
 a number of concubines. 1 
 
 Among the ancient Arabs and the Jews there existed, 
 besides the system of plurality of wives, the custom of entering 
 into conditional, as well as temporary contracts of marriage. 
 These loose notions of morality exercised a disastrous influence 
 on the constitution of society within the peninsula. 
 
 The reforms instituted by Mohammed effected a vast and 
 marked improvement in the position of women. Both among 
 the Jews and the non-nomadic Arabs the condition of women 
 was degraded in the extreme. The Hebrew maiden, even in 
 her father's house, stood in the position of a servant ; her 
 father could sell her if a minor. In case of his death, the sons 
 could dispose of her at their will and pleasure. The daughter 
 inherited nothing, except when there were no male heirs. 2 
 Among the settled pagan Arabs, who were mostly influenced 
 
 1 Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. i. p. 406. 
 
 2 Num. xxx. 17. 
 
228 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 by the corrupt and effete civilisation of the neighbouring 
 empires, a woman was considered a mere chattel ; she formed 
 an integral part of the estate of her husband or her father ; 
 and the widows of a man descended to his son or sons by right 
 of inheritance, as any other portion of his patrimony. Hence 
 the frequent unions between step-sons and step-mothers which, 
 when subsequently forbidden by Islam, were branded under 
 the name of Nikdh ul-Mekt (" shameful or odious marriages "). 
 Even polyandry was practised by the half- Jewish, half-Sabsean 
 tribes of Yemen. 1 
 
 The pre-Islamite Arabs carried their aversion to women so 
 far as to destroy, by burying alive, many of their female 
 children. This fearful custom, which was most prevalent 
 among the tribes of Koreish and Kindah, was denounced in 
 burning terms by Mohammed and was prohibited under severe 
 penalties, along with the inhuman practice, which they, in 
 common with other nations of antiquity, observed, of sacri- 
 ficing children to their gods. 
 
 In both the empires, the Persian and the Byzantine, women 
 occupied a very low position in the social scale. Fanatical 
 enthusiasts, whom Christendom in later times canonised as 
 saints, preached against them and denounced their enormities, 
 forgetting that the evils they preceived in women were the 
 reflections of their own jaundiced minds. It was at this time, 
 when the social fabric was falling to pieces on all sides, when all 
 that had hitherto kept it together was giving way, when the 
 cry had gone forth that all the older systems had been weighed 
 in the scale of experience and found wanting, that Mohammed 
 introduced his reforms. 
 
 The Prophet of Islam enforced as one of the essential teach- 
 ings of his creed, " respect for women." And his followers, in 
 their love and reverence for his celebrated daughter, proclaimed 
 her " the Lady of Paradise," as the representative of her sex. 
 " Our Lady of Light " 2 is the embodiment of all that is divine 
 in womanhood, — of all that is pure and true and holy in her 
 sex, — the noblest ideal of human conception. And she has 
 been followed by a long succession of women, who have 
 
 1 Lenormant, Ancient History of the East, vol. ii. p. 318. 
 
 2 Kkdtfin-i-jinnat, Fdtima't-az-zahrQ, 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 229 
 
 consecrated their sex by their virtues. Who has not heard of 
 the saintly Rabi'a and a thousand others her equals ? 
 
 In the laws which the Arabian Prophet promulgated he 
 strictly prohibited the custom of conditional marriages, and 
 though at first temporary marriages were tacitly allowed, in 
 the third year of the Hegira even these were forbidden. 1 
 Mohammed secured to women, in his system, rights which 
 they had not before possessed ; he allowed them privileges the 
 value of which will be more fully appreciated as time advances. 
 He placed them on a footing of perfect equality with men 
 in the exercise of all legal powers and functions. He restrained 
 polygamy by limiting the maximum number of contempor- 
 aneous marriages, and by making absolute equity towards all 
 obligatory on the man. It is worthy of note that the clause 
 in the Koran which contains the permission to contract four 
 contemporaneous marriages, is immediately followed by a 
 sentence which cuts down the significance of the preceding 
 passage to its normal and legitimate dimensions. The passage 
 runs thus, " You may marry two, three, or four wives, but not 
 more." The subsequent lines declare, " but if you cannot deal 
 equitably and justly with all, you shall marry only one." The 
 extreme importance of this proviso, bearing especially in mind 
 the meaning which is attached to the word " equity " {'adl) 
 in the Koranic teachings, has not been lost sight of by the 
 great thinkers of the Moslem world. 'Adl signifies not merely 
 equality of treatment in the matter of lodgment, clothing and 
 other domestic requisites, but also complete equity in love, 
 affection and esteem. As absolute justice in matters of feeling 
 is impossible, the Koranic prescription amounted in reality to 
 a prohibition. This view was propounded as early as the third 
 century of the Hegira. 2 In the reign of al-Mamun, the first 
 Mu'tazilite doctors taught that the developed Koranic laws 
 
 1 A section of the Shiahs still regard temporary maiTiages as lawful. But 
 with all deference to the Mujtahids, who have expounded that view, I cannot 
 help considering that it was put forward to suit the tastes of the times, or of 
 the sovereigns under whom these lawyers nourished. In many of their 
 doctrines one cannot fail to perceive the influence of personal inclinations. 
 
 2 The Radd ul-Mtthtdr distinctly says " some doctors [the Mu'tazila] hold 
 that 'adl includes equality in love and affection, but our masters differ from 
 this view and confine it to equal treatment in the matter of nafkah, which 
 in the language of law, signifies food, clothing and lodgment." 
 
230 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 inculcated monogamy. And though the cruel persecution of 
 the mad bigot, Mutawakkil, prevented the general diffusion of 
 their teachings, the conviction is gradually forcing itself on all 
 sides, in all advanced Moslem communities, that polygamy is 
 as much opposed to the teachings of Mohammed as it is to the 
 general progress of civilised society and true culture. 1 
 
 The fact must be borne in mind, that the existence of poly- 
 gamy depends on circumstances. Certain times, certain 
 conditions of society, make its practice absolutely needful, for 
 the preservation of women from starvation or utter destitution. 
 If reports and statistics speak true, the greatest proportion of 
 the mass of immorality prevalent in the centres of civilisation 
 in the West arises from absolute destitution. Abbe Hue and 
 Lady Duff Gordon have both remarked that in the generality 
 of cases sheer force of circumstances drives people to polygamy 
 in the East. 
 
 With the progress of thought, with the ever-changing con- 
 ditions of this world, the necessity for polygamy disappears, 
 and its practice is tacitly abandoned or expressly forbidden. 
 And hence it is, that in those Moslem countries where the 
 circumstances which made its existence at first necessary are 
 disappearing, plurality of wives has come to be regarded as an 
 evil, and as an institution opposed to the teachings of the 
 Prophet ; while in those countries where the conditions of 
 society are different, where the means which, in advanced 
 communities, enable women to help themselves are absent or 
 wanting, polygamy must necessarily continue to exist. Perhaps 
 the objection may be raised, that as the freedom of construction 
 leaves room for casuistical distinctions, the total extinction of 
 polygamy will be a task of considerable difficulty. We admit 
 the force of this objection, which deserves the serious con- 
 sideration of all Moslems desirous of freeing the Islamic 
 teachings from the blame which has hitherto been attached to 
 them, and of moving with advancing civilisation. But it must 
 be remembered that the elasticity of laws is the greatest test 
 of their beneficence and usefulness. And this is the merit of 
 the Koranic provision. It is adapted alike for the acceptance 
 
 1 Compare the remarks on this subject of Moulvi Chiragh Ali in his able 
 work called Are Reforms possible in Mohammedan States? 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 231 
 
 of the most cultured society and the requirements of the least 
 civilised. It ignores not the needs of progressive humanity, 
 nor forgets that there are races and communities on the earth 
 among whom monogamy may prove a dire evil. The task of 
 abolishing polygamy, however, is not so difficult as is imagined. 
 The blight that has fallen on the Moslem nations is due to the 
 patristic doctrine which has prohibited the exercise of indi- 
 vidual judgment (Ijtihdd). The day is not far distant when an 
 appeal to the Teacher's own words will settle the question 
 whether the Moslems will follow Mohammed or the Fathers of 
 the Church, who have misused the Master's name to satisfy 
 their own whimsicalities, or the capricious dictates of Caliphs 
 and Sultans, whose obsequious servants they were. Europe 
 has gone through the same process herself, and instead of 
 hurling anathemas at the Church of Mohammed, ought to 
 watch, with patience and sympathy, the efforts of regenerated 
 Islam to free itself from patristic bondage. When once the 
 freedom from the enthralment of old ideas is achieved, it will 
 be easy for the jurists of each particular Moslem State to 
 abolish, by an authoritative dictum, polygamy within that 
 State. But such a consummation can only result from a 
 general progress in the conception of facts, and a proper under- 
 standing of the Prophet's teachings. Polygamy is disappearing, 
 or will soon disappear, under the new light in which his words 
 are being studied. 
 
 As remarked already, the compatibility of Mohammed's 
 system with every stage of progress shows their Founder's 
 wisdom. Among unadvanced communities, polygamy, hedged 
 by all the safeguards imposed by the Prophet, is by no means 
 an evil to be deplored. At least it is preferable to those 
 polyandrous customs and habits and modes of life which 
 betoken an utter abandonment of all moral self-restraint. As 
 culture advances, the mischiefs resulting from polygamy are 
 better appreciated, and the meaning of the prohibition better 
 comprehended. We are by no means prepared to say that the 
 Musulmans of India have benefited greatly by their inter- 
 mixture with the Brahmanical races, among whom prostitution 
 was a legalised custom. Their moral ideas have become lax ; 
 the conception of human dignity and spiritual purity has 
 
232 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 become degraded ; the class of hetairai has become as popular 
 among them as among their non-Moslem neighbours. And yet 
 there are signs visible which bid us hope that God's light, which 
 lit up Arabia in the seventh century, will fall on their hearts and 
 bring them out of the darkness in which they are now plunged. 
 The Mu'tazila is, by conviction, a strict monogamist ; according 
 to him the law forbids a second union during the subsistence 
 of a prior contract. In other words, a Mu'tazila marriage 
 fulfils in every respect the requirements of an essentially 
 monogamous marriage as a " voluntary union for life of one 
 man and one woman to the exclusion of all others." 
 
 Even among the archaic sects, a large and influential body 
 hold polygamy to be unlawful, the circumstances which 
 rendered it permissible in primitive times having either passed 
 away or not existing in the present day. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the feeling against polygamy is becoming 
 a strong social, if not a moral, conviction, and many extraneous 
 circumstances in combination with this growing feeling, are 
 tending to root out the custom from among the Indian Musul- 
 mans. It has been customary among all classes of the com- 
 munity to insert in the marriage-deed a clause, by which the 
 intending husband formally renounces his supposed right to 
 contract a second union during the continuance of the first 
 marriage. Among the Indian Musulmans ninety-five men out 
 of every hundred are at the present moment, either by 
 conviction or necessity, monogamists. Among the educated 
 classes, versed in the history of their ancestors, and able to 
 compare it with the records of other nations, the custom is 
 regarded with disapprobation. In Persia, only a small fraction 
 of the population enjoy the questionable luxury of plurality 
 of wives. 1 It is earnestly to be hoped that, before long, 
 a general synod of Moslem doctors will authoritatively 
 declare that polygamy, like slavery, is abhorrent to the laws 
 of Islam. 
 
 We now turn to the subject of Mohammed's marriages, 
 which to many minds not cognisant of the facts, or not honest 
 enough to appreciate them, seem to offer a fair ground of 
 reproach against the Prophet of Islam. His Christian 
 
 1 Only two per cent, according to Col. Macgregor. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 233 
 
 assailants maintain that in his own person by frequent 
 marriages he assumed a privilege not granted by the laws, and 
 that he displayed in this manner a weakness of character little 
 compatible with the office of Prophet. Truer knowledge of 
 history, and a more correct appreciation of facts, instead of 
 proving him to be a self-indulgent libertine, would conclusively 
 establish that the man, poor and without resource himself, when 
 he undertook the burden of supporting the women whom he 
 married in strict accordance with the old patriarchal institution, 
 was undergoing a self-sacrifice of no light a character. And 
 we believe that a thorough analysis of motives from the stand- 
 point of humanity will demonstrate the falsehood and un- 
 charitableness of the charges levelled at " the Great Arabian." 
 When Mohammed was only twenty-five years of age, in the 
 prime of life, he married Khadija, much his senior in years. 
 For twenty-five years his life with her was an uninterrupted 
 sunshine of faithfulness and happiness. Through every 
 contumely and outrage heaped on him by the idolaters, through 
 every persecution, Khadija was his sole companion and helper. 
 At the time of Khadija's death Mohammed was in the fifty-first 
 year of his age. His enemies cannot deny, but are forced to 
 admit, that during the whole of this long period they find not 
 a single flaw in his moral character. During the lifetime of 
 Khadija, the Prophet married no other wife, notwithstanding 
 that public opinion among his people would have allowed him 
 to do so had he chosen . 
 
 Several months after Khadija's death and on his return, 
 helpless and persecuted, from Tayef, he married Sauda, the 
 widow of one Sakran, who had embraced Islam, and had been 
 forced to fly into Abyssinia to escape the persecution of the 
 idolaters. Sakran had died in exile, and left his wife utterly 
 destitute. According to the customs of the country, marriage 
 was the only means by which the Teacher could protect and 
 help the widow of his faithful disciple. Every principle of 
 generosity and humanity would impel Mohammed to offer her 
 his hand. Her husband had given his life in the cause of the 
 new religion ; he had left home and country for the sake of his 
 faith ; his wife had shared his exile, and now had returned to 
 Mecca destitute. As the only means of assisting the poor 
 
234 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM H. 
 
 woman, Mohammed, though straitened for the very means of 
 daily subsistence, married Sauda. 
 
 Abdullah, the son of Osman Abu Kuhafa, known afterwards 
 in history as Abu Bakr, was one of the most devoted followers 
 of Mohammed. He was one of the earliest converts to the 
 faith of the Prophet ; and in his sincere, earnest and unvary- 
 ing attachment to Mohammed he might almost be compared 
 with Ali. 
 
 Abu Bakr, as by anticipation we may well call him, had a 
 little daughter named Ayesha, and it was the desire of his life 
 to cement the attachment which existed between himself and 
 the Prophet, who had led him out from the darkness of scep- 
 ticism, by giving Mohammed his daughter in marriage. The 
 child was only seven years of age, but the manners of the 
 country recognised such alliances. At the earnest solicitation 
 of the disciple, the little maiden became the wife of the 
 Prophet. 
 
 Some time after the arrival of the fugitives at Medina there 
 occurred an incident which throws considerable light on the 
 conditions of life among the Arabs of the time. Those who 
 know the peculiarities of the Arab character — " pride, 
 pugnacity, a peculiar point of honour, and a vindictiveness of 
 wonderful force and patience " — will be able to appreciate the 
 full bearing of the story. Even now " words often pass lightly 
 between individuals," says Burton, " which suffice to cause a 
 blood-feud amongst Bedouins." Omar Ibn ul-Khattab, who 
 afterwards became the second Caliph of Islam, had a daughter 
 of the name of Hafsa. This good lady had lost her husband 
 at the battle of Badr, and being blessed with a temper as fiery 
 as that of her father, had remained ever since without a husband. 
 The disciples bent upon matrimony fought shy of her. It was 
 almost a reflection on the father ; and Omar, in order to get 
 rid of the scandal, offered his daughter's hand to Abu Bakr, 
 and, upon his declining the honour, to Osman. He also met 
 the offer with a refusal. This was little less than a direct 
 insult, and Omar proceeded in a towering rage to Mohammed 
 to lay his complaint before the Prophet. The point of honour 
 must, anyhow, be settled in his favour. But neither Abu 
 Bakr nor Osman would undertake the burden of Hafsa's 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 235 
 
 temper : — a dispute, ludicrous in its origin from our point of 
 view, but sufficiently serious then to throw into commotion 
 the small body of the Faithful. In this extremity the chief of 
 the Moslems appeased the enraged father by marrying the 
 daughter. And public opinion not only approved, but was 
 jubilant over it. 1 
 
 Hind Umm Salma, Umm Habiba, and Zainab Uinm 
 ul-Masakin, 2 three other wives of the Prophet, had also been 
 widows, whom the animosity of the idolaters had bereft of 
 their natural protectors, and whom their relations were 
 either unable or unwilling to support. 
 
 Mohammed had married his devoted friend and freedman, 
 Zaid, to a high-born lady of the name of Zainab, descended 
 from two of the noblest families of Arabia. Proud of her 
 birth, and perhaps also of her beauty, her marriage with a 
 freedman rankled in her breast. Mutual aversion at last 
 culminated in disgust. Probably this disgust on the husband's 
 part was enhanced by the frequent repetition, in a manner 
 which women only know how to adopt, of a few words which 
 had fallen from the lips of Mohammed on once seeing Zainab. 
 He had occasion to visit the house of Zaid, and upon seeing 
 Zainab 's unveiled face, had exclaimed, as a Moslem would 
 say at the present day when admiring a beautiful picture or 
 statue, " Praise be to God, the ruler of hearts ! " 
 
 The words, uttered in natural admiration, were often 
 
 1 The story told by Muir, Sprenger, and Osborn, with some amount of 
 gloating, of the domestic squabble between Hafsa and Mohammed, con- 
 cerning Mary, the Coptic girl presented to the Prophet's household by the 
 Negus, is absolutely false and malicious. A tradition, which is repudiated 
 by all the respectable commentators of the Koran, and which must have 
 been invented in the time of some Ommeyyade or Abbasside sensualist, 
 founded on the weakest authority, has been seized with avidity by these 
 critics for the vilification of the Prophet. The verse in the Koran which has 
 been supposed to refer to this story, refers, in truth, to a wholly different 
 circumstance. Mohammed, in his boyhood, when he tended the flocks of his 
 uncle, had acquired a fondness for honey, which was often supplied by Zainab. 
 Hafsa and Ayesha set to work to make him give up honey, and they succeeded 
 in inducing him to vow he would never touch it. But after he had made the 
 vow to her came the thought that he was making something unlawful in 
 which there was nothing unlawful, simply to please his wives. His conscience 
 smote him as to his weakness, and then came the verse, " O Prophet, why 
 holdest thou that to be prohibited which God has made lawful, seeking to 
 please thy wives ? " — (Zamakhshari.) 
 
 2 " Mother of the poor," so called from her charity and benevolence. 
 
236 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 repeated by Zainab to her husband to show how even the 
 Prophet praised her beauty, and naturally added to his 
 displeasure. At last he came to the decision not to live any 
 longer with her, and with this determination he went to the 
 Prophet and expressed his intention of being divorced. " Why," 
 demanded Mohammed, " hast thou found any fault in her ? " 
 " No," replied Zaid, " but I can no longer live with her." The 
 Prophet then peremptorily said, " Go and guard thy wife ; 
 treat her well and fear God, for God has said ' Take care of 
 your wives, and fear the Lord ! ' ' But Zaid was not moved 
 from his purpose, and in spite of the command of the Prophet 
 he divorced Zainab. Mohammed was grieved at the conduct 
 of Zaid, more especially as it was he who had arranged the 
 marriage of these two uncongenial spirits. 
 
 After Zainab had succeeded in obtaining a divorce from 
 Zaid, she commenced importuning Mohammed to marry her, 
 and was not satisfied until she had won for herself the honour 
 of being one of the wives of the Prophet. 1 
 
 Another wife of Mohammed was called Juwairiya. She was 
 the daughter of Harith, the chief of the Bani Mustalik, and was 
 taken prisoner by a Moslem in an expedition undertaken to 
 repress their revolt. She had made an agreement with her 
 captor to purchase her freedom for a stipulated sum. She 
 petitioned Mohammed for the amount, which he immediately 
 gave her. In recognition of this kindness, and in gratitude for 
 her liberty, she offered her hand to Mohammed, and they were 
 married. As soon as the Moslems heard of this alliance, they 
 said amongst themselves the Banu Mustalik are now con- 
 nections of the Prophet, and we must treat them as such. 
 Each victor thereupon hastened to release the captives he 
 had made in the expedition, and a hundred families, thus 
 
 1 Tabari (Zotenberg's translation), vol. iii. p. 58. This marriage created a 
 sensation amongst the idolaters, who, whilst marrying their step-mothers and 
 mothers-in-law, looked upon the marriage of the divorced wife of an adopted 
 son (as Zaid at one time was regarded by Mohammed) by the adoptive father 
 as culpable, To disabuse the people of the notion that adoption creates any 
 such tie as real consanguinity, some verses of chap, xxxiii. were delivered, 
 which destroyed the pagan custom of forbidding or making sacred the person 
 of a wife or husband, or intended wife or husband, by merely calling her 
 mother, sister, father, or brother — much less by her or him being first allied 
 to an adopted son or daughter. One of the greatest tests of the Prophet's 
 purity is that Zaid never swerved from his devotion to his master. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 237 
 
 regaining their liberty, blessed the marriage of Juwairiya with 
 Mohammed. 1 
 
 Safiya, a Jewess, had also been taken prisoner by a Moslem 
 in the expedition against Khaibar. Her, too, Mohammed 
 generously liberated, and elevated to the position of his wife 
 at her request. 
 
 Maimuna, whom Mohammed married in Mecca, was his 
 kinswoman, and was already above fifty. Her marriage with 
 Mohammed, besides providing for a poor relation the means of 
 support, gained over to the cause of Islam two famous men, 
 Ibn-Abbas and Khalid bin-Walid, the leader of the Koreish 
 cavalry in the disastrous battle of Ohod, and in later times the 
 conqueror of the Greeks. 
 
 Such was the nature of the marriages of Mohammed. Some 
 of them may possibly have arisen from a desire for male off- 
 spring, for he was not a god, and may have felt the natural 
 wish to leave sons behind him. He may have wished also 
 to escape from the nickname which the bitterness of his 
 enemies attached to him. 2 But taking the facts as they 
 stand, we see that even these marriages tended in their results 
 to unite the warring tribes, and bring them into some degree 
 of harmony. 
 
 The practice of Thar (vendetta) prevailed among the heathen 
 Arabs ; blood-feuds decimated tribes. There was not a family 
 without its blood-feud, in which the men were frequently 
 murdered, and the women and children reduced to slavery. 
 Moses had found the practice of Thar existing among his people 
 (as it exists among all people in a certain stage of development) ; 
 but failing to abolish it, had legalised it by the institution of 
 sanctuaries. Mohammed, with a deeper conception of the 
 remedies to be applied, connected various rival families and 
 
 1 Ibn-Hisham, p. 729. 
 
 2 With savage bitterness the enemies of the Prophet applied to him the 
 nickname of al-abtar on the death of his last son. This word literally means 
 " one whose tail has been cut off." Among the ancient Arabs, as among the 
 Hindoos, a male issue was regarded as the continuation of the blessings of the 
 gods ; and the man who left no male issue behind was looked upon as pecu- 
 liarly unfortunate. Hence the bitter word applied to the Prophet ; Koran, 
 chap, cviii. (see the Kashshdf). Hence, also, the idolatrous Arabs used to 
 bury alive their female offspring, which Mohammed denounced and repre- 
 hended in burning terms ; comp. Koran xvii. 34, etc. 
 
238 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 powerful tribes to each other and to himself by marriage ties. 
 Towards the close of his mission, standing on the Mount of 
 Arafat, he proclaimed that from that time all blood-feuds 
 should cease. 
 
 The malevolence of unfair and uncandid enemies has distorted 
 the motives which, under the sanction of the great patriarchs 
 of ancient times, led Mohammed to have a plurality of wives, 
 and so provide helpless or widowed women with subsistence 
 in the lack of all other means. By taking them into his family, 
 Mohammed provided for them in the only way which the 
 circumstances of the age and the people rendered possible. 
 
 People in the West are apt to regard polygamy as intrinsically 
 evil, and its practice not only illegal, but the result of licentious- 
 ness and immorality. They forget that all such institutions 
 are the offspring of the circumstances and necessities of the 
 times. They forget that the great patriarchs of the Hebraic 
 race, who are regarded by the followers of all Semitic creeds as 
 exemplars of moral grandeur, practised polygamy to an extent 
 which, to our modern ideas, seems the culmination of legalised 
 immorality. We cannot perhaps allow their practice or con- 
 duct to pass unquestioned, in spite of the sanctity which time- 
 honoured legend has cast around them. But in the case of the 
 Prophet of Arabia, it is essential we should bear in mind the 
 historic value and significance of the acts. 
 
 Probably it will be said that no necessity should have induced 
 the Prophet either to practise or to allow such an evil custom 
 as polygamy, and that he ought to have forbidden it absolutely, 
 Jesus having overlooked it. But this custom, like many others, 
 is not absolutely evil. Evil is a relative term. An act or 
 usage may be primarily quite in accordance with the moral 
 conceptions of societies and individuals ; but progress of ideas 
 and changes in the condition of a people may make it evil in 
 its tendency, and, in process of time, it may be made by the 
 State, illegal. That ideas are progressive is a truism ; but that 
 usages and customs depend on the progress of ideas, and are 
 good or evil according to circumstances, or as they are or are 
 not in accordance with conscience, — " the spirit of the time " 
 —is a fact much ignored by superficial thinkers. 
 
 One of the most remarkable features in the history of early 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 239 
 
 Christianity is its depreciation of marriage. Matrimony was 
 regarded as a condition of inferiority, and the birth ot children 
 an evil. Monasticism had withdrawn from the world the most 
 vigorous minds ; the lay-clergy were either not allowed to 
 marry, or to marry but once. This morbid feature was partly 
 due to the example of the Master, and partly the resultant of 
 a variety of circumstances which pressed upon the early 
 Christian organisation. 
 
 The Nazarene Prophet's intimate connection with th^ 
 Essene ascetics, his vivid anticipation of the immediate advent 
 of a kingdom of God, where all social relations would be at an 
 end, and the early cessation of his ministry, all explain his 
 depreciation of matrimony, and we may add, perhaps, his never 
 entering the married state. His association with the Baptist, 
 himself an Essene, throws light upon the history of a short but 
 most pathetic life. The strong and inexplicable antipathy of 
 Paul towards the female sex, joined to the words of the Master, 
 strengthened in the Church the Essenic conception that the 
 union of man and woman in the holiest of ties was an act of 
 sinfulness, an evil to be avoided as far as possible. Marriage 
 was regarded as having for its sole object the procreation of 
 children and the gratification of " man's carnal lusts," and the 
 marriage services of most of the Christian Churches bear to 
 this day the impress of this primitive notion. It was under 
 these influences, the idea engrafted itself upon Christianity, 
 which still retains its hold where not displaced by humanitarian 
 science, that a person who has never married is a far superior 
 being to one who has contaminated himself by marriage. The 
 ash-covered Yogis of India, the matted-locked ascetics of the 
 East generally, the priests of Buddha, were celibates. Accord- 
 ing to them, " knowledge was unattainable without sundering 
 all the loving ties of home and family, and infinity impossible 
 of realisation without leading a life of singleness." Celibacy 
 passed into Christianity through many hands from Eastern 
 Gnosticism and Asceticism. The " sinlessness " of Jesus has 
 been regarded by some as a proof of his divinity, by others as 
 an indication of his immeasurable superiority over the rest of 
 the teachers of the world. To our mind, the comparison or 
 contrast which is so falsely instituted between Jesus and 
 
240 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Mohammed appears wholly misconceived, and founded upon 
 a wrong estimate of moral ideals. If never marrying con- 
 stitutes a man an ideal being, then all the ascetics, the hermits, 
 the dervishes are perfect. A perfect life would then imply a 
 total abandonment of all domestic relations. Surely this view 
 would be a perversion of nature, and end in disastrous con- 
 sequences to humanity. But if it be not so, then why this 
 disparagement of the Prophet, who fulfilled the work of Jesus ? 
 Is it because he married more wives than one ? We have 
 shown what these marriages meant ; we have at least en- 
 deavoured to show that in those very deeds which have been 
 used to calumniate him, he was undergoing a sacrifice. 
 
 But let us look for a moment at his marriages from an abstract 
 point of view. Why did Moses marry more than one wife ? 
 Was he a moral, or a sensual man for doing so ? Why did 
 David, " the man after God's heart," indulge in unlimited 
 polygamy ? The answer is plain — each age has its own stan- 
 dard. What is suited for one time is not suited for the other, 
 and we must not judge of the past by the standard of the 
 present. Our ideals do not lose their greatness or their 
 sublimity by having acted truthfully and honestly up to the 
 standard of their age. Would we be justified in calling Jesus 
 a vain, ambitious, unpractical dreamer, or Moses and David 
 sanguinary sensualists, because the mind of one was filled with 
 vague imaginings of expected sovereignty, and the fives of the 
 others were so objectionable from the twentieth century 
 point of view ? In both cases we would be entirely wrong ; 
 the aspirations of the one, the achievements of the others, were 
 all historical facts, in accord with their times. It is the truest 
 mark of the Prophet that, in his most exalted mood, he does 
 not lose sight of the living in his anticipation of the yet unborn. 
 In his person he represents the growth and development of 
 humanity. Neither Jesus nor Mohammed could at once efface 
 existing society, or obliterate all national and political institu- 
 tions. Like Jesus, Mohammed contented himself, except 
 where ordinances were necessary, to meet the requirements of 
 the moment, " with planting principles in the hearts of his 
 followers which would, when the time was ripe for it, work 
 out their abolition," 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 241 
 
 As regards the statement that Mohammed assumed to 
 himself a privilege which he denied to his followers, only thus 
 much need be said, that it is founded on a misconception 
 resulting from ignorance. The limitation on polygamy was 
 enunciated at Medina some years after the exile ; and the 
 provision regarding himself, instead of being a privilege 
 assumed by a libertine, was a burden consciously imposed on 
 a self-conscious, self -examining soul. All his marriages were 
 contracted before the revelation came restricting polygamy ; 
 and with that came the other which took away from him all 
 privileges. Whilst his followers were free (subject to the 
 conditions imposed by the law), to marry to the limit of four, 
 and by the use of the power of divorce, which, in spite of the 
 Prophet's denunciations, they still exercised, could ^nter into 
 fresh alliances, he could neither put away any of his wives, 
 whose support he had undertaken, nor could he marry any 
 other. Was this the assumption of a " privilege " ; or was it 
 not a humane provision for those already allied to him — and to 
 himself, a revelation of perfect self-abnegation in his prophetic 
 task ? 
 
 The subject of divorce has proved a fruitful source of mis- 
 conception and controversy ; but there can be no question that 
 the Koranic laws concerning the treatment of women in divorce 
 are of " better humanity and regard for justice than those of 
 any other scripture." 
 
 Among all the nations of antiquity, the power of divorce has 
 been regarded as a necessary corollary to 'the law of marriage ; 
 but this right, with a few exceptions, was exclusively reserved 
 for the benefit of the stronger sex ; the wife was under no 
 circumstance entitled to claim a divorce. 
 
 The progress of civilisation and the advancement of ideas 
 led to a partial amelioration in the condition of women. They, 
 too, acquired a qualified right of divorce, which they were never 
 backward in exercising freely, until the facility with which 
 marriages were contracted and dissolved under the Roman 
 emperors passed into a bye-word. 
 
 Under the ancient Hebraic Law, a husband could divorce 
 his wife for any cause which made her disagreeable to him, and 
 there were few or no checks to an arbitrary and capricious use 
 
 S.I. Q 
 
242 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 of his power. Women were not allowed to demand a divorce 
 from their husbands for any reason whatsoever. 1 
 
 In later times, the Shammaites, to some extent, modified the 
 custom of divorce by imposing certain restrictions on its 
 exercise, but the school of Hillel upheld the law in its primitive 
 strictness. 
 
 At the time of the Prophet's appearance, the Hillelite 
 doctrines were chiefly in force among the Jewish tribes of 
 Arabia, and repudiations by the husbands were as common 
 among them as among the pagan Arabs. 
 
 Among the Athenians the husband's right to repudiate the 
 wife was as unrestricted as among the ancient Israelites. 
 
 Among the Romans, the legality of the practice of divorce 
 was recognised from the earliest times. The laws of the 
 Twelve Tables admitted divorce. And if the Romans, as is 
 stated by their admirers, did not take advantage of this law 
 until five hundred years after the foundation of their city, it 
 was not because they were more exemplary than other nations, 
 but because the husband possessed the power of summarily 
 putting his wife to death for acts like poisoning, drinking, and 
 the substitution of a spurious child. But the wife had no right 
 to sue for a divorce ; 2 and if she solicited separation, her 
 temerity made her liable to punishment. But in the later 
 Republic, the frequency of divorce was at once the sign, the 
 cause, and the consequence of the rapid depravation of 
 morals. 
 
 We have selected the two most prominent nations of antiquity 
 whose modes of thought have acted powerfully on modern ways 
 of thinking and modern life and manners. The laws of the 
 Romans regarding divorce were marked by a progressive spirit, 
 tending to the melioration of the condition of women, and to 
 their elevation to an equality with men. This was the result 
 of the advancement of human ideas, as much as of any 
 extraneous cause. 
 
 " The ambiguous word which contains the precept of Jesus 
 is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of the legislator 
 
 1 Ex. xxi. 2 ; Deut. xxi. 14, xxiv. 1. Compare also Dollinger, The Gentile 
 and the Jew, vol. ii. pp. 339, 340 ; and Selden's Uxor Hebraica, in loco. 
 
 2 PollinPT-r, The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 255. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 243 
 
 can demand." 1 We may well suppose that at the time Jesus 
 uttered the words, " What God has joined, let not man put 
 asunder," he had no other idea than that of stemming the 
 torrent of moral depravity, and he did not stop to consider the 
 ultimate tendency of his words. The subsequent rule, which 
 makes fornication 2 (using the translated word) the only ground 
 of valid divorce, shows abundantly that Jesus was alive to the 
 emergency. 3 But the " wisdom " of subsequent legislators 
 has not confined itself to a blind adherence to a rule laid down 
 probably to suit the requirement of an embryonic community, 
 and delivered verbally. The rule may be regarded as incul- 
 cating a noble sentiment ; but that it should be considered as 
 the typical law of divorce is sufficiently controverted by the 
 multitudinous provisions of successive ages in Christian 
 countries. 
 
 Among the Arabs, the power of divorce possessed by the 
 husband was unlimited. They recognised no rule of humanity 
 or justice in the treatment of their wives. Mohammed looked 
 upon the custom of divorce with extreme disapproval, and 
 regarded its practice as calculated to undermine the founda- 
 tions of society. 4 He repeatedly declared that nothing pleased 
 God more than the emancipation of slaves, and nothing more 
 displeased Him than divorce. It was impossible, however, 
 under the existing conditions of society to abolish the custom 
 entirely. He was to mould the mind of an uncultured and 
 semi-barbarous community to a higher development so that 
 in the fulness of time his spiritual lessons might blossom in the 
 hearts of mankind. The custom was not an unmixed evil ; 
 
 1 Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iv. (2nd Ed.) p. 209. 
 
 2 Matt. T&M 9. I1>-i 
 
 3 Two of the Christian Gospels make no mention of the reason for which 
 Jesus allowed his followers " to put away " their wives (Mark x. 11 and Luke 
 xvi. 18). If the traditions recorded by these two Gospels be considered of 
 higher authority than those passing undei the name of Matthew, then our 
 contention is that Jesus, whilst preaching noble sentiments, and inculcating 
 high principles of morality, did not intend his words should be considered as 
 an immutable and positive law, nor had he any other idea than that of stem- 
 ming the rising tide of immorality and irreligion. Selden thinks that by an 
 evasive answer, Jesus wanted to avoid giving offence either to the school of 
 Shammai or that of Hillel, Uxor Hebraica, I. iii c. 18-22, 28, 31. Compare 
 Gibbon's valuable note on the interpretation of the Greek word iropvda, 
 rendered " fornication " in the English version, vol. iv. (2nd Ed.) p. 209, 
 
 4 Koran, sura ii. 226. 
 
244 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 and accordingly he allowed the exercise of the power of divorce 
 to husbands under certain conditions. He permitted to 
 divorced parties three distinct and separate periods within 
 which they might endeavour to become reconciled and resume 
 their conjugal relationship ; but should all attempts at recon- 
 ciliation prove unsuccessful, then the third period in which 
 the final separation was declared to have arrived, supervened. 
 In case of conjugal disputes, he advised settlement by means 
 of arbiters chosen by the two disputants. 
 
 M. Sedillot, than whom no Western writer has analysed the 
 laws of Mohammed better, has the following passage on the 
 subject : 
 
 " Divorce was permitted, but subject to formalities which 
 allowed (and, we will add, recommended), a revocation of a 
 hurried or not well-considered resolution. Three successive 
 declarations, at a month's interval, were necessary in order to 
 make it irrevocable." * 
 
 The reforms of Mohammed marked a new departure in the 
 history of Eastern legislation. He restrained the power of 
 divorce possessed by the husbands ; he gave to the women the 
 right of obtaining a separation on reasonable grounds ; and 
 towards the end of his life he went so far as practically to 
 forbid its exercise by the men without the intervention of 
 arbiters or a judge. He pronounced " taldk to be the most 
 detestable before God of all permitted things," for it prevented 
 conjugal happiness and interfered with the proper bringing up 
 of children. The permission, therefore, in the Koran though 
 it gave a certain countenance to the old customs, has to be read 
 with the light of the Lawgiver's own enunciations. When it 
 is borne in mind how intimately law and religion are connected 
 in the Islamic system, it will be easy to understand the bearing 
 of his words on the institution of divorce. 
 
 Naturally, great divergence exists among the various schools 
 regarding the exercise of the power of divorce by the husband 
 of his own motion and without the intervention of the judge. 
 A large and influential body of jurists regard taldk emanating 
 from the husband as really prohibited, except for necessity, 
 such as the adultery of the wife. Another section, consisting 
 
 1 Sedillot, Histoire des Arabes, vol. i. p. 85. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 245 
 
 chiefly of the Mu'tazilas, 1 consider taldk as not permissible or 
 lawful without the sanction of the Hakim ush-shara'. They 
 hold that any such case as may justify separation and remove 
 taldk from the category of being forbidden, should be tested by 
 an unbiased judge ; and, in support of their doctrine, they 
 refer to the words of the Prophet already cited, and to his 
 direction that in case of disputes between the married parties, 
 arbiters should be appointed for the settlement of their 
 differences. 
 
 The Hanafis, the Malikis, the Shafe'i's and the bulk of the 
 Shiahs hold taldk to be permitted, though they regard the 
 exercise of the power without any cause to be unlawful. 
 
 The Radd nl-Muhtdr, after stating the arguments against the 
 proposition that taldk is unlawful, proceeds to say, " no doubt, 
 it is forbidden, but it becomes mubdh (permitted) for certain 
 outside reasons, and this is the meaning of those jurists who 
 hold that it is really forbidden." 
 
 Although " the Fathers of the Church " have taken up the 
 temporary permission as the positive rule, and ignored many 
 of the principles of equity inculcated by the Master, the rules 
 laid down by the legists are far more humane and just towards 
 women than those of the most perfect Roman law developed 
 in the bosom of the Church. 2 According to the legists, the 
 wife also is entitled to demand a separation on the ground of 
 ill-usage, want of proper maintenance, and various other 
 causes ; but unless she showed very good and solid grounds for 
 demanding the separation, she lost her " settlement " or 
 dowry. In every case, when the divorce originated with the 
 husband (except in cases of open infidelity), he had to give up 
 to her everything he settled upon her at her marriage. 3 
 
 1 See post. 2 Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 368, 369. 
 
 3 M. Sedillot also speaks of the condition which (according to the Sunnite 
 doctrines) requires that in such cases of complete separation, prior to the 
 husband and wife coming together again, the latter should marry another 
 and be divorced anew, — as a very wise measure which rendered separation 
 more rare. Muir censures Mohammed for making such a condition necessary 
 (vol. hi. p. 306). He ignores, that, among a proud, jealous, and sensitive race 
 like the Arabs, such a condition was one of the strongest antidotes for the 
 evil. The very proverb he quotes ought to have shown the disgrace which 
 was attached to the man who would make his wife go through such " a dis- 
 gusting ordeal." I am afraid, in his dislike towards Mohammed, Sir W. 
 Muir forgot that this condition was intended as a check on that other 
 
246 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 The frequent admonitions in the Koran against separations, 
 the repeated recommendation to heal quarrels by private 
 reconciliation, show the extreme sacredness of the marriage 
 tie in the eyes of the Arab Legislator : 
 
 " If a woman fear ill-usage or aversion from her husband, it 
 shall not be blameable in them * if they agree with mutual 
 agreement, for reconciliation (or agreement) is best. (Men's) 
 souls are prone to avarice ; but if ye act kindly and deal 
 piously, verily God is well acquainted with what ye do. And 
 ye will not have it at all in your power to treat your wives alike 
 with equity, even though you fain wanted to do so ; 2 yet yield 
 not to your inclinations ever so much as to leave her in sus- 
 pense ; and if ye agree and act piously, then, verily, God is 
 forgiving and merciful." 3 
 
 And, again, in a preceding verse, it is declared : 
 
 " And if ye fear a breach between them (man and wife), 
 then send a judge chosen from his family and a judge chosen 
 from her family ; if they desire a reconciliation, God will cause 
 them to agree ; verily, God is knowing and apprised of all." 4 
 
 The sanctity attached to the institution of marriage in the 
 Islamic system has either not been apprehended or sufficiently 
 appreciated by outsiders. " Marriage," says the Ashbdh w'an- 
 Nazdir, "is an institution ordained for the protection of 
 
 " revolting " practice rife both among the Jews and the heathen Arabs, and 
 by example also among the Christians, of repudiating a wife on every slight 
 occasion, at every outburst of senseless passion or caprice. This check was 
 intended to control one of the most sensitive nations of the earth, by acting 
 on the strongest feeling of their nature, the sense of honour (compare Sale, 
 Preliminary Discourse, p. 134). Sir W. Muir also forgot that many of the 
 Shiite doctors do not recognise the obligation or validity of the wife's being 
 married to a third person, prior to her being taken back (compare Malcolm, 
 History of Persia, vol. ii. p. 241, and the Mabsiit, in loco). 
 
 For my part, I believe in the correctness of the construction, namely, that 
 the verse which says, " When ye divorce women, and the time for sending 
 them away is come, send them away with generosity ; but retain them not 
 by constraint so as to be unjust towards them " abrogates the preceding verse, 
 which requires the intervention of a third person. 
 
 1 The Arabic expression implies " it will be commendable," etc. 
 
 2 This furnishes another argument against those Mohammedans who hold 
 that the developed laws of Islam allow plurality of wives. It being declared 
 that " equity " is beyond human power to observe, we must naturally infer 
 that the Legislator had in view the merging of the lower in the higher prin- 
 ciple, and the abolition of a custom which though necessary in some state of 
 society, is opposed to the later development of thought and morals. 
 
 3 Koran, sura iv. 128, 129. 4 Koran, sura iv. 35. 
 
V. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 247 
 
 society, and in order that human beings may guard themselves 
 from foulness and unchastity." " Marriage is a sacrament, 
 insomuch that in this world it is an act of 'ibddat or worship, 
 for it preserves mankind free from pollution." ..." It is 
 instituted by divine command among members of the human 
 species." " Marriage when treated as a contract is a per- 
 manent relationship based on mutual consent on the part of 
 a man and a woman between whom there is no bar to a lawful 
 union." 
 
 It has been frequently said that Mohammed allowed his 
 followers, besides the four legitimate wives, to take to them- 
 selves any number of female slaves. A simple statement of 
 the regulation on this point will show at once how opposed this 
 notion is to the true precepts of Islam. " Whoso among you 
 hath not the means to marry a free believing woman, then let 
 him marry such of your maid-servants whom your right hands 
 possess and who are believers. This is allowed unto him 
 among you who is afraid of committing sin ; but if ye abstain 
 from allying yourself with slaves, it will be better for you." 
 
 On this slender basis, and perhaps on some temporary and 
 accidental circumstances connected with the early rise of the 
 Moslem commonwealth, have our legists based the usage of 
 holding (jdrias) female slaves. And this, though opposed to 
 the spirit of the Master's precepts, has given rise to some of 
 the strongest animadversions of rival religionists. 
 
 Concubinage, the union of people standing to each other in 
 the relation of master and slave, without the sanction of 
 matrimony, existed among the Arabs, the Jews, the Christians, 
 and all the neighbouring nations. The Prophet did not in the 
 beginning denounce the custom, but towards the end of his 
 career he expressly forbade it. 
 
 " And you are permitted to marry virtuous women who are 
 believers, and virtuous women of those who have been given 
 the Scriptures before you, when you have provided them their 
 portions, living chastely with them without fornication, and not 
 taking concubines." l 
 
 Compare the spirit of the first part of this commandment 
 with the exclusiveness of Christian ecclesiasticism, which 
 
 1 Sura v. 5. 
 
248 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 refused to recognise as valid or lawful the union of a Christian 
 with a non-Christian. The stake frequently was the lot of the 
 " infidel " who indulged in the temerity of marrying a 
 Christian. Mohammed's rule was a distinct advance in 
 humanity. 
 
 The prohibition directed against Moslem women entering 
 into marriage with non-Moslems, which has furnished a handle 
 for attacks, was founded upon reasons of policy and the neces- 
 sities of the early commonwealth. 
 
 It cannot be denied that several institutions which the 
 Musulmans borrowed from the pre-Islamic period, " the Days 
 of Ignorance," and which exist simply as so many survivals of 
 an older growth, have had the tendency to retard the advance- 
 ment of Mohammedan nations. Among them the system of 
 the seclusion of women is one. It had been in practice among 
 most of the nations of antiquity from the earliest times. The 
 gynaikonitis was a familiar institution among the Athenians ; 
 and the inmates of an Athenian harem were as jealously guaided 
 from the public gaze as the members of a Persian household 
 then, or of an Indian household now. The gynaikonomoi, like 
 their Oriental counterpart, were the faithful warders of female 
 privacy, and rigorously watched over the ladies of Athens. 
 The seclusion of women naturally gave birth to the caste of 
 Hetairai, various members of whom played such an important 
 part in Athenian history. Were it not for the extraordinary 
 and almost inexplicable spectacle presented by the Byzantine 
 empire and modern Europe and America, we should have said 
 that in every society, at all advanced in the arts of civilised 
 life, the growth of the unhappy class of beings whose existence 
 is alike a reproach to humanity and a disgrace to civilisation, 
 was due to the withdrawal of women from the legitimate 
 exercise of their ennobling, purifying, and humanising influence 
 over the minds of men. The human mind, when it does not 
 perceive the pure, hankers after the impure. The Baby- 
 lonians, the Etruscans, the Athenians and the pre-Islamite 
 Meccans furnish the best exemplification of this view in ancient 
 times. The enormity of the social canker eating into the heart 
 and poisoning the life-blood of nations in modern times is 
 due, however, to the spread of a godless materialism covered 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 249 
 
 with a thin veneer of religion, be it Christianity, be it Moham- 
 medanism, or any other form of creed. Mohammed had, in 
 early life, observed with pain and sorrow the depravity 
 prevailing among the Meccans, and he took the most effective 
 step suited to the age and the people to stamp out the evil. 
 " By his severe laws at first," to use the expressive language 
 of Mr. Bosworth Smith, " and by the strong moral sentiment 
 aroused by these laws afterwards, he has succeeded, down to 
 this very day, and to a greater extent than has ever been 
 the case elsewhere, in freeing all Mohammedan countries " — 
 where they are not overgrown by foreign excrescences — ' ' from 
 those professional outcasts who live by their own misery, 
 and, by their existence as a recognised class, are a standing 
 reproach to every member of the society of which they form 
 a part." 
 
 The system of female seclusion undoubtedly possesses many 
 advantages in the social well-being of unsettled and uncultured 
 communities ; and even in countries, where the diversity of 
 culture and moral conceptions is great, a modified form of 
 seclusion is not absolutely to be deprecated. It prevails at 
 the present moment, in forms more or less strict, among 
 nations far removed from Moslem influences, to which is 
 ascribed the existence of the custom in India and other Oriental 
 countries. In Corea, female seclusion is carried to the height 
 of absurdity. In China and among the Spanish colonies of 
 South America, which are not within the immediate ambit of 
 the European social code, the Purdah is still observed. The 
 Prophet of Islam found it existing among the Persians and 
 other Oriental communities ; he perceived its advantages, and 
 it is possible that, in view of the widespread laxity of morals 
 among all classes of people, he recommended to the women-folk 
 the observance of privacy. But to suppose that he ever 
 intended his recommendation should assume its present 
 inelastic form, or that he ever allowed or enjoined the seclusion 
 of women, is wholly opposed to the spirit of his reforms. The 
 Koran itself affords no warrant for holding that the seclusion 
 of women is a part of the new gospel. 
 
 " O Prophet ! speak to thy wives and to thy daughters, and 
 to the wives of the Faithful, that they let their wrappers fall 
 
250 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 low. Thus will they more easily be known, and they will not 
 be affronted. God is indulgent, merciful." 1 
 
 " And speak to the believing women, that they refrain their 
 looks and observe continence ; and that they display not their 
 ornaments except those which are external, and that they 
 draw their kerchiefs over their bosoms." 2 
 
 Directions easy to understand 3 in the midst of the social and 
 moral chaos from which he was endeavouring, under God's Guid- 
 ance, to evolve order, — wise and beneficent injunctions having 
 for their object the promotion of decency among women, the 
 improvement of their dress and demeanour, and their protec- 
 tion from insult. 4 It is a mistake, therefore, to suppose there 
 is anything in the law which tends to the perpetuation of the 
 custom. Considerable light is thrown on the Lawgiver's 
 recommendation for female privacy, by the remarkable im- 
 munity from restraint or seclusion which the members of his 
 family always enjoyed. 'Ayesha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, 
 who was married to Mohammed on Khadija's death, personally 
 conducted the insurrectionary movement against Ali. She 
 commanded her own troops at the famous " Battle of the 
 Camel." Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, often took 
 part in the discussions regarding the succession to the Caliphate. 
 The grand-daughter of Mohammed, Zainab the sister of Husain, 
 shielded her youthful nephew from the Ommeyyades after the 
 butchery of Kerbela. Her indomitable spirit awed equally the 
 ferocious Obaidullah ibn Ziyad and the pitiless Yezid. 
 
 The depravity of morals, which had sapped the foundations 
 
 1 Sura xxxiii. 59. * Sura xxiv. 31. 
 
 3 Those who have travelled in Europeanised Egypt and in the Levant will 
 understand how necessary these directions must have been in those times. 
 
 4 Hamilton, the translator of the Heddya, in his preliminary discourse 
 dealing with the Book of Abominations, has the following : " A subject which 
 involves a vast variety of frivolous matter, and must be considered chiefly 
 in the light of a treatise upon propriety and decorum. In it is particularly 
 exhibited the scrupulous attention paid to female modesty, and the avoidance 
 of every act which may tend to violate it, even in thought. It is remarkable, 
 however, that this does not amount to that absolute seclusion of women 
 supposed by some writers. In fact, this seclusion is a result of jealousy or 
 pride, and not of any legal injunction, as appears in this and several other 
 parts of the Hedava. Neither is it a custom universally prevalent in Moham- 
 medan countries." Marsden, in his Travels, says : " The Arab settlers in 
 Java never observed the custom, and the Javanese Mussulman women enjoy 
 the same amount of freedom as their Dutch sisters." 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 251 
 
 of society among the pre-Islamic Arabs, as well as among the 
 Jews and the Christians, urgently needed some correction. 
 The Prophet's counsel regarding the privacy of women served 
 undoubtedly to stem the tide of immorality, and to prevent 
 the diffusion among his followers of the custom of disguised 
 polyandry, which had evidently, until then, existed among 
 the pagan Arabs. 
 
 According to von Hammer, " the harem is a sanctuary : it 
 is prohibited to strangers, not because women are considered 
 unworthy of confidence, but on account of the sacredness with 
 which custom and manners invest them. The degree of 
 reverence which is accorded to women throughout higher 
 Asia and Europe (among Mohammedan communities) is a 
 matter capable of the clearest demonstration." 
 
 The idealisation of womanhood is a natural characteristic of 
 all the highest natures. But national pride and religious 
 bigotry have given rise to two divergent theories regarding 
 the social exaltation of women among the cultured classes in 
 modern Christendom. The one attributes it to Mariolatry, the 
 other to Mediaeval chivalry, alleged to be the offspring of 
 Teutonic institutions. Of Christianity, in its relation to 
 womankind, the less said the better. In the early ages, when 
 the religion of the people, high and low, the ignorant and 
 educated, consisted only of the adoration of the mother of 
 Jesus, the Church of Christ had placed the sex under a ban. 
 Father after father had written upon the enormities of women, 
 their evil tendencies, their inconceivable malignity. Tertullian 
 represented the general feeling in a book in which he described 
 women as " the devil's gateway, the unsealer of the forbidden 
 tree, the deserter of the divine law, the destroyer of God's 
 image — man." Another authority declared with a revolting 
 cynicism, " among women he sought for chastity but found 
 none." Chrysostom, who is recognised as a saint of high 
 merit, " interpreted the general opinion of the Fathers," says 
 Lecky, " when he pronounced women to be a necessary evil, 
 a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, 
 a deadly fascination, a painted ill." The orthodox Church 
 excluded women from the exercise of all religious functions 
 excepting the lowliest. They were excluded absolutely from 
 
252 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 society ; they were prohibited from appearing in public, from 
 going to feasts or banquets. They were directed to remain in 
 seclusion, to observe silence, to obey their husbands, and to 
 apply themselves to weaving and spinning and cooking. If 
 they ever went out they were to be clothed from head to foot. 
 Such was the position of women in Christianity when Mariolatry 
 was recognised and practised by all classes. In later times, and 
 in the gloomy interval which elapsed between the overthrow of 
 the Western empire and the rise of modern society in Europe, 
 a period which has been described as one of " rapine, falsehood, 
 tyranny, lust, and violence," Christianity, by introducing 
 convents and nunneries, served, in some respects, to improve 
 the lot of women. This questionable amelioration, however, 
 was only suited for an age when the abduction of women was 
 an everyday occurrence, and the dissoluteness of morals was 
 such as to defy description. But the convents were not always 
 the haunts of virtue, nor the inculcation of celibacy the surest 
 safeguard of chastity. The Registrum Visitationem, or the 
 diary of the pastoral visits of Archbishop Rigaud, throws a 
 peculiar light upon the state of morality and the position of 
 the sex during the most glorious epoch of the Age of Faith. 
 The rise of Protestantism made no difference in the social 
 conditions or in the conception of lawyers regarding the status 
 of women, jesus had treated woman with humanity ; his 
 followers excluded her from justice. 
 
 The other theory to which we have adverted is in vogue 
 among the romanceurs of Europe. They have represented each 
 historical figure in the Middle Ages to be a Bayard or a Crichton. 
 The age of chivalry is generally supposed to extend from the 
 beginning of the eighth to the close of the fourteenth century 
 — a period, be it noted, almost synchronous with the Saracenic 
 domination in Spain. But, during this period, in spite of the 
 halo which poetry and romance have cast around the conditions 
 of society, women were the frequent subjects of violence. 
 Force and fraud were the distinguishing characteristics of the 
 golden age of Christian chivalry. Roland and Arthur were 
 myths until the West came in contact with the civilisation 
 and culture of the East. Chivalry was not the product of the 
 wilds of Scandinavia or of the gloomy forests of Germany ; — 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 253 
 
 prophecy and chivalry alike were the children of the desert. 
 From the desert issued Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed ; from 
 the desert issued 'Antar, Hamza, and Ali. 
 
 The condition of women among the Arabs settled in the cities 
 and villages, who had adopted the loose notions of morality 
 prevalent among the Syrians, Persians, and Romans, was, as 
 we have already stated, degraded in the extreme. Among 
 some of the nomads, however, they enjoyed great freedom, 
 and exercised much influence over the fortunes of their tribes. 
 " They were not, as among the Greeks," says Perron, " the 
 creatures of misery." They accompanied the warriors to 
 battle, and inspired them to heroism ; the cavaliers rushed into 
 the fights singing the praises of sister, wife, or lady-love. The 
 guerdon of their loves was the highest prize of their prowess. 
 Valour and generosity were the greatest virtues of the men, 
 and chastity that of the women. An insult offered to a woman 
 of a tribe would set in flame the desert tribes from end to end of 
 the peninsula. The " Sacrilegious Wars," which lasted for forty 
 years, and were put an end to by the Prophet, had their origin 
 in an insult offered to a young girl at one of the fairs of Okaz. 
 
 Mohammed rendered a fitful custom into a permanent creed, 
 and embodied respect for women in his revelations. With 
 many directions, which reflect the rude and patriarchal 
 simplicity of the age, his regulations breathe a more chivalrous 
 spirit towards the sex than is to be found in the teachings of 
 the older masters. Islam, like Christianity, is different with 
 different individuals and in different ages, but on the whole, 
 true chivalry is more intimately associated with true Islam 
 than with any other form of positive faith or social institution. 
 
 The hero of Islam, the true disciple of the founder of the 
 Hilf-td-Fuzul, was as ready with lance and sword to do battle 
 with God's enemies as to redress the wrongs of the weak and 
 oppressed. Whether on the plains of Irak or nearer home, 
 the cry of distress never failed to bring the mailed knight to 
 the succour of the helpless and suffering. His deeds translated 
 into legends, and carried from the tent to the palace, have 
 served to influence the prowess of succeeding ages. The caliph 
 in his banqueting-hall puts down the half-tasted bowl on being 
 told that an Arab maiden, carried into captivity by the Romans, 
 
254 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 had cried out, " Why does not Abd ul-Malik come to my help ? " 
 — he vows that no wine or water shall wet his lips until he has 
 released the maiden from bondage. Forthwith he marches his 
 troops upon the Roman caitiffs, and only when the maiden has 
 attained her liberty is he freed from his vow. A Mogul em- 
 peror, 1 sore pressed by relentless foes, is marching towards the 
 frontiers when he receives the bracelet of an alien queen — the 
 token of brotherhood and call for succour. He abandons his 
 own necessities, retraces his steps, defeats her foes, and then 
 resumes his march. 
 
 Oelsner calls 'Antar " the father of chivalry." Ali was its 
 beau-ideal — an impersonation of gallantry, of bravery, of 
 generosity ; pure, gentle, and learned, " without fear and with- 
 out reproach," he set the world the noblest example of chival- 
 rous grandeur of character. His spirit, a pure reflection of 
 that of the Master, overshadowed the Islamic world, and formed 
 the animating genius of succeeding ages. The wars of the 
 Crusades brought barbarian Europe into contact with the 
 civilisation of the Islamic East, and opened its eyes to the 
 magnificence and refinement of the Moslems ; but it was 
 especially the influences of Mohammedan Andalusia on the 
 neighbouring Christian provinces which led to the introduction 
 of chivalry into Europe. The troubadours, the trouveurs of 
 Southern France, and the minnesingers of Germany, who sang 
 of love and honour in war, were the immediate disciples of the 
 romanceurs of Cordova, Granada, and Malaga. Petrarch and 
 Boccaccio, even Tasso and Chaucer, derived their inspiration 
 from the Islamic fountain-head. But the coarse habits and 
 thoughts of the barbarian hordes of Europe communicated a 
 character of grossness to pure chivalry. 
 
 In the early centuries of Islam, almost until the extinction 
 of the Saracenic empire in the East, women continued to occupy 
 as exalted a position as in modern society. Zubaida, the wife 
 of Harun, plays a conspicuous part in the history of the age, and 
 by her virtues, as well as by her accomplishments, leaves an 
 honoured name to posterity. Humaida, the wife of Faruk, a 
 
 i The Emperor Humayun, pursued by the Afghans, received, on his march 
 to Cabul, the bracelet from the Jodhpur queen, and at once came to her help. 
 I have mentioned two instances of Moslem chivalry, which might be multiplied 
 by hundreds. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 255 
 
 Medinite citizen, left for many years the sole guardian of her 
 minor son, educates him to become one of the most distinguished 
 jurisconsults of the day. 1 Sukaina, or Sakina, the daughter of 
 Husain, 2 and the grand-daughter of Ali, was the most brilliant, 
 most accomplished, and most virtuous woman of her time, — 
 "la dame des dames de son temps, la plus belle, la plus gracieuse, 
 la plus brillante de qualites," as Perron calls her. Herself no 
 mean scholar, she prized the converse of learned and pious 
 people. The ladies of the Prophet's family were noted for 
 their learning, their virtues, and their strength of character. 
 Buran, the wife of the Caliph Mamun, Umm-ul-Fazl, Mamun's 
 sister, married to the eighth Imam of the house of Ali, Umm 
 ul-Habib, Mamun's daughter, were all famous for their scholar- 
 ship. In the fifth century of the Hegira, the Sheikha Shuhda, 
 designated Fakhr un-nisa ("the glory of women"), lectured 
 publicly, at the Cathedral Mosque of Bagdad, to large 
 audiences on literature, rhetoric, and poetry. She occupies in 
 the annals of Islam a position of equality with the most dis- 
 tinguished 'ulama. What would have befallen this lady had 
 she flourished among the fellow-religionists of St. Cyril can be 
 judged by the fate of Hypatia. Possibly she would not have 
 been torn to pieces by enthusiastic Christians, but she would, 
 to a certainty, have been burnt as a witch. Zat ul-Hemma, 
 corrupted into Zemma, " the lion-heart," the heroine of many 
 battles, fought side by side with the bravest knights. 3 
 
 The improvement effected in the position of women by the 
 Prophet of Arabia has been acknowledged by all unprejudiced 
 writers, though it is still the fashion with bigoted contro- 
 versialists to say the Islamic system lowered the status of 
 women. No falser calumny has been levelled at the great 
 Prophet. Nineteen centuries of progressive development 
 working with the legacy of a prior civilization, under the most 
 favourable racial and climatic conditions, have tended to place 
 
 1 Faruk was away for twenty-seven years engaged in wars in Khorasan. 
 His son's name is Rabya-ar-Ray. 
 
 2 Husain was married to one of the daughters of Yezdjard, the last 
 Sasanian king of Persia. 
 
 3 For a full account of the distinguished women who have flourished in 
 Islam, see the article in the May number of the Nineteenth Century for 1899 
 and The Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan). 
 
256 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 women, in most countries of Christendom, on a higher social 
 level than the men, — have given birth to a code of etiquette 
 which, at least ostensibly, recognises the right of women to 
 higher social respect. But what is their legal position even in 
 the most advanced communities of Christendom ? Until very 
 recently, even in England, a married woman possessed no 
 rights independently of her husband. If the Moslem woman 
 does not attain in another hundred years, the social position 
 of her European sister, there will be time enough to declaim 
 against Islam as a system and a dispensation. But the Teacher 
 who in an age when no country, no system, no community gave 
 any right to woman, maiden or married, mother or wife, who, 
 in a country where the birth of a daughter was considered a 
 calamity, secured to the sex rights which are only unwillingly and 
 under pressure being conceded to them by the civilised nations 
 in the twentieth century, deserves the gratitude of humanity. 
 If Mohammed had done nothing more, his claim to be a bene- 
 factor of mankind would have been indisputable. Even under 
 the laws as they stand at present in the pages of the legists, the 
 legal position of Moslem females may be said to compare 
 favourably with that of European women. We have dealt in 
 another place at length with this subject. We shall do no 
 more here than glance at the provisions of the Moslem codes 
 relating to women. As long as she is unmarried she remains 
 under the parental roof, and until she attains her majority she 
 is, to some extent, under the control of the father or his repre- 
 sentative. As soon, however, as she is of age, the law vests 
 in her all the rights which belong to her as an independent 
 human being. She is entitled to share in the inheritance of 
 her parents along with her brothers, and though the proportion 
 is different, the distinction is founded on the relative position 
 of brother and sister. A woman who is sui juris can under no 
 circumstances be married without her own express consent, 
 " not even by the sultan." * On her marriage she does not 
 lose her individuality. She does not cease to be a separate 
 member of society. 
 
 1 Centuries after the principle was laid down by the Moslem jurists, the 
 sovereigns and chiefs of Christendom were in the habit of forcibly marrying 
 women to their subjects. 
 
v. THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ISLAM 257 
 
 An ante-nuptial settlement by the husband in favour of the 
 wife is a necessary condition, and on his failure to make a 
 settlement the law presumes one in accordance with the social 
 position of the wife. A Moslem marriage is a civil act, needing 
 no priest, requiring no ceremonial. The contract of marriage 
 gives the man no power over the woman's person, beyond 
 what the law defines, and none whatever upon her goods and 
 property. Her rights as a mother do not depend for their 
 recognition upon the idiosyncrasies of individual judges. Her 
 earnings acquired by her own exertions cannot be wasted by 
 a prodigal husband, nor can she be ill-treated with impunity 
 by one who is brutal. She acts, if sui juris, in all matters 
 which relate to herself and her property in her own individual 
 right, without the intervention of husband or father. She can 
 sue her debtors in the open courts, without the necessity of 
 joining a next friend, or under cover of her husband's name. 
 She continues to exercise, after she has passed from her father's 
 house into her husband's home, all the rights which the law 
 gives to men. All the privileges which belong to her as a 
 woman and a wife are secured to her, not by the courtesies 
 which " come and go," but by the actual text in the book of 
 law. Taken as a whole, her status is not more unfavourable 
 than that of many European women, whilst in many respects 
 she occupies a decidedly better position. Her comparatively 
 backward condition is the result of a want of culture among 
 the community generally, rather than of any special feature 
 in the laws of the fathers. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 
 
 " And as to your slaves, see that ye feed them as ye feed yourselves 
 and clothe them as ye clothe yourselves." — The Prophet. 
 
 SLAVERY in some of its features has been aptly compared 
 with polygamy. Like polygamy, it has existed among 
 all nations, and has died away with the progress of 
 human thought and the growth of a sense of justice among 
 mankind. Like polygamy it was the natural product of 
 passion and pride so strongly marked in certain phases of 
 the communal and individual development. But unlike 
 polygamy, it bears from its outset the curse of inherent 
 injustice. 
 
 In the early stages, when humanity has not risen to the full 
 appreciation of the reciprocal rights and duties of man ; when 
 laws are the mandates of one, or of the few, for the many ; 
 when the will of the strong is the rule of life and the guide of 
 conduct — then the necessary inequality, social, physical, or 
 mental, engendered by nature among the human race, invari- 
 ably takes the form of slavery, and a system springs into 
 existence which allows absolute power to the superior over the 
 inferior. 1 This complete subserviency of the weak to the 
 strong has helped the latter to escape from the legendary curse 
 laid on man — " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread 
 till thou return to the ground," and allowed them to employ 
 the leisure thus acquired in congenial pursuits. " The simple 
 wish," says the author of Ancient Law, " to use the bodily 
 powers of another person as the means of ministering to one's 
 
 1 Comp. throughout L 'Influence des Croisades sur l'£tat des Peuples de 
 I' Europe, by Maxime de Choiseul D'Aillecourt, Paris, 1809. 
 
vi. BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 259 
 
 own ease or pleasure, is doubtless the foundation of slavery, 
 and as old as human nature." x 
 
 The practice of slavery is co-eval with human existence. 
 Historically, its traces are visible in every age and in every 
 nation. Its germs were developed in a savage state of society, 
 and it continued to nourish even when the progress of material 
 civilisation had done away with its necessity. 
 
 The Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and the ancient Germans, 2 
 — people whose legal and social institutions have most affected 
 modern manners and customs, — recognised and practised both 
 kinds of slavery, praedial servitude as well as household 
 slavery. 
 
 Among the Hebrews, from the commencement of their 
 existence as a nation, two forms of slavery were practised. The 
 Israelite slave, given into bondage as a punishment for crime 
 or for the payment of a debt, occupied a higher position than 
 a slave of alien birth. The law allowed the former his liberty 
 after six years of servitude, unless he refused to avail himself 
 of his right. But the foreign slaves, whether belonging to the 
 people whom the Israelites had reduced into absolute helotage 
 by a merciless system of warfare, or whether acquired in 
 treacherous forays or by purchase, were entirely excluded from 
 the benefits of this arrangement, an arrangement made in a 
 spirit of national partiality and characteristic isolation. 3 The 
 lot of these bondsmen and bondswomen was one of unmitigated 
 hardship. Helots of the soil or slaves of the house, hated and 
 despised at the same time, they lived a life of perpetual drudgery 
 in the service of pitiless masters. 
 
 Christianity, as a system and a creed, raised no protest 
 against slavery, enforced no rule, inculcated no principle for 
 the mitigation of the evil. Excepting a few remarks on the 
 disobedience of slaves, 4 and a general advice to masters to give 
 servants their due, the teachings of Jesus, as portrayed in the 
 Christian traditions, contained nothing expressive of dis- 
 approval of bondage. On the contrary, Christianity enjoined 
 
 1 Maine, Ancient Law, p. 104. 
 
 2 Caesar (De Bell. Gall. lib. vi.), Tacitus (De Moribus German, cap. 24, 25), 
 and Pothier {De Stat. Servor. apud Germ. lib. i.) all testify to the extreme 
 severity of German servitude. 
 
 3 Lev. xxv. 44, 45. * 1 Tim. iv. I, 2. 
 
26o THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 on the slave absolute submission to the will of his or her pro- 
 prietor. It found slavery a recognised institution of the 
 empire ; it adopted the system without any endeavour to 
 mitigate its baneful character, or to promote its gradual 
 abolition, or to improve the status of slaves. Under the civil 
 law, slaves were mere chattels. They remained so under the 
 Christian domination. Slavery had nourished among the 
 Romans from the earliest times. The slaves, whether of native 
 or of foreign birth, whether acquired by war or purchase, were 
 regarded simply as chattels. Their masters possessed the 
 power of life and death over them. But that gradual improve- 
 ment which had raised the archaic laws of the Twelve Tables 
 to the comprehensive code of Hadrian, did not fail to introduce 
 some amelioration in the condition of the slaves. In spite, 
 however, of the changes which the humanity or the wisdom of 
 the emperors had effected in the old laws, the person of the 
 slave was absolutely subject to the will of the master. Each 
 magnate of the empire possessed thousands of slaves, who were 
 tortured and subjected to lashings for the most trivial of faults. 
 
 The introduction of the religion of Jesus into Europe affected 
 human chattelhood only in its relation to the priesthood. A 
 slave could become free by adopting monachism, if not claimed 
 within three years. 1 But in other respects, slavery nourished 
 as much and in as varied shapes as under the pagan domination. 
 The Digest, compiled under a Christian emperor, pronounced 
 slavery a constitution of the law of nature ; and the Code fixed 
 the maximum price of slaves according to the professions for 
 which they were intended. Marriages between slaves were 
 not legal, and between the slave and the free were prohibited 
 under severe penalties. 2 The natural result was unrestrained 
 concubinage, which even the clergy recognised and practised. 3 
 
 Such was slavery under the most advanced system of laws 
 known to the ancient world. These laws reflected the wisdom 
 of thirteen centuries, and towards the close of their develop- 
 
 1 Comp. Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 358. 
 
 2 One of the punishments was, if a free woman married a slave, she was 
 to be put to death and the slave burnt alive. Comp. the splendid though 
 apologetic chapter of Milman on the subject, Latin Christianity, vol. ii. 
 
 3 Comp. Milman, Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 369 ; and also Du Cange, 
 Concubina, 
 
vi. BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 261 
 
 ment had engrafted upon themselves some faint offshoots of 
 the teachings of one of the greatest moral preceptors of the 
 world. 
 
 With the establishment of the Western and Northern bar- 
 barians on the ruins of the Roman empire, besides personal 
 slavery, territorial servitude scarcely known to the Romans, 
 became general in all the newly settled countries. The various 
 rights possessed by the lords over their vassals and serfs 
 exhibited a revolting picture of moral depravity and degrada- 
 tion. 1 The barbaric codes, like the Roman, regarded slavery 
 as an ordinary condition of mankind ; and if any protection 
 was afforded to the slave, it was chiefly as the property of his 
 master, who alone, besides the State, had the power of life and 
 death over him. 
 
 Christianity had failed utterly in abolishing slavery or 
 alleviating its evils. The Church itself held slaves, and recog- 
 nised in explicit terms the lawfulness of this baneful institution. 
 Under its influence the greatest civilians of Europe had upheld 
 slavery, and have insisted upon its usefulness as preventing the 
 increase of pauperism and theft. 2 And it was under the same 
 influences that the highly cultured Christians of the Southern 
 States of North America practised the cruellest inhumanities 
 upon the unfortunate beings whom they held as slaves, — many 
 of their own kith, — and shed torrents of blood for the main- 
 tenance of the curse of slavery in their midst. The least trace 
 of the blood of an inferior race, however imperceptible, sub- 
 jected the unfortunate being to all the penalties of slavery. 
 The white Christian could never legitimatise the issue of his 
 illicit connection with his negro slave- women. With her he 
 could never contract a legal union. The mother of his 
 illegitimate children and her descendants, however remote, 
 
 1 Comp. De Choiseul, and also consult on this subject the comprehensive 
 chapter of Stephen's Commentaries on the Laws of England, bk. ii. pt. i. chap, 
 ii. One of the miserable and disgusting privileges possessed by the lord was 
 designated in Britain the custom of culiage, which was afterwards commuted 
 into a fine. This custom, as has been correctly supposed, gave rise to the 
 law of inheritance, prevalent in some English counties, and known by the 
 name of Borough English. 
 
 2 Pufendorff, Law of Nature and Nations, bk. vi. c. 3, s. 10 ; Ulricus Huberus, 
 Praelect Jur. Civ. 1. i. tit. 4, s. 6 ; Pothier, De Statu Servorum ; and Grotius, 
 De Jure Bell., 1. ii. c. 5, s. 27. 
 
262 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 could be sold by his legitimate white issue at any time. Chris- 
 tianity failed to grasp the spirit of its Master's teachings in 
 regard to the equality of man in the sight of God. 
 
 Islam recognises no distinction of race or colour ; black or 
 white, citizens or soldiers, rulers or subjects, they are perfectly 
 equal, not in theory only, but in practice. In the field or in 
 the guest-chamber, in the tent or in the palace, in the mosque 
 or in the market, they mix without reserve and without con- 
 tempt. The first Muezzin of Islam, a devoted adherent and an 
 esteemed disciple, was a negro slave. To the white Christian, 
 his black fellow-religionist may be his equal in the kingdom of 
 heaven, but certainly not in the kingdom of this world ; in the 
 reign of Christ, perhaps, but not in the reign of Christianity. 
 The law may compel him, a larger humanity with torrents of 
 blood may force him to give his black brother civic rights, but 
 the pride of race and colour acknowledges no equality, and even 
 in the house of God a strict separation is observed. 
 
 The Islamic teachings dealt a blow at the institution of 
 slavery which, had it not been for the deep root it had taken 
 among the surrounding nations and the natural obliquity of 
 the human mind, would have been completely extinguished as 
 soon as the generation which then practised it had passed away. 
 
 It has been justly contended that, as the promulgation of 
 the laws, precepts, and teachings of Islam extended over 
 twenty years, it is naturally to be expected many of the pre- 
 Islamic institutions, which were eventually abolished, were, at 
 first, either tacitly permitted or expressly recognised. 1 In one 
 of these categories stood the usage of slavery. The evil was 
 intertwined with the inmost relations of the people among whom 
 Mohammed flourished. Its extinction was only to be achieved 
 by the continued agency of wise and humane laws, and not by 
 the sudden and entire emancipation of the existing slaves, 
 which was morally and economically impossible. Numberless 
 provisions, negative as well as positive, were accordingly 
 introduced in order to promote and accomplish a gradual 
 enfranchisement. A contrary policy would have produced an 
 utter collapse of the infant commonwealth. 
 
 The Prophet exhorted his followers repeatedly in the name 
 
 1 Tahzib ul-Akhldk (15th Rajab, 1288), p. 118. 
 
vi. BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 263 
 
 of God to enfranchise slaves, " than which there was not an 
 act more acceptable to God." He ruled that for certain sins 
 of omission the penalty should be the manumission of slaves. 
 He ordered that slaves should be allowed to purchase their 
 liberty by the wages of their service ; and that in case the 
 unfortunate beings had no present means of gain, and wanted 
 to earn in some other employment enough for that purpose, 
 they should be allowed to leave their masters on an agreement 
 to that effect. 1 He also provided that sums should be advanced 
 to the slaves from the public treasury to purchase their liberty. 
 In certain contingencies, it was provided that the slave should 
 become enfranchised without the interference and even against 
 the will of his master. The contract or agreement in which 
 the least doubt was discovered, was construed most favourably 
 in the interests of the slave, and the slightest promise on the 
 part of the master was made obligatory for the purposes of 
 enfranchisement. He placed the duty of kindness towards the 
 slave on the same footing with the claims of " kindred and 
 neighbours, and fellow-travellers, and wayfarers " ; encouraged 
 manumission to the freest extent, and therewith the gift of " a 
 portion of that wealth which God hath given you " ; and 
 prohibited sensual uses of a master's power over the slave, with 
 the promise of divine mercy to the wronged. To free a slave 
 is the expiation for ignorantly slaying a believer, and for certain 
 forms of untruth. The whole tenor of Mohammed's teaching 
 made " permanent chattelhood " or caste impossible ; and it is 
 simply " an abuse of words " to apply the word slavery, in the 
 English sense, to any status known to the legislation of Islam. 
 The Lawgiver ordained, that a fugitive fleeing to the 
 territories of Islam should at once become enfranchised ; that 
 the child of a slave woman should follow the condition of the 
 father, while the mother should become free at his death ; that 
 the slave should be able to contract with his master for his 
 emancipation ; and that a part of the poor-tax should be 
 devoted to the ransom of those held in bondage. The masters 
 were forbidden to exact more work than was just and proper. 
 They were ordered never to address their male or female slaves 
 by that degrading appellation, but by the more affectionate 
 1 Koran xxiv. 33, etc. 
 
264 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 name of " my young man," or " my young maid " ; it was 
 enjoined that all slaves should be dressed, clothed, and fed 
 exactly as their masters and mistresses. Above all, it was 
 ordered that in no case should the mother be separated from 
 her child, nor brother from brother, nor father from son, nor 
 husband from wife, nor one relative from another. 1 
 
 In the moral rules laid down for the treatment of those then 
 in bondage, the Arabian Teacher did not prescribe the reciprocal 
 duties of master and slave in the one-sided manner so often 
 visible in other creeds. 2 With a deeper and truer knowledge 
 of human nature, he saw that it was not so needful to lay down 
 the duties the weak owe to the strong, as those the strong owe 
 to the weak. In Islam no discredit is attached to the status 
 of slavery. It is an accident, and not, as in the civil law and 
 patristic Christianity, " a constitution of nature." Zaid, the 
 freedman of the Prophet, was often entrusted with the command 
 of troops, and the noblest captains served under him without 
 demur ; and his son 'Osama was honoured with the leadership 
 of the expedition sent by Abu Bakr against the Greeks. Kutb 
 ud-din, the first king of Delhi, and the true founder, therefore, 
 of the Musulman empire in India, was a slave. The slavery 
 which was allowed in Islam had, in fact, nothing in common 
 with that which was in vogue in Christendom until recent 
 times, or with American slavery until the holy war of 1865 put 
 an end to that curse. 
 
 In Islam the slave of to-day is the grand vizier of to-morrow. 
 He may marry, without discredit, his master's daughter, and 
 become the head of the family. Slaves have ruled kingdoms 
 and founded dynasties. The father of Mahmud of Ghazni 
 was a slave. Can Christianity point to such records as these ? 
 Can Christianity show, in the pages of history, as clear, 'as 
 humane an account of her treatment of slaves as this ? 
 
 From all that we have said it is abundantly clear that the 
 Legislator himself looked upon the custom as temporary in its 
 
 1 I see no need of quoting authorities on these points, as they are admitted 
 facts. But I may refer the curious reader to the traditions collected in the 
 Mishkdt, the Sahih of Bukhari, and the Bihar id- Anwar. The latter contains 
 the noblest monument of generosity and charity practised by the Prophet's 
 immediate descendants. 
 
 s See Col. iii. 22 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1. 
 
VI. BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 265 
 
 nature, and held that its extinction was sure to be achieved by 
 the progress of ideas and change of circumstances. The Koran 
 always speaks of slaves as " those whom your right hands have 
 acquired," indicating thus the only means of acquisition of 
 bondsmen or bondswomen. It recognised, in fact, only one 
 kind of slavery — the servitude of men made captives in bond 
 fide lawful warfare, Jihdd-i-Shara'i. Among all barbarous 
 nations the captives are spared from a motive of selfishness 
 alone, 1 in order to add to the wealth of the individual captor, 
 or of the collective nation, by their sale-money or by their 
 labour. 2 Like other nations of antiquity, the Arab of the 
 pre-Islamic period spared the lives of his captives for the sake 
 of profiting by them. Mohammed found this custom existing 
 among his people. Instead of theorising, or dealing in vague 
 platitudes, he laid down strict rules for their guidance, enjoin- 
 ing that those only may be held in bond who were taken in 
 bond fide legal war until they were ransomed, or the captive 
 bought his or her own liberty by the wages of service. But 
 even when these means failed, an appeal to the pious feelings 
 of the Moslem, combined with the onerous responsibilities 
 attached to the possession of a slave, was often enough to 
 secure the eventual enfranchisement of the latter. Slave- 
 lifting and slave-dealing, patronised by dominant Christianity, 3 
 and sanctified by Judaism, were utterly reprobated and con- 
 demned. The man who dealt in slaves was declared the 
 outcast of humanity. Enfranchisement 4 of slaves was pro- 
 nounced to be a noble act of virtue. It was forbidden in 
 absolute terms to reduce Moslems to slavery. To the lasting 
 disgrace of a large number of professed Moslems it must 
 
 1 Comp. Milman, Latin Christ, vol. ii. p. 387. The ancient jurists based the 
 righ£ of enslaving the captive on the prior right of killing him. In this they 
 are followed by Albericus Gentilis {De Jur. Gent. cap. de Servitude), Grotius, 
 and Pufendorff. Montesquieu, indeed, was the first to deny this mythical 
 right of killing a captive, unless in case of absolute necessity, or for self- 
 preservation. And this the author of the Spirit of Laws denied, because of 
 his freedom from the thraldom of the Church. 
 
 2 Comp. Milman, Hist, of the Jews, vol. iii. p. 48. 
 
 3 After the massacre of Drogheda by Cromwell, and the suppression of the 
 insurrection in Ireland, the English Protestants sold the Irish, men and 
 women, wholesale to the colonists in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other places. 
 The same was done after Monmouth's rebellion. 
 
 * According to an authentic and well-known tradition from Imam Ja'far 
 as-Sadik {Bihar id- Anwar). 
 
266 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 be said, however, that, whilst observing, or trying to observe 
 the letter, they have utterly ignored the spirit of the Teacher's 
 precepts, and allowed slavery to flourish (in direct contraven- 
 tion of the injunctions of the Prophet) by purchase and other 
 means. The possession of a slave, by the Koranic laws, was 
 conditional on a bond fide struggle, in self-defence, against 
 unbelieving and idolatrous aggressors, and its permission was 
 a guarantee for the safety and preservation of the captives. 
 The cessation of the state of war in which the Moslem com- 
 munity was at first involved, from the animosity of the 
 surrounding tribes and nations, would have brought about the 
 extinction of slavery by a natural process — the stoppage of 
 future acquisition and the enfranchisement of those in bondage. 
 However, whether from contact with the demoralised nations 
 of the East and the West, and the wild races of the North, or 
 from the fact that the baneful institution was deeply rooted 
 among all classes of society, many Moslems, like the Christians 
 and the Jews, recognised slavery, and to some extent do so 
 even now. But the wild Turkoman, or the African Arab, who 
 glories in slave-lifting, is no more a representative of Islam than 
 is the barbarous Guacho, who revels on the savage prairies of 
 South America, of Christianity. 1 Like polygamy, the institu- 
 tion of slavery, prevalent universally among mankind at some 
 stage or other of their growth, has, at least among the nations 
 which claim to be civilised, outlived the necessities which 
 induced its practice, and must sooner or later become extinct. 
 It will be seen, therefore, that Islam, did not " consecrate " 
 slavery, as has been maliciously affirmed, but provided in every 
 
 1 In order not to break the letter of his Prophet's Commandments, the 
 Turkoman (himself a violent Sunni) forced his captive (whether a Sunni or a 
 Shiah) to acknowledge himself a heretic. And the African Arab calls his 
 murderous razzias, on the pagan negroes, Jihads. Mr. Joseph Thompson, the 
 well-known African traveller, in a letter to the London Times of the 14th 
 of November, 1887, thus writes on the subject of slavery in East Africa : 
 " I unhesitatingly affirm, and I speak from a wider experience of Eastern 
 Central Africa than any of your correspondents possess, that if the slave 
 trade thrives it is because Islam has not been introduced in these regions, 
 and for the strongest of all reasons, that the spread of Mahommedanism 
 would have meant the concomitant suppression of the slave trade." His 
 account of " the peaceful and unassuming agencies " by which Islam has been 
 spread in Western Africa and Central Soudan deserves the attention of every 
 reader. " Here," he says, " we have Islam as a living, active force, full of 
 the fire and energy of its early days, proselytizing too with much of the mar- 
 vellous success which characterized its early days." 
 
vi. BONDAGE (SLAVERY) 267 
 
 way for its abolition and extinction by circumscribing the means 
 of possession within the narrowest limits. Islam did not deal 
 capriciously with this important question. Whilst proclaiming 
 in the most emphatic terms the natural equality of human 
 beings, it did not, regardless of consequences, enfranchise the 
 men and women already in bondage, which would have only 
 been productive of evil in a world not then ripe for that con- 
 summation of human liberty, moral and intellectual. 
 
 The mutilation of the human body was also explicitly 
 forbidden by Mohammed, and the institution which flourished 
 both in the Persian and the Byzantine empires was denounced 
 in severe terms. Slavery by purchase was unknown during 
 the reigns of the first four Caliphs. There is at least no 
 authentic record of any slave having been acquired by purchase 
 during their tenure of the office. But with the accession of the 
 usurping house of Ommeyya a change came over the spirit 
 of Islam. Muawiyah was the first Musulman sovereign who 
 introduced into the Moslem world the practice of acquiring 
 slaves by purchase. He was also the first to adopt the 
 Byzantine custom of guarding his women by eunuchs. During 
 the reigns of the early Abbassides, the Shiah Imam Ja'far 
 as-Sadik preached against slavery. 
 
 The time is now arrived when humanity at large should 
 raise its voice against the practice of servitude, in whatever 
 shape or under whatever denomination it may be disguised. 
 The Moslems especially, for the honour of their great Prophet, 
 should try to efface that dark page from their history — a page 
 which would never have been written but for their contra- 
 vention of the spirit of his laws, however bright it may appear 
 by the side of the ghastly scrolls on which the deeds of the 
 professors of the rival creeds are recorded. The day is come 
 when the voice which proclaimed liberty, equality, and universal 
 brotherhood among all mankind should be heard with the fresh 
 vigour acquired from the spiritual existence and spiritual 
 pervasion of fourteen centuries. It remains for the Moslems 
 to show the falseness of the aspersions cast on the memory of 
 the great and noble Prophet, by proclaiming in explicit terms 
 that slavery is reprobated by their faith and discountenanced 
 by their code. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 " The blood of the Zimmi is like the blood of the Moslem " — All 
 
 HITHERTO, we have considered the teachings of the 
 Arabian Prophet solely from one point of view — as 
 furnishing the rule of human conduct, and supplying 
 the guide of man's duty to his Creator and to his fellow- 
 creatures. We now propose to examine the influence of 
 Islam on collective humanity — on nations, and not merely 
 on the individual, in short, on the destiny of mankind in the 
 aggregate. 
 
 Seven centuries had passed since the Master of Nazareth 
 had come with his message of the Kingdom of Heaven to the 
 poor and the lowly. A beautiful life was ended before the 
 ministry had barely commenced. And now unutterable 
 desolation brooded over the empires and kingdoms of 
 the earth, and God's children, sunk in misery, were anxiously 
 waiting for the promised deliverance which was so long in 
 coming. 
 
 In the West, as in the East, the condition of the masses was 
 so miserable as to defy description. They possessed no civil 
 rights or political privileges. These were the monopoly of the 
 rich and the powerful, or of the sacerdotal classes. The law 
 was not the same for the weak and the strong, the rich and the 
 poor, the great and the lowly. In Sasanide Persia, the priests 
 and the landed proprietors, the Dehkdns, enjoyed all power and 
 influence, and the wealth of the country was centred in their 
 hands. The peasantry and the poorer classes generally were 
 ground to the earth under a lawless despotism. In the Byzan- 
 tine Empire, the clergy and the great magnates, courtezans, 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 269 
 
 and other nameless ministrants to the vices of Gesar and 
 proconsul, were the happy possessors of wealth, influence 
 and power. The people grovelled in the most abject misery. 
 In the barbaric kingdoms — in fact, wherever feudalism 
 had established itself — by far the largest proportion of the 
 population were either serfs or slaves. 
 
 Villeinage or serfdom was the ordinary status of the peasantry. 
 At first there was little distinction between prsedial and domestic 
 slavery. Both classes of slaves, with their families, and their 
 goods and chattels, belonged to the lord of the soil, who could 
 deal with them at his own free will and pleasure. 1 In later 
 times the serfs or villeins were either annexed to the manor, 
 and were bought and sold with the land to which they belonged, 
 or were annexed to the person of the lord, and were transferable 
 from one owner to another. They could not leave their lord 
 without his permission ; and if they ran away, or were pur- 
 loined from him, might be claimed and recovered by action, 
 like beasts or other chattels. They held, indeed, small portions 
 of land by way of sustaining themselves and their families, but 
 it was at the mere will of the lord, who might dispossess them 
 whenever he pleased. A villein could acquire no property, 
 either in land or goods ; but if he purchased either, the lord 
 might enter upon them, oust the villein, and seize them to his 
 own use. 
 
 An iron collar round the neck was the badge of both prsedial 
 servitude and domestic slavery. The slaves were driven from 
 place to place in gangs, fed like swine, and housed worse than 
 swine, with fettered feet and manacled hands, linked together 
 in a single chain which led from collar to collar. The trader 
 in human flesh rode with a heavy knotted lash in his hands, 
 with which he ' encouraged ' the weary and flagging. This 
 whip when it struck, and that was frequently, cut the flesh out 
 of the body. Men, women, and children were thus dragged 
 about the country with rags on their body, their ankles ulcerated, 
 their naked feet torn. If any of the wretches flagged and fell, 
 they were laid on the ground and lashed until the skin was flayed 
 and they were nearly dead. The horrors of the Middle Passage, 
 
 1 The Church retained its slaves longest. Sir Thomas Smith in his Common- 
 wealth speaks bitterly of the hypocrisy of the clergy. 
 
270 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 the sufferings of the poor negroes in the Southern States of 
 North America before the War of Emancipation, the cruelties 
 practised by the Soudanese slave-lifters, give us some con- 
 ception of the terrible sufferings of the slaves under Christian 
 domination at the time when Islam was first promulgated, and 
 until the close of the fifteenth century. 1 And even after the 
 lapse of almost two thousand years of Christ's reign, we still 
 find Christians lashing to death helpless women, imprisoned for 
 real or imaginary political offences by one of the most powerful 
 empires of the civilised world. 2 
 
 The condition of the so-called freemen was nowise better 
 than that of the ordinary serfs. If they wanted to part with 
 their lands, they must pay a fine to the lord of the manor. If 
 they wanted to buy any, they must likewise pay a fine. They 
 could not take by succession any property until they had paid 
 a heavy duty. They could not grind their corn or make their 
 bread without paying a share to the lord. They could not 
 harvest their crops before the Church had first appropriated its 
 tenth, the king his twentieth, the courtiers their smaller shares. 
 They could not leave their homes without the leave of the lord, 
 and they were bound, at all times, to render him gratuitous 
 services. If the lord's son or daughter married, they must 
 cheerfully pay their contributions. But when the freeman's 
 daughter married, she must first submit to an infamous outrage 
 — and not even the bishop, the servant of Christ, when he 
 happened to be the lord of the manor, would waive the atrocious 
 privilege of barbarism. Death even had no solace for these 
 poor victims of barbarism. Living, they were subject to the 
 inhumanities of man ; dead, they were doomed to eternal 
 perdition ; for a. felo-de-se was the unholiest of criminals, there 
 was no room for his poor body in consecrated ground ; he 
 could only be smuggled away in the dead of night and buried 
 in some unhallowed spot with a stake through his body as a 
 warning to others. 
 
 1 In the Parliamentary War both sides sold their opponents as slaves to 
 the colonists. After the suppression of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion 
 all his followers were sold into slavery. The treatment of the slaves in the 
 colonies at the hands of " the Pilgrim Fathers " and their descendants will 
 not bear description. 
 
 1 This was written before the fall of the Romanoffs. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 271 
 
 Such was the terrible misery which hung over the people ! 
 But the baron in his hall, the bishop in his palace, the priest in 
 his cloister, little recked they of the sufferings of the masses. 
 The clouds of night had gathered over the fairest portion of 
 Europe and Africa. Everywhere the will of the strongest was 
 the measure of law and right. The Church afforded no help 
 to the downtrodden and oppressed. Its teachings were 
 opposed to the enfranchisement of the human race from the 
 rule of brute force. " The early Fathers " had condemned 
 resistance to the constituted authorities as a deadly sin. No 
 tyranny, no oppression, no outrages upon humanity were held 
 to justify subjects in forcibly protecting themselves against 
 the injustice of their rulers. The servants of Jesus had made 
 common cause with those whom he had denounced, — the rich 
 and powerful tyrant. They had associated themselves with 
 feudalism, and enjoyed all its privileges as lords of the soil, 
 barons and princes. 
 
 The non-Christians — Jews, heretics, or pagans — enjoyed, 
 under Christian domination, a fitful existence. It was a matter 
 of chance whether they would be massacred or reduced to 
 slavery. Rights they had none ; enough if they were suffered 
 to exist. If a Christian contracted an illicit union with a non- 
 Christian, — a lawful union was out of the question, — he was 
 burnt to death. The Jews might not eat or drink or sit at the 
 same table with the Christians, nor dress like them. Their 
 children were liable to be torn from their arms, their goods 
 plundered, at the will of the baron or bishop, or a frenzied 
 populace. And this state of things lasted until the close of 
 the seventeenth century. 
 
 Not until the Recluse of Hira sounded the note of freedom, 
 — not until he proclaimed the practical equality of mankind, 
 not until he abolished every privilege of caste, and emancipated 
 labour, — did the chains which had held in bond the nations 
 of the earth fall to pieces. He came with the same message 
 which had been brought by his precursors and he fulfilled it. 
 
 The essence of the political character of Islam is to be found 
 in the charter, which was granted to the Jews by the Prophet 
 after his arrival in Medina, and the notable message sent to^the 
 Christians of Najran and the neighbouring territories after 
 
272 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Islam had fully established itself in the Peninsula. This latter 
 document has, for the most part, furnished the guiding principle 
 to all Moslem rulers in their mode of dealing with their non- 
 Moslem subjects, and if they have departed from it in any 
 instance the cause is to be found in the character of the par- 
 ticular sovereign. If we separate the political necessity which 
 has often spoken and acted in the name of religion, no faith is 
 more tolerant than Islam to the followers of other creeds. 1 
 " Reasons of State " have led a sovereign here and there to 
 display a certain degree of intolerance, or to insist upon a 
 certain uniformity of faith ; but the system itself has ever 
 maintained the most complete tolerance. Christians and Jews, 
 as a rule, have never been molested in the exercise of their 
 religion, or constrained to change their faith. If they are 
 required to pa}'' a special tax, it is in lieu of military service, 
 and it is but right that those who enjoy the protection of the 
 State should contribute in some shape to the public burdens. 
 Towards the idolaters there was greater strictness in theory, 
 but in practice the law was equally liberal. If at any time 
 they were treated with harshness, the cause is to be found in 
 the passions of the ruler or the population. The religious 
 element was used only as a pretext. 
 
 In support of the time-worn thesis that the non-Moslem 
 subjects 2 of Islamic States labour under severe disabilities, 
 reference is made not only to the narrow views of the later 
 canonists and lawyers of Islam, but also to certain verses of 
 the Koran, in order to show that the Prophet did not view 
 non-Moslems with favour, and did not encourage friendly 
 relations between them and his followers. 3 In dealing with 
 this subject, we must not forget the stress and strain of the 
 life-and-death struggle in which Islam was involved when 
 those verses were promulgated, and the treacherous means that 
 were often employed by the heathens, as well as the Jews and 
 the Christians, to corrupt and seduce the Moslems from the 
 new Faith. At such a time, it was incumbent upon the Teacher 
 
 1 Comp. Gobineau, Les Religions et les Philosophies dans I'Asie Centrale. 
 
 2 In the Islamic system the non-Moslem subjects of Moslem States are called 
 Ahl-itz-zimmah or Zimmis, i.e " people living under guarantees," 
 
 3 See Sell's Essays on Islam. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 273 
 
 to warn his followers against the wiles and insidious designs of 
 hostile creeds. And no student of comparative history can 
 blame him for trying to safeguard his little commonwealth 
 against the treachery of enemies and aliens. But when we 
 come to look at his general treatment of non-Moslem sub- 
 jects, we find it marked by a large-hearted tolerance and 
 sympathy. 
 
 Has any conquering race or Faith given to its subject 
 nationalities a better guarantee than is to be found in the 
 following words of the Prophet ? "To [the Christians of] 
 Najran and the neighbouring territories, the security of God 
 and the pledge of His Prophet are extended for their lives, 
 their religion, and their property — to the present as well as 
 the absent and others besides ; there shall be no interference 
 with [the practice of] their faith or their observances ; nor any 
 change in their rights or privileges ; no bishop shall be removed 
 from his bishopric ; nor any monk from his monastery, nor 
 any priest from his priesthood, and they shall continue to 
 enjoy every thing great and small as heretofore ; no image or 
 cross shall be destroyed ; they shall not oppress or be oppressed ; 
 they shall not practise the rights of blood-vengeance as 
 in the Days of Ignorance ; no tithes shall be levied from 
 them nor shall they be required to furnish provisions for the 
 troops." 1 
 
 After the subjugation of Hira, and as soon as the people had 
 taken the oath of allegiance, Khalid bin-Walid issued a pro- 
 clamation by which he guaranteed the lives, liberty and 
 property of the Christians, and declared that " they shall not 
 be prevented from beating their ndkus 2 and taking out their 
 crosses on occasions of festivals." " And this declaration," 
 says Imam Abu-Yusuf, 3 " was approved of and sanctioned by 
 the Caliph 4 and his council." 5 
 
 1 I.e. nor shall troops be quartered on them ; Fuhlh nl-Bulddn (Balazuri), 
 p. 65 ; Kitab-ul-Kharaj of Imam Abu Yusuf. Muir gives this guarantee of 
 the Prophet in an abridged form, vol. ii. p. 299 ; see Appendix. 
 
 2 A piece of wood used in Eastern Christian churches in place of a bell. 
 
 3 The Chief Kazi of Harun ar-Rashid. 
 * Abu Bakr. 
 
 5 Consisting of Omar, Osman and Ali and the other leading Companions 
 of the Prophet ; see the Kitdb ul-Khardj, p. 84. 
 s.l. S 
 
274 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 The non-Moslem subjects were not precluded from building 
 new churches or temples. Only in places exclusively inhabited 
 by Moslems a rule of this kind existed in theory. " No new 
 Church or temple," said Abdullah bin Abbas, 1 " can be erected 
 in a town solely inhabited by Moslems ; but in other places 
 where there are already Zimmis inhabiting from before, we 
 must abide by our contract with them." 2 In practice, how- 
 ever, the prohibition was totally disregarded. In the reign of 
 Mamun, we hear of eleven thousand Christian churches, 
 besides hundreds of synagogues and fire-temples within the 
 empire. This enlightened monarch, who has been represented 
 as " a bitter enemy " of the Christians, included in his Council 
 the representatives of all the communities under his sway, — 
 Moslems, Jews, Christians, Sabaeans and Zoroastrians ; whilst 
 the rights and privileges of the Christian hierarchy were 
 carefully regulated and guaranteed. 
 
 It is a notable fact, with few parallels even in modern history, 
 that after the conquest of Egypt the Caliph Omar scrupulously 
 preserved intact the property dedicated to the Christian 
 churches and continued the allowances made by the former 
 government for the support of the priests. 3 
 
 The best testimony to the toleration of the early Moslem 
 government is furnished by the Christians themselves. In 
 the reign of Osman (the third Caliph), the Christian Patriarch 
 of Merv addressed the Bishop of Fars, named Simeon, in the 
 following terms : " The Arabs who have been given by God the 
 kingdom (of the earth) do not attack the Christian faith ; on 
 the contrary they help us in our religion ; they respect our 
 God and our Saints, and bestow gifts on our churches and 
 monasteries." 
 
 In order to avoid the least semblance of high-handedness, 
 no Moslem was allowed to acquire the land of a zimmi even 
 by purchase. " Neither the Imam nor the Sultan could dis- 
 possess a zimmi of his property." 
 
 The Moslems and the zimmis were absolutely equal in the 
 eye of the law. " Their blood," said Ali the Caliph, " was 
 like our blood." Many modern governments, not excepting 
 
 1 A cousin of the Prophet and a jurist of recognised authority. 
 1 Kitab nl-Khardj, p. 88. 3 Makrizi, pp. 492, 499. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 275 
 
 some of the most civilised, may take the Moslem administration 
 for their model. In the punishment of crimes there was no 
 difference between the rulers and the ruled. Islam's law is 
 that if a zimmi is killed by a Moslem, the latter is liable to the 
 same penalty as in the reverse case. 1 
 
 In their anxiety for the welfare of the non-Moslem subjects, 
 the Caliphs of Bagdad, like their rivals of Cordova, created a 
 special department charged with the protection of the zimmis 
 and the safeguarding of their interests. The head of this 
 department was called, in Bagdad, Kdtib-ul-Jihbdzeh ; in 
 Spain, Kdtib-uz-Zimdm. 2 
 
 Mutawakkil, who rased to the ground the mausoleum of the 
 martyr Husain and forbade pilgrimages to the consecrated 
 spot, excluded non-Moslems, as he excluded the Moslem 
 Rationalists, from the employment of the State and subjected 
 them to many disabilities. In the later works of law, written 
 whilst the great struggle was proceeding between Islam and 
 Christendom, on one side for life, on the other for brute 
 mastery, there occur no doubt passages which give colour to 
 the allegation that in Islam zimmis are subject to humiliation. 
 But no warrant for this statement will be found in the rules 
 inculcated by the Teacher, or his immediate disciples or suc- 
 cessors. It must be added, however, that the bigoted views 
 of the later canonists were never carried into practice ; and 
 the toleration and generosity with which the non-Moslems were 
 treated are evidenced by the fact that zimmis could be 
 nominated as executors to the wills of Moslems ; that they 
 often filled the office of rectors of Moslem universities and 
 educational institutions, and of curators of Moslem endow- 
 ments so long as they did not perform any religious functions. 
 And when a non-Moslem of worth and merit died, the Moslems 
 attended his funeral in a body. 
 
 In the beginning military commands, for obvious reasons, 
 
 1 Zail'i in his T akhrlj-ul-Heddya mentions a case which occurred in the 
 Caliphate of Omar. A Moslem of the name of Bakr bin Wail killed a Christian 
 named Hairut. The Caliph ordered that " the killer should be surrendered to 
 the heirs of the killed." The culprit was made over to Honain, Hairut's heir, 
 who put him to death, p. 338, Delhi edition. A similar case is reported in the 
 reign of Omar bin Abdul Aziz. 
 
 8 With a Zal ; see The Short History of the Saracens, p. 573. 
 
276 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM H. 
 
 were not entrusted to non-Moslems, but all other posts of 
 emolument and trust were open to them equally with Moslems. 
 This equality was not merely theoretical, for from the first 
 century of the Hegira we find important offices of state held 
 by Christians, Jews and Magians. The Abbasides, with rare 
 exceptions, recognised no distinction among their subjects on 
 the score of religion. And the dynasties that succeeded them 
 in power scrupulously followed their example. 
 
 If the treatment of non-Moslems in Islamic countries is 
 compared with that of non-Christians under European Govern- 
 ments, it would be found that the balance of humanity and 
 generosity, generally speaking, inclines in favour of Islam. 
 Under the Mogul Emperors of Delhi, Hindus commanded 
 armies, administered provinces and sat in the councils of the 
 sovereign. Even at the present time can it be said that in no 
 European empire, ruling over mixed nationalities and faiths, 
 is any distinction made of creed, colour or race ? 
 
 That which Islam had almost exclusively in view was to 
 inculcate among mankind the principle of divine unity and 
 human equality preached by the Prophet. So long as the 
 central doctrine of the unity of God and the message of the 
 Prophet is recognised and accepted, Islam allows the widest 
 latitude to the human conscience. Consequently, wherever the 
 Moslem missionary-soldier made his appearance, he was hailed 
 by the down-trodden masses and the persecuted heretics as 
 the harbinger of freedom and emancipation from a galling 
 bondage. Islam brought to them practical equality in the 
 eye of the law, and fixity of taxation. 
 
 The battle of Kadesia, which threw Persia into the hands 
 of the Moslems, was the signal of deliverance to the bulk of 
 the Persians, as the battles of Yermuk and Ajnadin were to the 
 Syrians, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. The Jews, whom the 
 Zoroastrians had massacred from time to time, the Christians, 
 whom they hunted from place to place, breathed freely under 
 the authority of the Prophet, the watchword of whose faith 
 was the brotherhood of man. The people everywhere received 
 the Moslems as their liberators. Wherever any resistance 
 was offered, it was by the priesthood and the aristocracy. 
 The masses and the working classes in general, who were 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 277 
 
 under the ban of Zoroastrianism, ranged themselves with the 
 conquerors. A simple confession of an everlasting truth placed 
 them on the same footing as their Moslem emancipators. 
 
 The feudal chiefs of the tribes and villages retained all their 
 privileges, honours, and local influence, — " more than we 
 believe," says Gobineau, " for the oppressions and persecutions 
 of the Musulmans have been greatly exaggerated." 
 
 The conquest of Africa and Spain was attended with the 
 same result. The Arians, the Pelagians, and other heretics 
 hitherto the victims of orthodox fury and hatred, — the people 
 at large, who had been terribly oppressed by a lawless soldiery 
 and a still more lawless priesthood, — found peace and security 
 under Islam. By an irony of fate, which almost induces a 
 belief in the Nemesis of the ancients, the Jews, whose animosity 
 towards the Prophet very nearly wrought the destruction of 
 the Islamic commonwealth, found in the Moslems their best 
 protectors. " Insulted, plundered, hated and despised by all 
 Christian nations," they found that refuge in Islam, that 
 protection from inhumanity, which was ruthlessly denied to 
 them in Christendom. 
 
 Islam gave to the people a code which, however archaic 
 in its simplicity, was capable of the greatest development in 
 accordance with the progress of material civilisation. It 
 conferred on the State a flexible constitution, based on a just 
 appreciation of human rights and human duty. It limited 
 taxation, it made men equal in the eye of the law, it consecrated 
 the principles of self-government. It established a control 
 over the sovereign power by rendering the executive authority 
 subordinate to the law, — a law based upon religious sanction 
 and moral obligations. " The excellence and effectiveness of 
 each of these principles," says Urquhart " (each capable of 
 immortalising its founder), gave value to the rest ; and all 
 combined, endowed the system which they formed with a 
 force and energy exceeding those of any other political system. 
 Within the lifetime of a man, though in the hands of a popula- 
 tion, wild, ignorant, and insignificant, it spread over a greater 
 extent than the dominions of Rome. While it retained its 
 primitive character, it was irresistible." * 
 
 1 Urquhart, Spirit of the East, vol. i. Introd. p. xxviii. 
 
278 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 The short government of Abu Bakr was too fully occupied 
 with the labour of pacifying the desert tribes to afford time for 
 any systematic regulation of the provinces. But with the 
 reign of Omar — a truly great man — commenced that sleepless 
 care for the welfare of the subject nations which characterised 
 the early Moslem governments. 
 
 An examination of the political condition of the Moslems 
 under the early Caliphs brings into view a popular government 
 administered by an elective chief with limited powers. The 
 prerogatives of the head of the State were confined to admini- 
 strative and executive matters, such as the regulation of the 
 police, control of the army, transaction of foreign affairs, 
 disbursement of the finances, etc. But he could never act in 
 contravention of the recognised law. 
 
 The tribunals were not dependent on the government. Their 
 decisions were supreme ; and the early Caliphs could not 
 assume the power of pardoning those whom the regular 
 tribunals had condemned. The law was the same for the poor 
 as for the rich, for the man in power as for the labourer in the 
 field. 
 
 As time advances the stringency of the system is relaxed 
 but the form is always maintained. Even the usurpers, who, 
 without right, by treachery and murder seized the reins of 
 government, and who in their persons represented the pagan 
 oligarchy which had been displaced by the teachings of Islam, 
 observed more or less the outward semblance of law-abiding 
 executive heads of a representative government. And the 
 rulers of the later dynasties, when they overstepped the bounds, 
 often unlimited, of arbitrary power, were restrained by the 
 sentence of the general body of jurisconsults, which in all 
 Musulman States serves as a constitutional check on the 
 sovereign. In the early times, however, the " Companions " 
 of the Master formed as it were an effective Council of State. 
 The consideration attached to the title of " Companion of the 
 Prophet ' ' was as great in the camp as in the city. The power- 
 ful influence which they possessed increased with the conquests 
 of the Moslems. The quality of ashdb carried with it a 
 character of sanctity and nobleness. When a person bearing 
 this title was in an action, the crowd flocked to his side and 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 279 
 
 followed his lead. In the first degree were those who had 
 accompanied the Prophet from Mecca — the Exiles, and the 
 Ansar who had received him with devotion, and who had 
 battled in defence of the Faith at Badr and Ohod ; those who 
 were charged with any work by him and those who had talked 
 with him, seen him, or heard him. In the last rank came 
 those who had served under any of the sahdba, and thus came 
 indirectly within the magic influence of the Master. 
 
 An incident which occurred during the Caliphate of Omar 
 shows the absolute equality of all men in Islam. Jabala, king 
 of the Ghassanides, having embraced the Faith, had proceeded 
 to Medina to pay his homage to the Commander of the Faithful. 
 He had entered the city with great pomp and ceremony, and 
 been received with much consideration. Whilst performing 
 the tawdf, or circumambulation of the Kaaba, a humble pilgrim 
 engaged in the same sacred duties accidentally dropped a piece 
 of his pilgrim's dress over the royal shoulders. Jabala turned 
 round furiously and struck him a blow which knocked out the 
 poor man's teeth. The rest of this episode must be told in 
 the memorable words of Omar himself to Abu Obaidah, com- 
 manding the Moslem troops in Syria. " The poor man came 
 to me," writes the Caliph, " and prayed for redress ; I sent 
 for Jabala, and when he came before me I asked him why he 
 had so ill-treated a brother-Moslem. He answered that the 
 man had insulted him, and that were it not for the sanctity of 
 the place he would have killed him on the spot. I answered 
 that his words added to the gravity of his offence, and that 
 unless he obtained the pardon of the injured man he would 
 have to submit to the usual penalty of the law. Jabala 
 replied, ' I am a king, and the other is only a common man.' 
 " King or no king, both of you are Musulmans and both of 
 you are equal in the eye of the law.' He asked that the penalty 
 might be delayed until the next day ; and, on the consent of 
 the injured, I accorded the delay. In the night Jabala escaped, 
 and has now joined the Christian dog. 1 But God will grant 
 thee victory over him and the like of them ..." 
 
 This letter was read by Abu Obaidah at the head of his 
 
 1 Such was the designation usually given to the Byzantine emperors by the 
 early Moslems. 
 
280 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 troops. These communications appear to have been frequent 
 under the early Caliphate. No person in the. camp or in the 
 city was a stranger to public affairs. Every Friday after 
 divine service, the Commander of the Faithful mentioned to 
 the assembly the important nominations and events of the day. 
 The prefects in their provinces followed the example. No one 
 was excluded from these general assemblies of the public. It 
 was the reign of democracy in its best form. The Pontiff of 
 Islam, the Commander of the Faithful, was not hedged round 
 by any divinity. He was responsible for the administration of 
 the State to his subjects. The stern devotion of the early 
 Caliphs to the well-being of the people, and the austere 
 simplicity of their lives, were in strict accordance with the 
 example of the Master. They preached and prayed in the 
 mosque like the Prophet ; received in their homes the poor 
 and oppressed, and failed not to give a hearing to the meanest. 
 Without cortege, without pomp or ceremony, they ruled the 
 hearts of men by the force of their character. Omar travelled 
 to Syria to receive the capitulation of Jerusalem, accompanied 
 by a single slave. Abu Bakr on his death-bed left only a suit 
 of clothes, a camel, and a slave to his heir. Every Friday, Ali 
 distributed his own allowance from the public treasury among 
 the distressed and suffering ; and set an example to the people 
 by his respect for the ordinary tribunals. Whilst the Republic 
 lasted none of the Caliphs could alter, or act contrary to, the 
 judgment of the constituted courts of justice. 1 
 
 Naturally, it is difficult for a new government, introduced by 
 force of arms, to conciliate the affection of the people at once. 
 But the early Saracens offered to the conquered nations motives 
 for the greatest confidence and attachment. Headed by chiefs 
 of the moderation and gentleness of Abu Obaidah, who 
 tempered and held in check the ferocity of soldiers like Khalid, 
 they maintained intact the civil rights of their subjects. They 
 accorded to all the conquered nations the completest religious 
 toleration. Their conduct might furnish to many of the 
 civilised governments of modern times the noblest example of 
 
 1 The first sentence of a court of justice which was not carried into execution 
 was under Mu'awiyah, who pardoned a man found guilty by the judge upon 
 the criminal reciting a poem in praise of the usurper. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 281 
 
 civil and religious liberty. They did not lash women to death. 
 They did not condemn innocent females to Siberian mines 
 and the outrages of their guards. They had the sagacity not 
 to interfere with any beneficent civil institution, existing in 
 the conquered countries, which did not militate with their 
 religion. 
 
 The measures taken by Omar to secure the agricultural 
 prosperity of the people evince an ever-present solicitude to 
 promote their well-being and interests. Taxation on land was 
 fixed upon an equable and moderate basis ; aqueducts and 
 canals were ordered to be made in every part of the empire. 
 The feudal burdens, which had afflicted the cultivators of the 
 soil, were absolutely withdrawn, and the peasantry were 
 emancipated from the bondage of centuries. The death of 
 this remarkable man at the hands of an assassin was an un- 
 doubted loss to the government. His character, stern and yet 
 just, his practical commonsense and knowledge of men, had 
 eminently fitted him to repress and hold in check the ambitious 
 designs of the children of Ommeyya. On his death-bed Omar 
 entrusted to six electors the task of nominating a successor to 
 the office. The Caliphate was offered to the son of Abu Talib, 
 but Ommeyyade intrigue had annexed to the proposal a 
 condition which they knew Ali would not accept. He was 
 required to govern, not only in accordance with the laws and 
 precedents of the Prophet, but also with those established by 
 his two predecessors. With characteristic independence Ali 
 refused to allow his judgment to be so fettered. The Caliphate 
 was then offered, as it was expected by the Ommeyyades, to 
 their kinsman Osman. The accession of this venerable chief 
 to the vicegerency of the Prophet proved in the sequel an 
 unqualified disaster to the commonwealth of Islam. He was 
 a member of that family which had always borne a deep-rooted 
 animosity towards the children of Hashim. They had per- 
 secuted the Teacher with rancorous hatred, and had driven 
 him from his home. They had struggled hard to crush the 
 Faith in its infancy, and had battled against it to the last. 
 Strongly united among themselves, and exercising great 
 influence among all the tribes of Mozar, 1 of which they were 
 1 With a ZM. 
 
282 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 the prominent members, the Ommeyyades had watched with 
 ill-concealed jealousy the old power and prestige slip away 
 from their hands. After the fall of Mecca they had accepted 
 the inevitable, but never forgave the house of Hashim or 
 Islam for the ruin which the son of Abdullah had wrought to 
 them. Whilst the Prophet lived, his commanding personality 
 overawed all these traitors. Many of them had made a 
 nominal profession of the Faith from self-interest 1 and a 
 greed to secure a part of the worldly goods which the success 
 of the Moslems brought to the Islamic commonwealth. But 
 they never ceased to hate the democracy proclaimed by 
 Mohammed. Libertines and profligates, unscrupulous and 
 cruel, pagans at heart, they chafed at a religion of equal rights, 
 a religion which exacted strict observance of moral duties and 
 personal chastity. They set themselves, from the commence- 
 ment, to undermine the government to which they had sworn 
 allegiance, and to destroy the men upon whom the Republic 
 depended. The first two successors of the Prophet had kept 
 their ambition within bounds, and repressed their intrigues 
 and treacherous designs. With the election of Osman, they 
 flocked to Medina like vultures scenting the prey. His acces- 
 sion was the signal for that outburst of hatred, that pent-up 
 profligacy on the part of the Ommeyyades, which convulsed 
 the Islamic world to its innermost core, and destroyed its 
 noblest and most precious lives. 
 
 Under Osman there was a complete reversal of the policy 
 and administration of his two predecessors, whose decisions he 
 had engaged to follow. All the old governors and commanders 
 taken from among the immediate disciples of the Prophet and 
 his Companions were displaced. Merit and faithful service 
 were wholly disregarded. All offices of trust and emolument 
 were seized by the Ommeyyades. The governorships of the 
 provinces were bestowed on men who had proved themselves 
 most inimical to Islam, and the treasury was emptied in their 
 favour. We shall have to describe the subsequent events in 
 some detail when dealing with the divisions in the Church of 
 Mohammed ; suffice it for us to say, that the corruptness of the 
 administration, the total disregard of all precedent, the gross 
 
 1 They were, therefore, called the Muallafat ul-kuldb. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 283 
 
 favouritism displayed by the old Caliph towards his kinsmen, 
 and his refusal to listen to any complaint, gave rise to serious 
 disaffection among the old companions of the Prophet and the 
 general body of the Moslems, ending in revolt in which Osman 
 lost his life. On Osman's tragical death, Ali was elected to 
 the vacant Caliphate by the consensus of the people. The 
 rebellions which followed are matters of history. " Had Ali 
 been allowed to reign in peace," says Oelsner, " his virtues, 
 his firmness, and his ascendancy of character would have 
 perpetuated the old republic and its simple manners." x The 
 dagger of an assassin destroyed the hope of Islam. " With 
 him," says Major Osborn, " perished the truest-hearted and 
 best Moslem of whom Mohammedan history has preserved the 
 remembrance." Seven centuries before, this wonderful man 
 would have been apotheosised ; thirteen centuries later his 
 genius and talents, his virtues and his valour, would have 
 extorted the admiration of the civilised world. As a ruler, he 
 came before his time. He was almost unfitted by his uncom- 
 promising love of truth, his gentleness, and his merciful nature, 
 to cope with the Ommeyyades' treachery and falsehood. 
 
 With the establishment of an autocracy under Mu'awiyah 
 the political spirit of Islam underwent a great change. The 
 sovereigns were no more the heads of a commonwealth, elected 
 by the suffrage of the people, and governing solely for the 
 welfare of their subjects and the glory of the Faith. From the 
 time of Mu'awiyah the reigning Caliph nominated his successor ; 
 and the oath of fealty taken by the people in his presence, or 
 in that of his proxy, confirmed his nomination. This system 
 combined the vices of democracy and despotism without the 
 advantages of either. Under the Republic not only were 
 the Caliphs assisted by a council of the Companions of the 
 Prophet, but the provincial governors had similar advisory 
 bodies. During the Ommeyyade rule the government was a 
 pure autocracy tempered by the freedom of speech possessed 
 by the desert Arabs and the learned or holy, which enabled 
 them, often by a phrase or verse from the Koran or from the 
 poets, to change the mood of the sovereign. Under the first 
 five Caliphs of the Abbaside dynasty also the government 
 
 1 Oelsner, Des Effets de la religion de Mohammed. 
 
284 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 continued to be more or less autocratic, although the 
 departmental ministers and prominent members of the family 
 formed a body of unauthorised councillors. A regular Council 
 composed of the leading representatives of communities owning 
 allegiance to the Caliph was for the first time established in 
 the reign of Mamun the Great. The Buyides, the Samanides, 
 the Seljukides, and the Ayyiibides all had their councils in 
 which the people were more or less represented. 
 
 But absolutism in the hands of the early Abbasides helped 
 in the intellectual development and material prosperity of the 
 Islamic nations. In the vigour of their rule and the firmness 
 with which they held the reins of government they may be 
 compared with the Tudors of England. The political and 
 administrative machinery of the Abbaside Caliphate, which 
 was afterwards adopted by the succeeding dynasties, owes its 
 origin to the genius of Mansur, the founder of Bagdad. In 
 its effective distribution of work and its control of details it 
 ranks with the most perfectly organised systems of modern 
 times. 
 
 At the very commencement of their rule, which lasted for 
 several centuries, they established a Chamber of Finance and 
 a Chancellery of State, the first being charged with the duty of 
 receiving the taxes and disbursing the expenses of the empire, 
 the second with the duty of impressing a character of authen- 
 ticity on the mandates of the sovereigns. Later, for the better 
 subdivision of work, other departments of state (called diwdns) 
 were created, of which the following are the principal : — the 
 Diwdn-ul-Khardj (Central Office of Taxes) or Department of 
 Finance ; the Diwan-ud-Dia (Office of the Crown Property) ; 
 the Diwdn-uz-zimdm (Audit or Accounts Office) ; the Diwdn- 
 ul-Jund (War Office) ; the Diwdn-ul-Mawdli wal Ghilmdn 
 (Office for the Protection of Clients and Slaves), where a 
 register was kept of the freedmen and slaves of the Caliph, and 
 arrangements made for their maintenance ; the Diwdn-ul- 
 Barid (the Post Office) ; Diwdn-uz-Zimdm an-Nafakdt (House- 
 hold Expense Office) ; the Diwdn-ur-Rasdil (Board of Corre- 
 spondence or Chancery Office) ; the Diwdn-at-Toukia (Board of 
 Requests) ; the Diwdn un nazr ft' I Mazdlim (Board for the 
 Inspection of Grievances) ; the Diwdn-ul-Ahdds w'ash-Shurta 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 285 
 
 (Militia and Police Office) ; and the Diwdn-itl-'Atd (Donation 
 Office), analogous to the paymaster-general's department, 
 charged with the payment of the regular troops. The protec- 
 tion of the interests of non-Moslems was entrusted to a special 
 office, the head of which was called the Kdtib-ul-jihbdzeh. 
 
 Each Government office was presided over by a director 
 who was designated the Rats, or Sadr, and the practical work 
 of control and supervision was carried on by inspectors, called 
 Mushrifs, or Ndzirs. 1 
 
 To this organisation the Abbaside Caliphs added the 
 appointment of an officer with the designation of Hdjib, who 
 introduced the foreign ambassadors, and also formed a Court 
 of Appeal from the decrees of the Kazis. They instituted the 
 office of Vizier, or Prime Minister, whose duty it was to submit 
 for the consideration of the sovereign the various matters 
 requiring his decision. They gave regularity to the provincial 
 administration, and fixed definitely the contributions due from 
 the provinces. They constructed caravanserais, built cisterns 
 and aqueducts along the road from Bagdad to Mecca, planted 
 trees along the route, and everywhere founded wayside resting- 
 places for the travellers and pilgrims. They made a route 
 between Mecca and Medina, and laid relays of horses and 
 camels between Hijaz and Yemen to facilitate communication 
 between these two provinces. They established couriers in 
 every city for the despatch of the post. They formed a central 
 office in the metropolis for the custody and preservation of the 
 archives of the empire, and created an efficient police in every 
 part of their dominions. They formed a syndicate of mer- 
 chants, charged with the supervision of commercial transactions, 
 the decision of disputes between mercantile men, and the duty 
 of suppressing fraud. Not only did each centre of commerce 
 possess its corporation of merchants but most cities of 
 importance had their town councils. They created the office 
 of Muhtesib, or intendant of the market, who went round daily 
 to examine the weights and measures of the tradespeople. 
 They fostered self-government and protected and encouraged 
 municipal institutions. Agriculture was promoted by advances 
 
 1 For a full account of the political and administrative machinery of the 
 Abbasides, see The Short History of the Saracens, pp. 402-443. 
 
286 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 to the peasantry, and periodical reports were required from the 
 provincial officers respecting the prosperity of the people and 
 the state of the country. Many of them, in the midst of their 
 pomp and circumstance, tried to maintain a semblance of 
 republican virtue. Books written by them, baskets woven by 
 them, used to be sold in the market, and the proceeds were 
 supposed to supply the personal expenses of the Caliphs. 
 Their zeal to promote the well-being of their subjects may 
 perhaps be taken into the great Account against their cruelties 
 towards the Alides. Under Mamun and his two immediate 
 successors the Abbaside empire attained the zenith of 
 prosperity. 
 
 Spain furnishes one of the most instructive examples of the 
 political character of Islam and its adaptability to all forms 
 and conditions of society. This country had suffered fright- 
 fully under the barbarian hordes which had swept over the 
 land, destroying and levelling every institution they found 
 existing. The kingdoms they had formed over the ruins of 
 the Roman administration had effaced the germs of political 
 development. Their subjects were weighted down with feudal 
 burdens, and all the terrible consequences flowing therefrom. 
 Vast areas were completely denuded of population. The 
 introduction of the Islamic Code enfranchised the people as 
 well as the land from feudal bondage. The desert became 
 fruitful, thriving cities sprang into existence on all sides, and 
 order took the place of anarchy. Immediately on their arrival 
 on the soil of Spain, the Saracens published an edict assuring 
 to the subject races, without any difference of race or creed, 
 the most ample liberty, Suevi, Goth, Vandal, Roman, and Jew 
 were all placed on an equal footing with the Moslem. They 
 guaranteed to both Christian and Jew the full exercise of their 
 religions, the free use of their places of worship, and perfect 
 security of person and property. They even allowed them to 
 be governed, within prescribed limits, by their own laws, to 
 fill all civil offices and serve in the army. Their women were 
 invited to intermarry with the conquerors. Does not the conduct 
 of the Arabs in Spain offer an astonishing contrast to that of 
 many European nations, even in modern times, in their treat- 
 ment of conquered nationalities ? Whilst to compare the Arab 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 287 
 
 rule with that of the Normans in England, or of the Christians 
 in Syria during the Crusades, would be an insult to common- 
 sense and humanity. The fidelity of the Arabs in maintaining 
 their promises, the equal-handed justice which they administered 
 to all classes, without distinction of any kind, secured them the 
 confidence of the people. And not only in these particulars, 
 but also in generosity of mind and in amenity of manner, and 
 in the hospitality of their customs, the Arabians were dis- 
 tinguished above all other people of those times. 1 The Jews 
 had, owing to the influence of the Christian priesthood, suffered 
 bitterly under the barbarians, and they profited most by the 
 change of government. Spanish ladies of the highest rank, 
 among them the sister of Pelagius and the daughter of Roderick, 
 contracted marriages with " the Infidels," as the orthodox Jean 
 Mariana calls the Moslems. They enjoyed all the rights and 
 privileges which their rank gave them with full liberty of 
 conscience. The Moslems invited all the landed proprietors, 
 whom the violence of Roderick had driven into the mountains, 
 to abandon their retreats. Unhappily the depopulation was so 
 great that this measure had no effect in supplying inhabitants 
 to the soil. They, accordingly, held forth the most generous 
 advantages to foreign cultivators who wished to establish them- 
 selves in the Peninsula. These offers brought large and 
 industrious colonies from Africa and Asia. Fifty thousand 
 Jews at one time, accompanied by their women and children, 
 settled in Andalusia. 
 
 For seven centuries the Moslems held Spain, and the bene- 
 ficence of their rule, in spite of intestine quarrels and dynastic 
 disputes, is testified to and acknowledged even by their 
 enemies. The high culture attained by the Spanish Arabs has 
 been sometimes considered as due principally to frequent 
 marriages between Moslems and Christians. This circumstance 
 undoubtedly exercised a great influence on the development of 
 the Spanish Moslems and the growth of that wonderful civilisa- 
 tion to which modern Europe owes so much of its advance in 
 the arts of peace. 2 What happened in Spain happened also 
 in other places. Wherever the Moslems entered a change came 
 
 1 Conde's History of the Spanish Moors. 
 8 Renan, Averroes et Averroisme. 
 
288 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 over the countries ; order took the place of lawlessness, and 
 peace and plenty smiled on the land. As war was not the 
 privileged profession of one caste, so labour was not the mark 
 of degradation to another. The pursuit of agriculture was as 
 popular with all classes as the pursuit of arms. 1 
 
 The importance which Islam attaches to the duties of 
 sovereigns towards their subjects, and the manner in which it 
 promotes the freedom and equality of the people and protects 
 them against the oppression of their rulers, is shown in a 
 remarkable work 2 on the reciprocal rights of sovereigns and 
 subjects, by Safi-ud-din Mohammed bin Ali bin Taba Taba, 
 commonly known as Ibn ut-Tiktaka. 3 The book was com- 
 posed in 701 a.h. (1301-2), and is dedicated to Fakhr ud-din 
 Tsa bin Ibrahim, Ameer of Mosul. 
 
 The first part deals with the duties of sovereigns to 
 their subjects, and the rules for the administration of public 
 affairs and political economy. The author describes the 
 qualities essential for a sovereign, — wisdom, justice, know- 
 ledge of the wants and wishes of his people, and the fear 
 of God ; and adds emphatically that this latter quality is 
 the root of all good, and the key to all blessings, " for 
 when the king is conscious of the presence of God, His 
 servants will enjoy the blessings of peace and security." The 
 
 all 1 oUc *JUl aIII *_J(.a* ( i.« 
 
 sovereign must also possess the quality of mercy, w^^l ^ j**h 
 and " this is the greatest of all good qualities." He must have 
 an ever-present desire to benefit his subjects, and consult with 
 them on their wants ; for the Prophet consulted always with 
 his Companions, and God hath said, 4 " Consult with them 5 on 
 every affair." In the administration of public affairs, it is the 
 
 1 Oelsner. 
 
 2 This work is generally known as the Kitdb-i-Tdrikh-ud-Ditwal Hist, of 
 Dynasties ; but its proper title is Kitdb-id-fakhri fi'l dddb-ul-Sidtaniyat wa'd 
 duwal nl-Islamia, " the book of Fakhri, concerning the conduct of sovereigns 
 and the Islamic dynasties " ; Derenbourg's Edition ; see Appendix. 
 
 3 With a hard kdf. 4 In the Koran, 6 I.e. The people. 
 
vii. THE POLITICAL SPIRIT OF ISLAM 289 
 
 sovereign's duty to superintend the public income, guard the 
 lives and property of his subjects, maintain peace, check 
 the evil-doer, prevent injuries. He must always keep his word, 
 and then, adds the author significantly, " the duty of the 
 subject is obedience, but no subject is bound to obey a tyrant." 
 Ibn Rushd (the great Averroes) says, " the tyrant is he who 
 governs for himself, and not for his people." 
 
 The laws of the Moslems, based on equitable principles, and 
 remarkable for their simplicity and precision, did not demand 
 an obedience either difficult to render or incompatible with the 
 intelligence of mankind. The countries where the Moslems 
 established themselves remained exempt from the disastrous 
 consequences of the feudal system and the feudal code. 1 
 " Admitting no privilege, no caste, their legislation produced 
 two grand results, — that of freeing the soil from factitious 
 burdens imposed by barbarian laws, and of assuring to 
 individuals perfect equality of rights." 2 
 
 1 In Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and Lower Italy, the feudal system was 
 introduced after the expulsion of the Arabs. 
 
 2 Oelsner. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS OF ISLAM 
 
 Hafiz. 
 
 TO every philosophical student of the history of religion 
 the heading of this chapter must cause surprise, if 
 not pain ; to every Islamist devoted to the Founder 
 of his Faith it must cause sorrow and shame. Alas ! that 
 the religion of humanity and universal brotherhood should not 
 have escaped the curse of internecine strife and discord ; that 
 the Faith which was to bring peace and rest to the distracted 
 world should itself be torn to pieces by angry passions 
 and the lust of power. The evils, which we deplored in 
 Christianity arose from the incompleteness of the system, and 
 its incompatibility with human needs ; in Islam, the evils 
 that we shall have to describe arose from the greed of earthly 
 advancement, and the revolutionary instincts of individuals 
 and classes impatient of moral law and order. 
 
 Nothing evinces so clearly the extraordinary genius of the 
 Arabian Teacher, his wonderful personality, and the impressive- 
 ness of his call to religious unity and universal citizenship, as 
 the world-movement of which he was the cause, and which, in 
 spite of internal dynastic wars, carried his people on a tidal 
 wave of conquest from one end of the globe to the other. Arabia, 
 hitherto the home of warring tribes and clans, each with its 
 blood-feud of centuries, was suddenly animated with a common 
 purpose. Until now the wars of the Arabs and their alliances, 
 their virtues and their vices, their love of independence and 
 
vin. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 291 
 
 their clannish feeling, had alike prevented community of action. 
 Suddenly a nation of shepherds is turned into a nation of kings, 
 a race of semi-nomades transformed into masters of " a world- 
 faith and law." With unexampled energy and self-mastering 
 devotion the congeries of wandering clans planted between 
 three continents take up the banner of the Faith and bear it 
 aloft to every quarter of the earth. " You have been elected 
 to carry to all mankind the message of mercy, the announcement 
 of divine unity," is the call addressed to them, and they respond 
 to it with a determination which acknowledges no obstacle. 
 The intensity of conviction, which alone could carry them 
 through the barriers of hostile creeds and races, explains the 
 mystery of the revolution ! 
 
 Truth is eternal : Mohammed's message was not new. It 
 had been delivered before, but had not reached the heart of 
 man. His voice quickened the dead into life, revived the 
 dying, and made the pulse of humanity beat with the accumu- 
 lated force of ages. The exodus of the Saracens under this 
 mighty impulse, its magnitude and its far-reaching effects, 
 form the most marvellous phenomenon of modern times. They 
 issued from their desert-fastnesses as the preceptors of 
 humanity. Within thirty years — the term prophesied for the 
 true Caliphate — they were knocking at the gate of every nation, 
 from the Hindu Kush to the shores of the Atlantic, to deliver 
 their message. In the short space of time which elapsed from 
 the death of the Prophet to the subversion of the Republic, 
 they built up an empire, which, in its vastness, exceeded that 
 achieved by the Romans after thirteen centuries of continuous 
 expansion. Turn over the pages of Ibn ul-Athir, Tabari, or 
 Abulfeda, you will find a continuous record of the wave rolling 
 onward, fertilising every soil over which it passes, assimilating 
 in its way all that is good. 
 
 The same causes, however, which, until the advent of the 
 Prophet, had prevented the growth of the Arabs into a nation, 
 — the same tribal jealousies, the same division of clan and clan, 
 the marks of which are still visible throughout the Moslem 
 world, — led eventually, not only to the ruin of the Republic, 
 but also to the downfall of the Saracenic empire. " Had the 
 followers of Mohammed marched on the lines of the Master 
 
2 9 2 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 and adopted the character of the early Caliphs," says d'Ohsson, 
 " their empire would have been still more vast and more durable 
 than that of the Romans." But the greed of the Ommeyyade, 
 the unruliness of the Arab, and his spirit of individualism, 
 which showed itself even when arrayed against a common foe, 
 caused the overthrow of the stupendous fabric which the 
 heroism and devotion of the early Moslems had raised. Owing 
 to this, they lost Tours, even whilst victory was within their 
 grasp ; they were driven out of Spain because they could not 
 forget the old jealousies of the desert, and make common cause 
 against the enemy. 
 
 But though the Republic fell, and the imperial sceptre passed 
 from the hands of the Saracens, the Faith lived. It was the 
 outcome of ages of evolution. It represented the latest phase 
 in the religious development of man ; it did not depend for its 
 existence or its growth on the life of empires or men. And as 
 it spread and fructified, each race and each age profited by its 
 teachings according to their own spiritual necessities and 
 intellectual comprehension ! 
 
 The Church of Mohammed, like the Church of Christ, has 
 been rent by intestine divisions and strifes. Difference of 
 opinion on abstract subjects, about which there cannot be any 
 certitude in a finite existence, has always given rise to greater 
 bitterness and a fiercer hostility than ordinary differences on 
 matters within the range of human cognition. The disputes 
 respecting the nature of Christ deluged the earth with the 
 blood of millions ; the question of Free-will in man caused, if 
 not the same amount of bloodshed, equal trouble in Islam. 
 The claim to infallibility on the part of the Pontiffs of Rome 
 convulsed Christendom to its core ; the infallibility of the 
 people and of the Fathers became in Islam the instrument for 
 the destruction of precious lives. 
 
 Most of the divisions in the Church of Mohammed owe their 
 origin primarily to political and dynastic causes, — to the old 
 tribal quarrels, and the strong feeling of jealousy which 
 animated the other Koreishites against the family of Hashim. 
 It is generally supposed that the Prophet had not expressly 
 designated any one as his [successor in the spiritual and tem- 
 poral Government of Islam ; but this notion is founded on a 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 293 
 
 mistaken apprehension of facts, for there is abundant evidence 
 that many a time the Prophet had indicated Ali for the vice- 
 gerency. Notably on the occasion of the return journey from 
 the performance of " the Farewell Pilgrimage," during a halt 
 at a place called Khumm, he had convoked an assembly of the 
 people accompanying him, and used words which could leave 
 little doubt as to his intention regarding a successor. " Ali," 
 said he, " is to me what Aaron was to Moses. Almighty God ! 
 be a friend to his friends and a foe to his foes ; help those who 
 help him, and frustrate the hopes of those who betray him ! " l 
 On the other hand, the nomination of Abu Bakr to lead prayers 
 during the Prophet's illness might point to a different choice. 
 The question came up for discussion and settlement on his 
 decease, when it became necessary to elect a leader for Islam. 
 The Hashimites maintained that the office had devolved by 
 appointment as well as by succession upon Ali. The other 
 Koreishites insisted upon proceeding by election. Whilst the 
 kinsmen of Mohammed were engaged in his obsequies, Abu 
 Bakr was elected to the Caliphate by the votes of the Koreish 
 and some of the Medinite Ansar. The urgency of an immediate 
 selection for the headship of the State might explain the haste. 
 With his usual magnanimity and devotion to the Faith, 
 scrupulously anxious to avoid the least discord among the 
 disciples of the Master, Ali at once gave in his adhesion to 
 Abu Bakr. Three times was he set aside, and on every occasion 
 he accepted the choice of the electors without demur. He 
 himself had never stood forth as a candidate for the suffrages 
 of the electors, and whatever might have been the feeling of 
 his partisans, he had never refrained from giving to the first 
 two Caliphs his help and advice in the governance of the 
 Commonwealth : and they on their side had always deferred 
 to his counsel and his exposition of the Master's teachings. 
 We have already referred to the circumstances connected with 
 the elevation of Osman to the Caliphate. We will here trace 
 
 1 Ibn Khallikan, vol. i. p. 383. " According to Al-Hazimi," says Ibn- 
 Khallikan, " Khumm is the name of a valley lying between Mecca and Medina, 
 and in the neighbourhood of at-Tuhfa. It contains a pond (Ghadir) near 
 which the Prophet pronounced his invocation." This took place on the 18th 
 of Zu'1-Hijja, for Ibn-Khallikan says the 18th of that month " is the 
 anniversary of the Feast of Ghadir (Id nl-Ghadir), which is the same as that 
 of Ghadir i-Khumm." 
 
294 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 the events which followed upon his accession to elucidate the 
 history of the deplorable schism which has for so long divided 
 the Moslem world into two sects. Osman possessed neither 
 the shrewdness of Abu Bakr nor the intellectual vigour or the 
 moral fibre of Omar. His amiability and easy good nature 
 made him a pliable tool in the hands of his kinsfolk. The 
 venerable Caliph surrounded by his hungry kinsmen, the 
 provinces crying for redress, and the general body of Moslems 
 sullenly watching the proceedings of the head of the State, 
 form an instructive though sad picture of the times. The 
 character of the deluded Pontiff has been graphically portrayed 
 by Dozy. " The personality of Osman did not justify his 
 election to the Caliphate. It is true he was rich and generous, 
 had assisted Mohammed and the religion by pecuniary sacrifices, 
 and that he prayed and fasted often, and was a man of amiable 
 and soft manners. He was, however, not a man of spirit, and 
 was greatly enfeebled by old age. His timidity was such that 
 when placed on the pulpit he knew not how to commence his 
 sermon . Unhappily for this old man, he possessed an inordinate 
 fondness for his kinsmen, who formed the Meccan aristocracy, 
 and who, for twenty years, had insulted, persecuted, and fought 
 against Mohammed. Soon they dominated over him com- 
 pletely. His uncle, Hisham, and especially Hisham's son, 
 Merwan, in reality governed the country, only allowing the 
 title of Caliph to Osman, and the responsibility of the most 
 compromising measures, of which he was often wholly ignorant. 
 The orthodoxy of these two men, especially of the father, was 
 strongly suspected. Hisham had been converted only when 
 Mecca was taken. Having betrayed state-secrets, he had been 
 disgraced and exiled. Abu Bakr and Omar had maintained 
 the order passed (by the Prophet). Osman, on the contrary, 
 not only recalled him from his exile, but gave him on his arrival 
 a hundred thousand pieces of silver from the public treasury, 
 and a piece of land belonging to the State. He made Merwan 
 his secretary and vizier, and married him to one of his daughters, 
 and enriched him with the spoils of Africa." x . . . He con- 
 firmed Mu'awiyah, the son of Abu Sufian and Hind, who had 
 fought against Mohammed with such ferocity at Ohod, in the 
 
 1 Dozy, Hist, des Mussulmans dans VEspagne, vol. i. p. 44. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 295 
 
 governorship of Syria ; and his foster-brother, Abdullah ibn 
 Sa'd ibn Surrah, to the satrapy of Egypt. This Abdullah was 
 at one time a secretary to the Prophet, and when the Master 
 dictated his revelations, he used to change the words and 
 " denaturalise " their meaning. His sacrilege being discovered, 
 he had fled, and had relapsed into idolatry. Walid, an uterine 
 brother of the old Caliph, was made governor of Kufa. His 
 father had often ill-treated Mohammed, and once nearly 
 strangled him. An abandoned debauchee, a profligate 
 drunkard, his life was a scandal to the Moslems. He appeared 
 in the mosque at the time of morning-prayers helpless from 
 intoxication, falling prostrate on the ground as he attempted 
 to perform the duties of an Imam, or leader of prayer ; and 
 when the by-standers hurried up to assist him to his feet, 
 shocked them by demanding more wine, in a husky and stam- 
 mering voice. These were the men whom the Caliph favoured ! 
 They fastened upon the provinces like famished leeches, heaping 
 up wealth by means of pitiless extortion. Complaints poured 
 into Medina from all parts of the empire. But the complaints 
 were invariably dismissed with abuses and hard words. 1 A 
 deputation, consisting of twelve thousand men, headed by 
 Mohammed, the son of the Caliph Abu Bakr, came to the 
 capital to lay before Osman the grievances of the people, and 
 to seek redress. Sore pressed at their demands for justice, he 
 had recourse to the intervention of the son-in-law of the Prophet 
 whose advice he had hitherto persistently refused to heed. Ali 
 persuaded the deputation to depart to their homes, by giving 
 them a pledge that their complaints should be redressed. On 
 their way back, and hardly at a day's journey from Medina, 
 they intercepted a letter written by Osman's secretary, which 
 bore the Caliph's own seal, containing a mandate to the un- 
 scrupulous Mu'awiyah to massacre them in a body. Enraged 
 at this treachery, they returned to Medina, entered the old 
 Caliph's house, and killed him. His death furnished to the 
 Ommeyyades what they were long thirsting for, a plea for a 
 revolt against Islam, — against its democracy, its equal rights, 
 and its stern rules of morality. It furnished to the Meccans 
 and their allies an excuse for organising a conspiracy against 
 
 1 Ibn ul-Athir, vol. iii. p. 125. 
 
296 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 Medinite dominance, which they hated so bitterly. Ali had 
 tried hard to save Osman, at first by wise counsels not to 
 abandon himself absolutely into the hands of his unprincipled 
 kinsmen, and at the last crisis by placing himself before the 
 infuriated soldiery, and asking for consideration for the vener- 
 able though misguided pontiff. He had nearly sacrificed his 
 own sons in his endeavours to protect Osman. On Osman 's 
 death he was raised to the Caliphate by the unanimous voice 
 of the people. Since the death of the Prophet, Ali, though he 
 had never failed to attend the councils of State, had always 
 maintained a dignified reserve and a noble independence of 
 character. In his retirement he had chiefly devoted himself 
 to study and the peaceable occupations of domestic life. Called 
 to the helm of the State, he received the oath of fealty with his 
 usual simplicity, declaring his readiness to resign the office to 
 any one more worthy. 
 
 " Had," says Sedillot, " the principle of hereditary succession 
 (in favour of Ali) been recognised at the outset, it would have 
 prevented the rise of those disastrous pretensions which engulfed 
 Islam in the blood of Moslems. . . . The husband of Fatima 
 united in his person the right of succession as the lawful heir 
 of the Prophet, as well as the right by election. It might have 
 been thought that all would submit themselves before his 
 glory ; so pure and so grand. But it was not to be." Zubair 
 and Talha, who had hoped that the choice of the people might 
 fall on either of them for the Caliphate, baulked in their am- 
 bitious designs, and smarting under the refusal of the new 
 Caliph to bestow on them the governorships of Basra and 
 Kufa, were the first to raise the standard of revolt. They were 
 assisted by 'Ayesha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, who had taken 
 a decisive part in the former elections. This lady had always 
 borne an inveterate dislike towards the son-in-law of Khadija, 
 and now this feeling had grown into positive hatred. She was 
 the life and soul of the insurrection, and herself accompanied 
 the insurgent troops to the field, riding a camel. The Caliph, 
 with his characteristic aversion to bloodshed, sent his cousin 
 Abdullah bin Abbas to adjure the insurgents by every obliga- 
 tion of the Faith to abandon the arbitrament of war. But to 
 no avail. Zubair and Talha gave battle at a place called 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 297 
 
 Khoraiba, and were defeated and killed. 1 'Ayesha was taken 
 prisoner. She was treated with courtesy and consideration, 
 and escorted with every mark of respect to Medina. Hardly 
 had this rebellion been suppressed, when Ali learnt of the 
 insurrection of Mu'awiyah in Syria. The son of Abu Sufian, 
 like most of his kinsmen whom Osman had appointed to the 
 governorships of the provinces, had, with the gold lavished 
 upon him by the late Pontiff and the wealth of Syria, collected 
 round him a large band of mercenaries. Ali had been advised 
 by several of his councillors to defer the dismissal of the corrupt 
 governors appointed by the late Caliph until he himself was 
 secure against all enemies. " The Bayard of Islam, the hero, 
 without fear and without reproach," 2 refused to be guilty of 
 any duplicity or compromise with injustice. The fiat went 
 forth removing from their offices all the men whom Osman had 
 placed in power, and who had so grossly betrayed the public 
 trust. Mu'awiyah at once raised the standard of revolt. 
 Defeated in several consecutive battles on the plains of Siffin, 
 on the last day when his troops were flying like chaff before 
 the irresistible charge of Malek al-Ashtar, he bethought himself 
 of a ruse to save his men from impending destruction. He 
 made some of his soldiers tie copies of the Koran to their 
 spears, and advance towards the Moslems shouting, " Let the 
 blood of the Faithful cease to flow ; if the Syrian army be 
 destroyed, who will defend the frontier against the Greeks ? 
 If the army of Irak be destroyed, who will defend the frontier 
 against the Turks and Persians ? Let the Book of God decide 
 between us." The Caliph, who knew well the character of the 
 arch-rebel and his fellow-conspirator, Amr(u) the son of al-'As, 
 saw through the artifice, and tried to open the eyes of his 
 people to the treachery ; but a large body of his troops refused 
 to fight further, and demanded that the dispute should be 
 referred to arbitration. In answer to the Caliph's assurances 
 that the son of Abu Sufian was only using the Koran as a device 
 for delivering himself from the jaws of death, these refractory 
 
 1 The battle is called the " Battle of the Camel," from 'Ayesha's presence in 
 a litter on a camel. The place where the fight actually took place and where 
 these men were killed, is called Wddi us-Saba', " Valley of the Lion." 
 
 2 These are the designations given to Ali by Major Osborn. 
 
298 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 spirits threatened open defection. 1 Malek al-Ashtar was recalled, 
 the battle was stopped, and the fruits of a victory already 
 won were irretrievably lost. 2 An arbitration was arranged. 
 The bigots, who had compelled Ali to sheathe the sword at the 
 moment of victory, forced upon him, against his own judgment 
 and wishes, Abu Musa al-Asha'ri as the representative of the 
 House of Mohammed. This man, who was also secretly hostile 
 to Ali, was altogether unfitted by his vanity and religious 
 conceit and a somewhat simple nature to cope with the astute 
 and unscrupulous Amr the son of al-'As, who acted as the 
 representative of Mu'awiyah, and he soon fell into the trap laid 
 for him by the latter. Amr led Abu Musa to believe that the 
 removal of both Ali and Mu'awiyah (of the one from the Cali- 
 phate and of the other from the governorship of Syria), and 
 the nomination of another person to the Headship of Islam, 
 was necessary to the well-being of the Moslems. The trick 
 succeeded ; Abu Musa ascended the pulpit and solemnly an- 
 nounced the deposition of Ali. After making this announcement 
 he descended aglow with the sensation of having performed 
 a virtuous deed. And then Amr smilingly ascended the pulpit 
 vacated by Abu Musa the representative of Ali, and pronounced 
 that he accepted the deposition of Ali, and appointed 
 Mu'awiyah in his place. Poor Abu Musa was thunder-struck ; 
 but the treachery was too patent, and the Fatimides refused 
 to accept the decision as valid. 3 This happened at Dumat 
 ul-Jandal. The treachery of the Ommeyyades exasperated 
 the Fatimides, and both parties separated vowing undying 
 hatred towards each other. Ali was shortly after assassinated 
 whilst engaged in prayer in a mosque at Kufa. 4 His assassina- 
 tion enabled the son of Abu Sufian to consolidate his power 
 both in Syria and Hijaz. On the death of Ali, Hasan, his 
 
 1 Shahristani, pt. i. p. 85. - Ibid. 
 
 3 Those very men who had forced upon the Caliph the arbitration after- 
 wards repudiated it, and rose in rebellion against him for consenting to their 
 demand for arbitration. They were the original Khawarij (insurgents), who 
 became afterwards an enormous source of evil to Islam ; see post. 
 
 4 With the chivalrous generosity which distinguished him, the Caliph Ali, 
 even in his war against his treacherous foe, always ordered his troops to 
 await the enemy's attack, to spare the fugitive, and respect the captive, and 
 never to insult the women. With his dying breath he commanded his sons 
 to see that the murderer was killed with one stroke of the sword, and that no 
 unnecessary pain might be inflicted on him. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 299 
 
 eldest son, was raised to the Caliphate. Fond of ease and 
 quiet, he hastened to make peace with the enemy of his House, 
 and retired into private life. But the Ommeyyade's animosity 
 pursued him even there, and before many months were over 
 he was poisoned to death. The star of Hind's son was now in 
 the ascendant, and Abu Sufian's ambition to become the king 
 of Mecca was fulfilled on a grander scale by Mu'awiyah. Thus 
 was the son of the two most implacable foes of the Prophet, 
 by the strangest freak of fortune recorded in history, seated on 
 the throne of the Caliphs. Lest it be considered our estimate 
 of Mu'awiyah's character is actuated by prejudice, we give the 
 words of a historian who cannot be accused of bias in favour 
 of either side. " Astute, unscrupulous, and pitiless," says 
 Osborn, " the first Khalif of the Ommayas shrank from no 
 crime necessary to secure his position. Murder was his accus- 
 tomed mode of removing a formidable opponent. The grand- 
 son of the Prophet he caused to be poisoned ; Malek-al-Ashtar, 
 the heroic lieutenant of Ali, was destroyed in a like way. To 
 secure the succession of his son Yezid, Mu'awiyah hesitated not 
 to break the word he had pledged to Husain, the surviving son 
 of Ali. And yet this cool, calculating, thoroughly atheistic 
 Arab ruled over the regions of Islam, and the sceptre remained 
 among his descendants for the space of nearly one hundred and 
 twenty years. The explanation of this anomaly is to be found 
 in two circumstances, to which I have more than once adverted. 
 The one is, that the truly devout and earnest Muhammadan 
 conceived that he manifested his religion most effectually by 
 withdrawing himself from the affairs of the world. The other 
 is the tribal spirit of the Arabs. Conquerors of Asia, of 
 Northern Africa, of Spain, the Arabs never rose to the level of 
 their position. Greatness had been thrust upon them, but in 
 the midst of their grandeur they retained, in all their previous 
 force and intensity, the passions, the rivalries, the petty 
 jealousies of the desert. They merely fought again on a wider 
 field ' the battles of the Arabs before Islam.' " 
 
 With the rise of Mu'awiyah the oligarchical rule of the 
 heathen times displaced the democratic rule of Islam. 
 Paganism, with all its attendant depravity, revived, and 
 vice and immorality followed everywhere in the wake of 
 
300 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Ommeyyade governors and the Syrian soldiery. Hijaz and 
 Irak groaned under the usurper's rule ; but his hold on the 
 throat of Islam was too strong to be shaken off with impunity. 
 The wealth which he pitilessly extracted from his subjects, 
 he lavished on his mercenaries, who in return helped him to 
 repress all murmurings. Before his death, he convened the 
 chief officers of his army and made them take the oath of 
 fealty to his son Yezid, whom he had designated as his successor 
 to the throne. This was Yezid's title to the Caliphate ! On 
 Mu'awiyah's death, the Domitian of the house of Ommeyya 
 ascended the throne founded by his father on fraud and 
 treachery. As cruel and treacherous as Muawiyah, he did not, 
 like his father, possess the capacity to clothe his cruelties in 
 the guise of policy. His depraved nature knew no pity or 
 justice. He killed and tortured for the pleasure he derived 
 from human suffering. Addicted to the grossest of vices, his 
 boon companions were the most abandoned of both sexes. 
 Such was the Caliph — the Commander of the Faithful ! Hus- 
 ain, the second son of Ali, had inherited his father's chivalric 
 nature and virtues. He had served with honour against the 
 Christians in the siege of Constantinople. He united in his 
 person the right of descent from Ali, with the holy character 
 of grandson of the Apostle. In the terms of peace signed 
 between Mu'awiyah and Hasan, his right to the Caliphate had 
 been expressly reserved. Husain had never deigned to 
 acknowledge the title of the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices 
 he despised, and whose character he regarded with abhorrence ; 
 and when the Moslems of Kufa besought his help to release 
 them from the curse of the Ommeyyade's rule, he felt it his 
 duty to respond to the Irakians' appeal for deliverance. The 
 assurances he received, that all Irak was ready to spring to its 
 feet to hurl the despot from his throne the moment he appeared 
 on the scene, decided him to start for Kufa with his family. 
 He traversed the desert of Arabia unmolested, accompanied 
 by his brother Abbas, a few devoted followers, and a timorous 
 retinue of women and children ; but as he approached the 
 confines of Irak he was alarmed by the solitary and hostile 
 face of the country, and suspecting treachery, the Ommey- 
 yade's weapon, he encamped his small band at a place called 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 301 
 
 Kerbela near the western bank of the Euphrates. No event 
 in history surpasses in pathos the scenes enacted on this spot. 
 Husain's apprehensions of betrayal proved to be only too true. 
 He was overtaken by an Ommeyyade army under the brutal 
 and ferocious Obaidullah ibn-Ziyad. For days their tents were 
 surrounded ; and as the cowardly hounds dared not come 
 within the reach of the sword of Ali's son they cut the victims 
 off from the waters of the Tigris. The sufferings of the poor 
 band of martyrs were terrible. In a conference with the chief 
 of the enemy, Husain proposed the option of three honourable 
 conditions : that he should be allowed to return to Medina, 
 or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or 
 safely conducted to the presence of Yezid. 1 But the com- 
 mands of the Ommeyyade tyrant were stern and inexorable — 
 that no mercy should be shown to Husain or his party, and 
 that they must be brought as criminals before the " Caliph " 
 to be dealt with according to the Ommeyyade sense of justice. 
 As a last resource, Husain besought these monsters not to war 
 upon the helpless women and children, but to kill him and be 
 done with it. But they knew no pity. He pressed his friends 
 to consult their safety by a timely flight ; they unanimously 
 refused to desert or survive their beloved master. One of the 
 enemy's chiefs, struck with horror at the sacrilege of warring 
 against the grandson of the Prophet, deserted with thirty 
 followers " to claim the partnership of inevitable death." In 
 every single combat and close fight the valour of the Fatimides 
 was invincible. But the enemy's archers picked them off from 
 a safe distance. One by one the defenders fell, until at last 
 there remained but the grandson of the Prophet. Wounded 
 and dying he dragged himself to the river-side for a last drink ; 
 they turned him off with arrows from there. And as he re- 
 entered his tent he took his infant child in his arms ; him they 
 transfixed with a dart. The stricken father bowed his head 
 to heaven. Able no more to stand up against his pitiless foes, 
 
 1 The author of the Rouzat-tts-Safd, after stating the above, adds that an 
 attendant of Husain, who by chance escaped the butchery of Kerbela, denied 
 that his master, so far as he was aware, ever made any such proposal to the 
 Ommeyyade leader. It is possible, however, that such denial was made in 
 order to show that Husain did not lower himself by proposing terms to the 
 enemy. To my mind, however, it detracts in no way from the grandeur of 
 Husain's character that he proposed terms to the Ommeyyades. 
 
302 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 alone and weary, he seated himself at the door of his tent. 
 One of the women handed him a cup of water to assuage his 
 burning thirst ; as he raised it to his lips he was pierced in the 
 mouth with a dart ; and his son and nephew were killed in his 
 arms. He lifted his hands to heaven, — they were full of blood, 
 — and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and the dead. 
 Raising himself for one desperate charge, he threw himself 
 among the Ommeyyades, who fell back on every side. But 
 faint with loss of blood he soon sank to the ground, and then 
 the murderous crew rushed upon the dying hero. They cut 
 off his head, trampled on his body, and subjected it to every 
 ignominy in the old spirit of Hind. They carried the martyr's 
 head to the castle of Kufa, and the inhuman Obaidullah struck 
 it on the mouth with a cane : " Alas ! " exclaimed an aged 
 Musulman, " on these lips have I seen the lips of the Apostle 
 of God." " In a distant age and climate," says Gibbon, " the 
 tragic scene of the death of Husain will awaken the sympathy 
 of the coldest reader." It will now be easy to understand, if 
 not to sympathise with, the frenzy of sorrow and indignation 
 to which the adherents of Ali and his children give vent on the 
 recurrence of the anniversary of Husain's martyrdom. 
 
 Thus fell one of the noblest spirits of the age, and with him 
 perished all the male members of his family, — old and young, — 
 with the solitary exception of a sickly child, whom Husain's 
 sister, Zainab (Zenobia), saved from the general massacre. He, 
 too, bore the name of Ali, and in after-life received the noble 
 designation of Zain ul-'Abidin, " the Ornament of the Pious." 
 He was the son of Husain by the daughter of Yezdjard, the 
 last Sasanide king of Persia, and in him was perpetuated the 
 house of Mohammed. He represented also, in his mother's 
 right, the claims of the Sasanians to the throne of Iran. 
 
 The tragical fate of Husain and his children sent a thrill of 
 horror through Islam ; and the revulsion of feeling which it 
 caused proved eventually the salvation of the Faith. It 
 arrested the current of depravity which flowed from the 
 Ommeyyade court of Damascus. It made the bulk of Moslems 
 think of what the Master had done, and of the injuries which 
 the children of his enemies were inflicting on Islam. For a 
 hundred years, however, the Ommeyyades ruled with the free 
 
vin. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 303 
 
 help of the sword and poison. They sacked Medina, and drove 
 the children of the Helpers into exile in far-away lands. The 
 city which had sheltered the Prophet from the persecution of 
 the idolaters, and which he loved so dearly, the hallowed 
 ground he had trod in life, and every inch of which was sanc- 
 tified by his holy work and ministry, was foully desecrated ; 
 and the people who had stood by him in the hour of his need, 
 and helped him to build up the arch of the Faith, were sub- 
 jected to the most terrible and revolting atrocities, which find 
 a parallel only in those committed by the soldiers of the Con- 
 stable of France and the equally ferocious Lutherans of George 
 Frundsberg at the sack of Rome. The men were massacred, 
 the women outraged, the children reduced into slavery. The 
 public mosque was turned into a stable, the shrines demolished 
 for the sake of their ornaments. During the whole period of 
 Ommeyyade domination the holy city remained a haunt of 
 wild beasts. 1 The paganism of Mecca was once more trium- 
 phant. And " its reaction," says Dozy, " against Islam was 
 cruel, terrible, and revolting." The Meccans and the Ommey- 
 yades thus repaid the clemency and forbearance shown to them 
 in the hour of Islam's triumph ! The Ommeyyades produced 
 many notable men eminent for piety and virtue, chief amongst 
 them Omar bin- 'Abdul Aziz, the Marcus Aurelius of the Arabs, 
 a virtuous sovereign, a good ruler, and a God-fearing Moslem, 
 who modelled his life after his great namesake the second 
 Caliph. For the rest they were unabashed pagans and revelled 
 in the disregard of the rules and discipline of the religion they 
 professed. 
 
 But for the Ommeyyades, the difference between the followers 
 of the Ahl-ul-Bait, 2 the upholders of Ali's right to the apostolical 
 succession, and those who maintained the right of the people 
 to elect their own spiritual as well as temporal chiefs, would 
 never have grown into a schism ; it would have ended in a 
 compromise or coalition after the accession of Ali to the Cali- 
 phate. The violence and treachery of the children of Ommeyya 
 rendered this impossible. They had waded to the throne 
 
 1 Abdul Malik ibn-Merwan went so far as to issue an edict forbidding pilgrims 
 to visit the sepulchre of the Prophet at Medina. 
 
 2 For the meaning of this word see note 2, page 313. 
 
304 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 through manifold crimes and oceans of blood ; it was necessary 
 for them to impart a semblance of validity to their tenure of 
 the office of Caliph. They claimed to have the title of Ameer - 
 nl-Mominin by right of election — election by their own mer- 
 cenaries and pagan partisans. After the sack of Medina and 
 the destruction and dispersion of the family of Mohammed and 
 the Muhajirin and Ansar, it was easy to draw precedents from 
 the early Caliphate, and when that failed, to manufacture 
 traditions. Nor was it difficult to appropriate a title which 
 might have been assumed, but was not, by those who supported 
 the right of the universality of the people to elect their chiefs. 
 The giants who had built up the Republic were dead or de- 
 stroyed ; their children were fugitives or slaves ; who was to 
 question the validity of the title so adroitly usurped ? The 
 Ommeyyade policy was pursued by the dynasty which took 
 its place. The same fierce jealousy with which the Bani- 
 Ommeyya had pursued or persecuted the Bani-Fatima, char- 
 acterised the conduct of the Bani-Abbas towards the descen- 
 dants of Mohammed. They had no claim to the Caliphate 
 themselves ; they made the affection of the people for the 
 children of Fatima the means for their own elevation, and when 
 they had attained the desired end they rewarded the Fatimides 
 with bitter persecution. Their title also was founded on quasi- 
 election, and naturally they hunted, like the Ommeyyades, all 
 who questioned the legality of their claim, or who upheld in 
 explicit terms the doctrine of the devolution of the Imamate 
 by succession in the line of Mohammed. Every difference of 
 opinion was strictly repressed ; even the jurists of the time 
 were punished if they ventured to express opinions which did 
 not find favour with the sovereigns. 1 If we did not keep in 
 view the circumstances which led to the sudden and unexpected 
 rise of the Abbasides, we would be apt to regard it as pheno- 
 menal. The terrible cruelties inflicted by the Ommeyyades on 
 the children of Fatima, and the sublime patience with which 
 they had borne their sufferings and their wrongs, had given 
 rise to a universal feeling of horror against the tyrants, and 
 had invested the objects of persecution, in the eyes of their 
 
 1 Imam Malik ibn Anas, the third pillar of the Sunni Church, was publicly 
 punished for an offence of this nature. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 305 
 
 followers and disciples, with a superhuman halo. Persecution, 
 however fierce, has always failed to achieve its end ; instead 
 of stamping out the faith or devotion of a sect or community, 
 it has diverted it into new channels and imparted to it greater 
 vitality. In Islam, as in Christianity, the dangers of the battle- 
 field and the pains of persecution have " clothed with more 
 than earthly splendour the objects for whom they were endured." 
 And the children of Fatima, saints who had submitted to the 
 injustice of man and devoted themselves to intellectual pursuits 
 and the practice of religion, — without arms, without treasure, 
 and without subjects, — ruled more firmly over the hearts of 
 their followers, and enjoyed the veneration of the people to a 
 greater degree, than the caliph in his palace, the master of 
 legions. The cup of Ommeyyade iniquity was full to over- 
 flowing, and men were crying aloud in the anguish of their 
 hearts, O Lord, how long ! On every side there was an eager 
 and passionate longing engendered by the vices and misrule of 
 the pseudo-caliphs that the House of Mohammed might be 
 restored to its rights. They looked wistfully to the Imams to 
 give the sign, but these saints had retired from the world ; 
 their domain was no more of this earth. Successive avengers x 
 of their wrongs had risen in arms, and gone down before the 
 serried ranks of their Syrian enemies. The people waited for 
 authority from the divinely-appointed leaders of the Faithful, 
 but they condemned the use of force. What was to be done ? 
 Several scions of the House who had risen against the Bani- 
 Ommeyya, contrary to the counsel and without the sanction 
 of the heads of the family, had sacrificed themselves to their 
 ambition or their religious zeal. It was at this juncture, at 
 this moment of unrest, when the Moslems were longing for a 
 sign from the House of Mohammed, that the Bani-Abbas 
 appeared on the scene. The Bani-Abbas were the descendants 
 of Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet. Abbas had always taken 
 a deep interest in the progress of Islam ; he was Mohammed's 
 companion when the famous " Pledge of the Women " was 
 taken from the Medinites. But from some weakness of char- 
 acter or from policy, he did not embrace Islam definitely until 
 about the time Mecca fell. He was, however, always treated 
 
 1 Sulaiman ibn Surrad, al-Mukhtar, and Yezid ibn Muhallib. 
 s.i. u 
 
3 o6 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 with the greatest affection and consideration by Mohammed. 
 The Prophet's example was imitated by Abu Bakr, Omar, and 
 Osman. They dismounted if they met him walking ; and not 
 unfrequently would accompany him to his residence. 1 He died 
 in a.h. 32, — according to some, two years later, — leaving four 
 sons, Abdullah (Abu I Abbas Abdullah ibn Abbas), Fazl, Obaid- 
 ullah, and Kaithan. Abdullah, better known in history and 
 tradition as Ibn Abbas, was born at Mecca in A.c. 619, three 
 years before the Hegira. He was instructed in the Koran and 
 jurisprudence by Ali himself. His reputation as a scholar and 
 expounder of the Koran and of the decisions of the Caliphs 
 stood so high that crowds nocked from all parts to hear his 
 lectures. He gave public lessons one day in the week on the 
 interpretation of the Koran ; another day, on law ; the third, 
 on grammar ; the fourth, on the history of the Arabs, and the 
 fifth on poetry. He gave an impulse to the study and pre- 
 servation of pre-Islamic Arab literature and history by fre- 
 quently quoting verses from the ancient poets to explain and 
 illustrate the difficult and obscure passages of the Koran. He 
 was wont to say, " When you meet with a difficulty in the 
 Koran, look for its solution in the poems of the Arabs, for these 
 are the registers of the Arab nation." 2 The steady and unvarying 
 devotion of Ibn Abbas and his brothers to Ali was proverbial. 
 All four brothers were present at " the Battle of the Camel," 
 and at Siffin, Ibn Abbas, who was no less an accomplished 
 soldier than a scholar, commanded the cavalry of Ali. He 
 acted frequently as the envoy of the Caliph, and it was he 
 whom Ali desired to nominate as the representative of the 
 House of Mohammed when forced by the refractory troops 
 to refer the dispute between himself and Mu'awiyah to 
 arbitration. 3 Ibn Abbas died at Tayef of a broken heart, 
 after the murder of Husain, in a.h. 67, in the seventieth 
 year of his age. His son, who was named Ali after the great 
 Caliph, walked in the footsteps of his father in his zealous 
 attachment to the children of Fatima. He died in a.h. 117, 
 
 1 Abbas may be called the John of Gaunt of Moslem history. 
 
 2 Once he was asked how he had acquired his extensive knowledge : his 
 reply was, " By means of an inquiring tongue and an intelligent heart." 
 
 3 Shahristani, pt. i. p. 86. 
 
viit. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 307 
 
 and was succeeded in the headship of his family by his son 
 Mohammed. 
 
 At this time, Persia, Irak, and Hijaz, which had suffered 
 most from the atrocities of the Bani-Ommeyya, were honey- 
 combed by secret organisations for the overthrow of the hated 
 family. The Bani-Abbas were the most active in the move- 
 ment to subvert the Ommeyyade rule, at first, perhaps, from 
 a sincere desire to restore to the Fatimides their just rights, 
 but afterwards in their own interests. Mohammed, the son of 
 Ali ibn Abdullah, was the first to conceive the project of seizing 
 the Caliphate for himself. He was a man of great ability and 
 unbounded ambition. Whilst working ostensibly for the Fati- 
 mides, he contrived gradually to establish the pretensions of 
 his own family. He started a new doctrine to justify the 
 claims of his house to the Imamate : that on the murder of 
 Husain at Kerbela, the spiritual headship of Islam was not 
 transmitted to his surviving son Ali (Zain ul-'Abidin), but to 
 Mohammed ibn al-Hanafiya, a son of the Caliph Ali by a 
 different mother, whom he had married after the death of 
 Fatima, belonging to the tribe of Hanifa ; that upon his death 
 the office descended upon his son Hashim, who had assigned 
 it formally to the Abbaside Mohammed. This story received 
 credence in some quarters ; but for the bulk of the people, who 
 clung to the descendants of the Prophet, the da' is l of the 
 Abbasides affirmed that they were working for the Ahl-id-bait. 
 Hitherto, the Abbasides had professed great devotion to the 
 House of Fatima, and had ascribed to all their movements and 
 plans the object of securing justice for the descendants of 
 Mohammed. The representatives and adherents of the Ahl- 
 id-bait, little suspecting the treachery which lay behind their 
 professions, extended to Mohammed bin Ali and to his party 
 the favour and protection which was needed to impress upon 
 his action the sanction of a recognised authority. The attach- 
 ment of the Persians to the Fatimide cause was due to historical 
 and national associations. The Fatimides represented in their 
 persons, through the daughter of Yezdjard, the right to the 
 throne of Iran. From the first commencement of the Islamic 
 preachings, Ali had extended the utmost consideration and 
 
 1 Missionaries or political agents. 
 
308 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 friendship to the Persian converts. Salman the Persian, one 
 of the most notable disciples of the Prophet, was long the 
 associate and friend of the Caliph. After the battle of Kadesia, 
 Ali used to devote his share of the prize-money to the redemp- 
 tion of the captives, and repeatedly by his counsel induced 
 Omar to lighten the burden of the subjects. The devotion of 
 the Persians to his descendants was intelligible. Mohammed 
 bin Ali beguiled the Persians by preaching to them their 
 approaching deliverance from the hated rule of their Arab 
 oppressors. To the Yemenites settled in Khorasan, Fars, and 
 other provinces of Iran, who were equally attached to the 
 Ahl-ul-bait, and whose animosity against their old enemies, the 
 descendants of Mozar, was inflamed by many recent injuries, 
 he proclaimed he was acting solely on behalf of the Imams of 
 the House of Mohammed. He succeeded in winning over to 
 his side Abu Muslim, the ablest general of his time, and hitherto 
 a devoted partisan of the children of Ali. Before his death, 
 which took place in 125 a.h., he named his sons Ibrahim, 
 Abdullah Abu'l Abbas (surnamed Saffdh), Abdullah Abu Ja'far 
 (surnamed al-Mansur) as his successors, one after the other. 
 
 The furious struggle which broke out about the middle of the 
 eighth century between the Yemenites and Mozarites in 
 Khorasan served as a signal to apply the torch to the well-laid 
 mine. Abu Muslim sent word to his partisans in every city 
 and village of the Province to raise at once the standard of 
 revolt. The cause proclaimed was " the rights of the Ahl-ul- 
 bait " against the usurping Bani-Ommeyya. A short time 
 previously, Yahya, a grandson of the Imam Ali Zain-ul-'Abidin, 
 had revolted and been killed, and his body was exposed, by the 
 order of Merwan, upon a gibbet. Abu Muslim ordered the 
 remains of the young chief to be taken down and buried with 
 every mark of respect ; and his followers clothed themselves 
 in black in token of their sorrow, and their determination to 
 avenge the death of Yahya. From that day black became the 
 distinguishing symbol of the Abbaside cause. And when 
 the order went forth summoning the people to arms against the 
 usurpers, the crowd, clothed in black, which flocked to the 
 trysting-places showed the widespread character and strength 
 of the revolt. The gathering was to take place on the night 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 309 
 
 of the 25th of Ramazan a.h. 127, and the people were to be 
 summoned by large bonfires lighted on the tops of the hills. 
 Vast multitudes poured from every quarter into Merv, where 
 Abu Muslim was dwelling at the time. Ibrahim, who had 
 succeeded Mohammed bin Ali as the head of the Abbasides, 
 was seized by Merwan and killed ; but before his death he 
 contrived to pass to his second brother, Abu'l Abbas, a docu- 
 ment assigning him the authority in accordance with the 
 testament of their father. Abu Muslim soon made himself 
 master of the whole of Khorasan, and marched his victorious 
 troops towards Irak. Nothing as yet was divulged as to the 
 ultimate purpose of the movement. The Ahl-ul-bait was the 
 watchword which rallied all classes of people round the black 
 standard. Kufa surrendered at once. Hasan ibn Kahtaba, 
 the lieutenant of Abu Muslim, entered the city at the head of 
 his troops, and was joined at once by Abu Salma Ja'ar ibn 
 Sulaiman al-Khallal, " who," says the author of the Rouzat-us- 
 Safd, " was designated the vizier of the descendants of Moham- 
 med." Apparently this man acted as the agent of the head of 
 the family. He was received with the greatest consideration 
 by the Abbaside general, " who kissed his hand, and seated 
 him in the place of honour," x and told him that it was Abu 
 Muslim's orders that he should be obeyed in all things. Abu 
 Salma's vanity was flattered, but as yet he was wholly unaware 
 of the Abbaside design. A proclamation was issued in the 
 joint names of Abu Salma and Hasan ibn Kahtaba, inviting 
 the inhabitants of Kufa to assemble the next day at the Masjid- 
 al-Jdmi' (the public mosque). The people flocked to the 
 mosque expecting some announcement ; but the plot had not 
 yet thickened, and Hasan and the other Abbaside partisans 
 considered the moment inopportune for the proclamation of 
 their design. In the meantime, Abu'l Abbas, with his brother 
 Abu Ja'far, had successfully evaded the Ommeyyade guards, 
 and had arrived at Kufa, where they kept themselves con- 
 cealed, waiting for the next event of the drama. Abu Salma, 
 who was still faithful to the masters he purported to serve, 
 sent a message secretly to the Imam (Ja'far as-Sadik) to come 
 and take up his right. The Imam, knowing well the nature of 
 
 1 Rouzat-us-Safd ; Ibn ul-Athir, vol. v. p. 312 et seq. 
 
3 io THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Irakian communications, burnt the missive unopened. But 
 before any answer could reach Abu Salma, he had already 
 accepted Abu'l Abbas as the Caliph. He then issued a pro- 
 clamation, still acting ostensibly in the name of the Ahl-ul-bait, 
 inviting the inhabitants, one and all, to assemble on the follow- 
 ing day, which was a Friday, to elect a Caliph. On that day 
 Kufa presented a strange aspect. Large crowds of people, 
 clothed in the sable garments of the Bani-Abbas, were hastening 
 from every quarter to the Masjid-al-jdmi' to hear the long- 
 deferred announcement. In due time Abu Salma appeared on 
 the scene, and, strangely, dressed in the same sombre black. 
 Few, excepting the partisans of Abu'l Abbas, knew how he 
 had come to sell himself to the Abbaside cause. He preferred 
 his head to the interests of his masters. After leading the 
 prayers he explained to the assemblage the object of the 
 meeting. Abu Muslim, he said, the defender of the Faith and 
 the upholder of the right of the House, had hurled the Ommey- 
 yades from the height of their iniquity ; it was now necessary 
 to elect an Imam and Caliph ; there was none so eminent for 
 piety, ability, and all the virtues requisite for the office as 
 Abu'l Abbas ; and him he offered to the Faithful for election. 
 Up to this Abu Salma and the Abbasides were dubious of the 
 impression on the people. They were afraid that even the 
 Kufians might not view their treachery to the house of Ah 
 with approbation. But the proverbial fickleness of the Irakians 
 was now proved. They had again and again risen in arms in 
 support of the Fatimide cause, and as often betrayed those 
 whom they had pledged themselves to help or whose help they 
 had invoked. Swayed by the passing whim of the moment, 
 they had as often shown themselves to be traitors, as the 
 defenders of truth. After the massacre of Kerbela they had 
 been so struck with remorse that twenty thousand of them, 
 after spending a night over the tomb of Husain praying for 
 forgiveness, had hurled themselves against the serried legions 
 of Yezid. But the remorse did not last long ; fickle and 
 turbulent, faithless and unreliable, Hajjaj ibn-Yusuf, the 
 veritable " Scourge of God," had alone kept them in order. 
 And now, no sooner had the words passed from the lips of 
 Abu Salma, proposing Abu'l Abbas as the Caliph, than they 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 311 
 
 burst forth with loud acclamations of the takbir l signifying 
 their approval. A messenger was sent in haste to fetch Abu'l 
 Abbas from his concealment, and when he arrived at the 
 mosque there was a frantic rush on the part of the multitude 
 to take his hand and swear fealty. The election was complete. 
 He ascended the pulpit, recited the khutba, and was henceforth 
 the Imam and Caliph of the Moslems. 2 Thus rose the Abbas- 
 ides to power on the popularity of the children of Fatima, 
 whom they repaid afterwards in a different coin. The greed 
 of earthly power is the worst form of ambition. It has caused 
 greater disasters to humanity than any other manifestation of 
 human passion. It never hesitates as to the choice of means 
 to attain its object ; it uses indiscriminately both crime and 
 virtue, the one to disguise its design, the other to achieve its 
 ends. It has even pressed religion into its service. Ambition 
 disguised in the cloak of religion has been productive of fearful 
 calamities to mankind. The popes of Rome, in their incessant 
 endeavour to maintain unimpaired their temporal power, 
 deluged the civilised world with human blood. The pontiffs 
 of Islam, Abbaside, Egyptian Fatimide, and Ommeyyade, 
 seized with avidity upon the claim prepared by willing minions 
 to supreme spiritual and temporal rule, and in their desire to 
 maintain the undivided allegiance of their subjects, caused 
 equal bloodshed and strife in the bosom of Islam. 
 
 The early Abbaside Caliphs were men of great ability, and 
 possessed of vast foresight and statesmanship. From the 
 moment they were raised to the Caliphate by the acclamation 
 of the people of Kufa, they directed their whole energy towards 
 consolidating the spiritual and temporal power in their hands, 
 and to give shape and consistency to the doctrine of divine 
 sanction to popular election. Henceforth it became a point 
 of vital importance to disavow the principle of apostolical 
 succession by descent, and to make the election by the people 
 almost sacramental. 
 
 During Saffah's 3 reign, Abu Muslim enjoyed some considera- 
 
 1 I.e. Alldho-Akbar, God is great. 
 
 2 For a full account, see The Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan) . 
 
 3 Abu'l Abbas Abdullah received the title of Saffah, " blood-spiller," or 
 "sanguinary," on account of his unsparing use of the sword against his 
 
312 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 tion, but the king-maker was hated and suspected for his ill- 
 concealed Fatimide proclivities. Under Saff all's successor he 
 was accused of heresy — stigmatised with the opprobrious epithet 
 of Zendik l — and killed. The pure and unsullied lives of the 
 leading representatives of the House of Mohammed, the extreme 
 veneration in which they were held by the people, frequently 
 evoked the jealousy of the Abbasides, and exposed the children 
 of Fatima to periodic outbursts of persecution. Harun de- 
 stroyed the Barmekides, who were the bulwarks of his empire 
 and had made for him the fame which he so largely appropriated, 
 solely on suspicion of conspiracy with the Fatimides. This 
 state of affairs lasted until the reign of Abdullah al-Mamun, 
 the noblest Caliph of the house of Abbas, who, on his accession 
 to the Caliphate, resolved to restore to the children of Fatima 
 their just rights. He accordingly named Ali ibn Musa, sur- 
 named Riza (" the acceptable or agreeable "), the eighth Imam 
 of the Fatimides, as his successor, and gave his sister Umm 
 ul-Fazl in marriage to this prince. He also abandoned the 
 black, the Abbaside colour, in favour of the green, which was 
 the recognised standard of the Fatimides. 2 Ali ibn Musa 
 ar-Riza was poisoned by the infuriated Abbasides, and Mamun 
 was forced to resume the black as the colour of his house. The 
 tolerance shown by him to the Fatimides was continued by his 
 two immediate successors (Mu'tasim and Wasik). 3 The acces- 
 sion of Mutawakkil was the signal for a new and fierce per- 
 secution, which lasted during the whole fifteen years of a reign 
 signalised by gross cruelty and debauchery. He was succeeded 
 by his son Muntasir, whose first care was to restore the tombs 
 of Ali and Husain, destroyed by Mutawakkil, and to re- 
 establish the sacredness of their memory so wantonly outraged 
 by his father. The sagacity of this Caliph was imitated by his 
 successors, and some degree of toleration was thenceforward 
 extended to the Shiahs. In the year 334 a.h. (a.c. 945) Muizz 
 ud-dowla (the Deilemite), of the House of Buwaih, became the 
 
 enemies ; one of his successors (Mu'tazid b'illah) received the title of Saffah 
 as-Sani (Saffah II.), and the Ottoman, Selim I., bore the same designation. 
 
 1 I.e. a Magian, Guebre, from Zend. 
 
 2 The Fatimides had adopted green, the colour of the Prophet, as the symbol 
 of their cause ; the Bani-Ommeyya, the white ; and the Bani-Abbas, black. 
 
 3 Mu'tasim-b'illah (Mohammed) and Wasik b'illah (Harun). 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 313 
 
 Mayor of the Palace at Bagdad. An enthusiastic partisan of 
 the Fatimides, he entertained at one time the design of deposing 
 the Abbaside Caliph Muti'ullah, and placing in his stead some 
 scion of the house of Ali, but was restrained by motives of 
 policy from carrying this project into effect. Muizz ud-dowla 
 also instituted the Yanm-i-'dshura, the day of mourning, in 
 commemoration of the martyrdom of Hussain and his family 
 on the plains of Kerbela. In the year a.h. 645 (a.c. 1247), 
 under Musta'sim b'illah, another fierce persecution of the 
 Shiahs broke out, the consequences of which proved in the end 
 disastrous to Saracenic civilisation, engulfing in one common 
 ruin the Western Asians. Impelled by the perfidious counsels 
 of the fanatics who surrounded him, this imbecile pontiff of 
 the Sunni Church doomed the entire male population of the 
 Shiahs to massacre. By a terrible edict, which reminds us of 
 the fate of the Albigenses and the Huguenots, he permitted the 
 orthodox to plunder the goods, demolish the houses, ravage 
 the fields, and reduce to slavery the women and children of 
 the Shiahs. This atrocious conduct brought upon the ill-fated 
 city of Bagdad the arms of the avenging Hulaku, the grandson 
 of Chengiz. For three days the Tartar chief gave up the town 
 to rapine and slaughter. On the third day the thirty-seventh 
 Caliph of the house of Abbas was put to death with every 
 circumstance of ignominy ; and so ended the Abbaside 
 dynasty ! * 
 
 Until the time of Mu'awiyah the adherents of the Ahl-ul-bait 2 
 had not assumed or adopted any distinctive appellation. They 
 
 1 A scion of the house of Abbas escaped into Egypt, and the titular Caliphate 
 flourished there until the Ottoman Selim obtained a renunciation in his favour 
 from the last of the Abbasides ; see ante, p. 130. 
 
 2 The Ahl-ul-bait, " People of the House " (of Mohammed), is the designa- 
 tion usually given to Fatima and Ali and their children and descendants. 
 This is the name by which Ibn-Khaldun invariably designates them, and 
 their followers and disciples, — the Shiahs or adherents of the " People of the 
 House." Sanai represents the general feeling with which the descendants 
 of Mohammed were regarded in the following verse : — 
 
 " Excepting the Book of God and his family (descendants) nothing has 
 been left by Ahmed the Prophet, memorials such as these can never be obtained 
 till the Day of Judgment." 
 
3 i4 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 were known simply as the Bani-Hashim. There was no differ- 
 ence between the Bani-Fatima and the Bani- Abbas ; they were 
 all connected with each other by the closest ties of blood. After 
 Mu'awiyah's seizure of the sovereign power the followers of the 
 House of Mohammed began to call themselves Shiahs (adherents 
 and their enemies either Nawdsib (rebels) or Khawdrij (insur- 
 gents or deserters). 1 The Ommeyyades called themselves 
 Amawis (children of Ommeyya). As yet the name of Ahl-us- 
 Sunnat wal Jama' at was wholly unknown. Under Mansur and 
 Harun this designation first came into existence. In the tenth 
 century, a member of the house of Ali wrested Egypt from the 
 Abbasides, and established a dynasty which ruled over that 
 country and Syria until the rise of Saladin. The anathemas 
 which the Caliphs of Bagdad and Cairo hurled at each other, 
 the multitudinous traditions which were unearthed to demolish 
 the claims of the one and the other, and the fatwas emanating 
 from the doctors of the two Caliphates, accentuated the strife 
 and bitterness of partisans. Saladin overthrew the Fatimide 
 dynasty in Egypt, and restored the predominance of the Sunni 
 Church in Eastern Africa. Various other branches of the 
 Bani-Fatima, however, succeeded in establishing the supremacy 
 of their family in different parts of the two continents. 2 The 
 Isnd-'asharias 3 alone, the followers of the saintly Imams, who 
 reprehended the use of force, and who claimed and exercised 
 only a spiritual dominion, maintained an attitude of complete 
 withdrawal from temporal interests, until Shah Ismail the 
 great Safawi monarch made I snd-' ashariaism the State religion 
 of Persia. Himself a philosopher and a Sufi, he perceived in 
 the sympathy and devotion of the people to the House of 
 Mohammed, whose descendant he was, a means of national 
 awakening and consolidation. Since then I snd-' ashariaism is 
 the national church of Persia. 
 
 1 The name of Khawarij was especially given to the troops who deserted 
 Ah at Dumat ul-Jandal and formed a confederacy hostile to Islam, and was 
 afterwards applied to those who adopted their pernicious doctrines ; see post. 
 
 2 Besides the Bani-Fatima of Egypt, other branches of Fatimides have 
 ruled under the different denominations of Ameer, Imam, Sharif, and Caliph 
 in different parts of the Musulman world, such as the Bani-Ukhaydur, the 
 Bani-Musa, the Bani-Kitadah at Mecca, the Bani-Taba-Taba in Northern 
 Yemen, the Bani-Ziyad in Southern Yemen, and the Bani-Idris in Morocco. 
 
 3 Isnd with a O ; see post. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 315 
 
 The Bahmani and 'Adil Shahi dynasties of Southern India 
 which Aurungzeb overthrew, thus paving the way for the rise 
 of the Mahratta marauders whom the Bahmani sovereigns had 
 kept in check with an iron hand, were attached to the doctrines 
 of the Imams. Such has been the political fate of the Fatimides, 
 which has left its impress on their doctrines. 
 
 The title of the Bani-Abbas to the spiritual and temporal 
 headship of Islam was founded on bai'at or nominal election. 
 Since Saffah's accession, the Abbaside Caliphs had taken the 
 precaution of obtaining during their lifetime the fealty of the 
 chiefs for their intended successors. And it became necessary 
 to impress on the doctrine of election a sanctity derived from 
 precedent and ancient practice. The rise of the Fatimides in 
 Egypt, their persistent endeavour to wrest the dominion of the 
 East from the Caliphs of Bagdad, made it doubly necessary 
 to controvert the pretensions of the children of Fatima, 
 and to give form and consistency to the orthodox doctrines 
 recognising the Abbaside Pontiffs as the spiritual chiefs 
 of Islam. 1 
 
 Every corner of Irak and Hijaz was ransacked for traditions 
 in support of the right of the house of Abbas. The doctors of 
 law were required to formulate the principles of orthodoxy in 
 explicit terms : and gradually the grand superstructure of the 
 Sunni church was raised on the narrow foundations of Abbaside 
 self-interest. Much of the success of the doctors and legists 
 who assisted in the growth and development of Sunnism was 
 due to the Manichaeism of the Egyptian Fatimides. The nature 
 of their doctrines, which were at variance with the teachings 
 
 1 Arslan al-Basasiri, a general in the service of the Abbasides, but an 
 adherent of the Egyptian Fatimides, drove al-Kaim-ba-amr illah, the then 
 Caliph of Bagdad, from the city, and compelled him to take refuge with 
 the phylarch of the Arabs (the Ameer-ul-Arab, a title analogous to the 
 Il-Khani of Persia), until restored by Tughril, the father of Alp Arslan and 
 the founder of the Seljukide dynasty. During the whole of this period the 
 Khutba was read in Bagdad itself in the name of the Fatimide Caliph. The 
 Khutba is the name given to the sermon pronounced on Fridays from the 
 pulpits of the great mosques in all Moslem countries ; it begins by a declara- 
 tion of God's attributes and unity, and an invocation of His blessings upon 
 the Prophet, his family, and successors; then follows a prayer for the 
 reigning Caliph and for the prince who exercises civil power in the State. 
 The right of being named in the Khutba and that of coining money are two 
 of the principal privileges possessed by the temporal sovereign, and the 
 special marks of his legitimacy. 
 
316 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 of both the Shiah Imams and the Sunni doctors ; the assassi- 
 nations of the best men committed at the instance of Hasan 
 Sabbah (" the Old Man of the Mountain ") ; the disintegrating 
 character of the heresies, which under the influence of the 
 ancient Chaldaeo-Magism had sprung up in various quarters, 
 and which were subversive of all order and morality, — added 
 greatly to the strength of a system which formed, in the opinion 
 of the masses, a bulwark against the enemies of Islam. The 
 Shiah Imams strongly condemned the impious or communistic 
 doctrines of the antitypes of Mani and Mazdak, but they lacked 
 the power, even if willing to use it, to suppress heresy or enforce 
 uniformity. Sunnism, associated with the temporal power of 
 the Abbaside Caliphs, possessed the means and used it, and 
 thereby won the sympathy and acceptance of all who cared 
 little about the disputes on the abstract question of apostolical 
 descent. 
 
 Until the rise of the House of Abbas there was little or no 
 difference between the assertors of the right of the Ahl-ul-bait 
 to the pontificate and the upholders of the right of the people 
 to elect their own spiritual and temporal chiefs. The people 
 of Hijaz and the Medinite Ansar especially, who were so ruth- 
 lessly destroyed by the Ommeyyades, whilst they insisted on 
 the principle of election, abhorred the injustice done to the 
 children of Fatima. After the murder of Husain, a cry of 
 horror had gone forth from the heart of Islam, and the people 
 of the holy cities had risen in arms against the tyrant, and 
 suffered bitterly for it. The adherents of the Ahl-ul-bait and 
 the followers of the first three Caliphs together underwent fearful 
 cruelties in the cause of the common Faith. But when it 
 became necessary for dynastic reasons to create a gulf between 
 the two parties the elements of divergence came ready to hand 
 on both sides. Their doctrinal and legal differences began from 
 this time to assume the type and proportions they retain at the 
 present moment 
 
 During the enlightened rule of Mamun and of his two im- 
 mediate successors, when humanitarian science and philosophy 
 influenced the conceptions of all classes of society, there was 
 a break in the development of the Sunni Church. With the 
 exception of this period the entire duration of the Abbaside 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 317 
 
 Caliphate 1 was occupied in the consolidation of its dogmas. 
 The Church and State were linked together ; the Caliph was 
 the Imam — temporal chief as well as spiritual head. The 
 doctors of law and religion were his servants. He presided at 
 the convocations, and guided their decisions. Hence the 
 solidarity of the Sunni church. Many of the sects 2 into which 
 it was originally split up have gradually disappeared, but it is 
 still divided into four principal denominations, differing from 
 each other on many questions of dogma and ritual. Their 
 differences may perhaps be likened to those existing between 
 the Roman Catholic and the Greek, Armenian, and Syrian 
 orthodox churches. 
 
 Shiahism, on the other hand, shows how the Church and the 
 State have become dissociated from each other, and how the 
 " Expounders of the Law " have assumed, at least among a 
 section, the authority and position of the clergy in Christendom. 
 The freedom of judgment, which in Protestantism has given 
 birth to one hundred and eighty sects, has produced an almost 
 parallel result in Shiahism, and the immense diversity of opinion 
 within the church itself is due to the absence of a controlling 
 temporal power, compelling uniformity at the point of the 
 sword. 
 
 The question of the Imamate, 3 or the spiritual headship of 
 
 1 From 750 A.c. to 1252 A.c. 
 
 2 According to Imam Ja'far Tusi (quoted in the Dabistdn), the Sunnis were 
 originally divided into sixty-five sects. 
 
 3 A very good definition of the word " Imam " is given by Dr. Percy Badger : 
 " The word ' Imam ' comes from an Arabic root signifying to aim at, to follow 
 after, — most of the derivatives of which partake, more or less, of that idea. 
 Thus Imam means, primarily, an exemplar, or one whose example ought to 
 be imitated. It is applied in that sense, K-ar' i^oxn", to Mohammed, as 
 being the leader and head of the Muslims in civil and religious matters, and 
 also to the Khalifahs, or legitimate Successors, as his representatives in both 
 capacities. It is also given — in its religious import only — to the heads of the 
 four orthodox sects, namely, the el-Hanafy, esh-Shafa'iy, el-Maliky, and 
 el-Hanbaly ; and, in a more restricted sense still, to the ordinary functionary 
 of a mosque who leads in the daily prayers of the congregation, — an office 
 usually conferred on individuals of reputed piety, who are removable by the 
 Ndzirs or wardens, and who, with their employment and salary, lose the title 
 also." 
 
 " The term is used in the Koran to indicate the Book, or Scriptures, or 
 record of a people ; also, to designate a teacher of religion. Hence, most 
 probably, its adoption by the Muslims in the latter sense. ' When the Lord 
 tried Abraham with certain words, which he fulfilled, He said, I have made 
 thee an Imam to the people.' Again, referring to Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob, ' We have made them Imams, that they may direct others at our 
 
318 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 the Musulman commonwealth, is henceforth the chief battle- 
 ground of the two sects. 1 The Shiahs hold that the spiritual 
 heritage bequeathed by Mohammed devolved on Ali and his 
 descendants. They naturally repudiate the authority of the 
 Jama' at (the people) to elect a spiritual head who should super- 
 sede the rightful claims of the Prophet's family. According to 
 the Shiahs, therefore, the Imamate descends by divine appoint- 
 ment in the apostolical line. The Imam, besides being a 
 descendant of the Prophet, must possess certain qualities, — he 
 must be Ma' sum or sinless, bear the purest and most unsullied 
 character, and must be distinguished above all other men for 
 truth and purity. It is not proper, nor could it be the intention 
 of the Almighty, they argue, that a man whose character is not 
 unimpeachable should have the direction of the human con- 
 science. Human choice is fallible, as is proved by the history 
 of mankind ; and the people have often accepted the worst 
 men for their leaders. God could never have left the religious 
 needs of man to his unaided faculty. If an Imam be needed, 
 he must be one whom the conscience must accept. Accordingly 
 they declare that if the choice of an Imam be left to the 
 community, it would be subversive of all morality ; and 
 
 command.' And again, ' We delivered to Moses the Book, therefore be not 
 in doubt of his reception thereof, and we ordained it to be a guide unto the 
 children of Israel. And we appointed some of them to be Imams, to direct 
 the people according to our command.' " — Badger's Imams and Seyyids oj 
 Oman, App. A. 
 
 1 " The question of the Imamate forms a subject of controversy," says Mas'udi, 
 " between the followers of different sects, particularly between those who 
 adhere to the doctrine of appointment, ij&\)\ Ij <•; JLtftJ) an d the followers 
 of the doctrine of election, .U^yi ^lar* 9 !. The defenders of the doctrine of 
 appointment are the Imamias, &xtx>S|| »Ja| who form a section of the 
 Adherents, Shiahs lxjJiJ[ of Ali ibn Abi Talib and his holy children (by 
 Fatima) 5 ^.\ ^q Wij&ihJj ■ They believe that God does not leave man- 
 kind at any time without a man who maintains the religion of God (and acts 
 as their Imam). Such men are either prophets or their legates. The doctrine 
 of election is defended by a section of the Khawarij <f J'j^i , the Murjias 
 **Aj+Jl t . by many of those who admit the traditions and the generally received 
 opinions {Ahl-us-Sunnat), by some of the Mu'tazalas, and by a section of the 
 Zaidias, &>i&>jJ\. They believe that it is the will of God and his Prophet 
 that the nation should choose a man amongst themselves, and make him their 
 Imam, for there are times when God does not send a legate. The Shiahs 
 consider such Imams as usurpers of the dignity." — Murilj-uz-zahab. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 319 
 
 consequently the spiritual guidance of mankind has been 
 entrusted to divinely-appointed persons. 1 
 
 According to the Sunnis, the Imamate is not restricted to 
 the family of Mohammed. The Imam need not be just, 
 virtuous, or irreproachable (Ma' sum) in his life, nor need he 
 be the most excellent or eminent being of his time ^UJi JLiit J 
 so long as he is free, adult, sane, and possessed of the capacity 
 to attend to the ordinary affairs of State, he is qualified for 
 election. Another doctrine in which they agree with the 
 Church of Rome was full of momentous consequences to Islam. 
 They hold that neither the vices nor the tyranny of the Imam 
 would justify his deposition ; 2 nor can the perversity or evil 
 conduct of the Imam or those who preside at the public divine 
 service invalidate the prayers of the Faithful. 3 They also hold 
 that the Imamate is indivisible, and that it is not lawful to 
 have two Imams at one and the same time. As Christianity 
 could yield obedience to but one Pope, so the Moslem world 
 could yield obedience to but one lawful Caliph. But as three 
 Popes have often pretended to the triple crown, so have three 
 
 1 " It is neither the beauty of the sovereign," says Ibn-Khaldun, " nor 
 his great learning, perspicacity, or any other personal accomplishment which 
 is useful to his subject. . . . The sovereign exists for the good of his people." 
 " The necessity of a ruler," continues this remarkable writer, whose keenness 
 of observation was equalled by his versatility, " arises from the fact that 
 human beings have to live together, and unless there is some one to maintain 
 order, society would break to pieces. A temporal sovereign only enforces 
 such orders as are promulgated by man, but the laws framed by a divinely- 
 inspired legislator have two objects in view — the moral as well as social 
 well-being of mankind. The Caliph is the Vicar and Lieutenant of the Prophet. 
 He is more than a temporal ruler, he is a spiritual chief as well. The Caliph 
 is thus designated the Imam, his position being similar to that of the leader 
 of the congregation at the public prayers." 
 
 " This establishment of an Imam," continues Ibn-Khaldun, " is a matter 
 of obligation. The law which declares its necessity is founded on the general 
 accord of the Companions of the Prophet. The Imam is the spiritual head, 
 whilst the Caliph or Sultan represents the temporal power." 
 
 2 In spite of this doctrine, promulgated at the order of tyrants anxious 
 to avoid the penalty of their oppression, the people have never approved 
 of it entirely. Under the Ommeyyade Walid, surnamed for his vices the 
 Fdsik (the Wicked), they rose in revolt and deposed him. Similarly, when 
 the iniquities of Mutawakkil (the Abbaside) became intolerable, he was 
 deposed by his own son, Muntasir the Good. The history of the Ottoman 
 Turks contains many examples of the people rising in revolt against a vicious 
 or incapable sovereign, the last being under the unhappy Abdul Aziz. 
 
 3 Against this doctrine there is now a widespread revolt in the Sunni Church ; 
 the Ghair-Mukallidin, whom we shall describe later, holding that if the Imam 
 is not chaste in his life, the prayers of the congregation are invalid. 
 
320 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Ameer ul-Muslimin laid claim to supreme rule. After the 
 downfall of the Ommeyyades in Asia a member of that 
 house succeeded in setting up an independent state in Spain, 
 whilst the family of Abbas exercised power on the banks 
 of the Tigris, and that of Fatima on the Nile. The fact 
 that at various times two or three sovereigns have assumed 
 simultaneously the Headship of Islam has given rise to an 
 opinion that the rule of indivisibility applies only to one and 
 the same country, or to two countries contiguous to each other ; 
 but when the countries are so far apart that the power of one 
 Imam cannot extend to the other, it is lawful to elect a second 
 Imam. The Imam is the patron and syndic of all Musulmans, 
 and the guardian of their interests during their lives as well as 
 after their death. He is vested with the power to nominate 
 his successors, subject to the approval of the Moslems. As the 
 office is for the temporal and spiritual benefit of the community, 
 the nomination is dependent on the choice of the people. 1 
 
 It might have been expected that persecution would keep 
 the Shiahs united among themselves ; but although all were 
 agreed on the question that the supreme pontificate of Islam 
 is confined to the line of the Prophet, many of them fell away 
 from the recognised heads of the family, and attached them- 
 selves from design or predilection to other members of the 
 House. Whilst the acknowledged Imams and their disciples 
 lived in holy retirement, the others found leisure amidst their 
 foreign hostilities for domestic quarrels. They preached, they 
 disputed, they suffered. 
 
 Shahristani divides the Shiahs into five sects, viz. the Zaidia, 
 the Isma'ilia, the Isnd-'asharia or Imamia, the Kaisdnia, and 
 the Ghdllia or Gkulldt. As a matter of fact, however, as we 
 shall show hereafter, some of these sects, and especially the 
 branches into which they bifurcated, had, excepting in a more 
 or less exaggerated attachment to Ali, nothing in common with 
 Shiahism proper. On the contrary, they derived their origin 
 from sources other than Islamic. 
 
 The Zaidias, says Shahristani, are the followers of Zaid, son 
 of Ali II. (Zain-ul-'Abidin), son of Husain. They affirm that 
 the Imamate descended from Ali to Hasan, then to Husain ; 
 1 Ibn-Khaldun ; see ante, part i. chapter x. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 321 
 
 from Husain it devolved upon Ali II. (Zain-ul-'Abidin) ; and 
 from him it passed to Zaid, and not, as is held by the Isnd- 
 'Asharias, and, in fact, by most Moslems, to Mohammed 
 al-Bakir. In their doctrines they closely approach the A hi 
 us-Sunnat. They hold that the people have the right of 
 choosing their spiritual head from among the descendants 
 of the Prophet, combining thus the principle of election with 
 the principle which restricts the Imamate to the family of 
 Mohammed. They also affirm that it is lawful to elect the 
 mafzul (the less eminent) whilst the afzal (the most eminent) is 
 present. As a consequence of this principle, they accept the 
 Imamate of the first three Caliphs, whose pontificate is generally 
 disclaimed by the other Shiahs. They hold that though Ali 
 was the most eminent of all the Companions of the Prophet, 
 and by right of descent as well as by his qualities entitled to 
 the Imamate, yet for reasons of policy, and to allay the dis- 
 orders which had broken out upon the death of the Prophet, 
 to settle the minds of the people and to compose the differences 
 among the tribes, a man of a maturer age was required to fill 
 the office. Besides, owing to the struggle in which Ali had 
 been engaged in defence of the Faith, the feeling of retaliation 
 was strong in the bosom of those who had fought against Islam, 
 and who had been only recently reduced to subjection ; and 
 these people would not willingly have bowed before the grandeur 
 of Ah. They hold that the same reason applies to the election 
 of Omar. 1 Their acceptance of the Imamate of the first two 
 Caliphs brought upon the Zaidias the name of Rawdfiz, or Dis- 
 senters, by the other Shiahs. Another doctrine held by them 
 is too important to escape notice. They maintain that in 
 addition to piety, truth, knowledge, and innocence or sinless- 
 ness, qualities required by the Shiahs proper for the pontifical 
 office, the Imam should possess bravery, and the capacity to 
 assert by force of arms his right to the Imamate. The Imam 
 Mohammed al-Bakir, who had succeeded his father Ali II., 
 maintained that the use of force was reprehensible. Zaid 
 differed from his brother in this opinion. He rose in arms 
 against the tyrants in the reign of Hisham ibn Abdul Malik 
 (the Ommeyyade), and was killed in the neighbourhood of 
 
 1 Shahristani, pt. i. p. 115. 
 s.i. x 
 
322 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Kufa. He was succeeded by Yahya, his son, who followed 
 the example of his father, and, against the advice of Imam 
 Ja'far as-Sadik, proceeded to assert his right by force of arms. 
 He collected a large following in Khorasan, but was defeated 
 and killed by one of the generals of Hisham. 
 
 On the death of Yahya, the Imamate, say the Zaidias, passed 
 to another member of the family, Mohammed ibn Abdullah, 
 surnamed an-Nafs-uz-Zakiya (" the Pure Soul "). Mohammed 
 assumed the title of Mahdi, and rose in arms in Hijaz against 
 the Abbaside Mansur. He was defeated and killed at Medina 
 by Tsa, Mansur's nephew. He was succeeded by his brother 
 Ibrahim, who lost his life similarly in a vain struggle against 
 the Abbasides. Isa, another brother, who also endeavoured 
 to assert his claims by force, was seized by Mansur, and im- 
 prisoned for life. After mentioning these facts, Shahristani 
 adds that " whatever befell them was prognosticated by Ja'far 
 as-Sadik, who said that temporal dominion was not for their 
 family, but that the Imamate was to be a toy in the hands of 
 the Abbasides." 
 
 According to a branch of the Zaidias, the Imamate passed 
 from Ibrahim to Idris, the founder of the Idriside dynasty in 
 Mauritania ( .^^Vf ^**>), and of the city of Fez. After the 
 fall of the Idrisides, the Zaidias became disorganised, but 
 members of this sect are still to be found in different parts of 
 Asia and Africa. A branch of the Zaidias ruled in Tabaristan 
 for a long time, and there is a Zaidia Imam still in Northern 
 Yemen. The Zaidias, according to Shahristani, were divided 
 into four subsections, viz. the Jdmdias, Sulaimdnias, Tabarias, 
 and Sdlehias. They differ from each other about the devolution 
 of the Imamate from Zaid's grandson. The Jdmdias, who up- 
 held the claims of Mohammed Nafs-uz-Zakiya in supersession 
 of Isa, suffered bitterly under Mansur. The Sulaimdnias were 
 named after their founder, Sulaiman ibn Jaris, who declared 
 that the Imamate depended upon the consensus of the people ; 
 ..." that the Imamate is not intended for regulating religion 
 or for the acquisition of a knowledge of the Deity, or His unity 
 or the laws which He has made for the government of the world, 
 for these are acquired through Reason. The Imamate is in- 
 tended for the government of the earth, inflicting punishments 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 323 
 
 on wrong-doers, dealing out justice, and defending the State. 
 It is not necessary for the Imam to be afrzl. ..." "A section 
 of the Ahl-us-Sunnat hold similar opinions, for they say that 
 it is not required for the Imam to be learned or a Mujtahid, 
 so long as he is wise and has some one with him capable of 
 expounding the law." x The Sulaimdnias and the Sdlehias 
 agree in accepting the Imamate of the first two Caliphs ; the 
 latter hold that Ali, having himself abandoned his preferential 
 claim in favour of Abu Bakr and Omar, the people have no 
 right to question their Imamate : but as regards Osman they 
 are in doubt, for they say " when we see how he travailed for 
 the support of the Bani Ommeyya, we find his character 
 different from the other Sahdba." 
 
 The Ismailias, also sometimes called Sabi'yun (Seveners), 2 
 derive their names from Isma'il, a son of Imam Ja'far as-Sadik, 
 who predeceased his father. They hold that upon the death 
 of Imam Ja'far as-Sadik, the Imamate devolved on Isma'il's 
 son, Mohammed (surnamed al-Maktum, 3 the hidden or un- 
 revealed), and not on Ja'far's son, Musa al-Kazim, as believed 
 by the Isnd-'Asharias and generally by the other Moslems. 
 Mohammed al-Maktum was succeeded, according to the 7s- 
 ma'ilias, by Ja'far al-Musaddak, whose son Mohammed al-Habib 
 was the last of the unrevealed Imams. 
 
 His son, Abu Mohammed Abdullah, was the founder of the 
 Fatimide dynasty which ruled Northern Africa for three cen- 
 turies. He had been thrown into prison by the Abbaside 
 Caliph, Mu'tazid-b'illah Saffah II., but, escaping from his 
 dungeon at Segelmessa, he appeared in Barbary, where he 
 assumed the title of Obaidullah and Mahdi {the promised Guide). 
 Followers gathered round him from all sides, and, assisted by 
 
 1 Shahristani, pt. i. pp. 119, 120. 
 
 2 Because they acknowledge only seven Imams — (1) Ali, (2) Hasan, (3) 
 Husain, (4) Ali II., (5) Mohammed al-Bakir, (6) Ja'far as-Sadik (the True), 
 and (7) Isma'il. 
 
 3 So called, says Makrizi, because his followers kept him " concealed " to 
 escape the persecution of the Abbasides. Isma'il was the eldest son of Imam 
 Ja'far as-Sadik, and a man of sweet disposition and engaging manners, and 
 according to Makrizi, had a considerable following in Yemen, in Ketama, 
 and the African provinces. During the lifetime of Isma'il's mother, says 
 Shahristani, the Imam Ja'far never had any other wife, " like the Prophet 
 with Khadija, and Ali with Fatima," 
 
324 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 a Sufi, he soon overthrew the Aghlabites, who were ruling the 
 African provinces in the name of the Caliphs of Bagdad, and 
 founded an empire which extended from Mauritania to the 
 confines of Egypt. One of his successors (Ma'dd Abu Temim), 
 al-Muizz-li-din-illdh (Exalter of the Faith of God), wrested Egypt 
 and a portion of Syria from the Abbasides. Muizz, to mark 
 his victory over the enemies of his House, founded Cairo 
 (Kdhira, the Victorious City), and removed his capital from 
 Mahdieh, near Kairwan, established by Obaidullah al-Mahdi, 
 to the new city. At this time his dominions included, besides 
 the whole of Northern Africa, the islands of Sardinia and 
 Sicily. He founded in Cairo the mosque of al-Azhar (fdmi'- 
 al-azhar, the Brilliant Mosque), a vast public library, and 
 several colleges, and endowed them richly. At these colleges, 
 students received instruction in grammar, literature, the inter- 
 pretation of the Koran, jurisprudence, medicine, mathematics, 
 and history. " The distinctive character of his reign," says the 
 historian, " was justice and moderation." x 
 
 Almost all the accounts we possess of the Egyptian Fatimides 
 have come down to us from hostile sources. Since Jouhar, the 
 general of Muizz, conquered Egypt and Syria from the Caliphs 
 of Bagdad, there was an incessant struggle between the two 
 Caliphates as to the legitimacy of their respective titles. The 
 hold which the claim of the Fatimides to be descended from 
 Mohammed enabled them to acquire over the people, gave rise 
 to an unceasing desire on the part of the Abbasides to anni- 
 hilate the genuineness of their rivals' genealogy, and to impress 
 on the world the anti-Islamic character of the doctrines adopted 
 by them. In the reign of Kadir-b'illah, a secret assemblage of 
 the doctors of the law was held at Bagdad at the instance of 
 
 1 Marcel. The orthodox Jamal ud-din bin Taghri-bardi (in his Many eel ul- 
 Latdfat, iJ\iaM\ 2>xy°) says, "though Muizz was a schismatic, he was wise, 
 learned, generous, and just to his subjects," 
 
 For a full account of the Fatimide dynasty, see Short History of the Saracens 
 (Macmillan). 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 325 
 
 the frightened Caliph, to fulminate against the Fatimides an 
 anathema declaring that they were not the genuine descendants 
 of Fatima. The Fatimides, on their side, replied by a counter- 
 anathema, signed by the leading doctors of Cairo, among them 
 many belonging to the Maliki and Shafe'i persuasions. In spite, 
 however, of the doubts thrown on their legitimacy by the 
 Abbaside doctors, great historians like Makrizi, Ibn Khaldun, 
 and Abulfeda have accepted the genuineness of the claims of 
 the Fatimides. 
 
 Makrizi is extremely outspoken on the subject, and plainly 
 charges the partisans of the Bani-Abbas with misrepresenta- 
 tion and forgery. Dealing with the Abbaside statement that 
 Obaidullah al-Mahdi was not a descendant of Mohammed, he 
 goes on to say, " a little examination of facts will show that this 
 is a fabrication. The descendants of Ali, the son of Abu Talib, 
 at that time were numerous, and the Shiahs regarded them with 
 great veneration. What was it then that could have induced 
 their partisans to forsake them, the descendants of Mohammed, 
 and to recognise in their stead as Imam an offspring of the Magi, 
 a man of Jewish origin ? No man, unless absolutely devoid of 
 commonsense, would act thus. The report that Obaidullah al- 
 Mahdi was by descent a Jew or a Magian owes its origin to the 
 artifices of the feeble Abbaside princes, who did not know how 
 to rid themselves of the Fatimides, for their power lasted with- 
 out interruption for 270 years, and they despoiled the 
 Abbasides of the countries of Africa, Egypt, Syria, the Diar- 
 bakr, the two sacred cities (Mecca and Medina), and of Yemen. 
 The Khutba was even read in their names at Bagdad during 
 forty weeks. The Abbaside armies could not make head 
 against them ; and, therefore, to inspire the people with 
 aversion against the Fatimides, they spread calumnies about 
 their origin. The Abbaside officers and Ameers who could not 
 contend successfully with the Fatimides gladly adopted these 
 slanders as a means of revenge. The Kazis, who attested the 
 act of convocation under Kadir b'illah, acted under the orders 
 of the Caliph, and only upon hearsay ; and since then historians 
 have heedlessly and without reflection given currency to a 
 calumny which was invented by the Abbasides." Nothing 
 can be more explicit than this statement by a critical historian 
 
326 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 and a distinguished jurisconsult whose reputation stands high 
 among all Orientals. 1 
 
 Probably the doctrines professed by the Egyptian Fatimides 
 were subjected to the same process of misrepresentation. Still 
 there can be little doubt that they adopted largely the esoteric 
 doctrines of Abdullah ibn Maimun, surnamed the Kadddh (the 
 Oculist), and made use of his degrees of initiation for the 
 purposes of a political propaganda. 
 
 The protracted struggle between pope and emperor for the 
 suzerainty of Christendom ; the Thirty Years' War, with its 
 concomitant miseries ; the persecution of the Huguenots, in 
 which dynastic ambitions played as important a part as religious 
 bigotry, — give us some conception of the evils that have flowed 
 from the greed of earthly power. In Islam it has been the 
 same. The Abbasides battling with the Ommeyyades, and 
 then with the Egyptian Fatimides, produced the same dis- 
 astrous results. 
 
 The eastern provinces of the ancient Persian empire were at 
 this time the home of a variety of congenial spirits. Here had 
 gathered not only the Mago-Zoroastrians, fleeing before the 
 Islamic wave, but also the representatives of various Indian 
 sects, with their ideas of metempsychosis, the incarnation of 
 Vishnu, the descent of Krishna from heaven, and his free and 
 easy intercourse with the gopis. The revolutionary opinions 
 and heresies which under the later Sasanides had shaken the 
 temple and palace alike, and which Kesra Anushirvan had 
 endeavoured to exterminate with fire and sword, had survived 
 all persecutions. At least they retained sufficient vitality to 
 reappear in Islam in various shapes and forms. 
 
 1 Makrizi died in 845 a.c. Jamal ud-din Abu'l Mahasin Yusuf bin Taghri- 
 bardi, in his ^ 4 la)l^^o JTjLc Ji $>*}}J\ fox? s P e aks of Makrizi 
 
 ... — **.;%*JI SJ* — «•* ,i«Jl ojswJl jWl -US I ijUSJI J ,1 
 
 ;jUil *XC ^) ^U ^J iU*l ^jJl ^SJ ^JJS^JI yjAp 
 
 " In this year died the learned sheikh and Imam, jurisconsult, and that 
 eminent historian and traditionist, Taki ud-din Ahmed, son of AH," etc. etc. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 327 
 
 The Rdwendis, an Indo-Magian sect who maintained the 
 doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and the Safidjdmagdn} 
 founded by Hakim bin Hashim, the infamous Mokanna, 2 
 revolted in Khorasan, and were suppressed by the Caliph Al- 
 Mahdi. Mokanna taught that God had assumed the human 
 form, since He had commanded the angels to adore the first 
 man ; and that, since that period, the divine nature had passed 
 from prophet to prophet until it had descended to himself. 3 
 
 About the same time Mazdakism, which two centuries and 
 a half before had involved the empire of the Chosroes in a 
 general conflagration, and was ruthlessly trampled under foot by 
 the great Anushirvan, raised its head again under the Caliphs. 
 The snake had only been half killed. Babek, surnamed 
 Khurrami (from Khurram, his place of birth), preached, like 
 his prototype Mazdak, the same nihilistic doctrines, — the com- 
 munity of women and goods, and the indifference of all human 
 actions. For a space of twenty years he filled the whole 
 circuit of the Caliphate with carnage and ruin, until at length, 
 in the reign of Mu'tasim b'illah, he was overthrown, taken 
 prisoner, and put to death in the Caliph's presence. It was a 
 repetition of the old story. Islam had to pass through the 
 same throes as Christianity. From the beginning of the second 
 to the end of the ninth century there was an unceasing struggle 
 in Christianity with the ancient cults, which were appearing in 
 diversified characters throughout the wide area in which the 
 religion of Jesus was professed. After this struggle was over, 
 a deadly pall settled over Christendom ; orthodoxy had suc- 
 ceeded in crushing not only the revolutionary Montanists, the 
 Manichaean Paulicians, but also the rationalistic Arians. 
 Ecclesiasticism and orthodoxy, convertible terms, held in 
 bondage the mind of man until the Reformation. Islam had 
 
 1 So called because they dressed themselves in white, like the Taborides of 
 Europe. 
 
 2 This is the impostor whom Moore has made famous as " the Veiled Prophet 
 of Khorasan." He was called Mokanna because, either to conceal his ugliness, 
 or to impress his followers with a sense of inaccessibility, he always wore a veil. 
 He was also called the Sdzendeh-i-Mah (Moon- maker), because on one occasion 
 he had, by a piece of jugglery, caused an illumination, like that of the moon, 
 at Nakhsheb. 
 
 3 Ibn Khaldun's General History, Kitdb nl-'Ibar. &-c. (Egypt, ed.), vol. iii. 
 p. 206. 
 
328 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 to pass through the same ordeal, but its Reformation is only 
 just commencing. 
 
 Islam required from its votaries a simple confession of an 
 eternal truth, and the practice of a few moral duties. In other 
 respects it allowed them the widest latitude of judgment. In 
 the name of divine unity it held forth to all creeds and sects the 
 promise of a democratic equality. Naturally the persecuted 
 heretics of every faith rallied round the standard of the Prophet 
 who had emancipated human judgment from the bondage of 
 priesthood ; and " Avestan scripturalists " and Zoroastrian 
 free-thinkers, Manichaeans, Christians, Jews, and Magi all 
 hailed the advent of a new dispensation which realised the 
 dream of religious unity. The swarms of gnostic sects which 
 had distracted the Church of Jesus from the second to the sixth 
 century had either merged in the Church of Mohammed, or 
 lived in peace, unmolested by the orthodox Greeks or Catholics, 
 under the large tolerance of the Caliphs. The former, whilst 
 they adopted the faith of Mohammed, retained their primitive 
 conceptions, and gave birth to the docetic sects of Islam, which 
 we shall describe later on. 
 
 The national characteristics of a people, the climatic condi- 
 tions under which they exist, the natural features of the country 
 in which they dwell, the influence of older cults, all give a colour 
 and a complexion to their faiths and doctrines. It is the same 
 in Christendom and in Islam. Iran gave birth to agnosticism ; 
 from there emanated the docetic conceptions which permeated 
 the Roman world and impressed upon the primitive belief of 
 the judaical Christians the conception of a divinity who dis- 
 coursed familiarly with mankind on earth. Manichseism, that 
 wonderful mixture of fancy and philosophy, to which Chris- 
 tianity owes so much and acknowledges so little, was, in spite 
 of the persecution of Zoroastrian and Christian, alive, not dead. 
 Will it ever die, that child of a bizarre genius, the outcome of 
 a nation's character ? Theologians may try, but will never 
 kill it. The morbidism of the Fathers of the Sunni Church gave 
 place in Iran to imaginative philosophy. Ali's personality 
 fired the imagination of Manichaeism. It took the place of the 
 docetic Christ among the people. The process of deification 
 was not confined to Ali. His successors were deified with him. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 329 
 
 Shiaism, like Sunni'sm, presents therefore two aspects. One 
 is the pure, simple Shiaism of Mohammed's immediate descen- 
 dants, which we shall describe shortly. The other is docetic 
 Shiaism, fantastic and transmogrified according to the 
 primitive beliefs of the people among whom it spread. Ultra- 
 Shiaism is again as different from docetic Shiaism as ultra- 
 Sunni'sm or Nawasibism is from docetic Sunni'sm. Narrow- 
 minded exclusiveness is not the peculiar characteristic of any 
 one faith or creed ; nor are the thunders of the Athanasian 
 Creed confined to Christianity. In Islam also (be it said with 
 certain exceptions) each sect condemns the others to perdition, 
 not eternal (as the orthodox Christian charitably hopes it will 
 be), but sufficiently prolonged to make them feel the evils of 
 a different 'doxy from its own. Still, notwithstanding the 
 anathemas of hell-fire and brimstone which have been hurled 
 by contending parties and sects against each other, the philo- 
 sophical student will not fail to observe the universality of Islam. 
 About the middle of the seventh century Constantine 
 Sylvanus founded the Manichaean sect of Paulicians, who 
 derived their name from St. Paul, whose disciples they professed 
 themselves to be. The Paulicians disclaimed the designation 
 of Manichaean ; but their doctrines bear the closest analogy to 
 those taught by Mani, and all the Christian writers, with the 
 exception of Milner, ascribe their origin to Manichaeism. The 
 Paulicians were the real progenitors of the Reformed Churches 
 of Europe. Their abhorrence of images and relics was pro- 
 bably a reflex of Islamic influences. In their aversion towards 
 Mariolatry and saint-worship, and in the repudiation of all 
 visible objects of adoration, they closely approached the 
 Moslems. They believed, however, with Mani, that Christ was 
 a pure spirit which bore on earth only the semblance of a body, 
 and that the crucifixion was a mere delusion. They maintained 
 the eternity of matter ; the origin of a second principle, of an 
 active being, who has created this visible world, and exercises 
 his temporal reign till the final consummation of sin and death. 
 In the interpretation of the Christian Gospels they indulge in 
 allegories and figures, and claimed, like Mani, an esoteric insight 
 into the meaning of words. An outward and expedient profes- 
 sion of another faith, a doctrine which in modern Persia has 
 
330 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 become famous as ketmdn or takiyye, 1 was held to be commend- 
 able. 
 
 The Paulicians were persecuted by the Greek Church and the 
 Byzantine Court with terrible fury, and for nearly two hundred 
 years they waged a not unequal contest in North Armenia and 
 Cappadocia with the fanatics and despots of Byzantium, in 
 which both sides perpetrated the most fearful atrocities. 2 At 
 last they succumbed to superior force ; but though their 
 fortresses were razed and their cities ruined, the sect lived. It 
 passed its doctrines to the Bulgarians, who have always 
 been regarded with disfavour by the Orthodox Churches. 
 The Paulicians after their destruction in Asia appeared 
 in South Provence and Savoy in the thirteenth century. 
 Their fate in those countries is known to every reader 
 of European history. They were annihilated with fire and 
 sword, — not even women and children were spared ; such 
 of the latter as escaped were reduced to slavery. But Pauli- 
 cianism did not die ; it showed itself in England, where its 
 followers, under the name of Lollards, suffered like their 
 predecessors in Asia, in Savoy, and in Provence ; it reappeared 
 in Bohemia under Huss ; and finally it triumphed under Luther 
 and Calvin over its orthodox persecutors. We have traced so 
 far the fate of this peculiar sect, as in its original home it 
 exercised no inconsiderable influence over the religio-political 
 movements which were proceeding about the same time in 
 Islam. 
 
 During the tempestuous epoch, when Chyroseir the Paulician 
 was devastating the eastern portion of the Byzantine dominions, 
 and had filled the cities of Asia Minor with carnage and ruin, 
 there lived at Ahwaz, in Fars, a man who equalled Mini in the 
 versatility of his genius, the variety of his information, and the 
 profundity of his knowledge, and who was destined to play an 
 almost equal part in the history of religion. Abdullah ibn 
 Maimun al-Kaddah has been represented by his enemies as a 
 Magian by birth : whilst his disciples have declared him 
 
 1 See post, p. 335. 
 
 2 A hundred thousand Paulicians are said to have been destroyed under the 
 orders of the second Theodora, the mother of Manuel, by the sword, the gibbet, 
 or the flames. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 331 
 
 to be a descendant of AH. 1 However that may be, it 
 is clear that he was a devoted adherent of the House of 
 Mohammed. Considering the disastrous consequences which 
 directly or indirectly have flowed from his teachings, it was 
 impossible for even historians like Ibn Khaldun 2 to avoid 
 viewing the man and his doctrines with an unfavourable bias. 
 They think Abdullah ibn Maimun was animated by a desire to 
 subvert the dominion of Islam by the same insidious means 
 which were adopted by his great prototype against Christianity. 
 Aware of the risk attendant upon an open war against con- 
 stituted authority so long as the conscience of the people and 
 temporal power were at its back, he determined (they say) to 
 work in secret like Mani. He accordingly enveloped his system 
 in a veil of mystery, and, in order to annihilate all positive 
 religion and authority, he resolved to divide his followers into 
 seven degrees, like the Pythagoreans. The last degree incul- 
 cated the vanity of all religion, — the indifference of actions, 
 which, according to him, are neither visited with recompense 
 nor chastisement, either now or hereafter. He appointed 
 emissaries whom he despatched to enlist disciples, and to 
 initiate them according to their capacity in some or all of the 
 degrees. The pretensions of the son of Isma'il served them as 
 a political mask ; whilst working ostensibly for him, they were 
 secretly, but in reality, the apostles of impiety. 3 
 
 Shahristani's account, 4 however, of the tenets of the sect is 
 in a more philosophical spirit ; whilst Mohsin Fani's description 
 in the Dabistdn, derived from members of the fraternity, is 
 coloured with a slightly roseate hue. But, studied carefully, 
 they render it more than probable that Abdullah ibn Maimun 
 was a materialistic theist ; that like Mani, he was fired with 
 the ambition of creating an eclectic naturalism, which would 
 reconcile philosophy with positive religion ; and that his 
 degrees of initiation were analogous to the mystical degrees of 
 the Sufis. It is evident from what Mirkhond states that the 
 
 1 Abdullah ibn Maimun is stated to have been at one time in the service of 
 Imam Ja'far as Sadik. 
 
 * Pronounced in Arabic Ibn (u) Khaldun ; in Persian, Ibn (i) Khaldun. 
 
 8 Nuwairi, Journal Asialique, vol. iv. p. 298. 
 
 4 Shahristani, part i. p. 147. 
 
332 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM It. 
 
 Egyptian Fatimides adopted most of their mystical doctrines 
 from Abdullah ibn Mairrmn. 1 
 
 Abdullah proceeded from Ahwaz to Basra, and thence to 
 Syria, where he settled at Salemiye. In the course of his 
 travels he came in contact with the Paulicians, and imbibed 
 many of their doctrines. The long-continued struggle of the 
 Paulicians with the Byzantines, and the success of their pro- 
 selytising endeavours, undoubtedly influenced him in his 
 project of religion. He moulded his doctrines partly upon 
 those actually taught by Mani and partly upon those of the 
 Moslem mystics. Manichseism itself was essentially pan- 
 theistic, founded upon a substratum of Pythagorean philo- 
 sophy, Zervanism, and Christianity. Abdullah's followers have 
 received the designation of Bdtinis or Esotericians, on account 
 of their claim to an esoteric insight into the precepts of positive 
 religion — a claim similar to that advanced by the Manichaeans 
 and Paulicians. 
 
 Abdullah ibn Maimun seems to have affirmed the eternity of 
 matter. He declared further " that God is not separate from 
 His manifestations ; that it cannot be predicated of him inde- 
 pendently that He is existent or non-existent, omniscient or 
 non-omniscient, for to affirm regarding Him any of these things 
 is to assume that there is some resemblance between Him and 
 His creatures ; that the First Cause evolved by a simple 
 command (amr-i-wdhid) , or a mere act of volition, a Principle 
 which was embosomed in Eternity, and is called Akl or Reason, 
 and this Principle evolved a subordinate Principle called the 
 Nafs or soul, whose relation to the other is that of a child to the 
 parent ; that the essential attribute of this Principle is Life, 
 as that of Reason is Knowledge ; that this second Principle gave 
 shape to pre-existent Matter, the essential attribute of which 
 is passivity, and afterwards created Time and Space, the 
 elements, the planets, and the astral bodies, and all other 
 objects in creation ; that in consequence of an incessant desire 
 on the part of the Second Principle {the Demiurgus) to raise 
 
 1 The Egyptian Fatimides differed from the general body of the Isma'ilias 
 in one essential feature. Whilst the latter held that Isma'il, their last Imam, 
 had only disappeared, and would reappear in the fulness of time when " the 
 kingdom of heaven" would be revealed, the Egyptians taught that he had 
 reappeared in the person of Obaidullah al-Mahdi and his successors. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 333 
 
 itself to the level of the First Created Principle, it manifested 
 itself in matter in the shape of human beings ; that the aim of 
 all human souls is to struggle upwards to the Creative Principle 
 or Wisdom ; that the Prophets are embodiments or manifesta- 
 tions of that Principle to help the human soul to struggle with 
 matter ; the Prophets are therefore called Ndtik, <££l>, ' speak- 
 ing apostles ' ; that they are seven in number like the planets ; 
 that the progress of the world is in cycles, and at the last stage 
 will occur the Resurrection {&#$ c**tj ) , when the sanctions 
 of positive religion and law will be withdrawn, for the motion 
 of the heavens and the adoption of the precepts of religion are 
 for the purpose that the Soul may attain Perfection, and its 
 perfection consists in attaining to the degrees of Reason and 
 its junction or assimilation with it in fact ; and this is the great 
 Resurrection ( &jxS o^cUi ), when all things, the heavens, the 
 elements, and organic substances, will be dissolved ; and the 
 earth will be changed, and the heavens will be closed like a 
 written book, and the good will be differentiated from the bad, 
 and the obedient from the disobedient, and the good will be 
 merged in the Universal Soul, and the bad will join with the 
 Principle of Evil ; thus from the commencement of motion to 
 its cessation (according to Abdullah ibn Maimun) is the initial 
 stage ( \o**> ), an d from the cessation of motion or activity to 
 amalgamation with infinity is the stage of perfection ; * that 
 
 1 jjLLJl ; Ja*JI ; ^fliJI ^X.siL u-Tu^l c^su US 
 ^.xiJI ^S i} x\h gilyUlj c/etii,£))| . ^yiJUl \j^.i ,s\j ujOj* 
 ^llj ^U i__**~ i v ~ ^jl* lyi-' ^j J* ^ji ^j*,l) } 
 c_a. JKiJI £fty ; JUUftJI ^Uj J^^J ; j — ^>*VI J : d\ i 
 
 Ji\ t^L I4JLS i («fU JU ^J\ ^-kxl] jl*£j i KCj M\ 
 
 oU^llj j^*3\ , WW\ s-^y &*& u*^ 1 *"'± 5/ l 
 
 ^jii j—xb c^i jj^j ; v^ — $^ — <ji yiu; ; ,u-ji ^ 9 
 
334 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 all the precepts of religion and law have their measures "... 
 " and that each letter and word have two meanings, for every 
 revelation (tanzii) has an interpretation (tdvil), and everything 
 visible has its counterpart in the invisible world ; that know- 
 ledge of truth cannot be acquired by reason but by instruction." 
 Abdullah ibn Maimun's disciples developed his doctrines still 
 further by declaring that Resurrection means the Advent or 
 Revelation of the Imam and of a Heavenly Kingdom in which 
 all the burdens of positive religion and traditions would be 
 removed ; that deception in religion is allowable ; that all the 
 precepts of the Koran have an esoteric sense ; that religion does 
 not consist in external observances, but in an inner sense and 
 feeling ; that every thing or act which is not injurious is lawful ; 
 that fasting is nothing but keeping the secret of the Imam ; 
 that the prohibition against fornication implies that the 
 disciple must not disclose the mysteries of the faith ; and that 
 zakdt means the giving of the tithes to the Imam ma'siim — a 
 peculiar and fantastical medley of many cults and philosophies, 
 and in its tendency subversive of law and morality. 
 
 Abdullah ibn Maimun settled in Syria, the home of Christian 
 Gnosticism, where he still further developed his doctrines. 
 Here he converted Hamadan, also called Karmath, whose name 
 has become infamous in the annals of Islam. 
 
 The method of proselytising adopted by the followers of 
 Abdullah ibn Maimun was the old Manichsean one of throwing 
 the acolyte into a sea of doubt with insidious questions and 
 equivocal replies, " not," says Mohsin Fani's informant, " with 
 any evil object, but simply to bring the seeker after truth and 
 wisdom to the goal of perfection." * The process varied with 
 the religious standpoint of the person whom they desired to 
 
 u-^u-lsn-j 2 A£» {yij+ft «-»ULCJ Jsv-JI .y«« ot^L«J) .rylaJ •« 
 
 ^IkJSjg JW tf] wlj^ ; Jx'l j-uJU j sxjl. isASte 
 
 etc; JkxJ 
 
 — Shahristani, pt. i. pp. 148, 149. 
 1 Dabistan, p. 356. 
 
in. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 335 
 
 onvert. The Dd'i x (the missionary) would at first give a tacit 
 ecognition of the faith of the intended proselyte, and then by 
 .n insinuation of doubt and difficulties, gradually unsettle his 
 nind, and end by suggesting as the only possible solution the 
 >eculiar tenets of the Bdtini system. For example, if the Dd'i 
 lad to proselytise a Shiah, he would represent himself as a 
 le voted partisan of the House of Mohammed. He would 
 :xpatiate on the cruelty and injustice with which they were 
 reated — on the martyrdom of Husain and the butchery of 
 ierbela ; having thus prepared the way, he would instil into 
 he now receptive mind the esoteric doctrines of the Bdtinis. 
 i he had a Jew to deal with, he spoke disparagingly of the 
 Christians and the Musulmans, and while agreeing with his 
 ntended convert in still looking forward to a promised Messiah, 
 >y degrees persuaded the neophyte that this promised Messiah 
 :an be none other than the Isma'ilite Imam. If it was a Christian 
 vhom he hoped to win over, he enlarged on the obstinacy of the 
 |ews and the ignorance of the Musulmans, he conformed to all 
 :he chief articles of the Christian creed, at the same time hinting 
 :hat they were all symbolic, and pointed to a deeper meaning 
 vhich the Bdtini system alone could solve. And after the 
 nind of the neophyte had been so far moulded he would suggest 
 :hat the Christians had misinterpreted the doctrine of the 
 Paraclete, and that the Isma'ilia Imam was the real Paraclete. 2 
 \bdullah ibn Maimun also formulated in precise terms the 
 loctrine of takeyye — outward conformity with an alien 
 •eligious belief or practice. It had been in vogue among all 
 :he Manichaean sects — not excepting the Paulicians. It was 
 re-introduced by Abdullah ibn Maimun, partly to escape per- 
 secution, partly to facilitate the work of proselytism. Takeyye 
 s the natural defence of the weak and suffering against the 
 strong. All people have not the fibre of a martyr ; and the 
 majority of them have to submit where they cannot oppose, 
 rhe primitive Christians had to practise takeyye. The Isma'ilias 
 tiad special reasons for concealing their religious views in all 
 :ountries within the sway of the Abbaside Caliphs ; and this 
 long-enforced habit became at last a second nature with them. 
 From them the Shiahs proper borrowed the practice of takeyye. 
 1 v,y*l>i one wno invites. » Mani, in fact, claimed to be the Paraclete. 
 
336 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 Before Persia and Turkey had entered upon terms of amity, a 
 Shiah was unable to perform the Hajj unless he conformed to 
 the Sunni rites, and takeyye in such cases was almost a necessity 
 with the devout Shiah wishing to visit the holy shrines. But 
 takeyye, "the natural offspring of persecution and fear," has 
 become so habitual with the Persians that they conform to it 
 even in circumstances when there is no necessity. They 
 practise it to avoid giving offence or wounding susceptibilities, 
 just as the modern Protestant shows a certain deference to 
 Romish rites in Catholic countries. 
 
 Hamadan, otherwise called Karmath, had broken away from 
 his master and formed a sect of his own. Abdullah ibn Maimun 
 had disavowed the use of force in his proselytism ; Karmath 
 advocated it as the corner-stone of his sect. Possibly, like 
 Chyroseir, he was driven to it by the persecution of the ortho- 
 dox. He raised an insurrection in al-Ahsa and al-Bahrain. 
 The weakness of the Caliph's troops gave him the victory. 
 Collecting a large following he issued from al-Bahrain, and, 
 like the Paulician Chyroseir, marked his progress by slaughter 
 and ruin. The Karmathites, from their fastnesses in al-Bahrain 
 and al-Ahsa, waged for nearly a hundred years a sanguinary 
 contest with the Pontiffs of Bagdad. They pillaged even 
 Mecca, and carried away the sacred stone, the symbol of 
 Abrahamitic antiquity, like the Wahabis 900 years later. In 
 this sacrilege they imitated the example of their congeners, the 
 Paulicians, who had pillaged Ephesus, destroyed the sepulchre 
 of St. John, and turned his cathedral into a stable for mules 
 and horses. They were destroyed ultimately by the Caliph 
 Mu'tazid b'illah. 
 
 After the destruction of the Karmathites, Isma'ilism was 
 proscribed ; its votaries were placed under the ban, and hunted 
 like vermin. Isma'ilism had to hide itself on all sides until 
 Obaidullah al-Mahdi wrested Africa from the Abbasides. 
 
 The Fatimides of Egypt were grand supporters of learning 
 and science. Yet in their desire to promote the diffusion of 
 knowledge among their subjects, they did not ignore the 
 political advantages of the propaganda established by Abdullah 
 ibn Maimun, whose esoteric and Manichaean doctrines they 
 partially adopted for their own purposes, They established 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 337 
 
 colleges, public libraries, and scientific institutes {Day ul- 
 hikmat), richly furnished with books, mathematical instruments, 
 to which were attached numerous professors and attendants. 
 Access to, and the use of, these literary treasures were free to 
 all, and writing materials were afforded gratis. 1 The Caliphs 
 frequently held learned disputations, at which the professors at 
 these academies appeared, divided according to the different 
 faculties, — logicians, mathematicians, jurists, and physicians, 
 dressed in their Khala', or doctoral mantles. The gowns of the 
 English universities still retain the original form of the Arabic 
 Khala' or Kaftan. 
 
 Two hundred and fifty-seven thousand ducats, raised by a 
 carefully regulated taxation, was the amount of the annual 
 revenue of the institutes, for the salaries of the professors and 
 officials, for the provision of the requisites for teaching, and 
 other objects of public scientific instruction. In these institutes 
 they taught every branch of human knowledge. To the central 
 Ddr ul-hikmat was attached a grand Lodge, where the candi- 
 dates for initiation into the esoteric doctrines of Isma'ilism were 
 instructed in the articles of the faith. Twice a week, every 
 Monday and Wednesday, the Dd'i ud-du'dt, the Grand Prior 
 of the Lodge, convened meetings, which were frequented by 
 both men and women, dressed in white, occupying separate 
 seats. These assemblages were named Majdlis ul-hikmat, or 
 Conferences of Wisdom. Before the initiation the Dd'i ud- 
 du'dt waited on the Caliph, who was the Grand Master, and 
 read to him the discourse he proposed to deliver to the neo- 
 phytes, and received his sign-manual on the cover of the 
 manuscript. 2 After the lecture the pupils kissed the hands of 
 the Grand Prior, and touched the signature of the Master 
 reverently with their foreheads. Makrizi's account of the 
 different degrees of initiation adopted in this Lodge forms an 
 invaluable record of freemasonry. In fact, the Lodge at Cairo 
 became the model of all the Lodges created afterwards in 
 Christendom. Abdullah ibn Maimun had established seven 
 degrees of initiation. Seven was the sacred number : there 
 were seven planets, seven days in the week, and seven Imams. 
 At Cairo, where Egyptian hierophantism with the old mystic 
 
 1 Makrizi; Chrestomathie Arabe (De Sacy), vol. i. p. 158. 2 Makkari. 
 
338 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 ceremonies became superimposed on the Manichaean founda- 
 tion, the number was increased to nine. 1 The first degree was 
 the most difficult of all, and required the longest time to mould 
 the mind of the neophyte, and incline him to take that most 
 solemn oath by which he bound himself to the secret doctrine 
 with blind faith and unconditional obedience. After this the 
 process was simple enough : the acolyte was led gradually to 
 recognise all the doctrines, and to become the instrument of 
 insatiable ambition. 
 
 The Grand Lodges of Mahdieh and afterwards of Cairo 
 became thus the centres of a vast and far-reaching political 
 propaganda. But the knowledge of the doctrines upon which 
 they worked was confined to a few. Like the mysteries of 
 
 1 A very good description of the different stages of initiation is given by 
 De Sacy in the Journal Asiatique, vol. iv. p. 298. In order to induce the 
 neophyte to take the oath of the first degree, his mind was perplexed by the 
 Da'i with doubts. The contradictions of positive religion and reason were 
 dwelt upon, but it was pointed out that behind the apparent literal significa- 
 tion there lay a deeper meaning, which was the kernel, as the words were 
 mere husks. The curiosity of the novice was, however, not satisfied until he 
 had taken an unrestricted oath ; on this he was admitted to the second degree. 
 This inculcated the recognition of divinely-appointed Imams, who were the 
 source of all knowledge. As soon as the faith in them was well established, 
 the third degree taught their number, which could not exceed the holy seven ; 
 for, as God had created seven heavens, seven earths, seven seas, seven planets, 
 seven colours, seven musical sounds, and seven metals, so had He appointed 
 seven of the most excellent of His creatures as revealed Imams : these were 
 Ali, Hasan, Husain, Ali II. (Zain ul-'Abidin), Mohammed al-Bakir, Ja'far 
 as-Sadik, and Isma'il his son, as the last and seventh. In the fourth degree 
 they taught that since the beginning of the world there have been seven 
 speaking apostles ( ijkL ), embodiments of the Logos, each of whom had 
 always, by the command of Heaven, altered the doctrine of his predecessor ; 
 each of these had seven coadjutors, who succeeded each other in the epoch 
 from one Natik to another, but who, as they did not manifest themselves, 
 were called Sdmit ( o.*Lo ) or Silent. The seven Ndtiks were Adam, Noah, 
 Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Isma'il (the son of Ja'far as-Sadik) 
 or Imdm-i-zamdn (Lord or Imam of all times). Their seven colleagues were 
 Seth, Shem, Ishmael son of Abraham, Aaron, Simeon, Ali, and Mohammed 
 son of Isma'il. The object of having a Sdmit attached to a Ndtik was to allow 
 a free hand to the teachers and emissaries to put forward any one they liked 
 as the Sdmit apostle of the time. The fifth degree inculcated that each of 
 the seven Sdmits had twelve Nakibs or delegates for the extension of the true 
 faith, for the number twelve is the most excellent after seven ; hence the 
 twelve signs of the Zodiac, the twelve months, the twelve tribes of Israel, etc. 
 In the sixth degree, the principles of Manichaean philosophy were instilled 
 into the heart. of the neophyte, and only when he was fully impressed with the 
 wisdom of those doctrines was he admitted to the seventh, where he passed 
 from philosophy to mysticism. He then became one of the knowers ('drifin). 
 In the eighth he shook off the trammels of positive religion : The " veil " was 
 lifted, and henceforth " everything was pure to the pure." The tendency of 
 these doctrines can be better imagined than described. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 339 
 
 Eleusis, or the secret principles of the Templars, the Illnminati, 
 and the Revolutionists of France, they were imparted only to 
 the adepts — in whole or in part ; wholly to those alone who 
 were intended to be used for the purpose of undermining the 
 power of their enemies. For the masses and the uninitiated, 
 the State-religion was Islam, and its moral precepts and 
 religious observances were enforced in all its austerity. Most 
 of the Caliphs, especially al-Muizz, were in their lives and 
 practice strict religionists and observers of the duties enjoined 
 by the moral law. 1 The doctors of law and the officers of State 
 were pious Moslems. Nevertheless the fact of the existence of 
 a secret body working on mysterious lines loosened the bonds 
 of society. The organisation of secret emissaries weakened the 
 control of the Abbasides without permanently strengthening 
 the hold of the Fatimides or extending their temporal power. 
 
 The Fatimides of Egypt have been called the Western 
 Isma'ilias, in contradistinction to the followers of Hasan ibn 
 Mohammed Sabbah Himyari, commonly known as Hasan 
 Sabbah, infamous in the history of the West as the founder of 
 the order of the Assassins, 2 but known to his followers as 
 " Syedna," " our lord." His disciples are sometimes designated 
 
 1 Mohsin Fani says : — 
 
 jjjjj e ,£ jfeUs }**Ij A±b-<* **A t— >,*.* £*!&«*«» I £*jl 
 
 Hakim bi-amr-illah, the sixth Fatimide Caliph of Cairo, who is regarded 
 even at the present day by the Druses (a branch of the Isma'ilias) as an 
 incarnation of the Divinity, has been represented as " a monster of iniquity." 
 His was a strangely contradictory character ; and, as Makrizi rightly thinks, 
 his mind was probably affected. He was at times atrociously cruel ; at other 
 times, a wise and humane sovereign. He abolished all distinction of race 
 and creed in his dominions ; he introduced the system of lighting up the streets 
 of Cairo for the protection of wayfarers ; he organised a system of police ; he 
 repressed violence. For an account of Hakim bi-amr-illah, see Short History 
 of the Saracens, p. 602. It may be noticed, as a remarkable coincidence, that 
 Ivan the Terrible, who has been termed just such another monster, was 
 regarded by the average Russian of his day as a monarch of singular force of 
 character and ability. The fact is that the cruelties practised by Galeazzo 
 Maria Sforza, by the Norman chief of Sicily who was in the habit of dis- 
 embowelling his victims, by the Popes Paul and Alexander VI., by the Kings 
 of England, Richard and John, and others, show only too clearly how little 
 difference creed or country is apt to make in the misdeeds of irresponsible 
 power joined to an innately cruel nature. 
 
 2 Sylvestre de Sacy derives the name from the word hashish (the Indian 
 bhang) with which Hasan Sabbah's followers drugged themselves, and 
 this derivation is now generally accepted. See Professor Browne's Literary 
 Hist, of Persia, vol. ii. pp. 204-5. Mohsin Fani describes this man's life and 
 
340 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 as the Eastern Isma'ilias or Alamutias, or the Maldhida of 
 Kuhistan (" the impious atheists " of Kuhistan). 
 
 Hasan was the son of a learned Shiah doctor, an Arab by 
 descent, as his name betokens, residing in the city of Khoi in 
 Persia. He had been carefully trained in all the learning of his 
 time. It is said that at one time he was a fellow-student 
 of Nizam ul-Mulk (afterwards the renowned minister of Alp 
 Arslan and of Malik Shah, the two great Seljukian sove- 
 reigns of the East) and of the famous mystical poet Omar 
 Khayyam. But the story appears now to be discredited. 1 
 Baulked in his ambition at the court of Malik Shah, he 
 proceeded to the pontifical court at Cairo, and was there 
 initiated into the mysteries of the Cairene Lodge. Persia at 
 that time was in the most rigid bonds of Sunni orthodoxy, 
 the Seljukian Sultans having always been among the most 
 devoted upholders of the straitest traditions of Asha'rism. 
 Hasan returned from Egypt to Asia, and partly by force and 
 partly by fraud possessed himself of an almost impregnable 
 fortress called in the archaic Persian or Pahlavi Alamut, or 
 the Eagles' Nest, 2 seated on one of the most inaccessible 
 mountain-fastnesses of Upper Persia ; 3 and during the thirty- 
 five years that he held the dominion of that place, he organised 
 from there a system of terror throughout Asia and Africa 4 and 
 Eastern Europe, fighting the sword with the dagger, and aveng- 
 ing persecution with assassination. He himself was a strict 
 observer of all the precepts of religion, and would not allow 
 drunkenness or dancing or music within the circuit of his rule. 
 His esotericism appears to have been different from that of the 
 
 doctrines according to the Isma'ilias themselves, " as hitherto his life had been 
 written with the pen of prejudice." 
 
 1 Professor E. G. Browne's Lit. Hist, of Persia, vol. ii. pp. 190-193. 
 
 2 Wassaf, vi~j!ic AjL£| ^f ^^ju o^J, Aa JJ 
 
 3 Near Kazwin. 
 
 4 Wassaf says : — 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 341 
 
 Western Isma'ilias, and is explained in detail by Shahristani 
 and Moshin Fani, both of whom speak of him with some awe, 
 which induces the conviction that they were not quite un- 
 apprehensive of the dagger of his fid dis. 1 Leaving the mystical 
 portion of his doctrines aside, it may be said that he admitted 
 only four degrees of initiation. Those who had obtained the 
 first three degrees were named respectively Fidai, Rafik, and 
 Dd'i, — fellows, companions, and knights, — to use the terms of 
 a system to which Hasan's institution bears the closest resem- 
 blance, viz. that of the Templars. Hasan was the first Grand 
 Master of this institution, though he always paid a formal 
 homage to the Egyptian Caliphs. The fourth Grand Master, 
 Hasan bin Mohammed, of the Alamutia Lodge, who, in order 
 to further his ends, did not hesitate to claim descent from the 
 Caliph Mustansir billah of Cairo through his son Nizar, abolished 
 all the ordinances of religion. The Resurrection had arrived ; 
 the revelation of the Imam had taken place in his person ; and 
 the Kingdom of Heaven was ushered in with freedom and 
 licence from the ordinary trammels of the moral law. 2 This 
 
 1 That their apprehensions were not unjustified will be apparent from the 
 following anecdote concerning Imam Fakhr ud-din Razi. This learned Imam 
 used to lecture on jurisprudence in his native city of Rai (Rhages). Once he 
 had occasion to denounce the Isma'ilias from his professorial chair. The news 
 of this audacious conduct was carried to the Eagles' Nest, and a Fidai was 
 promptly deputed to bring the careless professor to reason. The Fidai on his 
 arrival at Rai entered himself as a student in the Imam's college. For seven 
 months he waited for an opportunity to carry his design into effect. At last 
 one day he found the Imam alone in his chamber ; he locked the door, and 
 throwing the Imam on the ground pointed the dagger at his throat. " Why 
 kill me ? " asked the frightened professor. " Because you have cursed the 
 Isma'ilias," answered the Fidai. The Imam offered to bind himself solemnly 
 never again to disparage the brotherhood. The Fidai refused to accept the 
 Imam's word unless he agreed to receive a pension from the Grand Master, 
 thus binding himself by the debt of " bread and salt." 
 
 2 Hasan died in 508 a.h. Wassaf, following Juwaini, the vizier of Flulaku 
 and the author of the Jahan-Kusha, gives an extremely bitter but not unjust 
 account of these Isma'ilias. 
 
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342 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 mad revolutionist is known in the history of the Alamutias as 
 'ala-Zikrihi-as-Saldm, " may his name be blessed " — corrupted 
 into Zikr-as-Saldm. From this time, until the destruction of 
 Alamut, the disciples of the two Hasans maintained a remorse- 
 less fight with civil society, in which no quarter was shown on 
 either side. They were, in fact, the Nihilists of Islam. Under 
 their stilettoes fell both Christians and Moslems. They were 
 attacked by Hulaku, and after the destruction of their fortresses 
 in the mountains, they were hunted and killed like vermin. 1 
 
 From the Isma'ilias the Crusaders borrowed the conception 
 which led to the formation of all the secret societies, religious 
 and secular, of Europe. The institutions of Templars and 
 Hospitallers ; the Society of Jesus, founded by Ignatius 
 Loyola, composed of a body of men whose spirit of self-sacrifice 
 and devotion to their cause can hardly be surpassed in our 
 times ; the ferocious Dominicans, the milder Franciscans, — 
 may all be traced either to Cairo or to Alamut. The Knights 
 Templars especially, with their system of grand masters, grand 
 priors and religious devotees, and their degrees of initiation, 
 bear the strongest analogy to the Eastern Isma'ilias. Small 
 sections of the Western Isma'ilias are still to be found in Yemen, 
 in Egypt, and Barbary, where they cannot be distinguished 
 from the general body of Moslems. On the western coast of 
 India there exists, however, a large community called Khojahs, 
 who are the direct representatives of the original Eastern 
 
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 1 For a full account of the Alamutias and their crimes against humanity, 
 see Von Hammer's History of the Assassins, translated into English by Wood. 
 Even the Christian sovereigns frequently availed themselves of the services of 
 the Alamutia assassins to get rid of their enemies. Richard of England had 
 Conrad of Montferrat assassinated by a Fiddi of Alamut ; and one of the 
 Popes employed another, though unsuccessfully, to remove Frederick Barba- 
 rossa. After the destruction of Alamut, Rudbar, and the other castles of the 
 Assassins, the Alamutias were massacred without compunction by the Tartars. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 343 
 
 Isma'ilias. Hindus by origin, they were converted to Isma'il- 
 ism, in the eleventh or twelfth century of the Christian era, by 
 one Pir Sadr ud-din, an Isma'ilian Dd'i. His teachings fitted 
 in with their own religious conceptions, for part of the old cult 
 was incorporated with the Isma'ilia doctrines. 1 
 
 The Kaisdnias and Hdskimias, both of them exclusively 
 political in their character, but tinted by Magianism, are now 
 completely extinct, and hardly require any mention. 
 
 The Ghdllias or the Ghuldt (Extravagantists), supposed by 
 Ibn Khaldun and Shahristani to be a sect of the Shiahs, are, in 
 reality, the descendants of the old Gnostics, whose Islam con- 
 sisted merely in the substitution of Mohammed or Ali, chiefly 
 the latter, for Christ. They are, in fact, the Docetes of Islam. 
 The Nusairis, who believe in the divinity of Ali, the Ishdkias, 
 the Numdnias, the Khitdbias, and others, anthropomorphists, 
 believers in incarnations and metempsychosis, — represent the 
 notions which were prevalent among the Marcionites, the 
 Valentinians, and the other docetic Christians. Some of these 
 have replaced the Christian triad by a pentad. These believe 
 that Mohammed, Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husain jointly 
 represent the Divinity. A form of Docetism is in vogue also 
 in Sunnism. In the mountains of Kurdistan a Sunni Saint 2 
 occupies almost a similar place in the popular faith to Jesus 
 among the Gnostics. 
 
 The Roushenias, as their name implies, were the exact 
 counterparts of the Illuminati of Christendom. This sect had 
 its origin in Afghanistan in that dark, turbulent, and san- 
 guinary period which preceded the accession of Akbar to the 
 throne of India. Their founder, Bayezid, 3 by birth an Afghan, 
 but of Arab extraction, appears to have been a man of great 
 natural abilities and extreme subtlety of genius. In his early 
 youth he acquired a taint of Manichaeism from the Isma'ilias 
 
 1 Numbers of Isma'ilias are also to be found in the mountains of Gilgat and 
 Hunza. 
 
 2 Sheikh Abdul Kadir Ghilani. There are Sunnis who pay an extravagant 
 veneration, verging on adoration, to this Saint. He has received the title 
 among them of Ghaus-i-'dzam, Mahbrib-i-SubJidni, Kutb-i-Rabbdni — " The 
 great Saint, the beloved of God, the Pole-star of holiness " (see the Guldastai- 
 Kevdmat). Sheikh Abdul Kadir was a mystic, and a Fatimide by descent. 
 He takes a high position in the hierarchy of the mystics and the dervishes ; 
 see chapter xi. 
 
 3 Afterwards called Mian Roushan Bayezid. 
 
344 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 who still flourished in considerable numbers in some of the 
 mountainous districts of Khorasan. The doctrines which he 
 first propagated seem not to have differed essentially from those 
 of the Sufis ; but as he proceeded he diverged wider and 
 wider from the pale of dogmatic Islam. As his sect increased 
 in numbers and power, it assumed a political as well as a 
 religious aspect ; and soon made such formidable progress 
 that, at last, it embraced nearly the whole of Afghanistan. 
 
 The doctrines taught by Bayezid, when examined critically, 
 show a superstructure of mysticism and pantheism upon a basis 
 of Isma'ilism. The observant reader, however, will not fail to 
 perceive a strange and fantastic analogy between his teachings 
 and the practices and theories of the brotherhood of Fakirs. 
 He taught that God is all-pervading, and that all existing 
 objects are only forms of the Deity ; that the Pirs or religious 
 teachers were the great manifestations of the Divinity ; that 
 the sole test of right and wrong was to follow the path pointed 
 out by the Plr, who is the representative of the Divinity ; that 
 the ordinances of the law have therefore a mystical meaning, 
 and are ordained only as the means of acquiring religious perfec- 
 tion ; and that the mystic sense of the law is only attainable by 
 religious exercises and through the instructions of a Pir ; it 
 is the source of religious perfection, and this perfection being 
 attained, the exterior ordinances of the law cease to be binding, 
 and are virtually annulled. 
 
 The Bdtinis, the Isma'ilias, and all the cognate sects differ 
 from the general body of Moslems in making faith the keystone 
 of their doctrines. In this they closely approach most of the 
 Reformed Churches of Christendom. They " believe," like 
 Luther, in "justification by faith." Luther has strenuously 
 inculcated that " faith in Christ " would save all sinners. The 
 Batinis and the Isma'ilias with their offshoots made " faith " 
 or " imdn," which included a firm reliance on the divine Imam, 
 an essential factor in their creed. So long as an individual was 
 blessed with imdn, his outward acts were immaterial. 
 
 We now come to the Shiahs proper, the followers of the Imams 
 of the house of Mohammed, generally known as the Isnd- 
 'Asharias (the Duo decemians) , so named because they accept 
 the leadership of twelve Imams. The Isnd-'Asharias hold 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 345 
 
 that the Imamate descended by express appointment in the 
 following order : — 
 
 1. Ali, the Caliph, usually styled Murtaza Asad-idlah al- 
 Ghdlib, the Chosen, the Lion of God, the Victorious (d. A.H. 40, 
 A.c. 661). 
 
 2. Hasan, styled Mujtaba, the Approved (a.h. 44, a.c. 664). 
 
 3. Husain, Shahid-i-Kerbela, the Martyr of Kerbela (a.h. 60, 
 A.c. 679). 
 
 4. Ali II., surnamed for his piety Zain id-'Abidin, the Orna- 
 ment of the Pious (died a.h. 94, a.c. 713). 
 
 5. Mohammed al-Bdkir, the Explainer of Mysteries, or the 
 Profound, a man of great learning and ascetic austerity (born 
 a.h. 57, a.c. 676 ; died a.h. 113, a.c. 731). 
 
 6. Ja'far as-Sddik, the True, was the eldest son of Mohammed 
 al-Bdkir. Ja'far was born in Medina, in the year of the Hegira 
 a.h. 80 (a.c. 699). As a scholar, a litterateur, and a juris- 
 consult, his reputation stands high among all sects of Moslems. 
 His learning and his virtues, the transcendental purity and 
 truth of his character, won him the veneration even of the 
 enemies of his family. He died at an advanced age in his native 
 town, in the reign of Abu Ja'far al-Mansur, the second 
 Abbaside Caliph, in the year of the Hegira 148 (a.c. 765). 
 
 7. Abu' I Hasan Musa al-Kdzim, the son of Ja'far as-Sadik, 
 was also surnamed al-Abd us-Sdleh, the Holy Servant, on account 
 of his piety and " his efforts to please God." He was born at 
 Medina in the year 129 a.h. (a.c. 746-747). He died at Bagdad 
 on the 25th of Rajab 183 (1st September, 799 a.c.) in a prison 
 where he was confined for a number of years by Harun, who 
 was extremely jealous of the veneration in which the Imam was 
 held in Hijaz. De Sacy says Musa was put to death secretly in 
 his confinement by order of Harun. His sufferings and his pure 
 and exalted character endeared him greatly to all classes of 
 people, and gained for him the title of Kdzim, " the Patient." 
 
 8. Ali III., Abu'l Hasan Ali, surnamed ar-Riza, the Accept- 
 able, for the purity of his character. He was a scholar, a poet, 
 and a philosopher of the first rank. He was born in Medina in 
 the year 153 a.h. (a.c. 770), and died at Tus in Khorasan in 
 a.h. 202 (a.c. 817). He married a sister of Mamun, named 
 Umm ul-Fazl. 
 
346 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM It. 
 
 9. Abu Ja'far Mohammed, surnamed al-Jawwdd for his 
 munificence and generosity, and Taki for his piety. He was a 
 nephew of Mamun, and was also married to his daughter, named 
 Umm ul-Habib. He was held in the highest estimation by that 
 Caliph and his successor Mu'tasim (born a.h. 195, a.c. 811 ; and 
 died in a.h. 220, a.c. 835). 
 
 10. Ali IV., surnamed Naki, the Pure, died a.h. 260, A.c. 868. 
 
 11. Abu Mohammed al-Hasan ibn Ali al-'Askari, surnamed 
 al-Hddi, the Director, and called 'Askari from his long residence 
 under the surveillance of Mutawakkil at Surra man-Raa * which 
 also went by the name of al-'Askar, " the Encampment." He 
 was a man of eminent piety and great nobility of character, a 
 distinguished poet and litterateur. He was born at Medina 
 a.h. 231 (a.c. 845-6), and died at al-'Askar in a.h. 260 (a.c 
 874). He is said to have been poisoned by Mutawakkil. 
 
 12. Mohammed al-Mahdi (a.h. 265, A.c. 878-9). This last 
 Imam disappeared, according to the Shiah belief, in a grotto 
 at Surra-man-Raa in the fifth year of his age. 2 He is believed 
 to be still alive, and they look forward with earnest anticipation 
 to his reappearance to re-establish the universal Caliphate, and 
 to restore the purity of the human race. He is styled the Imam 
 Ghdib (the absent Imam), the Muntazar, "the Expected," 
 and the Kdim, " the Living." 3 
 
 The Isna-'Asharias, now called Shiahs or Imamias par 
 excellence, are divided into two sub-sects — Usulis and Akhbdris 
 (i.e. the followers of principles and the followers of traditions). 
 There is no difference between them on the question of the 
 Imamate or its descent to the last Imam. But they differ on 
 the amount of authority to be attached to the exposition of the 
 Mujtahids, who call themselves the representatives of the Imam. 
 The Usuli repudiates entirely the authority of the expounders 
 of the law to fetter his judgment. He contends that the law 
 is clear, and that it is his duty to construe it for himself with the 
 light of reason and progress of human thought, and not to be 
 
 1 A place several days' journey to the north-west of Bagdad. 
 
 2 For an account of this pathetic incident, see ante, p. 123, and Short 
 History of the Saracens (Macmillan), p. 295. 
 
 3 Compare especially the belief of the Christadelphians, according to whom 
 Christ will reappear to bring about an earthly kingdom. 
 
Viil. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 347 
 
 guided in his judgment by the dictates of men as fallible as him- 
 self, and interested in maintaining the world in ignorance . He 
 holds that God's revelations had not the object of hiding the 
 Divine meaning in words difficult to apprehend. They were 
 addressed through his Prophet to humanity to apprehend and 
 to obey. Thus God's teachings delivered through His Messenger 
 do not require the interpretation of priest or lawyer. The 
 Akhbari, on the other hand, obeys slavishly the expositions of 
 the Mujtahids. 
 
 According to the Usuli doctrines, the oral precepts of the 
 Prophet are in their nature supplementary to the Koranic 
 ordinances, and their binding effect depends on the degree of 
 harmony existing between them and the teachings of the Koran. 
 Thus, those traditions which seem to be in conflict with the 
 spirit of the Koranic precepts are considered apocryphal. The 
 process of elimination is conducted upon recognised principles, 
 founded upon logical rules and definite data. These rules have 
 acquired a distinctive type among the Mu'tazilas, who have 
 eliminated from the Hadls Kudsi (the holy traditions) such 
 alleged sayings of the Prophet as appeared incompatible and 
 out of harmony with his developed teachings as explained and 
 illustrated by the philosophers and jurists of his family. 
 
 The Usiilis divide the traditions under four heads, viz. : — 
 (a) Sahih, "authentic"; (b) Hasan, "good"; (c) Musak, 
 " strong " ; and (d) Za'if, " weak." A hadis sahih, or an 
 authentic tradition, is one the authority of which can be con- 
 clusively traced to the Aimma-i-Ma'sum (the sinless Imams), 
 according to the narration of an Imam 'ddil, " a just or trust- 
 worthy Imam," about whose integrity there is a consensus 
 among the " masters of traditions " (arbdb-i-hadis) . The narra- 
 tion must be through a succession of such 'ddils. A hadis-hasan, 
 or a good tradition, is one the authority of which goes back, 
 like that of the hadis sahih, to the Ma' sum ; but, according to 
 the narrative of a venerable Imam, in this way, that although, 
 in regard to the narrator of it, the words sikah 'ddil, " trust- 
 worthy and just," have not been used by the historians, yet 
 they have praised him in other words. A hadis-niusak, or a 
 strong tradition, is one handed down by people who are acknow- 
 ledged to be sikah and 'ddil, " virtuous and just," by the 
 
348 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 historians, though some or all of the narrators might not be 
 Imdmias, " followers of Ali." A hadis-za'if, or a weak tradition, 
 is one which complies with neither of these conditions. It is 
 only the first three kinds of hadis that are accepted or relied 
 upon by the U suits. 
 
 Again, a tradition before it can be accepted must have been 
 handed down in regular succession. A tradition is in regular 
 succession when a large number of people in the regular course 
 of time make the same narration until it is traced to the Ma' sum, 
 subject to the condition that the number of narrators, in each 
 particular age, is so great as to exclude the idea of their having 
 combined in telling a falsehood. A tradition is without a 
 regular succession, when the number of narrators does not, in 
 all or several stages, reach to such a body of witnesses ; and 
 this kind of tradition is called, " in the peculiar idiom of the 
 masters of traditions, the information of one." 
 
 The Usuli exercises his own judgment in the construction of 
 the law, and the reception, application, and interpretation of the 
 traditions. He does not consider himself bound to follow the 
 exposition of a Mujtahid, if his judgment and conscience tell 
 him that that exposition is against the revealed or natural law, 
 or justice, or reason. They protest against the immoderate 
 number of traditions accepted by the Akhbdris without any 
 criticism, or any application of the rules of exegesis. The 
 Usitlis represent the Broad Church, if not of Islam, at least of 
 Shiahism. 
 
 According to the Dabistdn, the Akhbdris derive their title 
 from the fact that they rely entirely upon akhbdr, or traditions, 
 and repudiate ijtihdd (the exercise of private judgment), as they 
 consider it contrary to the practice of the Imams. They 
 accept as authentic whatever tradition happens to be current, 
 if only it is labelled with the name of an Imam or of the Prophet. 
 It is enough that it is called a hadis ; it becomes ipso facto 
 authentic in their eyes, 1 and further inquiry is not required to 
 test the source from which it emanates. It need not be said 
 that under colour of this easy principle a vast number of tradi- 
 tions and maxims have become incorporated with the Islamic 
 
 1 Adilla-i-Kati', conclusive evidence, which admits of no questioning, and 
 requires no exercise of judgment. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 349 
 
 teachings which have little in common with them. The ancient 
 faith had never completely died out of the hearts of the masses, 
 and it was impossible that with the growth of a national Church 
 many of the old thoughts should not find expression in new and 
 more approved garbs. Gobineau has, somewhat harshly, but 
 not quite without reason, charged ultra-Akhbariism with having 
 converted the great hero of Islam into an Ormuzd, and his 
 descendants into Amshaspands. 
 
 Akhbarism is the favourite creed of the uneducated, who 
 require a leading string for their guidance, or of the half- 
 educated Mullas. Usulism finds acceptance among the 
 most intellectual classes of the people and the most 
 learned of the clergy. One of the most notable advocates of 
 the Usuli doctrines within recent times was Mulla Sadra * 
 (Mohammed bin Ibrahim), a native of Shiraz, and probably the 
 ablest scholar and dialectician of his time. He was the reviver 
 of philosophy and humanitarian science among the Persians. 
 From the fall of the Buwaihs to the rise of the Safawis, Iran 
 had remained under a cloud. Patristic orthodoxy had pro- 
 scribed philosophy and science ; the very name of Avicenna 
 had become hateful, and his works were publicly burnt. During 
 these centuries many Mazdeistic traditions dressed in Islamic 
 garb naturally had found acceptance among the uneducated 
 classes. The true Fatimide scholars had retired into seclusion, 
 and a body of ecclesiastics strongly imbued with national pre- 
 dilections and prejudices had sprung up to maintain the people 
 in ignorance. Mulla Sadra had thus to contend against a clergy 
 as tenacious of their rights as those of Christendom, and as 
 ready to take offence at the slightest approach to an attack on 
 their preserve of orthodoxy. But Mulla Sadra was gifted with 
 great perseverance and tact, and succeeded after considerable 
 difficulty in reviving the study of philosophy and science. 
 Usulism came to the front once more. Its philosophical counter- 
 part, Mu'tazilaism, is unquestionably the most rationalistic and 
 liberal phase of Islam. In its liberalism, in its sympathy with 
 all phases of human thought, its grand hopefulness and ex- 
 pansiveness, it represents the ideas of the philosophers of the 
 House of Mohammed who reflected the thoughts of the Master. 
 
 1 Mulla Sadra nourished in the reign of Shah Abbas II. 
 
350 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 The political factions which have hitherto kept the Shiahs 
 divided among themselves are disappearing, and the rest of the 
 sects are fast merging into the Isna-'Asharias. The Shiahs 
 of Persia, Arabia, West Africa, and India belong for the most 
 part to this sect. Isnd-'Ashariaism has thus become synony- 
 mous with Shiahism. 
 
 Like the Akhbaris, the Sunnis base their doctrines on the 
 entirety of the traditions. But they differ from them in accept- 
 ing such only of the traditions as can stand the test of certain 
 rules of criticism peculiar to their school. In this they approach 
 the Usulis. They regard the concordant decisions of the 
 successive Caliphs and of the general assemblies (Ijmd'-ul- 
 U ni mat) as supplementing the Koranic rules and regulations, 
 and as almost equal in authority to them. 
 
 The Sunnis are divided into several sub-sects, each differing 
 from the other on various points of dogma and doctrine. These 
 minor sectarian differences have often given rise to great 
 bitterness and persecutions. In the main, however, they are 
 agreed on the fundamental bases of their doctrines and laws, 
 deriving them from four unvarying sources, viz. : — (i) The 
 Koran ; (2) The Hadis or Sunnat (traditions handed down from 
 the Prophet) ; (3) The Ijmd'-ul-Ummat (concordance among 
 the followers) ; and (4) The Kiyds (private judgment). The 
 Hadis (pi. A had is) embraces (a) all the words, counsels, and 
 oral precepts of the Prophet (Kawl) ; (b) his actions, his works, 
 and daily practice (Fi'l) ; (c) and his silence (Takrir), implying 
 a tacit approbation on his part of any individual act committed 
 by his disciples. The rules deduced from these subsidiary 
 sources vary considerably in respect of the degree of authority 
 which is attached to them. If the rules, or traditional precepts, 
 are of public and universal notoriety (Ahddls-i-Midawdtireh), 
 they are regarded as absolutely authentic and decisive. If the 
 traditions, though known publicly by a great majority of 
 people, do not possess the character of universal notoriety, they 
 are designated Ahddis-i-M ashhur a, and stand next in rank to 
 the Ahddis-i-M utawdtir eh ; whilst the Akhbdr-i-wdhid , which 
 depend for their authenticity upon the authority of isolated 
 individuals, have little or no value attached to them. Thus 
 every tradition purporting to be handed down by the con- 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 351 
 
 temporaries and companions of the Prophet, regardless of their 
 actual relationship to him, is considered to be authentic and 
 genuine, provided certain arbitrary conditions framed with the 
 view of testing the value of personal testimony are complied 
 with. The expression Ijmd'-ul-Ummat implies general con- 
 cordance. Under this collective name are included all the 
 apostolic laws, the explanations, glosses, and decisions of the 
 leading disciples of the Prophet, especially of the first four 
 Caliphs (the Khulafdi Rdshidin), on theological, civil, and 
 criminal matters. 
 
 Since the eighth century of the Christian era, however, all 
 these sources of law and doctrine have been relegated to the 
 domain of oblivion. And each sect has followed blindly its 
 own doctors in the interpretation of the law and the exposition 
 of doctrines. This is called Taklid. No man is considered 
 " orthodox " unless he conforms to the doctrines of one or 
 the other of the principal doctors. 
 
 The four most important persuasions or sects 1 among the 
 Sunnis are designated Hanafi, Shafe'i, Maliki, and Hanbali, 
 after their respective founders. 
 
 Abu Hanifa, 2 who gave his name to the first school, was born 
 in the year 80 of the Hegira, during the reign of Abdul Malik 
 ibn Merwan. He was educated in the Shiah school of law, and 
 received his first instructions in jurisprudence from Imam 
 Ja'far as-Sadik, and heard traditions from Abu Abdullah ibn 
 al-Mubarak and Hamid ibn Sulaiman. Abu Hanifa often 
 quotes the great Shiah Imam as his authority. On his return 
 to his native city of Kufa, though he continued to remain a 
 zealous and consistent partisan of the house of Ali, he seceded 
 from the Shiah school of law and founded a system of his own, 
 diverging completely in many important points from the 
 doctrines of the Shiahs ; and yet, so close is the resemblance 
 between his exposition of the law and their views, that there is 
 no reason for doubt as to the source from which he derived his 
 original inspiration. The latitude which he allows to private 
 judgment in the interpretation of the law seems to be unques- 
 tionably a reflex of the opinions of the Fatimide doctors. He 
 
 1 Called the Mazdhib-arba'a. 
 
 2 Abu Hanifa an-No'man ibn Thabit (a.c. 699-769). 
 
352 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 is called by his followers the Imdm-ul-Na'zam (the great Imam). 
 He died in the year a.h. 150. The doctrines taught by him are 
 in force among the major portion of the Indian Musulmans, 
 among the Afghans, Turkomans, almost all Central Asian 
 Moslems, the Turks, and the Egyptians. His school owns by 
 far the largest number of followers. 
 
 The founder of the second school was (Abu Abdullah) Malik 
 ibn Anas, who died in the year a.h. 179, in the Caliphate of 
 Harun ar-Rashid. 
 
 Shafe'i was the originator of the third school. He was born 
 at Ghazza in Syria, in the same year in which Abu Hanifa died. 
 He died in Egypt in the year a.h. 204 (a.c. 819), during the 
 Caliphate of Mamun. He was a contemporary of the Fatimide 
 Imam Ali ibn Musa ar-Riza. Shafe'i's doctrines are generally 
 followed in Northern Africa, partially in Egypt, in Southern 
 Arabia, and the Malayan Peninsula, and among the Musulmans 
 of Ceylon. His followers are also to be found among the 
 Borahs 1 of the Bombay Presidency. 
 
 The fourth school was originated by Ibn-Hanbal. He 
 nourished during the reigns of Mamun and his successor Mu'ta- 
 sim b'illah. These two Caliphs were Mu'tazilas. Ibn-Hanbal's 
 extreme fanaticism, and the persistency with which he tried to 
 inflame the bigotry of the masses against the sovereigns, brought 
 him into trouble with the rulers. He died in the odour of great 
 sanctity in the year A.H. 241. Ibn-Hanbal and his patristicism 
 are responsible for the ill-success of Mamun in introducing the 
 Mu'tazila doctrines throughout the empire, and for the frequent 
 outbursts of persecution which deluged the Mohammedan world 
 with the blood of Moslems. 
 
 I have in another place 2 described the legal differences 
 of the various Sunni schools ; their doctrinal divergences 
 run into the minutiae of the ceremonials of worship, unneces- 
 sary to detail in a work intended for the general student. 
 It may be said, however, that the Hanbalites were the most 
 pronounced anthropomorphists. To them God was a being 
 in the similitude of man enthroned in heaven. Among 
 the other sects the conceptions varied considerably according 
 
 1 These Borahs are partly Shaie'Is and partly Isma'ilias of the Egyptian type. 
 * " Mohammedan Law," 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 353 
 
 to the age and the people. Anthropomorphism was, how- 
 ever, the predominating element. There is no doubt that 
 Hanafi'sm was originally the most liberal of these sects, 
 whilst Shafe'ism and Malikism were both exclusive and 
 harsh in their sympathies and ideas. With the advance 
 of time, and as despotism fixed itself upon the habits and 
 customs of the people, and the Caliph or sovereign became the 
 arbiter of their fate without check or hindrance from juris- 
 consult or legist, patristicism took hold of the mind of all classes 
 of society. The enunciations of the Fathers of the Church 
 became law. The Hanafis, who styled themselves, and were 
 styled by their brethren of the rival schools, ahl-ur-rai w'al 
 kiyds, " people of judgment and analogy," in contradistinction 
 to the others, who were called ahl-ul-hadis, traditionists par 
 excellence, have long ceased to exercise their judgment in 
 the domains of law or doctrine. What has been laid down 
 by the Fathers is unchangeable, and beyond the range of 
 discussion. The Faith may be carried to the land of the 
 Esquimaux, but it must go with rules framed for the guidance 
 of Irakians ! 
 
 Patristicism has thus destroyed all hope of development 
 in the Sunni fold. But its endeavours to ensure uniformity 
 of faith and practice have led within the last hundred years to 
 two notable revolts within the bosom of the Sunni Church. 
 Wahabism, which made its appearance at the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century, derived its breath from the Desert. 
 Ghair-mukallidism springs from the innermost recesses of 
 the human heart, seeking an escape from the strait-laced 
 Pharisaism of the established Church. The Ghair-mukallid is 
 a non-conformist, though he has been wrongly and unjustly 
 confounded with the Wahabis. He is undoubtedly more 
 philosophical and rationalistic than the followers of the other 
 denominations of Sunnism. Narrow, no doubt, admittedly 
 limited and unsympathetic in its scope, Ghair-Mukallidism is 
 nevertheless the one movement in the Sunni Church which 
 contains great promise for the future. 
 
 The dispute which ushered in the Reformation in Europe has 
 already commenced among the Hanafis, and is sure before long 
 to make itself felt among all sects and schools of Moslems. 
 
354 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Does the translation of the Koran stand on the same footing 
 as the Arabic Koran ; are prayers offered in the vulgar tongue, 
 in the tongue of the worshipper ignorant of Arabic, as meri- 
 torious as those offered in the language of Hijaz — such are the 
 questions which are now agitating the Moslem world in India. 
 The controversy has already caused much bitterness and given 
 rise to a few anathemas on the side of the orthodox, and the 
 reformers may well be congratulated that the movement which 
 they have set on foot is conducted under a neutral Government. 
 To the old plea, which vested interests have always urged 
 against every innovation, the leaders of the reform answer by 
 asking, Is Arabic the sole language which God understands ? 
 If not, what is the purpose of the prayer instituted by the 
 Prophet ? If it is to bring the worshipper nearer to God, and to 
 purify and ennoble his heart, then how can he feel the elevating 
 effect of prayer if he only mumbles what he cannot understand ? 
 From reason they appeal to the example of the Prophet, who 
 allowed his Persian converts to offer their prayers in their own 
 tongue. 1 This movement, still unknown to Europeans, con- 
 tains the germ of great development. It is the beginning 
 of the Reformation. Hitherto the theologians of Islam, like 
 the Christian clergy in the Middle Ages, have exercised, through 
 the knowledge of a language not known to the masses or the 
 sovereigns, a dominating influence. Once the principle for 
 which the reformers are working is accepted, the prescriptions 
 framed in the ninth and tenth centuries of the Christian era, 
 for people utterly apart from the culture and civilisation of 
 the present day, will have to be understood and explained with 
 the light of a thousand years. 
 
 Khawdrijism has been often regarded as a branch of Sunnism, 
 though in reality it came into existence long before the founda- 
 tions of the Sunni Church were laid. The refractory troops, 
 who had forced the Caliph Ali to abandon the fruits of the 
 well-earned victory at Siffin, and who afterwards rose in arms 
 against him at Nahrwan, were the first to receive the name of 
 Khawdrij (deserters or rebels). Shahristani has given a very 
 lucid account of this insurrection. These were the men who 
 were most eager in referring to arbitration the dispute of the 
 
 1 See ante. p. 186. 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 355 
 
 arch-rebel Mu'awiyah with the Caliph. They had forced upon 
 their chief, against his own judgment, Abu Musa as the repre- 
 sentative of the House of Mohammed ; but no sooner had the 
 terms been settled than these soldier-theologians, these 
 Covenanters of Islam, fell into a hot controversy amongst 
 themselves about the sinfulness of submitting any cause to 
 human judgment. In order to prevent the spectacle of Moslems 
 slaughtering each other in the presence of the enemy, Ali retired 
 to Kufa with the greater part of his army, leaving a small 
 detachment at Dumat ul-Jandal to await the result of the 
 arbitration. The rebels to the number of twelve thousand 
 deserted the Caliph at Kufa, and, retiring to Nahrwan, took 
 up a formidable position from which they threatened the 
 Caliphate. With the repugnance to shed blood which was ever 
 the distinguishing trait in Ali's character, he besought them 
 repeatedly to return to their allegiance. In reply they 
 threatened him with death. Human patience could not bear 
 this contumacy longer. They were attacked and defeated in 
 two successive battles. A few of the rebels escaped, says 
 Shahristani, and betaking themselves to al-Bahrain, that 
 harbour of refuge for all the free lances of Islam, spread their 
 noxious doctrines among the wild inhabitants of that tract. 
 They reappeared in the time of Abdul Malik, who drove them 
 back into their fastnesses in al-Ahsa and al-Bahrain. They 
 issued again under Merwan II., and spread themselves in 
 Yemen, Hijaz, and the Irak. They were attacked and defeated, 
 and forced to take refuge in Oman, where they have remained 
 settled ever since. Under the Abbasides they spread their 
 doctrines among the Berbers of Africa, whom they raised 
 repeatedly against the Pontiffs of Bagdad. The Khawarij are 
 the Calvinists of Islam. Their doctrines are gloomy and 
 morose, hard and fanatical. They are strict predestinarians. 
 They do not accept the Imamate of any of the Caliphs after 
 Omar, their own chiefs being, according to them, the lawful 
 Imams. They differ from the other Sunnis, in maintaining that 
 it is not requisite for a person to be either a Koreishite or a free 
 man for election as Imam of the Moslems. Slaves and non- 
 Koreishites were eligible for the Imamate equally with Kor- 
 eishites and free men. According to Shahristani, the Khawarij 
 
356 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 are divided into six groups, the most important of whom are 
 the Azdrika (the followers of Abu Rashid Nafe ibn Azrak) ; 
 the Ibddhia (the followers of Abdullah ibn Ibadh, who appeared 
 in the reign of Merwan II., the last of the Ommeyyades) ; 
 the Nejdat Azdria (the followers of Nejdat ibn 'Amir) ; the 
 Ajdrida (of Abdul Karim bin 'Ajrad) ; and the Sufdruz 
 Ziadia. 
 
 Of these, the Azdrika are the most fanatical, exclusive, and 
 narrow. According to them, every sect besides their own is 
 doomed to perdition, and ought to be forcibly converted or 
 ruthlessly destroyed. No mercy ought to be shown to any 
 infidel or Mushrik (an expansive term, including Moslems, 
 Christians, and Jews). To them every sin is of the same 
 degree : murder, fornication, intoxication, smoking, all are 
 damning offences against religion. Whilst the other Moslems, 
 Shiah as well as Sunni, hold that every child is born into the 
 world in the faith of Islam, 1 and remains so until perverted by 
 education, the Azraki declares that the child of an infidel is 
 an infidel. The orthodox Christian maintains that every child 
 who is not baptized is doomed to perdition ; the Khariji, like 
 the Christian, declares that every child who has not pronounced 
 the formula of the Faith is beyond the pale of salvation. The 
 Azdrika were destroyed by Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ; but their 
 sanguinary, fierce, and merciless doctrines found expression 
 nine centuries later in Wahabism. 
 
 The Ibddhia were decidedly less fanatical. They were, for 
 the most part, settled in Oman, and are still to be found in the 
 principality of Muscat. The Azdrika, and afterwards the 
 Wahabis, were at deadly feud with the Ibddhias. 
 
 According to them, the general body of Moslems are un- 
 believers, but not Mushrik (polytheists) , and that consequently 
 they can intermarry with them. They differ from the Azdrika 
 in this and in other respects. They accept the evidence of 
 Moslems against their people ; hold that the taking of the goods 
 of the Moslems except in time of war, is unlawful, and " pro- 
 nounce no opinion," says Shahristani, " on the infidelity of the 
 children of infidels " ; but they agree with their brethren, the 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 357 
 
 Azdrika, in denouncing and anathematising the chief com- 
 panions of the Prophet (the Ashdb-i-Kabdr). 
 
 The Ibddhias have held Oman until now. Sore pressed by 
 the Wahabis, they have succeeded in maintaining their power 
 on the coast of Eastern Arabia, but they seem to be fast merging 
 into the general body of Sunnis. 
 
 The Wahabis have been depicted in rather favourable colours 
 by Mr. Palgrave, in his Travels in Central Arabia, but, in fact, 
 they are the direct descendants of the Azdrika, who, after 
 their defeat by Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, had taken refuge in the 
 recesses of Central Arabia. Abdul Wahab's doctrines bear the 
 closest resemblance to those held so fiercely by the followers of 
 Nafe ibn al-Azrak. Like them, the Wahabis designate all 
 other Moslems as unbelievers, and permit their despoilment 
 and enslavement. However commendable their revolt against 
 the anthropolatrous usages in vogue among the modern 
 Moslems, their views of religion and divine government, like 
 those of the Ikhwdn of the present day in Nejd, are intensely 
 morose and Calvinistic, and in absolute conflict with progress 
 and development. 
 
 Babism, which made its appearance in Persia in the early 
 part of the nineteenth century, has been represented in widely 
 divergent colours. According to the Moslem authorities, it is 
 nothing but a new form of Mazdakism, an Eastern socialistic 
 communism. Its mixed gatherings of men and women are 
 regarded in the same light as the ancient Agape?- of the primitive 
 Christians were considered by the followers of the older faiths. 
 On the other hand, a European scholar x of great research and 
 learning, who has studied the religious literature of the Babis, 
 and mixed familiarly with them, represents Babism as the 
 latest expression of an eclectic evolution growing out of the 
 innate pantheism of the Iranian mind. 
 
 During the reign of Mohammed Shah, 2 the hypocrisy and 
 vices of the national clergy, says this writer, had reached 
 such a pitch that a change was inevitable. The political 
 and social condition of the people was deplorable. In this 
 
 2 The third Kajar King of Persia, who ascended the throne on the death 
 of his grandfather, Fathi Ali Shah. 
 
358 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 state of affairs a young Mullah of Shiraz, Mirza Ali Mo- 
 hammed, supposed to be a Fatimide by descent, who had 
 studied much, had travelled a great deal and made the 
 pilgrimage to the holy cities, and had for many years resided 
 in Arabia and Syria, began to preach a social and moral 
 reform. He denounced the hypocrisy of the ordinary mullahs, 
 and their reception of the most doubtful traditions to justify 
 practices condemned by Islam. His words struck a sym- 
 pathetic chord in minds already prepared for the reception of 
 his views, and evoked extraordinary enthusiasm. He obtained 
 numerous disciples, among them a young lady of Kazwin, 
 whose learning and eloquence supplied a powerful support to 
 his cause. She is venerated now as Kurrat-ul-'Ayn, " Light of 
 the Eyes." Mirza Ali Mohammed, either carried away by the 
 enthusiasm of his followers, or unhinged by his own exaltation, 
 in a fit of pantheistical insanity, assumed the title of Bab 
 Hazrat-i-a'ala, and styled himself a part of the Divinity. His 
 followers rose in arms against the constituted authorities and 
 failed. The fanaticism of the clergy and political expediency 
 gave rise to a persecution, for which even Gobineau thinks the 
 Babis were primarily responsible. The Bab was killed with 
 most of his prominent disciples. But his teachings have 
 survived. His social precepts are said by Gobineau to be 
 much in advance of the received doctrines. He attached great 
 importance to the marriage-relations, and during the con- 
 tinuance of the first marriage he allowed the taking of a second 
 wife only under certain conditions. He absolutely interdicted 
 concubinage, forbade divorce, and allowed the appearance of 
 women in public. The custom of seclusion, as Gobineau justly 
 observes, creates infinite disorders, and exercises a pernicious 
 influence on the early education of children. The usage itself 
 does not depend on any religious prescription, it is simply a 
 convenience. The ancient kings of Persia observed it as a sign 
 of grandeur, and the Moslem sovereigns and chiefs imitated 
 their example, and adopted the custom. Among the Arabs 
 the women of the tribes are perfectly free to move about as 
 they wish. The ladies of the Prophet's family conversed with 
 the disciples, received their visits, and often shared in the 
 repasts of the men. Mirza Ali Mohammed therefore, says 
 
viii. THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND SCHISMS 359 
 
 Gobineau, made no innovation in endeavouring to free women 
 from the bondage of a mischievous custom. His religious 
 doctrines are essentially pantheistic, and his code of morals, 
 far from being lax, is strict and rigid. 1 
 
 Some Moslem writers have divided the religious sects into 
 two comprehensive groups, viz. the Ahl-ul-bdtin, the Intui- 
 tionalists, and the Ahl-uz-zdhir , those who look into the meaning of 
 precepts, and those who look only to the literal sense. The Ahl-ul- 
 bdtin, however, must not be confounded with the Batinis. 
 The Ahl-ul-bdtin include the mystical Sufis, the philosophical 
 mutakallimin, and the Idealists in general, " all those," to use 
 the words of Zamakhshari's comment, " who strive to implant 
 in their hearts the roots of divine perfection," who strive and 
 struggle to attain the highest standard of human excellence, 
 and who, whilst conforming to the prescriptions of the law, 
 perceive in them the divine intent to promote concord and 
 harmony among the races of the earth, peace and goodwill 
 among mankind. 2 
 
 1 The most recent account of this remarkable religious movement, from 
 the Babi point of view, is to be found in Professor E. G. Browne's New History 
 of the Bab, which purports to be a translation of a Babi work called Tdrtkh-i- 
 Jadid. Professor Browne's Introduction is extremely interesting. From the 
 Tarikh one can picture the fascinating personality of Knrrat-ul-'Ayn ; see 
 Appendix III. This great scholar has given to the world in his new work, 
 called Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion, considerable additional 
 information regarding its development and diffusion. Bahaism, its latest 
 phase, which flourishes chiefly in the United States of America, appears to 
 have largely assimilated the doctrines of Christian Science. 
 
 2 See post, chap. xi. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 L,i' tltt'i sJSj' } I't'S-c A*xUJ ; Js'oUx 4Ui.k j jl^o. I 
 
 WE have already referred to the Arabian Prophet's 
 devotion to knowledge and science as distinguishing 
 him from all other Teachers, and bringing him into 
 the closest affinity with the modern world of thought. Medina, 
 the seat of the theocratic commonwealth of Islam, had, after 
 the fall of Mecca, become the centre of attraction, not to the 
 hosts of Arabia only, but also to inquirers from abroad. Here 
 nocked the Persian, the Greek, the Syrian, the Irakian, and 
 African of diverse hues and nationalities from the north and 
 the west. Some, no doubt, came from curiosity, but most 
 came to seek knowledge and to listen to the words of the Prophet 
 of Islam. He preached of the value of knowledge : " Acquire 
 knowledge, because he who acquires it in the way of the Lord 
 performs an act of piety ; who speaks of it, praises the Lord ; 
 who seeks it, adores God ; who dispenses instruction in it, 
 bestows alms ; and who imparts it to its fitting objects, per- 
 forms an act of devotion to God. Knowledge enables its 
 possessor to distinguish what is forbidden from what is not ; 
 it lights the way to Heaven ; it is our friend in the desert, our 
 society in solitude, our companion when bereft of friends ; it 
 guides us to happiness ; it sustains us in misery ; it is our 
 ornament in the company of friends ; it serves as an armour 
 
 1 The translation of this Hadis is given in the text : " Acquire knowledge, 
 etc." 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 361 
 
 against our enemies. With knowledge, the servant of God 
 rises to the heights of goodness and to a noble position, 
 associates with sovereigns in this world, and attains to the 
 perfection of happiness in the next." 1 
 
 He would often say, " the ink of the scholar is more holy 
 than the blood of the martyr " ; and repeatedly impress on his 
 disciples the necessity of seeking for knowledge " even unto 
 China." 2 "He who leaves his home in search of knowledge, 
 walks in the path of God." " He who travels in search of 
 knowledge, to him God shows the way to paradise." 3 
 
 The Koran itself bears testimony to the supreme value of 
 learning and science. Commenting on the Surat-ul-'alak* 
 Zamakhshari thus explains the meaning of the Koranic words : 
 " God taught human beings that which they did not know, and 
 this testineth to the greatness of His beneficence, for He has 
 given to His servants knowledge of that which they did not 
 know. And He has brought them out of the darkness of 
 ignorance to the light of knowledge, and made them aware of 
 the inestimable blessings of the knowledge of writing, for great 
 benefits accrue therefrom which God alone compasseth ; and 
 without the knowledge of writing no other knowledge ('ulum) 
 could be comprehended, nor the sciences placed within bounds, 
 nor the history of the ancients be acquired and their sayings 
 be recorded, nor the revealed books be written ; and if that 
 knowledge did not exist, the affairs of religion and the world, 
 UjjJi j ^j^i^t, could not be regulated." 
 
 Up to the time of the Islamic Dispensation, the Arab world, 
 properly so called, restricted within the Peninsula of Arabia 
 and some outlying tracts to the north-west and the north-east, 
 had shown no signs of intellectual growth. Poetry, oratory, 
 and judicial astrology formed the favourite objects of pursuit 
 among the pre-Islamic Arabs. Science and literature pos- 
 sessed no votaries. But the words of the Prophet gave a new 
 impulse to the awakened energies of the race. Even within 
 
 1 Tradition from the Bihdr-ul-Anwdr of Mulla Bakir ibn Mohammed Taki 
 al-majlisi, vol. i. chap, on Knowledge, handed down by the Imam Ja'far 
 as-Sadik, also quoted from Mu'az ibn-Jabal in the Mustatraf, chap. iv. ; also 
 in the Kashf nz-Zunun of Haji Khalifa, Fluegel's ed. p. 44. 
 
 2 Misbdh ttsh-Shartat. 3 J ami' nl-Akhbdr. 
 4 Koran, sura xcvi. ; see also other suras. 
 
362 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 his lifetime was formed the nucleus of an educational institution, 
 which in after years grew into universities at Bagdad and 
 Salerno, at Cairo and Cordova. Here preached the Master 
 himself on the cultivation of a holy spirit : " One hour's 
 meditation on the work of the Creator [in a devout spirit] is 
 better than seventy years of prayer." * "To listen to the 
 instructions of science and learning for one hour is more meri- 
 torious than attending the funerals of a thousand martyrs, — 
 more meritorious than standing up in prayer for a thousand 
 nights ; " "To the student who goes forth in quest of know- 
 ledge, God will allot a high place in the mansions of bliss ; every 
 step he takes is blessed, and every lesson he receives has its 
 reward ; " " The seeker of knowledge will be greeted in Heaven 
 with a welcome from the angels ; " "to listen to the words of 
 the learned, and to instil into the heart the lessons of science, 
 is better than religious exercises, . . . better than emancipating 
 a hundred slaves ; " " Him who favours learning and the 
 learned, God will favour in the next world ; " " He who honours 
 the learned honours me." Ali lectured on branches of learning 
 most suited to the wants of the infant commonwealth. Among 
 his recorded sayings are the following : " Eminence in science 
 is the highest of honours ; " "He dies not who gives life to 
 learning ; " " The greatest ornament of a man is erudition." 
 
 Naturally such sentiments on the part of the Master and the 
 chief of the Disciples gave rise to a liberal policy, and animated 
 all classes with a desire for learning. The art of Kuric writing, 
 which had just been acquired by a disciple at Hira, furthered 
 the primitive development of the Moslems. It was, however, 
 pre-eminently an age of earnestness and faith, marked by the 
 uprise of the soul against the domination of aimless, lifeless 
 philosophy. The practice of religion, the conservation of a 
 devotional spirit, and the special cultivation of those branches 
 of learning which were of practical value in the battle of every- 
 day life, were the primary objects of the Moslem's attention. 
 
 The age of speculation was soon to commence ; its germs were 
 contained in the positive precepts of the Master ; and even 
 whilst he was working, the scholarly Disciple was thinking. 
 The Master had himself declared that whosoever desired to 
 
 1 J ami' ul-AhhbaY. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 363 
 
 realise the spirit of his teachings must listen to the words of the 
 Scholar. 1 Who more able to grasp the meaning of the Master's 
 words than Ali, the beloved friend, the trusted Disciple, the 
 devoted cousin and son ? The gentle, calm teachings instilled 
 in early life into the young mind bore their fruit. 
 
 In spite of the upheaval of the Arab race under the early 
 Caliphs, literature and arts were by no means neglected in the 
 metropolis of primitive Islam. Ali and Ibn Abbas, his cousin, 
 gave public lectures on poetry, grammar, history, and mathe- 
 matics ; others taught the art of recitation or elocution ; 
 whilst some gave lessons in caligraphy, — in ancient times an 
 invaluable branch of knowledge. 
 
 On Osman's tragical death the Scholar was called by the 
 voice of the people to the helm of the State. During his retire- 
 ment Ali had devoted himself to the study of the Master's 
 precepts by the light of reason. " But for his assassination," 
 to quote the language of a French historian, " the Moslem 
 world might have witnessed the realisation of the Prophet's 
 teachings, in the actual amalgamation of Reason with Law, 
 and in the impersonation of the first principles of true philosophy 
 in positive action." The same passionate devotion to know- 
 ledge and learning which distinguished Mohammed, breathed 
 in every word of his Disciple. With a liberality of mind — far 
 beyond that of the age in which he lived — was joined a sincere 
 devoutness of spirit and earnestness of faith. His sermons, 
 faithfully preserved by one of his descendants, and his litanies 
 or psalms, portray a devout uplooking toward the Source of 
 All Good, and an unbounded faith in humanity. The accession 
 of the Ommeyyades to the rulership of Islam was a blow to 
 the progress of knowledge and liberalism in the Moslem world. 
 Their stormy reigns left the nation little leisure to devote to 
 the gentler pursuits of science ; and to this, among the 
 sovereigns, was joined a characteristic idolatry of the past. 
 Their thoughts were engrossed by war and politics. During 
 the comparatively long rule of a century, the House of 
 
 e 
 1 ^ J c fl*JI Hjj." Ul 
 
 " I am the city of learning, Ali is its gate." 
 
364 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 11. 
 
 Ommeyya produced only one man devoted to the cultivation 
 of letters ; and this man was Abu Hashim Khalid ibn Yezid, 
 " the philosopher of the Merwanian family," x as he has been 
 called, who was set aside from the succession on account of his 
 learning. 
 
 The jealous suspicion and the untiring animosity of the 
 children of Abu Siriian and Hind had obliged the descendants 
 of the Prophet to live a life of humble retirement. " In the 
 night of misery and unhappiness " they followed truly and 
 faithfully the precepts of their ancestor, and found consolation 
 in intellectual pursuits. Their ardent love of knowledge, their 
 passionate devotion to the cause of humanity, — their spirit 
 looking upwards far above the literalness of common interpreta- 
 tions of the law, — show the spirituality and expansiveness of 
 Islam. 2 The definition by the Imam Ja'far as-Sadik of sciences 
 or knowledge gives some idea of their faith in the progress of 
 man : " The enlightenment of the heart is its essence ; Truth 
 its principal object ; Inspiration, its guide ; Reason, its 
 accepter ; God, its inspirer ; and the words of man its utterer." 3 
 
 Surrounded by men whom love, devotion, and sympathy 
 with their patience had gathered around them, the early 
 descendants of the Prophet were naturally more or less in- 
 fluenced by the varied ideas of their followers. Yet their 
 philosophy never sinks to that war of words without life and 
 without earnestness which characterised the schools of Athens 
 or Alexandria under the Ptolemies. 
 
 But though literature and philosophy were at a discount 
 among the rulers, the example of the Imams naturally exercised 
 no small influence on the intellectual activity of the Arabs and 
 the subject races. Whilst the Ommeyyades discouraged the 
 peaceful pursuits of the mind, the children of Fatima, with 
 remarkable liberalism, favoured learning. They were not 
 
 1 M&khaz-i-'ulAm of Moulvi Syed Keramat Ali. This learned scholar was 
 nearly forty years curator of the Imambara at Houghly. 
 
 2 See the Hadis-i-Ihlilaj, from the Imam Ali bin-Musa ar-Raza, reported 
 by Mufazal bin-Omar Joufi, Bihar ul- Anwar. 
 
 3 Tarikh ul-Hukama, by Jamal ud-din al-Kifti, founded upon another work 
 bearing the same name, by Shihab ud-din Suhrwardi ; Shihab ud-din was a 
 Platonist — an Ishraki — an idealist, and was condemned and put to death by 
 the orthodox synod in the reign of Saladin's son. Compare the first Khutba 
 of the Nahj-ul-Balaghat, and the traditions on knowledge in the Bihar ul- Anwar. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 365 
 
 devoted to the past, — the salaf was not their guide. With 
 the Master's precepts to light their path, they kept in view the 
 development of humanity, and devoted themselves to the 
 cultivation of science and learning in all its branches. Like 
 the Master and the early Caliphs, the " Philosophers of the 
 House of Mohammed " x received with distinction the learned 
 men whom the fanatical persecution of Justinian's successors 
 drove for refuge into foreign lands. The academies of philo- 
 sophy and medicine, founded by the Nestorians at Edessa and 
 Nisibis, had been broken up ; its professors and students were 
 refugees in Persia and Arabia. Many betook themselves— as 
 their predecessors had done before, in the time of the Prophet 
 and the Caliph Abu Bakr— to Medina, which, after its sack by 
 the Ommeyyades, had again gathered round Ja'far as-Sadik 
 a galaxy of talented scholars. The concourse of many and 
 varied minds in the City of the Prophet gave an impetus to the 
 cultivation of science and literature among the Moslems. From 
 Medina a stream of unusual intellectual activity flowed towards 
 Damascus. Situated on the northern confines of the Arabian 
 Desert, along the trade-route from Mecca and Medina to Syria, 
 Damascus had been associated from ancient times with the 
 Ommeyyades ; and the Syrian Arabs were closely allied by 
 interest and kinship to the family whom they had assisted to 
 elevate to the rulership of Islam. The Ommeyyades had 
 naturally fixed upon this city as the seat of their empire ; and 
 though shunned with horror by the devout Moslems, it formed 
 the gathering place for the representatives of the many races 
 who had come under the sway of Islam. The controversies of 
 Greek and Saracen furnished a strong incentive to the study of 
 dialectics and Greek philosophy ; and the invention of the 
 diacritical and vowel points furthered the cultivation of 
 grammar and philology. At this time flourished two Christian 
 writers of note, who, fleeing before their orthodox persecutors, 
 had taken shelter in Damascus. These were Johannes Damas- 
 cenus and Theodorus Abucara. Their polemical writings 
 against the Moslems, their rationalistic and philosophical 
 disputes with their own orthodox brethren, joined to the 
 influence of the Medinite school, which flourished under 
 
 1 Makhaz-i-'Ulwn. 
 
366 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Mohammed al-Bakir andja'far as-Sadik, soon led to the growth 
 of philosophical tendencies among the Saracens. For centuries 
 Greek philosophy had been known to the Persians and the 
 Arabs ; the Nestorians had spread themselves in the dominions 
 of the Chosroes since the beginning of Justinian's reign, but it 
 was not until all the varied elements had been fused into an 
 organic whole by Islam that Greek science and culture exercised 
 any real effect on the intellectual development of Western Asia. 
 It was towards the close of the Ommeyyade rule that several 
 Moslem thinkers came into prominence, whose lectures on 
 subjects then uppermost in the minds of the people attracted 
 great attention. And their ideas and conceptions materially 
 moulded the thoughts of succeeding generations. 
 
 It was in the second century, however, that the literary and 
 scientific activity of the Moslems commenced in earnest, and 
 the chief impulse to this was given by the settlement of the 
 Arabs in towns. Hitherto they had lived in camps isolated 
 from the races they had subjugated. Osman had laid a pro- 
 hibition on their acquiring lands in the conquered countries, 
 or contracting marriages with the subject nations. The object 
 of this policy was apparent ; it has its parallel in the history 
 of all nations, ancient and modern. In British India and in 
 French Algeria it is still in force. During the whole period of 
 the Ommeyyade rule the Arabs had constituted the dominant 
 element, — the aristocratic military caste amongst their subjects. 
 The majority of them were occupied in warlike pursuits. The 
 gentler avocations of learning and science were left to the 
 suspected Hashimis and the children of the Ansar, — to the 
 descendants of Ali, Abu Bakr, and Omar. The Arabs had 
 carried with them into distant regions the system of clientage 
 which had existed in Arabia, as it had existed among the 
 Romans, from ancient times. Clientage afforded to the 
 subjects protection and consideration ; to the conquerors, 
 the additional strength gained by numbers. Thus, both in the 
 East and in the West, the leading families allied themselves with 
 members of the prominent desert clans, and became the manias 
 or clients, not freedmen, as has been incorrectly supposed, of 
 their conquerors. To these clients, besides the Hashimites 
 and the children of the Ansar and Muhajirin, such as had 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 367 
 
 survived the sack of Medina, was left scholarship and the 
 cultivation of arts and sciences during the Ommeyyade rule. 
 With the rise of the Abbasides commenced a new era. They 
 rose to power with the assistance of the Persians ; and they 
 relied for the maintenance of their rule more upon the attach- 
 ment of the general body of their subjects, than the fickle 
 affection of the military colonists of Arabia. Abu'l Abbas 
 Saffah held the reins of government for but two years. His 
 brother and successor, al-Mansur, though cruel in his treatment 
 of the Fatimides, was a statesman of the first rank. He 
 organised the State, established a standing army and a corps 
 of police, and gave firmness and consistency to the system of 
 administration. The Arabs had hitherto devoted themselves 
 almost exclusively to the profession of arms ; the method of 
 government adopted by al-Mansur gave a new bent to their 
 genius. They settled in cities, acquired landed properties, and 
 devoted themselves to the cultivation of letters with the same 
 ardour which they had displayed in the pursuit of war. 
 
 The rich and fertile valley of the Euphrates, watered by the 
 two great rivers of Western Asia, has, from the most ancient 
 times, been the seat of empire and the centre of civilisation. 
 It was in this region that Babylon, Ctesiphon, and Seleucia 
 had risen successively. Here existed at this epoch Basra and 
 Kufa, with their unruly and volatile inhabitants. Basra 
 and Kufa had, from the first conquest of the Moslems, 
 formed important centres of commercial activity. The latter 
 city was at one time the seat of government. To Basra 
 and Kufa had come all the active spirits of the East, who 
 either could not or would not go to the depraved capital 
 of the Ommeyyades. For the Abbasides, Damascus had not 
 only no attraction, but was a place of peril ; and the uncertain 
 and fickle temperament of the people of Basra and Kufa 
 made those cities undesirable as the seat of government. Al- 
 Mansur cast about for a site for his capital, and at last fixed 
 upon the locality where Bagdad now stands — a six days' journey 
 by river from Basra. 
 
 Bagdad is said to have been a summer retreat of Kesra 
 Anushirvan, the famous monarch of Persia, and derived from 
 his reputation as a just ruler the name it bears, — the " Garden 
 
368 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 of Justice." With the disappearance of the Persian monarchy 
 had disappeared the famous Garden where the Lord of Asia 
 dispensed justice to his multitudinous subjects ; tradition, 
 however, had preserved the name. The beautiful site, central 
 and salubrious, attracted the eyes of Mansur, and the glorious 
 city of the Caliphs arose, like the sea-goddess issuing from the 
 waves, under the magic wand of the foremost architects of the 
 day. 
 
 The Bagdad of Mansur was founded in the year 145 of the 
 Hegira on the western bank of the Tigris. Soon, however, 
 another city — a new Bagdad — sprang up on the eastern bank 
 under the auspices of the heir-apparent, the Prince Imperial of 
 the Caliphate, who afterwards assumed the title of al-Mahdi. 
 This new city vied in the splendour of its structures with the 
 beauty and magnificence of the Mansurieh. In the days of its 
 glory/ before the destroying hordes of Chengiz sweeping over 
 Western Asia had engulfed in ruin every vestige of Saracenic 
 civilisation, Bagdad presented a beautiful and imposing 
 appearance — a fit capital for the Pontiffs of Islam. 1 
 
 The beauty and splendour of the city, before its sack by the 
 Mongols, have been immortalised in glowing lines by Anwari — 
 most brilliant of panegyrists : — 2 
 
 " Blessed be the site of Bagdad, seat of learning and art — 
 None can point in the world to a city equal to her, 
 Her suburbs vie in beauty with the blue vault of heaven, 
 Her climate in quality equals the life-giving breezes of 
 
 heaven, 
 Her stones in their brightness rival gems and rubies, 
 
 1 For a description of Bagdad under the Abbasides, see Short History of 
 the Saracens (Macmillan), p. 444. 
 
 2 This English rendering gives an inadequate idea of the beauty of the 
 original : — 
 
 yi« . 
 
 0-*ai ^j-U. jIjxj 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ji V/£*3k. 
 
 ;T US ^lia. ^a. ;j j, ft jj 
 
 dUi 
 
 ^JsS 
 
 *-&J 
 
 U ± x jtfT v9? 
 
 iJouj 
 
 } \ ^ 
 
 )>jt tf 
 
 ^ f-~ j c^ ^ 
 
 iuaj 
 
 ;' ur!>* 
 
 MM 
 
 ^kSLC ^SJjjL A« 
 
 A v__ 
 
 — *-d3laRJ 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 369 
 
 Her soil in beneficence has the fragrance of the amber, 
 The morning breeze has imparted to the earth the freshness 
 
 of Tuba (the tree of Paradise), 
 And the winds have concealed in her water the sweetness 
 
 of Kausar (the spring of Eden), 
 The banks of the Tigris with their beautiful damsels surpass 
 
 (the city of) Khullakh, 1 
 The gardens filled with lovely nymphs equal Cashmere, 
 And thousands of gondolas on the water, 
 Dance and sparkle like sunbeams in the sky." 
 
 Its designation of the City of Peace, Ddr us-Saldm, was 
 derived from a prophecy made by the astronomer-royal Nou- 
 bakht, that none of the Caliphs would die within the walls of the 
 city, and the strange fulfilment of this prognostication in the 
 case of thirty-seven Pontiffs. The great number of holy men 
 who have found their last resting-place within or about its 
 walls, and whose tombs are objects of veneration to all Moslems, 
 gave to Bagdad the title of Bulwark of the Holy. Here are the 
 mausoleums of the greatest Imams and the most pious Sheikhs. 
 Here reposes the Imam Musa al-Kazim, and here lie buried 
 Abu Hanifa, the Sheikhs Junaid, Shibli, and Abdul Kadir 
 Ghilani, the chiefs of the Sufis. 
 
 In the midst of the monuments of the Imams and Sheikhs 
 stood those of the Caliphs and their consorts. Of the numerous 
 academies, colleges, and schools which filled the city, two 
 institutions surpassed all others in importance by their wealth 
 
 ,i}$ C^ ; H a. if* 1 ) ,' J * — ***"> '♦*■ 
 
 Ui* c — y+f .J6y ) A- — Uj ;liS 
 
 1 A city in Cathay famous for the beauty of its women, 
 s.i. 2 A 
 
370 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 and the number of their students. These were the Nizamieh 
 and Mustansarieh ; the first established in the first half of the 
 fifth century of the Hegira by Nizam ul-Mulk, the great Vizier 
 of Malik Shah, Sultan of the Seljuks ; and the second, built 
 two centuries later, by the Caliph Al-Mustansir b'illah. 
 
 " It is a remarkable fact," says the historian of Culture under 
 the Caliphs, " that the sovereign who makes us forget some of 
 the darker sides of his nature by his moral and mental qualities, 
 also gave the impetus to the great intellectual movement which 
 now commenced in the Islamic world." * It was by Mansur's 
 command that literary and scientific works in foreign languages 
 were first translated into Arabic. Himself no mean scholar and 
 mathematician he had the famous collections of Indian fables 
 (the Hitopadesa), the Indian treatise on astronomy called the 
 Siddhanta, several works of Aristotle, the Almagest of Claudius 
 Ptolemy, the books of Euclid, as well as other ancient Greek, 
 Byzantine, Persian, and Syrian productions, translated into 
 the language of the Arabs. Mas'udi mentions that no sooner 
 were these translations published than they were studied with 
 much avidity. Mansur's successors were not only warm 
 patrons of the learned, who flocked to the metropolis from all 
 quarters, but were themselves assiduous cultivators of every 
 branch of knowledge. Under them the intellectual develop- 
 ment of the Saracens, in other words of the conglomerate races 
 of the vast empire which constituted the Caliphate, proceeded 
 with wonderful rapidity. 
 
 Each great nation of the world has had its golden age. 
 Athens had her Periclean era ; Rome, her Augustan age ; so, 
 too, had the Islamic world its epoch of glory ; and we may with 
 justice look upon the period which elapsed from the accession 
 of Mansur to the death of Mu'tazid-b'illah, with only a brief 
 intermission during the reign of Mutawakkil, as an epoch of 
 equal, if not of superior greatness and magnificence. Under 
 the first six Abbaside Caliphs, but especially under Mamun, 
 the Moslems formed the vanguard of civilisation. The 
 Saracenic race by its elastic genius as well as by its central 
 position, — with the priceless treasures of dying Greece and 
 Rome on one side, and of Persia on the other, and India and 
 
 1 Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, vol. ii. p. 412. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 371 
 
 China far away sleeping the sleep of ages, — was pre-eminently 
 fitted to become the teacher of mankind. Under the inspiring 
 influences of the great Prophet, who gave them a code and a 
 nationality, and assisted by their sovereigns, the Saracens 
 caught up the lessons of wisdom from the East and the West, 
 combined them with the teachings of the Master, and " started 
 from soldiers into scholars." " The Arabs," says Humboldt, 
 " were admirably situated to act the part of mediators, and to 
 influence the nations from the Euphrates to the Guadalquivir 
 and Mid-Africa. Their unexampled intellectual activity marks 
 a distinct epoch in the history of the world." 
 
 Under the Ommeyyades we see the Moslems passing through 
 a period of probation, preparing themselves for the great task 
 they were called upon to undertake. Under the Abbasides 
 we find them the repositories of the knowledge of the world. 
 Every part of the globe is ransacked by the agents of the Caliphs 
 for the hoarded wealth of antiquity ; these are brought to the 
 capital, and laid before an admiring and appreciating public. 
 Schools and academies spring up in every direction ; public 
 libraries are established in every city free to every comer ; the 
 great philosophers of the ancient world are studied side by side 
 with the Koran. Galen, Dioscorides, Themistius, Aristotle, 
 Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy, and Apollonius receive their due meed 
 of appreciation. The sovereigns themselves assist at literary 
 meetings and philosophical disquisitions. For the first time in 
 the history of humanity a religious and autocratic government 
 is observed to ally itself with philosophy, preparing and 
 participating in its triumphs. 
 
 Every city in the empire sought to outrival the other in the 
 cultivation of the arts and sciences. And governors and 
 provincial chiefs tried to emulate the sovereign. Travelling in 
 search of knowledge was, according to the precept of the Master, 
 a pious duty. From every part of the globe students and 
 scholars flocked to Cordova, to Bagdad, and to Cairo to listen 
 to the words of the Saracenic sages. Even Christians from 
 remote corners of Europe attended Moslem colleges. Men who 
 became in after-life the heads of the Christian Church, 1 acquired 
 their scholarship from Islamic teachers. The rise of Cairo 
 
 1 Such as Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., who studied in Cordova. 
 
372 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 under al-Muizz li-din-illah added a spirit of rivalry to the 
 patronage of learning on the part of the Caliphs of the Houses 
 of Abbas and Fatima. Al-Muizz was the Mamun of the West 
 — the Maecenas of Moslem Africa, which then embraced the 
 whole of the continent from the eastern confines of Egypt to 
 the shores of the Atlantic and the borders of the Sahara. During 
 the reign of al-Muizz and his first three successors, the arts and 
 sciences flourished under the especial and loving protection of 
 the sovereigns. The free university of Cairo, the Dar-ul-Hikmat 
 — Scientific Institute — established by al-Muizz, " anticipated 
 Bacon's ideal with a fact." The Idrisides at Fez, and the 
 Moorish sovereigns in Spain, outvied each other in the cultiva- 
 tion of arts and letters. From the shores of the Atlantic 
 eastward to the Indian Ocean, far away even to the Pacific, 
 resounded the voice of philosophy and learning, under Moslem 
 guidance and Moslem inspiration. And when the House of 
 Abbas lost its grasp on the empire of the East, the chiefs who 
 held the reins of government in the tracts which at one time 
 were under the undivided temporal sway of the Caliphs, 
 extended the same protection to science and literature as the 
 Pontiffs from whom they still derived their title to sovereignty. 
 This glorious period lasted, in spite of the triumph of patris- 
 ticism and its unconcealed jealousy towards scientific and 
 philosophical pursuits, until the fall of Bagdad before the 
 Tartar hordes. But the wild savages who overturned the 
 Caliphate and destroyed civilisation, as soon as they adopted 
 Islam, became ardent protectors of learning ! 
 
 What was the condition of learning and science in Christen- 
 dom at this epoch ? Under Constantine and his orthodox 
 successors the ^Esclepions were closed for ever ; the public 
 libraries established by the liberality of the pagan emperors 
 were dispersed or destroyed ; learning was " branded as magic 
 or punished as treason " ; and philosophy and science were 
 exterminated. The ecclesiastical hatred against human learn- 
 ing had found expression in the patristic maxim, " Ignorance 
 is the mother of devotion " ; and Pope Gregory the Great, 
 the founder of ecclesiastical supremacy, gave effect to this 
 obscurantist dogma by expelling from Rome all scientific 
 studies, and burning the Palatine Library founded by Augustus 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 373 
 
 Caesar. He forbade the study of the ancient writers of Greece 
 and Rome. He introduced and sanctified the mythologic 
 Christianity which continued for centuries the predominating 
 creed of Europe, with its worship of relics and the remains of 
 saints. Science and literature were placed under the ban by 
 orthodox Christianity, and they succeeded in emancipating 
 themselves only when Free Thought had broken down the 
 barriers raised by orthodoxy against the progress of the human 
 mind. 
 
 Abdullah al-Mamun has been deservedly styled the Augustus 
 of the Arabs. " He was not ignorant that they are the elect 
 of God, his best and most useful servants, whose lives are 
 devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties . . . that 
 the teachers of wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators 
 of the world." 1 
 
 Mamun was followed by a brilliant succession of princes who 
 continued his work. Under him and his successors, the prin- 
 cipal distinguishing feature of the school of Bagdad was a true 
 and strongly marked scientific spirit, which dominated over all 
 its achievements. The deductive method, hitherto proudly 
 regarded as the invention and sole monopoly of modern Europe, 
 was perfectly understood by the Moslems. " Marching from 
 the known to the unknown, the school of Bagdad rendered to 
 itself an exact account of the phenomena for the purpose of 
 rising from the effect to the cause, accepting only what had 
 been demonstrated by experience ; such were the principles 
 taught by the (Moslem) masters." " The Arabs of the ninth 
 century," continues the author we are quoting, " were in the 
 possession of that fecund method which was to become long 
 afterwards, in the hands of the moderns, the instrument of 
 their most beautiful discoveries." 
 
 Volumes would be required to enumerate the host of scientific 
 and learned men who flourished about this epoch, all of whom 
 have, in some way or other, left their mark on the history of 
 progress. Mashallah and Ahmed ibn Mohammed al-Neha- 
 vendi, the most ancient of the Arab astronomers, lived in the 
 reign of Mansur. The former, who has been called the Phoenix 
 of his time by Abu'l Faraj, wrote several valuable treatises on 
 
 1 Abu'l Faraj. 
 
374 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, and the nature and 
 movements of celestial bodies — works which still evoke the 
 admiration of scientists. Ahmed al-Nehavendi wrote from his 
 own observations an astronomical table, al-Mustamal, which 
 formed a decided advance upon the notions of both the Greeks 
 and the Hindus. Under Mamun, the Almagest of Ptolemy was 
 re-translated, and the Verified Tables prepared by famous 
 astronomers like Send ibn Ali, Yahya ibn Abi-Mansur, and 
 Khalid ibn Abdul Malik. Their observations connected with 
 the equinoxes, the eclipses, the apparitions of the comets, and 
 other celestial phenomena, were valuable in the extreme, and 
 added greatly to human knowledge. 
 
 Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi made a new translation, 
 under the orders of Mamun, of the Siddhanta, or the Indian 
 Tables, with notes and observations. Al-Kindi wrote two 
 hundred works on various subjects — arithmetic, geometry, 
 philosophy, meteorology, optics and medicine. Thoroughly 
 versed in the language of the Greeks, he derived from the schools 
 of Athens and Alexandria part of the information which he 
 embodied in his invaluable treatises. " His works," says 
 Sedillot, " are full of curious and interesting facts." Abu- 
 Ma'shar (corrupted by the Europe of the Middle Ages into 
 Albumazar) made the celestial phenomena his special study ; 
 and the Zij-abi-Ma'shar, or the Table of Abu-Ma'shar, has 
 always remained one of the chief sources of astronomical know- 
 ledge. The discoveries of the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, 1 who 
 nourished under Mamun and his two immediate successors, 
 especially with respect to the evaluations of the mean movement 
 of the sun and other astral bodies, are almost as exact as the 
 latest discoveries of Europe. They ascertained with wonderful 
 precision, considering the appliances they possessed, the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic, and marked for the first time the 
 variations in the lunar altitudes. They also observed and 
 determined with remarkable accuracy the precession of the 
 equinoxes, and the movements of the solar apogee (which were 
 utterly unknown to the Greeks). They calculated the size of 
 the earth from the measurement of a degree on the shore 
 of the Red Sea — this at a time when Christian Europe was 
 
 1 Mohammed, Ahmed, and Hasan. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 375 
 
 asserting the flatness of the globe. Abu'l Hasan invented the 
 telescope, of which he speaks as " a tube to the extremities of 
 which were attached diopters." These " tubes " were improved 
 and used afterwards in the observatories of Maragha and Cairo 
 with great success. Al-Nairezi and Mohammed ibn Isa Abu 
 Abdullah continued the great work of Mvisa ibn Shakir's sons. 1 
 By the time al-Batani appeared, the Moslems had evolved from 
 the crude astronomy of the ancients a regular and harmonious 
 science. (Al-Batani, 2 though surpassed by his successors, 
 occupies a high position among astronomers, and a competent 
 judge pronounces his role to be the same among the Saracens 
 as that of Ptolemy among the Greeks. His Astronomical 
 Tables, translated into Latin, furnished the groundwork of 
 astronomy in Europe for many centuries. He is, however, 
 best known in the history of mathematics as the introducer of 
 the sine and co-sine instead of the chord in astronomical and 
 trigonometrical calculations. 
 
 Among the numerous astronomers who lived and worked in 
 Bagdad at the close of the tenth century, the names of two men, 
 Ali ibn Amajur and Abu'l Hasan Ali ibn Amajur, generally 
 known as Banu- Amajur, stand prominently forward. They 
 are noted for their calculation of the lunar movements. 
 
 Owing to the weakness of the central power, and an increasing- 
 inability to maintain the sway of the Caliphate in outlying and 
 distant parts, there arose on the confines of the empire, towards 
 the end of the tenth century, several quasi-independent chiefs. 
 Spain had been lost to the Abbasides at the commencement of 
 their rule ; about this period the Bani-Idris established them- 
 selves at Fez, the Bani-Rustam at Tahart, and the Bani- 
 Aghlab at Kairowan in Africa. Soon, however, the whole of 
 the northern part of that continent was brought under the 
 domination of the Bani-Fatima, and then another era of glory 
 for arts and literature commenced. Fez, Miknasa, Segelmessa, 
 Tahart, Tlemcen, Kairowan, but above all, Cairo, became 
 centres of culture and learning. In Khorasan the Taherides, 
 
 1 For their names, see ante, p. 374. Mohammed ibn Musa ibn Shakir died 
 in a.h. 259 (a.c. 873). 
 
 2 Abu Abdullah Mohammed ibn Jabir ibn Sinan al-Batani was a native of 
 Harran, died a.h. 317 (a.c. 929-30). 
 
376 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 in Transoxiana the Samanides, the Buyides in Tabaristan and 
 afterwards in Persia and Bagdad, as mayors of the palace, 
 extended a lavish patronage to scientists and scholars. Abdur 
 Rahman Sufi, one of the most brilliant physicists of the age, 
 was an intimate friend of the Buyide Ameer 'Azud ud-Dowla, 
 deservedly called the second Augustus of the Arabs. Abdur 
 Rahman improved the photometry of the stars. 'Azud ud- 
 Dowla, 1 himself a scholar and a mathematician, welcomed to 
 his palace as honoured guests the learned men who flocked to 
 Bagdad from every part of the globe, and took part in their 
 scientific controversies. Ja'far, the son of the Caliph Muktafi 
 b'illah, made important observations regarding the erratic 
 movements of comets, and wrote a treatise on them ; and 
 other princes cultivated the sciences side by side with their 
 subjects. 
 
 Under the Buyides flourished a host of astronomers, 
 physicists, and mathematicians, of whom only two need be 
 mentioned here, Al-Kohi and Abu'1-Wafa. Al-Kohi studied and 
 wrote on the movements of the planets His discoveries con- 
 cerning the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox added 
 materially to the store of human knowledge. Abu'1-Wafa was 
 born in 939 A.c. at Buzjan in Khorasan ; he established himself 
 in Irak in 959, where he applied himself chiefly to mathematics 
 and astronomy. His Zij-ush-Shdmil {the Consolidated or General 
 Table) is a monument of industry and keen and accurate 
 observation. He introduced the use of the secant and the 
 tangent in trigonometry and astronomical observations. " But 
 this was not all," says M. Sedillot ; " struck by the imperfec- 
 tion of the lunar theory of Ptolemy, he verified the ancient 
 observations, and discovered, independently of the equation of 
 the centre and the eviction, a third inequality, which is no other 
 than the variation determined six centuries later by Tycho 
 Brahe." 2 
 
 Under the Fatimides of Egypt, Cairo had become a new 
 intellectual and scientific centre. Here flourished, in the reigns 
 
 1 To 'Azud ud-Dowla (Malik Fanakhusru) Bagdad owed several hospitals 
 for the sick and refuges for orphans. He built magnificent mausoleums over 
 the tombs of Ali and Husain at Najaf and Kerbela. He rendered navigable 
 the river which flows by Shiraz by erecting the famous dyke called Bend-emir. 
 
 2 Abu'l Wafa, died in a.h. 387 (a.c. 997). 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 377 
 
 of Aziz b'illah x and Hakim bi-amr-illah, one of the master- 
 spirits of the age, Ibn Yunus, 2 the inventor of the pendulum 
 and the measurement of time by its oscillations. He is, how- 
 ever, famous for his great work named after his patron and 
 sovereign, Zij-ul-Akbar-al-Hdkimi, which soon displaced the 
 work of Claudius Ptolemy. It was reproduced among the 
 Persians by the astronomer-poet Omar Khayyam (1079) ; 
 among the Greeks, in the Syntax of Chrysococca ; among the 
 Mongols by Nasir ud-din Tusi, in the Zij-il-Khdni ; and 
 among the Chinese, in the astronomy of Co-Cheou-king in 1280 ; 
 and thus what is attributed to the ancient civilisation of China 
 is only a borrowed light from the Moslems. 3 
 
 Ibn Yunus died in 1009, and his discoveries were continued 
 by Ibn un-Nabdi, who lived in Cairo in 1040, and Hasan ibn 
 Haitham, commonly called in Europe Alhazen, and famous for 
 the discovery of atmospheric refraction. He flourished about 
 the end of the eleventh century, and was a distinguished 
 astronomer and optician. He was born in Spain, but resided 
 chiefly in Egypt. He is best known in Europe by his works 
 on optics, one of which has been translated into Latin by 
 Risner. He corrected the Greek misconception as to the 
 nature of vision, and demonstrated for the first time that the 
 rays of light come from external objects to the eye, and do not 
 issue forth from the eye, and impinge on external things. He 
 determined the retina as the seat of vision, and proved that the 
 impressions made upon it were conveyed along the optic nerves 
 to the brain. He explained the phenomena of a single vision 
 by the formation of visual images on symmetrical portions of 
 the two retinas. He discovered that the refraction of light 
 varies with the density of the atmosphere, and that atmospheric 
 density again varies with the height. He explained accurately 
 and clearly how in consequence of this refraction, astral bodies 
 are seen before they have actually risen and after they have 
 set, and demonstrated that the beautiful phenomenon of 
 
 1 'Aziz b'illah was one of the greatest sovereigns Egypt ever had. " He 
 loved his people as they loved him." He was married to a Christian lady, 
 whose brothers, Jeremiah and Arvenius, held the posts of patriarchs, one of 
 Jerusalem and the other of Alexandria. Both of them belonged to the 
 orthodox or melkite sect. 
 
 2 See Appendix III. 3 Sedillot. 
 
378 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 twilight was due to the effect of atmospheric refraction com- 
 bined with the reflecting action of the air upon the course of 
 the rays of light. In his book called the Balance of Wisdom he 
 discusses dynamical principles, generally supposed to be the 
 monopoly of modern science. He describes minutely the 
 connection between the weight of the atmosphere and its 
 density, and how material objects vary in weight in a rare 
 and in a dense atmosphere. He discusses the submergence of 
 floating bodies, and the force with which they rise to the 
 surface when immersed in light or heavy media ; he fully 
 understands the principle of gravitation, and recognises gravity 
 as a force. He knows correctly the relation between the 
 velocities, spaces, and times of falling bodies, and has very 
 distinct ideas of capillary attraction. 1 
 
 In Spain the same activity of mind was at work from the 
 Pyrenees to the Straits : Seville, Cordova, Granada, Murcia, 
 Toledo, and other places possessed their public libraries and 
 colleges, where they gave free instruction in science and letters. 
 Of Cordova, an English writer speaks thus : " Beautiful as 
 were the palaces and gardens of Cordova, her claims to admira- 
 tion in higher matters were no less strong. The mind was as 
 lovely as the body. Her professors and teachers made her the 
 centre of European culture ; students would come from all 
 parts of Europe to study under her famous doctors, and even 
 the nun Hroswitha far away in her Saxon convent of Gauders- 
 heim, when she told of the martyrdom of Eulogius, could not 
 refrain from singing the praises of Cordova, ' the brightest 
 splendour of the world.' Every branch of science was seriously 
 studied there, and medicine received more and greater additions 
 by the discoveries of the doctors and surgeons of Andalusia than 
 it had gained during all the centuries that had elapsed since the 
 days of Galen. . . . Astronomy, geography, chemistry, natural 
 history, all were studied with ardour at Cordova ; and as for 
 the graces of literature there never was a time in Europe when 
 poetry became so much the speech of everybody — when people 
 
 1 The annalist 'Ayni says that at this period the public library of Cairo con- 
 tained over two million books, of which six thousand treated exclusively of 
 mathematics and astronomy. I have only mentioned a few of the names 
 among the thousands of mathematicians and physicists who nourished during 
 this epoch, when the scientific spirit of Islam was at its zenith. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 379 
 
 of all ranks composed those Arabic verses which perhaps 
 suggested models for the ballads and canzonettes of the Spanish 
 minstrels and the troubadours of Provence and Italy. No 
 speech or address was complete without some scrap of verse, 
 improvised on the spur of the moment, by the speaker or quoted 
 by memory from some famous poet." * To these we may add 
 the words of Renan : " The taste for science and literature 
 had, by the tenth century, established, in this privileged 
 corner of the world, a toleration of which modern times hardly 
 offer us an example. Christians, Jews, and Musulmans spoke 
 the same tongue, sang the same songs, participated in the same 
 literary and scientific studies. All the barriers which separated 
 the various peoples were effaced ; all worked with one accord 
 in the work of a common civilisation.. The mosques of Cordova, 
 where the students could be counted by thousands, became the 
 active centres of philosophical and scientific studies." 2 
 
 The first observatory in Europe was built by the Arabs. 
 The Giralda, or tower of Seville, was erected under the super- 
 intendence of the great mathematician Jabir ibn Afiah in 
 1190 a.c. for the observation of the heavens. Its fate was not 
 a little characteristic. After the expulsion of the Moors, it was 
 turned into a belfry, the Spaniards not knowing what else to 
 do with it ! 
 
 Omar ibn Khaldun, Ya'kub ibn Tarik, Muslimah al-Maghr'ibi, 
 and the famous Averroes (Abu'l Walid Mohammed ibn Rushd) 
 are some of the physicists whom we may mention here. Nor was 
 Western Africa inactive during this period : Ceuta and Tangier, 
 Fez, and Morocco, rivalled Cordova, Seville, and Granada ; 
 their colleges sent out able professors, and numerous learned 
 works testified to the indefatigable ardour of the Moslem mind 
 in all departments of learning. 
 
 The beginning of the eleventh century saw a great change 
 in the political condition of Central Asia. The rise of 
 
 1 Stanley Lane-Poole, The Moors in Spain, p. 144. For a full account of 
 Cordova, see Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan), p. 515. 
 
 2 Renan, Averroes et Averroism, p. 4. The golden age of literature and 
 science in Spain was under Hakam al-Mustansir b'illdh who died in 976 A.c. 
 The catalogue of his library consists of forty-four quartos. He employed 
 agents in every quarter of the globe to procure for him, at any price, scientific 
 works, ancient and modern. He paid to Abu'l Faraj al-Isphahani 1000 dinars 
 of gold for the first copy of his celebrated Anthology {Kitab ul-Aghani). 
 
380 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 11. 
 
 Mahmud, 1 the great Ghaznavide conqueror, Yemin nd-Dowla 
 and A min ul-Millat, " right hand of the empire " and " custodian 
 of the Faith," brought Transoxiana, Afghanistan, and Persia 
 under the sovereignty of Ghazni. He collected round him a 
 body of scholars and litterateurs who shed a glorious lustre on 
 his brilliant reign. Attached to the renovated " orthodoxy " of 
 al-Asha'ri, and consequently piously inimical to the rationalistic 
 school of thinkers, chary in his munificence to the poets who 
 made his name famous in the annals of the world, he yet had 
 the genius to perceive the merits of men like Abu Raihdn 
 Mohammed ibn Ahmed al-Beiruni, philosopher, mathematician, 
 and geographer. Firdousi, the prince of poets, Dakiki, and 
 Unsuri. Al-Beiruni's mind was encyclopaedic. His work on 
 astronomy, entitled after his patron Sultan Masu'd, 2 al-Kdnun- 
 al-Mas'udi, Canon Masudicus, is a monument of learning and 
 research. He travelled into India, and studied the language 
 of the Hindus, their sciences, their philosophy and literature, 
 and embodied his observations in a work which has recently 
 been furnished to us in an English garb. The philosophical 
 and scientific, not to say sympathetic, spirit which animates 
 al-Beiruni in the treatment of his subject is in marked contrast 
 to the mode still in vogue among Western nations, and serves 
 as an index to the intellectual character of Islam. The IvSiko. 3 
 of al-Beiruni shows the extent to which the Moslems had utilised 
 the treasures of Greek learning, and turned them to fruitful 
 purposes. Besides these two great works, he wrote on mathe- 
 matics, chronology, mathematical geography, physics, and 
 chemistry. 
 
 Al-Beiruni communicated to the Hindus the knowledge of 
 the Bagdadian school in return for their notions and traditions. 
 He found among them the remains of Greek science, which had 
 been transported to India in the early centuries of the Christian 
 era, or perhaps earlier, during the existence of the Graeco- 
 Bactrian dynasties. The Hindus do not seem to have possessed 
 any advanced astronomical science of their own ; for, had it 
 
 1 a.c. 996-1030. 2 The son and successor of the Conqueror. 
 
 3 Fi't Tahkik ma li'l Hind ; see Short History of the Saracens (Macmillan), 
 p. 463. Another remarkable work of his is the As&r ul-Bdkieh or the Vestiges 
 of the Past, translated into English by Dr. Sachau. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 381 
 
 been otherwise, we doubtless would have heard about it, as 
 Sedillot rightly observes, from the Greek writers of the times 
 of Alexander and the Seleucidae. They, like the Chinese, 
 borrowed most of their scientific ideas from foreign sources, 
 and modified them according to their national characteristics. 
 
 Under the successors of Mahmud learning and arts flourished 
 abundantly. The rise of the Seljukides and their grand muni- 
 ficence towards scholarship and science rivalled that of the 
 golden days of the Abbaside rule. Tughril, Alp Arslan, Malik 
 Shah, and San jar were not only remarkable for the greatness 
 of their power, the clear comprehension of what constituted the 
 welfare of their subjects, but were equally distinguished for 
 their intellectual gifts and ardent enthusiasm in the cause of 
 learning. Jaldl ud-din Malik Shah 1 and his vizier, Khwaja 
 Hasan Nizam ul-Mulk, 2 collected round them a galaxy of 
 astronomers, poets, scholars, and historians. The astronomical 
 observations conducted in his reign by a body of savants, with 
 Omar Khayyam and Abdur Rahman al-Hazini at their head, 
 led to the reform of the Calendar which preceded the Gregorian 
 by six hundred years and is said by a competent authority to 
 be even more exact. 3 The era which was introduced upon these 
 observations was named after Malik Shah, the Jaldlian. 
 
 The destructive inroads of the Christian marauders who 
 called themselves Crusaders was disastrous to the cause of 
 learning and science in Western Asia and Northern Africa. 
 Barbarous savages, hounded to rapine and slaughter by crazy 
 priests, they knew neither mercy for the weakness of sex or 
 age, nor the value of letters or arts. They destroyed the 
 splendid library of Tripoli without compunction ; they reduced 
 to ashes many of the glorious centres of Saracenic culture and 
 arts. Christian Europe has held up to obloquy the apocryphal 
 destruction of the Alexandrian library, which had already been 
 burned in the time of Julius Caesar, but it has no word of blame 
 for the crimes of her Crusaders five centuries later. The 
 calamities inflicted by the Crusaders were lasting in their 
 effect ; and in spite of the endeavours of Saladin and his sons 
 to restore the intellectual life of Syria, it has remained dead 
 from that day to this. 
 
 1 1073-1092 a.c. 2 i.e. the Administrator of the Empire. 3 Sedillot. 
 
382 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 In the interval which elapsed between the rise of Mahmud 
 and the fall of Bagdad, there flourished a number of philo- 
 sophers and scientists, among whom shine the great Avicenna 
 (Abu Ali Husain Ibn-Sina), 1 Fath ibn Nabeghah Khakani, 2 
 Mubashshar ibn Ahmed, 3 and his son Mohammed. 4 
 
 The eruption of the Mongols upon the Saracenic world was 
 not like the invasion of the Roman empire by the northern 
 barbarians. These had proceeded slowly ; and in their com- 
 paratively gradual progress towards the heart of the empire 
 they had become partially softened, and had to some extent 
 cast off their pristine ferocity. The case was otherwise with 
 the hordes of the devastator Chengiz. They swept like over- 
 whelming torrents over Western Asia. Wherever they went 
 they left misery and desolation. 5 Their barbarous campaigns 
 and their savage slaughters put an end for a time to the 
 intellectual development of Asia. But the moment the wild 
 savages adopted the religion of the Prophet of Arabia a change 
 came over them. From the destroyers of the seats of learning 
 and arts they became the founders of academies and the 
 protectors of the learned. Sultan Khoda-Bendah (Uljaitu- 
 Khan), sixth in descent from Chengiz, was distinguished for 
 his attainments and his patronage of the sciences. But the 
 fearful massacres which the barbarians had committed among 
 the settled and cultured population of the towns destroyed 
 most of the gifted classes, with the result that, though the great 
 cities like Bokhara and Samarcand rose again into splendour, 
 they became, nevertheless, the seats of a narrower culture, more 
 casuistical and theological than before. And yet the Mongols 
 protected philosophers like Nasir ud-din Tusi, Muwayyad 
 ud-din al-Orezi of Damascus, Fakhr ud-din al-Maraghi, Mohi 
 ud-din al-Maghribi, Ali Shah al-Bokhari, and many others. 
 The successors of Hulaku tried thus to restore to Islam what 
 their ancestor had destroyed. Whilst the Mongols in Persia 
 were employed in making some amends to civilisation, Kublai 
 Khan transported to China the learning of the Arabs. Co- 
 
 1 Died in 1037 a.c. - Died in 1082 A.c. 
 
 3 Died in 1135 a.c. ' Died in 1193 a.c. 
 
 5 For a full account of the havoc and ruin caused by the Tartars, see Short 
 History of the Saracens, pp. 391-400. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 3S3 
 
 Cheou-king received in 1280 from Jamal ud-din the tables of 
 Ibn-Yunus, and appropriated them for Chinese purposes. 
 
 Ibn-Shathir, who lived in the reign of Mohammed ibn Kalaun, 
 the Mameluke sovereign of Egypt, developed still further the 
 mathematical and astronomical sciences. And now arose on 
 the eastern horizon the comet-like personality of Timur. 
 " From his throne in Samarcand this Titan of the fourteenth 
 century called into being the greatest empire ever seen in 
 Asia, and seemed to extinguish in his one resistless will the 
 immemorial antagonism of Iran and Turan." He was a patron 
 of science and poetry, himself fond of the society of the scholars 
 and artists of his day, an author, as well as a legislator of no 
 mean order. 1 Magnificent colleges, splendid mosques, vast 
 libraries, testified to the taste for letters of this remarkable man. 
 His vast system of colonisation filled the great cities of Eastern 
 Asia, especially Samarcand, with the splendour of all the arts 
 and sciences known to the West. Timur established " the most 
 brilliant empire known to the history of Islam, except that 
 of the Ommeyyads in Spain, and that of the first Abbasides 
 in Arabistan." Jami, master of sciences ; Suhaili, translator 
 of Pilpay ; Ali Sher Ameer, were some of the men who shed 
 lustre on the reigns of his successors. The college founded by 
 his consort, Bibi Khanam, and known by her name, still strikes 
 the observer as one of the most imposing and most beautiful 
 products of Saracenic architecture. Timur's son, Shah Rukh 
 Mirza, imitated his father in the cultivation and patronage of 
 arts and letters. His peaceful reign of nearly half a century 
 was remarkable for high intellectual culture and scientific 
 study. When he transported his government from Samarcand 
 to Herat, the former city lost none of its splendour. Ulugh 
 Beg, his son, charged with the government of Transoxiana, 
 maintained the literary and scientific glories of Samarcand. 
 Himself an astronomer of a high rank, he presided at the 
 observations which have immortalised his name. The tables 
 in which those observations were embodied complete the cycle 
 of Arabian thought. Ulugh Beg is separated by only a century 
 and a half from Kepler, the founder of modern astronomy. 
 
 1 The Malfdzat-i-Timdri (" The Institutes of Timur ") are couched in the 
 style of the old Assyrian and Kyanian monarchs. 
 
384 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 It was, however, not astronomy only which the Moslems 
 cultivated and improved. Every branch of higher mathe- 
 matics bears traces of their genius. The Greeks are said to 
 have invented algebra, but among them, as Oelsner has justly 
 remarked, it was confined to furnishing amusement " for the 
 plays of the goblet." The Moslems applied it to higher pur- 
 poses, and thus gave it a value hitherto unknown. Under 
 Mamun they had discovered the equations of the second 
 degree, and very soon after they developed the theory of 
 quadratic equations and the binomial theorem. Not only 
 algebra, geometry, and arithmetic, but optics and mechanics 
 made remarkable progress in the hands of the Moslems. They 
 invented spherical trigonometry ; they were the first to apply 
 algebra to geometry, to introduce the tangent, and to sub- 
 stitute the sine for the arc in trigonometrical calculations. 
 Their progress in mathematical geography was no less remark- 
 able. The works of Ibn-Haukal, of Makrizi, al-Istakhri, 
 Mas'udi, al-Beinini, al-Kumi and al-Idrisi, Kazwini, Ibn ul- 
 Wardi, and Abu'l Feda, show what the Saracens attained in 
 this department of science, called by them the rasm-ul-arz. 
 At a time when Europe firmly believed in the flatness of the 
 earth, and was ready to burn any foolhardy person who thought 
 otherwise, the Arabs taught geography by globes. 
 
 The physical sciences were as diligently cultivated. The 
 method of experimentation was substituted for theorising ; and 
 the crude ideas of the ancients were developed into positive 
 sciences. 1 Chemistry, botany, geology, natural history, among 
 others occupied the attention and exercised the energies of the 
 ablest men. 
 
 Chemistry, as a science, is unquestionably the invention of 
 the Moslems. Abu Musa Jabir (the Geber of Christian 
 writers) 2 is the true father of modern chemistry. " His 
 name is memorable in chemistry, since it marks an epoch in 
 that science of equal importance to that of Priestley and 
 
 1 Humboldt calls the Arabs the real founders of the physical sciences. 
 
 2 Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan was a native of Tarsus. Ibn Khallikan says 
 Jabir compiled a work of two thousand pages in which he inserted the 
 
 problems of his master (the Imam) Ja'far as-S&dik which formed five hundred 
 treatises " ; see also the Tarikh-ul-Hukama. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 385 
 
 Lavoisier." He was followed by others, whose originality and 
 industry, profoundness of knowledge, and keenness of observa- 
 tion, evoke the astonishment of students, and make them 
 look with regret upon the inertness of the latter-day Moslem. 
 
 The science of medicine and the art of surgery, the best index 
 to a nation's genius and a severe test to the intellectual spirit 
 of a faith, were developed to the highest degree. Medicine had 
 undoubtedly attained a high degree of excellence among the 
 Greeks, but the Arabs carried it far beyond the stage in which 
 their predecessors in the work of civilisation had left it, and 
 brought it close to the modern standard. We can give here 
 but a small conception of the work done by the Saracens for 
 several centuries in this department of human study, and in 
 the development of the natural sciences. 
 
 The study of medical substances, the idea of which struck 
 Dioscorides in the Alexandrian school, is, in its scientific form, 
 a creation of the Arabs. They invented chemical pharmacy, 
 and were the first founders of those institutions which are now 
 called dispensaries} They established in every city public 
 hospitals, called Ddr ush-Shifa, " the house of cure," or Mdri- 
 stdn (an abbreviation of bimdristan, " the patient's house ") 
 and maintained them at the expense of the State. 
 
 The names of the Arab physicians in the biographical 
 dictionary of Abu Usaibi'a fill a volume. Abu Bakr Mohammed 
 ibn Zakaria ar-Razi (known to mediaeval Europe as Rhazes), 
 who flourished in the beginning of the tenth century, 2 Ali ibn- 
 Abbas, 3 Avicenna (Abu Ali Husain ibn-Sina), Albucasis (Abu'l 
 
 1 The persons in charge of the dispensaries were under the control of Govern- 
 ment. The price and quality of medicine were strictly regulated. Many 
 dispensaries were maintained by the State. There were regular examinations 
 for physicians and pharmacists, at which licences were given to passed 
 candidates. The licence-holders were alone entitled to practise. Compare 
 Kremer and Sedillot. 
 
 2 This great physician, surnamed Razi, from the place of his birth, Rai 
 (ancient Rhages), filled successively the office of principal of the public 
 hospitals at Rai, Jund-Shapur, and Bagdad. He wrote the Hdwi, which 
 Sedillot calls " un corpus medical fort estime." His treatises on smallpox 
 and measles have been consulted by the physicians of all nations. He intro- 
 duced the use of minoratives, invented the seton, and discovered the nerve 
 of the larynx. He wrote two hundred medical works, some of which were 
 published in Venice in 1510. Ar-Razi died in a.h. 311 (a.c. 923-4)- 
 
 3 Ali ibn-Abbas flourished fifty years later than Rhazes. He published a 
 medical work,""consisting~of^twenty volumes, on the theory and practice of 
 
 s.i. 2 B 
 
386 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Kasim Khalaf ibn Abbas), Aven-Zoar l (Abu Merwan ibn 
 Abdul Malik ibn Zuhr), Averroes (Abu'l Walid Mohammed ibn 
 Rushd), 2 and Aben-Bethar (Abdullah ibn Ahmed ibn Ali al- 
 Beithdr, the veterinary) , z are some of the most brilliant and most 
 distinguished physicians who have left an enduring impression 
 on the world of thought. Albucasis was not only a physician 
 but a surgeon of the first rank. He performed the most difficult 
 surgical operations in his own and the obstetrical department. 
 In operations on women, we are informed by him, in which 
 considerations of delicacy intervened, the services of properly 
 instructed women were secured. The ample description he has 
 left of the surgical instruments employed in his time gives an 
 idea of the development of surgery among the Arabs. 4 Avicenna 
 was unquestionably the most gifted man of his age ; a uni- 
 versalist in genius, and encyclopaedic in his writings. A 
 philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, poet, and physician, 
 he has left his influence impressed on two continents, and well 
 deserves the title of Aristotle of the East. In spite of patristic 
 jealousy, his philosophic ideas exercised an undisputed sway for 
 several centuries in the schools of the East as well as of Europe. 
 Avicenna is commonly known in Asia as the Sheikh par excellence. 
 
 medicine, which he dedicated to the Buyide Ameer 'Azud ud-dowla. This work 
 was translated into Latin in 1227, and printed at Lyons in 1523 by Michel 
 Capella. Ali ibn-Abbas corrected many of the errors of Hippocrates and 
 Galen. 
 
 1 Ibn Zuhr or Aven-Zoar was one of the most distinguished physicians 
 of his age. Born at Penaflor, he entered, after finishing his medical and 
 scientific studies, the service of Yusuf bin Tashfin, the great Almoravide 
 monarch of Africa, who covered the rising physician with honours and riches. 
 Ibn Zuhr joined, like Albucasis, the practice of medicine with surgery. He 
 was the first to conceive the idea of bronchotomy, with exact indications of 
 the luxations and fractures, and discovered several important maladies with 
 their treatment. His son followed in his father's steps and was the chief 
 surgeon and physician of Yusuf bin Tashfin's army. 
 
 2 Averroes was the Avicenna of the West. His life and writings have been 
 given to the world by Renan. He was a contemporary of Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Baja, 
 and Ibn Tufail. Of Averroes and his contemporaries we shall have to speak 
 in the next chapter. 
 
 Besides these may be mentioned Abu'l Hasan ibn Tilmiz, author of Alma- 
 lihi ; Abu Ja'far Ahmed ibn Mohammed at-Talib, who wrote on pleurisy, 
 etc. ; and Hibatulla. 
 
 3 Al-Beithar travelled all over the East to find medicinal herbs, on which 
 he wrote an exhaustive treatise. The Arab physicians introduced the use of 
 the rhubarb, cassia, senna, camphor, the pulp of the tamarind (tamr— 
 
 j+t-hindi — Indian date), etc. 
 
 4 In lithotomy he was equal to the foremost surgeons of modern times. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 387 
 
 He was born in the year 980 A.c. at a village called Afshanah, in 
 Transoxiana, of which place his father was the governor. He 
 finished his medical studies in Bokhara at the age of eighteen, 
 when commenced an extraordinary political and philosophical 
 career. His tenacity in refusing the liberal offers of Mahmud 
 the Conqueror to join his service led to his expulsion from the 
 Ghaznavide dominions. He soon became the vizier of Shams 
 ud-dowla, Ameer of Hamadan, and afterwards of 'Ala ud-dowla, 
 Ameer of Isphahan, where he pursued his scientific and 
 philosophical studies, and wrote his great works, the Kdnun 
 and the Arjuza, afterwards the foundation of all medical 
 knowledge. 
 
 The Greeks possessed crude notions of anatomy, and their 
 knowledge of pharmacy was restricted within a very narrow 
 compass. The Moslems developed both anatomy and pharmacy 
 into positive sciences. The wide extent of the empire enabled 
 researches and investigations in every quarter of the globe, 
 with the result that they enriched the existing pharmacopoeia 
 by innumerable and invaluable additions. Botany they 
 advanced far beyond the state in which it had been left by 
 Dioscorides, and augmented the herbalogy of the Greeks by 
 the addition of two thousand plants. Regular gardens existed 
 both in Cordova and Bagdad, at Cairo and Fez for the education 
 of pupils, where discourses were delivered by the most learned 
 in the sciences. 
 
 Ad-Damiri (Aldemri) is famous in the Moslem world for his 
 history of animals — a work which forestalled Button by seven 
 hundred years. 
 
 Geology was cultivated under the name of 'Ilm-i-Tashrih-ul- 
 Arz, " the science of the anatomy of the earth." 
 
 The superiority of the Moslems in architecture requires no 
 comment, for the glorious remains of Saracenic art in the East 
 and in the West still evoke the admiration of the modern world. 
 Their religion has been charged with their backwardness in 
 painting and sculpture, but it must be borne in mind that the 
 prohibition contained in the Koran is similar to the Levitical 
 commandment. It was but a continuation of the Mosaic Law, 
 which had so effectually suppressed the making of " graven 
 images " among the Jews, and its signification rests upon the 
 
388 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 inveterate idolatry of the pre-Islamite Arabs. To the early 
 Moslems, therefore, painting and statuary were odious and 
 unlawful, as emblematic of heathenism, and this deeply 
 implanted iconoclasm undoubtedly saved them from relapsing, 
 as other nations had done, into idolatry. But with the gradual 
 development of the primitive commonwealth into a civilised 
 and cultured empire, and with the ascendency of learning and 
 science, the Moslems grasped the spirit of the prohibition, and 
 cast off the fetters of a narrow literalism. No doubt the spirit 
 of rationalism, which so deeply influenced the early Abbaside 
 and Spanish Caliphs, was the actual cause of the impetus 
 given by them to art. Hence throughout the Moslem world 
 a taste for painting and sculpture arose simultaneously with 
 the progress of literature and science. The palaces of the 
 Caliphs, the mansions of the sovereigns who followed in their 
 footsteps, and the houses of the grandees were decorated with 
 pictures and sculptures. 
 
 To the Prophet's prohibition of graven images or painting in 
 mosques the world is indebted for the art of arabesque — 
 which possesses such peculiar charm in the decoration of 
 Oriental buildings, and which has been widely adopted by 
 Western art. With the gradual enlightenment of the Moslems 
 by contact with the arts of other nations, animals and flowers, 
 birds and fruits were introduced into arabesque ; but the 
 figures of animated beings were throughout absolutely inter- 
 dicted in the decoration of places of worship. In purity of 
 form and simplicity of outline, in the gracefulness of design 
 and perfection of symmetry, in the harmony of every detail, 
 in the exquisiteness of finish and sublimity of conception, 
 Moslem architecture is equal to any in the world, and the 
 chaste and graceful ornamentation with which so many of 
 the grandest monuments are adorned, indicates a refinement of 
 taste and culture surpassing any of the great monumental 
 relics of ancient Greece or modern Europe. Another branch 
 of Moslem decorative art is that of ornamental writing, which 
 is so often utilised with remarkable effect in the adornment of 
 mosques, mausolea, and palaces, where whole chapters of the 
 Koran are carved or inlaid round domes and minarets, doors 
 and arches, testifying to the same religious earnestness, yet in 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 389 
 
 a purely monotheistic spirit, as the pictures of saints and 
 martyrs which decorate Christian churches. 
 
 Before the promulgation of Islam the profession of music 
 among the Arabs was confined to the slaves of both sexes 
 imported from Syria and Persia, or to the class of hetairai 
 called Kydn. The Prophet had discountenanced, for obvious 
 moral reasons, the songs and dances of these degraded women. 
 But under the Abbasides and the Spanish Arab kings, when 
 music was elevated to the rank of a science, and its cultivation 
 was recognised as an art, a love for music spread among all 
 classes of society. A large literature grew up on the subject ; 
 songs were collected and classified according to their melodies 
 and keys, and the musical instruments of the ancients were 
 improved and new ones invented. The sharp conflict between 
 Rationalism and Patristicism, between Idealism and Literalism, 
 which marked the middle of the twelfth century, drove this 
 sweetest of arts back into the arms of the servile classes or 
 forced it to seek a refuge in the chapels of the dervishes. 
 
 A large general literature existed on the subject of com- 
 merce, agriculture, handicraft and manufacture, the latter 
 including every conceivable subject, from porcelain to weapons 
 of war. 
 
 In historical research the Moslems have not been behind any 
 other nation, ancient or modern. At first attention was devoted 
 chiefly to the history of the Prophet, but soon the primitive idea 
 widened into a broad conception. Archaeology, geography, and 
 ethnology were included in history, and the greatest minds 
 applied themselves to the pursuit of this captivating branch of 
 study. Between the simple work of Ibn-Ishak and the universal 
 history of Ibn-Khaldun there is a great difference, but the 
 intervening space is occupied by a host of writers, the product 
 of whose labours supplies some index to the intellectual activity 
 of the Saracenic nations under the inspiration of Islam. 
 
 Balazuri, who died in 279 a.h. (a.c. 892), was born at Bagdad, 
 where he lived and worked. His " Conquest of the Countries " 
 (Futuh ul-Bulddn) is written in admirable style, and marks a 
 distinct advance of the historical spirit. 
 
 Hamadani, who flourished towards the end of the third and 
 the beginning of the fourth century of the Hegira, gave to the 
 
3$o THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 world a comprehensive history of Southern Arabia, with an 
 account of its tribes, its numerous remains of interest, with 
 explanations of their inscriptions, as well as the ethnography 
 and geography of Yemen. It is, however, in the monumental 
 works of Mas'udi, of al-Beiruni, of Ibn ul-Athir, of Tabari, of 
 Ibn-Khaldun, called by Mohl the Montesquieu of Islam, of 
 Makrizi, Makkari, AbuTfeda, Nuwairi, and Mirkhond that the 
 mental vigour of the Moslem races in this department of know- 
 ledge is found in full play. These men were not specialists 
 only ; they were encyclopaedists — philosophers, mathema- 
 ticians, geographers, as well as historians. Mas'udi was a 
 native of Bagdad, but by descent a Northern Arab, who in his 
 early youth travelled and saw the greater part of the Moham- 
 medan world. He first went to India, visited Multan and 
 Mansura, then travelled over Persia and Kerman, again went 
 to India, remained for some time at Cambay (Kambaja) and 
 the Deccan, went to Ceylon, sailed from there to Kambalu 
 (Madagascar), and went from there to Oman, and perhaps even 
 reached the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and China. He had 
 travelled far in Central Asia, and reached the Caspian Sea. 
 After finishing his travels, he lived for some time in Tiberias 
 and Antioch, and afterwards took up his abode in Basrah, 
 where he first published his great work, called the Muruj-uz- 
 Zahab («-**^l £jf). Afterwards he removed to Fostat 
 (old Cairo), where he published the Kitdb ut-Tanbih, and later 
 the Mirdt-uz-Zamdn, or the Mirror of the Times, a voluminous 
 work, which is only partially preserved. 1 In the Muruj-uz- 
 Zahab (the " Golden Meadows ") "he tells the rich experiences 
 of his life in the amiable and cheerful manner of a man who 
 had seen various lands, experienced life in all its phases, and 
 who takes pleasure, not only in instructing, but in amusing 
 his reader. Without burdening us with the names of the 
 authorities, without losing himself in long explanations, he 
 delights in giving prominence to that which strikes him as 
 wonderful, rare, and interesting, and to portray people and 
 manners with conciseness and anecdotic skill." 
 
 1 1 am told that the Library in Vienna contains a historical work by the 
 same author consisting of some thirty volumes which bears the name of the 
 Akhbar-uz-Zamcln. Perhars this is the same work as Mirat-uz-Zaman. 
 
IX. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 391 
 
 Tabari (Abu Ja'far Mohammed ibn Jarir), surnamed the Livy 
 of the Arabs, who died in Bagdad in 922 A.c., brought his work 
 down to the year 302 of the Hegira (914 A.c). It was continued 
 to the end of the twelfth century by al-Makin or Elmacin. 
 
 Ibn ul-Athir [j»J)l\&Jt), surnamed Izz ad-din, "glory of 
 religion," was a native of Jazireh-bani-Omar, in Irak, but 
 resided chiefly at Mosul, where his house was the resort of the 
 most distinguished scholars and savants of the time. His 
 universal history, known as the al-Kdmil, which ends with the 
 year 1231 a.c, may be compared with the best works of 
 modern Europe. 
 
 Makrizi x (Taki ud-din Ahmed) was a contemporary of Ibn- 
 Khaldim. His works on Egypt furnish a vivid picture of the 
 political, religious, social, commercial, archaeological, and 
 administrative condition of the country. 
 
 AbuTfeda, whom we have already mentioned as a geographer, 
 was the Prince of Hamah at the commencement of the four- 
 teenth century. Distinguished alike in the pursuit of arms 
 as in letters, gifted with eminent qualities, he occupies a 
 prominent place among the scholars and scientists of the East. 
 The portion of his great work which deals with the political and 
 literary history of Islam, and its relations to the Byzantines 
 from the eighth to the twelfth century, is extremely valuable. 
 
 Ibn Khaldun flourished in the fourteenth century of the 
 Christian era. Born in Tunis in 1332, he was in the midst of 
 all the revolutions of which Africa was the theatre in the 
 fourteenth century. His magnificent history is preceded by a 
 Prolegomena, in itself a store-house of information and philo- 
 sophical dissertation. In the Prolegomena he traces the origin 
 of society, the development of civilisation, the causes which led 
 to the rise and fall of kingdoms and dynasties ; and discusses, 
 among other questions, the influence of climate on the formation 
 of a nation's character. He died in the year 1406 a.c 
 
 The Arabs invented the mariner's compass, and voyaged to 
 all parts of the world in quest of knowledge or in the pursuit of 
 commerce. They established colonies in Africa, far to the 
 south in the Indian Archipelago, on the coasts of India, and on 
 the Malayan Peninsula. Even China opened her barred gates 
 1 Died in 1442 a.c. 
 
392 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 to Moslem colonists and mercenaries. They discovered the 
 Azores, and, it is even surmised, penetrated as far as America. 
 Within the confines of the ancient continents they gave an 
 unprecedented and almost unparalleled impulse in every 
 direction to human industry. The Prophet had inculcated 
 labour as a duty ; he had given the impress of piety to industrial 
 pursuits ; he had recommended commerce and agriculture as 
 meritorious in the sight of the Lord. These precepts had their 
 natural result ; the merchants, the traders, the industrial 
 classes in general, were treated with respect ; and governors, 
 generals, and savants disdained not to call themselves by the 
 title of their professions. The peace and security with which 
 caravans travelled the empire ; the perfect safety of the roads ; 
 the cisterns, and tanks, and reservoirs, and rest-houses which 
 existed everywhere along the routes — all aided in the rapid 
 development of commerce and trade, and arts and manufactures. 
 The Arabs covered the countries where they settled with 
 networks of canals. To Spain they gave the system of irriga- 
 tion by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps. Whole tracts of land 
 that now lie waste and barren were covered with olive groves, 
 and the environs of Seville alone, under Moslem rule, contained 
 several thousand oil-factories. They introduced the staple 
 products, rice, sugar, cotton, and nearly all the fine garden and 
 orchard fruits, together with many less important plants, such 
 as ginger, saffron, myrrh, etc. They opened up the mines of 
 copper, sulphur, mercury, and iron. They established the 
 culture of silk, the manufacture of paper and other textile 
 fabrics ; of porcelain, earthenware, iron, steel, and leather. 
 The tapestries of Cordova, the woollen stuffs of Murcia, the 
 silks of Granada, Almeria, and Seville, the steel and gold work 
 of Toledo, the paper of Salibah were sought all over the world. 
 The ports of Malaga, Carthagena, Barcelona, and Cadiz were 
 vast commercial emporiums for export and import. In the 
 days of their prosperity the Spanish Arabs maintained a 
 merchant navy of more than a thousand ships. They had 
 f ictories and representatives on the Danube. W T ith Con- 
 stantinople they possessed a great trade, which ramified from 
 the Black Sea and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean into 
 the interior of Asia, and reached the ports of India and China 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 393 
 
 and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar. 
 " In the midst of the tenth century, when Europe was about 
 in the same condition that Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, 
 like Abul Cassem, were writing treatises on the principles of 
 trade and commerce." In order to supply an incentive to 
 commercial enterprise, and to further the impulse to travel, 
 geographical registers, gazetteers, and itineraries were pub- 
 lished under the authority of Government, containing minute 
 descriptions of the places to which they related, with par- 
 ticulars of the routes and other necessary matters. Travellers 
 like Ibn-i-Batuta visited foreign lands in quest of information, 
 and wrote voluminous works on the people of those countries, 
 on their fauna and flora, their mineral products, their climatic 
 and physical features, with astonishing perspicacity and keen- 
 ness of observation. 
 
 The love of learning and arts was by no means confined to 
 one sex. The culture and education of the women proceeded 
 on parallel lines with that of the men, and women were as keen 
 in the pursuit of literature and as devoted to science as men. 
 They had their own colleges ; l they studied medicine and 
 jurisprudence, lectured on rhetoric, ethics, and belles-lettres, 
 and participated with the stronger sex in the glories of a 
 splendid civilisation. The wives and daughters of magnates 
 and sovereigns spent their substance in founding colleges and 
 endowing universities, in establishing hospitals for the sick, 
 refuges for the homeless, the orphan, and the widow. 2 
 
 The division and jealousy of the Arab tribes, which had 
 prevented the assimilation and fusion of their several dialects, 
 had nevertheless conduced to the enrichment of the national 
 language as spoken in Hijaz, and the annual conflux of people 
 
 1 One well-known institution of this kind was established in Cairo in 684 a.h. 
 by the daughter of the Mameluke Sultan Malik Taher. 
 
 2 Zubaida, the wife of Harun, founded several such refuges ; and the hospital 
 built by the wife of 'Azud ud-dowla rivalled her husband's. The daughter of 
 Malik Ashraf, known as the Khatun, erected a splendid college at Damascus. 
 Another college was founded by Zamurud Khatun, wife of Nasir ud-dowla of 
 Hems. 
 
 Many Moslem ladies were distinguished in poetry. Fatima, the Prophet's 
 daughter, holds a high rank among poets. So does the daughter of Aurangzeb, 
 Zeb un-nisa, surnamed Makhfi. When Urquhart travelled in Turkey, three 
 of the most celebrated living poets were ladies, and one of them, Perishek 
 Khanam, acted as private secretary to Sultan Mustafa. 
 
394 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 at Okaz, with the periodical contest of the poets, had imparted 
 to it a regularity and polish. But it was the Koran — " a book 
 by the aid of which the Arabs conquered a world greater than 
 that of Alexander the Great, greater than that of Rome, and 
 in as many tens of years as the latter had wanted hundreds to 
 accomplish her conquests ; by the aid of which they alone of 
 all the Shemites came to Europe as kings, whither the Phoeni- 
 cians had come as tradesmen, and the Jews as fugitives or 
 captives ; came to Europe to hold up, together with these 
 fugitives, the light to humanity ; — they alone, while darkness 
 lay around, to raise up the wisdom and knowledge of Hellas 
 from the dead, to teach philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and 
 the golden art of song to the West as to the East, to stand at 
 the cradle of modern science, and to cause us late epigoni for 
 ever to weep over the day when Granada fell," 1 — it was this 
 book which fixed and preserved for ever the Arabic tongue in 
 all its purity. The simple grandeur of its diction, the chaste 
 elegance of its style, the variety of its imageries, the rapid 
 transitions, like flashes of lightning, which show the moralist 
 teaching, the philosopher theosophising, the injured patriot 
 denouncing in fervent expressions the immorality and degrada- 
 tion of his people, and withal the heavenly Father calling back 
 through His servant His erring children, — all mark its unique 
 character among religious records. And the awe and venera- 
 tion with which the greatest poets of the day listened to its 
 teachings, show how deeply it must have moved the people. 
 Delivered at different times, — in moments of persecution and 
 anguish, or of energetic action, or enunciated for purposes of 
 practical guidance, — there is yet a vitality, an earnestness and 
 energy in every word, which differentiates it from all other 
 Scriptures. Lest it be thought we are biassed in our opinion, 
 we give the words of the great orientalist whom we have already 
 quoted : " Those grand accents of joy and sorrow, of love, and 
 valour, and passion, of which but faint echoes strike on our 
 ears now, were full-toned at the time of Mohammed ; and he 
 had not merely to rival the illustrious of the illustrious, but 
 excel them ; to appeal to the superiority of what he said and 
 sang as a very sign and proof of his mission . . . The poets 
 
 1 Deutsch. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 395 
 
 before him had sung of love . . . Antara, himself the hero of 
 the most famous novel, sings of the ruin, around which ever 
 hover lovers' thoughts, of the dwelling of Abla, who is gone, 
 and her dwelling-place knows her not. Mohammed sang none 
 of these. No love-minstrelsy his, not the joys of this world, 
 nor sword nor camel, not jealousy or human vengeance, not 
 the glories of tribe or ancestors, nor the unmeaning, swiftly 
 and forever-extinguished existence of man, were his themes. 
 He preached Islam. And he preached it by rending the skies 
 above and tearing open the ground below, by adjuring heaven 
 and hell, the living and the dead." 
 
 Another great writer speaks of the Koran in the following 
 terms : " If it is not poetry, — and it is hard to say whether it 
 be or not, — it is more than poetry. It is not history, nor 
 biography. It is not anthology, like the Sermon on the 
 Mount ; nor metaphysical dialectics, like the Buddhist Sutras ; 
 nor sublime homiletics like Plato's conferences of the wise 
 and foolish teachers. It is a prophet's cry, Semitic to the core ; 
 yet of a meaning so universal and so timely that all the voices 
 of the age take it up, willing or unwilling, and it echoes over 
 palaces and deserts, over cities and empires, first kindling its 
 chosen hearts to world-conquest, then gathering itself up into 
 a reconstructive force that all the creative light of Greece and 
 Asia might penetrate the heavy gloom of Christian Europe, 
 when Christianity was but the Queen of Night." x 
 
 In general literature, embracing every phase of the human 
 intellect, ethics, metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, the Moslem 
 writers may be counted by hundreds. In poetry, the fertility 
 of the Moslem mind has not been yet surpassed. From Mutan- 
 abbi the Arab (not to go back to the poets who flourished in 
 the time of the Prophet) to Hali the Indian, there is an endless 
 succession of poets. Mutanabbi flourished in the ninth century, 
 and enjoyed the patronage of Ameer Saif ud-dowla (Abu'l 
 Hasan Ali bin Hamdan). He was followed by Ibn-Duraid, 2 
 Abii-Ula, 3 Ibn Faridh, 4 Tantarani, 5 and others. The Spanish 
 Arabs were nature's poets ; they invented the different kinds 
 of poetry, which afterwards were adopted as models by the 
 
 1 Johnson. 2 Died in a.c. 933. 3 Died in a.c. 1057. 
 
 4 Died in a.c. 1255. 5 Died in A.c. 1092. 
 
396 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Christian nations of southern Europe. Among the great poets 
 who nourished in Spain the name of Ahmed ibn Mohammed 
 (Abu-Omar) 1 is the most famous. We have already mentioned 
 the poets who lived under Mahmud ; Firdousi, who brought 
 back to life the dead heroes of Iran, rivals the fame of the 
 sovereign whom first he praised and afterwards satirised. 
 Under the later Ghaznavides and the Seljukides flourished the 
 lyric poets Suzeni, 2 the creator of the Persian metrical system, 
 and Watwat ; the panegyrists Anwari, 3 Khakani, 4 and Zahir 
 Faryabi ; 5 the great mystics, Sanai', 6 whose Hadika is valued 
 wherever the Persian language is known and appreciated, and 
 Farid ud-din 'Attar ; 7 and the romancist Nizami, the immortal 
 bard of Khusru and Shirin and of Alexander. Under the 
 Atabegs, who rose to power on the decline of the Seljukides, 
 flourished the moralist Sa'di and the mystic Jalal ud-din 
 Rumi. Under Timur lived the sweet singer Haftz (Shams 
 ud-din), called the Anacreon of Persia. These are but a very 
 few of the names famous in the realm of poetry. The pages 
 of Ibn-Khallikan, and of Lutf Ali Azar 8 speak more eloquently 
 of the poetical genius of the Moslems. 
 
 Such were the glorious achievements of the Moslems in the 
 field of intellect ; and all was due to the teachings of one man. 
 Called by his voice from the abyss of barbarism and ignorance 
 in which they had hitherto dwelt, with little hope of the present, 
 with none of the future, the Arab went into the world, to 
 elevate and civilise. Afflicted humanity awoke into new life. 
 Whilst the barbarians of Europe, who had overturned an effete 
 empire, were groping in the darkness of ignorance and brutality, 
 the Moslems were building up a great civilisation. During 
 centuries of moral and intellectual desolation in Europe, Islam 
 led the vanguard of progress. Christianity had established 
 
 1 A.C. 1175, A.H. 569. * A.C. II77, A.H. 573. 
 
 3 Anwari' s panegyric on Sultan Sanjar is one of the finest poems in the 
 Persian language. The Hindustani poet Sauda in the Kasida in honour of 
 Asaf ud-Dowla of Oudh has imitated Anwari with great success. 
 
 * A.C. Il86, A.H. 582. 6 A.C I20I, A.H. 598. 
 
 6 A.C. Il8o, A.H. 576. 7 A.C. II90, A.H. 586. 
 
 8 The Atesh-Kadeh (" Fire Temple ") of Lutf Ali Azar is the lives of the 
 Persian poets from the earliest times, with specimens of their poetry. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 397 
 
 itself on the throne of the Caesars, but it had failed to regenerate 
 the nations of the earth. From the fourth century of the 
 Christian era to the twelfth, the gloom that overshadowed 
 Europe grew deeper and deeper. During these ages of ferocious 
 bigotry Ecclesiasticism barred every access through which the 
 light of knowledge, humanity, or civilisation could enter. But 
 though jealously shut out from this land of fanaticism, the 
 benignant influences of Islamic culture in time made them- 
 selves felt in every part of Christendom. From the schools 
 of Salerno, of Bagdad, of Damascus, of Cordova, of Granada, of 
 Malaga, the Moslems taught the world the gentle lessons of 
 philosophy and the practical teachings of stern science. 1 
 
 The first manifestation of Rationalism in the West occurred in 
 the province most amenable to the power of Moslem civilisation. 
 Ecclesiasticism crushed this fair flower with fire and with 
 sword, and threw back the progress of the world for centuries. 
 But the principles of Free Thought, so strongly impressed on 
 Islam, had communicated their vitality to Christian Europe. 
 Abelard had felt the power of Averroes' genius, which was 
 shedding its light over the whole of the Western world. Abelard 
 struck a blow for Free Thought which led to the eventual 
 emancipation of Christendom from the bondage of Ecclesi- 
 asticism. Avenpace and Averroes were the precursors of 
 Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke. 
 
 The influence of Abelard and of his school soon penetrated 
 into England. Wycliffe's originality of thought and freedom 
 of spirit took their rise from the bold conceptions of the former 
 thinkers. The later German reformers, deriving their notions 
 on one side from the iconoclasts of Constantinople, and on the 
 other from the movements of the Albigenses and the Wyclirfites, 
 completed the work which had been commenced by others 
 under foreign rationalistic influence. 
 
 While Christian Europe had placed learning under the ban 
 of persecution ; while the Vicar of Christ set the example of 
 stifling the infant lispings of Free Thought ; while the priests 
 
 1 The impetus which Islam gave to the intellectual development of mankind 
 is evidenced by the fact that the Arabs were joined in the race for progress by 
 members of nationalities which had hitherto lain absolutely dormant. Islam 
 quickened the pulse of humanity and awakened new life in communities which 
 were either dead or dying ; see Appendix III, 
 
398 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 led the way in consigning to the flames thousands of inoffensive 
 beings for mere aberration of reason ; while Christian Europe 
 was exorcising demons and worshipping rags and bones — 
 learning flourished under the Moslem sovereigns, and was held 
 in honour and veneration as never before. The Vicegerents of 
 Mohammed allied themselves to the cause of civilisation, and 
 assisted in the growth of Free Thought and Free Inquiry, 
 originated and consecrated by the Prophet himself. Persecution 
 for the sake of the faith was unknown ; and whatever the 
 political conduct of the sovereigns, the world has never had 
 superior examples in their impartiality and absolute toleration 
 of all creeds and religions. The cultivation of the physical 
 sciences — that great index to the intellectual liberty of a nation 
 — formed a popular pursuit among the Moslems. 
 
 The two failures of the Arabs, the one before Constantinople 
 and the other in France, retarded the progress of the world for 
 ages, and put back the hour-hand of time for centuries. Had 
 the Arabs been less keen for the safety of their spoils, less 
 divided among themselves, had they succeeded in driving before 
 them the barbarian hosts of Charles Martel, the history of the 
 darkest period in the annals of the world would never have been 
 written. The Renaissance, civilisation, the growth of intel- 
 lectual liberty, would have been accelerated by seven hundred 
 years. We should not have had to shudder over the massacre 
 of the Albigenses or of the Huguenots, or the ghastly slaughters 
 of the Irish Catholics by the English Protestants under the 
 Tudors and the Protectorate. We should not have had to 
 mourn over the fate of a Bruno or a Servetus, murdered by the 
 hands of those who had revolted from their mother-church. 
 The history of the auto-da-fe, of the murders of the Inquisition, 
 of the massacres of the Aztecs and the Incas ; the tale of the 
 Thirty Years' War, with its manifold miseries, — all this would 
 have remained untold. Above all, Spain, at one time the 
 favoured haunt of learning and the arts, would not have become 
 the intellectual desert it now is, bereft of the glories of centuries. 
 Who has not mourned over the fate of that noble race, exiled 
 by the mad bigotry of a Christian sovereign from the country 
 of its adoption, which it had made famous among nations ? 
 Justly has it been said, " In an ill-omened hour the Cross 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 399 
 
 supplanted the Crescent on the towers of Granada. ' ' The shades 
 of the glorious dead, of Averroes and Avenpace, of Waladeh 
 and Ayesha, sit weeping by the ruined haunts of their people 
 — haunts silent now to the voice of minstrelsy, of chivalry, of 
 learning, and of art, — only echoing at times the mad outcries 
 of religious combatants, at times the fierce sounds of political 
 animosities. Christianity drove the descendants of these 
 Moslem Andalusians into the desert, sucked out every element 
 of vitality from beautiful Spain, and made the land a synonym 
 for intellectual and moral desolation. 1 
 
 If Maslamah had succeeded in capturing Constantinople, — 
 the capital of Irene, the warm advocate of orthodoxy and cruel 
 murderess of her own son, — the dark deeds which sully the 
 annals of the Isaurians, the Comneni, the Palaeologi, the terrible 
 results which attended the seizure of Byzantium by the Latins, 
 above all, the frightful outburst of the unholy wars, in which 
 Christian Europe tried to strangle the nations of Asia, would 
 probably never have come to pass. One thing at all events is 
 certain, that if Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the 
 Moslems, the iconoclastic movement would not have proved 
 altogether abortive, and the reformation of the Christian 
 Church would have been accomplished centuries earlier. 
 Providence willed otherwise. The wave of Free Thought, 
 which had reached the Isaurian emperors from the Islamic 
 regions, broke upon the rocks of ignorance, superstition, and 
 bigotry ; its power was not felt until the combined action of 
 the schools of Salerno and Cordova — the influence of Averroes, 
 and perhaps of some Greeks who had imbibed learning at the 
 Saracenic fountain — had battered down the rampart of 
 Ecclesiasticism. 
 
 / Islam inaugurated the reign of intellectual liberty. It has 
 been truly remarked, that so long as Islam retained its pristine 
 character, it proved itself the warm protector and promoter of 
 knowledge and civilisation, — the zealous ally of intellectual 
 freedom. The moment extraneous elements attached them- 
 selves to it, it lagged behind in the race of progress. 
 
 But, to explain the stagnation of the Moslems in the present 
 
 1 For the economic condition of Spain and the state of arts and learning 
 under the Arabs, see Short History of the Saracens, pp. 474-580. 
 
400 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 day, it is necessary to glance back for a moment at the events 
 that transpired in Spain, in Africa, and in Asia between the 
 twelfth and the seventeenth centuries. In the former country, 
 Christianity destroyed the intellectual life of the people. The 
 Moslems had turned Spain into a garden ; the Christians con- 
 verted it into a desert. The Moslems had covered the land 
 with colleges and schools ; the Christians transformed them into 
 churches for the worship of saints and images. The literary 
 and scientific treasures amassed by the Moslem sovereigns 
 were consigned to the flames. The Moslem men, women, and 
 children were ruthlessly butchered or burnt at the stake ; the 
 few who were spared were reduced to slavery. Those who fled 
 were thrown on the shores of Africa helpless beggars. It would 
 take the combined charity of Jesus and Mohammed to make 
 Islam forget or forgive the terrible wrongs inflicted by the 
 Christians of Spain upon the Andalusian Moslems. But the 
 punishment was not long in coming. Before the world was a 
 century old, Spain's fire had sunk into a heap of ashes ! 
 
 In Western Africa, the triumph of Patristicism under the 
 third Almohade sovereign, 1 and the uprise of Berber fanaticism 
 turned back the tide of progress, arrested the civilisation of 
 centuries, and converted the seats of learning and arts into 
 centres of bigotry and ignorance. The settlement of the 
 Corsairs on the Barbary coast and the anarchy which prevailed 
 in Egypt under the later Mamelukes, discouraged the cultiva- 
 tion of peaceful knowledge. In Asia the decadence of the 
 Timuride dynasty, the eruption of the wild and fanatical 
 Uzbegs, and the establishment of their power in the capital of 
 Timur, destroyed the intellectual vitality of the people. In 
 Persia, under the Safawis, literature and science had begun 
 
 1 On the decadence of the Fatimide power in Western Africa there arose a 
 dynasty descended from a Marabout or saint of the country, hence called 
 Almoravide or al-Murabatia (^aIsjI^i). To this family belonged Yusuf ibn 
 Tashfin, the patron of Ibn-Zuhr. His son and successor was defeated and 
 killed by Abdu'l Momin, the founder of the dynasty of Almohades (al-Muwa- 
 hidin, ^^Aj^i\. the Unitarians), who sacked and destroyed Morocco 
 and Fez. They were akin to the Wahabis and the Ikhwan of Central Arabia, 
 and probably not very different from the Mahdists of Lybia. The first two 
 sovereigns of this dynasty, Abdu'l Momin and Yusuf, encouraged learning 
 and arts ; in the reign of Ya'kub al-Mansur, the third Almohade king, 
 fanaticism became rampant. 
 
ix. THE LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT 401 
 
 to breathe once more ; but this renaissance was only temporary, 
 and with the irruption of the barbarous Ghihzais the renovated 
 life of Iran came to an end. A deathlike gloom settled upon 
 Central Asia, which still hangs heavy over these unhappy 
 countries, and is slowly lifting in Afghanistan. 
 
 Under Selim I., Solyman and the Murads, learning received 
 support in the Ottoman dominions ; but the Osmanlis were on 
 the whole a military race. At first from ambition, afterwards 
 from sheer necessity and for self-preservation, they had been 
 at war with a relentless foe, whose designs knew no slackening, 
 whose purpose was inscrutable. That enemy has disappeared, 
 but the nation has still to fight for its existence. Letters and 
 arts, under such conditions, can make but little progress. 
 Dealing with the charge of obscurantism, often levelled against 
 Islam, M. Gobineau makes the following pregnant observation : 
 " Imagine in any European country the absolute predominance 
 of military and administrative despotism during a period of 
 two hundred and fifty years, as is the case in Turkey ; conceive 
 something approaching the warlike anarchy of Egypt under the 
 domination of foreign slaves — Circassians, Georgians, Turks, 
 and Albanians ; picture to yourself an Afghan invasion, as in 
 Persia after 1730, the tyranny of Nadir Shah, the cruelties and 
 ravages that have marked the accession of the dynasty of the 
 Kajars, — unite all these circumstances with their naturally 
 concomitant causes, you will then understand what would have 
 become of any European country although European, and it 
 will not be necessary to look further for any explanation of the 
 ruin of Oriental countries, nor to charge Islam with any unjust 
 responsibility." 
 
 From the time of its birth in the seventh century up to the 
 end of the seventeenth, not to descend later, Islam was 
 animated by a scientific and literary spirit equal in force and 
 energy to that which animates Europe of our own day. It 
 carried the Moslems forward on a wave of progress, and enabled 
 them to achieve a high degree of material and mental develop- 
 ment. Since the eruption of the Goths and the Vandals, the 
 progress of Europe has been on a continuous scale. No such 
 calamity as has afflicted Asia, in the persons of the Tartars 
 or the Uzbegs, has befallen Christendom since Attila's retreat 
 s.i. 2 c 
 
402 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 from France. Her wars, cruel and bitter, fierce and inhuman, 
 have been waged on equal terms of humanity or inhumanity. 
 Catholics and Protestants have burnt each other ; but Europe 
 has never witnessed, since the wholesale butcheries of the poor 
 Spanish Moors, the terrible massacres committed by the Tartars 
 in all the centres of civilisation and culture, in which fell the 
 gifted classes who formed the backbone of the nation. 1 
 And now, 
 
 v->l — *~l,»l J. J»i^ J si 
 
 The spider holds watch in the palace of Caesar, 
 The owlet beats the drum on the tower of Afrasiab. 
 
 1 The sack of Bagdad by the Mongols exemplifies what happened in other 
 cities, but in order to give a true conception of the fearful atrocities perpetrated 
 by the savages, it requires to be painted by another Gibbon. For three days 
 the streets ran with blood, and the water of the Tigris was dyed red for miles 
 along its course. The horrors of rapine, slaughter, and outraged humanity 
 lasted for six weeks. The palaces, mosques, and mausoleums were destroyed 
 by fire or levelled to the earth for their golden domes. The patients in the 
 hospitals and the students and professors in the colleges were put to the sword. 
 In the mausoleums the mortal remains of the sheikhs and pious imams, and 
 in the academies the immortal works of great and learned men, were con- 
 sumed to ashes ; books were thrown into the fire, or, where that was distant 
 and the Tigris near, were buried in the waters of the latter. The accumulated 
 treasures of five centuries were thus lost for ever to humanity. The flower of 
 the nation was completely destroyed. It was the custom of Hulaku, from 
 policy and as a precaution, to carry along with his horde the princes and chiefs 
 of the countries through which they swept. One of these princes was Sa'di 
 bin Zangi, the Atabek of Fars. The poet Sa'di had, it appears, accompanied 
 his friend and patron. He was thus an eye-witness to the terrible state of 
 Bagdad and its doomed inhabitants. In two pathetic couplets he has given 
 expression to its magnitude and horrors, see Appendix II. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
 SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 
 U ,xkj J» 
 
 II KE all other nations of antiquity, the pre-Islamite Arabs 
 were stern fatalists. The remains of their ancient 
 -■ poetry, sole record of old Arab thought and manners, 
 show that before the promulgation of Islam the people of the 
 Peninsula had absolutely abandoned themselves to the idea of 
 an irresistible and blind fatality. Man was but a sport in the 
 hands of Fate. This idea bred a reckless contempt of death, 
 and an utter disregard for human life. The teachings of Islam 
 created a revolution in the Arab mind ; with the recognition 
 of a supreme Intelligence governing the universe, they received 
 the conception of self-dependence and of moral responsibility 
 founded on the liberty of human volition. One of the remark- 
 able characteristics of the Koran is the curious, and, at first 
 sight, inconsistent, manner in which it combines the existence 
 of a Divine Will, which not only orders all things, but which 
 acts directly upon men and addresses itself to the springs of 
 thought in them, with the assertion of a free agency in man 
 and of the liberty of intellect. Not that this feature is peculiar 
 to the Moslem scripture ; the same characteristic is to be found 
 in the Biblical records. But in the Koran the conception of 
 human responsibility is so strongly developed that the question 
 naturally occurs to the mind, How can these two ideas be 
 
 1 " God changes not as to what concerns any people until they change in 
 respect to what depends upon themselves." 
 
404 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii 
 
 reconciled with each other ? It seems inconsistent at first 
 sight that man should be judged by his works, a doctrine which 
 forms the foundation of Islamic morality, if all his actions are 
 ruled by an all-powerful Will. The earnest faith of Mohammed 
 in an active ever-living Principle, joined to his trust in the 
 progress of man, supplies a key to this mystery. I propose to 
 illustrate my meaning by a reference to a few of the passages 
 which give expression to the absolutism of the Divine Will and 
 those which assert the liberty of human volition : " And 
 God's ordering is in accordance with a determined decree ; 
 . . . and the sun proceeding to its place of rest — that is an 
 ordinance ; y^ ) of the Almighty, the All-wise ; x . . . and 
 among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth 
 and of the animals which He hath distributed therein, which 
 He has sovereign power to gather when He will ; 2 . . . and do 
 they not see that God who created the heavens and the earth, 
 and faltered not in creating these, has power to vivify the dead 
 — nay, He has sovereign control over all things ; 3 and other 
 things which are not at your command, but which are truly 
 within His grasp, inasmuch as God is sovereign disposer of all 
 things ( \y±> ^i J? ^U ) ; 4 nor is there anything not pro- 
 vided beforehand by Us, or which W T e send down otherwise 
 than according to a fore-known decree ; 5 . . . the secrets of 
 the heavens and the earth are God's ; . . . God has all things 
 at command ; 6 . . . and propound to them a similitude of this 
 present life, which is like water sent down by Us from heaven, 
 so that the plants of the earth are fattened by it, and on the 
 morrow become stubble, scattered by the winds, — God disposes 
 of all things ; 7 . . . and it pertains to God's sovereignty to 
 defend them ; 8 . . . God creates what He will ; 9 . . . and who 
 created all things, and determined respecting the same with 
 absolute determination ; 10 . . . and thy Lord is a supreme 
 sovereign ; u . . . behold thou the imprints of the mercy of 
 God : how He vivifies the earth, after it has died — in very 
 deed, a restorer of life to the dead is there, and all things are 
 at His bidding ; 12 . . . to God belongs whatsoever is in the 
 
 I xxxvi. 38. 2 xlii. 28. 3 xlvi. 29. * xlviii. 21. 5 xv. 21. 
 * xvi. 77. 7 xviii. 45. 8 xxii. 40. 9 xxiv. 45. 10 xxv. 2. 
 
 II xxv. 54. 12 j*** ^^ <M .j^-e y&) , xxx. 50. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 405 
 
 heavens and whatsoever is on the earth ; and whether ye dis- 
 close that which is within you or conceal it, God will reckon 
 with you for it ; and He pardons whom He will, and punishes 
 whom He will — inasmuch as God is a Supreme Sovereign ; 1 
 . . . say thou : O God, Sovereign Disposer of dominion, Thou 
 givest rule to whom Thou wilt, and takest away power from 
 whom Thou wilt, Thou exaltest whom Thou wilt, and humblest 
 whom Thou wilt : all good is at Thy disposal — verily, Thou art 
 a Supreme Sovereign ; 2 . . God punishes whom He will, and 
 pardons whom He will ; 3 . . . to God belongs the dominion of 
 the heavens and the earth, and whatsoever they contain is 
 His, and He is Sovereign over all things. 4 . . . Verily, God 
 accomplishes what He ordains — He hath established for every- 
 thing a fixed decree ; 5 . . . but God has the measuring out 
 ( jZaj ) of the night and the day ; 6 . . . extol the name of Thy 
 Lord, the Most High, who made the world, and fashioned it to 
 completeness, who fore-ordained, and guides accordingly ; 7 
 ... as for the unbelievers it matters nothing to them whether 
 thou warnest them or dost not warn them ; they will not 
 believe ; God hath sealed up their hearts and their ears ; 8 . . 
 and the darkness of night is over their eyes ; 9 . . and God 
 guides into the right path whomsoever He will ; 10 . . . God is 
 pleased to make your burthens light, inasmuch as man is by 
 nature infirm. . . . God changes not as to what concerns any 
 people until they change in respect to what depends upon 
 themselves ; n . . . say thou : Verily, Gods leads astray whom- 
 soever He will, and directs to Himself those who are penitent." 12 
 It will be noticed that, in many of these passages by " the 
 decree of God " is clearly meant the law of nature. The stars 
 and planets have each their appointed course ; so has every 
 other object in creation. The movements of the heavenly 
 bodies, the phenomena of nature, life and death, are all 
 governed by law. Other passages unquestionably indicate the 
 idea of Divine agency upon human will ; but they are again 
 explained by others, in which that agency is " conditioned " 
 upon human will. It is to the seeker for Divine help that God 
 
 1 ii. 284. ■ iii. 25. 3 v. 18. * v. 120. 5 lxv. 3. 
 
 8 lxxiii. 20. ' Ixxxvii. 1-3. ■ ii. 5-6. • ii. 7. 10 xiii. 31. 
 
 11 *f«-AJb U \jyX> JL. pjju Lc £k, V «Jj, yj ( xiii. 11. 12 xiii. 27. 
 
406 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 renders His help ; it is on the searcher of his own heart, who 
 purifies his soul from impure longings, that God bestows grace. 
 To the Arabian Teacher, as to his predecessors, the existence of 
 an Almighty Power, the Fashioner of the Universe, the Ruler 
 of His creatures, was an intense and vivid reality. The feeling 
 of "an assured trust " in an all-pervading, ever-conscious 
 Personality has been the motive power in the world of every 
 age. To the weary mariner, " sailing on life's solemn main," 
 there is nothing more assuring, nothing that more satisfies the 
 intense longing for a better and purer world, than the con- 
 sciousness of a Power above humanity to redress wrongs, to 
 fulfil hopes, to help the forlorn. Our belief in God springs from 
 the very essence of Divine ordinances. They are as much laws, 
 in the strictest sense of the word, as the laws which regulate the 
 movements of the celestial bodies. But the will of God is not 
 an arbitrary will : it is an educating will, to be obeyed by the 
 scholar in his walks of learning as by the devotee in his cell. 
 
 The passages, however, in which human responsibility and 
 the freedom of human will are laid down in emphatic terms 
 define and limit the conception of absolutism. " And who- 
 soever gets to himself a sin, gets it solely on his own responsi- 
 bility ; * . . . and let alone those who make a sport and a 
 mockery of their religion, and whom this present world has 
 deluded, and thereby bring to remembrance that any soul 
 perishes for what it has got to itself ; 2 and when they commit 
 a deed of shame they say : We have found that our fathers did 
 so, and God obliges us to do it ; say thou : Surely, God 
 requireth not shameful doing : 3 . . . they did injustice to them- 
 selves ; 4 yonder will every soul experience that which it hath 
 bargained for ; 5 ... so then, whosoever goes astray, he himself 
 bears the whole responsibility of wandering." 6 
 
 t~J6 ^U &xSj Uoli Uj'i w~£j ^ j 1V in 
 
 2 o^-oT.Uj if&i JLw i,yl, vi. 70. 
 
 3 flA^U^l 3J *JJ| it, vii . 09. 
 
 4 cjyJij ^«.JL| \,M ySJ j, ix. 70. 
 
 LfkXc iS&j Uj'i J-* ^j A-aJ C 5«>x ( tJ l»j li ^oJjfci ^^j, v. io3. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 407 
 
 Man, within the limited sphere of his existence, is absolute 
 master of his conduct. He is responsible for his actions, and 
 for the use or misuse of the powers with which he has been 
 endowed. He may fall or rise, according to his own " inclina- 
 tion." There was supreme assistance for him who sought 
 Divine help and guidance. Is not the soul purer and better 
 in calling to its Lord for that help which He has promised ? 
 Are not the weak strengthened, the stricken comforted — by their 
 own appeal to the Heavenly Father for solace and strength ? 
 Such were the ideas of the Teacher of Islam with regard to 
 Divine sovereignty and the liberty of human volition. His 
 recorded sayings handed down from sources which may be 
 regarded as unquestionably authentic, help in explaining the 
 conception he entertained about freewill and predestination 
 ()*» 3 Ui orjCJ.^I jj**- )• Not only his own words, but those 
 of his son-in-law, " the legitimate heir to his inspiration," 
 and his immediate descendants, who derived their ideas from 
 him, may well furnish us with a key to the true Islamic notion 
 on the question of the free agency of man — a subject which has 
 for ages, both in Islam and in Christianity, been the battle- 
 ground of sectarian disputes. In discussing this subject, we 
 must not, however, lose sight of the fact that most of the 
 traditions which have supplied to Patristicism its armoury of 
 weapons against the sovereignty of reason, bear evident traces 
 of being ' made to order.' They tell their own story of how, 
 and the circumstances under which, they came into existence. 
 Some of the traditions which purport to be handed down by 
 men who came casually in contact with the Teacher, show 
 palpable signs of changes and transformations in the minds 
 and in the memories of the mediaries. The authentic sayings, 
 however, are many, and I shall refer only to a few to explain 
 what I have already indicated, that in Mohammed's mind an 
 earnest belief in the liberty of human will was joined to a vivid 
 trust in the personality of the heavenly Father. Hereditary 
 depravity and natural sinfulness were emphatically denied. 
 Every child of man was born pure and true ; every departure 
 in after-life from the path of truth and rectitude is due to 
 education. " Every man is born religiously constituted ; it is 
 his parents who make him afterwards a Jew, Christian, or a 
 
408 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Sabaean, like as ye take up the beast at its birth — do ye find 
 upon it any mutilation, until ye yourselves mutilate it ? " 1 
 Infants have no positive moral character : for about those who 
 die in early life, " God best knows what would have been their 
 conduct " [had they lived to maturity]. " Every human being 
 has two inclinations, — one prompting him to good and impelling 
 him thereto, and the other prompting him to evil and thereto 
 impelling him ; 2 but the godly assistance is nigh, and he who 
 asks the help of God in contending with the evil promptings of 
 his own heart obtains it." " It is your own conduct which will 
 lead you to paradise or hell, as if you had been destined there- 
 for." No man's conduct is the outcome of fatality, nor is he 
 borne along by an irresistible decree to heaven or hell ; on the 
 contrary, the ultimate result is the creation of his own actions, 
 for each individual is primarily answerable for his future 
 destiny. " Every moral agent is furthered to his own con- 
 duct," or, as it is put in another tradition : " Every one is 
 divinely furthered in accordance with his character." 3 Human 
 conduct is by no means fortuitous ; one act is the result of 
 another ; and life, destiny and character mean the connected 
 series of incidents and actions which are related to each other, 
 as cause and effect, by an ordained law, " the assignment " of 
 God. In the sermons of the Disciple we find the doctrine more 
 fully developed. " Weigh your own soul before the time for 
 the weighing of your actions arrives ; take count with yourself 
 before you are called upon to account for your conduct in this 
 existence ; apply yourself to good and pure actions, adhere to 
 the path of truth and rectitude before the soul is pressed to 
 leave its earthly abode : verily, if you will not guide and warn 
 yourself, none other can direct you." 4 "I adjure you to 
 
 ^ mr* Ja *1**a &+x$i **£$^l <J& US aJUs^? } thj^sj ^ titejQf' 
 
 * Bukhari's Collections, chapter on the Hadis, "He is secured whom God 
 helps " ; reported by Abu Sa'id al-Khuzri. 
 
 3 *J <j^» UJ j—** J£i \jUs\ 
 
 4 Nakj ul-Balaghat, p. 43 (a collection of the Khutbas of the Caliph Ali by 
 one of his descendants, named Sharif Riza, mentioned by Ibn-Khallikan), 
 printed at Tabriz in 1299 a.h. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 409 
 
 worship the Lord in purity and holiness. He has pointed out 
 to you the path of salvation and the temptations of this world. 
 Abstain from foulness, though it may be fair-seeming to your 
 sight ; avoid evil, however pleasant. . . . For ye knoweth how 
 far it takes you away from Him. . . . Listen, and take warning 
 by the words of the Merciful Guardian." x . . . And again, " O 
 ye servants of my Lord, fulfil the duties that are imposed on 
 you, for in their neglect is abasement : your good works alone 
 will render easy the road to death. Remember, each sin 
 increases the debt, and makes the chain [which binds you] 
 heavier. The message of mercy has come ; the path of truth 
 is clear ; obey the command that has been laid on you ; live 
 in purity, and work in piety, and ask God to help you in 
 your endeavours, and to forgive your past transgressions." 2 
 " Cultivate humility and forbearance : comport yourself with 
 piety and truth. Take count of your actions with your own 
 conscience ( u ^ k i i ) ( for he who takes such count reaps a great 
 reward, and he who neglects incurs great loss. He who acts 
 with piety gives rest to his soul ; he who takes warning under- 
 stands the truth ; he who understands it attains the perfect 
 knowledge." These utterances convey no impression of pre- 
 destinarianism ; on the contrary, they portray a soul animated 
 with a living faith in God, and yet full of trust in human 
 development founded upon individual exertion springing from 
 human volition. Mohammed's definition of reason and know- 
 ledge, of the cognition of the finite and infinite, reminds us of 
 Aristotelian phraseology and thought, and Ali's address to his 
 son may be read with advantage by the admirer of Aristotelian 
 ethics. 
 
 The Ihtijdj ut-Tabrasi 3 supplies further materials to form a 
 correct opinion on the question of predestinarianism in Islam. 
 The Caliph Ali was one day asked the meaning of Kazd (Ui ) 
 and Radar < j±* ) \ he replied, "The first means obedience 
 to the commandments of God and avoidance of sin ; the latter, 
 the ability to live a holy life, and to do that which brings one 
 nearer to God and to shun that which throws him away from 
 
 1 Ibid. p. 136. » Nahj ul-Baldghat, p. 170. 
 
 3 Evidences of Tabrasi, a collection of traditions by the Shaikh ut-Tabrasi. 
 
410 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 His perfection. . . . Say not that man is compelled, for that is 
 attribution of tyranny to God ; nor say that man has absolute 
 discretion, 1 — rather that we are furthered by His help and 
 grace in our endeavours to act righteously, and we transgress 
 because of our neglect (of His commands)." One of his inter- 
 locutors, 'Utba ibn Rabi'a Asadi, asked him once as to the 
 meaning of the words " there is no power nor help but from 
 God," jtjjo y, ij$ J| ) Jja> 51 . "It means," said the Caliph, 
 " that I am not afraid of God's anger, but I am afraid of his 
 purity ; nor have I the power to observe His commandment, 
 but my strength is in His assistance." 2 . . . God has placed 
 us on earth to try each according to his endowments. Referring 
 to the following and other passages of the Koran, the Caliph 
 went on to say, " God says, ' We will try you to see who are the 
 strivers ^^'sr*) [after truth and purity], and who are the 
 forbearing and patient, and We will test your actions.' . . . 
 and ' We will help you by degrees to attain what ye know 
 not.' 3 . . . These verses prove the liberty of human volition." 4 
 Explaining the verse of the Koran, " God directs him whom 
 He chooses, and leads astray him whom He chooses," the Caliph 
 said that this does not mean that He compels men to evil or 
 good, that He either gives direction or refuses it according 
 to His caprice, for this would do away with all responsibility 
 for human action ; it means, on the contrary, that God points 
 out the road to truth, and lets men choose as they will. 5 
 
 Arabian philosophy, nurtured afterwards in other cradles, 
 drew its first breath in the school of Medina. The freedom of 
 human will, based on the doctrine that man would be judged by 
 the use he had made of his reason, was inculcated in the teach- 
 ings of the Master, along with an earnest belief in a Supreme 
 Power ruling the universe. The idea assumed a more definite 
 shape in the words of the Disciple, and grew into a philosophy. 
 From Medina it was carried to Damascus, Kufa, Basra, and 
 
 1 I.e. to decide what is right and what is wrong. 
 
 * Ihtijdj nt-Tabrasi, p. 236. 
 
 * Ibid, p. 237. 5 Ibid. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 411 
 
 Bagdad, where it gave birth to the eclectic schools, which shed 
 such lustre on the reigns of the early Abbasides. 
 
 The butchery of Kerbela and the sack of Medina had led to 
 the closing of the lecture-room of the Imams. With the 
 appearance of Jaafar as-Sadik as the head of Mohammed's 
 descendants, it acquired a new life. Extremely liberal and 
 rationalistic in his views, — a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher, 
 apparently well read in some of the foreign languages, — in 
 constant contact with cultured Christians, Jews, and Zoro- 
 astrians, with whom metaphysical disputations were frequent, 
 — he impressed a distinct philosophical character on the 
 Medinite school. Some of his views respecting predestination 
 deserve to be mentioned. Speaking of the doctrine of Jabr 
 (compulsion or predestinarianism) , which had about this period 
 made its appearance in Damascus, he expressed the following 
 opinion : " Those who uphold Jabr make out God to be a 
 participator in every sin they commit, and a tyrant for punish- 
 ing those sins which they are impelled to commit by the 
 compulsion of their being : this is infidelity." Then (giving 
 the analogy of a servant sent by his master to the market to 
 purchase something which he, the master, knows well that he 
 cannot bring, not possessing the wherewithal to buy it, and, 
 nevertheless, the master punishes him) the Imam adds, " the 
 doctrine of Jabr converts God into an unjust Master." x As 
 regards the opposite doctrine of absolute liberty (Tajwiz, delega- 
 tion oj authority)— meaning not the freedom of human will, but 
 unqualified discretion in the choice of wrong and right, he 
 declared that to affirm such a principle would destroy all the 
 foundations of morality, and give to all human beings absolute 
 licence in the indulgence of their animal propensities ; for if 
 each individual is vested with a discretion to choose what is 
 right or wrong, no sanction, no law can have any force. 2 Ikhtidr 
 (jUi^i )i is therefore different from Tajwiz 'uejj&i), " God 
 has endowed each human being with the capacity to under- 
 stand His commands and to obey them. They who exert 
 themselves to live purely and truly, them He helps : they are 
 those who please Him ; whilst they who disobey Him are 
 sinners." These views are repeated with greater emphasis by 
 
 1 Ihtijdj nt-Tabrasi, p. 236. 2 Ibid. p. 235. 
 
412 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM il. 
 
 the eighth Imam, Ali ar-Riza, who denounced Jabr (pre- 
 destinarianism) and Tashbih (anthropomorphism) as absolute 
 infidelity, 1 and declared the upholders of those doctrines to be 
 " the enemies of the Faith." He openly charged the advocates 
 of Jabr and Tashbih with the fabrication of traditions. At the 
 same time he warned his followers against the doctrine of 
 discretion or Tafwiz. He laid down in broad terms, " God has 
 pointed out to you the two paths, one of which leads you to 
 Him, the other takes you far away from His perfection ; you 
 are at liberty to take the one or the other ; pain or joy, 
 reward or punishment, depend upon your own conduct. But 
 man has not the capacity of turning evil into good, or sin 
 into virtue." 
 
 The Ommeyyades, many of whom remained pagans at heart 
 even after the profession of Islam, were, like their forefathers, 
 fatalists. Under them arose a school which purported to derive 
 its doctrines from the " ancients," the Sola/, a body of primitive 
 Moslems. All of them were dead ; it was consequently easy 
 to fabricate any tradition and pass it as handed down by one 
 or other of them. Jahm bin Safwan was the founder of this 
 school, which was called Jabria. The Jabrias 2 rivalled 
 Calvin in the absolute denial of free-will to man. They main- 
 tained " that man is not responsible for any of his actions 
 which proceed entirely from God ; 3 that he has no determining 
 power to do any act, nor does he possess the capacity of free 
 volition ; that he is the subject of absolute Divine sovereignty 
 in his actions, without ability on his part, or will or power of 
 choice ; and that God absolutely creates actions within him 
 just as He produces activity in all inanimate things ; . . . and 
 that reward and punishment are subject to absolute Divine 
 sovereignty in human actions." The Jabrias maintained 
 certain views regarding Divine attributes which have no 
 
 1 He who believes in Jabr is a Kafir ; Ihtijdj ut-Tabrasi, p. 214. 
 
 2 Shahristani divides the Jabrias into two branches, one being Jabrias 
 pure and simple, and the other more moderate. The first maintained that 
 neither action nor the ability to act belongs in any sense to man 
 ()Lel lUa>| c ^Lc *)o5 )jj KjJ 4>ax]J o-vl>) i the latter held that man has an 
 
 ability which is not at all efficacious ( &Lc\ ijiyoj^ a'.jj ,xjjOJ oj^) • 
 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 413 
 
 particular significance. 1 According to Shahristani, the Jabrias 
 were divided into three sects, viz. : the Jahmia, the Najjdn'a, 
 and the Zirdria, differing from each other on minor points ; 
 but, so far as the doctrine of predestination was concerned, all 
 of them were agreed in denying free agency. The Najj arias, 
 who, after undergoing several transformations, developed two 
 centuries later into the Asha'rias, maintained that God creates 
 the conduct of His creatures, good and bad, virtuous and 
 vicious, while man appropriates the same. The Jabria 
 doctrines found favour with the Ommeyyade rulers, and soon 
 spread among the people. 
 
 The uncompromising fatalism of the Jabrias occasioned 
 among the thinking classes a revolt, which was headed by 
 Ma'bad al-Juhani, Yunus al-Aswari, and Ghailan Dimishki (i.e. 
 of Damascus), who had evidently derived many of their ideas 
 from the Fatimides. They boldly asserted in the capital of the 
 Ommeyyades, in the very stronghold of predestinarianism, the 
 free agency of man. 2 But in the assertion of human liberty 
 they sometimes verged on the doctrine of Tafwiz. From 
 Damascus the dispute was carried to Basra, and there the 
 differences of the two parties waxed high. The Jabrias 
 merged into a new sect, called the Sijdtias, 3 who, with pre- 
 destinarianism, combined the affirmation of certain attributes 
 in the Deity as distinct from His Essence, which the Jabrias 
 denied. The Sifdtias claimed to be the direct representatives 
 of the Salaf. According to Shahristani, these followers of the 
 Salaf " maintained that certain eternal attributes pertain to 
 God, namely, knowledge, power, life, will, hearing, sight, 
 speech, majesty, magnanimity, bounty, beneficence, glory, and 
 greatness,— making no distinction between attributes of essence 
 and attributes of action. . . . They also assert certain de- 
 scriptive attributes ( ^j^ otiL; as, for example, hands and 
 face, without any other explanation than to say that these 
 attributes enter into the revealed representation of the Deity, 
 and that, accordingly, they had given them the name of 
 descriptive attributes." Like the Jabrias, they adhered to 
 the doctrine of predestination in all its gloominess and intensity. 
 
 1 Shahristani, part i. p. 59. 2 Shahristani, part i. pp. 59-63. 
 
 s Lit. Attributists. 
 
414 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 From the Sif alias sprang the Mushabbihas, " who likened the 
 Divine attributes to the attributes of created things," * and 
 turned God into a similitude of their own selves. 2 At this 
 period one of the most noted professors belonging to the anti- 
 predestinarian party was Imam Hasan, surnamed al-Basri 
 (from his place of residence). He was a Medinite by birth, 
 and had actually sat at the feet of " the Philosophers of the 
 family of Mohammed." He had imbibed their liberal and 
 rationalistic ideas, and, on settling at Basra, had started a 
 lecture-room, which was soon thronged by the students of Irak. 
 Here he discoursed on the metaphysical questions of the day 
 in the spirit of his masters. 
 
 One of his most prominent pupils was Abu Huzaifa Wasil 
 bin 'Ata al-Ghazzal, 3 a man of great mental powers, thoroughly 
 versed in the sciences and traditions, who had also studied in 
 the lecture-room of Medina. He differed from the Imam on 
 a question of religious dogma, and was made to withdraw from 
 the lecture-room. He thereupon founded a school of his own. 
 His followers have, from this fact, been called Mu'tazilas, or 
 Ahl-ul-I'tizal, Dissenters. 4 He soon rivalled the fame of his 
 master, whose school before long practically merged in that 
 of the pupil. In his antagonism against intellectual tyranny 
 he often overstepped the bounds of moderation, and gave 
 utterance to views, especially on the controversy raised by 
 Mu'awiyah, which were in conflict with those entertained at 
 Medina. Yet the general rationalism of his school rallied the 
 strongest and most liberal minds round his standard. Proceed- 
 ing upon the lines of the Fatimide philosophers, and appropriating 
 
 2 Shahristani draws a distinction between the Sifdtia anthropomorphists 
 and those who came into existence later. " Ata later period certain persons 
 went beyond what had been professed by any who held to the primitive faith, 
 and said that undoubtedly those expressions (denoting the attributes) are 
 used in the literal sense, and are to be interpreted just as they stand, without 
 resort to figurative interpretation, and at the same time, without insisting 
 upon the literal sense alone, whereby they fell into pure anthropomorphism 
 
 ( i^jj&}\ &x&>J\) in violation of the primitive Moslem faith." 
 
 3 J t)*^ ^* ^ <J'* , J AftJ^ >?!• He lived in the days of Abd ul-Malik, 
 Walid and Hisham. He was born in 83 a.h. (699-700 a. c.) and died in 131 
 a.h. (748-9 a. a). 
 
 4 Shahristani, p. 31 ; Gouhar-i-Murad {vide post). Mu'tazala spelt with a 
 fatha (a) in the third syllable in the Ghyds-ul-lughat and the Farhang (Lucknow, 
 
 1889). See Appendix III. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 415 
 
 the principles which they had laid down and the ideas to which 
 they had often given forcible expression, he formulated into 
 theses the doctrines which constitute the basis of his difference 
 from the predestinarian schools and from Patristicism generally. 
 For several centuries his school dominated over the intellects 
 of men, and with the support of the enlightened rulers who 
 during this period held the reins of government, it gave an 
 impetus to the development of national and intellectual life 
 among the Saracens such as had never been witnessed before. 
 Distinguished scholars, prominent physicists, mathematicians, 
 historians — all the world of intellect in fact, including the 
 Caliphs, belonged to the Mu'tazilite school. 1 
 
 Men like Abu'l Huzail Hamdan, 2 Ibrahim ibn Sayyar an- 
 Nazzam, 3 Ahmed ibn Hait, Fazl al-Hadasi, and Abu Ali 
 Mohammed al-Jubbai, 4 well read in Greek philosophy and 
 logic, amalgamated many ideas borrowed from those sources 
 with the Medinite conceptions, and impressed a new feature 
 on the philosophical notions of the Moslems. The study of 
 Aristotle, Porphyry, and other Greek and Alexandrian writers 
 gave birth to a new science among the Mu'tazilas, which was 
 called Ilm-ul-Kaldm, " the science of reason " (Kaldm, logos), 5 
 with which they fought both against the external as well as the 
 internal enemies of the Faith, — the non-Moslems who assailed 
 the teachings of Islam from outside, and the patristic Moslems 
 who aimed at its degradation from within. The extreme views 
 of Wasil on the political questions which had agitated the 
 Caliphate of Ali were before long abandoned, with the result 
 that moderate Mu'tazilaism became substantially amalgamated 
 with the rationalism of the Fatimide school, whence it had 
 sprung. It is a well-known fact that the chief doctors of the 
 Mu'tazilite school were educated under the Fatimides, and 
 there can hardly be any doubt that moderate Mu'tazilaism 
 
 1 We may mention here two or three prominent Mutazilas whose names 
 are still famous, e.g. Imam Zamakhshari, the author of the Kashshdf, admittedly 
 the best and most erudite commentary on the Koran; Mas'udi, "Imam, 
 historian, and philosopher " ; the famous Al-Hazen, Abu'l Wafa, and Mirk- 
 hond. 
 
 2 Died a.h. 235 (a.c. 849-850), in the beginning of al-Mutawakkil's Caliphate. 
 
 3 A nephew of Abu'l Huzail. * Bom in 861 ; died in 933. 
 '■ Shahristani, p. 18 ; Ibn-Khaldun in loco. 
 
4i6 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 represented the views of the Caliph Ali and the most liberal of 
 his early descendants, and probably of Mohammed himself. 
 A careful comparison of the Mu'tazilite doctrines will show 
 that they were either word for word the same as were taught 
 by the early Fatimides, or were modifications of those doctrines 
 induced by the requirements of a progressive society, and 
 partly, perhaps, by the study of Greek and Alexandrian 
 philosophy. 
 
 The Caliph Ali had condemned in emphatic language all 
 anthropomorphic and anthropopathic conceptions of the Deity. 
 " God was not like any object that the human mind can con- 
 ceive ; no attribute can be ascribed to Him which bore the least 
 resemblance to any quality of which human beings have 
 perception from their knowledge of material objects. The 
 perfection of piety consists in knowing God ; the perfection of 
 knowledge is the affirmation of His verity ; and the perfection 
 of verity is to acknowledge His unity in all sincerity ; and the 
 perfection of sincerity is to deny all attributes to the Deity . . . 
 ' &x* lA^J| ^a-> *J o^UjIf JUS ; He who refers an attribute to 
 God believes the attribute to be God, and he who so believes an 
 attribute to be God, regards God as two or part of one. . . . 
 He who asks where God is, assimilates Him with some object. 
 God is the Creator, not because He Himself is created ; God is 
 existent, not because He was non-existent. He is with every 
 object, not from resemblance or nearness ; He is outside of every- 
 thing not from separation. He is the Primary Cause (Ucli), 
 not in the meaning of motion or action ; He is the Seer, but no 
 sight can see Him. He has no relation to place, time, or 
 measure. 1 . . . God is Omniscient, because knowledge is His 
 Essence ; Mighty, because Power is His Essence ; Loving, 
 because Love is His Essence . . . not because these are attributes 
 apart from His Essence. . . . The conditions of time or space 
 were wholly inapplicable to Him." . . . 2 Takdir {j**& ), 
 construed by the followers of the Salaf to mean predestination, 
 meant " weighing," " probation," " trial." 
 
 Let us see now what Mu'tazilaism is. On many minor and 
 subsidiary points the prominent Mu'tazilite doctors differed 
 
 1 Nahj-ul-Baldghat ; see the comment of Ibn-i-Abi'l Hadid, the Mu'tazilite. 
 
 2 From the Imam Ja'far as-Sadik, ibid. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 417 
 
 among themselves ; but I shall give here a sketch of the 
 doctrines on which they were in accord. According to Shahri- 
 stani, the Mu'tazilas 1 declare that " eternity is the distinguish- 
 ing attribute of the Divine Being ; that God is Eternal, for 
 Eternity is the peculiar property of His Essence ; they 
 unanimously deny the existence of eternal (Divine) qualities 
 ( «*j«>&Jj o'i-ft'i ) [as distinct from His being], and maintain 
 that He is Omniscient as to His being ; Living as to His being ; 
 Almighty as to His being ; but not through any knowledge, 
 power, or life existing in Him as eternal attributes ; for know- 
 ledge, power, and life are part of His Essence. Otherwise, if 
 they are to be looked upon as eternal attributes of the Deity 
 (separate from His Essence), it would tend to the affirmation 
 of a multiplicity of eternal entities. . . . They also maintain 
 that the Word of God is created, and when created, is 
 expressed in letters and sounds. ... In like manner they 
 unanimously denied that willing, hearing, and seeing are ideas 
 subsistent in the Divine Being, though differing as to the modes 
 of their existence and their metaphysical grounds." 2 " They 
 deny unanimously that God can be beheld in the Ddr-ul-Kardr 
 (in the Abode of Rest) with the corporeal sight. They forbid 
 the describing of God by any quality belonging to material 
 objects, either by way of direction, or location, or appearance, 
 or body, or change, or cessation of action, or dissolution ; and 
 they have explained the passages of the Koran in which expres- 
 sions implying these qualities have been used, by asserting that 
 the expressions are used figuratively and not literally. And this 
 doctrine they call Tauhid, ' assertion of Divine unity.' . . . 
 
 1 " The Mu'tazilas called themselves," says Shahristani, " Ashdb-al-'adl 
 wa't-tauhid, ' people of justice and unity,' and sometimes Kadarias." As 
 a matter of fact, however, the designation of Kadaria was never applied by 
 the Mu'tazilas to themselves ; it was applied by their enemies to the extreme 
 Mu'tazilas who maintained the doctrine of Tafwiz, and which was condemned 
 by the Fatimide Imams. They always repudiated that designation, and 
 applied it to the predestinarians, who asserted that God is the Creator of every 
 human action. Shahristani admits this, and says : — 
 
 ^U5 SM\ wljZj lj^ )M Jj&j y* ^ J'Jxj Aj^I Lki \j!i3j 
 
 But he tries to refute the applicability of the word Kadaria to the pre- 
 destinarians. " How can it apply to those who trust in God " ; Shahristani, 
 P- 30. 
 
 2 Shahristani, p. 30. 
 
 s.i. 2 D 
 
4 i8 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 They also agree in believing that man is the creative efficient 
 of his actions, good and bad f^l^atf i*3\ o' "V*j ,A ^ ^^ V) 
 and gets reward and punishment in the future world by merit 
 for what he does ; and that no moral evil, or iniquity of action, 
 or unbelief, or disobedience, can be referred to God, because, 
 if He had caused unrighteousness to be, He would be 
 Himself unrighteous {UKfi'otf fU£J\ Jliyatf ) . . . They also 
 unanimously maintain that the All-wise does only that which 
 is beneficial and good ( jt± } \ > r $*aJ\ Sli J*»j SO. and that a 
 regard in the light of wisdom ( iU^i ^^ ±/° ) for the good 
 of humanity ( *^ e^* ) is incumbent upon Him, though 
 they differed as to His being obligated to secure the highest good, 
 and to bestow grace ( (**»** oJli *>y*>j ^'J uUai; ' J £ U ^ Ul J )■ 
 And this doctrine they call the doctrine of 'adl, or justice." 
 
 They further hold that there is no eternal law as regards 
 human actions ; that the Divine ordinances which regulate 
 the conduct of men are the result of growth and development ; 
 that God has commanded and forbidden by a law which grew 
 gradually. At the same time, they say that he who works 
 righteousness merits rewards, and he who works evil deserves 
 punishment ; and this, they say, is consonant with reason. 
 The Mu'tazilas also say that all knowledge is attained through 
 reason, and must necessarily be so obtained. They hold that 
 the cognition of good and evil is also within the province of 
 reason ; that nothing is known to be wrong or right until reason 
 has enlightened us as to the distinction ; and that thankfulness 
 for the blessings of the Benefactor is made obligatory by reason, 
 even before the promulgation of any law on the subject. They 
 maintain that the knowledge of God is within the province of 
 reason ; and, with the exception of Himself, everything else is 
 liable to change or to suffer extinction. " They also maintain 
 that the Almighty has sent His Prophets to explain to mankind 
 His commandments. . . . They differ among themselves as to 
 the question of the Imamate ; some maintaining that it 
 descended by appointment, others holding to the right of the 
 people to elect." The Mu'tazilas are, therefore, the direct 
 antitheses of the Sifdtias, for " these and all other Ahl-us- 
 Sunnat hold that God does whatever He pleases, for He is the 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 419 
 
 Sovereign Lord of His dominions, and whatever He wishes 
 He orders . . . and this is 'adl (justice) according to them. 
 According to the Ahl-ul-I'tizal, what accords with Reason and 
 Wisdom only is justice {'adl), and the doing of acts for 
 (or according to) the good and well-being [of mankind], 
 is^'i; w^i^ju^ • The Ahl-ul-'adl say that God has 
 commanded and forbidden by created words. According to 
 the Ahl-us-Sunnat (the Sifatias), all that is obligatory is known 
 from hearsay (£*<*) ; (secular) knowledge only is attained by 
 reason ; Reason cannot tell us what is good, or what is bad, 
 or what is obligatory. The Ahl-ul-'adl say (on the contrary) 
 that all knowledge comes through reason. 1 They referred 
 that term of tradition ' pre-destination ' to trial and deliverance, 
 adversity and prosperity, sickness and health, death and life, 
 and other doings of God, exclusive of moral good and evil, 
 virtue and vice, regarding men as responsible for the latter, 
 
 and it is in the same sense that the whole community of the 
 Mu'tazila employ that term." 
 
 Thus far we have given the views of the school as a body ; 
 but there were certain opinions held by the prominent doctors 
 individually, which, though not accepted beyond the immediate 
 circle of their particular disciples, are yet deserving of notice. 
 For example Abu-Huzail Hamdan maintained that the Creator 
 is knowing by virtue of knowledge, but that His knowledge is 
 His Essence ; powerful by virtue of power, but that His power 
 is His Essence ; living by virtue of life, but that His life is His 
 Essence. " A view," says Shahristani, " adopted from the 
 Philosophers," but really taken from the Medinite school. He 
 also affirmed that free will ( icAUi ) is an accident ( ^j>j s )i 
 additional to perfection of development and soundness 
 ^ i^a^l y Ibrahim ibn Sayyar an-Nazzam, " a diligent student 
 of the books of the Philosophers," maintained " that without 
 a revelation, man is capable, by reflection, of recognising the 
 Creator, and of distinguishing between virtue and vice . . . 
 and that the Doer of Righteousness possessed not the capacity 
 to do wrong." Mu'ammar ibn Abbad as-Sulami advanced 
 
 1 Shahristani, p. 31. 
 
4 2o THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 the Platonic theory of " archetypes." He maintained that 
 accidents are permanent in the several species of things to 
 which they belong (^li^iu 4 ^ ). and that every 
 
 accident subsists in a subject, though its subsistence therein 
 is only by virtue of some idea (in the human mind). Mu'ammar 
 and his followers were in consequence of this doctrine called 
 Idealists ( ^UJi ^ts-^j,). Abu Ali Mohammed ibn Abdul 
 
 Wahhab, known as Abu Ali al-Jubbai, maintained that action 
 pertains to man in the way of origination and first production ; 
 and ascribed to man moral good and evil, obedience and dis- 
 obedience, in the way of sovereignty and prerogative ; and 
 that free-will ( <ulkI-Vi ) is a pre-requisite to action, and a 
 power additional to bodily completeness and soundness of the 
 members. Abu'l Ma'ali al-Juwaini,' * Imdm-ul-Haramain {i.e. 
 of the two sacred cities), who, however, did not call himself a 
 Mu'tazila, and is generally claimed by the upholders of the 
 opposite doctrine as belonging to their body, held that the 
 denial of ability and free-will is something which reason and 
 consciousness disavow ; that to affirm an ability without any 
 sort of efficacy is equivalent to denying ability altogether, and 
 that to affirm some unintelligible influence (of ability), which 
 constitutes a motive cause, amounts to the denial of any special 
 influence, and that, inasmuch as conditions and states, on the 
 principle of those who maintain them, are not to be charac- 
 terised as existing or non-existing (but must be explained by 
 reference to their origin), action on the part of man (regarded 
 as an existing state) is to be attributed really to his own ability, 
 — though not in the way of origination and creation, for by 
 creation is meant the causing of something to come into being 
 by supreme power which was not previously in existence ; and 
 that action depends for its existence upon ability (in man), 
 which itself depends for its existence upon some other cause, 
 its relation to that cause being the same as the relation of 
 (human) action to (man's) ability, and so one cause depends 
 upon another until the causa causans ( <-k~)li ^4-** ), the 
 Creator of causes and of their operations, the Absolute Self- 
 
 1 Died 1085. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 421 
 
 sufficing, is reached. " This view," adds Shahristani, " was 
 borrowed by Abu'l Ma'ali from the Philosophers of the theistic 
 school, but he presented it in the garb of the Kaldm (scholastic 
 theology)." 1 
 
 This is the general outline of the philosophical notions of the 
 Mu'tazilas respecting some of the most burning questions which 
 have agitated the mind of man in every age and country, and 
 have so frequently led to sanguinary strifes and fratricidal 
 wars both in the East and in the West. 
 
 As the assertors of divine Unity, shorn of all anthropo- 
 morphic conceptions, and the advocates of moral responsibility, 
 they naturally called themselves ashdb-nl-' adl wa't-tauhid, 
 " upholders of the unity and justice of God," and designated 
 their opponents Mashabbihas (" assimilators " or anthropo- 
 morphists). They reasoned thus: If sin emanated from, or 
 was created by God, and man was pre-ordained to commit it, 
 the imposition of any penalty for its commission would make 
 the Creator an Unrighteous God, — which is infidelity : thus 
 reason and revelation both tell us that piety and sin, virtue 
 and vice, evil and good, are the product of human volition ; 
 man has absolute control over his actions, though he has been 
 told what is right and what is wrong. Evil and good depend 
 upon what is just ; for God's creation is ruled by justice. 
 Reason and justice are the guiding principles of human actions ; 
 and general usefulness and the promotion of the happiness of 
 mankind at large, the chief criterion of right and wrong. Has 
 not God Himself declared that " the two Paths were shown to 
 mankind for their own good ? Has He not Himself called 
 upon them to exercise their understanding ? " Rationalists 
 and Utilitarians, they based the foundations of the moral law 
 on the concordance of Reason with positive revelation. They 
 walked in the footsteps of the Master and his immediate 
 descendants. They upheld the doctrine of Evolution in 
 regarding every law that regulates the mutual relations 
 of man to man as the result and outcome of a process 
 of continuous development. In their ideas of the long 
 
 1 Comp. Juwaini's views with those of Ibn-Rushd (Averroes). Shahristani 
 evidently had not made himself acquainted with the views of the Fatimide 
 Imams; Shahristani, part i. pp. 70, 71. The views of Abu'l Ma'ali do not 
 commend themselves to the " orthodox " Shahristani. 
 
422 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 antiquity of man on earth, 1 they occupy a vantage ground 
 in relation to the natural philosophers of the modern 
 world. 
 
 Mu'tazilaism spread rapidly among all the thinking and 
 cultured classes in every part of the Empire, and finding its 
 way into Spain took possession of the Andalusian colleges 
 and academies. Mansur and his immediate successors en- 
 couraged Rationalism, but made no open profession of the 
 Mu'tazilite doctrines. Mamun, who deserves more justly than 
 any other Asiatic sovereign the title of " Great," acknowledged 
 his adhesion to the Mu'tazilite school ; and he and his brother 
 Mu'tasim and nephew Wasik, endeavoured to infuse the 
 rationalistic spirit into the whole Moslem world. Under them 
 Rationalism acquired a predominance such as it has not gained 
 perhaps even in modern times in European countries. The 
 Rationalists preached in the mosques and lectured in the 
 colleges ; they had the moulding of the character of the nation's 
 youth in their hands ; they were the chief counsellors of the 
 Caliphs, and it cannot be gainsaid that they used their influence 
 wisely. As professors, preachers, scientists, physicians, viziers, 
 or provincial governors, they helped in the growth and develop- 
 ment of the Saracenic nation. The rise of the Bani-Idris in 
 Western Africa, and the establishment of the Fatimide power 
 imparted a new life to Mu'tazilaism after its glory had come 
 to an end in Asia. 
 
 The question now naturally occurs to the mind, how is it 
 that predestinarianism and the subjection of Reason to blind 
 authority, though discountenanced by the Prophet and the 
 Philosophers of his family, became finally predominant in the 
 speculations and practice of the Moslem world ? Before we 
 furnish an answer to this inquiry, let us trace the development 
 of another phase of the Moslem intellect. Mu'tazilaism has 
 been, with considerable plausibility, compared to the scholastic 
 philosophy of the Middle Ages in Europe. Scholasticism is 
 said to have been the " movement of the intellect to justify 
 by reason several of the dogmas of the Faith." Mu'tazilaism 
 also directed its endeavours to establish a concordance between 
 
 1 They derived this notion from a Hadis reported from Ali, Bihdr-ul-Anwdr, 
 chapter on Creation. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 423 
 
 Reason and positive revelation. But there the parallel ends. 
 In the Christian Church, the dogmas requiring explanation 
 and justification were many. The doctrine of the trinity in 
 unity, of the three " Natures " in one, of original sin, of tran- 
 substantiation, all gave rise to a certain intellectual tension. 
 The dogmas of the Church accordingly required some such 
 " solvent " as scholasticism before science and free thought 
 could find their way into Christendom. In Islam the case 
 was otherwise ; with the exception of the unity of God — the 
 doctrine of Tauhid, which was the foundation of Mohammed's 
 Church — there was no dogma upon which insistence was placed 
 in any such form as to compel Reason to hold back its 
 acceptance. The doctrine of " origin and return " — mabdd 
 ( f*xj-c ) and madd ( ±Im ), " coming (from God) and returning 
 (to Him) " — and of the moral responsibility of man, was founded 
 on the conception of a Primal Cause — the Originator of all 
 things. That the Ego will not be entirely lost after it has 
 been set apart from its earthly habiliments, that it will exist as 
 a self-conscious entity after the dissolution of the body, is a 
 notion which has been shared alike by the wise and the ignorant. 
 Some few have denied a future existence, but the generality 
 have believed in it, though all have differed as to the nature of 
 that existence. So also as regards moral responsibility, there 
 is great divergence of opinion on the mode in which man shall 
 discharge the obligation ; but there is little difference on the 
 question that he is responsible for the use or misuse of his 
 powers. On both these questions the words of the Teacher 
 allow the greatest latitude of judgment ; so long as the original 
 conceptions were retained and accepted, Mohammed's Church 
 permitted the broadest and most rationalistic view. Hence it 
 was that Islam passed at once from the Age of Receptivity into 
 the Age of Activity, from the Age of Faith into the Age of 
 Reason, without any such intermediate stage as was required 
 in Christianity. 
 
 In the Prophet's time, as well as under the Rdshidin Caliphs, 
 no doubt, free independent inquiry was naturally, and perhaps 
 rightly, discouraged. But no questioning was avoided, no 
 doubt was silenced by the terror of authority, and if the teacher 
 was unable to answer the question, the inability was avowed in 
 
424 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 all humility. 1 Mu'tazilaism holds therefore a distinctive place 
 in the development of the human intellect. It bears an analogy 
 to European scholasticism, but in reality it is akin in genius 
 to modern rationalism. Scholasticism worked under the shadow 
 of the Church. Mu'tazilaism worked in conjunction with the 
 heads of the Church. The real scholasticism of Islam came 
 later. 
 
 The cultivation of the physical sciences gave a new direction 
 to Saracenic genius. A body of thinkers sprang up, who 
 received the generic name of Hukamd (pi. of hakim, a scientist 
 or philosopher), whose method of reasoning was analogous to 
 that of modern science. They were mostly Mu'tazilas, but the 
 conceptions of a few were tinged by the philosophical notions 
 of Aristotle and the Neo-Platonic school of Alexandria. Though 
 bigotry and ignorance stigmatised them with the opprobrious 
 epithets of infidel and heretic, historical verity must admit that 
 they did not exclude themselves from Islam, nor advance any 
 theory for which they were unable to find a warrant in the 
 sayings of the Founder of the Faith or his immediate 
 descendants. 
 
 The doctrine of evolution and progressive development to 
 which these philosophers adhered most strongly has been 
 propounded in clear terms by one of their prominent repre- 
 sentatives, the famous Al-Hazen. The philosophical notions 
 on this subject may be summarised thus : "In the region of 
 existing matter, the mineral kingdom comes lowest, then 
 comes the vegetable kingdom, then the animal, and finally the 
 human being. By his body he belongs to the material world, 
 but by his soul he appertains to the spiritual or immaterial. 
 Above him are only the purely spiritual beings, — the angels, 2 — 
 above whom only is God ; thus the lowest is combined by a 
 chain of progress to the highest. But the human soul per- 
 petually strives to cast off the bonds of matter, and, becoming 
 free, it soars upwards again to God, from whom it emanated." 
 And these notions found expression later in the Masnavi of 
 
 1 The answer was, " God knows best." 
 
 2 The author of the Goithar-i-Murad, to which I shall refer later in some 
 detail, explains that what are called in " the language of theology " " angels," 
 are the forces of nature in the language of Hikmat. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 425 
 
 Moulana Jalal ud-din 
 questioned, — 
 
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 " Dying from the inorganic we developed into the vegetable kingdom. 
 Dying from the vegetable we rose to the animal. And leaving the animal we 
 became men. Then what fear that death will lower us ? The next transition 
 will make us angels. From angels we shall rise and become what no mind 
 can conceive ; we shall merge in Infinity as in the beginning. Have we not 
 been told, ' All of us will return unto Him ' ? " 
 
 The greatest of the philosophers were al-Kindi, al-Farabi, 
 Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Baja, Ibn-Tufail, and Ibn-Rushd. 1 
 
 Al-Kindi 2 (Abu Yusuf Ya'kub ibn Ishak), surnamed the 
 Philosopher par excellence, was a descendant of the illustrious 
 family of Kinda, and counted among his ancestors several of 
 the princes of Arabia. His father, Ishak bin as-Sabbah, was 
 the governor of Kufa under al-Mahdi, al-Hadi, and Harun. 
 Al-Kindi, who prosecuted his studies at Basra and Bagdad, 
 rendered himself famous under the Caliphs Mamun and 
 Mu'tasim by the versatility of his genius and the profoundness 
 of his knowledge. He wrote on philosophy, mathematics, 
 
 1 Shahristani mentions several others, such as — Yahya al-Nahwy, Abu'l 
 Faraj al-Mufassir, Abu Sulaiman al-Sajzy, Abu Bakr Sabit bin Kurrah, Abu 
 Sulaiman Mohammed al-Mukaddasi, Abu Tamam Yiisuf bin Mohammed 
 Nishapuri, Abu Zaid Ahmed bin Saha al-Balkhi, Abu Muharib al-Hasan bin- 
 Sahl bin Muharib al-Kumy, Ahmed bin Tayyeb al-Sarrakhsy, Talha. bin 
 Mohammed al-Nafsy, Abu Hamid Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Safzari, Tsa bin 
 Ali al-Wazir, Abu Ali Ahmed^ bin Muskuya, Abu Zakaria Yahya bin 'Adi 
 al-Zumairi, Abu'l Hasan al-'Amri. He does not mention a single Spanish 
 philosopher. 
 
 2 813 to 842 a.c. ; see Appendix II. 
 
426 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 astronomy, medicine, politics, music, etc. Versed in the 
 languages of the Greeks, the Persians, and the Indians, 
 thoroughly acquainted with their sciences and philosophy, he 
 was selected by Mamun for the work of translating Aristotle 
 and other Greek writers into Arabic. " Cardan," says Munk, 
 " places him among the twelve geniuses of the first order who 
 had appeared in the world up to the sixteenth century." 
 
 Abu Nasr Fdrdbi (Abu Nasr Mohammed bin Mohammed 
 Turkhan al-Fdrdbi), so called from his native city of Farab in 
 Transoxiana, was a distinguished physician, mathematician, 
 and philosopher. He is regarded as the most learned and 
 subtle of the commentators of Aristotle. He enjoyed the 
 patronage of Saif ud-dowla Ali bin Hamdan, Prince of Aleppo, 
 and died at Damascus in the month of Rajab 339 a.h. 
 December (950 a.c). Among his various works some may be 
 mentioned here to show the tendency of the Arab mind in that 
 prolific age. In the Encyclopedia of Science (Ihsd ul-ulum) 
 he gives a general review of all the sciences. A Latin epitome 
 of this work gives an idea of the range over which it extends, 
 being divided into five parts dealing with the different branches 
 of science, viz. language, logic, mathematics, natural sciences, 
 and political and social economy. Another celebrated work 
 of Farabi, largely utilised by Roger Bacon and Albertus 
 Magnus, was his commentary on Aristotle's Organon. His 
 Tendency of the Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, his treatise 
 on ethics, entitled as-Sirat ul-Fazild, and another on politics, 
 called as-Siydsat ul-Medineyya, which forms part of a larger 
 and more comprehensive work bearing the name of Mabddi- 
 ul-Moujudat, show the versatile character of his intellect. 
 Besides philosophy and medicine, Farabi cultivated music, 
 which he elevated into a science. He wrote several treatises 
 both on the theory and the art of music, as well as the manu- 
 facture of musical instruments. In one he compared the 
 systems of music among the ancients with that in vogue in 
 his own time. Abu'l Kasim Kinderski, no mean judge, places 
 Farabi on a level with his great successor, Ibn-Sina. 1 
 
 1 See also the 'Uydn-ul-Masdil (Dieterici's ed. p. 52), where he establishes 
 by deductive reasoning that Creation is the work of a Supreme Intelligence, 
 and that nothing in the universe is fortuitous or accidental. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 427 
 
 Of Ibn-Sina I have already spoken as a physician. As a 
 philosopher he occupies a position hardly inferior to that of 
 the great Stagyrite. He was unquestionably the master-spirit 
 of his age, and in spite of the opposition raised against him by 
 fanaticism and self-interest, he left his impress in undying 
 characters on the thoughts of succeeding ages. His voluminous 
 works testify to the extraordinary activity of his mind. 1 He 
 systematised Aristotelian philosophy, and filled " the void 
 between God and man " in Aristotle's fragmentary psychology 
 by the doctrine of the intelligence of the spheres conceived 
 after a scientific method. The great object of the Arabian 
 philosophers was to furnish the world with a complete theory 
 of the unity of the Cosmos which would satisfy, not the mind 
 only, but also the religious sense. And accordingly they 
 endeavoured to reconcile the ethical and spiritual with the 
 philosophical side of science. Hence the development of the 
 theory of the two intellects — the passive Reason, or Abstract 
 Soul, in contact with material forms, and subject through 
 them to change and death ; and the Active Reason (Akl-i- 
 fa'dl), conversant with the immutable, and so remaining un- 
 changed in itself. By patient discipline of the heart and soul 
 man can elevate himself to conjunction with this Higher 
 Reason. But the discipline needed was as much moral and 
 spiritual as intellectual. Ibn-Sina represented these ideas in 
 the highest degree. He was the truest and most faithful 
 exponent of the philosophical aspirations of his time. " For 
 ethical earnestness it would be hard to find anything more 
 impressive than the teaching of Avicenna." A severely logical 
 treatment of his subjects is the distinctive character of his 
 writings. His main endeavour was directed towards the 
 demonstration of the theory that there existed an intimate 
 connexion between the human Soul and the Primary Absolute 
 Cause — a conception which is traced in every line of Jalal 
 ud-din Rumi. 
 
 Shahristani gives a brief but exhaustive sketch of Ibn-Sina's 
 views, culled, as he says, from his various books. After 
 describing Ibn-Sina's treatment of the sciences, logic, and other 
 
 1 His two greatest works on philosophy and science, the Shi fa and the 
 Najdt, still exist intact. 
 
428 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 cognate subjects, Shahristani states that the Philosopher 
 discussed metaphysics under ten theses ; under the first five, 
 he deals with the origin of knowledge, experimentation, induc- 
 tion, and deduction ; matter and force ; the relation of cause 
 and effect ; the primary and accidental, universals and 
 particulars. Under the sixth and seventh he demonstrates 
 that the Primal Cause — the being whose existence is necessary 
 by virtue of his Essence — is one and Absolute. Under the 
 eighth and ninth he deals with the unity of the Cosmos, the 
 relation of human souls to the Primal Cause and the Active 
 Intellect, the first created. And lastly, he discusses the con- 
 ception of future existence, the doctrine of " Return " ( &U* ). 
 He proclaims the individual permanence of the human soul, 
 and argues that it will retain its individuality after its separation 
 from the corporeal body ; but that the pleasure and pain of 
 the future existence will be purely spiritual, depending on the 
 use or misuse by man of his mental, moral and physical powers 
 to attain the Perfection. He argues under the last head the 
 necessity for mankind of prophetism. The Prophet expounds 
 to men the Divine laws, explains to them the ethical demands 
 of God and Humanity in parables comprehensible to common 
 folk, which appeal to and settle their hearts. The Prophet 
 dissuades from jealousy, rancour, and misdeeds ; lays the 
 foundations of social and moral development, and is God's 
 veritable messenger on earth. 
 
 Abu Bakr Mohammed ibn Yahya, surnamed Ibn-nl-Sdyeh, 
 popularly called Ibn-Baja, corrupted by the European 
 scholiasts into Avenpace, is one of the most celebrated philo- 
 sophers among the Arabs of Spain. He was not only a 
 distinguished physician, mathematician, and astronomer, but 
 also a musician of the first rank. He was born at Saragossa 
 towards the end of the eleventh century of the Christian era, 
 and in 1118 a.c. we find him mentioned as residing in Seville. 
 He afterwards proceeded to Africa, where he occupied a high 
 position under the Almoravides. He died at Fez in 1138 a.c. 
 Several of his works have come down to us in their entirety 
 and show the free range of the Moslem intellect in those 
 days. 
 
 Ibn-Tufail (Abu Bakr Mohammed ibn Abdul Malik ibn- 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 429 
 
 Tufail al-Kaisi) was born in the beginning of the twelfth century 
 at Gaudix (Wadi-ash) , a small city of Andalusia, in the province 
 of Granada. He was celebrated as a physician, mathematician, 
 philosopher, and poet, and was held in great esteem at the court 
 of the first two sovereigns of the Almohade dynasty. From 
 1163 to 1 184 he filled the office of vizier and physician to Abu 
 Ya'kub Yusuf, the second Almohade king. Ibn-Tufail died 
 in Morocco in 1185 a.c. He belonged to the contemplative 
 school of Arab philosophy which was designated Ishrdki, 
 an offshoot of ancient Neo-Platonism, and akin in its 
 aspirations to modern mysticism. His contemplative philo- 
 sophy is not founded on mystical exaltation, but on a 
 method in which intuition is combined with reasoning. 
 His famous work, called Hayy ibn Yakzdn, represents the 
 gradual and successive development of intelligence and the 
 power of perception in a person wholly unassisted by outside 
 instruction. 1 
 
 Ibn-Rushd or Averroes (Abu'l Walid Mohammed ibn Ahmed) 
 was born in 520 a.h. (1126 a.c.) at Cordova, where his family 
 had for a long time occupied a prominent position. His grand- 
 father was the Kdzi ul-Kiizat of all Andalusia under the 
 Almoravides. Ibn-Rushd was a jurisconsult of the first rank, 
 but he applied himself mainly to medicine, mathematics, and 
 philosophy. Introduced to Abu Ya'kub Yusuf by Ibn-Tufail, 
 he was received with great favour by that sovereign. In 
 1169-1170 we find him holding the office of Kazi of Seville, 
 and in 1182 of Cordova. For a few years after the accession 
 of Ya'kub al-Mansur to the throne of the Almohades, Ibn- 
 Rushd enjoyed the consideration and esteem of that monarch, 
 but when the pent-up Berber fanaticism burst forth he was 
 the first to fall a victim to the fury of the lawyers and Mullahs 
 whom he had offended by his philosophical writings, and who 
 were jealous of his genius and his learning. Ibn-Rushd was 
 without question one of the greatest scholars and philosophers 
 the Arab world has produced, and " one of the profoundest 
 commentators," says Munk, " of Aristotle's works." Ibn- 
 Rushd held that the highest effort of man ought to be directed 
 towards the attainment of perfection, that is, a complete 
 
 1 See Appendix III. 
 
430 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 identification with the Active Universal Intellect ; that this 
 perfection can only be attained by study and speculation, and 
 abandoning all the desires which belong to the inferior faculties 
 of the soul, and especially to the senses, — but not by mere 
 sterile meditation. He also held that prophetic revelations 
 were necessary for spreading among mankind the eternal 
 verities proclaimed equally by religion and philosophy ; that 
 religion itself directs their search by means of science ; that it 
 teaches truths in a popular manner comprehensible to all 
 people : that philosophy alone is capable of seizing the true 
 religious doctrines by means of interpretation ; but the ignorant 
 apprehend only the literal meaning. On the question of pre- 
 destination he held that man was neither the absolute master 
 of his actions nor bound by fixed immutable decrees. But the 
 truth, says Ibn-Rushd, lies in the middle, k^j<^\ ur^y ^ 1 
 words used by the Fatimide Imams, and explained by them 
 somewhat similarly. Our actions depend partly on our own 
 free will and partly on causes outside us. We are free to wish 
 and to act in a particular manner ; but our will is always 
 restrained and determined by exterior causes. These causes 
 spring from the general laws of nature ; God alone knows their 
 sequence. It is this which, in the language of theology, is 
 called Kazd and Kadar. Ibn-Rushd's political theories were 
 directed against human tyranny in every shape. He regarded 
 the Arab republic under the Rashidin Caliphs as the model 
 government in which was realised the dream of Plato. 
 Mu'awiyah, he says, in establishing the Ommeyyade autocracy, 
 overthrew this ideal, and opened the door to all disasters. 
 Ibn-Rushd considered women to be equal in every respect to 
 men, and claimed for them equal capacity — in war, in philo- 
 sophy, in science. He cites the example of the female warriors 
 of Arabia, Africa, and Greece ; and refers to their superiority 
 in music in support of his contention, that, if women were 
 placed in the same position as men, and received the same 
 education, they would become the equals of their husbands and 
 brothers in all the sciences and arts ; and he ascribes their 
 inferiority to the narrow lives they lead. 
 
 In Ibn-Rushd Arabian philosophy reached its apogee. Six 
 centuries divide him from the Prophet. Within these centuries 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 431 
 
 the Arab intellect had broadened in every direction. Men like 
 Ibn-Sina and Ibn-Rushd thought with the accumulated wealth 
 of ages on all the most important questions which occupy 
 human attention in modern times, and formulated their ideas, 
 little different from those held by the most advanced scientists 
 of the present day, with logical precision. All these thinkers 
 claimed to be Moslems, and were recognised as such by the best 
 minds of their times. Ibn-Sina repudiated with indignation 
 and contempt the charge of infidelity levelled against him by 
 fanatics or enemies jealous of his fame ; and one of the greatest 
 mystical poets of Islam, Sanai, whose orthodoxy, though 
 doubted by his personal foes, is no longer questioned, has 
 embodied his veneration for " Bu Ali Sina " in an immortal 
 poem. 1 
 
 Ibn-Rushd wrote on the concord of religion with philosophy ; 
 and one of his intimate friends, Abd ul-Kabir, a highly religious 
 person, described him as one anxious to establish a harmony 
 between religion and philosophy. 2 Al-Ansari and Abd ul- 
 Walid speak of Ibn-Rushd as sincerely attached to Islam ; 
 and his latest biographer says : " There is nothing to prevent 
 our supposing that Ibn-Rushd was a sincere believer in 
 Islamism, especially when we consider how little irrational 
 the supernatural element in the essential dogmas of this 
 religion is, and how closely this religion approaches the purest 
 Deism." 3 
 
 The close of the tenth century was full of the darkest omens 
 for rationalism and science. The star of the son of Sina had 
 not yet risen on the horizon ; but masters like Kindi and 
 Farabi had appeared and departed after shedding an abiding 
 lustre on the Saracenic race. Patristicism was triumphant in 
 every quarter which owned the temporal or spiritual sway of 
 the Abbasides : the college of jurists had placed under the 
 ban of heresy the rationalists and philosophers who had made 
 the name of Moslems glorious in the annals of the world ; a 
 heartless, illiberal, and persecuting formalism dominated the 
 
 1 See Appendix III. 
 
 2 In the Fasl-ul-Makdl (Muller's ed. published in Munich, 1859), which is 
 said to have been written in a.h. 575 for the Almohade sovereign Yusuf ibn 
 Tashfin, he establishes this concordance. 
 
 3 Renan, Aver roes et Averroism, p. 163. 
 
432 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 spirit of the theologians ; a pharisaical epicureanism had taken 
 possession of the rich, and an ignorant fanaticism of the poor ; 
 the gloom of night was fast thickening, and Islam was drifting 
 into the condition into which ecclesiasticism had led Chris- 
 tianity. It was at this epoch of travail and sorrow for all 
 lovers of truth that a small body of thinkers formed themselves 
 into a Brotherhood to keep alive the lamp of knowledge among 
 the Moslems, to introduce a more healthy tone among the 
 people, to arrest the downward course of the Moslems towards 
 ignorance and fanaticism, in fact, to save the social fabric from 
 utter ruin. They called themselves the " Brothers of Purity," 
 Ikhwdn-us-Safd. The society of the " Pure Brethren " was 
 established in Basra, which still held rank in the fast- 
 dwindling Caliphate as the second city of the empire, the home 
 of rationalism and intellectual activity. To this " Brother- 
 hood " none but men of unsullied character and the purest 
 morals were admitted ; the passport for admission into the 
 select circle was devotion to the cause of knowledge and 
 humanity. There was nothing exclusive or esoteric in their 
 spirit ; though, from the necessities of their situation, and 
 working under a rigid theological and political despotism, their 
 movements were enshrouded in some degree of mystery. They 
 met together quietly and unobtrusively in the residence of the 
 head of the society, who bore the name of Zaid the son of 
 Rifa'a, and discussed philosophical and ethical subjects with a 
 catholicity of spirit and breadth of views difficult to rival even 
 in modern times. They formed branches in every city of the 
 Caliphate, wherever, in fact, they could find a body of thought- 
 ful men, willing and qualified to work according to their 
 scientific method. This philanthropic and scientific movement 
 was led by five men, who, with Zaid, were the life and soul of 
 the " Brotherhood." Their system was eclectic in the highest 
 and truest sense of the word. They contemned no field of 
 thought ; they " culled flowers from every meadow." In 
 spite of the mysticism which slightly tinged their philosophical 
 conceptions, their views on social and political problems were 
 highly practical and intensely humane. As the result of their 
 labours, they gave to the world a general resumi of the know- 
 ledge of the time in separate treatises, which were collectively 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 433 
 
 known as the Rasdil ^i-Ikhwdn-us-Safd wa-Khulldn-ul-Wafd, 
 " Tracts of the Brothers of Purity and Friends of Sincerity " ; 
 or, shortly, Rasdil-i-Ikhivdn-ns-Safdr These risdlas range over 
 every subject of human study — mathematics, including astro- 
 nomy, physical geography, music, and mechanics ; physics, 
 including chemistry, meteorology, and geology ; biology, 
 physiology, zoology, botany, logic, grammar, metaphysics, 
 ethics, the doctrine of a future life. They form, in fact, a 
 popular encyclopaedia of all the sciences and philosophy then 
 extant. The theory of these evolutionists of the tenth century 
 as to the development of animal organism may be compared 
 with advantage with that entertained in present times. But 
 I am not concerned so much with the scientific and intellectual 
 side of their writings as with the ethical and moral. The ethics 
 of the " Pure Brethren " are founded on self -study and the 
 purification or abstraction of human thought from all impurity. 
 Moral endowments are prized above intellectual gifts ; and 
 the strength of soul founded upon patient self-discipline and 
 self-control is regarded as the highest of virtues. 3 " Faith 
 without work, knowing without doing, were vain." Patience 
 and forbearance, mildness and loving gentleness, justice, mercy, 
 and truth, the sublimity of virtue, the sacrifice of self for others, 
 are taught in every line : cant, hypocrisy, and deceit, envy and 
 pride, tyranny and falsehood, are reprobated in every page ; 
 and the whole is pervaded by a purity of sentiment, a fervent 
 love of humanity, an earnest faith in the progress of man, a 
 universal charity, embracing even the brute creation in its 
 fold. 4 What can be more beautiful, more truly humane, than 
 the disputation between the " animals and mankind " ? Their 
 ethics form the foundation of all later works. 5 Their religious 
 idea was identical with that of Farabi and Ibn Sina, — the 
 universe was an emanation from God, but not directly ; the 
 Primal Absolute Cause created Reason, or the Active Intel- 
 
 1 Plural of Risala, a tract, a chapter, a monograph. 
 
 2 Published in 4 vols., at Bombay, in 1305 a.h., by Haji Niir ud-din. 
 
 3 See the third Risala, vol. iv. 
 
 4 See the fourth Risala, vol. iv. 
 
 5 Such as the Akhldk-i-Ndsiri of Naslr ud-din Tusi, the Akhlak-i-Jdldli, 
 and the Akhldk-i-Muhsini of Husain Waiz Kashifi. 
 
434 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 ligence : and from this proceeded the N afs-i-nufus , the Abstract 
 Soul, from which sprang primary matter, the protoplasm of all 
 material entities ; the Active Intelligence moulded this primary 
 matter, and made it capable of taking shapes and forms, and 
 set it in motion, whence were formed the spheres and the 
 planets. Their morality is founded on this very conception of 
 the Primal Absolute Cause being connected by an unbroken 
 chain with the lowest of His creation ; for the Abstract Soul 
 individualised in humanity is always struggling to attain by 
 purity of life, self-discipline, intellectual study, the goal of 
 Perfection, — to get back to the source from which it emanated. 
 This is Ma'dd ; this is the " Return " which the Prophet taught ; 
 this is the rest and peace inculcated in the Scripture. It was 
 thus that the " Pure Brethren " taught. Whatever we may 
 think of their psychology there is no denying that their morality 
 was of the purest, their ethics of the highest that can be con- 
 ceived, standing on a different plane from those of the theo- 
 logians who induced the bigot Mustanjid to burn their 
 encyclopaedia in Bagdad, before Bagdad itself was burnt by the 
 Mongols. 
 
 Aristotelian philosophy, which was founded on " observation 
 and experience," was, however, more akin to the Saracenic 
 genius and the positive bent of the Arab mind. Aristotelian 
 logic and metaphysics naturally exercised a great influence on 
 the conceptions of Arab scientists and scholars. Neo-Platonism 
 based on intuition and a certain vague and mystical contempla- 
 tion, did not take root among the Arabs until it was made 
 popular by the writings of the unfortunate Shihab ud-din 
 Suhrwardi. The Aristotelian conception of the First Cause 
 pervades accordingly many of the philosophical and meta- 
 physical writings of this period. And it was in consequence of 
 the influence exercised by the Stagyrite that a section of Arab 
 thinkers tended towards a belief in the eternity of matter. 
 These men received the name of Dahris (from dahr, or nature) . 
 " The fundamental idea of these philosophers," says Kremer, 
 " was the same as has gained ground, in modern times, owing 
 to the extension of natural science." But they were not, as 
 their enemies called them, atheists. Atheism is the negation 
 of a power or Cause beyond and outside the visible and material 
 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 435 
 
 world. These philosophers affirmed no such thing ; they only 
 held that it was impossible to predicate of the Causa Causans 
 any attribute whatsoever, or to explain the mode in which He 
 works on the universe. They were, in fact, the exponents of 
 the doctrine of ta'lil or agnosticism. 
 
 It appears clear, therefore, that the Islam of Mohammed 
 contains nothing which in itself bars progress or the intellectual 
 development of humanity. How is it, then, that, since the 
 twelfth century of the Christian era, philosophy has almost 
 died out among the followers of Islam and an anti-rationalistic 
 patristicism has taken possession of the bulk of the people ? 
 How is it that predestinarianism, though only one phase of the 
 Koranic teachings, has become the predominant creed of a 
 large number of Moslems ? As regards the supposed extinction 
 among them of philosophy, I should like to call attention to the 
 revival of Avicennism under the Safawi sovereigns of Persia 
 to show that rationalism and free-thought are not yet dead in 
 Islam. But the questions which I have formulated apply to 
 the general body of Moslems, and I propose to explain the 
 causes which have led to this result. 
 
 Before the Abbaside Mutawakkil's accession to the throne, 
 Islam presented a spectacle similar to that of Christendom in 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was divided into 
 two camps, one of Authority, the other of Reason ; the one 
 advocated the guidance of humanity in matters, natural as well 
 as supernatural, by precedent, pure and simple ; the other, by 
 human judgment tempered so far as practicable by precedent. 
 Between these two parties the difference was irreconcilable. 
 The first was composed chiefly of the lawyers — a class of people 
 who have been regarded in every age and country, and not 
 always without reason, as narrow-minded, self-opinionated, and 
 extremely jealous of their interests as a body. To them were 
 joined the ignorant populace. " The creed of the bishop is the 
 creed of the grocer. But the philosophy of that grocer is 
 in no sense the philosophy of a professor. Therefore it is 
 that the bishop will be revered where the professor will be 
 stoned. Intellect is that which man claims as specially his 
 own ; it is the one limiting distinction ; and thus the 
 multitude, so tolerant of the claims of an aristocracy of birth 
 
436 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 or of wealth, is uneasy under the claims of an aristocracy of 
 intelligence." x 
 
 As I have had occasion to mention in a previous chapter, 
 most of the legal decisions pronounced by the Prophet were 
 called forth by the passing necessities of a primitive and archaic 
 society. After him the Caliph Ali was the expositor of the new 
 Faith. In the Koran these legal doctrines were extremely few, 
 and adaptable to any circumstance or time, and, during the 
 reigns of the Rashidin Caliphs, were expounded chiefly by Ali 
 and his disciple Ibn Abbas. 
 
 Upon their death, the men who had attended their lectures 
 or listened to their judgments opened classes of jurisprudence 
 on their own account. Fakihs or lawyers multiplied ; they 
 discussed religio-legal questions, gave opinions on points of 
 casuistry, the rites of religion, as well as on the ordinary 
 relations of life. Gradually they became the keepers of the 
 conscience of the people. Naturally there was a keen desire 
 to discover how the Prophet had acted in any particular case ; 
 traditions multiplied. The supply was in proportion to the 
 demand. But, excepting in the school of Medina, there was 
 no uniformity of system or method. The immediate des- 
 cendants of Mohammed followed one definite rule ; if they 
 found any precedent of the time of the Prophet or of the Caliph 
 Ali, authenticated by their own ancestors, which was applicable 
 to the circumstances of the case, they based their decision upon 
 it ; if not, they relied on their own judgment. Law was with 
 them inductive and experimental ; and they decided according 
 to the exigencies and requirements of each particular case. 
 Under the early Ommeyyades there was no fixed rule ; the 
 governors ruled sharply by the sword, according to their own 
 judgment, leaving matters of conscience to the Fakihs. Under 
 the later Ommeyyades, however, the lawyers assumed great 
 preponderance, chiefly on account of their influence with the 
 fickle populace. When the Abbasides rose to power the 
 lecture-room of Imam Ja'far as Sadik was attended by two 
 men who afterwards became the bulwarks of the Sunni Church, 
 — one was Abu Hanifa, 2 and the other Malik son of Anas. 3 
 
 1 Lewes's History of Philosophy, vol. ii.p. 59. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 351. 3 See ante, p. 352. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 437 
 
 Abu Hanifa was a native of Irak ; Malik, of Medina. Both 
 were men of severe morals and great kindliness of nature, and 
 anxious to broaden the foundations of the Church. They were 
 devoted to the family of the Prophet, and suffered in con- 
 sequence of their attachment. Abu Hanifa on his return to 
 Kufa opened a class which became the nucleus of the now 
 famous Hanafi school. He rejected most of the traditions x 
 as untrue, and relied solely on the Koran ; and by " analogical 
 deductions " endeavoured to make the simple Koranic 
 utterances applicable to every variety of circumstance. Abu 
 Hanifa knew nothing of human kind ; nor had he ever been to 
 any city except Medina and Bagdad. He was a speculative 
 legist, and his two disciples, Abu Yusuf, who became Chief 
 Kazi of Bagdad under Harun, and Mohammed ash-Shaibani, 
 fixed Abu Hanifa's conceptions on a regular basis. Malik 
 proceeded on different lines. He excluded from his system all 
 inferences and " deductions." He applied himself to discover 
 in Medina, so full of the Prophet's memories, every real or 
 supposititious incident in the Master's life and based his 
 doctrines thereupon. His was " the Beaten Path," 2 and to 
 the simple Arabs and the cognate races of Africa Malik's 
 enunciations were more acceptable, being suited to their archaic 
 forms of society, than the rationalised views of the Fatimide 
 Imams, or the speculative theories of Abu Hanifa. Soon after 
 came Shafe'i, a man of strong and vigorous mind, better 
 acquainted with the world than Abu Hanifa and Malik, and 
 less casuistical than Abu Yusuf and Mohammed ash-Shaibani. 
 He formed, from the materials furnished by Ja'far as-Sadik, 
 Malik, and Abu Hanifa, an eclectic school, which found accep- 
 tance chiefly among the middle classes. Less adaptable than 
 original Hanafism to the varying necessities of a growing and 
 mixed population, it contained sufficient germs of improvement 
 which, had they not been killed by the rigid formalism of later 
 times, would have been productive of substantial good. 3 Four 
 different systems of law and doctrine, more or less distinct from 
 
 1 Ibn Khallikan. 
 
 2 The Muwatta, i.e. " The Beaten Path," is the name of his work on juris- 
 prudence. 
 
 3 Shafe'iism is spreading rapidly among the educated Hanafis of India. 
 
438 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 each other, thus established themselves in the Islamic world. 
 The Fatimide system was chiefly in force among the Shiahs, 
 who were dispersed all over the empire ; Malikism among a 
 large part of the Arabs in the Peninsula, among the Berbers, 
 and most of the Spanish Moslems ; Shafe'ism among the fairly 
 well-to-do classes ; and Hanafism among the more respectable 
 sections of society in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. The 
 position of Hanafism in the Caliphate was similar to that of 
 Pharisaism among the Jews. It received the countenance of 
 the Court as the only school with sufficient expansiveness 
 to meet the requirements of a mixed population. To have 
 acknowledged the Fatimide system would have been to give 
 too great a preponderance to the descendants of the Prophet ; 
 to have adopted Malikism and Shafe'ism for the administration 
 of a liberal State would have jeopardised the interests of the 
 empire. Hence, whilst rationalism ruled in the colleges and 
 Madrasas, 1 Hanafism held possession of the pulpits and 
 Mahkamas. 2 In its theological views, Hanafism inclined 
 towards Sifdtism ; but it varied its opinions according to those 
 of the rulers. At this period Hanafism was remarkable for its 
 flexibility. Ahmed ibn Hanbal, commonly known as Imam 
 Hanbal, made his appearance at this juncture, — a red hot 
 puritan, breathing eternal perdition to all who differed from 
 him, he was shocked with the pharisaical liberalism of Hanafism, 
 and disgusted both with the narrowness of Malikism and the 
 common-place character of Shafe'ism, he applied himself to 
 frame a new system, based on traditions, for the whole empire. 
 Abu Hanifa had rejected the majority of the current traditions ; 
 Ibn Hanbal's system included a mass of incongruous, irrational, 
 and bewildering stories, the bulk of which were wholly incon- 
 sistent with each other, and bearing upon their face the marks 
 of fabrication. And now commenced a serious struggle between 
 the parties of progress and retrogression. Ibn Hanbal adopted 
 the extreme Sifdtia views ; he inculcated that the Deity was 
 visible to the human sight ; that His attributes were separate 
 from His essence ; that the statements about His being seated 
 on the throne were to be accepted in their literal sense ; that 
 
 1 Madrasa is a place where lectures are given, hence a college, school, etc. 
 
 2 Courts of justice. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 439 
 
 man was in no sense a free agent ; that every human action 
 was the direct act of the Deity, and so forth. He denounced 
 learning and science, and proclaimed a holy war against 
 Rationalism. The populace, carried away by his eloquence or 
 his vehemence, took up the cry ; the Hanafi jurists, whose 
 power materially depended on their influence over the ignorant 
 masses, and who were jealous of the prominence of the scientists 
 and philosophers in the Court of Harun and Mamun, made 
 common cause with the new reformer. The pulpits began to 
 fulminate brimstone and fire against the upholders of reason 
 and the advocates of philosophy and science. The streets of 
 Bagdad became the scenes of frequent rioting and bloodshed. 
 Mu'tasim and Wasik repressed the fanatical violence of the 
 fiery puritans with some severity. The prime mover of the 
 disturbances was put in prison, where he died in the odour of 
 great sanctity ; his bier was followed to the grave by a crowd 
 consisting of a hundred and forty thousand men and women. 1 
 His system never took root among any large body of people : 
 but, mixing with Hanafism, it gave a new character to the 
 doctrines of Abu Hanifa. Henceforth Hanafism represents 
 a mixture of the teachings of Abu Hanifa and of Ibn 
 Hanbal. 
 
 When Mutawakkil was raised to the throne the position of 
 the various parties stood thus : — the Rationalists were the 
 directing power of the State ; they held the chief offices of 
 trust ; they were professors in colleges, superintendents of 
 hospitals, directors of observatories ; they were merchants ; 
 in fact, they represented the wisdom and the wealth of the 
 empire ; Rationalism was the dominating creed among the 
 educated, the intellectual, and influential classes of the com- 
 munity. Sifdtism was in force among the lower strata of 
 society, and most of the Kazis, the preachers, the lawyers of 
 various degree were attached to it. A cruel drunken sot, 
 almost crazy at times, Mutawakkil had the wit to perceive the 
 advantage of an alliance with the latter party. It would make 
 him at once the idol of the populace, and the model Caliph of 
 the bigots. The fiat accordingly went forth for the expulsion 
 of the party of progress from their offices under government. 
 
 1 See Appendix IT. 
 
440 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 The colleges and universities were closed ; literature, science, 
 and philosophy were interdicted ; and the Rationalists were 
 hunted from Bagdad. Mutawakkil at the same time demolished 
 the mausoleum of the Caliph Ali and his sons. The fanatical 
 lawyers, who were now the priests and rabbis of Islam, be- 
 came the ruling power of the State. Mutawakkil's death 
 and Mustansir's accession gave the victory once more to 
 the Progressists. But their success was short-lived. Under 
 the pitiless and sanguinary Mu'tazid b'illah the triumph of 
 Patristicism was complete. He mercilessly persecuted the 
 Rationalists. They inculcated that " justice " was the animat- 
 ing principle of human actions ; that God Himself governed 
 the universe by " justice," which was His Essence ; that the 
 test of right and wrong was not any individual will, but the 
 good of humanity. These doctrines were terribly revolutionary; 
 they were aimed at the divine right of the Caliph to do wrong. 
 Tom Paine could scarcely preach worse. On the other hand, 
 the clerical party taught very properly " God is the Sovereign ; 
 as the sovereign does no wrong, so God can do no wrong." 
 There could be no question which of these two doctrines was 
 true. The days of Rationalism were now over under the 
 Abbasides. Expelled from Bagdad, it took refuge in Cairo, 
 which was worse, for if there was one place which the Abbaside 
 Caliphs hated with the hatred of death, that was Cairo. The 
 very name of Rationalism became one of dire import to the 
 Pontiffs of Bagdad. A College of Jurists was established to 
 ferret out " heresy " in the writings of the philosophers and 
 scientists, whose misfortune was still to live within the reach 
 of the patristic influences. The works in which the smallest 
 taint was observed were committed to the flames ; their authors 
 were subjected to tortures and to death. Islam now presented 
 the spectacle of orthodox Christendom. There was a time 
 when, in spite of the fact that the temporal power was arrayed 
 against it, Rationalism would have regained its hold on the 
 masses. In their constant disputations the clerical party 
 always found themselves worsted ; and though, on these 
 occasions, they not infrequently invoked the more forcible 
 reasoning of the sword and bricks and stones, their defeats 
 in argument perceptibly told on the ranks of their followers. 
 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 441 
 
 It was at this period that the retrogressive party received the 
 assistance of an unexpected ally. Hitherto they had fought 
 against Reason with their usual repertory of traditions. Abu'l 
 Hasan al-Asha'ri, 1 a descendant of the famous Abu Musa 
 al-Asha'ri, who had been tricked by 'Amr ibn al-'As into 
 abandoning the rights of the Caliph Ali, was educated among 
 the Mu'tazilas. He had learnt their logic, their philosophy, 
 their science of reasoning. Actuated by vanity, and partly 
 perhaps by ambition, he one day in the Jdmi' mosque of 
 Basra, in the presence of a large congregation, made a 
 public disavowal of the Mu'tazilite doctrines, and declared his 
 adherence to Sifdtism. His theatrical manner and his eloquent 
 words impressed the people, and the waverers at once went 
 over to him. Asha'ri was now the greatest man in the 
 Caliphate ; he was petted by the legists, idolised by the 
 populace, respected by the Caliph. He gave to the clerical 
 party what they had long been wanting — a logical system, 
 or what may be called by that name, for the defence of 
 patristic theology against the rationalistic conceptions of the 
 Mu'tazilas, the philosophers, and the Fatimide Imams. Abu'l 
 Hasan maintained the Sifatia doctrines, with very slight 
 modifications. 
 
 A short summary of his views, taken from Shahristani, will 
 explain the present mental lethargy of so many Moslems. " He 
 maintained," says our author, " that the attributes of the 
 Deity are eternal and subsistent in His Essence, but they are 
 not simply His Essence, rather they are additional to His 
 Essence ; . . . that God speaks by an eternal word, and wills 
 by an eternal will, for it is evident that God is a Sovereign, 
 and, as a Sovereign, is One to whom it belongs to command 
 and prohibit, so God commands and prohibits ; . . . that His 
 ordering is eternal, subsistent in Him, a quality pertaining to 
 Him ; that the will of God is indivisible, eternal, embracing all 
 things subject to volition, whether determinate actions of His 
 own or actions of His creatures — the latter, so far as created 
 
 1 Al-Asha'ri was born at Basra in 260 a.h. (874 a. a), but passed the greatest 
 part of his life in Bagdad. Up to the fortieth year of his age he was a devoted 
 adherent of the Mu'tazilas. He ascribed his theatrical abjuration of his old 
 beliefs to an admonition he received from the Prophet in a dream during the 
 fasting month of Ramazan. 
 
442 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 by Him, not as they are their own actions by appropriation ; x 
 . . . that God wills all things morally, good and evil, beneficial 
 and injurious ; and, as He both knows and wills, that He wills 
 on the part of His creatures what He knows, and has caused to 
 be registered in the memorial-book — which fore-knowledge 
 constitutes His decree, His decisions, and His determination, 
 therein there is no varying or change ; that an appropriated 
 action means an action which is pre-destined to be done by 
 created ability, and which takes place under the condition of 
 created ability." In plainer language, he taught that every 
 human action emanates from God, or is pre-destined by His 
 decree, to be performed by a particular person, and this person, 
 having the capacity of appropriation or acquisitiveness, does 
 the act ; the act is primarily God's act, secondarily the man's. 
 For example, if a man applies himself to write a letter, his 
 desire to write is the outcome of an eternal decree that he 
 should write ; then he takes up the pen, it is the will of God 
 that He should do so ; and so on. When the writing is finished, 
 it is due to his acquisitiveness. Shahristani very appropriately 
 observes that, according to Abu'l Hasan, no influence in 
 respect to origination (of action) pertains to created ability. 
 This worthy divine further maintained that " God rules as a 
 Sovereign over His creatures, doing what He wills and deter- 
 mining as He pleases ; so that were He to cause all men to 
 enter Paradise, there would be no injustice, and if He were to 
 send them all to hell, there would be no wrong-doing, because 
 injustice is the ordering in respect to things which do not 
 come within the sphere of control of the Orderer, or the 
 inversion of established relations of things, and God is the 
 Absolute Sovereign, on whose part no injustice is imaginable, 
 and to whom no wrong can be attributed ; . . . and that nothing 
 whatever is obligatory upon God by virtue of reason — neither 
 that which is beneficial, nor that which is most advantageous, 
 nor gracious assistance . . . and that the ground of (human) 
 obligation is nothing which constitutes a necessity binding 
 upon God." . . . 
 
 After mentioning the doctrines of Abu'l Hasan, Shahristani 
 proceeds to state the views of Abu'l Hasan's principal disciple, 
 
 1 Shahristani explains this word later. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 443 
 
 whose teachings were adopted by a large body of people — Abu 
 Abdullah Mohammed bin Karram, " whom we count as one of 
 the Sifatias." This man maintained that the Divine attributes 
 were distinct from His Essence, that God can be perceived by 
 eyesight, and that He creates human actions from time to time 
 as He wills. 
 
 No account of al-Asha'ri's teachings would be complete 
 without a reference to Ibn 'Asakir's work. 1 Shahristani in 
 his resume of the Asha'rite doctrines maintains a philosophical 
 and judicial attitude. Ibn 'Asakir, on the other hand, makes 
 no pretence of holding an even balance between contending 
 schools. To him, as to Asha'ri, the doctrines of the Rationalists 
 are rank heresy ; and he denounces their teachings with 
 uncompromising violence. His exposition, however, of 
 al-Asha'ri's emphatic rule that the dogmas of the Faith must be 
 accepted by the orthodox, without questioning, helps us to 
 understand the tendencies which were set in motion at an 
 early stage of Moslem development, and which eventually 
 succeeded in arresting the progress of Moslem nations and 
 paralysing, in the course of centuries, their intellectual energy. 
 All questioning was declared to be an impiety and an unfor- 
 givable sin, whilst the spirit of inquiry was held to be a 
 manifestation of the devil. " God," says the Koran, " sees 
 all things " ; therefore, it was assumed, He must have eyes, 
 and the believer must accept it bila kaifa, without " why or 
 wherefore " ; — thus reasoned al- Asha'ri, and thus has reasoned 
 his school through all ages. 
 
 Two hundred and fifty years separate al-Asha'ri from his 
 distinguished exponent and apologist. Within this period of 
 time, Islam had undergone a great change. Until al-Asha'ri 
 started his new school of dogmatic theology, the struggle for 
 ascendancy was confined between Rationalism on one side and 
 Patristicism on the other. Al-Asha'ri supplied the latter with 
 a weapon it had never possessed before. As Ibn 'Asakir 
 
 1 Abil-Kasim Ali bin al-Hasan b. Hibat-ullah, b. Abdullah bin al-Hasan 
 Ali Shafe'i, surnamed Ibn 'Asakir, famous for his monumental work on the 
 history of Damascus, was born in 499 a.h., died 571 a.h. He was a rigid 
 Shafe'ite and a violent partisan of al-Asha'ri, whom he regarded as a renovator 
 and foremost champion of Islam. Ibn 'Asakir's work is called The 
 Exposure by al-hn&m Hasan al-Asha'ri of Mischievous Untruths. 
 
444 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 remarks, " al-Asha'ri was the first orthodox dialectician, 1 who 
 reasoned with the Rationalists and other heretics according to 
 their own principles of logic." As an attempted compromise 
 between Rationalism and Patristicism, between " orthodoxy " 
 and " heterodoxy," his doctrines found a ready acceptance 
 among the extreme theologians and divines, who saw in his 
 system the means for overthrowing Rationalism from the 
 pinnacle of power and influence which it had attained in the 
 enlightened reigns of al-Mamun and his two immediate suc- 
 cessors. Rationalism was also favoured by the earlier Buyides, 
 and, under their auspices and encouragement, its influence 
 had become paramount in Mid- Asia. " The power of the 
 Mu'tazila," says Ibn 'Asakir, " was very great in Irak until 
 the time of Fenakhusru" ('Azud-ud-Dowla). 2 In his reign 
 Asha'rism first found favour at Court and gradually spread 
 among all classes. Up to the middle of the fifth century of 
 the Hegira it was often confounded with Mu'tazilaism, which 
 al-Asha'ri had professed until his dramatic secession. His 
 disciples appear even to have been subjected to some per- 
 secution at the hands of the sects who claimed the special 
 privilege of orthodoxy. 
 
 Under Sultan Tughril, the founder of the Seljukide dynasty, 
 the followers of al-Asha'ri were suspected of unorthodoxy, and 
 had to undergo proscription and exile. The Sultan himself 
 was a follower of Imam Abu Hanifa and professed Hanafite 
 orthodoxy. He had given orders for public imprecation on 
 heretics from the pulpits of the mosques. According to Ibn 
 'Asakir, his vizier, 3 who was a Mu'tazili, included the 
 Asha'rites in the imprecation, and started a persecution of the 
 
 1 Mutakallim bi'lisan. 
 
 2 Al-Malik Fenakhusru reigned as the Mayor of the Palace from 367-372 a.h. 
 Ibn 'Asakir tells the story of how Fenakhusru, after attending one of the 
 " Assemblies of the learned " which were held in the house of the Chief Kazi, 
 who was a Mu'tazili, found that there was not a single Asha'rite in their midst. 
 On being told that there was no learned Asha'rite in Bagdad, he pressed the 
 Judge to invite some from outside. It was at his instance, it is stated, that 
 Ibn al-Bakillani, one of the principal disciples of al-Asha'ri, was summoned 
 to Bagdad. To him Fenakhusru confided the education of his sons. Whether 
 this story be true or not, the period of 'Azud-ud-Dowla's reign fixes the date of 
 the rise of the Star of Asha'rism. 
 
 3 Abu Nasr Mansur Kunduri, surnamed 'Amid ul-Mulk. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 445 
 
 most prominent Imams and doctors among the disciples of 
 al-Asha'ri. 
 
 The cloud under which Asha'rism laboured in the reign of 
 Tughril Beg lifted on his death, and with the accession of Alp 
 Arslan and the rise of Nizam ul-Mulk, " who favoured the 
 adherents of the Sunnat," Asha'rism became the dominant 
 sect. " He recalled the exiles, covered them with honours, 
 opened colleges and schools in their names." Thus one of the 
 most generous patrons of learning among the Moslems uncon- 
 sciously allied himself to a tendency to which, more largely 
 than any other cause, the sterilisation of the intellectual energies 
 of the Moslems is due. 
 
 Ibn 'Asakir's account of the progress of Asha'rism is 
 enthusiastic. From Irak it spread into Syria and Egypt under 
 the Ayyubides 1 and Mamelukes ; from Irak also it was carried 
 into Western Africa by Ibn Tumart, 2 and it took firm root in 
 the Maghrib (Morocco). "There remained no other sect in 
 Islam, excepting some followers of Ibn Hanbal and some 
 partisans of Abu Hanifa, to compete with the adherents of 
 al-Asha'ri." " Ahmed bin Hanbal and al-Asha'ri were in 
 perfect harmony," says Ibn 'Asakir, " in their religious 
 opinions and did not differ in any particular, in the funda- 
 mental doctrines and in the acceptance of the authority of 
 the Traditions." " This is the reason," he continues, " why the 
 Hanbalites relied from always and at all times on the 
 Asha'rites against the heterodox, as they were the only dialec- 
 ticians among the orthodox." 
 
 To throw into relief the cardinal principles of al-Asha'ri's 
 teachings, Ibn 'Asakir places in juxtaposition the opinions 
 held by different sects. 
 
 After mentioning various other sects, he gives an account, in 
 the words of al-Asha'ri, of the Mu'tazilite doctrines (" in which 
 they have strayed from the right path "). He tells us that the 
 Mu'tazilas repudiate the notion that God can be seen by the 
 corporeal sight, or that the Almighty has any similitude to 
 human beings ; or that there will be a corporeal resurrection 
 on the Day of Account. " They repudiate also," he says, 
 
 1 Saladin and his successors. 
 
 2 The founder of the Almohade dynasty in north-west Africa. 
 
446 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 " the doctrine of pains and penalties ('Azdb) 1 in the grave," 
 nor do they believe in the intercession (Shafd'at) of the Prophet ; 
 they hold that human sins can only be forgiven or remitted by 
 Divine Mercy, and that neither His mercy nor justice can be 
 influenced or deflected by human intercession ; they believe 
 that the Koran is created and revealed to the Prophet 
 and that the " law has been announced according to human 
 needs." 
 
 After stating the Mu'tazilite doctrines Ibn 'Asakir proceeds 
 to give in detail the creed of al-Asha'ri. They are twenty-four 
 in number, but to show the theological attitude of al-Asha'ri 
 and his sharp difference with rationalistic Islam it is sufficient 
 to refer only to a few. After the confession of Faith, regarding 
 the unity of God and the messengership of the Prophet in which 
 all Islam is agreed, the Asha'rite creed proceeds thus : — 
 
 " We declare that Paradise and Hell are true, that the arrival 
 of the Hour of Judgment is certain, and that without doubt 
 God will raise the dead from their graves ; that God will appear 
 to human sight on the Day of Judgment. 2 We declare that the 
 word of God (i.e. the Koran), and every part thereof, is 
 uncreated : that there is nothing on earth, neither good nor 
 bad, which does not come into existence but by the will of God : 
 that nothing, in fact, comes into being unless He wishes. We 
 believe that God the Almighty knows the acts of His servants 
 and their ends and consequences, as well as those which do not 
 come to pass. We believe that human actions owe their 
 origin to His will and are determined in advance by Him ; that 
 man has no power to originate or create anything by himself 
 (i.e. without God's help). That man is incapable of obtaining 
 by himself that which is good for his soul, or avoiding that 
 which is harmful, except by the will of God." 
 
 The Asha'rite creed then goes on thus : — " We believe in 
 the intercession of the Prophet, and that God will redeem from 
 
 1 The meaning of ' Azab will become clearer later on. 
 
 2 It is believed that on the third day after burial the grave is visited 
 by two angels named Munkir and Nakir, who raise the dead to life by blows 
 from their batons, and interrogate him as to his or her past life and record 
 the answers in a register. They act as a sort of Juge d' instruction. This 
 belief, evidently an offshoot from the Egyptian conceptions, was imbedded 
 in the folk-lore of the country before the promulgation of Islam. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 447 
 
 the punishment of fire believers who have sinned." " We 
 believe in the Day of Resurrection, we believe in the appearance 
 of the anti-Christ, in the interrogation of the dead by the two 
 angels (Munkir and Nakir) . We believe in the Ascension of the 
 Prophet ; 1 we believe that all evil thoughts are inspired by 
 Satan ; we believe that it is sinful to rise in arms against the 
 lawful Imam." - 
 
 This summary shows more clearly than Shahristani's philo- 
 sophical analysis the attitude of al-Asha'ri towards Moslem 
 development. 
 
 In order to meet the Mu'tazilas on their own ground, Abu'l 
 Hasan invented a rival science of reason — the real scholastic 
 theology of the Moslems, which, though supposed to be an 
 offshoot of the 'Ilm-ul-kaldm founded by the Mu'tazilas, is in 
 many essential features different from it. For example, most 
 of the Mu'tazilas were conceptualists, whilst the Asha'ri Muta- 
 kallimin were either realists or modified nominalists. The 
 Asha'ris maintained that a negative quality like ignorance is 
 an actual entity, whilst the Mu'tazilas declared that it was the 
 mere negation of a quality, for example, ignorance was the 
 absence of knowledge. The Asha'ri Mutakallim maintained 
 that the Koran was uncreated and eternal ; the Mu'tazilite 
 declared that it represented the words of God revealed to the 
 Prophet from time to time as occasion arose, otherwise there 
 would be no meaning in ndsikh and mansukh, for admittedly 
 some of the later verses repealed others which had been uttered 
 before. 
 
 Asha'rism thus became the dominant school in the East. 
 When the enlightened Buyides became the mayors of the 
 palace Rationalism again raised its head in Bagdad ; but 
 Asha'rism never lost its hold over the conscience of the masses, 
 
 1 The belief in the Ascension of the Prophet is general in Islam. Whilst 
 the Asha'ri and the patristic sects believe that the Prophet was bodily carried 
 up from earth to heaven, the Rationalists hold that it was a spiritual exalta- 
 tion, that it represented the uplifting of the soul by stages until it was brought 
 into absolute communion with the Universal Soul. 
 
 2 The orthodox Sunni belief, that once the sacramental oath of allegiance 
 is sworn to the Caliph any rising against him is a religious crime, led all Moslem 
 sovereigns to beg for investiture from the Caliph, however impotent, as it 
 made insurrection against them or their authority on the part of their subjects 
 unlawful. 
 
448 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 nor did Mu'tazilaism ever regain its old position of preponder- 
 ance. The Buyides were Rationalists ; but the Seljukides, in 
 spite of their patronage of learning and science, belonged to 
 the Asha'ri school. Renan x has observed that Islamism, 
 having become, by the accident of history, the property of races 
 given over to fanaticism, such as the Spaniards, the Berbers, 
 the Persians, the Turks, acquired in their hands the garb of 
 a rigid and exclusive dogmatism. " What has happened to 
 Catholicism in Spain has happened to Islam, what would have 
 happened in all Europe if the religious revival which took place 
 (in Christendom) at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century had stopped all national develop- 
 ment." This observation is absolutely true. The Persian 
 always associated an idea of divinity with the person of his 
 sovereign ; the Turk, the Mongol, the Berber looked upon their 
 chiefs as the direct descendants of God ; conversion to Islam 
 did not detract from their veneration of their kings or princes. 
 For centuries the Arabs had tried to exorcise the demon of 
 fanaticism which had been introduced into the hearts of the 
 Spaniards by the Christian clergy ; they failed, and the moment 
 the Chancellor al-Mansur, in order to enlist popular support 
 in furtherance of his ambitious designs, raised in Spain a cry 
 against Rationalism, the same crowd which afterwards assisted 
 with willing hands and gleeful faces at the auto-da-fe of heretics, 
 helped in the burning of philosophical works in the market-place 
 of Cordova. The victorious arms of Saladin carried Asha'rism 
 into Egypt. Whilst Rationalism was thus fighting a losing 
 battle with its old enemy, the writings of Imam al-Ghazzali, 
 which were directed chiefly against the study of philosophy, 
 strengthened the hands of Patristicism. Abu Hamid Moham- 
 med ibn Mohammed al Ghazzali 2 was a man of undoubted 
 talents and purity of character. He had studied philosophy 
 and dived into the mysteries of the sciences ; he had even 
 
 1 Averroes et Averroism, p. 30. 
 
 2 Was born at Tus in Khorasan (the birthplace of Firdousi) in the year 
 1058 a. c. (45b a. h.) ; died in mi a.c. (505 of the Hegira). His most cele- 
 brated works are the Ihya ul-'uliZm (" the Revival of the Sciences of Religion ") ; 
 the Munkiz min-az-zaldl {" Deliverance from Errors "); M akdsid-nl-faldsifa (the 
 "Tendencies of Philosophers"); and Tahdfut-ul-faldsifa (" Destruction of 
 Philosophers"), to which Ibn-Rushd wrote a refutation called the Tahdfut-u- 
 Tahdfui ul-faldsifa ("the Destruction of Destruction," etc.) ; see chap. xi. 
 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 449 
 
 indulged in free-thought. Suddenly the spirit of earnest 
 longing for a solid rock on which to rest the weary soul, the 
 spirit that has worked similarly upon other minds in later ages, 
 spoke to his heart, and from a philosopher he turned into a 
 mystic. In the Munkiz, which appears to have been a dis- 
 course delivered either verbally or written to his religious 
 brethren, he describes with some naivete how he hankered for 
 knowledge, and in its search went everywhere, dipped into 
 everything, acquainted himself with every subject ; and how 
 he abandoned the doctrines which had been instilled into him 
 in early life. He says he knew the saying of the Prophet, which 
 declared that every child was born with a knowledge of the 
 truth in nature, and therefore wanted to know what that truth 
 was. Then he describes how he was seized with scepticism, 
 and how he escaped from its consequences by betaking himself 
 into the higher regions of faith, viz. a mystical exaltation. The 
 discourse contains a violent attack on the philosophers, whom 
 he groups under three heads. (1) The Dahrts, who believe in 
 the eternity of matter, and deny the existence of a Creator. 
 
 (2) The Physicists or naturalists, who believe in the existence 
 of a Creator, but think that the human soul once separated 
 from the body ceases to exist, and that therefore there is no 
 accountability for human actions ; both of them were infidels. 
 
 (3) The Theists (Plato and Aristotle) , ' ' these have completely 
 refuted the doctrines of the first two, and God has saved thereby 
 the true believer from the battle." " But they must be pro- 
 nounced infidels ; and so also the Moslem philosophers who 
 have followed them, especially Farabi and Ibn-Sina, for their 
 philosophy is so confused that you cannot separate the truth 
 from the false, so as to refute the latter ! From what we can 
 discover of the writings of these two men, knowledge may be 
 divided under three heads ; one group we are bound to pro- 
 nounce as infidel, another as heresy, and about the third we 
 need say nothing ! " And yet with all this simplicity there is 
 considerable practical sense displayed in Ghazzali's writings. 
 He praises wisdom as far higher than mere belief, and opposes 
 the fanatical dogmatism which rejects all rational inquiry and 
 all knowledge because it is cultivated by his betes noires the 
 philosophers. He calls this dogmatism the unwise friend of 
 
450 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Islam. At the same time his precepts on personal indepen- 
 dence, on moral discipline, on self -purification, on practical 
 kindness, and on the education of the young, and his 
 denunciation of the immoral and useless lives of the Mullahs 
 of his time, reflect great credit on the goodness of his 
 nature. 1 
 
 From this period there was an unceasing struggle between 
 Rationalism and Patristicism. In the year 1150, under the 
 orders of the Caliph Mustanjid, all the philosophical works of 
 Ibn-Sina and the copies of the Rasail-i-Ikhwan us-Safd found 
 in the public and private libraries were consigned to the flames. 
 In 1 192 the physician Ar-Rukn Abdus-Salam was accused of 
 atheism, and the populace and priests proceeded to make a 
 bonfire of his books. The Mullah who presided at this 
 ceremony stood on a chair and delivered a sermon against 
 philosophy. As the books were brought out they were 
 delivered to him, and with a few remarks on their impiety, 
 he threw them into the fire. A disciple of Maimonides was 
 a witness to this strange scene, and has left an account of 
 it. "I saw," says he, " in the hands of this doctor the work 
 of Ibn-ul-Haithem (Al-Hazen) on astronomy. Showing to the 
 people the circle by which the author represented the celestial 
 sphere, the doctor burst forth, ' Misery of miseries, inexpressible 
 disaster ! ' and with these words he threw the book into the 
 flames." But even the influence of Imam al-Ghazzali and the 
 temporal power of the sovereigns, some of whom were at heart 
 rationalists, would not have prevented the eventual victory of 
 reason over the dead-weight of authority, had not the Mongol's 
 sword turned the scale. " One Khan, one God : as the Khan's 
 ordinance is immutable, so is God's decree." Could any 
 doctrine be more logical or more irresistible, backed as it was 
 by a million swords ? Rationalism, philosophy, the sciences 
 and arts went down before that avalanche of savagery — never 
 to rise again. The gleams of light which we have seen shining 
 on Western Asia under the successors of Hulaku were the fitful 
 rays of the setting sun. Policy worked with an inborn 
 fanaticism in crushing any endeavour to introduce rationalism 
 and philosophy in the Moslem world. The lawyers were not 
 
 1 See chapter xi, post. 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 451 
 
 only strong, but also the main support of despotism. The 
 result was, as we have already seen, Patristicism took possession 
 of the hearts of large sections of Moslems, and has in course 
 of time become a second nature with them. They can perceive 
 nothing except through the medium of the patristic glasses. 
 The Prophet inculcated the use of reason ; his followers have 
 made its exercise a sin. He preached against anthropolatry 
 and extravagant veneration for human beings ; the Sunnis 
 have canonised the salaf and the four jurists ; the Akhbari 
 Shiahs, their Mujtahids, — and have called any deviation 
 from the course laid down by them — however much that 
 deviation might accord with the Master's own teachings 
 and with reason — a crime. He had said that " ghosts, 
 apparitions, and the like have nothing to do with Islam." 
 They now believe firmly in them. He impressed on them 
 to go in quest of knowledge to the land of the heathens. 
 They do not take it even when it is offered to them in their 
 own homes. 
 
 Under the Safawis, rationalism and philosophy came to 
 life once more — though not in that vigorous shape in which 
 they had flourished under the earlier Abbasides. From the 
 twelfth to the fifteenth century Iran had suffered terribly ; 
 and in the darkness which enshrouded the land during this long 
 period of disaster and trouble, the Shiah Mullahs had assumed 
 the position of the clergy in Christendom to a larger degree than 
 even the Sunni lawyers. They claimed the sole and absolute 
 power of expounding the laws on the ground that they were the 
 representatives of the Fatimide Imams. Mulla Sadra, whom I 
 have already mentioned as the reviver of the Usuli doctrines, — 
 the religion of Mohammed as it was understood and accepted 
 by his immediate descendants, — applied himself to revive the 
 study of philosophy and science among his countrymen. It 
 was by no means an easy task, but he worked with tact and 
 judgment. Avicennism came to life again, and, in spite of the 
 political vicissitudes of Iran, the destruction of lives during 
 the Afghan domination, and the establishment of the Kajars 
 on the throne of Persia, has persistently maintained its hold 
 over many of the cultivated class. One of the best epitomes 
 of Avicennistic philosophy was published in the reign of^Shah 
 
452 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Abbas II., 1 by Abdur Razzak bin Ali bin al-Hassan al-Lahiji, 
 under the name of Gouhar-i-Murad, " The Pearl of Desire." 
 It contains a summary of Ibn-Sina's views, explained and 
 illustrated by references to the opinions of the Caliph Ali 
 and his descendants, and philosophers and physicists like 
 Imam Fakhr ud-din Razi, Nasir ud-din Tusi, Imam Taftazani, 
 and others. 
 
 Some of Abdur Razzak's views are extremely interesting. 
 For example, dealing with Mu'tazilaism and Asha'rism, he 
 states that " the Mu'tazilas invented the science of Kaldm with 
 the object of establishing a harmony between the precepts of 
 religion and the requirements of society, and of explaining by 
 principles of Reason the [Koranic] verses and the traditions 
 which at first sight seem unreasonable (_,*!£ v^'ll) ; whilst 
 their opponents (^Jls* &L\b) upheld the literal acceptance 
 [of the verses of the Koran and of the traditions] partly 
 from motives of bigotry and partly from policy ; prohibited 
 all interpretations, and pronounced the interpretations of the 
 Mu'tazilas and all their opinions as heresy ( ^?*i >, and 
 designated the Mu'tazilas heretics (^<^), and considered 
 themselves in opposition to them [the Mu'tazilas] as ahl-i- 
 Sunnat wa-Jamd'at. ... So much so, that many of them have 
 fallen into the sin of thinking God to be a material being, all 
 of them are immersed in that of anthropomorphism. — And this 
 has happened of their shutting the door upon all interpretations; 
 they have construed in their literal acceptation, the verse that 
 ' He is seated on the Throne,' and such like, and the traditions 
 as to ojj) (the sight of God) until they derived tajsttn 
 (corporeality) from one, and tashbih (similarity, or anthropo- 
 morphism) from the other. These people had at first no 
 method of reasoning or putting forward of logical arguments ; 
 they relied only on the literal words of the Koran and traditions 
 until the appearance of Abu'l Hasan Asha'ri, who was a 
 prominent disciple of Abu Ali Jubbai, one of the learned Imams 
 of the Mu'tazilas. Abu'l Hasan had acquired great knowledge 
 
 1 Of this sovereign it is said that he was as tolerant to all religions as his 
 great ancestor Abbas I. He often declared the principle by which his conduct 
 on this point was regulated : " It is for God, not for me, to judge of men's 
 consciences : and I will never interfere with what belongs to the tribunal of 
 the great Creator and Lord of the Universe." 
 
x. RATIONALISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL SPIRIT 453 
 
 offlogicTand argumentation. He abandoned the Mazhab-i- 
 'iiizdl, and^ adopted that of the Ahl-i-Sunnat w a- Jama' at and 
 made great endeavours to advance the cause of this sect, which up 
 to his time-had no influence whatsoever. Henceforth it began 
 to be called after him. He invented principles and rules according 
 
 to'the^Mu'tazilite'models And as the tyrannical sovereigns 
 
 found, that the doctrines of this Mazhab suited their policy, 
 
 W e^f J^< &lf° ej'-^'l ^^ ^I^J <tf &lji Uj i.jJil j£\$ )?*■ t+J\ j laU. 
 
 they supported this sect ; and so Asha'rism spread widely 
 among the Ahl-i-Isldm. But, as the doctrines of the Mu'tazilas 
 (J_>kja*ijj) were founded on the principles of reason 
 ( *i 1 ^ J>*>' ) v they found acceptance among a large number 
 of the true-hearted people , (*w=^ <>». ^1,3 j&\ And as the 
 Mu'tazilas had studied deeply the philosophical and scientific 
 works, they introduced arguments borrowed from them 
 in the discussion of metaphysical and theological subjects. 
 And when the Asha'ris became aware of this, as they considered 
 everything which was not contained in the bosom of Islam a 
 heresy — Ab>J*wij ovt» t^\ J,*** fiU ;s>#^ 4>^y*>, they at once 
 pronounced the study of philosophy ^-*£a. ^lf **lUa<) to be 
 unlawful and dangerous. It was owing to the endeavours of 
 this sect that philosophy became so unpopular among the Ahl-i- 
 Isldm as to affect even the learned of the Mu'tazilas. But the 
 Asha'ria were the originators of this antagonism to philosophy, 
 for, otherwise, it is in truth in no way inconsistent with religion 
 or the mysteries Cj^—f), of the Koran and traditions. . . . 
 The prophets and their representatives ^rV!) have ex- 
 plained the truths of philosophy which are Divine by tamsil, 
 similitudes." ... " With regard to the freedom of human 
 actions, there are three Mazhabs : the first is the doctrine of 
 Jabr, and that is the Mazhab of the Asha'rias ; they hold that 
 the actions of man are immediately created by God without 
 any exercise of will on the part of human beings — so much so, 
 that if a person lights a fire, the lighting is said to be an act of 
 God." Then after exposing the immorality of this doctrine, 
 the author proceeds to say, " the second Mazhab, that of tafwtz, 
 was adopted by a few Mu'tazilas, who held that man has 
 absolute power to choose what is right and what is wrong, and 
 
454 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 do accordingly. The third is the Mazhab of the Fatimide 
 Imams, and the majority of the philosophers and rationalists 
 who maintain that human actions are the immediate creations 
 of man, but evil and good are pointed out by God." . . . 
 
 We cannot help contrasting the present condition of the 
 Church which claims to be orthodox in Christendom with that 
 of the one which advances a similar claim in Islam. From the 
 fourth century, ever since its foundation, until the revolt of 
 Luther, Catholicism proved itself the mortal enemy of science, 
 philosophy, and learning. It consigned to the flames myriads 
 of beings for heresy ; it trampled out the lispings of free- 
 thought in Southern France : and closed with violence the 
 schools of rational theology. But Catholicism, after the great 
 break of Luther and Calvin, discovered that neither the cultiva- 
 tion of science nor the pursuit of philosophy renders the faithful 
 an unbeliever. It broadened its base and now includes men of 
 the largest minds, scientists, litterateurs, etc. To an outsider 
 it presents a more liberal aspect than even the Reformed 
 Christian Churches. For five centuries Islam assisted in the 
 free intellectual development of humanity, but a reactionary 
 movement then set in, and all at once the whole stream of 
 human thought was altered. The cultivators of science and 
 philosophy were pronounced to be beyond the pale of Islam. 
 Is it impossible for the Sunni Church to take a lesson from the 
 Church of Rome ? Is it impossible for her to expand similarly 
 — to become many-sided ? There is nothing in Mohammed's 
 teachings which prevents this. Islamic Protestantism, in one 
 of its phases, — Mu'tazilaism, — has already paved the way. 
 Why should not the great Sunni Church shake off the old 
 trammels and rise to a new life ? 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT IN ISLAM 
 
 THE mystical philosophy which forms the life and soul 
 of modern Persian literature owes its distinct origin 
 to the esoteric significance attached by an important 
 section of Moslems to the words of the Koran. The elevated 
 feeling of Divine pervasion with which the Prophet often spoke, 
 the depth of fervent and ecstatic rapture which characterised 
 his devotions, constitute the chief basis on which Moslem 
 mysticism is founded. During his lifetime, when the per- 
 formance of duties was placed before religious speculation, 
 there was little scope for the full development of the con- 
 templative and mystical element in Islam. This mystical and 
 contemplative element exists in all religions and among every 
 people. And yet it varies with the peculiarities of the indi- 
 vidual and the race, and according to their tendency to 
 confound the abstract with the concrete. The Hindu looks on 
 absorption of the finite into the Infinite as the culmination 
 of happiness ; and to attain that end he remains immovable 
 in one spot, and resigns himself to complete apathy. The 
 sense of infinity makes it difficult for him to distinguish 
 objectively between the priest and the God, or himself and 
 the God ; and eventually between the Deity and the different 
 forms of nature in which He is supposed to be manifested. 
 Gradually this train of contemplation leads to the formal 
 conclusion, as appears from the Bhagavad Gita, that Creator 
 and creation are identical. We see thus how curiously pan- 
 theism, in its extreme manifestation, approaches to fetishism, 
 
 455 
 

 456 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 which preceded every other idea of the Divinity. In its 
 infancy the human mind knows no spiritual sentiment but 
 one of unmixed terror. The primeval forests, which the hand 
 of man has not yet touched, the stupendous mountains looming 
 in the distance, the darkness of the night, with the grim, weird 
 shapes which hover about it, the howling of the wind through 
 the forest tops, all inspire fear and awe in the infant mind of 
 man. He worships every material object he finds more 
 powerful or more awe-striking than himself or his immediate 
 surroundings. Gradually he comes to attach an ideality to 
 all these objects of nature, and thinks these idealities worthy 
 of adoration. In process of time all these separate idealities 
 merge in one universal all-embracing Ideality. Materialistic 
 pantheism is the first step in the rise from fetishism. 
 
 Neo-Platonism, itself the child of Eastern thought, had 
 impressed its character on Christianity, and probably given 
 rise to the eucharistic idea. With the exception of Johannes 
 Scotus and Eckhart, 1 the mystics of Europe during the Middle 
 Ages fought only on this ground. Mysticism, properly so 
 called, with its higher yearning after the Infinite, was ushered 
 in by the Moslem doctrine of " inward light." 
 
 The idea among the nobler minds in the world of Islam, 
 that there is a deeper and more inward sense in the words 
 of the Koran, arose not from the wish to escape from the rigour 
 of " texts and dogmas," but from a profound conviction that 
 those words mean more, not less, than the popular expounders 
 supposed them to convey. This conviction, combined with a 
 deep feeling of Divine pervasion, — a feeling originating from 
 and in perfect accordance with the teachings of the Koran and 
 the instructions of the Prophet, led to the development 
 among the Moslems of that contemplative or idealistic 
 philosophy which has received the name of Sufism, and the 
 spread of which, among the Mohammedans, was probably 
 assisted by the prevalence of Neo-Platonic ideas. Imam 
 al-Ghazzali in the East, and Ibn-Tufail in the West, were 
 the two great representatives of mysticism among the Moslems. 
 The former, as we have already seen, dissatisfied with every 
 philosophical system, which based knowledge on experience 
 1 1260-1328 A.C. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 457 
 
 or reason, had taken refuge in Sufi'sm. Al-Ghazzali's influence 
 served greatly to promote the diffusion of Sufi'sm among the 
 Eastern Moslems, and idealistic philosophy was embraced by 
 the greatest intellects of the Mohammedan East. Moulana 
 Jalal ud-din of Rum (Turkey), whose Masnavi l is venerated 
 by the Sufi ; Sanai, whom Jalal ud-din himself has called his 
 superior ; 2 Farid ud-din Attar, Shams ud-din Hanz, Khakani, 
 the moralist Sa'di, the romancer Nizami, — all belonged to this 
 school. 
 
 It must not be supposed that al-Ghazzali was the first 
 preacher of " inward light " in Islam. Intuitive knowledge of 
 God (ta'arruf) is inherent in the Faith. The intent {niyyet) of 
 " approach " (kurbat) to and communion with Him is the 
 essential preliminary to true devotion ; the " Ascension " 
 (the mi' raj) of the Prophet meant the absolute communion of 
 the finite with the Infinite. Not only does God speak to the 
 hearts of men and women who in earnest sincerity seek divine 
 help and guidance, but all knowledge is from the Supreme 
 Intelligence ; it comes to the Prophets by direct revelation 
 ( cfi ) and often " The sacrament of the heart " is 
 conveyed by Him to His chosen few, " fi-sirraf-kalbi, 
 &£ z>z*<J' > without an intermediary. This in Islam is 
 called 'Ilmi-ladimni. 3 It is referred to in the Koran, where 
 it says, " We taught him [His chosen servant] knowledge from 
 Ourself." 4 The same conception of intimate communion with 
 God occurs in the well-known hadis, where the Almighty says, 
 " My earth and My heaven contain Me not, but the heart of 
 My faithful servant containeth Me." 5 And the Divine promise 
 finds a responsive note in the human heart when it is uplifted 
 
 1 One of the apologues of the Masnavi on true devotion being the service 
 of man, has been beautifully rendered into English by Leigh Hunt in the lines 
 beginning — 
 
 " Abou ben Adhem (may his tribe increase) 
 Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace," etc. 
 
 2 See Appendix III. s ^^JiU 
 
 « Koran, Sura xviii. v. 65, fotcJc*? »t£U 3 
 
 5 See Appendix II. Also quoted by Dr. Reynold Nicholson of Cambridge 
 in his Mystics of Islam. This work, by a scholar whose knowledge of Suli 
 literature is unrivalled in Europe, gives in a small compass a lucid summary 
 of Persian mysticism. 
 
458 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 in prayer : " The Almighty God hears whatever prayers (lit. 
 praises) I offer Him. my Lord, I thank Thee." 1 
 
 The same transcendentalism is to be found in other 
 traditions ; and Ali discourses on the inward light in his 
 sermons ; 2 Fatima'-t az-Zahra, " our Lady of Light," dwells 
 on it in her preachings ; 3 and it finds ecstatic expression 
 in the prayers of the grandson of Ali, the son of Husain the 
 Martyr. 4 But nowhere in these earliest records of the concep- 
 tion of " Inward Light " is there any ground for the suggestion 
 that either the Prophet or the direct inheritors of his spiritual 
 heritage ever preached the abandonment of the affairs of the 
 world in the pursuit of Truth, or the observance of asceticism 
 which he so strongly reprobated. 5 And that is exactly what 
 has happened in the evolution of Moslem esotericism. In the 
 endeavour to obtain spiritual perfection 6 numbers of Moslems 
 have forgotten the precept that human existence depends on 
 constant exertion. How this has taken place is not without 
 interest. 
 
 The mystic cult neither in Christianity nor in Islam is a new 
 
 2 The Nahj-ul-Baldghat. There are two commentaries on the Nahj-ul- 
 Baldghat, one bv Ibn Abi'l Hadid, the other in Persian by Lutf Ullah 
 Kashani. The full name of Ibn Abi'l Hadid is given in the editorial note 
 to the Shark as " Abu Hamid Abdul Hamid bin Hibatullah bin Mohammed 
 bin Mohammed bin Husain bin Abi'l Hadid." He was born at Madain 
 in the month of Zu'l Hijja 586 a.h. (December 1190 a.c). He was a 
 Mu'tazili and a Shiah, and those designations are applied to him in the 
 note. He was a jurisconsult of the first rank, profoundly versed (mutabahhir) 
 in science and learning, a mutakallim (dialectician) and a poet ; and was 
 attached to the Chancellery (the Diwd>i) under the Caliphs Nasir and Zahir. 
 Ibn Khallikan (De Slane, vol. iii. p. 543, in the biography of Zia-ud-din Ibn 
 ul-Athir) speaks of him as the " jurisconsult Izz-ud-din and a man of letters " ; 
 but does not mention Ibn Abi'l Hadid's great work, the Commentary on the 
 Nahj-ul-Baldghat ; nor the fact that he was a Mu'tazili and a Shiah. Ibn 
 Abi'l Hadid refutes at the beginning of his work, where he propounds the 
 human duty of thankfulness and worship to the Almighty, the Asha'ri doctrine 
 of the corporeal vision of God on the day of Judgment (r'uyat ul-Bdri ft' I 
 Akhirat). 
 
 Ibn Abi'l Hadid died at Bagdad in a.h. 655 (1257 a.c), the year before its 
 destruction by the Mongols (Persian Ed., date apparently 1304 a.h.). 
 
 3 Lutn' at-ul-Baiza. 4 Sahifai Kdmila. 
 
 5 The Prophet and the early disciples spent " the greater part of the night 
 in devotion ; and their days in transacting the affairs of the people." So 
 did Omar ibn Abdul Aziz, the fifth Ommeyyade Caliph, who deserved the 
 title of saint more than many others. 
 
 6 To become what in Sufi phraseology is called a " perfect man," " insdni 
 kdmil." 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 459 
 
 development. It existed in the Roman world and was not 
 unknown to the Jews. In Aryan India, it practically ran riot 
 and was cultivated in every form. From India it was trans- 
 ported into Western and Central Asia, where it assumed from 
 time to time most fantastic shapes. Wherever it was planted 
 it implied the abandonment of all commerce with the outside 
 world, the renunciation of family ties and obligations, and the 
 concentration of the human mind on one object to the exclusion 
 of all others. This, in fact, represents the essence of the mystic 
 cult. The call of Jesus was an echo of the world-old teaching 
 of the Mystic. The Prophet of Islam, on the other hand, 
 emphasised the faithful performance of the less impressive 
 duty, the service of man, as the most acceptable worship to 
 God. His call was the direct antithesis of the older con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 Unfortunately, the convulsions that followed on the break- 
 up ot the original and true Caliphate with the assassination 
 of Ali, 1 the sack of Medina with all its attendant horrors, and 
 the pagan licence which came into vogue in social life under 
 the more dissolute Ommeyyade sovereigns of Damascus, drove 
 many earnest-minded Moslems to take refuge in retirement and 
 religion. From piety there is only a step to Quietism. Thence- 
 forward the evolution of the mystical cult runs a natural course. 
 The adoption of the distinctive woollen garment (the khirka) 
 as a mark of penitence and renunciation of the world dates 
 from early times. 2 The Sufi theory of spiritual development is 
 based on complete self-abnegation and absolute absorption in 
 the contemplation of God. The Sufi believes that by this 
 absorption and mental concentration 3 he can attain a far 
 
 1 See ante, p. 296 ; also Short History of the Saracens, pp. 52 and 70. 
 
 2 In Christianity garments made of sackcloth or hair served the same 
 purpose. The Khirka is a sort of gaberdine like a long pillow-case. The Sufi 
 derives his name from the woollen garment he wears, the word suf meaning 
 wool. The term silfi has no connection either with the ahl-us-Suffa, the 
 religious men who were wont to sit and sleep outside the Prophet's mosque 
 and receive daily their food from him, nor with the Ikhwan-us-Safa, "The 
 Brethren of Purity." 
 
 3 It is stated that Abu Sa'id bin Abi'l Khair who also holds a high place 
 in Sufi hagiology, kept his mind, like the Hindu yogis, centred on his navel. 
 An excellent biography of Abu Sa'id bin Abi'l Khair is given in Dr. Nicholson's 
 Studies in Islamic Mysticism, published by the Cambridge University Press ; 
 see also Professor E. G. Browne's Literary History of Persia. He is said to 
 have been a contemporary of Avicenna. He died in 1049. 
 
460 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 closer communion with the Divinity and a truer cognition of 
 the Truth. This belief, whilst it no doubt led many pious 
 and devout men and women to consecrate their lives to 
 religion, produced at the same time a rank growth of fantastic 
 ideas. 
 
 Ali the Caliph and the Imams of his House are regarded as 
 having possessed in a superlative degree the " Inward Know- 
 ledge." Abu Nasr as-Sarraj, in his work al-Luma on the 
 philosophy of Sufism, 1 quoting Junaid 2 says, that had Ali 
 not been occupied in so many wars, he would have imparted 
 to the world the vast measure of the ' Ilm-ul-ladunni 3 with 
 which he was endowed. 4 And in the Tazkirat-ul-Awlia* of 
 Farid-ud-din 'Attar 6 the first place in the list of mystic saints 
 is given to Ja'far as-Sadik, the sixth apostolical Imam. It is 
 worthy of note that in the case of almost every Sufi saint the 
 line of spiritual descent is traced back to Ali and through 
 him to the Prophet. 7 A few only trace it to Abu Bakr. 
 
 The holy men and women who flourished in the first two 
 centuries were more Quietists than Sufis. They had abandoned 
 the world and devoted themselves exclusively to devotion and 
 piety (zuhd and takwa). Such were Imam Hasan al-Basri, 8 
 
 1 Al-Luma' fi-tasawwuf ; tasawwuf is the philosophy of Sufism. The 
 Luma' of as-Sarraj has been recently edited with great care and erudition by 
 the learned author of Studies in Islamic Mysticism. According to Nur-ud- 
 din Abdur Rahman J ami (Nafahdt-nl-Uns, Calcutta ed. p. 319) as-Sarraj 
 occupies an eminent position among the Sufi saints. He appears also from 
 J ami's account to have been a proficient mathematician, versed in the abstract 
 sciences. As-Sarraj died in 378 a.h. (988 A.c), nearly 100 years before 
 al-Ghazzali. 
 
 2 Al-Luma', p. 129. Junaid was one of the earliest mystics of Islam ; he 
 died a.h. 297 (a.c. 910). He is stated to have declared that " the Sufi system 
 of doctrine is firmly bound with the dogmas of the Faith and the Koran " 
 (Ibn Khallikan). 
 
 8 aiiifw 
 
 4 The Indian poet Dabir calls Ali the " Knower of the mysteries of God," 
 ramiizdan-i-Khuda. 
 
 B Biography of the Saints. 
 
 6 See ante, p. 396 ; 'Attar was born in 545 a.h. (1150 a.c), and is believed 
 to have been killed by the Mongols in 627 a.h. (1229-30 a.c). 
 
 7 See post. 
 
 8 Wasil bin 'Ata, the founder of Mu'tazilaism, was a pupil of Hasan 
 Basri. Imam Hasan Basri died in a.h. iio (a.c 728). 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 461 
 
 Ibrahim ibn Adham, 1 Ma'ruf Karkhi, 2 Junaid, 3 Rabi'a, 4 the 
 pious lady whose name has become famous in the annals of 
 Islam, Bayezid Bistami and a host of others. In the third 
 century when Junaid flourished, Sufism had become a recog- 
 nised offshoot of Islamic philosophy, but owing to the scope it 
 afforded to indulgence in undisciplined thought, Sufism began 
 to assume in different minds distinctly non-Islamic shapes. 
 Abu Nasr as-Sarraj denounces the erratic tendencies which 
 now emerged from the welter of old ideas and conceptions. 
 Some of the professors of the mystic cult anticipated Johannes 
 Agricola in declaring that perfect knowledge absolved the 
 " knower " from all trammels of the moral law. 5 
 
 As-Sarraj was the predecessor of al-Ghazzali in his endeavour 
 to systematise Sufistic philosophy. In spite of his efforts to 
 shape Sufism into a disciplined channel, it still continued to 
 run in the old gnostic and often antinomian currents. And 
 yet throughout the five centuries which elapsed between the 
 death of the Prophet and the rise of Al-Ghazzali there flourished 
 numbers of men and women revered for their learning, piety 
 and nobleness of character. One of these was the famous 
 Imam-ul-Haramain, the master of al-Ghazzali. 
 
 To Imam al-Ghazzali eastern Sufism owes in a large measure 
 its systematisation and most of the colour and beauty in which 
 it is clothed. His appearance on the stage of the world was 
 well-timed ; for the Sunni Church, owing to causes which I 
 propose to review briefly, needed vitalisation. 
 
 1 Abu Ishak Ibrahim ibn Adham ibn Mansur is spoken of in the Tazkiral- 
 ul-Awlia as the son of a prince of Balkh. His father appears to have been a 
 rich magnate. He abandoned the world, gave all his riches to the poor and 
 lived a life of piety and devotion. He is said to have been a disciple of Abu 
 Hanifa. He died in 161 a.h. 
 
 2 Ma'ruf Karkhi was the son of a Christian ; he was converted to Islam by 
 the eighth Apostolical Imam AH ar-Riza the son of Imam Musa. He was 
 Imam Riza's disciple. The Imam was greatly attached to him and treated 
 him as a son, from which comes the saying " AH Miisi Riza az-wai-raza 
 bud." Ma'ruf was killed in a riot at the gate of the Imam's residence in Meshed. 
 
 3 In Junaid's time already convents and congregational lodges had come 
 into existence. 
 
 4 Rabi'a died in the year 160 a.h., and her name is embalmed in the annals 
 of mysticism as one of the holiest of saints. She had a long line of successors ; 
 the last of them, Bibi Pakdaman, died in Lahore about the middle or towards 
 the end of the last century. 
 
 6 These Sufis or dervishes in India are called Be Shara' — " without law." 
 
462 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM II. 
 
 Al-Asha'ri died in 320 of the Hegira ; al-Ghazzali was born 
 exactly 130 years later, towards the close of the fifth century 
 of the Moslem era, and began his work of revivification when 
 he was forty years of age. The sixth century was the most 
 critical in the history of Islam. Whilst the faith of Mohammed 
 was involved in a deadly struggle with Christendom which 
 threatened its very existence, an insidious enemy within its 
 own bosom was poisoning its life. Hasan Sabbah's tenets 
 inculcated implicit and unquestioning obedience to him as the 
 vicegerent of the Fatimide Caliph Nizar, commonly regarded 
 by the sect as the incarnate Imam ; he taught that the " path " 
 to Truth led to and through him. His disciples, drugged by 
 hashish, obtained on awakening a foretaste of the delights he 
 promised them in after-life as the reward for their obedience and 
 unfaltering execution of his orders. Beautiful maidens gathered 
 from every quarter helped in fastening his chains on the neck 
 of his votaries. His emissaries, actuated by varied motives, 
 but all subject to an irresistible driving force, abounded in 
 every city, township and village of Central and Western 
 Asia. Every household contained a concealed member of the 
 dread fraternity. Neither heroic service to the Faith, nor 
 learning, devoutness or nobility of character was a protection 
 against these nihilists of Islam. 1 The best and noblest of 
 Moslems were struck down by these enemies of society. Their 
 propaganda was not confined among Moslems alone. Jews, 
 Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus alike became the victims 
 of their insidious methods of proselytism. Both men and 
 women, and even children, were seduced from their faith by 
 alluring hopes of immediate reward from Heaven. To con- 
 tend against these enemies of Islam it had become essential 
 to galvanise the conservative forces into fresh vitality. Whilst 
 Asha'rism had hardened into a rigid formalism, among the 
 populace the cult of the mystic had run wild. Every man or 
 woman who found the discipline of the Faith irksome turned 
 
 1 Compare the destructive tendencies of Hasan Sabbah's cult with those 
 of the Illuminati in the eighteenth century. Professor E. G. Browne in 
 his Literary History of Persia gives a list of some of the eminent men who 
 fell victims to the daggers of the Isma'ilis. See also the opening chapter in 
 M.|Guyard's Un Grand Maitre des Assassins au Temps de Saladin ; and the 
 life" of Hasan Sabbah by Moulvi Abdul Halim in Urdu, published in Lucknow. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 463 
 
 to Sufi'sm, to a life independent of rules. Philosophical 
 reasoning brought no immediate relief or consolation to minds 
 in terror from enemies within and without. There was a 
 general relaxation in ethical conceptions and an amazing 
 deterioration in ideals. It was just at this critical period in 
 the life of Islam that al-Ghazzali's call to a mystical life in 
 God, and to the attainment of truth by the individual soul in 
 direct communion with the Almighty, struck a responsive 
 chord in many distracted hearts. It relaxed the tension and 
 gave orthodoxy a new weapon with which to fight the dis- 
 ruptive teachings of Hasan Sabbah's emissaries. 1 
 
 It is a dispensation of Providence that wherever a religion 
 becomes reduced to formalism cross-currents set in to restore 
 spiritual vitality. The author of The Forerunners and 
 Rivals of Christianity enumerates the men, each of whom, 
 according to his light, tried to vitalise the old creed of Palestine. 
 But it was the Prophet of Nazareth who, by his mystical 
 summons to the worship of the Spirit in place of the national 
 God of Israel, infused new life into Judaism. 
 
 Al-Ghazzali was preceded by other intuitionalists besides 
 the Apostolical Imams. Immediately before him came as- 
 Sarraj and al-Kushairi. 2 But al-Ghazzali set the coping stone 
 upon their work, and freed the Sunni church from Asha'rite 
 dogmatism. 
 
 The story of al-Ghazzali's life told by himself, of his trials and 
 tribulations, of his doubts and his hopes, of his final emergence 
 from " darkness into light," is an interesting record of spiritual 
 growth finally ending in Quietism, a form of spiritual relief 
 which brings solace and comfort to many a heart tossed on the 
 ocean of doubt. 
 
 Al-Ghazzali 3 was born in 450 of the Hegira (1058 a.c.) at 
 
 1 In Professor Goldziher's learned chapter on " Ascetism et Sufism " in 
 Le Dogme et la lot de I'Isldm, which I read only after I had sent this chapter 
 to the press, I find that my estimate of the causes which brought forward 
 al-Ghazzali is in general accord with the views of that eminent scholar ; 
 compare also the masterly essay of Professor D. B. Macdonald in the Journal 
 of the American Oriental Society, vol. xx. 
 
 2 Al-Kushairi (Abu'l Kasim) died in 465 a.h. (a.c. 1074). 
 
 3 Aba Hamid Mohammed al-Ghazzali surnamed, says Ibn Khallikan, 
 Hujjat-ul- Islam, "the Proof of Islam," and Zain ud-din, "the ornament 
 of Religion." 
 
464 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 Tus, 1 a township in the neighbourhood of Meshed in Khorasan. 
 He must have been gifted with a peculiarly virile and inde- 
 pendent mind, for, as he tells us in the Munkiz, he had aban- 
 doned in early youth that test of orthodoxy in all creeds called 
 taklid or conformity. To abandon taklid and strike out a path 
 for the exercise of individual judgment in the domain of 
 religious thought has been in all ages and in all creeds regarded 
 by dogmatic theologians as a sin of the first degree. Orthodoxy 
 in the Sunni Church meant conformity with the principles of 
 one or other of the founders of the four schools of law. Ghazzali, 
 with an audacity which demands admiration, refused to 
 adhere to any particular dogma without independent examina- 
 tion. 2 But as he always called himself ash-Shafe'i', he must 
 have conformed more or less to the doctrines of that school. 
 Ibn Khallikan, in fact, says al-Ghazzali was a doctor of the 
 Shafe'i sect. " Towards the close of his life the Shafe'is had 
 not a doctor to be compared to him." In the twentieth year 
 of his age al-Ghazzali proceeded from Tus to Naishapur, a 
 great centre of learning until its destruction by the Mongols 
 in 1256 A.c. Here he enrolled himself in the Nizamieh College, 
 which had been founded only a few years before, as a pupil of 
 the Imam ul-Har amain al-Juwaini. Al-Ghazzali studied with 
 this saintly Imam until his death in 478 a.h. (1084 a.c). 
 Al-Ghazzali was then in his twenty-eighth year ; ambitious, 
 energetic, well-versed in all the learning of the Islamic world, 
 he betook himself to the court of Nizam-ul-Mulk, 3 the great 
 Vizier of the Seljukide sovereign Malik Shah. Nizam-ul-Mulk 
 by his munificent patronage of scholarship, science and arts, 
 had gathered round him a brilliant galaxy of savants and 
 learned men. He recognised the worth of the new aspirant for 
 his help and support, and after a short probation in his own 
 
 1 Tus is also the birthplace of Firdousi, the greatest of Persian poets. Meshed, 
 properly Mashhad (mausoleum), is venerated by the Shiahs as the eighth 
 Apostolical Imam AH bin Musa ar-Riza is buried there. 
 
 2 It is only in recent times that a new sect has grown up among the Moslems 
 of India, which bears the proud name of ' Ghair Miikallid ' (" Non-confor- 
 mists "), see ante, p. 353. 
 
 3 Abu Ali al-Hasan, also a native of Tus. He is the author of the Sidsat- 
 Ndmeh, a book on the administration of the commonwealth — " the art of 
 government." The text of this work in the original Persian with a French 
 translation has been published by the late M. Ch. Schefer. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 465 
 
 entourage conferred on al-Ghazza.lt a professorial seat in one 
 of the colleges in Bagdad. Nothing shows so clearly the extra- 
 ordinary solidarity of the intellectual world of Islam nor the 
 link throughout the vast extent of the territories over which 
 the Seljukide sovereigns in the plenitude of their power held 
 sway as the manner in which officials of every rank, including 
 professors and lecturers, were transferred from one centre to 
 another. 
 
 In Bagdad al-Ghazzali performed his professorial duties for 
 six years. His lectures attracted pupils of all classes from 
 every part of the Empire to hear his discourses on scholastic 
 theology and logic. Towards the end of 488 a.h. (1095 a.c.) 
 he was compelled to leave Bagdad in consequence of a severe 
 nervous breakdown. The very subjects on which he lectured 
 strengthened his doubts in the teachings of the schoolmen and 
 divines of his Church. Asha'ri had emerged from his retreat 
 after a fortnight's contemplation of the comparative virtues 
 of Rationalism and Patristicism. It took ten years for 
 al-Ghazzali to find the resting-place for his soul. That rest he 
 found, as he tells us himself, in the Master's words read in the 
 light of the revelation which the Fashioner of the Universe 
 vouchsafes to all hearts that seek Him. During his prolonged 
 wanderings he visited every centre of learning and every 
 scholastic or religious institution, where he found scholars or 
 holy men engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, secular or 
 divine. Al-Ghazzali was in Jerusalem just before the crusad- 
 ing storm burst on that devoted city (Sha'ban 492). x He 
 seems to have tarried longest at Damascus, where he lectured 
 in a corner of the cathedral mosque situated on the west bank 
 of the river. The cloister he occupied in the mosque is still 
 called the Zdvia of Imam al-Ghazzali. When he returned to 
 Naishapur after his long wandering, he was forty-eight years 
 of age, still in the prime of life, worn and scarred, though he 
 had found what he sought — the knowledge of God and peace 
 of soul. His great and generous patron, Nizam-ul-Mulk, had 
 been assassinated by an Isma'ili Fiddi, one of Hasan Sabbah's 
 emissaries, in 485 a.h. (1092 a.c), whilst al-Ghazzali was still 
 lecturing in Bagdad. Malik Shah had died six months after 
 
 1 He is said to have visited in his wanderings even Alexandria. 
 S.I. 2G 
 

 466 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 the assassination of his faithful servant, the bulwark of his 
 empire. Sultan San jar, one of Malik Shah's sons, now reigned 
 over the shrunken patrimony of Tughril and Alp Arslan, and 
 Fakhr-ul-Mulk, a son of Nizam-ul-Mulk, held at this time the 
 office of Vizier under San jar. As great a patron of learning as 
 his distinguished father, Fakhr-ul-Mulk at once requisitioned 
 the services of Ghazzali and appointed him to a high professorial 
 post in the Maimunieh-Nizamieh College x at Naishapur. Here 
 commenced that marvellous activity of a prolific mind which 
 has left its impress on the emotional and mystical side of 
 Islam. 
 
 The Munkiz-min-az-Zaldl (" The deliverer from darkness ") 2 
 was evidently written about this time. In this book, which 
 is not more than a discourse, he divides the " seekers of truth " 
 (at-tdlibin) into three classes or groups (sinf). The first group 
 consists of the dogmatic theologians (the Ashar'ite Mutakal- 
 limin). These people base their conceptions on " deductions " 
 (rdi) and speculation (nazar). Their unsatisfactory dogmatism 
 is ruled out in rather a measured criticism. In the second 
 group are included the Batinis or Isma'ilias, 3 those who 
 profess to derive their knowledge from a " living Imam." 
 After an examination of the views of the philosophers, among 
 whom are included the authors of the Ikhwdn-us-Safd, " which 
 is no more than a compilation of philosophy," al-Ghazzali 
 subjects the teachings of the Ta'limis, that is the Isma'ilias, 
 to a merciless criticism and exposes their anti-Islamic char- 
 acter. To their assertion that they follow a living Imam, 
 he replies, " There is the Prophet, why should we follow any 
 other leader." 4 And he adds that these misbelieving heretics 
 would not have met with so much success among the people, 
 had their opponents (implying the dogmatists) not been so 
 remiss and feeble in their arguments. In the fourth group 
 
 1 The old Nizamieh College appears to have been extended and enlarged 
 by Fakhr-ul-Mulk, and received the new designation. 
 
 * J^i^^i*.' Printed with Schmolder's Essai sur les £coles Philoso- 
 phiques chez les Arabes ; India Office copy. 
 
 3 See ante, note, p. 326. 
 
 4 This is identical in spirit to the famous couplet of Sanai already quoted, 
 ante p. 47. 
 
 : 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 467 
 
 come the Sufis, the intuitionalists, people of " vision and 
 manifestation." In other words, they see Truth where others 
 find the Divine Essence from reason. According to the his- 
 torian Ibn-ul-Athir, who compiled his great work in Mosul not 
 long after al-Ghazzali's death, the Ihya-ul-'Ulum 1 ("the Re- 
 vivification of Knowledge ") was written before the Imam 
 returned to Naishapur. There is some difference of opinion on 
 this point ; although by consensus it is by far the most impor- 
 tant of his productions. The Ihya-ul-'Ulum is an encyclopaedic 
 work dealing comprehensively with the philosophy and ethics 
 of Sufism. 
 
 Al-Asha'ri had condemned all enquiry into the mysteries 
 of existence. Although equally dogmatic in his denunciation 
 of philosophers and philosophy, of rationalism and its ideals, 
 al-Ghazzali gives them a hearing ; appraises their work 
 and finds it wanting, wanting in the capacity to attain the 
 goal to which, according to him, humanity should strive. 
 And what is more, as people of the same kibleh 2 he includes 
 them within the pale of Islam. It is extraordinary that the 
 greatest mystics of the succeeding ages make little reference to 
 him. Jalal-ud-din sings of Attar and Sanai but expresses 
 no obligation to al-Ghazzali for his transcendentalism. Is 
 
 1 cr.. c*))> fA^'ife I Cairo Ed. India Office copy. 
 
 A short reference to some of the subjects with which it deals will show 
 its extraordinary range and the industry and intellectual powers of the 
 writer. The book (in vol. i.) opens with a disquisition on the excellence 
 of learning (knowledge)— fazilat-ul-'Ilm ; and it is established by proofs 
 furnished by reason and authority (ash-shawdhid ul-'aklieh wa'l naklieh) ; 
 there is a disquisition on the "excellence of Reason" (Sharaf-ul-'akl) and the 
 difference between soul (nafs) and Reason ('akl) ; and Islam and Iman (faith). 
 Toleration is extended to all who bow to the same kibleh {i.e. are followers of 
 Islam). In vol. ii. he deals with the duties of man to man, of the reciprocal 
 duties of children and parents. He defines here the meaning of nafs (the 
 soul) and riXh (the spirit), of kalb (the heart), and 'a hi (Reason) ; he points out 
 the distinction between intuition (ilhdm) and instruction Ua'aUum) . And in 
 this volume he deals with the whole philosophy of Sufism (tarik-us-Sufiyeh 
 fi-istikshdf il-Hak wa-tarik un-nazdir). 
 
 The other two volumes are mainly concerned with the ethics of Islam ; 
 he condemns pride, anger and vindictiveness, avarice and miserliness ; and 
 commends condescension and humility (hilm), forgiveness and mercy, 
 generosity (sakha) and kindness. The Ihya-nl-U'lum is held in high esteem 
 also among the Shiahs ; in the Bihar -ul- Anwar, in the thesis on Reason and 
 Knowledge it is mentioned as one of the Isndds or " supports." 
 
 2 Kibleh is the point to which the Moslem turns his face when offering his 
 orisons, i.e. Mecca, or rather the Kaaba. 
 
468 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 it because the impetus he gave to emotional Islam lost its force 
 in the life and death struggle with the crusading hordes which 
 lasted for nearly two centuries ? To the Christian onslaught 
 in Western Asia, followed by the Mongol avalanche which swept 
 over mid-Asia, destroying in its course every vestige of civil- 
 isation and culture, is entirely due the long night that followed 
 the sack of Bagdad. It is not improbable that the force of 
 his example and precept became barren in the cataclysm that 
 overwhelmed Islam not long after his death. And yet the 
 faith in communion with the Almighty, with its aspirations 
 and inwardness, survived in the hearts of the truly earnest 
 and devout disciples, and the 'drif claimed to have visions 
 where the philosopher and the rationalist obtained cognition 
 by reason. The emotional part of al-Ghazzali's mystical 
 philosophy found refuge in the monasteries of the dervishes ; 
 zdvias, rabdts 1 and khdnkdhs 2 sprang up on all sides. 
 Wherever the holy men who claimed a transcendental insight, 
 an insight beyond the ken of reason, took up their abode, 
 disciples clustered round them ; they founded orders, and 
 imparted mystical knowledge to their followers. Many were 
 sincere and honest, others were impostors. The influence and 
 teachings of the first, whilst they lasted, were undoubtedly 
 beneficent ; the influence of the others, with their sundering 
 tendencies from Islam, were demoralising. 
 
 Al-Ghazzali himself did not place his trust in dogmatic 
 theology (Kaldm) and denounces it as opposed to reason, 
 but the exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry and the connected 
 branches, are considered by him as absolutely unassailable 
 and not open to doubt or controversy. At Naishapur he wrote, 
 among other works, the Makdsid ul-Faldsifa (" The Aims of 
 Philosophy "), and the Tahdfut-ul-Faldsifa (" the Destruction 
 of the Philosophers "), both directed against philosophy and 
 those who cultivated it, and in both he tries to prove the 
 
 1 From the word rabdt is derived the word " marabout." In the eleventh 
 century the Murabita established a powerful empire in Morocco and Spain ; 
 see History of the Saracens, p. 532. 
 
 2 Meninski defines a khankah thus : domus propter Deus extructa in usum 
 sophorum aut religiosorum ; ccenobium. Richardson calls it a monastery or 
 religious structure built for Eastern Sufis and dervishes. There is a startling 
 analogy between those Moslem institutions and the Hindu Muths in southern 
 India, where also disciples gather for religious instruction. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 469 
 
 futility of philosophic reasoning and the unsatisfying character 
 of the teachings of philosophy. 
 
 On the assassination of his patron. and friend Fakhr-ul-Mulk 
 Ali x by an emissary of that arch-enemy of ordered society "the 
 Old Man of the Mountain," Hasan Sabbah, in the Muharram 
 of 500 a.h. al-Ghazzali retired sorrow-stricken to his native 
 city of Tus, where he had built a madrassa for students and a 
 khdnkdh (monastery) for his disciples. Here he lectured, 
 and here he laboured on his works which have made him a 
 personality in the world of Islam. The great Sufi died on 
 Monday the 14th of Jumadi n. 505 a.h. (18th December mi). 
 
 With him passed away one who, in spite of his mysticism, 
 was endowed with a particularly virile character, the influence 
 of which lasted long after his death. Imam al-Ghazzali as a 
 follower of Shafe'i, was bitterly hostile to Imam Abu Hanifa, 
 whose encouragement of analogical reasoning and of the 
 exercise of ratiocination 2 he seems to have strongly dis- 
 approved. Whilst on the one hand the mystic Imam by his 
 Quietism chilled the blood in the veins of the Moslem races 
 and arrested their energies 3 for progress and development, on 
 the other he imparted to Ash'arism an idealism it did not 
 previously possess. 
 
 The desire to enforce conformity and repress " heresy " 
 has been the curse of every religious system where ecclesiastics 
 and legists have usurped authority in the church. Islam 
 has not escaped from it, though it has been less harsh to 
 " unbelievers " than to its own " innovators," whom ortho- 
 doxy designated as ahl-ul-bida' . Men suffering from spiritual 
 exaltation, or whose minds had become unhinged by excessive 
 self -mortification, along with rationalists and reformers, became 
 the victims of persecution. The story of Mansur al-Hallaj 
 
 1 Fakhr-ul-Mulk was held in such love and esteem by the people, for his 
 wise and beneficent administration of Sanjar's kingdom, that history has 
 named him Jamal-nsh-Shuhada, " The Glory of the Martyrs." Husain, the 
 grandson of the Prophet massacred at Kerbela, is called the Syed ush Shuhada, 
 " The Chief of the Martyrs." 
 
 2 The followers of Abu Hanifa were accordingly called ahl-ur-rai-wa'l-Kyas, 
 " people of reasoning and analogy." 
 
 3 Dr. Sachau, the eminent translator of al-Beiruni's Indika, says that " were 
 it not for al-Asha'ri and al-Ghazzali the Arabs would have been a nation of 
 Galileos and Newtons." 
 
470 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 is one of the most pitiful in the annals of mysticism. 1 Farid- 
 ud-din-'Attar was, like Firdousi, an adherent of the House of 
 Mohammed ; he was also a Sufi of the first degree. In the 
 Mazhar-ul-'Ajdib 2 'Attar gives an account of his sufferings ; 
 of his expulsion from the place of his birth (Tus) ; of the con- 
 fiscation of his property and goods, and of his subsequent 
 wanderings. Many of them suffered the penalty of death ; 
 in the case of others the punishment was posthumous ; their 
 works were consigned to the flames. Even al-Ghazzali's 
 Ihya-ul-'Ulum met with that fate in Cordova, at one time the 
 home of Saracenic culture. 3 But these repressive methods 
 did not succeed in stopping the spread of the mystical cult. 
 Every holy man round whom gathered disciples became a 
 saint or wali. The saints were credited with supernatural 
 powers ; and although the most noted Sufis of early times who 
 rank now as walls of the first rank, like Junaid and Bayezid 
 Bistami, strongly discountenanced thaumaturgic practices, the 
 Tazkirat-nl-Awlia, and the Nafahdt-ul-Uns recount remark- 
 able acts by the saints outside ordinary human experience. 
 These wonders are called kardmdt, performed as they are by 
 virtue of the powers gifted to them by God. In these days 
 they would probably be attributed to what is called " psychic 
 influence." Hypnotism and mesmerism, under the name of 
 tdsir ul-anzdr, and telepathy have long been known in the 
 East. Some of the acts might be due to unconscious 
 hypnotism. 
 
 Sufism travelled speedily from Irak and Persia into India, 
 where it found a congenial soil. A large number of Sufi saints, 
 both men and women, flourished in Hindustan and the Deccan 
 and acquired great fame in their lifetime for sanctity and good 
 work. Their tombs are up to the present day the objects of 
 pilgrimage to Moslems and, remarkable to note, to Hindus as 
 well. 4 These saints taught their disciples who congregated in 
 the colleges or monasteries they established Islamic theosophy 
 
 1 Tazkirat-ul-Awlia, Pt. ii. p. 135. 
 
 2 Mazhar-ul-'Ajdib is a title of the Caliph Ameer ul-Mominin All. 
 
 3 This happened in the reign of 'AH bin Yusuf Tashfin, who died in 1143 A.c. 
 * Lutfullah in his Qdnuni Isldm, translated by Herklot, gives an account of 
 
 most of these walis, with the practices and superstitions common among the 
 Indian Sufis. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 471 
 
 and Sufi rules of life. They, Jike their successors, were called 
 sajjddanashin. 1 They are, in fact, spiritual preceptors. In 
 the West the preceptor is called the sheikh ; in India, pir or 
 murshid ; the disciple the murfd. On the death of the fir his 
 successor assumes the privilege of initiating the disciples into the 
 mysteries of dervishism or Sufism. This privilege of initiation, 
 of making murids, of imparting to them spiritual knowledge, 
 is one of the functions which the sajjddanashin performs or is 
 supposed to perform. He is the curator of the mausoleum 
 where his ancestor is buried, and in him is supposed to con- 
 tinue the spiritual line {silsila). The shrines (dargahs), which 
 are to be found all over India, are the tombs of celebrated 
 dervishes who in their lifetime were regarded as saints. Some 
 of these men had established khdnkdhs where they lived and 
 where they taught their Sufi doctrines. Many did not possess 
 khdnkdhs and when they died their tombs became shrines. 
 They were mostly Sufis ; but some were undoubtedly the 
 disciples of Mian Roushan Bayezid, 2 who lived about the 
 time of Akbar, and who had founded an independent esoteric 
 brotherhood, in which the chief occupied a peculiarly distinctive 
 position. They called themselves dervishes or fakirs, on the 
 hypothesis that they had abjured the world, and were humble 
 servitors of God ; by their followers they were honoured with 
 the title of shah or king. Although the Persian word 
 " dervish " is significantly Moslem in its origin and meaning, 
 " dervishes " have always existed in Western Asia. The 
 minor Prophets of the Hebrews, designated nabiin, were 
 only the prototypes of the modern " dervish." John the 
 Baptist, who lost his life for his temerity before Herod's 
 wife, acted exactly as hundreds of dervishes have done in 
 later ages, challenging kings and princes in their palaces. One 
 of the most celebrated of these Indian walls is Shah Nizam 
 uddin Awlia, who came from Ghazni and is buried in the 
 neighbourhood of Delhi, where he lived for many years. He is 
 said to have died in 1325. 3 Khwaja Mu'in ud-din Chishti 
 
 1 Sajjdda is a prayer mat ; and nashin is the person seated on it. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 345. This man should not be confounded with the celebrated 
 Bayezid Bistami, who died in a.h. 261 (a.c. 874-5). In the Surah Bistami 
 is spelt as Bastami. 
 
 3 In the reign of Ala-ud-din Khilji, who was his murid. 
 
472 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 appears to have preceded Nizam uddin Awlia into India. He 
 died at Ajmere at the age of 97 in 663 a.h. (1265 a. a). His 
 mausoleum at Ajmere is the resort of pilgrims, both Moslem 
 and Hindu, from all parts of India. 1 
 
 Another wall, Burhan ud-din, is buried in Burhanpur (named 
 after him) in Central India. Shah Kabir Dervish nourished 
 in the reign of Farrukh Siyar in the eighteenth century. He 
 is buried in Sasseram in Behar. One of his descendants is 
 still in charge of his monastery. Ameer Khusru, poet laureate 
 of Ala-ud-din Khilji, the Pathan King of Delhi, is also claimed 
 as a Sufi saint. 2 
 
 In the West, orders of dervishes sprang up on all sides. One 
 of the most famous and probably the most influential is the 
 Kadiria founded by the celebrated Sunni saint Sheikh Muhi- 
 ud-din Abd ul-Kadir Ghilani. 3 Another was founded by 
 Moulana Jalal ud-din, which is called after his title the Moulaviya 
 and has a great reputation for the holy life of its members. 
 The Nakshbandia is another powerful order, which has many 
 adherents in India. 
 
 But it is given to few to be saints and to still fewer to combine 
 a holy life of concentrated devotion with the discharge of the 
 daily duties of life. To the bulk of humanity the call to 
 abjure the world and to betake ourselves to complete absorp- 
 tion in the contemplation of the Divinity is an inducement to 
 mental lethargy. The responsibility for the present decadence 
 of the Moslem nations must be shared by the formalism of the 
 
 1 Mu'in ud-din (usually styled among Indian Suns Moulana Hazrat Sultan 
 ul-Mashdikh) traced his silsila through Ibrahim Adham, and through Ibrahim 
 Adham to Hasan Basri, and through him to the Caliph Ali, and through him 
 to the Prophet, Sarwar-i-Kdindt, "Chief of the Creation." Mu'in ud-din 
 Chisti is the founder of the Chistia order in India. Three hundred years later 
 Sheikh Selim Chishi became the spiritual preceptor of the great Akbar, who 
 named his son and successor Jehangir after his murshid. 
 
 Moulana Jalal ud-din Riimi traced his silsila similarly through Junaid to 
 the 8th Apostolical Imam Ali son of Musa (ar-Riza), and through him to the 
 Caliph Ali and the Prophet. 
 
 2 See Appendix III. 
 
 3 'Abdul Kadir was a descendant of Ali and is credited with the performance 
 of many miracles. He is the patron saint of the Kurds and is held in great 
 veneration among the Sufis of the Sunni sect in India. He is usually called 
 " Ghous Azam." According to the authors of Les Confrcries Religieuses 
 Musulmanes (MM. Depont et Cappolani, vol. i. p. 303) the Kadiria order has 
 a wide influence in the East, which extends to Java and China, and its lodges 
 (Zavias) are established in Mecca and Medina. "Abnegation of self," say 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 473 
 
 Asha'ri and the quietism of the Sufi. Mystical teachings like 
 the following : 
 
 The man who looks on the beggar's bowl as a kingly crown 
 And the present world a fleeting bubble, 
 He alone traverseth the ocean of Truth 
 Who looks upon life as a fairy tale. 1 
 
 can have but one result — intellectual paralysis. 
 
 I must now return to al-Ghazzali's conceptions of Sufi 
 theosophy and theosophical life. He certainly did not claim 
 any exclusive knowledge of the mysteries of Creation nor 
 were his doctrines so esoteric as those professed by latter-day 
 Sufis. Like as-Sarraj he propounded a scheme of life which 
 he considered formed the true Path (tarikat) to the ultimate 
 goal " the attainment of nearness to God," and final peace 
 in the Beatific Vision. But as his insistence on the Path 
 depends on the larger theory of the Cosmos it is necessary to 
 say something about its essential features. His enunciation 
 about all nature and all existence being the direct Creation of 
 God the Almighty is but an echo of what is told in the Koran. 
 His theory assumes a broader aspect when he begins to state 
 his conception of the universe as a whole. He divides Creation 
 into two categories, viz. the Visible and the Invisible. The 
 Visible world ('dlam-ul-Mulk) is the world of matter ; and 
 is subject to the law of evolution, to change and growth. Here 
 he is in accord with the Rationalists (the Mu'tazilas). 
 
 The invisible world, imperceptible to human sense, he divides 
 into two sub-categories ; first, the ' dlam-ul-jabarut, 2 which 
 stands between pure matter and pure spirit ; it is not wholly 
 matter nor wholly spirit but partakes of the character of both. 
 The forces of nature belong to this category. Had al-Ghazzali 
 lived in these days he would probably have assigned some of 
 the discoveries of modern science like the properties of radium 
 
 the authors of the Confr cries, " to the service of God ; ecstatic mysticism 
 bordering on hysteria ; philanthropic principles developed to the highest 
 degree, without distinction of race or creed ; intense charity ; vigorous piety, 
 humility, pervading all actions, and a gentleness of spirit, have made him 
 (Abdul Kadir) the most popular and most revered saint of Islam." 
 
 1 See Appendix III. 
 
 - ' ' Jabarut, in the language of the sdlikdn [those who strive to attain Truth] , ' ' 
 says the Farhang, " is the sublime realm, the abode of angels and Divine 
 Attributes" {sifdt Ilaki). 
 
474 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 to the 'dlam-ul-jabarut. His idea of the purely spiritual world, 
 al-'dlam-ul-malakut, 1 forms the most interesting part of his 
 theory. The ' dlam-ul-malakut is the realm of " Ideas." 
 The human soul belongs to this world. It comes as a spark 
 from its original home and on separation from the earthly 
 body, it flies back to the region whence it came. 2 
 
 These divisions are merely al-Ghazzali's deductions from 
 the Koran. His abhorrence of analogical reasoning does not 
 prevent him from arriving at the conclusion by the usual 
 process of ratiocination. Neither the theory nor the division 
 was altogether new, for they had been anticipated by al- 
 Farabi in his 'Uyun-ul-Masdil. 2 According to the Mu'tazilas, 
 the references in the Koran to the " Balance " (Mizdn) in which 
 human actions are weighed, to the " Pen " (Kalam) and Tablet 
 (Lauh) with which and on which the decrees of Providence are 
 inscribed, are allegorical. As already mentioned, al-Asha'ri 
 affirms them to be actual, corporeal objects. Imam al- 
 Ghazzali takes another course ; he relegates them to the 
 'dlam ul-malakut, the realm of " abstract ideas." It was 
 thus he endeavoured to reconcile Patristicism with his doctrine 
 of " inward light " and its longings for the upward flight of 
 the human soul. 
 
 Some of the extreme Sufis believe that when the final nearness 
 is attained the human soul becomes absorbed in the Divinity. 
 This is called hulul (absorption) and sometimes ittihdd (union) . 
 But this pantheistic conception is strongly repudiated both 
 by as-Sarraj and al-Ghazzali ; though often the words wisdl 
 and waslat are used to signify the closeness of the approach 
 to the Divine Essence. Even when the Sufi talks of fana- 
 fil Allah (annihilation in God) he does not mean to imply that 
 the human soul becomes merged in the Universal Soul. Al- 
 Ghazzali's notion, like that of his great predecessor, is that the 
 individual soul (ruh) at the Almighty's bidding emanates from 
 a realm, the 'dlam ul-Malakut, nearest to the Divine Essence, 
 and on its separation from the corporeal body reverts to its 
 original home ; and that this is the meaning of the Koranic 
 
 1 In the Farhang, MalaMt is denned thus : " in the language of the Sufis, 
 it means the Realm of Ideas " ('dlami ma'ni). 
 1 See ante, p. 426. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 475 
 
 declaration " We come from God and unto Him we 
 return." 1 
 
 The Mu'tazili, the Asha'ri and the follower of al-Ghazzali 
 do not differ in the essentials ; their difference is due more to 
 the angle from which they look at the dogmas of the Faith. 
 The rationalist holds that a knowledge of God is attainable by 
 Reason. He appeals to Reason because the call of the Koran 
 to the worship of one God is based on Reason. The Asha'ri 
 believes because he is so taught ; the Sufi believes because, 
 as he says, of " the inward light." According to the Sufi, the 
 seeker for Truth by intensive " inwardness " and communion 
 with God can rise by successive stages of exaltation to a state 
 when he can actually have a vision of the Divine Essence. 
 The first step for the novitiate is to form the niyyat (the resolve 
 or intention) ; then comes tauba (penitence and renunciation). 
 He is now on the forward path, this stage is called mujdhada 
 (probation or striving). After a prolonged probation the 
 ecstatic soul appears in the Presence still veiled. Hanz, in a 
 mood of exaltation, refers to this stage, technically called 
 Muhdzara, as huzuri, when the soul presents itself in absolute 
 surrender to God and " abandonment of the world and all its 
 vanities." 2 The next is "the uplifting of the veil " (mukdshafa) , 
 when the veil which curtained off the Unseen is lifted and the 
 God becomes revealed to the worshipper's heart ; the last stage 
 is the Vision (mushdhada), when the entranced Soul stands in 
 the presence of Truth itself, and the light falls distinctly on 
 " the human heart." 
 
 Even in the primary stage, the psychological effort to con- 
 centrate all thought on one object causes the disciple (the 
 murid) to see visions, hear the voices of angels and prophets, 
 and gain from them guidance. Exactly parallel forms of 
 psychological exaltation have appeared in Christianity in all 
 ages. In the phraseology of the Sufi the effort by which each 
 stage is gained is called (hdl) a " state." It is a condition 
 of joy or longing. And when this condition seizes on the 
 
 1 ^S-r'ssdlh} &$\ Tne pious Moslem pronounces these words whenever 
 he passes a bier or a cemetery. 
 
 2 HuzUri gar hand khaki, as-o ghdib mashau Hafiz 
 Mata ma-talk, man-tahwd da'i 'd-dunyd wa amhilha. 
 

 476 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM n. 
 
 " seeker," he falls into ecstasy (wajd). The dervishes in their 
 monasteries may be seen working themselves up into a con- 
 dition of " ecstasy." * 
 
 The Sufi holds that the knowledge of God is vouchsafed to 
 him by inward light ; the Rationalist affirms that the cognition 
 comes to him from Reason, a gift of the Creator. Does not 
 the Koran constantly appeal to human reason and human 
 intelligence " to reflect, to consider, to speculate " about 
 God's Creation and the mysteries of nature ? Had the Koran 
 condemned the exercise of reason, would it have exhorted the 
 people to whom it spoke to look at the marvels of nature and 
 draw their own conclusions whether this wonderful world was 
 a creation of accident, or was brought into existence by an 
 all-pervading Intelligence. Religion and Rationalism are 
 correlated and bound together. If we find anything in the 
 Koran which seems superficially to be in conflict with the 
 results of philosophy, we may be sure there is an underlying 
 meaning, which it should be the work of reason to unravel. 
 Ibn Rushd places this proposition with extreme lucidity in his 
 Fasl-ul-Makdl. 2 He affirms that there is no disagreement 
 between religion and philosophy ; religion is revelation from 
 God ; philosophy is the product of the human mind. He was 
 thus not far removed from al-Ghazzali's plane. For al-Ghazzali 
 did not believe like Asha'ri that the earth was flat because it 
 was said in the Koran " God had spread it out as a carpet." 
 He accepts all the revelations of science and the conclusions of 
 mathematicians and astronomers. The stars and planets 
 revolve round the world according to pre-ordained laws. 
 Nature itself contains its own proof of the Power, Benevolence 
 and Intelligence that brought it into existence. He is thus in 
 complete accord with Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and the rationalists 
 in general. Examined closely it will be seen that the mind of 
 al-Ghazzali, who saved Asha'rism from becoming a hard- 
 crusted formalism, and by joining it to an exalted form of 
 
 1 Zikr is the name of the function in which the dervishes usually congregate 
 for obtaining the ecstatic condition. There is an excellent description of a 
 Zikr in an Egyptian Zavia by Dr. D. B. Macdonald in his Aspects of Islam. 
 In India Zikrs are usually held at the celebration of the 'Urs (anniversary 
 ceremony of the death of the original spiritual preceptor). 
 
 2 See ante, p. 427. 
 
xi. THE MYSTICAL AND IDEALISTIC SPIRIT 477 
 
 emotionalism infused into it fresh vitality, ran really in the 
 same groove as the minds of those masters. 
 
 The Senussi confraternity x is not a religious order like the 
 Kaderia, but unquestionably, in the civilising and uplifting 
 work it is doing in Northern and Central Africa, it imparts a 
 mystical meaning into the teachings of its Ikhwdn. They 
 convey to their converts and disciples some of the lessons of 
 " inward knowledge " without detaching them from the 
 world of struggle and advance. 
 
 The exalted idealism which breathes in the Prophet's words, 
 in the preachings of the Imams and in the teachings of the 
 expounders of " inward light," rationalists, philosophers and 
 Sufis alike, has modelled the lives and inspired the actions of 
 the noblest men in Islam. Heroes like Tmad-ud-din Zangi, 
 rulers like Salah-ud-din bin Ayyub (the Saladin of European 
 history) have found in it their guiding star. And poets like 
 Sanai, 'Attar and Jalal ud-din have given fervent expression 
 to that universal Divine love, which pervades nature from the 
 lowest type of creation to the highest, and their idylls are 
 regarded by many Moslems with a respect only less than that 
 entertained for the Koran. 
 
 But Sufi'sm in the Moslem world, like its counterpart in 
 Christendom, has, in its practical effect, been productive of 
 many mischievous results. In perfectly well-attuned minds 
 mysticism takes the form of a noble type of idealistic philo- 
 sophy ; but the generality of mankind are more likely to 
 unhinge their brains by busying themselves with the mysteries 
 of the Divine Essence and our relations thereto. Every 
 ignorant and idle specimen of humanity, who, despising real 
 knowledge, abandoned the fields of true philosophy and betook 
 himself to the domains of mysticism, would thus set himself up 
 as one of the Ahl-i-M a' rifat . And that this actually occurred 
 in the time of Ghazzali we see by his bitter complaint that 
 things had come to such a pass that husbandmen were leaving 
 their tillage and claiming the privileges of " the advanced." 
 In fact the greatest objection to vulgar mysticism, whether in 
 Islam or in Christendom, is that, being in itself no religion, 
 wherever it prevails it unsettles the mind and weakens the 
 
 1 See Appendix III. 
 
478 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM ii. 
 
 foundations of society and paralyses human energy ; it 
 naturally drifts into anthropolatry and naturalistic pantheism. 
 Yet the benefits conferred by the nobler type of idealistic 
 philosophy are too great to be ignored ; and the Idealism of 
 Averroes developed in Europe the conception of Universal 
 Divinity. Christian Europe owes its outburst of subjective 
 pantheism — and its consequent emancipation from the intense 
 materialism of a mythological creed — to the engrafting of 
 Moslem idealism on the Western mind. It was the influence 
 of Averroistic writings that attracted the attention of reflecting 
 people to the great problem of the connection between the 
 worlds of matter and of mind, and revived the conception of 
 an all-pervading spirit, " which sleeps in the stone, dreams in 
 the animal, and wakes in the man," " the belief that the hidden 
 vital principle which produces the varied forms of organisation 
 is but the thrill of ' the Divine Essence ' that is present in 
 them all." 
 
 ^ filial* lv;/ ^-~i,S ffej* 
 
 Jjjij 
 
 J^L r A »;j y 
 
 " I would have said He was the Soul of the Universe if I had known the 
 relation of the human soul to the body, for He is present and hidden in the 
 heart of every atom." 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE PERSIAN AND ARABIC MOTTOES 
 AT THE HEAD OF THE CHAPTERS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 O Thou ! who hast no place in any place, 
 
 Wonder-struck I am that Thou art at every place. 
 Faith and no-Faith are both engaged in Thy search. 
 Both crying aloud, " He is the one, He is the all-Alone." - 1. Introd. 
 
 He attained the height of eminence by his perfection ; 
 He dispelled the darkness (of the world) by his grace ; 
 
 Excellent were all his qualities ; 
 Pray for blessings on him and his posterity. ... - i 
 
 Mohammed is the lord of the two worlds and of mankind and the 
 
 Spirits. 
 And of the two nations, the Arabs and the 'Ajam (non-Arabs). - 41 
 
 Thou hast come before all the Teachers of the world, 
 
 Though thou hast appeared last of all ; 
 
 Last of the Prophets thy Nearness has become known to me ; 
 
 Thou comest last, as thou comest from a distance. - - - 51 
 
 May God ever convey my benedictions and greeting. 
 To the Prophet of Arabia, of Medina, — of Mecca ; 
 The sun of excellence and of splendour, and of sublimest eminence ; 
 The light of full moon, of elegance, and of the sky of generosity ; 
 The noblest of creation in person and in adoration and in watch- 
 fulness ; 
 The most excellent of mankind in munificence and generosity - 56 
 
 He is like the flower in delicacy and like the full moon in splendour. 
 
 Like the ocean in liberality, and like Time in resolution. - - 66 
 
 He called towards God, and those who took hold of him 
 
 Took hold of a rope that never breaks. - - - - - 83 
 
 But how can the desire of the eulogist come up to 
 
 What is in him of nobility of disposition and nature ? - - 92 
 
 479 
 
480 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 He surpassed all the Prophets in constitution and disposition, 
 Nor any did approach him either in knowledge or nobleness. 
 Avoid what the Christians assert about their Prophet ; 
 (But) declare whatever else thou wishest in his praise, and contend 
 
 for it. .......... IO i 
 
 Indeed the Prophet is a light from which guidance is sought, 
 
 And a drawn sword out of God's swords. 101 
 
 Is it from the remembrance of the neighbours at Zi-Salam 
 
 That thou hast mixed tears flowing from the eyes with blood ? 107 
 
 When the help of God and victory come and thou seest the 
 people entering into the religion of God in troops, 
 
 Celebrate the praise of thy Lord, and ask pardon of Him ; for 
 
 He is the Forgiver. - - - - - - - -109 
 
 Hold fast, all ye, to the Rock of God 
 
 And be not disunited. 122 
 
 Come to Me, do not seek except Me ; 
 
 I am the Beneficent ; seek Me thou wilt find Me. 
 
 Dost thou remember any night in which thou hast called to Me 
 
 secretly, 
 And I did not hear thee ? Then seek Me thou wilt find Me. 
 When the afflicted one says " dost not Thou seek me " ? 
 I look towards him ; seek Me, thou wilt find Me. 
 When My servant disobeys Me, thou wilt find Me 
 Quick in chastising ; seek Me, thou wilt find Me. - - 137 
 
 Say, unto whom belongeth whatsoever is in heaven and earth ? 
 Say unto God ; He hath prescribed unto Himself mercy. - - 159 
 (For translation of the other passage, see p. 173.) 
 
 The disputes of the seventy-two sects put them all aside. 
 
 As they did not see the Truth they took to the path of fiction - 290 
 
 He is the Beginning and the End, 
 
 The Manifest and the Hidden, 
 
 And the knower of all things. (Koran). ..... 455 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 p. 166 S-^l ) r^i ^1*1 y^° ' 
 
 JW<*. ^iaJb JfJdwaS ^ ^t-JUb ; [^SJ 
 
 p. 274 - - [& ji ^o o^ U*^ d* i>; Ui*j <J ^ (f ^ 
 
 j ftp > f*d£ } ^.uli _, ^Jl^o) 3 ^1 j ^ j j^JlM 
 
 ^ 4'ifj ))j tfJjJL^ ^ u-^l^j AjUiiAwl ^ v-Ja-I c /iiuJ' pjJj>l 
 
 j,»)Uj <J4v p^b jjj y'i* ^| JjlS ^ ^A^JJ C^sJU ^C SSxblij 
 
 p. 273 - - u^ rr *,i Mj ^f^ih &>r*i h ^^ 
 P . 274 r*^ rf ^ (B M- , 'f , > 1 
 
 P- 457 f-*" 
 
 S.I. 48l 3 H 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 Whatever the sins of the Babis may have been, their punishment, in 
 its barbarous inhumanity, far exceeded their deserts — a punishment 
 borne with sublime fortitude which cannot help evoking the admiration 
 of every heart not steeped in racial or religious fanaticism and which is 
 bearing its natural fruit. The sect, instead of dying out, is increasing 
 in number, and judging from the few professed Babis I have met, 
 actuated with bitter hatred against the Mullahs whom they believe to 
 be the primary cause of their persecution. 
 
 The cruelties to which the Babis were subjected were the acts of an 
 ignorant populace and a frightened governor hounded on by fanatical 
 priests. In China, in our own times, under the eyes of the civilised 
 world, disciplined troops of certain civilised Powers perpetrated the 
 most diabolical and nameless horrors upon unoffending citizens and 
 helpless women and children. Crimes like these destroy one's faith in 
 humanity and progress. (p. 359) 
 
 The astronomer Ali Ibn Yunus was a man of versatile talent. " He 
 made astronomy his particular study," says Ibn Khallikan, " but he 
 was well-versed in other sciences and displayed an eminent talent for 
 poetry." (p. 377) 
 
 The Indian Social Reformer of Bombay (of the 28th of July, 1901), 
 in an appreciative article on " The Liberal Movement in Islam," drew 
 my attention to certain statements of M. Renan in one of his lectures 
 delivered in March, 1883, at the Sarbonne. 1 In this lecture M. Renan 
 has tried to show that Islam is opposed to science, and that scientific 
 pursuits came into vogue among the Moslems only when the religion 
 became weakened. " Omar," he says, " did not burn, as we are often 
 told, the library of Alexandria ; that library had, by his time, nearly 
 disappeared. But the principle which he caused to triumph in the 
 world was in a very real sense destructive of learned research and of the 
 varied work of the mind." 
 
 The correctness of this somewhat wild and reckless assertion, which, 
 coming from the author of Averroes and Averroism, is startling, was at 
 once challenged by the learned Shaikh Jamal ud-din who was residing 
 at Paris at the time. M. Renan 's reply to the Shaikh's criticism is 
 instructive. The learned Frenchman had to qualify his generalisations 
 
 1 The lecture is headed " Islamism and Science," and is printed in a book 
 called The Poetry of the Celtic Races and Other Studies. 
 
 482 
 
APPENDIX III 483 
 
 and to acknowledge that by Islam he meant the religion of Mohammed 
 as accepted and practised by the ignorant and fanatical sections of the 
 Moslem communities. I will quote here the passage in which he limits 
 his strictures, as it may perhaps be of some help in awakening the 
 Musulmans themselves to a sense of their responsibilities : — " One 
 aspect in which I have appeared unjust to the Shaikh is that I have not 
 sufficiently developed the idea that all revealed religion is forced to 
 show hostility to positive science ; and that, in this respect, Christianity 
 has no reason to boast over Islam. About that there can be no doubt. 
 Galileo was not treated more kindly by Catholicism than was Averroes 
 by Islam. Galileo found truth in a Catholic country despite Catholi- 
 cism, as Averroes nobly philosophised in a Moslem country despite 
 Islam. If I did not insist more strongly upon this point, it was, to tell the 
 truth, because my opinions on this matter are so well known that there 
 was no need for me to recur to them again before a public conversant 
 with my writings. I have said, sufficiently often to preclude any 
 necessity for repeating it, that the human mind must be detached from 
 all supernatural belief if it desires to labour at its own essential task, 
 which is the construction of positive science. This does not imply any 
 violent destruction or hasty rupture. It does not mean that the 
 Christian should forsake Christianity, or that the Musulman should 
 abandon Islam. It means that the enlightened parts of Christendom 
 and Islam should arrive at that state of benevolent indifference in which 
 religious beliefs become inoffensive. This is half accomplished in nearly 
 all Christian countries. Let us hope that the like will be the case for 
 Islam. Naturally on that day the Shaikh and I will be at one, and 
 ready to applaud heartily. ... I did not assert that all Musulmans, 
 without distinction of race, are and always will be sunk in ignorance. 
 I said that Islamism puts great difficulties in the way of science, and 
 unfortunately has succeeded for five or six hundred years in almost 
 suppressing it in the countries under its sway ; and that this is for these 
 countries a cause of extreme weakness. I believe, in point of fact, that 
 the regeneration of the Mohammedan countries will not be the work of 
 Islam ; it will come to pass through the enfeeblement of Islam, as indeed 
 the great advance of the countries called Christian commenced with the 
 destruction of the tyrannical church of the Middle Ages. Some persons 
 have seen in my lecture a thought hostile to the individuals who profess 
 the Mohammedan religion. That is by no means true ; Musulmans 
 are themselves the first victims of Islam. More than once in my 
 Eastern travels I have been in a position to notice how fanaticism 
 proceeds from a small number of dangerous men who keep the others 
 in the practice of religion by terror. To emancipate the Musulman 
 from his religion would be the greatest service that one could render 
 him. In wishing these populations, in which so many good elements 
 exist, a deliverance from the yoke that weighs them down, I do not 
 believe that I have any unkindly thought for them. And, let me say 
 also, since the Shaikh Jamal ud-din desires me to hold the balance 
 equally between different faiths, I should not any the more believe that 
 
484 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 I was wishing evil of certain European countries if I expressed a hope 
 that Christianity should have a less dominant influence upon them." 
 
 It is a matter of regret that European scholars, generally speaking, 
 should persist in comparing the lowest form of Islam with the highest 
 form of Christianity. All religions have different phases ; they vary 
 according to the climatic and economic conditions of the country, the 
 environments and education of the people, their national characteristics 
 and a multitude of other causes. To compare modern idealistic 
 Christianity with a debased form of Islam is an insult to common sense 
 and intelligence. In this work I have endeavoured to show how Islam 
 furthered the intellectual movement of the world, how it brought to life 
 a dying world, how it promoted culture and civilisation. It was not the 
 Islam which is professed to-day by the ignorant bigot, the intriguing 
 self-seeker, but it was nevertheless Islam — Islam in its truest, highest 
 and noblest sense. I have tried to show the cause of the blight that 
 has fallen on Moslem nations. It is more than probable that my views 
 will not satisfy the critic of Islam who has started with a preconceived 
 bias, or who judges of the Faith by its latter-day professors. All the 
 same I venture to assert that my statements are founded on historical 
 facts. 
 
 One assertion of M. Renan requires a categorical refutation. He 
 has alleged in his lecture " as a very remarkable thing that among the 
 philosophers and learned men called Arabic, there was but one alone, 
 Alkindi, who was of Arabic origin : all the others were Persians, Trans- 
 oxians, Spaniards, natives of Bokhara, of Samarcand, of Cordova, of 
 Seville. Not only were those men not Arabs by blood, but they were 
 in nowise Arabs in mind." The memory of this great French scholar, 
 whose acquaintance I had the privilege of making, deserves every 
 respect. But surely this sweeping observation is very wide of the truth. 
 A glance at the Wafidt til-Ay dn (Ibn Khallikan's great Biographical 
 Dictionary), the Tdrikh ul-Hukama and other works of the like nature, 
 will show how utterly unfounded the assertion is. From the genealogy 
 of the eminent men whose lives are contained in these books, it will be 
 seen that a vast number of the great scholars, doctors and savants, 
 although born in places outside Arabia, were Arabs by descent. 
 
 Probably M. Renan would not have admitted that Ali (the Caliph) 
 was a philosopher, but his descendants Ja'far as-Sadik and Ali ar-Riza 
 were unquestionably entitled to be included in that designation. And 
 Ja'far as-Sadik was a scientist besides. Jabir ibn Haiyyan (Geber), 
 the father of modern chemistry, worked in fact with the materials 
 gathered by Ja'far. It is admitted that Al Kindi, " the Philosopher 
 of the Arabs," was descended from the royal family of Kinda and was 
 an Arab of the Arabs. But it is not known that Yahya ibn Ali Mansur 
 (see ante, p. 374) was a pure Arab. Nor is it known that Ali ibn Yunus 
 {ante, p. 377) belonged to the tribe of as-Sadaf — " a great branch," says 
 Ibn Khallikan, " of the tribe of Himyar which settled in Egypt." 
 Al-Jahiz, Abu Osman Amr al-Kindni al-Laisi, the celebrated Mutazilite 
 
 
APPENDIX III 485 
 
 philosopher, who died at Basra in a.h. 255 (868-9 A. a), was a pure 
 Arab, a member of the tribe of Kinana. Avenpace (ante, p. 428) was a 
 Tujibite by descent. " Tujibi pronounced also Tajibi," says Ibn 
 Khallikan, " means descended from Tujib the mother of 'Adi and 
 Sa'd, the sons of Ashras ibn us-Sakun. She herself was the daughter 
 of Sauban bin Sulaim ibn Mazis, and her sons were surnamed after her." 
 
 The Avenzoars (ante, p. 386) belonged to the Arabian tribe of Iyaz 
 ibn Nizar, and hence bore the title of al-Iyazi. 
 
 The great grammarian al-Khalil ibn Ahmed was a member of the 
 tribe of Azd. The Spanish historian and philosopher Ibn Bash-kuwal 
 was a descendant of one of the Medinite Ansar who had settled in Spain. 
 Mas'udi (ante, p. 390) was a direct descendant of one of the Prophet's 
 immediate companions and disciples, Ibn Masud, hence the title ; 
 whilst Ibn ul-Athir was a member of the celebrated tribe of Shaiban. 
 
 The political economist and jurisconsult, al-Mawardi, a native of 
 Basra, was a pure Arab. 1 
 
 The soldier, statesman, philosopher and poet, Osama was a member 
 of the tribe of Kinana. 
 
 Sharif al-Murtaza, the author of the Ghurar wa'd Durar, one of the 
 greatest scholars of his time, was descended from Imam Ali ar-Riza. 
 
 Ibn Tufail (ante, pp. 386, 429) was a member of the tribe of Kais, and 
 hence the title of al-Kaisi. 
 
 Ibn Khaldun was descended from an Yemenite family which had 
 settled in Spain. They came from Hazramaut and were therefore called 
 al-Hazrami. 
 
 I have given only a few names picked out at random, but the curious 
 reader will find numberless instances in the books I have mentioned. 2 
 
 To say that these men were not Arabs and had no Arab blood in 
 them is surely a bold assertion. I might with equal effrontery assert 
 that, because Longfellow, Channing, Emerson, Draper were born in 
 America, they were not Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 Ibn Khallikan calls al-Farabi " the greatest philosopher of the 
 Moslems," and speaks of him in the following terms : — 
 
 U*»xi y ^ttXwjJf ) J^aiJl^i i«JuJl.ajJ| v» r s^U» .y x i^t>)\ ^fCsJ| 
 
 *#; & &*- r** s ^ r 3 cj**^ 1 4*-^^' ^*-5 c^* J, e/ / * 
 
 1 Two of his most important works are the Ahkdm us-Saltdniyyah and 
 as-Sidsat ul-Mudan, both spoken of highly by Von Hammer. 
 
 * See also Wustenf eld's Geschichte der Arabischer Aerzte, Tdrikh ul-Isldm 
 of Zahabl, and Casiri's Bibliotheca Arabica. 
 
486 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 " Abu Nasr Mohammed bin Mohammed bin Turkhan bin Auslagh 
 al-Farabi at-Turki (the Turk), a celebrated philosopher, author of many- 
 works in logic, music, and other sciences. He was the greatest of 
 philosophers among the Moslems, and no one among them attained a 
 rank equal to his in the sciences. And the chief (of philosophers) Abu 
 Ali Ibn Sina, whom I have mentioned before, derived benefit from his 
 writings." (p. 382) 
 
 Abu'l Kasim Kinderski was a famous poet and Avicennistic philo- 
 sopher of Persia in the eighteenth century 
 
 Hayy ibn Yakzdn was translated into English and published in 
 London so long ago as 1686. (p. 429) 
 
 Sanai has given expression to his admiration for Ibn Sina and his 
 devotion to philosophy in the following lines : 
 
 
 
 )■■ 
 
 " I do not seek for any reward in this world or the next. 
 
 " Every moment I pray, whether in prosperity or in adversity. 
 
 " O my Lord, bestow on Sanai the proficiency in philosophy and 
 
 sciences 
 " Such as would make even the soul of Bu Ali Sina jealous." 
 
 The position of Sanai in the world of Islam can be gathered from the 
 following lines of Jala.1 ud-din Ruml, revered nowadays by educated 
 Musulmans throughout Asia and Egypt : 
 
 (**J ft* > J i{x ~ ji )) u 
 
 " 'Attar was its soul [of the philosophy of mysticism], Sanai was its 
 eyes ; I only walked in the footsteps of 'Attar and Sanai." (p 457) 
 
 The reactionary character of the influence exercised by Abu'l Hasan 
 Ali al-Asha'ri and Ahmed al-Ghazzali can hardly be over-estimated. 
 It has been happily summed up in a few words by the learned editor of 
 al-Beiruni's al-Asdr ul-B&kieh — " but for al-Asha'ri and al-Ghazzali the 
 Arabs might have been a nation of Galileos, Keplers and Newtons." 
 By their denunciations of science and philosophy, by their exhortations 
 
 
APPENDIX III 487 
 
 that besides theology and law no other knowledge was worth acquiring, 
 they did more to stop the progress of the Moslem world than most other 
 Moslem scholiasts. And up to this day their example is held forth as a 
 reason for ignorance and stagnation. 
 
 Al-Asha'ri was born at Basra in 883-4 a.c. (270 a.h.), and died at 
 Bagdad ; but the year of his death is not certain ; it occurred probably 
 some time between 941 and 952 a.c. (300 and 340 a.h.). He was 
 originally a Mu'tazili and publicly taught the rationalistic doctrines. 
 A clever, ambitious man he saw no opportunity of power or influence 
 among the Rationalists ; an alliance with the party of retrogression 
 meant fame and tangible reward. He, accordingly, made a public 
 renunciation of his former creed in man's free will and " of his opinion 
 that the Koran was created." This happened on a Friday at the 
 Cathedral mosque of Basra. Whilst seated on his chair lecturing to 
 his pupils, he suddenly sprang up, and cried aloud to the assembled 
 multitude : — " They who know me, know who I am, as for those who 
 do not know me, I shall tell them : I am Ali ibn Isma'il al-Asha'ri, 
 and I used to hold that the Koran was created, that the eyes {of men) 
 shall not see God, and that we ourselves are the authors of our evil 
 deeds ; now I have returned to the truth, I renounce these opinions 
 and I take the engagement to refute the Mu'tazilites and expose their 
 infamy and turpitude." And with the recantation of each doctrine 
 that he formerly professed, he tore off from his person some garment 
 saying, " I repudiate this belief as I repudiate this dress." First went 
 the turban, then the mantle and so on. The effect of this theatrical 
 display was immense among the impressionable inhabitants of Basra, 
 and the fame of al-Asha'ri spread so rapidly among the people that he 
 soon became their recognised leader. Ibn Khallikan calls him "a 
 great upholder of the orthodox doctrines." 
 
 Upon the death of the last Fatimide Caliph al-Azid li-din Illah, 
 Saladin, who was Commander-in-chief and Prime Minister, proclaimed 
 the Abbaside Mustazii and thus restored Egypt to the spiritual 
 sovereignty of Bagdad. Asha'rism henceforth became dominant in 
 that country. 
 
 The theological students, who were chiefly the followers of Ibn Hanbal, 
 under the weaker Abbaside Caliphs became a source of great trouble 
 in Bagdad. They constituted themselves into a body of irresponsible 
 censors ; they used forcibly to enter houses, break musical instruments, 
 and commit similar acts of vandalism. 
 
APPENDIX III— contd. 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 P. 17. The word Ikra might be rendered also as " recite." 
 
 P. 106. The incident to which reference is made in the footnote 
 at p. 106 has been immortalised by the Persian Poet Sa'di. The poem 
 opens with the following lines, which are difficult to render properly 
 into another language : 
 
 
 P. 264. The following lines evince the estimation in which Meshed 
 is held by the Shiahs 
 
 Mash-had afzal tari rui Zamin ast. 
 
 Ke dn-jd nur-i Rabb ul-'dlamin ast. 
 " Mashhad is the most excellent spot on the face of the earth, for there is 
 to be found the light of the Lord of the Creation (God)." 
 
 P. 279. Moslem toleration. — " In the first century of Arab rule," 
 says Sir Thomas Arnold in his Preaching of Isldm, " the various 
 Christian churches enjoyed a toleration and a freedom of religious life, 
 such as had been unknown for generations under the Byzantine Govern- 
 ment." And he adds, " In the course of the long struggles with the 
 Byzantine Empire, the Caliphs had had occasion to distrust the loyalty 
 of their Christian subjects, and the treachery of Nikophoros was not 
 improbably one of the reasons for Harun's order that the Christians 
 should wear a distinctive dress and give up the good posts they held." 
 
 Abu Yusuf 's appeal to Harun ar-Rashid on behalf of the non-Moslem 
 subjects is noteworthy. 
 
 " It is incumbent on the Commander of the Faithful (May God grant 
 thee His aid !) that thou deal gently with those that have a covenant 
 with thy Prophet and thy cousin Mohammed (the peace and blessing 
 of God be upon him), and that thou take care that they be not wronged 
 or ill-treated and that no burden be laid upon them beyond their strength 
 
 488 
 
 
APPENDIX III 489 
 
 and that no part of their belongings be taken from them beyond what 
 they are in duty bound to pay, for it is related of the Apostle of God 
 (the peace and blessing of God be upon him !) that he said whosoever 
 wrongs a zimmi or imposes a burden upon him beyond his strength I 
 shall be his accuser on the Day of Judgment " ; (Arnold). 
 
 P. 279. The Zimmis. — The following was the charter granted by 
 the Caliph Omar at the capitulation of Jerusalem surrendered in 638 
 a.h. " In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is 
 the security which Omar the Servant of God, the Commander of the 
 Faithful, grants to the people of Aelia. He grants to all, whether sick 
 or sound, security for their lives, their possessions, their churches and 
 their crosses, and for all that concerns their religion. Their churches 
 shall not be changed into dwelling places nor destroyed, neither shall 
 they nor their appurtenances be in any way diminished, nor the crosses 
 of the inhabitants, nor aught of their possessions, nor shall any con- 
 straint be put upon them in the matter of their faith, nor shall anyone 
 of them be harmed " ; Baldzuri, p. 132 ; Kitdb ul-Khardj, p. 54 ; Al- 
 Makin, Historia Saracenica, p. 11. 
 
 Prophet's declaration : — " Whoever wrongs a Zimmi and lays on 
 him a burden beyond his strength I shall be his accuser." 
 
 " Whoever torments the Zimmis torments me." 
 
 Omar's injunction to Osman : — " I commend to your care the 
 Zimmis of the apostle of God ; see that the agreement with them is 
 kept, and they be defended against their enemies, and that no burden 
 is laid on them beyond their strength," Abu Yusuf, p. 71. 
 
 In similar terms is Ali's injunction to Mohammed Ibn Abu Bakr, 
 Governor of Egypt in 36 a.h. Tabari, in loco. See also D'Ohsson, p. 44. 
 
 P. 285. In the times of the later Abbaside Caliphs three more 
 Diwdns or departments came into existence, viz., the Diwdn-ul-Kazd 
 (the Ministry of Justice), the Diwdn ul-'Arz (the Paymaster General's 
 office), and the Diwdn ut-Tughra ) where the imperial seals were kept 
 and the documents checked. 
 
 P. 288. In my former edition of the book I had said as follows : 
 
 " The importance which Islam attaches to the duties of sovereigns 
 towards their subjects, and the manner in which it promotes the freedom 
 and equality of the people and protects them against the oppres- 
 sion of their rulers is shown in a remarkable work by the celebrated 
 publicist Imam Fakhruddin Razi (i.e. of Rhages) on " the Reciprocal 
 Rights of Sovereigns and Subjects," edited and enlarged afterwards 
 by Mohammed bin Ali bin Taba Taba, commonly known as Ibn 
 Tiktaka." 
 
 This statement represents the view commonly entertained by the 
 Moulvis of India. In his work on the history of Arabic literature 
 (Weimar and Berlin, 1898-1902), Brockelmann apparently entertained 
 
490 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 the same opinion. And he was not singular among the scholars of 
 Europe on this point. Noel Devergers and apparently de Sacy and 
 several others were in agreement with him. Hartwig Derenbourg, 
 however, strongly challenged this view ; and Brockelmann in his later 
 work {the Nachtrdge, Vol. II. p. 708) altered his opinion. What has 
 influenced me, however, to cut out the attribution of the authorship 
 of the Tdrikh ud-duwal to Imam Fakhr ud din Razi is the fact that in 
 his enumeration of the works of this great scholar Ibn Khallikan does 
 not include the Tdrikh-ud-duwal. His omission is by no means con- 
 clusive, for he often leaves out important works, as in the case of Ibn 
 Ab'il Hadid, to whose great commentary on the Nahj-ul-Baldghat he 
 does not make the slightest reference. It has, however, been a deter- 
 mining factor in my omission of the passage in the new edition. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. C. A. Storey of the India Office for the following 
 passage from Brockelmann's works bearing on this point : 
 
 C. Brockelmann in his Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Weimar 
 and Berlin, 1898-1902), Vol. I. p. 506, has the following entry under 
 Fahraddin Abu 'Abdallah M. b. 'Omar b. al-Hosain b. al Ha$ib ar- 
 Razi: 
 
 "2. ta'rih adduwal in 2 Teilen : (a) Staatswissenschaft, (b) Gesch. 
 der 4 ersten Chalifen, der Bujiden, Selguqen und Fatimiden, Paris, 895, 
 Ausziige von Jourdain, Fundgruben d. Or., V. 23. D. R. Henzius, 
 Fragmenta Arabica e. Codd. mss. nunc primum ed. (Fachraddini 
 Razii hist. Chal. prim.) Petrop. 1828." 
 
 In the Nachtrdge (Vol. II. p. 705) he has the following entry : 
 
 " 506, 6, 2. zu streichen, = al Fahri von b. at Tiqtaqa." 
 
 The entry relating to Ibn al Tiqtaqa (Vol. II. p. 161) is as follows : 
 
 " M. b. 'Ali b. Tabataba b. aj: Tiqtaqa, geb. um 660/1261, schrieb 
 701/ 130 1 wahrend eines Aufenthaltes in M6sul fur den dortigen Statt- 
 halter Fahraddin 'Isa b. Ibrahim : 
 
 Al k. al Fahri fi'l adab as Sultanija wad duwal al islamija, Paris 2441, 
 Fiirstenspiegel und Geschichte der islamischen Reiche von Anfang bis 
 zu Ende des Chalifats, hrsg. v. W. Ahlwardt, Goth, i860, v. H. Deren- 
 bourg, Paris, 1895, Bibl. de l'ecole des hautes etudes, fs. 105. Auszug 
 vom Verf. Paris 2442 ; vgl. Cherbonneau JAP. s. 4 t.7.8.9. a " 
 
 A footnote to this page says : 
 
 " a Damit identisch ist der ta'HJi^ ad duwal, Bd. I. p. 506 mit Wieder- 
 holung eines alten Irrtums dem Fahraddin ar Razi zugeschrieben." 
 
 P. 288. Justice. — In the Kitdb-ul-Mizdn ul-Hikma (" The Balance 
 of Wisdom "), written in the 12th century, occurs the following definition 
 of justice : — " Justice is the stay of all virtues and the support of all 
 excellences. In order to place justice on the pinnacle of perfection, 
 the Supreme Creator {al-Bdri Ta'dla) made himself known to the 
 
APPENDIX III 49 i 
 
 choicest of His Servants under the name of the Just ; and it was 
 by the light of justice that the world became complete and perfected 
 and was brought to perfect order — to which there is allusion in the words 
 of him on whom there be blessings : *' By Justice were the Heavens 
 and the Earth established." 
 
 P. 340. Although some Western scholars have doubted the accuracy 
 of the story that Nizam-ul-Mulk, Omar Khayyam and Hasan bin 
 Sabbah were fellow students, the latest biographer of " The Old Man of 
 the Mountain " reaffirms that all three were at one time pupils of Imam 
 Musik ud-din (Muwaffak ud-din) (?). This new life of Hasan Sabbah 
 is by the pen of a learned Moulvi of Lucknow (Moulvi Abdul Halim 
 surnamed Shay at), and gives in a short compass an exhaustive and 
 well-balanced summary of Hasan Sabbah's life and objects, and of the 
 pernicious character of his propaganda. 
 
 P. 340. Hasan Sabbdh. — Moulvi Abdul Halim points out how Hasan 
 Sabbah's followers worked with hashish in carrying out their pernicious 
 propaganda ; how they drugged the minds of their proselytes for the 
 furtherance of their designs against the existing order. He also de- 
 scribes the hydra-headed character of the occult doctrine professed by 
 these enemies of society ; how on the destruction of the Kardmita 
 the Isma'ilias sprang into existence. 
 
 P- 359- Bdbis. — The Babis, who have now split up into several 
 sections, are to be found chiefly in foreign countries. They are said 
 to abound in the United States ; many of them are settled in Beyrout 
 and not a few in Bombay and Calcutta. The greatest authority in 
 England on Babism, Professor E. G. Browne, says that the Babi cult 
 has nothing in common with Sufism. One fundamental difference 
 between the two cults lies in their mentality ; whilst Sufism shows 
 great charity towards differing systems, Babism is intensely exclusive, 
 not to say fanatical. 
 
 P. 400. Safawi. — A new theory appears to have been recently 
 started attributing the derivation of the term " Safawi," the designation 
 of the dynasty founded by Shah Isma'il in Persia, to the word Safi 
 which forms part of the name of Safi-ud-din, the ancestor of Shah 
 Isma'il ; and not to " Sufi," the title borne by Safi ud-din. To this 
 theory I venture to enter a respectful protest. For several centuries 
 after the foundation of the Persian Empire the Shahs of Persia were 
 styled by European travellers, merchants, and chroniclers " The 
 Grand Sophi," in contradistinction to " The Grand Mogul " and " The 
 Grand Turk." The reason is obvious. Among oriental writers the 
 word " safawi " has always been recognised as derived from Sufi, just 
 as the other designation of this dynasty, " Musawi," is derived from the 
 Imam Musa al-Kazim. The Rizawi Syeds trace their descent from 
 Imam Ali, son of the Imam Musa. 
 
 P. 402. The sack of Bagdad. — In the following couplet Sa'di has 
 
492 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 expressed his horror at the terrible scenes he witnessed at the sack of 
 Bagdad : 
 
 " It is meet that Heaven should rain tears of blood on earth 
 At the destruction that has befallen 
 The Empire of Musta'sim, Commander of the Faithful. 
 O Mohammed ! If in the Day of Judgment you will raise your 
 
 head above the earth 
 Raise your head and see the tribulation of the people now." 
 The effect of the picture drawn by the poet is lost in the translation. 
 
 £?. J^- O^ jj ^»»Li t Jf'uss j- 
 
 P. 406. Predestination. — The following tradition reported by 
 'Ubayy ibn Ka'b throws considerable light on the view held by the 
 Prophet on the subject of predestination : — " the most prosperous man 
 is he who becomes prosperous by his own exertions ; and the most 
 wretched man is he who becomes wretched by his own actions." 
 
 The great Caliph Omar is reported to have inflicted double punish- 
 ment on a man who was caught in the act of committing an evil deed 
 and had said in exculpation that he was led to do it by the decree 
 of God. 
 
 Ameer-ul-Mominln Ali (The Caliph), in answer to one of his men who 
 had fought at Simn, and had enquired whether it was the decree of God 
 that had led them to Syria, is reported to have said as follows : 
 
 " Perhaps you consider predestination to be necessary and the 
 particular decree to be irreversible ; if it were so, then would reward 
 and punishment be vain, and the promise and the threat would be of 
 no account ; and surely blame would not have come from God for the 
 sinner nor praise for the righteous, nor would the righteous be more 
 worthy of the reward of his good deeds than the wicked, nor the wicked 
 be more deserving of the punishment of his sin than the righteous. 
 Such a remark (savours) of the brethren of devils and the worshippers of 
 idols and of the enemies of the Merciful and of those who bear witness 
 to falsehood and of those that are blind to the right in their concerns — 
 such as the fatalists and the Magians of this church. God hath ordained 
 the giving of choice (to men) and forbidden the putting (of them) in 
 fear ; and He hath not laid duties upon men by force, nor sent His 
 Prophets in sport. This is the notion of unbelievers, and woe unto the 
 unbelievers in hell ! " Then asked the old man : " What is this pre- 
 destination and particular decree which drove us ? " He answered : 
 " The command of God therein and His purpose." Then he repeated 
 (the verse) : " The Lord hath ordained (predestined) that ye worship 
 none but Him, and kindness to your parents." 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 493 
 
 The second apostolical Imam's letter to the people of Basra also 
 contains the following passage which is worthy of note : " Whoever 
 makes his Lord responsible for his sin is a transgressor ; God does not 
 make people obey Him against their will, nor force them to sin against 
 their will." 
 
 P. 414. The word Mu'tazila. — In the Ghyas-ul-Lughat and the 
 Farhang (Lucknow) the word J"/** is spelt with a fatha on the 
 third syllable, which would make it in its English garb Mu'tazala. 
 The Farhang is the work of three of the most learned Moslem scholars 
 of India, and is the best and most comprehensive lexicon of its kind, 
 a real encyclopaedia. In its compilation the authors have used every 
 existing lexicon, among them the Kashf-ul-Lughdt, the Surdh the 
 Tdj-ul-'Urus and a number of others, so that it cannot be said they have 
 decided lightly. In Richardson's Dictionary the word is spelt similarly. 
 
 In the Lisdn-ul-' Arab the word is printed with a Kesra under the third 
 syllable, which would make it read Mu'tazila. And Western Oriental- 
 ists have almost entirely adopted this view. 
 
 The difference, which to an outsider unacquainted with the Arabic 
 language may sound like a distinction without a difference, arises from 
 the question, did Wasil bin 'Ata leave the majlis of his own accord, or 
 was he asked on account of his disagreement with the Imam to with- 
 draw ? Ibn Khallikan says he was " expelled." In the first case the 
 active participle would be the right form, and the word would be 
 mu'tazila ; in the latter case it would be mu'tazala. The Indian Moulvis 
 hold the opinion that he was asked to leave ; in which they are sup- 
 ported by Ibn Khallikan. And yet de Slane, the translator of the 
 Wafi'dt al-Aydn transliterates the word as Mu'tazilite. 
 
 In all my previous works I have followed the Ghyds and the Farhang, 
 but in view of the unanimity among Western Orientalists and in order 
 to avoid confusing the reader I have decided in this Edition to range 
 myself with them. This does not, however, alter my adherence to 
 the scholars of my country. 
 
 P. 419. Mu'tazila doctrines. — " The Mu'tazilas are agreed that the 
 world has a Creator, Eternal, Almighty, Omniscient, Living. He is 
 neither a body nor an accident nor a substance ; He is self-sufficient. 
 One, incomprehensible by sense, Just, All- wise, doth no wrong; nor 
 purposeth any ; He lays duties on human beings by way of indicating 
 retribution to them. He renders man capable of action, removes 
 hindrance out of the way, and retribution is absolutely necessary ; 
 further, they agree upon the necessity of the sending of a Prophet when 
 a sending is desirable, and that the Prophet must bring a new law or 
 revive one of which no trace is left, or provide some new life to human- 
 ity ; and they are agreed that the last of the Prophets is Mohammed ; 
 and that faith is a declaration and knowledge and action. And they 
 agree that man's action is not created in him ; they agree in having 
 friendly feelings towards the Companions of the Prophet, but they 
 disagree about Osman after the events that he brought about ; most 
 
494 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 of them, however, have friendly feelings towards him and offer explana- 
 tions for his conduct. And most of them are agreed about standing 
 aloof from Mu'awiyah and 'Amr ibn al-'As and they are agreed upon the 
 necessity of enjoining good acts and the forbidding of evil." 
 
 P. 472. Ameer Khusru, although he has been accorded a place 
 amongst the Awlia (the Sufi saints), was certainly not a professed Sufi. 
 Most of the Moslem poets of India bear more than a tinge of mysticism, 
 and have given expression to it in their poetry. I have already 
 mentioned Dabir {ante, p. 460). The three brothers, Anis, Munis, and 
 Uns (noms de plume derived from one and the same root), were con- 
 temporaries of Dabfr and their thoughts run in the same channel. 
 Altai Husain Khan Hdli and Asad ullah Khan Ghdlib, like the un- 
 fortunate Bahadur Shah, the last titular King of Delhi, who was 
 deported by the British to Rangoon after the Mutiny, were " intuitional- 
 ists " In one of his finest poems Ghalib speaks of Bahadur Shah 
 in these terms : 
 
 Shah-i-roushan dil Bah&dur Shah kehai 
 Rdz-i-hasti uspeh sar-ta-sar khula. 
 The King Bahadur Shah of the illumined heart, 
 He has had opened to him fully the mysteries of existence. 
 P. 472. Sennusi. — The Sennusiya order, if it can be so called, was 
 founded by Mohammed bin Ali as-Sennusi al-Idrisi. He was a descend- 
 ant of the Prophet through Idris, who had escaped into the Maghrib 
 (West Africa) from the massacre in Medina by Yezid's troops. He was 
 born in a place called Mustaghanem in Algeria in 1787. He appears to 
 have been a man of a particularly virile character. He travelled much 
 in the Islamic countries which were easy of access, and noted the 
 deterioration in morals which resulted to the Arabs and other Moslems 
 of North Africa from contact with the peoples of the Mediterranean 
 littoral. He also observed how the Moslems had fallen away from the 
 old teachings, and how lethargic and fatalistic they had become. He 
 uplifted them by directing their energies to such industries as conduced 
 to material prosperity and their minds to the duties imposed by their 
 religion. 
 
 Sidi Mohammed bin Ali, before his death in 1859, had founded numbers 
 of zavias or lodges in the Hijaz and Yemen, in the Libyan Oases, in 
 Cyrenaica and Algeria. And those lodges, in mid-Africa at least, exer- 
 cised considerable moral influence. In Morocco his disciples, who are 
 usually called Brothers (" Ikhwan "), made little or no progress in 
 consequence of the old established Moulai Tyyib order. Sidi Mohammed 
 was succeeded by his son Mohammed al-Mahdi as the head of the 
 fraternity. 
 
 P. 473. I am quoting from memory — 
 
 Kajkol ko tdj khusrawdni sahmjhai 
 
 Aur dunyd dani ko fdni samjhai 
 
 Dariai Hakikat wahi jawai pair 
 
 Jo Kisai 'umar ko kahdni samjhai. 
 
APPENDIX III 495 
 
 Apostasy. — The punishment for apostasy provided by the ecclesiastical 
 laws of Islam has recently caused some amount of perturbation among 
 politicians and others in England. " Apostasy " has always from the 
 earliest times been regarded as a capital offence in all the religious 
 and civil systems of the world, as it formed a breach of loyalty to 
 established order. The Romans condemned the early Christians to 
 death because they had set themselves up against the government and 
 the State-religion. The Christians, when they obtained supremacy, 
 followed the Roman example. The Romish Church burnt apostates, 
 heretics, men, women and even children, without mercy all over the 
 globe. The Reformed Churches were not lacking in ardour in the 
 cause of orthodoxy and maintenance of conformity. Apostates were 
 subject to the penalty of death up to very recent times in England. 
 At the present time a person renouncing Christianity is not put to 
 death, but is subject to social and civil ostracism. The Prophet of 
 Islam never condemned freedom of conscience, but treason to the 
 Commonwealth was punished with death. It was frequently the case 
 that the Meccans made a profession of the faith in order to get into the 
 city of Medina, and after obtaining all the information connected 
 with the security of the little Moslem State returned to Mecca and 
 threw off Islam. When captured they were condemned to execution. 
 Treason is still in our own days, throughout the world, punishable 
 with death, and no objection can be taken to these executions. The 
 Moslem ecclesiastical law that an apostate must undergo the penalty 
 of death is based on this rule. But women are not punishable with 
 death, they are only imprisoned ; nor is any child subject to that 
 penalty. This is the difference between Islam and Christianity in the 
 matter of humanity and freedom of conscience. If I am not mistaken, 
 the penalty of death for "apostasy" was abolished in Turkey in the 
 reign of Sultan Selim II. towards the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 For the Genealogical Tables of the Saracenic Caliphs and Sovereigns 
 see my Short History of the Saracens. I give here the names of the 
 Ommeyyade Caliphs of Damascus and Spain, of the Abbaside Caliphs 
 of Bagdad and the Fatimide Caliphs of Cairo, with the dates of their 
 accession to make the text intelligible. 
 
 THE RASHIDtN CALIPHS. 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 i. Abu Bakr -------- 11= 632 
 
 2. Omar 13= 634 
 
 3. Osman 2 3= 644 
 
 4- Ali 35 = 656 
 
 THE OMMEYYADE SOVEREIGNS OF DAMASCUS. 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 i. Mu'awiyah I. __.__-_ 41= 661 
 
 2. Yezid __- 61 = 681 
 
 3. Muawiya'i II. ------- 64 = 683 
 
 4. Merwan I. - 65= 684 
 
 5. Abdul Malik -------- 65 = 685 
 
 6. Walid I. 86 = 705 
 
 7. Sulaiman -------- 96= 715 
 
 8. Omar bin Abdul Aziz 99 = 717 
 
 9. Yezid II. - - - 101 = 720 
 
 10. Hisham 105 = 724 
 
 11. Walid II. - - - - - - - - 125 = 743 
 
 12. Yezid III. - ------ I2 6 = 744 
 
 13. Ibrahim - - 126 = 744 
 
 14. Merwan II. 127 = 745 
 
 THE ABBASIDE CALIPHS OF BAGDAD. 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 i. As-Saff ah, Abu' I Abb ds (Abdullah)- - - - 132 = 750 
 
 2. Al-Mansur, Abd J a' jar -----, 136 = 754 
 
 496 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 497 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 3. Al-Mahdi (Mohammed) 158 = 775 
 
 4. Al-Hadi (Musa) 168 = 785 
 
 5. Ar-Rashid (Harun) 170= 786 
 
 6. Al-Amin (Mohammed) 193= 809 
 
 N >7. Al-Mamun (Abdullah) 198 = 813 
 
 8. Al-Mu'tasim b'lllah (Abu Ishak Mohammed) - - 218 = 833 
 
 9. Al-Wasik b'lllah (Abu Jaafar Harun) - - - 227 = 842 
 
 10. Al-Mutawakkil 'ala-Illah (Jaafar) - - - - 232 = 847 
 
 11. Al-Muntasir b'lllah (Mohammed) - 247 = 861 
 
 12. Al-Mustain b'lllah (Ahmed) ----- 248 = 862 
 
 13. Al-Mu'tazz b'lllah (Mohammed) - 252 = 866 
 
 14. Al-Muhtadi b'lllah (Mohammed Abu Ishak) - - 255 = 869 
 
 15. Al-Mu'tamid al'-Allah (Ahmed, Abii'1 Abbas) - 256 = 870 
 
 16. Al-Mutazid b'lllah (Ahmed, Abu'l Abbas) - - 279 = 892 
 
 17. Al-Muktafi b'lllah (Ali, Abu Mohammed) - - 289 = 902 
 
 18. Al-Muktadir b'lllah (Ja'far, Abu'l Fazl) - - 295 = 908 
 
 19. Al-Kahir b'lllah (Mohammed, Abu Mansur) - - 320 = 932 
 
 20. Ar-Razi b'lllah (Mohammed Abu'l Abbas) - - 322 = 934 
 
 21. Al-Muttaki b'lllah (Ibrahim, Abu'l Ishak) - - 329 = 940 
 
 22. Al-Mustakfi b'lllah (Abdullah, Abu'l Kasim) - 333 = 944 
 
 23. Al-Muti 'Ullah (Fazl, Abul Kasim) - - - 334 = 946 
 
 24. At-Tai b'lllah (Abdul Karim, Abu Bakr) - - 363 = 974 
 
 25. Al-Kadir b'lllah (Ahmed, Abu'l Abbas) - - - 381 = 991 
 
 26. Al-Kaim biamr Illah (Abdullah, Abu Jaafar) - - 422 = 103 1 
 
 27. Al-Muktadi bi'amr-Illah (Abdullah, Abu'l Kasim) - 467 = 1075 
 
 28. Al-Mustazhir b'lllah (Ahmed, Abu'l Abbas) - - 487 = 1094 
 
 29. Al-Mustarshid b'lllah (Fazl, Abu'l Mansur) - - 512 =1118 
 
 30. Ar-Rashid b'lllah (Mansur, Abu Jaafar) - - 529 = 1135 
 
 31. Al-Muktafi bi'amr-Illah (Mohammed, Abu Abdullah) 530 = 1136 
 
 32. Al-Mustanjid b'lllah (Yusuf, Abu'l Muzaffar) - 555 = 1160 
 
 33. Al-Mustazii bi'amr-Illah (Hasan, Abu Mohammed) 566 = 1170 
 
 34. An-Nasir Ji-din-Illah (Ahmed, Abu'l Abbas) - - 575 = 1180 
 
 35. Az-Zahir bi'amr-Illah (Mohammed, Abfi Nasr) - 622 = 1225 
 
 36. Al-Mustansir b'lllah (Mansur, Abu Ja'far) - - 623 = 1226 
 
 37. Al-Musta'sim b'lllah (Abdullah, Abu Ahmed) - 640 = 1242 
 
 THE FATIMIDE CALIPHS OF EGYPT 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 i. Al-Mahdi, Obaidullah - 296 = 908 
 
 2. Al-Kaim bi-amr-Illah - - - - - - 322 ^ 934 
 
 3. Al-Mansur bi-amr-Illah 334 = 945 
 
 4. Al-Muizz li-din-Illah i— - - - - - 341 = 953 
 
 5. Al-Aziz b'lllah - - 365 = 975 
 
 6. Al-Hakim bi-amr-Illah 386 = 996 
 
 7. Az-Zahir l'-azaz-din-Illah 411 = 1021 
 
 8. Al-Mustansir b'lllah 4 2 7 = io 3 6 
 
 s.i. 2 1 
 
49 8 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 9. Al-Musta'li b'lllah - 
 
 10. Al-'Amir bi-Ahkam-Illah 
 
 11. Al-Hafiz li-din-Illah 
 
 12. Az-Zaiir bi-amr-IUah 
 
 13. Al-Faiz bi-amr-Illah 
 
 14. Al-'Azid-li-din-Illah 
 
 A.H. 
 
 
 A.C. 
 
 487 
 
 = 
 
 IO94 
 
 494 
 
 = 
 
 IIOI 
 
 523 
 
 = 
 
 1 1 30 
 
 544 
 
 = 
 
 1149 
 
 549 
 
 = 
 
 1154 
 
 555 
 
 = 
 
 116a 
 
 THE OMMEYYADE CALIPHS OF CORDOVA. 
 
 I38-422, 756-IO3I A.C. 
 
 A.H. A.C. 
 
 Abdur Rahman I. {ad Ddkhil) ----- 138 = 756 
 
 Hisham I. (Abu'l Walid) - - - - - - 172 = 788 
 
 Hakam I., al-Muntasir 180= 796 
 
 Abdur Rahman II. (al-Ausat) ----- 206 = 822 
 
 Mohammed I. - - - 238 = 852 
 
 Munzir - 273 = 886 
 
 Abdullah 275 = 888 
 
 An-Nasir li-din-Illah, Abdur Rahman III. - - - 300 = 912 
 
 Al-Mustansir b'lllah, Hakam II. 350 = 961 
 
 Al-Muwayyid b'lllah, Hisham II. - - - - 366 = 976 
 
 Al-Mahdi, Mohammed II. 399 = 1009 
 
 Al-Musta*in b'lllah, Sulaiman ----- 400 = 1009 
 
 Mohammed II (again) ------- 400 =1010 
 
 Hisham II. (again) ------- 400 = 1010 
 
 Sulaiman (again) 403 = 1013 
 
 Ali bin Hamud (An-Ndsir the Idriside) - 407 = 1016 
 
 Abdur Rahman IV [al-Murtaza) ----- 408 =1018 
 
 Kasim bin Hamud {al-Mdmun) ----- 408 =1018 
 
 Yahya bin Ali bin Hamud (al-Mnsta'li) - - - 412 = 1021 
 
 Kasim bin Hamud (again) - - - - - - 413 = 1022 
 
 Abdur Rahman V. {al-Mustazhir b'llldh) - - - 414 = 1023 
 
 Mohammed III. (al-Mustakfi b'llldh) - 414 = 1024 
 
 Yahya bin Ali bin Hamud (again) - - - - 416=1 02 5 
 
 Hisham III. {al-Mu'tazz b'llldh) - - - - 418 = 1027 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 N.B. — In the following index the definite article al before proper names 
 is disregarded, while the prefix Banu or Bani (" sons of . . . ") before the 
 names of tribes is omitted ; al-Hallaj, e.g. should be sought under H, and 
 Banu-Abbas under A. 
 
 The letter b. between two names stands for ibn (" son of . . . "), and n 
 for note. 
 
 Abbas, uncle of the Prophet, 6, 7, 9 n, 
 
 14, 44, 113, 128, 305-6. 
 Abbas II., Shah of Persia, 451. 
 Abbasides (Banu-Abbas), 276, 283-4, 
 
 285, 304. 305. 307-13. 315. 3i6, 324, 
 
 325. 326, 339. 367. 37i. 372. 389- 
 Abdullah, father of the Prophet, 7, 8, 
 
 128. 
 Abdullah Abu'l Abbas, see Saffah. 
 Abdullah Abu Ja'far, see Mansur 
 
 (Caliph). 
 Abdullah b. Abbas, 237, 274, 296, 306, 
 
 363. 436. 
 Abdullah b. Abu Kuhafa, see Abu 
 
 Bakr. 
 Abdullah b. Ahmed b. Ali al-Beithar, 
 
 386. 
 Abdullah b. Juda'an, 13. 
 Abdullah b. Maimun al-Kaddah, 326, 
 
 33o-5. 336, 337- 
 Abdullah b. Sa'd b. Surrah, 295. 
 Abdullah b. Ubayy, 57, 60, 68, 76, 
 
 103, 115 n. 
 Abdullah b. Zubair, 7 n. 
 Abd ud-Dar b. Kosayy, 4, 5. 
 Abd ul-Halim Sharar, Moulvi, 494. 
 Abd ul-Kabir, a friend of Ibn-Rushd, 
 
 431- 
 
 Abd ul-Kadir Ghilani, Sheikh, 343 n, 
 
 369. 472- 
 Abd ul-Kais, tribe of, lxvi. 
 Abd ul-Malik b. Merwan, 128, 254, 
 
 303 ». 355- 
 
 Abd ul-Malik II., Caliph, 3 n. 
 
 Abd(u) Manaf, see Abu Talib. 
 
 Abd(u) Manaf b. Kosayy, 4, 5 n. 
 
 Abd ul-Muttalib, grandfather of the 
 Prophet, Ixviii, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 
 128. 
 
 Abd ur-Rahman b. 'Auf, 21. 
 
 Abd ur-Rahman al-Hazini, astrono- 
 mer, 381. 
 
 Abd ur-Rahman Sufi, physicist, 376. 
 
 Abd ur-Razzak b. Ali b. Hasan 
 al-Lahiji, 451, 452. 
 
 Abd us-Salam ar-Rukn, physician, 
 
 45°- 
 Abd ush- Shams b. Abd(u) Manaf, 4, 
 
 5 «• 
 Abd ush-Shams, surnamed ' Saba,' 
 
 lxii-lxiii. 
 Abd ul-'Uzza, see Abu Lahab. 
 Abelard, 397. 
 Aben-Bethar, see Abdullah b. Ahmed 
 
 b. Ali al-Beithar. 
 Abraha al-Ashram, lxiii n, 7-8. 
 Abraham, lxiv, lxx, 20. 
 Abu'l Abbas, see Saffah. 
 Abu Abdullah b. al-Mubarak, 351. 
 Abu Abdullah Mohammed b. Karram, 
 
 443- 
 
 Abu Abdullah Mohammed b. Sa'id, 
 
 poet, 107 n. 
 Abu Ali Mohammed al-Jubbai, 415, 
 
 420, 452. 
 Abu Bakr, Caliph, 6, 21, 26, 27, 38, 46, 
 
 47, 48, 69, 86, 103, 116, 122, 126, 
 
 127, 234, 264, 278, 280, 293, 294, 
 
 323. 460. 
 
 499 
 
500 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Abu Bakr Mohammed b. Yahya, see 
 
 Ibn-Baja. 
 Abu Bakr Mohammed b. Zakaria 
 
 ar-Razi, 385. 
 Abucara, Theodorus, 365. 
 Abu'l Feda, geographer, 384, 390, 391. 
 Abu Hanifa, Imam, 186, 351, 369, 
 
 436-7. 438, 444- 445. 4 6 9- 
 Abu'l Hasan, optician, 375. 
 Abu'l Hasan, see Asha'ri. 
 Abu'l Hasan b. Tilmiz, physician, 
 
 386 n. 
 Abu'l Hasan AH b. Amajur, astrono- 
 mer, 375. 
 Abu Hashim Khalid b. Yazid, 364. 
 Abu Huraira, 120, 199. 
 Abu'l Huzail Hamdan, 415, 419. 
 Abu Ja'far Ahmed b. Mohammed 
 
 at-Talib, physician, 386 n. 
 Abu Jahl, uncle of the Prophet, 7 n, 
 
 47, 61, 62. 
 Abu Jariya, 55. 
 Abu'l Kasim Ahmed, 1st Abbaside 
 
 Caliph in Egypt, 130. 
 Abu'l Kasim Kinderski, 486. 
 Abu Lahab, uncle of the Prophet, 7 n, 
 
 37. 39- 
 Abu'l Ma'ali al-Juwaini, 420, 421. 
 Abu Ma'shar, astronomer, 374. 
 Abu Mohammed Abdullah, founder 
 
 of the Fatimide dynasty, see 
 
 Obaidullah. 
 Abu Mughais b. Mansur, see al- 
 
 Hallaj. 
 Abu Musa al- Asha'ri, 298, 355, 441. 
 Abu Musa Jabir, chemist, 384, 484. 
 Abu Muslim Khorasani, 308, 309, 
 
 311-12. 
 Abu Nasr Farabi, see al-Farabi. 
 Abu Nasr as-Sarraj, 460, 461, 463, 
 
 473. 474- 
 Abu Noumy, son of the Sherif of 
 
 Mecca, 132. 
 Abu Obaidah, 279. 
 Abu Raf'e Sallam b. Abu'l Hukaik, 73. 
 Abu Sa'id b. Abi'l Khair, 459 n. 
 Abu Salma Ja'far b. Sulaiman al- 
 
 Khallal, 309-10. 
 Abu Sufian, 6, 57, 67, 68, 69 n, 71, 78, 
 
 79, 90, 105, 299. 
 Abu Talib, uncle of the Prophet, 6, 
 
 7 n, 9 n, 10, 14, 20-21, 23, 26, 36-37, 
 
 39, 41, 128. 
 Abu Thumama Haran b. Habib, see 
 
 Mosailima. 
 
 Abu'l Ula, poet, 395. 
 
 Abu 'Uzza, poet, 73 n. 
 
 Abu'l Wafa, mathematician, 376. 
 
 Abu Ya'kub Yusuf, Almohade, 429. 
 
 Abu Yusuf, Imam, 186, 273, 437, 491. 
 
 Abyssinia, 29, 38. 
 
 Accadians, the, xix, xxxi. 
 
 'Ad, tribe of, lix, lx, lxx, 25. 
 
 'Adi b. Hatim, 106. 
 
 'Adi b. Ka'b, family of, 37. 
 
 'adl, doctrine of, 418, 419. 
 
 'Adnan, progenitor of the Koreish, 2. 
 
 Aelia, 492. 
 
 Afghanistan, 343, 344. 
 
 Afrasiab, xxx. 
 
 Afshanah, near Bokhara, 387. 
 
 Aghlabites, the, 324, 375. 
 
 Agricola, Johannes, 461. 
 
 Ahirman, Persian god, xxx, 192. 
 
 Ahmed b. Hait, 415. 
 
 Ahmed b. Mohammed, poet, 396. 
 
 Ahmed b. Mohammed an-Nehavendi, 
 
 astronomer, 373-4. 
 Ajarida, the, 356. 
 'Ajlan, tribe of, 65. 
 Ajmere, 472. 
 Ajnadin, battle of, 276. 
 'Akaba, hill of, 43, 45. 
 Akbar, the Moghul Emperor, xl, 
 
 472 n. 
 Akhbaris, the, 346-9. 
 'Akil b. Abu Talib, 14. 
 'Ala ud-Dowla, Ameer of Isfahan, 
 
 387. 
 
 'alam ul-jabarM, 473, 474. 
 
 'alani nl-malakUt, 474. 
 
 'Mam nl-mulk, 473. 
 
 Alamut, 340, 342. 
 
 Albigenses, the, 80, 220, 313, 397, 398. 
 
 Albucasis, physician, 385, 386. 
 
 Alexander the Great, xxxiv, xxxv, 1, 
 liii, lxiii n. 
 
 Alexander VI., Pope, 339 n. 
 
 Alexandria, 75, 140, 482. 
 
 Algeria, 497. 
 
 Alhazen, see Hasan b. Haitham. 
 
 Ali, Caliph, 14, 20-21, 23, 38, 46, 47, 
 49, 62, 67 n, 68 «, 69, 70, 97, 103, 
 104, 106, 108, 115, 117, 122-3, 12 6, 
 127, 128, 132, 163, 166, 234, 250, 
 254, 274, 280, 281, 283, 293, 295, 
 296-7, 298, 303, 306, 307, 308, 321, 
 323, 328, 345, 354, 355, 362, 363, 
 409, 414, 416, 436, 440, 458, 459, 
 460, 472 n, 484, 492, 495. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 50i 
 
 Ali II. (Zain ul-'Abidin), 302, 307, 
 
 321, 345, 458. 
 Ali b. Abbas, physician, 385. 
 Ali b. Abdullah b. Abbas, 306. 
 Ali b. Amajur, astronomer, 375. 
 Ali Mohammed, the Bab, 358. 
 Ali b. Musa Riza, Imam, 312, 345, 
 
 352, 412, 461 n, 464 «, 494. 
 Ali Naki, Imam, 346. 
 Ali Shah al-Bokhari, philosopher, 382. 
 Ali Sher Ameer, 383. 
 Ali b. Yunus, astronomer, see Ibn- 
 
 Yunus. 
 Almagest, the, 374. 
 Almeria, 392. 
 
 Almohades, the 129, 400 n. 
 Almoravides, the, 129, 400 n. 
 
 Alp Arslan, Sultan, 444. 
 
 Altai Husain Hali, poet, 497. 
 
 'Amalekites, the, lix, lx, lxi, 53. 
 
 Ameer Khusru, poet, 472, 497. 
 
 Amina, mother of the Prophet, 7, 9. 
 
 'Amir, tribe of, 71. 
 
 'Ammar b. Yasar, 27. 
 
 Ammonius Saccas, xlv, xlvi. 
 
 'Amr, the Ghassanide, 14. 
 
 *Amr b. al-'As (Amru), liii, 94 n, 297, 
 298, 497- 
 
 'Amr b. 'Auf, clan of, 49. 
 
 Anabaptists, 219. 
 
 Anas, servant of the Prophet, 119. 
 
 Anis, Indian poet, 497. 
 
 'Antar, the hero, 254. 
 
 Anushirvan the Just, xxxvii, lxiii n, 
 lxix, 8 n, 218, 326, 327, 367. 
 
 Anwari, poet, 368, 396. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 185. 
 
 Arabia, xxxi, lvi, lxiv, 53, 290. 
 
 Arcadius, Emperor, 226. 
 
 Ardeshir Babekan, xxxv, xxxvi. 
 
 Arians and Arianism, 1, 219, 220, 277, 
 
 327- 
 Aristotle, xxxiv, 181. 
 Arius, 1. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 141. 
 Arnold, Sir Thomas, 491. 
 Arphaxad, ancestor of Kahtan, lix. 
 Arslan al-Basasiri, 315 n. 
 Artaxerxes Mnemon, xxxiii. 
 Arthur, the Knight, 252. 
 Arvenius, patriarch, 377 n. 
 Arwa, daughter of Abd ul-Muttalib, 
 
 7 n. 
 Aryans, the, xxi, xxn, xxix. 
 Aryat, the Abyssinian general, lxiii n. 
 
 Asad, tribe of, lxvi. 
 
 Asad ullah Khan Ghalib, poet, 497. 
 
 Asha'ri and Asha'rism, 441-8, 452, 
 
 453. 462, 465, 467, 473, 474, 476, 
 
 486, 487. 
 Ashtaroth, goddess, xix, 187. 
 Asia Minor, 330. 
 Asoka, Emperor, m«. 
 Asshur, religion of, xxx, xxxi. 
 Assyria, xxxi. 
 Aswad, of the house of Abd ul-'Uzza, 
 
 6. 
 al-Aswad, 'Ayhala b. Ka'b, 11 5-6. 
 Asyr, border of Yemen, lvii. 
 Athenians, the, 223, 242, 248. 
 'Atika, daughter of Abd ul-Muttalib, 
 
 7». 
 Attila, 402. 
 Augustine, St., 225. 
 Augustus Caesar, 372. 
 Aurungzeb, Emperor, 315. 
 Aus, tribe of, 53, 58, 74, 205. 
 Autas, valley of, 98. 
 Avenpace, see Ibn-Baja. 
 Aven-Zoar, see Ibn-Zuhr. 
 Averroes, see Ibn-Rushd. 
 Avicenna, see Ibn-Sina. 
 Awwam, 7 n. 
 'Ayesha, wife of the Prophet, 117, 
 
 234, 250, 296-7. 
 'Ayhala b. Ka'b, see al-Aswad. 
 ayydm nl-mina, the, 4. 
 Ayyubides, the, 284, 445. 
 Azar, father of Abraham, xx n. 
 Azarbaijan, xix. 
 Azarika, the, 356-7. 
 al-'Azid, Fatimide Caliph, 487. 
 Aziz b'illah, Fatimide Caliph, 377. 
 azlam, the, 7. 
 Aztecs, the, 398. 
 
 'Azud ud-Dowla, the Buyide, 376, 
 386 n, 444. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baal, god, xix, 187. 
 
 Babek Khurrami, 327. 
 
 Babis and Babiism, 357-8, 482, 494. 
 
 Babylon, Babylonia and Babylonians, 
 
 xix, xxxi, xxxii, 248. 
 Bactria, xix, xxxiv. 
 Badakhshan, xx. 
 
 Badr, battle of, 61-63, 66 - 73. 279- 
 Badr ud-Din Chach, poet, 131. 
 Bagdad, 129, 130, 131, 362, 367-70, 
 
 37 1 . 397- 4° 2 «. 44°. 4 6 5. 4 68 . 4 8 7- 
 
502 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Bahadur Shah, last King of Delhi, 
 
 497- 
 Bahaism, 359 n. 
 
 Bahmani sovereigns of India, 315. 
 al-Bahrain, lvii, 336, 355. 
 Baibars, Sultan, 130. 
 Baki, suburb of Medina, 68 n. 
 Bakr, tribe of, 95. 
 Balazuri, historian, 389. 
 Balkh, xx. 
 Balkis, lxiii. 
 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, 342 n. 
 Barcelona, 392. 
 Barmekides, the, 312. 
 Barra, daughter of Abd ul-Muttalib, 
 
 7». 
 Basra, 11 n, 55, 296, 367, 432, 441, 
 
 485. 487- 
 al-Batani, mathematician, 375. 
 Batha, near Mecca, 27, 40. 
 Batinias, the, 344. 
 Bayezid Bistami, 461, 470. 
 Bayezid, founder of the Roushenia 
 
 order, 343-4, 47 1 - 
 Bazan, governor of Yemen, lxiii n, 
 
 116. 
 al-Beiruni, astronomer and historian, 
 
 380, 384, 390. 
 Beltis, goddess, xix. 
 Beyrout, 494. 
 
 Bhagavad Gita, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 455. 
 Bibi Khanum, Timur's Consort, 383. 
 Bibi Pakdaman, 461 n. 
 Bila.1, the Muezzin, 27. 
 Bir-Ma'una, 71. 
 
 Blagovestchenk, in Manchuria, 87 n 
 Boccaccio, 254. 
 Bokhara, 382, 484. 
 Bombay, 494. 
 
 Brahe, Tycho, mathematician, 376. 
 Brahmanism, xxvii, 160. 
 Brockelmann, C, 492, 493. 
 Buddhism, xxvi, xxvii. 
 Bundehesh, the, 191. 
 Buran, wife of Mamun, 255. 
 Burhan ud-Din, saint, 472. 
 Busra, near Damascus, 90. 
 Buyides, the, 284, 376, 444, 447-8. 
 
 Cadiz, 392. 
 
 Cairo, 129, 130, 131, 324, 337, 340, 
 362, 371, 372, 375, 376, 393 n, 440. 
 Calcutta, 494. 
 Caliphate, theory of, 122-8. 
 
 Calvin, 211 n, 330, 454. 
 
 Cansoya, 193 n. 
 
 Carthagena, 392. 
 
 Catherine, St., Monastery of, 84. 
 
 Catholics and Catholicism, 219, 454. 
 
 Caussin de Perceval, 8, 40, 49, 70 w, 
 72 n, 95 n. 
 
 Celts, the, xx. 
 
 Cerinthus, xlv. 
 
 Chalcedon, Council of, li. 
 
 Charlemagne, 211, 220. 
 
 Charles Martel, 398. 
 
 Chaucer, 254. 
 
 Chedorlaomer, lxi. 
 
 Chengiz, 368, 382. 
 
 China, 249, 381, 482. 
 
 Chinevad, the bridge in Hell, 191, 192. 
 
 Chiragh Ali, Moulvi, 230 n. 
 
 Chrysostom, St., 251. 
 
 Chyroseir the Paulician, 330, 336. 
 
 Clovis, Christian, 220. 
 
 Clytus, xxxiv. 
 
 Co-Cheou-King, Chinese mathe- 
 matician, 383. 
 
 Collyridians, the, 142. 
 
 Conrad of Montferrat, 342 n. 
 
 Constantine, xli, 1, lii, lxiii n, 66, 111 n, 
 212, 221, 226, 372. 
 
 Constantinople, liv, lxix, 132-3, 392, 
 398, 399- 
 
 Cordova, 129, 362, 371, 378-9, 392, 
 397. 470. 4 8 4- 
 
 Corea, 249. 
 
 Corsairs, the, 400. 
 
 Cromwell [Oliver], 81, 265 n. 
 
 Cybele, Egyptian god, xl. 
 
 Cyrenaica, 497. 
 
 Cyril, St., li, 255. 
 
 Cyrus, xxxi, xxxii. 
 
 D. 
 Dabir, Indian poet, 497. 
 Dahna, desert of, lviii. 
 Dakiki, poet, 380. 
 Damascus, 11 n, 365, 367, 397. 
 ad-Damiri, zoologist, 387. 
 Daniel, 190. 
 
 Darius Hystaspes, xxii, xxxii. 
 Ddr un-Nadwa, the, 3, 46. 
 David, 47, 81, 240. 
 Deccan, the, 470. 
 Demeter, god, xl, xli. 
 Demiurge, deity, xlvi, xlvii. 
 Demosthenes, 223. 
 Derenbourg, Hartwig, 492. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 503 
 
 Dhirar b. Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n. 
 
 Diocletian, xxxiii. 
 
 Dionysus, god, xl, xli. 
 
 Dioscorides, 385, 387. 
 
 Dives, xlii. 
 
 diyat, 6. 
 
 Docetes, the, xxxix, lxx. 
 
 Dominicans, the, 342. 
 
 Drogheda, 81, 265 n. 
 
 Duff, Gordon, Lad} r , 230. 
 
 Dumat ul-Jandal, lxvi, 77 n, 86, 298, 
 
 355- 
 Durthur, a Bedouin warrior, 67. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eber, ancestor of Kahtan, lix. 
 
 Ebionites, the, xxxix. 
 
 Eckhart, 456. 
 
 Edessa, 365. 
 
 Edom, lxi. 
 
 Edomites, the, lxi. 
 
 Egypt, lv, lx, lxix, 324, 438, 445, 487. 
 
 Elephant, year of the, 8. 
 
 Elijah, 44 n, 192 n. 
 
 England, 219, 256, 498. 
 
 Ephesus, 336. 
 
 , Council of, li. 
 
 Epiphanes, Antiochus, xxxv. 
 
 Essenians, the, xxxvii, 168, 224. 
 
 Etruscans, the, 223, 248. 
 
 Ezekiel, 190. 
 
 Ezra, 140, 151. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fakhr ud-Din 'Isa b. Ibrahim, Ameer 
 of Mosul, 288, 493. 
 
 Fakhr ud-Din al-Maraghi, philo- 
 sopher, 382. 
 
 Fakhr ud-Din Razi, Imam, 341 n, 
 
 492-3- 
 
 Fakhr ul-Mulk b. Nizam ul-Mulk, 466, 
 469. 
 
 fakirs, the, 471. 
 
 fand f'illah, doctrine of, 474. 
 
 al-Farabi, 425, 426, 433, 449, 474, 485. 
 
 Farid ud-Din 'Attar, 396, 457, 460, 
 467, 470, 477. 
 
 Faridun, xxx n. 
 
 Fath b. Nabeghah Khakani, philo- 
 sopher, 382. 
 
 Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, 14, 
 68 n, 122, 123, 126, 250, 393 n, 458. 
 
 Fatima, daughter of 'Amr Makhrumi, 
 
 7»- 
 
 Fatimides, the, 312, 314, 315, 324, 
 
 325. 326, 332. 336, 339. 375. 376. 
 
 Fazal, of Jurhum, 13. 
 Fazl, of Jurhum, 13. 
 Fazl b. 'Abbas, 117, 306. 
 Fazl al-Hadathi, 415. 
 Fez, 322, 375, 400. 
 Fidak, 53. 
 
 Fihr (also called Koreish), 2. 
 Firdousi, 380, 396, 464 n. 
 Fizara, tribe of, 84, 92. 
 Franciscans, the, 342. 
 Frisians, the, 220. 
 Fuzail, of Jurhum, 13. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galileo, 483. 
 
 Gautama, xxvi. 
 
 Geber the chemist, see Abu Musa 
 
 Jabir. 
 Ghailan Dimishki, 413. 
 Ghair-Mukallidism, 353. 
 Ghassanides, the, lxvi, lxix. 
 Ghatafan, tribe of, 73, 84, 92. 
 Ghazza (or Gaza), in Syria, 5, 90. 
 al-Ghazzali, Imam, 166, 167, 199, 
 
 448-469, 470, 473-4, 475, 476, 486. 
 Ghilan, xix. 
 
 Ghulat (or Ghallia), the, 343. 
 Giralda (tower of Seville), 379. 
 Goths, the, 401. 
 Granada, 392, 397. 
 Greece, xxxiii, xxxiv. 
 Gregory the Great, Pope, 372. 
 Grotius, 211 n. 
 
 H. 
 
 Habrar, a Koreishite, 85. 
 
 Hadrian, xxxvii, xlv, 260. 
 
 Hafiz, poet, 396, 457, 475. 
 
 Hafsa, wife of the Prophet, 234-5. 
 
 Hajjaj b. Yusuf, 310, 357. 
 
 Hakim bi Amr'illah, Fatimide, 339 «, 
 
 377- 
 Hakim b. Hashim al-Mokanna, 327. 
 hal, Sufi doctrine of, 475. 
 Hala, wife of Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n. 
 al-Hallaj, 141, 142, 469. 
 Hamadan, xix. 
 Hamadani, historian, 389. 
 Hamid b. Sulaiman, 351. 
 Hamza b. Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n, 25, 
 
 38, 62, 69, 70. 
 Hanifa, tribe of, lxviii, 85. 
 Hanzala, poet, 13. 
 Harith b. Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n. 
 Harith b. Abu-Zirar, 87. 
 
504 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Harith b. *Amr, 6, 9 n. 
 
 Harith b. Ka'b, Christian tribe, lxvi, 
 
 lxviii. 
 Harith b. Kais, 7. 
 Harun, Abbaside Caliph, 312, 314, 
 
 345. 439. 491- 
 Hasan, Imam, 128, 298-9, 300, 345. 
 Hasan al-'Askari, Imam, 123, 346. 
 Hasan al-Basri, 414, 460, 472 n. 
 Hasan b. Haitham, mathematician, 
 
 377- 424- 
 Hasan b. Ka'b, house of, 7. 
 Hasan b. Kahtaba, 309. 
 Hasan b. Mohammed of Alamut, 341. 
 Hasan Sabbah, 316, 339-41. 462, 469, 
 
 494- 
 Hashim, ancestor of the Prophet, 4, 5, 
 
 6, 10. 
 , Family of, 13, 37, 38, 39, 41, 
 
 128, 281-2, 292, 293, 366. 
 Hashim b. Mohammed al-Hanafiya, 
 
 3°7- 
 Hashimias, the, 343. 
 Hawazin, tribe of, lxvi, 97-8. 
 Hazramaut, lvii. 
 Heraclius, Emperor, lii, 90, 102. 
 Hibatullah, physician, 386 n. 
 hijdbat, office of, 4, 5. 
 Hijaz, lvii, lx, lxii, lxiii n, lxiv, lxviii, 
 
 497- 
 Hijr, in Yemen, lvii, lxi. 
 hilf ul-fuzM, 13. 
 Hillel, school of, 242. 
 Himyar b. Saba, lxiii. 
 Hind, wife of Abu Sufian, 70. 
 Hind Umm-Salma, wife of the 
 
 Prophet, 235. 
 Hira, mount, 15. 
 Hira, lxix, 216, 273, 362. 
 Hisham, uncle of Osman, 294. 
 Hisham b. Abd ul-Malik, Caliph, 321. 
 Hisham b. 'Amr, 39. 
 Hobal, pagan god, lxiv. 
 Holayl, Khuzaite chief, 2. 
 Honorius, Emperor, 226. 
 Horus Happocrates, xl, xli. 
 Hoshang, Persian king, xxi. 
 Hroswitha, nun, 378. 
 Hue, Abbe, 230. 
 Hudaibiya, peace of, 89, 95. 
 Huguenots, the, 220, 313, 326, 398 
 Hulaku, 313, 342. 
 hulAl, Sufi doctrine of, 474. 
 Humaida, wife of Faruk, 254-5. 
 Humayun, Emperor, 254 n. 
 
 Hunain, battle of, 98, 105. 
 
 Husain, Imam, 177, 275, 300-2, 313, 
 
 345- 
 Huss, 330. 
 
 Huzail, tribe of, 114 11. 
 huz&ri, Sufi doctrine, 475. 
 Huksos, the, lx. 
 Hypatia, liii, 255. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Ibad, the, lxvi. 
 
 'Ibadhia, the, 356, 357. 
 
 Ibn abi'l Hadid, 458 n. 
 
 Ibn 'Asakir, 443, 445, 446. 
 
 Ibn ul-Athir, 390, 391, 485. 
 
 Ibn-Baja, 397, 425, 428. 
 
 Ibn-Bakillani, 444 n. 
 
 Ibn-Bash-kuwal, 485. 
 
 Ibn-Batuta, 393. 
 
 Ibn-Duraid, poet, 395. 
 
 Ibn ul-Faridh, poet, 395. 
 
 Ibn-Gebrol, lvi. 
 
 Ibn-Hanbal, Imam, 352, 438, 445, 
 487. 
 
 Ibn-Haukal, 384. 
 
 Ibn-Hisham, biographer of the Pro- 
 phet, 8, 58. 
 
 Ibn-Khaldun, 123, 126-7, 172 «, 319 «, 
 33L 390, 39i. 4 8 5- 
 
 Ibn-Khallikan, 496. 
 
 Ibn un-Nabdi, mathematician, 377. 
 
 Ibn-Rabi'a b. Harith, 114. 
 
 Ibn-Rushd, 289, 379, 386, 397, 399, 
 425, 429-31, 476, 478, 483. 
 
 Ibn-Sa'ud of Najd, 126. 
 
 Ibn-Shathir, mathematician, 383. 
 
 Ibn-Sina, 349, 382, 385, 386-7, 425, 
 426-8, 431, 433, 449, 47 6 . 4 86 - 
 
 Ibn ut-Tiktaka, historian, 288, 
 
 492-3- 
 Ibn-Tufail, 425, 429, 456, 485. 
 Ibn-Tumart, 445. 
 Ibn ul-Wardi, geographer, 384. 
 Ibn-Yunus, astronomer, 377, 482, 
 
 484. 
 Ibn-Zuhr, physician, 386. 
 Ibrahim b. Abdullah, brother of 
 
 an-Nafs uz-Zakiya, 322. 
 Ibrahim b. Adham, 461, 472 n. 
 Ibrahim b. Mohammed b. Ali, 308, 
 
 309- 
 Ibrahim b. Sayyar an-Nazzam, 415, 
 
 419. 
 Idris, founder of the Idriside Dynasty, 
 
 322, 497. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 505 
 
 Idrisides, the, 372, 375, 422. 
 
 al-Idrisi, geographer, 384. 
 
 ikhtidr, doctrine of, 411. 
 
 Ikhwan us-Safa, the, 432-4, 466. 
 
 'Ikrama b. Abu Jahl, 86, 95. 
 
 'Imad ud-Din Zangi, 477. 
 
 Imamate, theory of, 122-8. 
 
 Imam ul-Haramain, 461, 464. 
 
 Incas, the, 398. 
 
 India, xxii, xxxiv, 470. 
 
 'Irak, lviii, lx, lxii, 445, 470. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 67. 
 
 'Isa, nephew of the Caliph Mansur, 
 
 322. 
 Ishak b. as-Sabbah, father of al-Kindi, 
 
 425- 
 Ishakias, the, 343. 
 Isis, Egyptian god, xl, xli, xlii, xliii. 
 Isma'il, Shah of Persia, 132, 314, 494. 
 Isma'il b. Ja'far as-Sadik, 323. 
 Ismailias and Ismailism, xlviii, 323, 
 
 335. 336, 344- 
 Isna-'Ashariaism, 314, 344, 346. 
 Israelites, the, xxxii, xxxvii, 222, 259. 
 al-Istakhri, geographer, 384. 
 Ivan the Terrible, 339 n. 
 
 J- 
 Jabala, the Ghassanide, 279. 
 Jabir b. Afiah, mathematician, 379. 
 jabr, doctrine of, 41 1-2, 453. 
 Jabria, the, 412-3. 
 Jacob, bishop of Edessa, li. 
 Jacobites, the, lxvi. 
 Jadis, tribe of, lix. 
 
 Ja'far b. Abu Talib, 14, 29, 90, 95 n. 
 Ja'far b. al-Muktafi, 376. 
 Ja'far al-Musaddak, Imam, 323. 
 Ja'far as-Sadik, Imam, 267, 309, 322, 
 
 323. 345. 35L 364. 365, 366, 411, 
 
 436, 437- 46°. 4 8 4- 
 al-Jahiz, Abu Osman 'Amr, 484. 
 Jahm b. Safwan, 412. 
 Jahmia, the, 413. 
 Jainism, xxvi. 
 Jalal ud-Din Rumi, 1 79, 396, 425, 427, 
 
 457- 472. 477. 486. 
 Jamil ud-Din, Sheikh, 482, 483. 
 Jami, poet, 383. 
 Jarudias, the, 322. 
 Java, 250 n. 
 Jazima, tribe of, 97. 
 Jeddah, lvii, 
 
 Jeremiah, patriarch, 377 n. 
 Jerusalem, xlv, li, 44 n, 220, 465, 492. 
 
 Jesus, xxxvi, xxxviii, xl, xlv, xlvi. 
 
 xlvii, xlix, lxx, 16, 27, 31, 44 n, 46, 
 
 64, in, 140, 141, 142, 151, 162, 168, 
 
 173. 179. 192, 193-4. 195. 196, 200, 
 
 207-8, 213, 225, 238, 239, 240, 243, 
 
 252, 259, 459. 
 Jews, the, xxxvii, lvi, 219, 227, 271, 
 
 276, 287. 
 Jews of Medina, 53, 57-60, 72-82. 
 Jodham, tribe of, lxvi. 
 Johannes Damascenus, 365. 
 John the Baptist, xliii, 471. 
 John, King of England, 339 n. 
 Joshua, in n. 
 Jouhar, general of the Caliph al- 
 
 Mu'izz, 324. 
 Judaea, xxxi. 
 Julian, Emperor, lii n. 
 Julius Caesar, 381. 
 Junaid, Sheikh, 369, 460, 461, 470, 
 
 472 n. 
 Jurhumites, the, lx, lxi, lxii, 2, 13. 
 Justinian, Emperor, liii, liv, 220, 224, 
 
 226. 
 Juwairiya, wife of the Prophet, 87, 
 
 236-7. 
 
 K. 
 Kaaba, lxiv, lxvii, lxviii, 2, 3, 14, 36, 
 
 38, 88, 107, 132, 139, 167. 
 Ka'b b. Ashraf, 73. 
 Ka'b b. Zuhair, poet, 106-7. 
 Kadesia, battle of, 217, 276, 308. 
 Kadir b'illah, Caliph, 324, 325. 
 Kadiria order of Sufis, 472. 
 Kahtan, lix, lxii. 
 
 , children of, lxi. 
 
 Kai-Kaus, xxx. 
 
 Kaim bi Amr'illah, Caliph, 315 n. 
 
 Kainuka', tribe of, 53, 59, 74-76, 80. 
 
 Kairowan, 375. 
 
 Kaisanias, the, 343. 
 
 Kais-'Aylan, tribe of, lxvi, 10. 
 
 Kaithan b. 'Abbas, 306. 
 
 Kaiumurs, ancient king of Persia, xxi. 
 
 Kalb, Christian tribe, lxvi. 86. 
 
 al-Kamus, fortress of, 92, 93. 
 
 Kanguedez (in Khorasan), 193 n. 
 
 Karaites, the, 222. 
 
 kardmat, 470. 
 
 Karmath and Karmathites, 334, 336. 
 
 Kazwan (in Yemen), 5. 
 
 Kazwini, geographer, 384. 
 
 Kepler, astronomer, 383. 
 
 Kerbela, 301. 
 
506 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Khadijah, wife of the Prophet, 12, 14, 
 
 15, 18, 20, 39, 233. 
 Khaibar, lxvi, 53, 73, 77, 86, 92-3, 
 
 115. 
 
 khaimmeh, office of, 6. 
 
 Khakani, poet, 396, 457. 
 
 Khalid b. Abd ul-Malik, astronomer, 
 
 374- 
 Khalid b. Walid, 6, 69, 94 n, 97, 216, 
 
 237. 273- 
 Khalil b. Ahmad, grammarian, 485. 
 Khalil b. Ishak, jurist, 126 n. 
 khankahs, the, 468. 
 Khawarij and Khawarijism, 314, 
 
 354-5- 
 
 khazina, office of, 6. 
 
 Khazraj, tribe of, 53, 58, 74, 205. 
 
 Khitabias, the, 343. 
 
 Khizr, the Prophet, 123. 
 
 Khobaib b. 'Adi, 27 n. 
 
 Khoda-Bendah, Sultan, 382. 
 
 Khojas of India, 342. 
 
 Khoraiba, 297. 
 
 Khorasan, 123, 308, 309, 344. 
 
 Khui, in Persia, 340. 
 
 Khumm, near Mecca, 293. 
 
 Khusru Parviz, lxiii n, 90. 
 
 Khuza'a, tribe of, 2, 3 n, 95. 
 
 Kinana, tribe of, lxvi, 10, 68. 
 
 Kinana the Jew, 93 n. 
 
 Kindah, tribes of, lxvi, no, 228. 
 
 al-Kindi, philosopher, 374, 425, 484. 
 
 Koba, near Medina, 48. 
 
 Kodayd, lxvii n. 
 
 al-Kohi, astronomer, 376. 
 
 Koreish, tribe of, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 
 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 34, 36-7, 
 39. 41. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 53. 57. 60, 
 62, 69, 70, 73, 78, 79, 88, 89, 94, 95, 
 no, 127, 128, 228. 
 
 Kosayy, founder of Mecca, 2-4. 
 
 Kubilai, Mongol Emperor, 382. 
 
 Kufa, 128, 296, 298, 300, 309, 310, 
 
 355. 367. 437- 
 Kuhlan b. Saba, lxiii. 
 al-Kumi, geographer, 384. 
 Kuraizha, Jewish tribe, lxvi, 53, 59, 
 
 72, 76, 78, 79-82, 92. 
 Kurrat ul-'Ayn, Babi heroine, 358. 
 al-Kushairi, 463. 
 Kutb ud-Din, Emperor of Delhi, 264. 
 
 Lactantius, St., 87. 
 Laith, tribe of, 114 n. 
 
 al-Lat, goddess, lxvi, 34, 36, 101. 
 
 Lazarus, xlii. 
 
 Libyan Oases, the, 497. 
 
 Lihyan, tribe of, 83. 
 
 liwd, office of, 3, 4, 6. 
 
 Lollards, the, 330. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 342. 
 
 Luther [Martin], 330, 344, 454. 
 
 Lydians, the, 223. 
 
 M. 
 Ma'add b. 'Adnan, 2. 
 Ma'bad al-Juhani, 413. 
 Madain (Ctesiphon), lxix, 217. 
 Ma'di Karib b. Saif Zu'l Yezen, 
 
 lxiii n. 
 Magdeburg, sack of, 220. 
 Mahavira, founder of Jainism, xxvi. 
 Mahdi, the, 123-4. 
 al-Mahdi, Caliph, 327, 368. 
 Mahdieh, 324, 338. 
 Mahmud of Ghazni, 264, 380, 387. 
 Mahmud, Ottoman Sultan, 498. 
 Mahra, district of, lvii. 
 Maimonides, Ivi. 
 
 Maimuna, wife of the Prophet, 237. 
 Majna, near Mecca, 10. 
 al-Makin, historian, 391. 
 Makkari, historian, 390. 
 Makrizi, historian, 325, 326 n, 384, 
 
 390. 39i. 
 Malaga, 392, 397. 
 Malek al-Ashtar, 297, 298, 299. 
 Malik b. Anas, Imam, 304 n, 352, 436, 
 
 437- 
 Malik Shah the Seljuk, 381, 465. 
 Malik Zahir, 107 n. 
 Mameluke Sultans, 131, 132, 445. 
 al-Mamun, Caliph, 229, 274, 284, 286, 
 
 312, 316, 370, 373, 374, 384, 422, 
 
 439. 444- 
 Manat, goddess, lxvi, 34, 36, 101. 
 Mani, xlviii, xlix, 329, 332, 335 n. 
 Manicheism, lxx, 328, 332. 
 Mansur, Caliph, 129, 284, 308, 314, 
 
 322, 345. 367. 37°. 422. 
 al-Mansur, the chancellor in Spain, 
 
 448. 
 Mansur, see al-Hallaj . 
 Mansurieh, 368. 
 
 Manu, Code of, xxviii, xxix, xxxiii. 
 Maragha, 375. 
 Marcionites, the, xxxix, xlvi, xlvii, 
 
 lxx, 343. 
 Mariolatry, cult of, 251, 252, 329. 
 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 507 
 
 Marr uz-Zuhran, near Mecca, 10. 
 
 Ma'ruf Karkhi, 461. 
 
 Mary the Copt, wife of the Prophet, 
 235- 
 
 Mary the Virgin, xliii, 142, 143. 
 
 Marzbana, wife of Shahr, 116. 
 
 Mashallah, astronomer, 373. 
 
 Maslamah, invader of Constantinople, 
 399- 
 
 Mas'udi, historian, 384, 390, 485. 
 
 Maurice, Emperor, liv. 
 
 Mauritania, 322. 
 
 al-Mawardi, politician, 485. 
 
 Maxentius, 66 n. 
 
 Maximilla, prophetess, xlvii, 
 
 Mazdak and Mazdakism, xxxvi, 327. 
 
 Mecca, lvii, lviii, lxiv, Ixvi, 1, 2, 3-4, 5, 
 8, 39. 4°. 41. 42, 46, 49. 52, 85, 94, 
 95-7, 113, 132, 167, 213, 282, 303, 
 360, 498. 
 
 Media, xxx. 
 
 Medina, lvii, 52-3, 56, 60, 61, 67, 68, 
 69 n, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 78, 79, 87, 
 101, 109, 123, 132, 303, 360, 365, 
 410, 436, 497, 498. See also 
 Yathrib. 
 
 Meghass b. 'Amr, the Jurhumite 
 chief, lxiv. 
 
 Merv, 309. 
 
 Merwan I., Caliph, 128. 
 
 Merwan II., 128, 308, 309, 355, 356. 
 
 Merwan b. Hisham, Osman's cousin, 
 294. 
 
 Meshed, 491. 
 
 Mesopotamia, lxii, 115, 438. 
 
 Messiah, the, 124, 192, 193, 195, 205. 
 
 Miknasa, 375. 
 
 Milman [H. H.], 22, 193. 
 
 Milvian Bridge, 66. 
 
 Mina, suburb of Mecca, 4. 
 
 Mirkhond, historian, 390. 
 
 mizan, the, 474. 
 
 Mohammed the Prophet ; is called 
 al-amin, 1, 14; birth of, 8; loses 
 his parents, 9 ; taken charge of by 
 Abu Talib, 10 ; journeys to Syria, 
 11 ; marries Khadija, 12 ; joins 
 the hilf ul-fuzAl, 1 3 ; settles a dis- 
 pute at the reconstruction of the 
 Kaaba, 14 ; takes charge of 'Ali, 
 14 ; gives himself up to solitude 
 and meditation, 15-16 ; receives 
 his first revelation, 17-18 ; com- 
 mencement of his ministry, 19-20 ; 
 his first converts, 20-21 ; his 
 
 sincerity, 21-2 ; he is firm in his 
 teaching, 22-3 ; is persecuted by 
 the Koreish along with his dis- 
 ciples, 24-7 ; is tempted by the 
 Koreish, 27, 30 ; moral evidences 
 of his mission, 31-2 ; his appeal to 
 reason, 33 ; is tempted to com- 
 promise with the Koreish, 34-6 ; 
 Koreishite league against him, 
 37-9 ; visits Tayef, 41-2 ; takes 
 the pledge of 'Akaba, 42-3, 45 ; his 
 vision of the Ascension, 44 ; plot of 
 his assassination by the Koreish, 
 46-7 ; his flight to Medina, 47-9 ; 
 his character, 51-2, 117-121 ; his 
 teachings at Medina, 54-5 ; his 
 treatment of the Jews, 57-60, 
 72-82 ; calumnies against him, 65 ; 
 clemency of his nature, 85-7 ; his 
 messages to Heraclius and Parviz, 
 90-91 ; conquers Mecca, 95-7 ; suc- 
 cess of his mission, 109-112; his 
 last days and death, n 3-7; his 
 marriages examined, 232-8. 
 
 Mohammed b. Abdullah, an-Nafs 
 uz-Zakiya, 322. 
 
 Mohammed b. Abu Bakr, 295, 492. 
 
 Mohammed Abu'l Barakat, Sherif of 
 Mecca, 132. 
 
 Mohammed b. Ali b. Abdullah, 307, 
 308, 309. 
 
 Mohammed b. Ali as-Sennusi, 497. 
 
 Mohammed al-Bakir, Imam, 321, 345, 
 366. 
 
 Mohammed al-Habib, Imam, 323. 
 
 Mohammed b. al-Hanafiyah, 307. 
 
 Mohammed b. 'Isa, astronomer, 375. 
 
 Mohammed J una Khan Tughlak, 131. 
 
 Mohammed al-Mahdi, Imam, 123, 
 346. 
 
 Mohammed al-Mahdi, son of as- 
 Sennusi. 497. 
 
 Mohammed al-Maktum, 323. 
 
 Mohammed b. Mubashshir, philo- 
 sopher, 382. 
 
 Mohammed b. Musa al-Khwarazmi, 
 mathematician, 374. 
 
 Mohammed Shah Kajar, 357. 
 
 Mohammed ash-Shaibani, Imam, 186, 
 
 437- 
 
 Mohammed Taki, Imam, 346. 
 
 Mohyi ud-Din al-Maghribi, philo- 
 sopher, 382. 
 
 Moloch, god, xix, 187. 
 
 Mongols, the, 130, 402 n, 464. 
 

 5o8 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Monophysites, the, li. 
 
 Monoth elites, the, lii. 
 
 Montanus, xlvii, lv. 
 
 Montanists, the, xlvii, 327. 
 
 Morocco, 129. 
 
 Mosailima, the false prophet, 116. 
 
 Moses, 104, in, 140, 222, 237, 240. 
 
 Moulai Tayyib order, the, 497. 
 
 Moulaviya order of dervishes, 472. 
 
 Mu'ammar b. 'Abbad as-Sulami, 419, 
 420. 
 
 Mu'awiyah, 105, 107, 127-8, 267, 
 280 n, 283, 294, 295, 297, 298, 
 299-300, 313, 314, 355, 414, 430, 
 
 497- 
 Mu'az b. Jabal, 115, 183. 
 Mubashshar b. Ahmad, philosopher, 
 
 382. 
 Mufazzal of Jurhum, 13. 
 Mughira, nephew of Orwa of Tayef, 
 
 105. 
 Mu'in ud-Din Chishti, 471. 
 Muir, Sir William, 40, 43, 72 n. 
 al-Mu'izz li Din'illah, founder of 
 
 Cairo, 324, 339, 372. 
 Mu'izz ud-Dowla Deilemite, 312-3. 
 mujdhada, Sufi doctrine, 475. 
 mukdshafa, Sufi doctrine, 475. 
 Mukawwim b. Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n. 
 Muktadi, Caliph, 129. 
 Munis, Indian poet, 497. 
 Muntasir, Caliph, 312, 319 n. 
 Munzirs, dynasty of, 216. 
 Murcia, in Spain, 392. 
 murid, a Sufi term, 471. 
 murshid, a Sufi term, 471. 
 Musa al-Kazim, Imam, 323, 345, 369, 
 
 494- 
 Musa b. Shakir, sons of, 374. 
 Muselo, in Algeria, 497. 
 Mushabbihas, the, 414. 
 mushdhada, Sufi doctrine, 475. 
 Muslimah al-Maghribi, physicist, 379. 
 Mustaghanem, in Algeria, 497. 
 Mustalik, tribe of, 87, 236-7. 
 Mustaniid, Caliph, 434, 450. 
 Mustansarieh, 370. 
 Mustansir b'illah, Fatimide Caliph, 
 
 34i. 440- 
 Mustansir b'illah, Abbaside Caliph, 
 
 37°- 
 Musta'sim b'illah, Caliph, 130, 313, 
 
 495- 
 Mustazhir, Caliph, 129. 
 Mustazii, Caliph, 487. 
 
 Muta, battle of, 95, 115, 214. 
 Mu'tamid, Caliph, 123. 
 Mutanabbi, poet, 395. 
 Mu'tasim b'illah, Caliph, 312, 327, 
 
 346, 422, 439. 
 Mutawakkil, Caliph, 123, 230, 275, 
 
 312, 319 n, 346, 435, 439-4°- 
 al-Mutawakkil 'ala-Allah, the last 
 
 Abbaside Caliph in Egypt, 132. 
 Mu'tazid b'illah, Saffah II., 323, 336, 
 
 370. 44°- 
 Mu'tazila and Mu'tazilaism, 414-5, 
 
 416-8, 421, 422, 424, 441, 444, 
 
 445-6, 447-8, 452, 453, 454, 496. 
 Muti', Caliph, 313. 
 Muttalib, brother of Hashim, 5. 
 
 , family of, 13, 37, 38, 39. 
 
 Muwaffak ud-Din, Imam, 494. 
 Muwaid ud-Din al-Orezi, philosopher, 
 
 382. 
 Mythra, the sun-god, xxxiii, xli, xlii. 
 
 N. 
 Nadir Shah, 401. 
 
 nadwa (council-hall at Mecca), 3, 4, 6. 
 Nahrwan, 354, 355. 
 an-Nairezi, astronomer, 375. 
 Naishapur, 464, 468. 
 Najd, lvii, lviii, lxii, 2, 102, 125. 
 Najjaria, the, 413. 
 Najran, Christians of, lxvi, 271, 273. 
 Nakhla near Mecca, lxvi, 10. 
 Nakshbandia order of Sufis, 472. 
 Nar, tribe of, 65. 
 Narses, lv. 
 
 nasi (shifting of months), 50. 
 Nasir ud-Din Tusi, 377, 382. 
 Naufal b. Abd(u) Manaf, 5 n, 6, 9 n. 
 Nazir, Jewish tribe, lxvi, 53, 59, 72, 
 
 73. 74- 76-7. 80, 92. 
 Nazr b. Harith, 62 «. 
 Nebuchadnezzar, xxxi, xxxii, lxiv. 
 Negus, 29. 
 Nehavend, 217. 
 Nejdat-Azarika, the, 356. 
 Neo-Platonism, 456. 
 Nestorius, li. 
 Nestorians, the, li, lv, lxvi, 219, 365, 
 
 366. 
 Nice, Council of, xl, 1, 141, 142. 
 Nikophoros, Byzantine Emperor, 491. 
 Nineveh, xxx n, xxxi. 
 Nisibis, 365. 
 
 niyyat (" intention "), 475. 
 Nizami, poet, 396, 457. 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 509 
 
 Nizamieh, the, 370. 
 
 Nizam ud-Din Awliya, 471-2. 
 
 Nizam ul-Mulk, 340, 370, 381, 444, 
 
 464, 465, 494. 
 Nizar, Fatimide Caliph, 462. 
 Noah, 25. 
 Normans, the, 287. 
 Noubakht, astronomer, 369. 
 Nu'manias, the, 343. 
 Nusairis, the, 343. 
 Nutayla, wife of 'Abd ul-Muttalib, 
 
 7 n. 
 Nuvvairi, historian, 390. 
 
 O. 
 
 Obaidah, 62. 
 
 Obaidullah b. Abbas, 306. 
 
 Obaidullah al-Mahdi, 323, 324, 325, 
 332 n, 336. 
 
 Obaidullah b. Ziyad, 301, 302. 
 
 Ohod, battle of, 68-71, 73, 279. 
 
 Okba b. Abu Mu'ait, 65. 
 
 Oman, 355, 356, 357. 
 
 Omar b. Abdul Aziz, Caliph, 303, 
 458 n. 
 
 Omar b. Khaldun, physicist, 379. 
 
 Omar b. al-Khattab, Caliph, 6, 37-8, 
 49, 69, 115 n, 122, 127, 216, 220, 
 234, 274, 275 n, 278, 279, 280, 281, 
 294. 321, 323. 355. 492, 495- 
 
 Omar Khayyam, 340, 377, 381, 494. 
 
 Omayma, daughter of Abd ul-Mut- 
 talib, 7 «. 
 
 Omeyya b. Khalaf, 27. 
 
 Omeyyades, lxv n, 41, 128, 281-3, 295, 
 302-5, 307, 308, 314, 316, 326, 
 363-4. 365. 366, 371, 412, 436. 
 
 Ophites, the, xlvii. 
 
 Origen, xlvi, xlix. 
 
 Ormuzd, god, xxx, xxxiii, 161, 191, 
 192. 
 
 Orphics, the, xliii. 
 
 'Orwa, the Tayefite chief, 104-5. 
 
 Osama, poet, 485. 
 
 Osama b. Zaid, 115, 264. 
 
 Oscheder Bami, prophet, 192 n. 
 
 Oschedermah, prophet, 192 n. 
 
 Osiris, Egyptian god, xl, 189. 
 
 Osman b. 'Affan, Caliph, 21, 67, 88 n, 
 103, 122, 127, 234, 274, 282-3, 293, 
 294-6, 297, 323, 363, 366, 492, 496. 
 
 Osman b. Huwairith, 13, 14. 
 
 Osman b. Mahzun, 67 n. 
 
 Osman b. Talha, 5. 
 
 Otba b. Rabi'a, 27-8, 46. 
 
 Paine, Tom, 440. 
 
 Parmenio, xxxiv. 
 
 Parthians, the, xxxv, lv. 
 
 Patripassians, the, xxxix. 
 
 Paul, St., xxxviii, xxxix, 239. 
 
 Paul, Pope, 339 «. 
 
 Paulicians, the, 220, 330, 332. 
 
 , Manichaean, 327, 329. 
 
 Pelasgians, the, xx, 223, 277. 
 
 Perishek Khanum, secretary to Sul- 
 tan Mustafa, 393 n. 
 
 Persepolis, xxxiv. 
 
 Persia, xxix, xxxiv, liv, lxiii n, 227, 
 232, 470. 
 
 Peter, St., xxxix. 
 
 Petrarch, 254. 
 
 Philotas, xxxiv. 
 
 Pilate, lxx. 
 
 Plato, in, 181. 
 
 Praxeus, xlvii. 
 
 Presbyterians, the, 219, 
 
 Priscilla, prophetess, xlvii. 
 
 Pythagoreans, the, xliii. 
 
 R. 
 rabdts, the, 468. 
 Rabi'a al-Basri, 229, 461. 
 Rabi'a b. Nizar, family of, lxvi. 
 Rabi'a b. Omeyya b. Khalaf, 114 H. 
 Raihana, wife of the Prophet, 82. 
 Ramdha, hill of, 27. 
 Renan, M., 482, 484. 
 Richard, King of England, 339 ». 
 
 342 n. 
 rifdda, a kind of poor-tax, 3, 4, 5, 6, 
 
 9 n. 
 Rigaud, Archbishop, 252. 
 Roderick the Goth, 287. 
 Rodha, in Najd, lxvii n. 
 Roland, the Knight, 252. 
 Rome, sack of, 220, 303. 
 Roushan Bayezid, see Bayezid. 
 Roushenias, the, 343. 
 Rukaiya, daughter of the Prophet, 67. 
 Rustam, family of, 375. 
 
 S. 
 Sabellians, the, xlix. 
 Sa'd, tribe of, 9. 
 Sa'd b. AbiWakkas, 21. 
 Sa'd b. Mu'az, 78, 79-80, 81. 
 Sa'd b. 'Ubada, 78. 
 Sadducees, the, xxxvii. 
 Sa'di, poet, 106 w, 396, 457, 491. 495- 
 
5io 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Sadra, Mulla, 349, 451. 
 
 Sadr ud-Din, Pir, 343. 
 
 Safa, hill of, 23, 96. 
 
 Safawis, the, 400, 451. 
 
 Saffah, Abbaside Caliph, 128-9, 308, 
 
 309, 310-11, 315, 367. 
 Safi ud-Din, ancestor of the Safawis, 
 
 494- 
 Safiya, daughter of Abd al-Muttalib, 
 
 7 n. 
 Safiya, wife of the Prophet, 237. 
 Safra, 65. 
 
 Safwan, brother of Abu Sufian, 7. 
 Safwan b. Omeyya, 95. 
 Saif b. Zu'l Yezen, 10. 
 Saif ud-Dowla, prince of Aleppo, 395, 
 
 426. 
 sajj&danashins, the, 471. 
 Sakina, daughter of Imam Husain, 
 
 255- 
 Sakran, former husband of Sauda, 
 
 233- 
 Sakya-Muni (Buddha), in. 
 Saladin, 221, 314, 381, 448, 477, 487. 
 Salehias, the, 322-3. 
 Salerno, 362, 397. 
 Salibah, in Spain, 392. 
 Salma, wife of Hashim, 5. 
 Salman the Persian, 186 n, 308. 
 Samanides, the, 284, 376. 
 Samarcand, 382, 383, 484. 
 Samarra, 123. 
 Samiya, wife of Yasar, 27. 
 Samuel, the prophet, 16, 87. 
 San'a, in Yemen, 7, 8, 9, 116. 
 Sanai, Persian poet, 40, 47 n, 199, 
 
 313 n, 396, 43i. 457. 467. 477- 486. 
 Sanjar, Sultan, 466. 
 Sardinia, 324. 
 Sarraj, see Abu Nasr. 
 Sassanides, the, xxxv, xxxvi, 326. 
 Sauda, wife of the Prophet, 233. 
 Sauda, Indian poet, 396 n. 
 Saxons, the, 220. 
 scholasticism, 422, 424. 
 Scotland, 219. 
 Scotus, Johannes, 456. 
 Sedillot, historian, 244. 
 Segelmessa, 375. 
 Seir, mount, lxi. 
 Seleucida?, xxxv. 
 Selim Chishti, sheikh, 472 n. 
 Selim I., Sultan, 132, 133, 313 n, 401. 
 Seljukides, the, 284, 381, 465. 
 Send b. Ali, astronomer, 374. 
 
 Sennacherib, 8. 
 
 Sennusiya order, the, 497. 
 
 Serapis, god, xl, xlii. 
 
 Servetus, 211 n. 
 
 Seville, 392, 484. 
 
 Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, 339 n. 
 
 Shaddad, King, lx, lxiii n, lxix. 
 
 Shafei, Imam, 352, 437. 
 
 Shah Kabir Dervish, 472. 
 
 Shahr b. Bazan, governor of Yemen, 
 
 116. 
 Shah Rukh Mirza, Timur's son, 383. 
 Shammaites, the, 139, 242. 
 Shams ud-Dowla, Ameer of Hama- 
 
 dan, 387. 
 Sharif al-Murtaza, 485. 
 Shayba b. Hashim, see Abd ul- 
 
 Muttalib. 
 Sheikha Shuhda, 255. 
 Shiahism, 329. 
 Shibli, Sheikh, 369. 
 Shihab ud-Din Suhrwardi, 434. 
 Sicily, 324. 
 
 Siculus, Diodorus, lxi. 
 Siddhanta, the, 374. 
 sifdrat, office of, 6. 
 Sifatias, the, 413, 418. 
 Siffin, battle of, 297, 354. 
 sihdya, office of, 4, 5, 6, 9 n. 
 Silman, in Irak, 5 n. 
 Sisebut, the Visigoth, lvi. 
 Socinus of Sienna, 1 n. 
 Solon, 74 n. 
 
 Solyman the Magnificent, 133, 401. 
 Sophia, xlvii. 
 
 Sophronius, patriarch, 220. 
 Sosiosch, prophet, 123, 192 n. 
 Soter, Ptolemy, xl. 
 Spain, 1, 219, 286, 287, 292, 320, 375, 
 
 378, 392, 398, 400, 422, 448. 
 Spartans, the, 223. 
 Stagyrite, the, 434. 
 Sufana, daughter of Hatim, 106 n. 
 Sufaruz Ziadia, the, 356. 
 Suhaili, poet, 383. 
 Sulaim, tribe of, 71, 73. 
 Sulaiman b. Jaris, 322. 
 Sulaimanias, the, 322-3. 
 Surra-man-raa, 346. 
 Surush, the angel, xxxix. 
 Susiana, xxx. 
 Suwailim the Jew, 103 n. 
 Suwayka, near Medina, 67 n. 
 Suzeni, poet, 396. 
 Syed Ahmad Khan, 44 n. 
 
 
GENERAL INDEX 
 
 5ii 
 
 Sylvanus, Constantine, 329. 
 Sylvester II., Pope, 371 n. 
 Syria, lx, 5, II, 15, 77 n, 102, 115, 
 128, 324, 438, 445. 
 
 «7. 
 
 Tabari, historian, 42, 96, 390-1. 
 
 Tabaristan, 322. 
 
 Tabuk, expedition of, 104. 
 
 Tacitus, 225. 
 
 tafwiz, doctrine of, 411-2, 413, 453. 
 
 Taghlibites, the, lxvi. 
 
 Tahart, 375. 
 
 Taherides of Khorasan, 375. 
 
 Taj ud-Din, Kazi of Cairo, 130. 
 
 takeyya, practice of, 335-6. 
 
 Talha, companion of the Prophet, 
 
 296. 
 Talha, standard bearer of the Koreish, 
 
 69 n. 
 Talmud, the, 222. 
 Tantarani, poet, 395. 
 tashbih, doctrine of, 412. 
 Tasso, 254. 
 
 tauba, doctrine of, 475. 
 tauhid, doctrine of, 417, 423. 
 tawdf (circumambulation of the 
 
 Kaaba), 3. 
 Tay, tribe of, lxvi, Ixviii, 106. 
 Tayef, lxvi, 10, 41, 98, 104. 
 Taym, family of, 13. 
 Taym b. Murra, 6. 
 Teraphim, the, 140, 151. 
 Tertullian, St., xxix, 251. 
 Thakif, tribe of, 41, 97-8, 99. i°5 «• 
 Thamud, tribe of, lix, lx, lxx, 25. 
 Thaur, mount, 47. 
 Theodora, liii, 330 n. 
 Thompson, Joseph, African traveller, 
 
 266 n. 
 Thracians, the, 223. 
 Thumama b. Uthal, 85. 
 Tihama, lvii, lxii, 68. 
 Timur, 383. 
 Titus, xxx vii. 
 Tlemcen, 375. 
 Toledo, 392. 
 
 Tours, in France, 69, 292. 
 Treitheism, doctrine of, xlix-1. 
 Tughlakabad, 131. 
 Tughril, Sultan, 315 n, 444. 
 Tulaiha b. Khuwailid, 116. 
 Turanians, the, xix, xxx. 
 Tus, 464, 469. 
 Tyre, sack of, xxxiv. 
 
 U. 
 
 'Ukaz, fair of, lviii, 10-11, 12. 
 Ulugh Beg, Shah Rukh's son, 383. 
 Umm ul-Fazl, Mamun's sister, 255, 
 
 312, 345. 
 Umm ul-Habib, Mamun's daughter, 
 
 255. 346. 
 Umm-Habiba, wife of the Prophet, 
 
 235- 
 Umm-Hakim, daughter of Abd ul- 
 
 Muttalib, 7 «. 
 Umm ul-Jamil, wife of Abu Lahab, 
 
 24- 
 Uns, Indian poet, 497. 
 'Unsuri, poet, 380. 
 Upanishads, the, xxii, xxiii. 
 Ur, in Chaldam, xx, 
 Usulis, the, 346-9. 
 Uzbegs, the, 400, 402. 
 al-'Uzza, goddess, lxvi, 34, 36, 101. 
 
 Valentinian, Emperor, 226. 
 Valentinians, the, xlvii, lxx, 343. 
 Vandals, the, 401. 
 Vasudeva- Krishna, xxiv, xxv. 
 Vendidad, the, 191. 
 
 W. 
 Wahabis and Wahabism, 125-6, 353, 
 
 356, 357- 
 Wahb, grandfather of the Prophet, 7. 
 Wahraz, Marzban of Yemen, Ixiii n. 
 wajd, a Sufi term, 476. 
 Walid, Caliph, 128, 319 n. 
 Walid, Osman's uterine brother, 295. 
 waits, the, 470. 
 
 Waraka b. Naufal, 15 n, 18, 19. 
 Wasil b. 'Ata al-Ghazzal, 414-5. 496. 
 Wathik, Caliph, 312, 422, 439. 
 Watwat, poet, 396. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 80. 
 wisdl, a Sufi term, 474. 
 Wycliffe, 397. 
 
 X. 
 
 Xerxes, 68. 
 
 Yahya, grandson of Zain ul-'Abidin, 
 
 308, 322. 
 Yahya b. Abi Mansur, astronomer, 
 
 374. 484- 
 Yakhzum b. Murra, house of, 6. 
 
512 
 
 GENERAL INDEX 
 
 Yaktan, brother of Kahtan, lxii. 
 
 Ya'kub al-Mansur, Almohade, 429. 
 
 Ya'kub b. Tarik, physicist, 379. 
 
 Yareb b. Kahtan, lxii. 
 
 Yasar, 27. 
 
 Yathrib, lvii, lxvi, 5, 8, 42, 43, 46, 48, 
 
 49. 5i. 53. 59- See also Medina. 
 Yazatas (" Izad " in modern Persian), 
 
 191. 
 Yemama, lviii, 85, 115. 
 Yemen, lvii, lx, lxii, Ixiii n, lxv, 
 
 lxviii, lxix, 2, 5, 115, 116, 497. 
 Yermuk, battle of, 276. 
 Yeshhad b. Yareb, lxii. 
 Yezdjard, King of Persia, 216, 217. 
 Yezid b. Abu Sufian, 86. 
 Yezid b. Mu'awiyah, 300. 
 Yunus al-Aswari, 413. 
 Yusuf b. Tashfin, 129, 386 n, 400 n. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zahhak, xxx n. 
 
 Zahir Faryabi, poet, 396. 
 
 Zaid b. Ali (Zain ul-'Abidin), 320, 
 
 321. 
 Zaid b. Harith, 14-5, 21, 41, 95 n. 
 
 235-6, 264. 
 Zaid b. Rifa'a, 432. 
 Zaidias, the, 320-2. 
 
 Zainab, wife of the Prophet, 235-6. 
 Zainab, sister of Imam Husain, 250, 
 
 302. 
 Zain ul-'Abidin, see Ali II. 
 Zallaka, battle of, 129. 
 Zamurud Khatun, wife of Nasir ud- 
 
 Dowla of Hems, 393 n. 
 Zat ul-Hemma, 255. 
 zavias, the, 468. 
 Zealots, the, xxxvii, 139. 
 Zeb un-Nisa,, 393 n. 
 Zemzem, the sacred well, 5, 6, 9 n. 
 Zend Avesta, 191, 227. 
 Zeus, xl. 
 
 zikr, a Sufi term, 476 n. 
 Ziraria, the, 413. 
 Zoroaster (Zarathustra), xxi, xxii, 
 
 in. 
 Zubaida, wife of Harun, 254, 393 n. 
 Zubair b. Abd ul-Muttalib, 7 n. 
 Zubair b. Abu Omeyya, 39. 
 Zubair b. al-'Awwam, 21, 296. 
 Zuhra, family of, 13. 
 Zu'1-karnain al-Himyari, lxiii. 
 Zu'1-khulasa, temple of, lxvii n. 
 Zu'l Majaz, near Mount 'Arafat, 10. 
 Zu Nawas, Tubba', lxiii n, lxviii. 
 Zu's-Sabat (in 'Irak), lxvii n. 
 Zu Shinatir, Tubba', lxiii n. 
 
 \ 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 
 
 Akhldk Muhsini (Mulla Husain Waiz). 
 
 Akhldk Xdsiri (Nasir ud-din Abdur Rahim Ibn Abi Mansur). 
 
 al-Asdr uI-Bdkieh (Al-Beiruni). 
 
 Al-Karrdr {Life of the Caliph Ali) (Riza AH). 
 
 Al-Luma' (Abu Xasr as-Sarraj). 
 
 Atesh Kadeh (Lutf Ali Azar). 
 
 Bihdr-ul-Anwdr (Mulla Bakir Majisi). 
 
 Dabistdni Mazdhib (Mohsini Fani). 
 
 Diwdni Hdfiz (Shams ud-din Hafiz). 
 
 The Dumd-makhtdr. 
 
 Fasl-ul-Makdl (Ibn Rushd). 
 
 The Fatdwai Alamgiri. 
 
 Fi't Tahkik ma I'il Hind (Al-Beiruni). 
 
 Futiih ul-Bulddn (Balazuri). 
 
 Ghnrar wa'durar (Sharif al-Murtaza). 
 
 Gotthar-i-Murdd (Mulla Abdur Razzak). 
 
 Hadika (Sanai). 
 
 Hayy ibn Yakzdn (Ibn Tufail). 
 
 Ihya ul-'Ulum (Imam al-Ghazzali) . 
 
 Ihiijdj ut-Tabrasi (Shaikh at-Tabrasi). 
 
 'Ijdz ut-Tanzil (Khalifa Mohammed Hasan). 
 
 Insdn ul 'Uyun (al-Halabi). 
 
 J&mi'-ul-Akhbdr. 
 
 fdmi'-ut-Tirmizi (Imam Tirmizi). 
 
 Kashf nz-Zunun Haji Khalifa). 
 
 Kirdn us-Sa'dain (Ameer Khusru M. E. 1228 a. h.). 
 
 Kitdb ul-Ishtikdk (Ibn Doreid). 
 
 Kitdb-ul-Khardj (Imam Abu Yusuf). 
 
 Kitdb ul-Mustatraf. 
 
 Kitdb al-Taiv&sin {The poems of al-Halldj) (M. Louis Massignon, Paris, 
 
 I9I3)- 
 Kitdb Ridz al-Jindn (Ashraf Ali Ibn Abdul Wali). 
 Kitdb ud-duwal al-Fakhri (Ibn Tiktaka, Derenbourg ed. 1877). 
 Kitdb ul-Tabyin (Ibn Asakir (pub. Report Congress Orientalists, 1876 ; 
 
 Vol. II.) ). 
 Lisdn ul-Arab (Jamaluddin bin Mohammed al-Misri). 
 Luma't-ul Baiza (Sermons of Fatima't az-Zahra). 
 Makkari (Umdat ut-Talib). 
 Mdkhaz- Ulum (Syed Keramat AH). 
 
 5«3 
 
514 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 
 
 Man&kibi Martazawi. 
 
 Masnavi (Moulana Jalal ud-din Rumi). 
 
 Milal wa'Nihal (Shahristani). 
 
 Mishkdt al-Masdbih. 
 
 Mu'jam-ul-Bulddn (Yakut). 
 
 Munkiz-min azzaldl (Imam al-Ghazzali) . 
 
 Muruj uz-Zahab (Mas'udi). 
 
 Nafahdt ul-Uns (Nur-uddin J ami). 
 
 Nahaj-ul-Baldghat (Sermons of Ameer ul-Mominin AH ibn Abi Talib). 
 
 Nahaj ul-Baldghat (Sharh of Ibn Abi'l Hadid on the). 
 
 an-Nujum uz-Zdhira (Jamal ud-Din Abu'l Mahasin Ibn Taghri-bardi) . 
 
 The Radd ul-Mnhtdr. 
 
 Sharhi Nahaj ul-Baldghat (Lutfullah Kashani). 
 
 Sidsatnameh (Nizam ul-Mulk). 
 
 Sirat ur-Rasul (Ibn Hisham). 
 
 Sir at ur-Nabawiyeh wa'l Asdr ul-Mohammediya (Syed Ahmed Zaini). 
 
 Tafsir al-Kasshaf (Imam Zamakhshari) . 
 
 Takhrij ul-Hedaya (Zail'yi). 
 
 Tdrikh-ul-Isldm (az-Zahabi). 
 
 Tdrikh al-Kdmil (Ibn ul-Athir). 
 
 Tdrikh ul-Imdm Ibn Khaldun. 
 
 Tdrikh Wassdf. 
 
 Tdrikh ul-Khulafd (Suy'uti). 
 
 Tdrikh ul-Hukama (Jamal ud-din Kifti). 
 
 Tazkirat-ul-Awlia (Farid ud-din 'Attar). 
 
 Umdat ut-Tdlib (Makkari). 
 
 ' Uyun ul-Masdil (Abu Nasr Farabi) . 
 
 Wafidt ul-'Aydn (Ibn Khallikan). 
 
 Etc. 
 
 A Literary History of Persia (E. G. Browne). 
 
 Ancient History of the East (Lenormant). 
 
 Angel-Messiah (de Bunsen). 
 
 Arnold's Sermons. 
 
 Aspects of Isldm (Duncan Black Macdonald). 
 
 Code Rabbinique. 
 
 Concubina (du Cange). 
 
 Conflict of Religion and Science (Draper). 
 
 Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Caliphen (Von Kremer). 
 
 Curiosities of Literature (Disraeli) . 
 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon) . 
 
 Ecclesiastical History (Mosheim) . 
 
 Essay on Isldm (Emmanuel Deutsch). 
 
 Essay on Mahommed's Place in the Church (de Bunsen). 
 
 Hallam's History of England. 
 
 Hindu Religion and Castes (H. H. Wilson). 
 
 Hindu Tribes and Castes (Sherring). 
 
 Histoire des Arabes (Sedillot). 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 515 
 
 Histoire des Musulmanes d'Espagne (Dozy). 
 
 Histoire des Philosophes et les Thiologiens Musulmanes (Gustave Dugat). 
 
 History of Ancient Egypt (Rawlinson). 
 
 History, of Latin Christianity (Milman). 
 
 History of Christianity (Milman). 
 
 History of Christian Theology in the Apostolic Age (Reuss). 
 
 History of Greece (Grote). 
 
 History of Rationalism (Lecky). 
 
 History of the Jews (Milman). 
 
 History of the Doctrine of the Future Life (Alger). 
 
 History of the Christian Church (Blunt). 
 
 History of the Church of Christ (Milner) . 
 
 Ibn Khallikdn (De Slane's Translation). 
 
 Intellectual Development of Europe (Draper). 
 
 Isldm tinder the Arabs (Osborne). 
 
 Jewish Literature and Modern Education (Maitland). 
 
 Law of Nature and Nations (Pufendorfi) . 
 
 Le Dogme et la Loi de I' Islam (Goldziher) . 
 
 L' Influence des Croissades sur I'etat des Peuples de I'Europe (d'Aillecourt) . 
 
 Les Confreries Religieuses Musulmanes (Dupont et Coppolani). 
 
 Les Ecoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes (Auguste Schmolders). 
 
 Les Effects de la Religion de Muhammed (Oelsner). 
 
 Les Riligions et les Philosophies dans I'Asie Centrale (Gobineau). 
 
 Life of Jesus (Strauss). 
 
 Life of Mahomet (Muir). 
 
 Life of Mohammed (Bosworth-Smith). 
 
 Literature and Dogma (Matthew Arnold). 
 
 Manichaeism (Beausobre). 
 
 Materials for the Study of the Babi Religion (E. G. Browne). 
 
 Melange de Philosophie Juive et Arabe (Munk). 
 
 Oriental Religions (Johnson). 
 
 Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes (Muller). 
 
 Religion des Druzes (de Sacy). 
 
 Religions of India (Hopkins). 
 
 Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (Samuel Dill) 
 
 Secret Societies of All Ages (C. W. Hecklethorn). 
 
 Selections from the Koran (Stanley Lane-Poole) . 
 
 Studies in Islamic Mysticism (R. A. Nicholson). 
 
 Tableau General de V Empire Ottoman (d'Ohsson). 
 
 The Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity (Legge). 
 
 The Gentile and the Jew (Dollinger). 
 
 The Jewish Church (Stanley's Lectures on). 
 
 The Moors in Spain (Stanley Lane-Poole). 
 
 The Mystics of Isldm (R. A. Nicholson). 
 
 The Preaching of Isldm (Arnold). 
 
 The Religion of the Tantras (" Arthur Avalon "). 
 
 The Upanishad; (Tr. Hume). 
 
 Un Grand Maitre des Assassins au temps de Saladin (M.Stanishi^ ( '. uyan I ) 
 
 Vie de Jesus (Renan).. Etc. 
 
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