■•^-I'^HISTOn/l 
 
k.,^ 
 
MOHAMMED 
 
 AND 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
MOHAMMED 
 
 AND 
 
 MOHAMMEDAN^ISM. 
 
 By E. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A. 
 
 ASSISTANT-MASTER IN HARROW SCHOOL 
 LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 
 > ^ 
 
 3 3 
 
 S . 3 ) i 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1889. 
 
 lAll rights resei'vecl] 
 
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UXOKI ME^, 
 
 NULLIUS NON LABORIS PARTICIPI, 
 
 HUJUSCE PRiESERTIM OPUSCULI INSTiaATRICI ET ADMINISTR^B, 
 
 STUDIORUM COMMUNITATIS 
 
 HAS, QUALESCUNQUE SUNT, PRIMITIAS 
 
 D E D I C 0. 
 
 260965 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 While preparing a Second Edition of these Lectures for the 
 press, I have had the advantage of reading many notices of the 
 First, the great majority of them incisive yet kind, just yet 
 scrupulously appreciative. This has been a great advantage, but 
 it involves a corresponding responsibility. Next to the respon- 
 sibility and pleasure of writing what it is hoped may serve, in 
 however humble a measure, the cause of truth, charity, and 
 justice, there is no greater pleasure or responsibility than that 
 of reading a keen yet sympathetic criticism on it by one who is 
 evidently a master of his subject, and who is aiming at the 
 same goal, even though his standpoint be different, or he be 
 travelling by a different road. The knowledge of the critic, as 
 in more than one instance has been notably the case, may be 
 deeper, his experience wider, his judgment more profound ; he 
 may find out with unerring certainty all the weak points in 
 one's armour, but none the less is he eager to discover ' generosity 
 in the motives,' and conscientiousness in the work done, to 
 recognise the identity of the end in view, and such advance as 
 may have been made towards it. In a Preface to a new edition 
 I may, indeed I must, refer to such criticisms, because, on the 
 one hand, I am bound to express my gratitude for the service 
 they have done me, and to indicate how far they have modified 
 
viii PREFACE TO 
 
 my views ; and, on the other, because I am quite conscious that 
 I owe them far more to the intrinsic interest and importance of 
 the subject than to any merits of my own. 
 
 It is unnecessary to reply here to objections in detail, but 
 there is one general criticism which perlwps had better be 
 noticed fully now rather than referred to repeatedly by way of 
 controversy in the book itself. It has been said by more than 
 one critic, who is entitled at once to my respectful consideration 
 and my gratitude, that my account of Islam and its founder, 
 though true on the whole, is somewhat too favourable. The 
 objection is natural, and, from more than one point of view, is just. 
 But it seems to me that some at least of those who have dwelt 
 on this point, have not taken sufficiently into account my pur- 
 pose in venturing to approach the subject, nor yet its vastness 
 and complexity. So many Christian writers, as it seemed to 
 me, had approached Islam only to vilify and misrepresent it, 
 that it appeared desirable that one who was at least profoundly 
 impressed with the dignity and importance of the subject, 
 should, in default of better qualified persons, make an attempt 
 to treat it, not merely with a cold and distant impartiality, but 
 even with something akin to sympathy and friendliness. The 
 defects of Islam are well known ; its merits are almost ignored, 
 at all events by the great majority of Englishmen. It is not 
 likely that a Christian and a European will err on the side of 
 over-appreciation of another, and that an Eastern creed : the 
 balance, therefore, if perchance it has been held for a moment 
 unconsciously to myself, with uneven hand, will soon right 
 itself. 
 
 Again, Islam in its various ramifications is a subject so vast 
 and so complex, and is so full of apparent contradictions, that 
 independent enquirers may honestly arrive at the most opposite 
 results. It ought, for this reason, to be approached from as 
 many and as different points of view as possible ; and assuredly 
 the precise point of view from which I have approached it, 
 whether it be the best per se or not, is the one from which 
 hitherto there has been hardly any attempt to approach it at alL 
 This, then, is the raiaon d'etre of my book ; to this, in the main, 
 is doubtless due such favourable reception as it has met with at 
 the handH of both Musalmans and Christians ; and it is to a 
 
THE SECOND EDITION. ix 
 
 want of perception of what this involves that I think I can 
 trace many criticisms on it. In the treatment of a religious 
 revolution, which from its mere extent, from what it has achieved, 
 as well as from what it has failed to achieve, must afford an 
 ample field alike for exaggerated panegyric and depreciation, he 
 who endeavours to avoid both extremes must expect to find 
 fewer thorough-going partisans, and must be willing, or even 
 anxious, to be criticised by both sides alike. 
 
 To say that subsequent study, or that the remarks of my 
 critics, have only confirmed me in all my views, would of course 
 be equivalent to saying with Pontius Pilate, that ' what I have 
 written I have written ; ' a comfortable but a sorry conclusion 
 to come to, for one who is bound to begin by asking himself 
 with Pontius Pilate, 'What is truth?' and, unlike him, must 
 feel himself bound by the most sacred of obligations to keep 
 his ears always open for the reception of such fragments of the 
 answer as he may be able from time to time to catch. Some of 
 my views on matters of detail have been modified ; but, apart 
 from errors of detail, apart from errors of commission and 
 omission, apart from short-comings incidental to ignorance at 
 first hand of Oriental languages and of Musalman countries, I 
 more and more cherish the earnest hope that the spirit and the 
 purpose with which I have, at least, tried to approach my sub- 
 ject is the right spirit, and the right purpose with which to 
 approach the study of a creed different from one's own. 
 
 To dwell on what is good rather than on what is evil ; to search 
 for points of resemblance rather than of difference ; to use a 
 relative and an historical judgment in all things ; to point out 
 what is the out-come of mere human weakness as distinguished 
 from the flaws in the primal documents of the religion, or in 
 the life of its founder ; to discriminate between the accidental 
 and the essential, the transitory and the eternal ; above all, 
 constantly to turn the mirror in upon oneself, and to try to 
 make sure that one is complying with that great principle of 
 Christianity of judging and of treating others as we should 
 wish ourselves to be judged and treated ; this, I am convinced, 
 is the only way in which the better spirits of rival creeds can 
 ever be brought to understand one another, or to sink all their 
 differences in the consciousness of a likeness which is more 
 
PREFACE TO 
 
 fundamental than any difference, and which, if it is not felt 
 before, will at least be felt hereafter, in 
 
 Tliat one far-oflf Divine event 
 
 To which the wliole creation moves. 
 
 These are the aims I have kept, and will continue to keep, 
 steadily in view, however imperfectly I have been able or may 
 yet be able to carry them out. 
 
 If the alterations or additions, therefore, I have made to the 
 text of my Lectures seem less than those high authorities who 
 have done me the honour of criticising my book have a right 
 to expect, I would assure them that it is not from any want of 
 respect to their judgment, or because I have not carefully 
 weighed their criticisms. The dropping of an epithet, the 
 addition of a word here or there, the omission of a note, or 
 the turn of a sentence, will often indicate the silent homage 
 that I have paid, wherever I could do so, to their superior right 
 to speak upon the subject. There may be little to show for it, 
 otherwise than by way of expansion and addition, in the general 
 aspect and arrangement of the book ; but there is more than 
 appears at first sight : and, assuredly, the amount of apparent 
 change hearts no proportion at all to the time and care I have 
 taken in making it. 
 
 And if I have forborne to enlarge my work by dwelling at 
 length, as I have been asked by some critics to do, upon the 
 darker side of the picture, the reason is not because I am igno- 
 rant of that darker side, still less because I am indifferent to it, 
 but because it would be wholly inconsistent with the end I have 
 in view. To denounce fundamental conditions of Oriental 
 society ; to ignore the law of dissolution to which Eastern no 
 less than Western dynasties are subject ; to confuse the 
 decadence of a race with that of a creed ; to be blind to the 
 distinction between progressive and unprogressive, between 
 civilised and uncivilised peoples ; to judge of a religion mainly 
 or exclusively by the lives of its professors, often of its most un- 
 worthy professors ; to forget what of good there has been in the 
 past, and to refuse to hope for something better in the future, in 
 despair or in indignation for what is — all this may occasionally be 
 excusable, or possibly even necessary ; but it cannot be done by 
 me so long as I think it neither excusable nor nccesHary. 
 
THE SECOND EDITION. xi 
 
 The object of these Lectures, therefore, in their revised as 
 well as in their original shape, is not so much to dwell upon the 
 degradation of the female sex, for instance, in most Musalman 
 countries — ^f or that is admitted on all hands — as to show what 
 Mohammed did, even in his time, to raise the position of women, 
 and to point out how his consistent and more enlightened fol- 
 lowers may best follow him now ; not so much to dwell upon 
 the horrors of the Slave Trade — ^for these, too, are universally 
 recognised — as to show those Musalmans who still indulge in it 
 that it forms no part of their creed, that it is opposed alike to 
 the practice and precept of their Prophet, and that, therefore, 
 if they are less to blame, they are only less to blame than those 
 Christians who, in spite of a higher civilisation, and an infinitely 
 higher example, indulged in it till so late a period. My object 
 is not so much to dilate on the evils of the appeal to the sword, 
 still less to excuse it, as to point out that there were moments, 
 and those late in the life of the warrior Prophet, when even he 
 could say, ' Unto every one have we given a law and a way ; ' 
 and again, ' Let there be no violence in religion.' My object 
 is, lastly, not so much to dwell on the fables, and the dis- 
 crepancies, and the repetitions, and the anachronisms which 
 form the husk of the Koran, as to show how they sink into 
 insignificance before the vis viva which is its soul — not so much 
 to define or to limit inspiration as to indicate by my use of the 
 word that it cannot, as I think, be limited or defined at all ; to 
 imply, in fact, that inspiration, in the broadest sense of the 
 word, is to be found in all the greatest thoughts of man ; for 
 the workings of God are everywhere, and the spirits of men and 
 nations are moulded by Him to bring about His purposes of 
 love, and to give them, in a sense that shall be sufficient for 
 thorn, a knowledge of Himself. Jn a word, my object is — with 
 all reverence be it said — not to localise God exclusively in this 
 or that creed, but to trace Him everywhere in measure ; not 
 merely to trust Him for what shall be, but to find Him in 
 what is. 
 
 Harrow: ^«/7Msi, 1875. 
 
zu 
 
 PREFACE TO 
 
 Among the books which, in accordance with the plan pursued 
 in the First Edition of my work, I would wish to mention here 
 as having, apart from the special acknowledgments which I have 
 made in the notes, afforded me assistance in the preparation of 
 the Second Edition, are the following : — 
 
 * Sirat-6r-Racoal ' of Ibn Hishaiu : 
 Gennan translation, by G. Weil, Stutt- 
 gart, 11S64; the earliest and most autlien- 
 tic history of the Prophet, and founded 
 on a still earlier one, that of Ibn Ishak. 
 
 ' Hishkat-ul-M asabih ' = ' niche 
 
 for lamps :' n collection of the most 
 authentic traditions re^anling the 
 actions and sayings of Mohammed, 
 translated by Captain A. N. Mathews, 
 Calcutta, 1809. This valuable book is 
 extremely scarce ; but there is a pros- 
 pect, if a sufficient immber of subscrib- 
 ers can be obtained, of a new edition 
 being brought out by Messrs. Allen 
 and Co., under the e<litorship of the 
 Rev. T. P. Huglies, Missionary at 
 Peshawur. 
 
 'History of Mohammedan Dy- 
 nasties,' by ^Lijor Price, Loudon, 
 1812 : a voluminous and somewhat 
 dreary account of the wars and crimes 
 of Musalman princes, but throwing very 
 little light on the social ami religious 
 life of their subjects. 
 
 ' Histoire des Mnsalmans d'£s- 
 pagne jusqu'a la Conquete de 
 I'Andalousie par les Almoravides, 
 
 A.D. 711-1110,' by 11. Dozy, Leyden, 
 1861 ; a work of first-rate historical 
 importance. The author is equally at 
 liomi3 in the Arabic literature relating 
 to Sjiain, and the Spanish literature 
 relating to the Arabs, and he has cor- 
 rectetl many of the mistJikes of Condt^. 
 
 'Ueber das Verhaltniss des 
 Islam znm Evangelium,' by Dr. j. 
 
 A. -Mohler (183(i), Author of 'The 
 Sjnjbolik," a most sujrgestive and 
 thoughtful essay. I am happy to find 
 that it ha.s Rnticipate<l some of the 
 conclusions, with regiird to both the 
 Prophet and the Faith, which I had 
 set forth in my First Pxlltion, in entire 
 independence of it. 
 
 'Mohammed's Religion nach 
 ihrer inneren Entwickelnng. and 
 Uirem Einfltisse, eine historische 
 
 Betrachtung,' by Dr. Dolliuger, Ra- 
 tisbon, 18.38. The dlstinguislie<l author 
 lias brougiit togetlier the statements of 
 a large mmiber of travellers, &c., and 
 has weighe«l them with much ability, 
 and witli every wish to be impartial or 
 even generous towards Islam. He seems, 
 however, at the time when he wrote, 
 to have been more unable than he would 
 probably be now, to divest himself of 
 his eccla^iastical prepossessions, and 
 condemns, lor instance, Islam for the 
 alisence of \isible symbols, sacraments, 
 a priesthoo<l, and even a Pope ; forget- 
 ting that these things, however essen- 
 tial to his own creed, may have been, 
 not sources of strength, but of weak- 
 ness, to another. 
 
 * Essays on the Life of Moham- 
 med and Subjects subsidiary 
 
 thereto,' by Syed Ahmed Khan Balia- 
 
 dor, 1870. 
 
 ' A Critical Examination of the 
 Life and Teachings of Moham- 
 med,' by Syod Ameer AH Moulla 
 (1873). It is satisfactory to find tliat 
 the hojH; I ventured to express in the 
 Preface to my First Edition, as to the 
 sj-mpethy of views and the conciliator}* 
 spirit of these two learncil Musalman 
 reformers, has been amply justifie«i by 
 a study of their works ; and it is difH- 
 cult not to believe that books like these 
 point, at however remotes period, to a 
 better understanding between the best 
 followers of the two cn»e<l«. 
 
 'L'Islamisme d'apres le Coran, 
 I'Enseignement doctrinal et la 
 
 Pratique,' byM.Gan.indeTa«y, l^ris 
 Tiiinl PIdition, 1874 ; the work of an ao- 
 complishe«l Orientalist; the most instrno- 
 tlve and original |iart of the wh.ik' Iteing, 
 perhaps, the essay on the nuMliflouiions 
 which Islam has undergone in India. 
 
 *La Lanffue et U Litteratore 
 Hindustaniet,* by M. Q«rvln de Tuny* 
 a colUx'tion of Leetares delivered 
 ))etwocn the ymrs 18M-187ft ; eiuih 
 Leotare betng the oommenoement of 
 
THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 a course upon Hindustani Literature, 
 and containing a valuable Review of 
 the Events that have taken place in 
 India in the preceding year, with Notices 
 of the Literal y and Religious Life of 
 the Natives, which are not to be found 
 elsewhere. 
 
 ^ * L' Islam et son Fondateur, 
 
 Etude Morale,' by Jules Charles 
 SchoU, Neuchatel, 1874 ; an able and 
 candid enquiry, wliicli, though written 
 from a different point of view to mine, 
 often arrives at somewhat similar con- 
 clusions. 
 
 * Necessary Reforms of Mussal- 
 
 man States,' by General Kheredine, 
 Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign 
 
 Affairs at Tunis ; Athens, 1874 ; interest- 
 ing in itself, and doulaly interesting 
 owing to the quarter from which it 
 comes, as showing that India is not the 
 only Musalman country where the ' Mo- 
 hammedan social and political reformer ' 
 is at work. 
 
 ' Notes on Mohammedanism,' by 
 
 the Rev. T. P. Hughes, Missionary at 
 Peshawur, 1875. A valuable compen- 
 dium of facts. The author has studied 
 Islam both theoretically and practically ; 
 and though lie uses the stock phrases 
 'imposture,' 'would-be Propliet,' &c., 
 with ominous frequency, he does more 
 justice than most of those, whose duty 
 it is to argue with Mohammedans, to the 
 character of tlie Prophet. 
 
 In Periodical Literature : — 
 
 ' Mahometanism,' an able, thought- 
 ful, and generous article in the ' Chris- 
 tian Remembrancer ' for January, 1855, 
 
 which has been reprinted in a separate 
 form by its author, Dr. Cazenove. 
 
 Among Books of Travel, Essays, &c., throwing light on dif- 
 ferent periods or different parts of the Mohammedan World : — 
 'Travels of Marco Polo,' trans- 'Travels in Central Asia,' by 
 
 lated and Eilited by Col. Yule, with 
 copious illustrations, Second Edition, 
 1871. 
 
 'Travels of Ibn Batuta,' trans- 
 lated by Rev. S. Lee, 1829. 
 
 'Travels in the Interior Dis- 
 tricts of Africa,' by Mungo Park, 
 1810. 
 
 'Turkey, Greece, and Malta,' 
 
 by Adolphus Slade, R.N., 1837. 
 
 'The Spirit of the East,' byD. 
 
 Urquhart, 18.38. 
 
 ' Christianity in Ceylon,' by sir 
 
 J. Emerson Tenneiit., 1850. 
 
 ' Nestorians and their Rituals,' 
 
 by Rev. G-. P. Badger, 1852. 
 
 'Nineveh and Babylon,' by A. 
 
 H. Layard, 1853. 
 
 'The Ansayrii, or Assassins,' 
 
 by Hon. F. Walpole, 1854. 
 
 ' Memoires de I'Histoire Orien- 
 
 tale,' by M. C. Defremery, 1854. 
 
 ' Nouvelles Recherches sur les 
 Ismaeliens dc Syrie,' by if. c. 
 Defremery, 1855. 
 
 'Travels in Central Asia, 
 
 Arminius Vambery, 1861. 
 
 ' Monasteries of the Levant,' by 
 
 Hon. R. Curzon, Fifth Edition, 1865. 
 
 ' East and West, Essays by dif- 
 ferent hands,' 18G5. 
 
 'History of India,' by Joim Clark 
 
 Marshman, 1867. 
 
 'Sketches of Central Asia,' by 
 
 Arminius Vambery, 1868. 
 
 ' The People of Africa— Essays,' 
 
 New York, 1871. 
 
 ' Journey to the Source of the 
 
 OZUS,' by Lieutenant Wood, New Edi- 
 tion, 1872. 
 
 'African Sketch-Book,' by Win- 
 wood Reade, 1873. 
 
 ' History of India,' by J. Taiboys 
 
 Wheeler, Vol. III., 1874. 
 
 ' Women of the Arabs,' by Rev. 
 
 H. Jessup, 1874. 
 
 ' Literary Bemains of Emanuel 
 Deutsch,' 1874. 
 
xiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Notf:. — In the absence, as yet, of any thorough consensus 
 among Oriental scholars as to the details of transliteration, I 
 have thought it desirable to retain the ordinary spelling in such 
 words as Mohammed, Koran, Sura, Mecca, Medina, rather than 
 adopt the more accurate Muhammad, Kuran, Surah, Makkah, 
 Madyna. With words less universally known, such as Koreishites, 
 Hegira, Mussulman, Sheeah, Sonna, &c., though I have not 
 thought it necessary to use accents, I have adopted the more 
 correct forms of Kuraish, Hijrah, Musalman, Shiah, Sunni, 
 &c. 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 /id 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 The substance of these Lectures was written early in 1872 : 
 they were originally intended only for a select audience of 
 friends at Harrow, but, on the suggestion of some of those who 
 heard them, they were afterwards considerably enlarged, and 
 were delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain 
 in the months of February and March 1874, 
 
 They are an attempt, however imperfect, within a narrow 
 compass, but, it is hoped, from a somewhat comprehensive and 
 independent point of view, to render justice to what was great 
 in Mohammed's character, and to what has been good in 
 Mohammed's influence on the world. To original Oriental 
 research they lay no claim, nor indeed to much originality at 
 all ; perhaps the subject hardly now admits of it ; but, thanks 
 to the numerous translations of the Koran into European 
 languages, and to the great works of Oriental scholars, 
 such as Caussin de Perceval, Sprenger, Muir, and Deutsch, 
 the materials for forming an impartial judgment of the 
 Prophet of Arabia are within the reach of any earnest 
 student of the Science of Religion, and of all who care, as 
 those who have ever studied Mohammed's character must care, 
 for the deeper problems of the human soul. 
 
 The value of the estimate formed of the influence of Moham- 
 medanism on the world at large must, of course, depend upon 
 
 a2 
 
xvi PREFACE TO 
 
 such a modicum of general historical knowledge, and such 
 Catholic sjTnpathies, as the writer has been able, amidst other 
 pressing duties, to bring to his work. The only qualification he 
 would venture to claim for himself in the matter is that of a 
 sympathetic interest in his subject, and of a conscientious desire 
 first to divest himself of all preconceived ideas, and then by a 
 careful study of the Koran itself, and afterwards of its best 
 expounders, tt arrive as nearly as may be at the truth. How 
 vast is the interval between his wishes and his performance the 
 author knows full well, and any one who has ever been fairly 
 fascinated with a great subject will know also ; for he will have 
 felt that to have the will is not always to have the power, and 
 that the framing of an ideal implies the consciousness of failure 
 to attain to it. 
 
 A Christian who retains that paramount allegiance to Chris- 
 tianity which is his birthright, and yet attempts, without favour 
 and without prejudice, to portray another religion, is inevitably 
 exposed to misconstruction. In the study of his subject he will 
 have been struck sometimes by the extraordinary resemblance 
 between his own creed and another, sometimes by the sharpness of 
 the contrast ; and, in order to avoid those misrepresentations, which 
 are, unfortunately, never so common as where they ought to be 
 unknown, in the discussion of religious questions, — he will be 
 tempted, in filling in the portrait, to project his own personal 
 predilections on the canvas, and to bring the differences into full 
 relief, while he leaves the resemblances in shadow. And yet a 
 comparison between two systems, if it is to have any fruitful 
 results, if its object is to unite rather than divide, if, in short, 
 it is to be of the spirit of the Founder of Christianity, must, 
 in matters of religion above all, be based on what is common to 
 both. There is, in the human race, in spite of their manifold 
 diversities, a good deal of human nature ; enough, at all events, 
 to entitle us to assume that the Founders of any two religious 
 systems which have had a great and continued hold upon a 
 large part of mankind must have had many points of contact. 
 Accordingly, in comparing, as he has done to some extent, the 
 founder of Islam with the Founder of Christianity — a compa- 
 rison which, if it were not expressed, would always be implied 
 — the author of these Lectures has thought it right mainly to 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. xvii 
 
 dwell on that aspect of the character of Christ, which, being 
 admitted by Musalmans as well as Christians, by foes as well 
 as friends, may possibly serve as a basis, if not for an ultimate 
 agreement, at all events for an agreement to differ from one 
 another upon terms of greater sympathy and forbearance, of 
 understanding and of respect. 
 
 That Islam will ever give way to Christianity in the East, 
 however much we may desire it, and whatever good would 
 result to the world, it is difficult to believe ; but it is certain 
 that Mohammedans may learn much from Christians and yet 
 remain Mohammedans, and that Christians have something at 
 least to learn from Mohammedans, which will make them not less 
 but more Christian than they were before. If we would conquer 
 Nature, we must first obey her ; and the Fourth Lecture is an 
 attempt to show, from a full recognition of the facts of Nature 
 underlying both religions — of the points of difference as well 
 as of resembance — that Mohammedanism, if it can never 
 become actually one with Christianity, may yet, by a process of 
 mutual approximation and mutual understanding, prove its best 
 ally. In other words, the author believes that there is a unity 
 above and beyond that unity of Christendom which, properly 
 understood, all earnest Christians so much desire ; a unity 
 which rests upon the belief that 'the children of one Father 
 may worship Him under different names ; ' that they may be 
 influenced by one spirit, even though they know it not ; that 
 they may all have one hope, even if they have not one faith. 
 
 Harrow : April 15, 1873. 
 
 I have to return my best thanks to my friend Mr. Arthur 
 Watson, for a careful revision of my manuscript, and for 
 several valuable suggestions. 
 
 It may be serviceable to English readers to mention the more 
 accessible works upon the subject, to the writers of which I 
 desire here to express my general obligations, over and above 
 the acknowledgment, in the text, wherever I am conscious of 
 them, of special debts. I am the more anxious to do this fully 
 
xvm 
 
 PREFACE TO 
 
 here, as, while I am quite aware that I could not have written 
 on this subject at all without making their labours the basis of 
 mine, I have yet in the exercise of my own judgment been 
 often obliged to criticise their reasonings and their conclusions. 
 I can only hope that even where I have ventured to express a 
 somewhat vehement dissent from my authorities, they will 
 kindly credit me with something at least of the verecunde 
 dissentio, which becomes a learner, and of the zeal for truth, 
 or for his idea of it, which becomes a writer, however diffident 
 of himself, on a great subject. 
 
 * The Koran,' translated by Sale, 
 with an elaborate Introduction and full 
 Notes drawn from the Arabic Commen- 
 tators (1734). 
 
 ' The Koran,' translated by Savarj- 
 
 (1782), also with instructive explanatory 
 
 Notes. 
 
 'The Koran,' translated by Rod- 
 well (1861) : the Suras arranged, as far 
 as possible, chronologically, with an 
 excellent Introduction and concise Notes. 
 
 Oagnier's Vie de Uahomet' 
 
 (1732) ; drawn chiefly from Abul Fe<ia 
 and tlie Sonna. 
 
 Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of 
 the Eoman Empire ; ' Chapters l., 
 
 LI., LII. (1788). A most masterly and 
 complete picture. 
 
 Weil's ' Mohamed der Prophet ' 
 
 (1845), Able and to the point. 
 
 Caussin de Perceval's 'Essai 
 snr I'Histoire des Arabes,' &c. 
 
 (1847) gives particularly full informa- 
 tion upon the obscure subject of early 
 Arabian bistory and literature, and is 
 written from an absohitely neutral point 
 of view. 
 
 Sprenger's 'Life of Mohammed,' 
 
 Alliiliubad, 1851 ; and liis Krcjitcr work, 
 
 'Das Leben nnd die Lehre des 
 
 Mohamad' (1851-1861), the most ex- 
 haustive, original, and learned of all, 
 but by no means tlie most imi^rtlal ; 
 
 he is often, as I shall point out, on one 
 or two occasions, in the notes, flagrantly 
 unfair to Mohammed. 
 
 Sir William Muir's ' Life of 
 
 Mahomet' (1858-1861). Leametl and 
 comprehensive, able and fair ; though 
 its scientific value is somewhat impaired 
 by theological assumptions as to the 
 nature of inspiration, and by the intro- 
 duction of a jKjrsonal Aliriman, which, 
 while it is self-contradictory in its sup- 
 posed operation, seems to me only to 
 create new difficulties, instead of solving 
 old ones. 
 
 ' The Talmud,' «» article in the 
 'Quarterly Review' (October, 1867); 
 ' Islam,' a" article in the 'Quarterly 
 Review ' (Octo»)er, 1869); two most bril- 
 liant essays. Had the lanientt>d autlior 
 lived to finisli the work he shadowed 
 forth in the last of tl ose, he would 
 prolMibly have dniwn a more vivid pic- 
 ture of Islam as a wliole tlinn has ever 
 yet bwn given to tlio worhl. 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 XIX 
 
 For less elaborate works : — 
 
 Ockley's 'History of the Sara- 
 cens from 632-706.' Picturesque; 
 dealing largely in romance (1708-1718). 
 
 Hallam's 'Middle Ages,' Chap- 
 ter VI. (1818); Milman's 'Latin 
 Christianity,' Book IV., Chapters I. 
 and II. (1857) ; both good samples of 
 the high merits of each as an historian. 
 
 Carlyle's ' Hero as Prophet ' 
 
 (1846). Most stimulating. 
 
 Washington Irving' s ' Life of 
 
 Mahomet' (1849). The work of a 
 novelist, but strangely divested of all 
 romance. 
 
 - Lecture by Dean Stanley in his 
 ' Eastern Church ' (1862). Has the 
 peculiar charm of all the author's 
 writings. Catholic in its sympathies, 
 and suggestive, as well from his treat- 
 ment of the subject as from the place 
 the author assigns to it on the borders 
 of, if not within, the Eastern Church 
 itself. 
 
 Barthelemy St.-Hilaire's 'Ma- 
 homet et le Koran' (1865), a com- 
 prehensive and very useful review of 
 most of what has been written on the 
 subject. 
 
 On the general subject of Comparative Eeligion : — 
 
 'Religions of the World,' byF. 
 
 D. Maurice (1846). Perhaps of all his 
 writings the one whicli best shows us 
 the character and mind of the man. 
 
 ' Etudes d'Histoire Eeligieuse,' 
 
 by Renan (1858). Ingenious and fasci- 
 nating, but not always, nor indeed often, 
 convincing. 
 
 'Les Religions et les Philoso- 
 phies dans I'Asie Centrale,' by 
 
 Gobineau (1866), gives the best account 
 extent of B,ibyism in Persia. 
 
 Chips from a German Work- 
 shop' (1868), and 'Introduction to 
 the Science of Religion ' (1873), by 
 
 Max MilUer. Unfortunately the author 
 says very little about Mohammedanism, 
 but from him I have derived some very 
 valuable suggestions as to the general 
 treatment of the subject. Perhaps it is 
 well that the learning and genius of 
 Professor Max Miiller should be given 
 mainly to subjects which are less within 
 the reach of ordinary European students 
 than is Islam, but it is impossible not to 
 wish that he may some day give the 
 world a ' Chip ' or two on the Religion 
 of Mohammed. 
 
 For books which throw light on the specialities of Moham- 
 medanism in different countries : — 
 
 Al-Makkari's 'History of the 
 Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain ' 
 
 (Eng. Trans,). 
 
 Sir John Malcolm's ' History of 
 Persia,' 1815. 
 
 Conde's 'History of the Domi- 
 nion of the Arabs in Spain ' 
 
 (1820-21). 
 
 Crawfurd's ' Indian Archipel- 
 ago' (1820). 
 
 Colonel Briggs' 
 Mohammedan Po' 
 
 Rise of the 
 *ower in India,' 
 
 translated from the Persian of Perishta 
 (1829). 
 
 Sir Stamford Raffles' 'History 
 
 of Java ' (2nd edition), (1830). 
 
 • Burckhardt's 'Travels in Ara- 
 bia ' (1829). 
 
 Caille's 'Travels through Cen- 
 tral Africa to Timbuctoo ' (1830). 
 
PREFACE TO 
 
 Burckhardt's ' Notes on the 
 Bedouins and Wah-Habees' (1831). 
 
 Lane's ' Modern Egyptians ' 
 
 (1836). 
 
 Burton's ' Pilgrimage to Mecca 
 and Medina' (i856). 
 
 Barth's 'Travels in Central 
 Africa' (1857). 
 
 Waitz's ' Anthropologie der 
 Naturvblker ' (Leipsig, i860). 
 
 Lane's 'Notes to his Transla- 
 tion of the Thousand and One 
 Nights ' ( new edition, edited by B. S. 
 Poole, 1865). 
 
 Elphinstone's ' History of India * 
 
 (3rd edition), (1866;. 
 
 Palgrave's 'Arabia' (Ihot). 
 Hunter's ' Indian Mussulmans * 
 
 (1871). 
 
 Shaw's ' High Tartary, Yar- 
 kand, and Kashgar' (1871). 
 
 Burton's 'Zanzibar' (1872). 
 
 Palgrave's 'Essays on Eastern 
 Subjects' (1872). 
 
 ' Keport of the General Mis- 
 sionary Conference at Allahabad ' 
 
 (1873). 
 
 Three articles in Periodical Literature, besides ' Islam ' men- 
 tioned above, are of very high merit, and have furnished me, 
 in enlarging my work, with some matter for reflection or criti- 
 cism : — 
 
 ' Mahomet,' ' National Review' (July 1858). 
 
 * The Great Arabian,' 'National Review ' (October 1861). 
 
 ' Mahomet)' ' British Quarterly Review ' (January 1872). 
 
 Among other works which I regret I have not been able to 
 consult may be mentioned : — 
 
 Gerock's 'Versuch einer Dar- 
 stellung der Christologie des 
 
 Koran ' (Homburg, 1839). 
 
 Freeman's 'Lectures on the 
 History and Conquests of the 
 Saracens' (1856). 
 
 Geiger's ' Was hat Mohammed 
 aus dem Judenthume aufgenom- 
 menV 
 
 Noldeke's ' Geschichte des 
 Qorans.' 
 
 ' Essays on the Life of Moham- 
 med and subjects subsidiary 
 thereto,' by Syod Ahmeil Khan Baha- 
 dor, 1870. 
 
 ' A Critical Examination of the 
 Life and Teachings of Moham- 
 med,' by Syed Ameer Ali Moulla 
 (1873). 
 
 The last two books I had not heard of when I wrote the 
 substance of these Lectures ; and, in enlarging my work, I have 
 purposely abstained from consulting them, as I have been given 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 to understand that from a Mohammedan point of view they 
 advocate something of the spirit, and arrive at some of the 
 results, which it had been my object to urge from the Christian 
 stand-point. I would not, of course, venture to compare my 
 own imperfect work, derived as it is in the main from the study 
 of books in the European languages, and from reflection upon 
 the materials they supply, with works drawn, as I presume, 
 directly from the fountain-head. But if the starting-points be 
 different, and the routes entirely independent of each other, 
 and yet there turns out to be a similarity in the results arrived 
 at, possibly each may feel greater confidence that there is some- 
 thing of value in his conclusions. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 Comparative Religion. — Historical Keligions of the world moral in 
 their origin, rather than theological. — Judaism — Buddhism — 
 Christianity. — Religion in Greece — Question of originality of Mo- 
 hammedanism. — Two views of Religion. — Obscurity of all origins, 
 above all of Religion — 'Dim knowledge of Founders of other 
 Religions — Full knowledge of Mohammed. — Bible and K OTan man- 
 trasted. — Difficult in other creeds to distinguish the foundation from 
 the superstructure ; possible in Islam.r— Problems connected with 
 Mohammed's character. — Survey of the Saracen Conquests, and of 
 what Mohammedanism overthrew. — Its position now — is it losing 
 or gaining ground ? — China — East Indian Archipelago — America — 
 Africa — Extraordinary success of its missionaries there now. — Its 
 progress in the African continent traced historically. — Spreads even 
 into European settlements. — Wliat it^has done for Africa, intel- 
 lectually and morally ; and what Christians have done. — Testimony 
 of Mungo Park, Barth, Blyden. — Islam a comparative benefit.— Its 
 probable future in Africa — Armenia and Kurdistan, Revival there. — 
 India ; few, if any, converts to Christianity. — Supreme importance 
 of the subject to England, yet ignorance or indifEerencfe. — Causes 
 ordinarily suggested for its success reviewed. — National and Re- 
 
xxiv CONTENTS. 
 
 ligious prejudices stand in way of a fair judgment. — Principles 
 which must guide investigation. — Do Keligions differ in kind ? — 
 Sacred Books and their influence. — Missionary work ; its limits 
 and legitimate objects. — Can the world be Christianised ? PAGE 1 , 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 Mohammed. 
 
 History of Opinion about Mohammed : — the Troubadours — the Middle 
 Ages — Marco Polo — The Reformers — the Catholics — Biblical Com- 
 mentators — Alexander Ross — Englishmen generally. — Reaction — 
 Gagnier — Sale — Gibbon — Carlyle — other modern writers. — 
 Arabia before M ohammed — its social condition — Immobility. — 
 Characteristics, of Desert.— Virtues of the Arabs — contentment — 
 Liberty, national and individual — Tribal attachment — Poverty — 
 Hixpitiilit y — A[>i)Ctitc for pluiKkM' — Way — Kiiiglitly chivalryand 
 courtes y — -Poetry — Vices ui" the Arabs — llevenge — Drunkenness- 
 Gambling — Infanticide — Degradation of Women — unlimited Poly- 
 gamy a^TTC^^e — no ri;j^hts of pi'opcrty — Arab proverbs — Reli- 
 gions of Arabia — Judaisui — Cliristianity — ilow far living faiths? — 
 Sabaeanism — Magianism — Fcii-h-\\Miship — The Kaabaand its con- 
 tents — Human sacrifice — Divination — Superstitions — Could Mo- 
 hammedanism have been predicted ? — Was it the voice of the spirit 
 of the time, or of individual Religious Genius ? — Moral and National 
 upheaval — pre-Mohammedans. — Youth of Mohammed — A shepherd 
 — A Camel-driver — his call to be Prophet, and its phenomena — 
 marriage to Khadijah — religious temperament — theory of imposture 
 — his long struggles. — Speech of exiles to the Nagashy of Abyssinia, 
 and its importance — the Hijrah — Cliange in conditions of life 
 henceforward — would it have been well if he had died on Mount 
 Thor, for himself? — ^for the world?— Sincerity of Mohammed ex- 
 amined — his personal characteristics — the prophetic office — Mo- 
 hammed's life at Medina — his faults — his marriages, their possible 
 explanations — his supposed moral declension examined — ^was he 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 voluptuous ? — cruel ? — consistent ? — Privileges of a Prophet among 
 the Jews — Did he use the Koran for his private purposes? — Illus- 
 trations — the exact nature and limits of his mission — Illustrations 
 —his death PAGE 63 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 I 
 Mohammedanism. 
 
 Essence of Mohammedanism — Unity of God — Submission to God's 
 will — claims to be universal — how far borrowed from Jews — Juda- 
 ism and Christianity as known to Arabs — Mohammedanism a 
 misnomer — ilission of Mohammed — Compared with that of 
 
 ' Moses — Other articles of Faith — Practical duties enjoined — Prayer 
 — Almsgiving — Fasting — Pilgrimage, its use and abuse — How far 
 alien in reality to Mohammedanism and to Christianity — History 
 of the Kaaba — the Hajj — Dictum of Dr. Deutsch, — The Talmud 
 and its influence.— Mohammed's concessiojis to the Jews, and his 
 efforts to gain them over. — Why he failed. — Supposed prophecies 
 about Mohammed in the Bible. — The Koran — its characteristics — 
 its history — influence — variety — poetry — theology — morality — the 
 Prophet's fits of inspiration. —Relation of Mohammed to Miracles, 
 compared with that of Christ. — The Miraculous generally. — 
 Religion. — Fatalism. — What the Koran says. — What has been 
 drawn from it. — Opposite effects of the same doctrine — Moham- 
 med's views of Prayer, Predestination, and Free Will.— Wars of 
 Islam — an essential part of the system or not ] — how accounted for. 
 — Connection of the Spiritual and Temporal Power — in Eastern 
 Christendom — in Western Christendom — and in Islam. — Character 
 of early Mohammedan Wars— Religious enthusiasm — the Crusades. 
 —Character and gloomy results of later Mohammedan conquests. — 
 The Ottoman Turks— their national character — vices and virtues — 
 What Europeans have done for them — what allowance is to be 
 made for them and for their misgovernment — not essential to Islam 
 now, whatever they were once— results of early Mohammedan 
 
xxvi CONTENTS. 
 
 conquests — Literature — Science — and Civilisation— the Prophet's 
 own view of learning, and that of his followers — Attitude of 
 Christianity and Christians towards Religious wars — Morality of 
 war. — What wars are Christian . _ - . page 132 
 
 LECTUBE IV. 
 
 Mohammedanism and Cheistianity. 
 
 The Future Life of Mohammedanism — of other Religions. — Use Mo- 
 hammed made of Heaven and Hell — their legitimate use. — Does 
 Mohammedanism encourage self-indulgence ? — Morality of Moham- 
 medanism. — Mohammed's attitude towards existing institutions 
 compared with that of other Founders— Solon — Moses— Christ. — 
 How Islam dealt with Polygamy — Divorce — Women generally — 
 Slavery — Caste, as illustrated by Arabia, India— Africa. — How it 
 dealt with Orphans— the poor — the insane— origin of lunatic 
 asylums — the lower animals — moral offences, drunkenness and 
 gambling. — How then ought Christianity to reganl Moliammedan- 
 ism ? — How does it ? — Three Monotheistic creeds — Heroes common 
 to all — Spirituality of each.— Mohammed and Moses compared. — 
 Iconoclasm. — Absence of priestcraft and ritual, yet great success 
 in proselytising — reverence for Christ, and sympathy for Christians 
 — three reasons suggested for Mohammed's rejection of Christianity. 
 — Mohammed's views of Christ— of the Virgin Mary— of the 
 Trinity— of the Crucifixion^-of God. — Lessons to be learnt from 
 them. — Has Mohammedanism kept back the East by hindering the 
 spread of Christianity ? — Is it a curse or blessing to the world at 
 large ?— Limits of Mohammedanism and of Christianity. — A8i)ect8 
 of Mohammedanism in different countries — Africa — Spain — Sicily 
 — Turkey — Persia— India — Contrast between Christianity and Mo- 
 hammedanism and their founders. — Is the East progressive or not 1 
 — Corruptions of Moliammedanism — Evils more or less rife in 
 Musalman countries, e.g. Religious feuds, Fatnlinm, disregaixl of 
 human life, and of humanity in punishments— degradation of 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 women. — Judicial corruption — misgovernment and consequent 
 stagnation or decay — unbridled despotism — conquests of Christian 
 Powers — do these evils imply that the religion is dead ? — Illus- 
 trations from history of Christendom — the other side of the question 
 — inhabitants of Asia Minor — ^Wonderful power of Islam — Neces- 
 sity of Eevival in all religions — Wahhabis in Arabia and India — 
 revival in Eastern Anatolia — Maintenance of Ottoman supremacy 
 in Europe not necessary to Islam — Russian conquests in Asia not 
 fatal to it — Russian conquests do not spread a living Christianity — 
 Eastern Christians, their strength and weakness — ^Limits to the 
 influence of the West on the East — Despotism — Polygamy — 
 slavery — the slave-trade — condemned by Islam and by all religions 
 — mistakes of travellers and missionaries on this head — Is Moham- 
 medanism reconcilable with Civilisation 1 — With Christianity 1 — 
 Modifications possible or necessary. — Mohammed's place in His- 
 tory PAGE 188 
 
 Appendix to Lectuee I. - - • - - » 293 
 
 Appendix to Lectuee III. „ 301 
 
 Index ,,305 
 
LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 FEBKTJAKY and MAKCH 1874. 
 
MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Delivered at the Koyal Institution. 
 February 14, 1874. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Sua cuique genti religio est, nostra nobis. — CiCERO. 
 
 *A\\' kv TTavTi iOvei 6 tpojioviisvoQ avrbv, xal epyai:i6fi£vog SiKaioffvvrjv, 
 dsKTOQ avT^ e(TTi, — St. Peter. 
 
 The Science of Comparative Religion is still in its 
 infancy ; and if there is one danger more than 
 another against which it should be on its guard, it is 
 that of hasty and ill-considered generalisation. Hasty 
 generalisation is the besetting temptation of all young 
 Sciences ; may I not say of Science in general ? 
 They are in too great a hurry to justify their exist- 
 ence by arriving at results which may be generally 
 intelligible, instead of waiting patiently till the result 
 shapes itself from the premises ; as if, in the pursuit 
 of truth, the chase was not always worth more than 
 the game and the process itself more than the result ! 
 Theory has, it is true, its advantages, even in a young 
 
 A 
 
2 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Science, in the way of suggesting a definite line which 
 enquiry may take. A brilliant hypothesis formed; 
 not by random guesswork, but by the trained 
 imagination of the man of Science, or by the true 
 divination of genius, enlarges the horizon of the 
 student whom the limits of the human faculties them- 
 selves drive to be a specialist, but who is apt to 
 become too much so. It throws a flood of light upon 
 a field of knowledge which was before, perhaps, half 
 in shadow, bringing out each object in its relative 
 place, and in its true proportions ; finally, it gathers 
 scattered facts into one focus, and explaining them 
 provisionally by a single law, it makes an appeal to 
 the fancy, which must react on the other mental 
 powers, and be a most powerful stimulus to further 
 research. In truth, much that is now demonstrated 
 fact was once hypothesis, and would never have been 
 demonstrated unless it had been first assumed. But 
 since there are few Keplers in the world — men ready 
 to sacrifice, without hesitation, a hypothesis that had 
 seemed to explain the universe, and become, as it 
 were, a part of themselves, the moment that the facts 
 seem to require it — great circumspection will always 
 be needed lest the facts may be made to bend to the 
 theory, instead of its being modified to meet them. 
 
 Bearing this- caution in mind, we may, perhaps, 
 think that the Science of Comparative Religion, 
 young as it is, has yet been in existence long enough 
 to enable us to lay it down, at all events provisionally, 
 as a general law, that all the great religions of the 
 world, the commencement of which has not been 
 immemorial, coeval that is -with the human mind it- 
 self, have been in the first instance moral rather than 
 
ORIGIN OF RELIGION, MORAL. 
 
 theological ; they have been called into existence to 
 meet social and national needs ; they have raised 
 man gradually towards God, rather than brought 
 down God at once to man. 
 
 Judaism, for instance, sprang into existence at the 
 moment when the Israelites passed, and because they 
 passed, from the Patriarchal to the Political life, 
 when from slavery they emerged into freedom, when 
 they ceased to be a family, and became a nation. ' I 
 am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the 
 land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.' 
 The Moral Law which followed, the Theocracy itself, 
 was the outcome of this fundamental fact. The 
 nation that God has chosen, nay, that He has called 
 into existence, is to keep His laws and to be His 
 people. Consequently, all law to the ancient Hebrew 
 was alike Divine, whether written, as he believed, by 
 the finger of God on two tables, or whether applied 
 by the civil magistrate to the special cases brought 
 before him. Moral and political offences are thus 
 offences against God, and the ideas of crime and sin 
 are identical alike in fact and in thought. 
 
 Again, take a glance at the religion of Buddha. 
 We speak of Buddhism, and are apt to think of it 
 chiefly as a body of doctrine, drawn up over two 
 thousand years ago, and at this day professed by four 
 hundred and fifty millions of human beings ; and we 
 wonder, as well we may, how a suminu7n bonum of 
 mere painlessness in this world, and practically, and 
 to the ordinary mind, of total extinction when this 
 world is over, can have satisfied the spiritual cravings 
 of Buddha's contemporaries ; and, in its various forms, 
 can now be the life-guidance of a third of the human 
 
4 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 race.* But we forget that, in its origin at least, 
 Buddhism was more of a social than of a religious 
 reformation. It was an attack upon that web of 
 priestcraft which Brahmanism had woven round the 
 whole frame-work of Indian society.* It was the 
 levelling of caste distinctions, the sight of a ' man 
 bom to be a king' throwing off his royal dignity, 
 sweeping away the sacerdotal mummeries which he 
 had himself tested, and found unfruitful, preferring 
 poverty to riches, and Sudras to Brahmans. It was 
 Buddha's overpowering sense of the miseries of sin, 
 his dim yearnings after a better life, his moral system 
 of which the sum is Love, which wrought upon the 
 hearts of his hearers.' * He founded, it is true, a new 
 religion, but he began by attacking an old.' He 
 
 * To Boddha himBelf and to his immediate disciples, it is now 
 nearly certain that Nirvftna meant, not the cessation of being, but 
 its perfection. Many of his followers in all afpcs hare, no doubt, 
 developed one side of his teaching) only on this subject ; but there 
 arc not a few who know, as a friendly critic, the Rev. John Hoare, 
 on the hijfh authority of Mr. Beal, has i)oiiite«l out to me, that on 
 the last night which their master siwnt on earth he is said to have 
 held high oonyene with his disciples, much after the manner of 
 Socrates in the Phaxlo, on the future life ; and that a Sfitra stil 
 remaiuH in which the four characterintics of Nirv&na arc said to be 
 personality, purity, happiness, and etcniity. 
 
 * See Max MUller*s •Chips from a German Workshop.' vol. I., 
 210-226, especially p. 220; ami S|}encc Hanly's 'Legends and 
 Theories of the Buddhists,* Introduction, p. 13-20. CI also Beal's 
 *Bnddhist IMlgrima,* Introduction, p. 49, scq. 
 
 * See in ' Travels of Maroo Polo,* translated by Colonel Yule (II. 
 SOO.seq.)* the remarkable story of the ilcvotion of Sakya Muni t<i an 
 Moetic life, as a preliminary to all that followed. 'Had he been a 
 Christian,' says the good Venetian, ' he would have been a great saint 
 of oar \jnx\\ Jesus (*hrist, to good and purt; w*as the life he led.* See 
 also Colonel Yule's notes im lor., and Mr. Talboys H'heeler's ' History 
 of IiMlia,' vol. 1 1 1., chap. Hi. 
 
JUDAISM AND BUDDHISM. 
 
 reconstructed society first, and it was his social reform 
 that led to his religion, rather than his religion which 
 involved his social reconstruction. The half we 
 may, perhaps, think would have been more than the 
 whole — 
 
 ' Quiiesivit coelo lucem ingemuitque reperti.' 
 
 Nor is it much otherwise with Christianity itself. 
 Christ was before all things the Founder of a new 
 Society ; not, it is true, of a political Society : had it 
 been so, more of His countrymen would have seen in 
 His person the Messiah that was to come, and in His 
 kingdom the golden age of their own poets and 
 prophets. The political frame-work, indeed, of the 
 world Christ came neither to destroy, nor to recon- 
 struct, except indirectly and remotely. He recognised 
 the logic of facts ; above all, the tremendous logic of 
 the Roman Empire. Tribute was to be paid to 
 Caesar, even though that Caesar was a Tiberius. The 
 new Society was potentially a world-wide one, a vast 
 democracy in which Jew and Roman, slave and free- 
 man, rich and poor were on a footing of absolute 
 equality. Enthusiastic love to Christ Himself, evi- 
 denced by purity of heart, by forgetfulness of self, and 
 by enthusiastic love to all mankind, was the one 
 condition and the one test of membership. He who 
 would serve God should first serve his fellow-creatures, 
 and he who with singleness of mind should serve 
 them best should be the least unworthy member of 
 the new brotherhood. 
 
 It is true, that to this new Creation of His, Christ 
 gives a name, which we are accustomed to look upon 
 as conveying mainly theological ideas ; He calls it 
 
6 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 * the Kingdom of Heaven,' but how does he explain 
 the temi Himself? His great precursor, John the 
 Baptist, had predicted its immediate advent. Christ 
 says, It is here already, it is withiii you. At the 
 very opening of His work. He speaks of it as already 
 existing ; the outline was there, even if the details 
 were not filled in. Now if the Kingdom of Heaven 
 existed before it had dawned, even upon the most 
 favoured of His followers, that he was more than 
 ' that Prophet,' it would seem to follow that the 
 essence of His Kingdom was, not the doctrine which 
 they did not and could not as yet accept, but the 
 higher life they saw Christ leading, the life of the 
 soul ; and which, seeing, they reverenced, and reve- 
 rencing, as far as might be, wished to imitate. The 
 Sermon on the Mount, so far as that which is inde- 
 scribable can be described at all, and that which is 
 the fountain head of goodness in infinitely varied 
 types can be judged by one or two of the rills which 
 issue from it, is little else than Christ's own life trans- 
 lated into words ; and those who, least imperfectly, 
 re-translated His words back into their own lives, 
 were the very *salt of the earth.' They were 
 members of the Kingdom of Heaven, even though 
 they did not believe, as some did not even to the end, 
 that He who ^ spake as never man spake ' was some- 
 thing more than man. 
 
 If we go back to the ipsissima verba, so far as we 
 can now get at them, of Christ Himself, how much 
 of the doctrine that we are apt to attribute to Christ, 
 we shall find to be Pauline — how much more Patristic,' 
 Scholastic, Puritan ! How little dogma, and how mucl\ 
 morality, there is in the Founder of our religion ; how 
 
CHUr^TIANJTY. 
 
 few words, and how many works ; how little about 
 consequences, how much about motives ; in a word, 
 how little theology, and how much religion ! I do not 
 of course mean to deny that Moses, Buddha, Christ 
 Himself were founders of a theology as well as of a 
 life ; I only say that the life came first, since it was 
 that which was most called for by the time, and it w^as 
 their new views of life which prepared their followers 
 to receive and develope their new views of God. ' If 
 any man will do His will, he shall know of the doc- 
 trine whether it be of God.' ' He that loveth not his 
 brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
 whom he hath not seen .' ' ^ Blessed are the pure in 
 heart, for they shall see God.' 
 
 I am aware that distinguished German philoso- 
 phers. Professor Max Miiller among them,' have laid 
 it down that men cannot form themselves into a people 
 till they have come to an agreement about their reli- 
 gion, and that community of faith is a bond of union 
 more fundamental than any other bond at all. But 
 I do not think that if the distinction which I have drawn 
 between the primeval and the historical Religions of 
 the world be kept in sight, there is much necessary 
 antagonism between their view and mine ; that a new 
 religion is, in order of time, the outcome and not the 
 cause of a general movement towards a higher life, 
 whether moral or national. Religion is, no doubt, 
 practically all that they say it is, a tie so strong that 
 it can give an ideal unity, as it did in Greece, to tribes 
 dilFering from one another in degrees of civilisation, 
 in interests and in dialect ; but it does not follow that 
 it was historically ever the original moving power in 
 
 ' ' Introduction to the Science of Keligiou/ Lecture [11., 144-153. 
 
8 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 the aggregation of scattered tribes, or that a new 
 religion was at first a revelation of God rather than 
 a revelation of morality. There must have been 
 a previous community of race and language for the 
 religion to work upon; there must also have been 
 a strong, though very possibly an ill-directed and a 
 desultory upheaval of society. The fragments still 
 existing of the primeval creed are no doubt a factor 
 in that upheaval, and feel its force ; but the new 
 religion is the result and not the cause of the general 
 movement. It is not till later that it pays the debt 
 it owes to what gave it birth, by lending a higher 
 sanction to each institution of the new society, and so 
 does in truth become, what philosophers say it is, the 
 most important bond in a national life. First the as- 
 pirations, then that which satisfies them ! First a new 
 conception of the relation of men to one another, 
 then that conception sanctioned, vivified, lit up by the 
 newly perceived relation of all alike to God ! 
 
 I would also remark that Greece itself, though 
 Professor Max Miiller appeals to it in favour of his 
 own conclusions, seems to supply an argument in 
 favour of my view. For even in the Persian wars the 
 common danger and the common hatred of the ' Bar- 
 barian ' failed to bring about more than a very tran- 
 sitory coalition between two or three of the leading 
 states. The ideal unity of the Greek races was only 
 an ideal, and Panhellenism never went so far as 
 to unite the different states into a homogeneous 
 people. If there had been a real and spontaneous 
 movement among the autonomous cities of Greece 
 towards centralisation, a great reformer might have 
 taken advantage of it, and working upon the * dim 
 
RELIGION IN GREECE. 
 
 recollection of the common allegiance they owed 
 from time immemorial to the great Father of Gods 
 and men, the old Zeus of Dodona, the Panhellenic 
 Zeus/ ' have welded the fragments into a nation. 
 The One would not merely have been dimly discerned 
 behind the Many by the highest minds, but the per- 
 ception would have been converted into a practical 
 reality. The intellectual mission of Socrates might 
 have taken something of the shape, and realised 
 something of the results of the mission of Mohammed. 
 But there was no such national movement in Greece, 
 and therefore no opportunity either for the birth of a 
 new religion or a revival of the old one. In Greek 
 Polytheism we see historically nothing but decay. 
 Mythology thus early had overgrown Religion, and 
 the gross stories of Homer and of Hesiod which so 
 scandalised Socrates and Plato, had, even in their 
 time, concealed from all but the highest minds the 
 vague primitive belief, common probably to the 
 whole Indo-Germanic race, in one Father who is in 
 Heaven. 
 
 To what extent the principle I have laid down as 
 to the origin of the three great historical religions, is 
 also true of that of Mohammed, will develope itself 
 gradually in the sequel. 
 
 It has been remarked, indeed, by writer after 
 writer, that Islam is less interesting than other reli- 
 gions, inasmuch as it is less original. And this is one 
 of the favourite charges brought against it by Chris- 
 tian apologists. In the first place, I am inclined to 
 think that the charge of want of originality, though it 
 cannot be denied, has been overdone by recent writers ; 
 
 ' * Science of Religion,' p. 148. 
 
10 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 most conspicuously so by M. Renan, who, ingenious 
 and beautiful as his Essay is, seems disposed to ex- 
 plain the whole fabric of Islam by the ideas that 
 existed before Mohammed ; and the political direction 
 given to it by his successors, most notably by Omar ; 
 in fact, it seems to me that the only element left out, 
 or not accounted for, in his analysis of Mohammeda- 
 nism, is Mohammed himself. His Mohammedanism 
 resembles a Hamlet with not only the Prince of Den- 
 mark, but with Shakespeare himself cut out. The 
 disjointed members and some few elements of the 
 fabric remain ; about as much as we should have of 
 the Hamlet of Shakespeare in the Amlettus of Saxo- 
 Grammaticus ; but the informing, animating, inspiring 
 soul is wanting. 
 
 It is undeniable that a vague and hearsay acquaint- 
 ance with the Old Testament, the Talmud, and the 
 New Testament, and the undefined religious cravings 
 of a few of his immediate predecessors, or contempo- 
 raries, influenced Mohammed much, and traces of 
 them at second hand may be found in every other 
 page of the Koran ; but then, in the second place, it 
 may be asked whether want of originality is any 
 reproach to a religion ; for what is religion ? 
 
 It is that something, which, whether it is a collec- 
 tion of shadows projected by the mind itself upon the 
 mirror of the external world, explaining the Macro- 
 cosm by the Microcosm, and invested with a reality 
 which belongs only to the mind that casts them, if 
 indeed even to that, or whether it is indeed an insight 
 of the soul into realities which exist independently of 
 it, and which underlie alike the world of sense and 
 the world of reason ; — it is something, at all events, 
 
IS ISLAM ORIGINAL? 11 
 
 which satisfies the spiritual wants of man. Man's 
 spiritual wants, whatever their origin, are his truest 
 wants ; and the something which satisfies those wants 
 is the most real of all realities to him. 
 
 The founder, therefore, of a religion which is to 
 last must read the spiritual needs of a nation correctly, 
 or, at all events, must be capable of seeing the direc- 
 tion in which they lead, and the development they 
 will one day take. If he read them correctly, he need 
 not care about any originality beyond that which such 
 insight implies ; he will rather do well to avoid it. 
 The religious world was startled a few years ago by 
 the revelations of an Oriental scholar that much sup- 
 posed to be exclusively the doctrine of the New Tes- 
 tament is to be found in the Talmud, as though some 
 reflection was thereby cast upon the Founder of our 
 religion ! Positivists, again, have laid gi'eat stress on 
 the fact that some of the moral precepts supposed to 
 be exclusively Christian are to be found in the sacred 
 writings of Confucius and the Buddhists. But what 
 then ? Is a religion less true because it recognises it- 
 self in other garbs, because it incorporates in itself all 
 that is best in the system which it expands or sup- 
 plants ? What if we found the whole Sermon on the 
 Mount dispersed about the writings of the Jewish 
 Rabbis, as we unquestionably find some part of it ? 
 Christ Himself was always the first to assert that He 
 came, not to destroy, but to fulfil. But it is strange 
 that the avowed relation of Christianity to Judaism 
 has not protected Islam from the assaults of Christian 
 apologists, grounded on its no less explicitly avowed 
 relation to the two together ! 
 
 But what of interest I am ready to admit that the 
 
12 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 religion of Mohammed loses on the score of origina- 
 lity, it gains in the greater fulness of our knowledge 
 of its origin. It is the latest and most historical of 
 the great religions of the world. 
 
 Renan has remarked that the origin of nearly all 
 the leading phenomena of life and history is obscure. 
 What, for instance, can Max M tiller tell us of the 
 origin of language? What well-authenticated facts 
 can political philosophers like Hobbes or Locke, or 
 even scientific antiquaries like Sir Charles Lyell or Sir 
 John Lubbock, tell us of the origin of society ? What 
 can Darwin tell us of the origin of life ? Trace the 
 genealogy of all existing languages into the three great 
 groups of Aryan, Semitic, and Turanian ; find, if you 
 can, the parent language from w^hich even these three 
 families have originally diverged ; are we any nearer 
 an explanation of what language really is ? Our hopes, 
 indeed, are aroused by hints dropped throughout Pro- 
 fessor Max Miiller's fascinating book that he has a 
 secret to divulge to those who have gone through an 
 adequate process of initiation. But to our disappoint- 
 ment we find that the explanation of * Phonetic 
 Types ' is only a roundabout way of saying what, no 
 doubt, is true, that language is instinctive, and that 
 we know nothing whatever of its origin. That sound 
 expresses thought we knew before ; but how does it 
 express it ? That is the question. Trace elaborately 
 through Geological Periods, if you can, the steps by 
 which the Monad has been developed into Man, and 
 show that there is no link wanting, and that Nature, 
 so far as we can trace, never makes a leap. Perhaps 
 not ; but there is a leap somewhere, and who can say 
 how vast the leap before the Protoplasm can have 
 
WHAT IS RELIGION? 13 
 
 received the something which is not Protoplasm but 
 Life, and which has all the dignity of life, even though 
 it be a Monad's ? 
 
 So, too, if the Science of Religion lasts long enough, 
 we may one day be able to trace a continuity of 
 growth from the very dawn of man's belief till, as in 
 history, so in religion, 
 
 * We doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.' 
 
 We shall find, however, that, even in the dimmest 
 dawn of history, the essence of religion was already 
 there, not forming, but already formed ; a feeling of 
 mystery which, as it is the beginning of philosophy, 
 so, perhaps, it is the very first beginning of religion ; 
 the distinction between right and wrong ; the idea of 
 a Power which is neither Man's nor external Nature's, 
 though it is evidenced by them both ; the sense that 
 there is something in this world amiss ; and the fear, 
 or, possibly, the hope, that it may be unriddled by- 
 and-bye.i Where did those ideas come from ^ And 
 do we knov/ anything more of the origin of religion 
 itself by having traced it to some of its elements ? 
 And, what is true of religion generally, is also 
 
 * I do not mean to touch here upon the disputed question whether 
 there are races without any definite religious ideas at all. Sir John 
 Lubbock (' Origin of Civilisation,' cap. iv.) has brought together the 
 testimony of many missionaries and travellers as to a great variety of 
 tribes, which seem to be, at all events, without anything beyond the 
 elements I have named ; but I much doubt whether these elements, 
 or some of them, do not exist in all tribes, even in the lowest. It is 
 certain that a longer acquaintance and minuter observation among 
 savage tribes, especially the African, have often led to the reversal of 
 an opinion naturally but hastily formed in the first instance. See 
 Waitz, ' Anthropologic der Naturvolker,' ii. 4. 
 
U MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 true, unfortunately, of those three rehgions which I 
 have called, for want of a better name, historical — 
 and of their founders. We know all too little of the 
 first and earliest labourers ; too much, perhaps, of 
 those who have entered into their labours. We know 
 less of Zoroaster and Confucius than we do of Solon 
 and Socrates ; less of Moses and of Buddha than we 
 do of Ambrose and Augustine. We know indeed 
 some fragments of a fraginent of Christ's life ; but 
 who can lift the veil of the thirty years that prepared 
 the way for the three ? What we do know indeed 
 has renovated a third of the world, and may yet 
 renovate much more ; an ideal of life at once remote 
 and near ; possible and impossible ; but how much 
 we do not know ! What do we know of His mother, 
 of His home life, of His early friends, and His relation 
 to them, of the gradual dawning, or, it may be, the 
 sudden revelation, of His divine mission ? How many 
 questions about Him occur to each of us which must 
 always remain questions ! 
 
 But in Mohammedanism ever^lhing is different ; 
 here, instead of the shadowy and the mysterious we 
 have history.' We know as much of Mohammed as 
 we do even of Luther and Milton. The mythical, 
 the legendary, the supernatural is almost wanting in 
 the original Arab authorities, or at all events can 
 easily be distinguished from what is historical .'' No- 
 
 ' Cf. Rcnau, ' Etudes d'Histoire Religrieuse." pp. 220 and 230. 
 
 " The belief in Ujinn, beings created of smokeless tire 2,000 years 
 before Adam, as a part of the original Arab mythology, was not 
 discarded by Mohammed (Komn, Sura i. 7-8 ; xlvi. 28, 29 ; Ivii. 17-18, 
 Ixxii. 1, &c.), but, in other respects, the miraculous ami mythological 
 element in Mohammedanism comes almost exclusively from Persian 
 sources. I'ersia has revenge<l the destruction of her national faith 
 
FULL KNOWLEDGE OF ISLAM. 15 
 
 body here is the dupe of himself or of others ; there 
 is the full light of day upon all that that light can 
 ever reach at all. ^ The abysmal depths of person- 
 ality ' indeed are, and must always remain, beyond 
 the reach of any line and plummet of ours. But we 
 know everything of the external history of Moham- 
 med — his youth, his appearance, his relations, his 
 habits ; the first idea and the gradual growth, inter- 
 mittent though it was, of his great revelation ; while 
 for his internal history, after his mission had been 
 proclaimed, we have a book absolutely unique in its 
 origin, it its preservation, and in the chaos of its 
 contents, but on the substantial authenticity of which 
 no one has ever been able to cast a serious doubt. 
 There, if in any book, we have a mirror of one of the 
 master-spirits of the world ; often inartistic, inco- 
 herent, self-contradictory, dull, but impregnated with 
 a few grand ideas which stand out from the whole • 
 a mind seething with the inspiration pent within it, 
 ' intoxicated with God,' but full of human weaknesses, 
 from which he never pretended — and it is his lasting 
 glory that he never pretended — to be free.^ 
 
 Upon the striking resemblances between the 
 Koran and the Bible — the book with which it is most 
 
 by corrupting in many i)articulars the simplicity of the creed of her 
 conquerors. For an exhaustive account of Arab ideas on the Djinn, 
 their creation, their influence on human affairs, and their abode, see 
 Note 21 to the Introduction of Mr. Lane's edition of ' The Thousand 
 and One Nights.' The legends illustrating the power of Solomon 
 over the Grenii are well known. The notes to Mr. Lane's edition of 
 the ' Arabian Nights ' form a storehouse of accurate information 
 upon Arab manners and customs. 
 
 ' It was a proverbial saying in very early times among Musalmans 
 that ' Mohammed's character was the Koran.' 
 
16 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 naturally compared — and the still more striking dif- 
 ferences, I need not now dwell at length, especially 
 as the latter have been admirably drawn out by Dean 
 Stanley.^ 
 
 To compress, as best I may, into a few sentences 
 what he has said so well, making only a few amend- 
 ments or additions where, from my point of view, they 
 seem to be called for. — The Koran lays claim to a 
 verbal, literal, and mechanical inspiration in every part 
 alike, and is regarded as such by almost all Mohamme- 
 dans. The Bible makes no such claim, except possibly 
 in one or two controverted passages ; and there are few 
 Christians who do not now admit at least a human 
 element in every part of it. The text of the Koran is 
 stereotyped ; in the Bible there is an immense variety 
 of readings. The Koran has hitherto proved to be 
 incapable of harmonious translation into other lan- 
 guages, and good Musalmans have always on that 
 account consistently discouraged the attempt ; the 
 Bible loses little or nothing in the process, and those 
 Christians who value it most have been most anxious 
 to translate it into all the known languages of the 
 world. The Bible is the work of a large number of 
 poets, prophets, statesmen, and lawgivers, extending 
 over a vast period of time, and incorporates with 
 itself other and earlier, and often conflicting docu- 
 ments ; the Koran comes straight from the brain, some- 
 times from the ravings, of an unlettered enthusiast, 
 who yet in this proved himself to be poet and pro- 
 phet, statesman and lawgiver in one. Finally, the* 
 strength of the Koran lies in its uniformity, in its) 
 intolerance, in its narrowness ; the strength of the 
 
 ' ' Lectures on the EaBtern Church,' viii, p. 266-273. 
 
KORAN AND BIBLE COMPARED. 17 
 
 Bible in its variety, its toleration, its universality. In 
 all these points, as in the more important one of the 
 morality of its highest revelations, the supremacy of 
 our sacred books over the one sacred book of the 
 Mohammedans is indisputable. 
 
 Dean Stanley asks somewhat triumphantly, but 
 on the whole rightly enough, whether there is a 
 single passage in the Koran that can be named, as a 
 proof of inspiration, with St. Paul's description o^ 
 Charity. But" it is worth remarking that sayings of 
 Mohammed's have been preserved, which, though 
 they are in no way equal to this, the sublimest pas- 
 sage of the greatest of the Apostles, yet show a real 
 insight into the nature and comprehensiveness of this 
 Christian grace ; and may at all events serve as a 
 comment on i Corinthians xiii. They are in the 
 form of an Apologue : ' When God made the earth, it 
 shook to and fro till He put mountains on it to keep 
 it firm.' — Then the angels asked, ^ O God, is there 
 anything in thy creation stronger than these moun- 
 tains V ' — And God replied, ^ Iron is stronger than the 
 mountains, for it breaks them.' — ^ And is there any- 
 thing in thy creation stronger than iron ? ' — ^ Yes, fire 
 is stronger than iron, for it melts it.' — ^ Is there any- 
 thing stronger than fire ? ' — ' Yes, water, for it 
 quenches fire.' — ^ Is there anything stronger than 
 water ? ' — ' Yes, wind, for it puts water in motion.' — 
 ' O 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.' But Moham- 
 med did not end here, or restrict his notion of charity 
 to the somewhat narrow sense which, in common 
 
 A 2 
 
18 MOHAMMED AND AWHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 language, it bears now, that of liberal and unostenta- 
 tious almsgiving ; he went on to give almost as wide 
 a definition of Charity as St. Paul himself. * Ever)- 
 good act is charity ; your smiling in your brother's 
 face ; your putting a wanderer in the right road ; 
 your giving water to the thirsty is charity ; exhorta- 
 tions to another to do right are charity. A man's 
 true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this 
 world to his fellow-man. When he dies, people will 
 ask, what property has he left behind him ? But the 
 angels will ask, what good deeds has he sent before 
 him ? ' ' 
 
 But from one point of view the Koran has, to the 
 comparative mythologist, and therefore to the student 
 of human nature, an interest quite unique, and not 
 the less absorbing that it springs out of the very 
 defects that I have pointed out. By studying the 
 Koran, together with the histor}^ of Mohammedanism, 
 we see with our own eyes, what we can only infer or 
 imagine in other cases, the precise steps by which a 
 religion naturally and necessarily developes into a 
 mythology. 
 
 In the Koran we have, beyond all reasonable 
 doubt, the exact words of Mohammed without sub- 
 traction and without addition. We see with our own 
 eyes the birth and adolescence of a religion. In the 
 
 ' See * Mishkat-ul-Masabih,* translated by Captain Mattliews, I. vi. 
 445, 447, 4rjO. &c. The autliorities are Abu Hurairah, Abu Dliar and 
 Anas. A fiiendly American critic in 'The Nation' (New York). 
 May 20, 1875, points out that much of this view of charity is to be 
 found in the Talmud, I5aba r.athm, fol. x. a ; ani»ther pi-oof that 
 tra<litional Judaism is an important component ))art of Islam. 
 Mohannned did not chnin on'irinnlily for tlii-^. or for any other part 
 of his teaching. 
 
GROWTH OF MYTHOLOGY. 19 
 
 history of Mohammedanism we descry the parasitical 
 growth that fastens on it, even in its founder's hfe- 
 time. We see the way in which a man who denied 
 that he could work miracles is believed to work them 
 even by his contemporaries, and how, in the next 
 generation, the extravagant vision of the nocturnal 
 flight to the seventh heaven, with all its gorgeous 
 imagery, and the revolutions of the moon round the 
 Kaaba, is taken for sober fact, and is propagated with 
 all the elaboration of details, which, if they came 
 from anybody, could have come only from Moham- 
 med himself ; and yet all of it with the most perfect 
 good faith. We see how a man, who, though he had 
 once in an outburst of anger uttered a prophecy 
 which turned out true, always denied that he could 
 predict the future, and was yet, in spite of himself, 
 credited with all the supernatural insight of a seer. 
 Lastly, we mark how the formalities and the sacri- 
 fices and the idolatries which he spent his life in 
 overthrowing revived in another shape out of the 
 frequency of prayers and fasts that he enjoined, and 
 of the pilgrimages he permitted. The holy places 
 themselves became more holy, as having been the 
 scene of his preaching and of his death, and so, in 
 time, received more than human honours. We know 
 from history what the outgrowth and superstructure 
 have been, and we read in the Koran how narrow the 
 foundation was. 
 
 But from the Bible, by its very nature, and owing 
 to those peculiarities which constitute its special 
 strength, we fail to know, in the same sense, the 
 exact limits of the foundation of the Christendom 
 which has overspread the world. In the outward 
 
20 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 shape in which it has come down to us, and in the 
 questions connected with the authorship of its dif- 
 ferent parts and the variety of its contents, the Bible 
 resembles not so much the Koran as the Sunnah^ 
 which, in its authorised form of the *six correct 
 books,' is, of course, rejected by the Shiah half of 
 the Mohammedan races.' Even in the Gospels as 
 we have them, comment and inference and the indi- 
 viduality of the writer are mixed with verbal accuracy 
 and exact observation. We can detect conflicting 
 currents of feeling and of thought which it taxes the 
 ingenuity and honesty even of harmonists to harmo- 
 nise. The New Testament is not less but more 
 valuable because of these discrepancies. Its unde- 
 signed discrepancies have been as valuable in widen- 
 ing the base of our Christianity as its undesigned co- 
 incidences are in assuring it. Whether we may legiti- 
 mately apply the inferences to be drawn from our full 
 knowledge of the growth of Mohammedism to our 
 imperfect knowledge of the growth of other religions 
 is, of course, open to argument, but the interest and 
 importance of the enquiry can hardly be over- 
 estimated. 
 
 And over and above the interest attaching to the 
 one religion of the world which is strictly historical 
 in its origin, and which therefore may, rightly or 
 wrongly, be used to explain the origin of those of 
 which we know less, there is the fascination that 
 must always attach to those mixed characters of 
 vrhom we know so much, and yet so little ; who 
 
 ' The Shiahs, however, have four books of their own which they 
 are «aid to look upon as only inferior in authority to the Koran itself. 
 (See Hughes's Notes, \k 3.">-39.) 
 
HISTORY OF ISLAM. 21 
 
 have made the world what it is, and yet whom the 
 world cannot read. 
 
 ' Hero, impostor, fanatic, priest, or sage : ' 
 
 which element predominates in the man as a whole 
 we may perhaps discover, and most certainly we can 
 say now it was not the impostor ; but taking him at 
 different times and under different circumstances, the 
 more one reads, the more one distrusts one's own 
 conclusions, and, as Dean Milman remarks, answers 
 with the Arab ' Allah only knows.' ^ 
 
 Nor does Mohammedanism lack other claims on 
 our attention. Glance for one moment at its marvel- 
 lous history. Think how one great truth working in 
 the brain of a shepherd of Mecca gradually produced 
 conviction in a select band of personal adherents ; 
 how, when the Prophet was exiled to Medina, the 
 faith gathered there fresh strength, brought him back 
 in triumph to his native place, and secured to him for 
 his hfetime the submission of all Arabia ; how, when 
 the master-mind was withdrawn, the whole structure 
 he had reared seemed, for the moment, to vanish 
 away like the baseless fabric of a vision, or hke the 
 mirage of the desert whence it had taken its rise ; how 
 the faith of Abu Bakr and the sword of Omar recalled 
 it once more to life and crushed the false prophets who 
 always follow in the wake of a true one, as the jackals 
 do the trail of a lion ; how it crumpled up the Roman 
 Empire on one side, and the Persian on the other, 
 driving Christianity before it on the west and north, 
 and Fire-Worship on the east and south ; how it 
 spread over two continents, and how it settled in a 
 
 * Latin Christianity, I. 555. 
 
'22 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 third, and how, the tide of invasion carrying it head- 
 long onward through Spain into France, it, at one 
 time, almost overw^helmed the whole, till Charles the 
 Hammer turned it back upon itself in his five-days' 
 victory at Tours ; how, throughout these vast con- 
 quests, after a short time, to intolerance succeeded 
 toleration, to ignorance knowledge, to barbarism 
 civilisation ; how the indivisible empire, the represen- 
 tative on earth of the Theocracy in heaven, became 
 many empires, with rival Khali fs at Damascus and 
 Bagdad, at Cairo, Cairoan, and Cordova ; how horde 
 after horde of barbarians of the great Turkish or Tartar 
 stock were precipitated on the dominions of the faith- 
 ful, only to be conquered by the faith of those whose 
 arms they overthrew, and were compelled hence- 
 forward, by its inherent force, to destroy what they 
 had worshipped, to worship what they had destroyed ; 
 how, when the news came that the very birthplace 
 of the Christian faith had fallen into their hands, * a 
 nerve was touched,' as Gibbon says, *of exquisite 
 feeling, and the sensation vibrated to the heart of 
 Europe ; ' how Christendom itself thus became for two 
 hundred years half Mohammedanised, and tried to 
 meet fanaticism by counter-fanaticism — the sword, the 
 Bible, and the Cross, against the scymitar, the Koran, 
 and the Crescent ; how, lastly, when the tide of 
 aggression had been checked, it once more burst its 
 barriers, and seating itself on the throne of the Caesars 
 of the East, threatened more than once the very centre 
 of Christendom, till at length, 
 
 * The Moslem faith, though flickering like a torch 
 111 a night struggle on the slioi-es of Spain, 
 Glared, a broad column of advancing flame, 
 
EXTENT OF ISLAM NOW. 23 
 
 Along the Danube and the Illyrian shore 
 
 Far into Italy, where eager monks 
 
 Who watch in dreams, and dream the while they watch^ 
 
 Saw Christ grow paler in the baleful light, 
 
 Crying again the cry of the forsaken/ 
 
 — all this is matter of history, at which I can only 
 glance. 
 
 And what is the position of Islam now ? 
 
 It numbers at this day more than one hundred 
 millions, probably one hundred and fifty millions, of 
 believers as sincere, as devout, as true to their creed 
 as are the believers in any creed whatever. It still 
 has its gi-ip on two continents, and a foothold, even if 
 a precarious foothold, in a third. It extends from 
 Morocco to the Malay Peninsula, from Zanzibar to 
 the Kirghis hoide. It embraces within its ample 
 circumference two extensive empires, one Sunni, the 
 other Shiah, the first of w^hich, though it has often 
 been pronounced sick unto death or even dead, is not 
 dead yet, and is even showing some signs of reviving 
 vitality. It still claims the allegiance of those widely- 
 scattered countries from which in the dimmest anti- 
 quity sprang the worship of Stars and of Fire, the 
 worship of Baal and of Moloch, of Al Lat and of Al 
 Uzza, of Ormuzd and of Ahriman, of Isis and of 
 Osiris. It still grasps Mount Sinai, the cradle of the 
 Jewish, and Bethlehem, the cradle of the Christian, 
 Faith. It is to be found beneath the shadow even of 
 those giant mountains of Nepal which gave birth to 
 Buddha. To the votaries, therefore, of Islam belong 
 the spots which, from their antiquit}'- or their associa- 
 tions, are most dear to the great religions of the world ; 
 and the countries which are the birthplace of them 
 all. Theirs is the Cave of Machpelah, theirs the 
 
•24 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Church of the Nativity, theirs the Holy Sepulchre, 
 theirs Mount Elburz. To Islam belong El Azhar at 
 Cairo, the Taj at Agra, Saint Sophia at Constantinople, 
 the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, and the Kaaba 
 at Mecca. Africa, which had yielded so early to 
 Christianity, nay, which had given birth to Latin 
 Christianity itself, the Africa of Cyprian and Tertullian, 
 of Antony and of Augustine, yielded still more 
 readily to Mohammed ; and from the Straits of 
 Gibraltar to the Isthmus of Suez may still be heard 
 the cry which with them is no vain repetition of 
 ' Allahu-Akbar, Allahu-Akbar,' — 'God is most great, 
 there is no God but God, and Mohammed is the 
 prophet of God.' ^ 
 
 And if it be said, as it often is, that Mohammed- 
 anism has gained no territorial extension since the 
 first flame of religious enthusiasm, fanned, as it then 
 often was, by the lust of conquest, has died out, I 
 answer that this is far from the truth. 
 
 In the extreme East Mohammedanism has since 
 then won and maintained for centuries a moral 
 supremacy in the important Chinese province of 
 Yunnan, and has thus actually succeeded in thrusting 
 a wedge between the two great Buddhist empires of 
 
 • In the Adhan, or morning call to Prayer, which at once, by its 
 musical cadences, and its associations, proiluces so deep an impression 
 on all Eastern travellei-s, the words Allahu-Akbai- are repeated four 
 times at the beginning, and twice at the end. The translation of 
 the call is as follows : — • God is most great. I testify there is no God 
 but God. I testify that Mohammed is the messenger of God. Come 
 to prayer. Come to salvation. Pmyeris better than sleep. Gotl is 
 most great. There is no God but Gotl.' See Curzon's * Monasteries 
 of the Levant,' p. 56, kc. Walpole's * Ansayrii,' p. a.V.')*). Lane's 
 •Modern Egyptians,' L 9L 
 
ISLAM IN CHINA. 25 
 
 Burmah and China. ^ Within our own memory, 
 indeed, after a fifteen years' war, and under the 
 leadership of Ta Wen Siu, one of those half-military, 
 half-religious geniuses, which Islam seems always 
 capable of producing, it succeeded in wresting from 
 the Celestial Empire a territorial supremacy in the 
 western half of this province. A few years ago an 
 embassy of intelligent and, it is worth adding, of 
 progressive and of tolerant Musalmans from Yun-nan, 
 headed by Prince Hassan, son of the chieftain who 
 had now become the Sultan Soliman, appeared in our 
 own country, and the future of the Panthays,^ as they 
 are called, began at length to attract attention, not so 
 much, I fear, from the extraordinary interest attach- 
 ing to their religious history — that interests few 
 Englishmen — as from the possible opening to our 
 Eastern trade, the only Gospel which most English- 
 men care now to preach, and one which we did 
 consistently for many years propagate by our com- 
 mercial wars in China and Japan, at the expense of 
 ever)' principle of religion and humanity. Unfoitu- 
 
 ' Marco Polo ([f, '>2 -s"*/.) fouml Musalmans as well as Nestorian 
 Christians in the province of Carajan, i.e. Yun-nan, in the thirteenth 
 century ; and Colonel Yule in a note ad loc. cites a statement of 
 Bashichiddin, the Persian historian of the Mongols, that ' all the in- 
 habitants of Yachi, its capital town, were in his time Mohammedans ;' 
 an overstatement no doubt, but still substantially true. Ibn Batuta in 
 the following century (Ibn Batuta's ' Travels,' translated by Ptev. S. 
 Lee) says (page 208) that ' in every Chinese province there was a 
 town for the Mohammedans, with cells, villages, and mosques, and 
 that they were made much of by the Emperor of China ; ' * in each 
 town too there was a Sheikh el Islam who administered justice.' 
 
 ^ A name given to them by their Burmese neighbours, from whom 
 the word has passed into the Western World. It is said to be a cor- 
 ruption of the Burmese * Putthee,' i.e., Mohammedan. 
 
/ 
 
 26 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 nately the interests of our trade were not suffi- 
 ciently bound up with the existence of the Panthays 
 to call for any representations on the part of a 
 nation which, in spite of its higher instincts and 
 aspirations, is still above all commercial, and Prince 
 Hassan was compelled to return to Asia without 
 any prospect of moral support from us or from 
 the Sultan of Turkey. On arriving at Rangoon 
 he was met by the news that the Musalmans had 
 at length been overpowered by the fearful odds 
 arrayed against them ; that Tali-Fu, the capital, 
 had fallen, and men, women, and children to the 
 number of some thirty thousand had been mas- 
 sacred by the victors. The fate of Momien, the 
 other stronghold, was, of course, only a question of 
 time ; but though the short-lived Mohammedan 
 sovereignty has been destroyed, and what was won 
 by the sword has since perished by the sword, 
 Mohammedanism itself has not been extinguished in 
 the Celestial Empire. Within the last eight years 
 that vast tract of country called Western Chinese 
 Tartary, or Eastern Turkestan, has thrown off the 
 yoke of China, and has added another to the list of 
 Musalman kingdoms.' Khoten and Yarkand and 
 Kashgar are united under the vigorous rule of the 
 
 • By so (loino:, it has only returno'l to the faith professecl by it in 
 the time of Marco Polo. • The people of Khoten,' says he, I. 19G, 
 * arc subject to the Great Khan, and are all worshippers [sic] of 
 Mohammed.' Ibn Batuta says (p. 8(5) of tlie inhalntants of Khavarism 
 =Khiva, that he ' never saw lx;tter-bRHl or more lilx;ml people, or those 
 who were more friendly to stranfjers.' He especially appnjveil of the 
 whip hunt? up in every mosque to chastise tlu»se who ab>eute<i tbem- 
 selvcs from prayers. 
 
ISLAM IN CENTRAL ASIA. 27 
 
 Atalik Ghazee/ Yakub Beg. Whatever may be his 
 private character, the abohtion of the slave trade 
 throughout his dominions, his rigid administration of 
 justice, his readiness to establish commercial relations 
 with India, and the respect shown even by the 
 Meccan pilgrims among his subjects for Christianity, 
 are some indication of what Mohammedanism may 
 yet have in store for it in Central Asia under the 
 influence of a master mind, and wnth the modifications 
 that are possible or necessary to it. Throughout the 
 Chinese Empire, at Karachar for instance, there are 
 scattered Musalman communities who have higher 
 hopes than Buddhism or Confucianism, and a purer 
 morality than Taoism can supply. The Panthays 
 themselves, it is believed, still number a million and 
 a half, and the unity of God and the mission of God's 
 prophet are attested day by day by a continuous 
 line of worshippers from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 Ocean. 
 
 Nay, even beyond, in the East Indian Archipelago, 
 beyond the Straits of Malacca, if J may venture just 
 now so to call them, in Java and Sumatra, in Borneo 
 and Celebes, Islam has raised many of the natives 
 above their former selves, and has long been the 
 dominant faith. It established itself in the Malay 
 Peninsula and Sumatra in the thirteenth and four- 
 teenth, and in Java and Celebes in the fifteenth 
 
 ' The title was given him by the Amir of Bokhara. It means 
 ' Guardian of the Champions of Religion.* For the abolition of the 
 slave trade, see the best authority on the subject, Shaw's ' High 
 Tartary,* p. 347 ; and for the view of Christians taken by some pil- 
 grims to Mecca fi-om Central Asia, p. 05. Tlie letters received from 
 Mr. Forsyth's Mission (see Tim'x, of March 17, 187-4) seem quite to 
 bear out the view T had formed of Yakub Beg's position. 
 
28 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 century ; and it is interesting to note, as is remarked 
 by Crawfurd, that about the time it was being gradu- 
 ally expelled from Western Europe it made up for 
 its expulsion by extending itself to the East of Asia. 
 The Arab missionaries were just in time, for they 
 anticipated by only a few years the first advent of 
 grasping Portuguese and ambitious Spaniards. It 
 cannot, of course, be supposed that, among races so 
 low in the scale of humanity as are most of the Indian 
 islanders, Mohammedanism would be able to do what 
 it did originally for the Arabs or for the Turkish 
 hordes ; but it has done something even for them. 
 It expelled Hinduism from some islands, and a very 
 corrupt Buddhism from others. It was propagated 
 by missionaries who cared very much for the souls 
 they could win, and nothing for the plunder they 
 could carry off. They conciliated the natives, learned 
 their languages, .and intermarried with them ; and in 
 the larger islands their success was rapid, and, so far 
 as nature would allow, complete.' The Philippines 
 
 ' Crawfurd's ' Indian Archipelago,' 11. 27.') and ;;i.'>. 
 
 Marco Polo (chap. IX.) says of Ferlcc, a king^dom in what he calls 
 Java the Less=Sumatra : * This kiii«jdom is so much frequented by 
 the Saracen merchants that they have converted the natives to the law 
 of Mohammed.' In the following century, the Moorish traveller, Ibn 
 Batuta, visited the island, and describes the king, Malik-al-Zhahir, as 
 being ' one of the most eminent and generous of princes :' the learned 
 were admitted to his society and had free converse with him, while he 
 proposed questions for their discussion. So humble withal was he 
 that he used to walk to the mosque divested of his royal robes, and 
 wearing those of a doctor of divinity. With the exception of the 
 Sultan of Fez, Ibn Batuta thought him * the most learned of all the 
 Musalman Sultans ;' and he had seen them all from Tangiei-s to China 
 (p. 226); he found that the inhabitants of Suimttm liad adopted 
 Islam to a distance of twenty-one days' journey onwaitl from the 
 capital, Samathrah. 
 
ISLAM IN EAST INDIAN ISLANDS. 29 
 
 and the Moluccas, which were conquered by Spain 
 and Portugal respectively, did not become Moham- 
 medan, for they had to surrender at once their liberty 
 and their religion. It is no wonder that the religion 
 known to the natives chiefly through the unblushing 
 rapacity of the Portuguese, and the terrible cruelties 
 of the Dutch, has not extended itself beyond the reach 
 of their swords. Here, as elsewhere in the East, the 
 most fatal hindrance to the spread of Christianity has 
 been the lives of Christians.^ I will only add further 
 that the Musalmans of the East Indian Islands are 
 very lax in their obedience to many of the precepts 
 of their law, that they are tolerant of other religions, 
 and that the women enjoy a liberty, a position, and 
 an influence which contrasts favourably with that 
 allowed to them in any other Asiatic country.'^ 
 
 ' For the cruelties of the Portuguese, see Crawfurd, II. 403, and 
 for the Dutch, see especially II. 425 seq. and 411. The Portuguese in 
 the fifteenth century carried on a piratical crusade against every 
 Musalman ship they could find. Meeting with a vessel containing 
 two hundred and sixty pilgrims bound for Mecca, of whom fifty were 
 women and children, they saved and baptised twenty of the children j 
 the remainder were thrust down into the hold, and the ship scuttled 
 and set on fire. For some startling facts as to the comparative 
 morality of some native and Christian communities in India, see a 
 paper by the Rev. J. N. Thoburn, in the Report of the Allahabad 
 Missionary Conference, held in 1872-78, p. 467-470. 
 
 2 Crawfurd, II. 260 and 269-271 ; and Sir Stamford Raffles' * Java,' 
 1. p. 261 and II. 2-5. During the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century four Queens, all called * Sultans,' reigned in succession over 
 Achin. The Achinese Mohammedans are admitted to be more enter- 
 prising and sagacious than any of the Pagan tribes in Sumatra, and 
 they have given conspicuous proof of their valour in their recent 
 contest with the Dutch. I am informed that two works recently 
 published by Professor Veth, of Leiden, the one on Achin and its 
 relation to the Netherlands, and the other on Java, contain most inter- 
 esting particulars concerning the spread and influence of Islam in that 
 
30 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 The New World, even, is not without some repre- 
 sentatives of the Musahiian faith. Islam has crossed 
 the Pacific with the Coolies, and the Atlantic wnth the 
 Negroes, and counts its adherents by thousands in 
 some of the West India Islands, in Trinidad, and in 
 Dutch Guiana. 
 
 In Africa, again, Mohammedanism is spreading 
 itself by giant strides almost year by year. Every- 
 one knows that, within half a century from the 
 Prophet's death, the richest states of Africa, and those 
 most accessible to Christianity and to European civili- 
 sation, w^ere torn away from both, by the armies of 
 the faithful, with hardly a struggle or a regret ; but 
 few except those who have studied the subject are 
 aware that, ever since then, Mohammedanism has 
 been gradually spreading over the northern half of the 
 Continent. 
 
 Let me now^ trace its progress through these vast 
 regions, as clearly and as briefly as I can. 
 
 When the conqueror Akbah had overrun the States 
 of Barbary from end to end, and, after passing through 
 wildernesses in which he himself or his successors were 
 one day to found the literar}- and commercial capitals 
 of Fez, Cairoan, and Morocco, had reached the point 
 where the Atlantic and the Great Desert meet, it was 
 his ^ career only, and not his zeal,' which was checked 
 by the prospect of the ocean. Spurring, so it is said, 
 his horse into its waves, and raising his eyes to heaven, 
 
 part of the world, ami are written in the most impartial spirit. It is 
 to Ixj hope<l that they may be translate*! from the Dntch into more 
 familiar European lan^naeos, as has Ijeen the case with the mlmirable 
 work by Professor Dozy, of I,( ideii. nn thr ' History of the Musiilnmns 
 of Spain.' 
 
ISLAM IN AFRICA. 31 
 
 he exclaimed, ^ Oh Allah ! if my course were not 
 stopped by this sea, I would still go on to the unknown 
 kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of Thy 
 holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious 
 nations who worship other gods than Thee ! ' Before 
 many years had passed, the wish of this ^ Mohammedan 
 Alexander who sighed for more worlds to conquer ' ^ 
 was gratified in a direction and to an extent which he 
 little expected. Muza crossed the Straits of Gibraltar 
 to carry Islam northward into Spain, while Musalman 
 missionaries, starting in the other direction, braved 
 even the terrors of the Sahara to carry their message 
 to the unknown kingdoms of the south. Leaping 
 from Oasis to Oasis of the Great Desert with almost 
 the speed of its nomad horsemen, and subduing to its 
 message, as it passed, even some of the wild and wan- 
 dering Touariks, we know that before the year loooit 
 had reached Timbuctoo, that mysterious city, a sea- 
 port, as it has been well described, in the heart of Africa, 
 situated on the remotest shore of the dry ocean, or 
 the sandy sea of the Sahara. It thence travelled to the 
 Jolofs between the Senegal and the Gambia, thence 
 to the wide-spread Mandingoes on the Niger,* thence 
 
 ' Gribbon, cap. 51, 464-466, 
 
 ^ See the * Travels ' of Ibn Batuta. who, about the year 1 357, found 
 Islam in full possession of some of the countries of the Niger, or, as he 
 calls it, the Nile (p. 237). At Zaga (Sego .')> the ' first city in these 
 parts to embrace Islam,' he found that the inhabitants were ' religious 
 and fond of learning.' At Mali there was an avaricious and worth- 
 less Sultan, but ' the people paid great regard to justice.' * A traveller 
 may proceed alone among them without the least fear of a thief or a 
 robber ; ' ' they are so regular in their attendance at the mosque, that 
 unless one makes haste he will find no place left to say his prayers ' 
 (p. 246). Everyone knew the Koran by heart ; a father would keep 
 his son under restraint till he could say the whole perfectly. Negro 
 
32 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 again to the Foulahs, and then, turning eastward 
 towards the land of its birth, it reached, by the thir- 
 teenth century. Lake Tchad, and the kingdoms be- 
 yond, where, finally, these Musalman missionaries of 
 the West were met by other Musalmans from the 
 East in the very centre of the Soudan.^ Of course enor- 
 mous tracts of heathenism were left, and are still left, 
 in various parts of this vast area, and it is mainly among 
 these that, at this day, Mohammedan missionaries are 
 meeting everywhere with a marked success which is 
 denied to our own. We hear of whole tribes laying 
 aside their devil-worship, or immemorial Fetish, and 
 springing at a bound, as it were, from the very lowest 
 to one of the highest forms of religious belief. Chris- 
 tian travellers, with every wish to think otherwise, 
 have remarked that the Negro who accepts Moham- 
 medanism acquires at once a sense of the dignity of 
 human nature not commonly found even among those 
 who have been brought to accept Christianity. 
 
 It is also pertinent to observe here, that such pro- 
 gress as any large part of the Negro race has hitherto 
 made is in exact proportion to the time that has 
 elapsed since their conversion, or to the degree of 
 fervour with which they originally embraced, or have 
 since clung to, Islam. The Mandingoes and the 
 Foulahs are salient instances of this ; their unques- 
 
 Musalniaus who had been the Pil^mage to Mecca were to be met 
 with every whei-e (p. 231), 241). The women were not veiletl, and 
 accompanied their husbands to prayers (p. 234). Among their bad 
 customs, that which seems to have offendeil Ibn Hututa most was 
 their want of clothinf^, and ' the contempt in which they held the 
 white people' (p. 234), <»f whom, doubtless, in comparison with the 
 ebony Negroes, he considered himself to W one. 
 
 • * Anthroi)ologie dcr Naturvolker,' by Dr. Theoilor Waits, p. 248. 
 
SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA NOW. 33 
 
 tionable superiority to other Negro tribes is as un- 
 questionably owing to the early hold that Islam got 
 upon them, and to the comparative civilisation and 
 culture that it has always encouraged. 
 
 Nor can it be said that it is only among those 
 Negroes who have never heard anything of a purer 
 faith that Mohammedanism is making such rapid pro- 
 gress. The Government Blue Book of the year 1873 
 on our West African settlements, and the reports of 
 missionary societies themselves, are quite at one on 
 this head. The Governor of our West African colo- 
 nies, Mr. Pope Hennessy, remarks that the liberated 
 Africans are always handed over to Christian mission- 
 aries for instruction, and that their children are bap- 
 tised and brought up at the public expense in Chris- 
 tian schools, and are, therefore, in a sense, ready-made 
 converts. Missionary societies are not likely to err 
 on the side of defect in enumerating their converts ; 
 yet the total number of professing Christians in all 
 our African settlements put together, as computed 
 by the missionary societies themselves^ — very few 
 even of these, as the Governor says, and as we can 
 unfortunately well believe from our experience in 
 countries that are not African, being practical Chris- 
 tians — falls far short of the original number of Africans 
 liberated at Sierra Leone alone, and their descend- 
 ants.^ On the other hand, the Rev. James Johnson, 
 a native clergyman, and a man of remarkable energy 
 and intelligence as well as of very Catholic spirit, 
 deplores the fact that, of the total number of Moham- 
 
 • For further illustrations of this see Appendix to Lecture I. p. 351. 
 2 Papers relating to Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions. Part TL, 
 1873, 2nd division, p. 14. 
 
34 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 medans to be found in Sierra Leone and its neigh- 
 bourhood, three-fourths were not bom Mohammedans, 
 but have become so by conversion, whether from a 
 nominal Christianity or from Paganism.* 
 
 And, what is still more to our purpose to remark 
 here, Mohammedanism, as it spreads now, is often 
 not attended by some of the drawbacks which ac- 
 companied its first introduction into the country. 
 It is spread in the main, not by the sword, but by 
 earnest and simple-minded Arab missionaries. It has 
 also lost, except in certain well-defined districts, much 
 of its intolerant and exclusive character. The two 
 leading doctrines of Mohammedanism, and the general 
 
 ' Papers relating to Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions. Part II., 
 1873, 2n(l division, p. 15. As Mr. Pope Hennesey's Report has been much 
 criticised, chiefly on the ground that he is a Roman Catholic (see a 
 letter to the Thm-s, of Oct. 21, 1873, signed ' Auili alteram partem'), and 
 as I have based some statements upon it, it may Ije worth while to 
 mention that I have had a conversation with Mr. Johnson, who is a 
 strong Protestant himself, and that he bore testimony to the bona 
 fides of the Report, aad to its accuracy even on some points which 
 have been most questioned. He told me that Mohammedanism was 
 introduced into Sierra Leone, not many years ago, by three zealous 
 missionaries who came from a great distance. It seems now not only 
 to be rapidly spreading in the colony it«elf, but in the countries to 
 the North of it to be gaining the ascendency, in spite of all the 
 European influences at work. It may perhaps be questioned, since 
 he does not dwell much upon it, whether Mr. Pope Hennessy, in his 
 remarks on the diminished numljer of Christians in Sierra Leone, 
 made allowance for the return of a ceilain number of true Christians, 
 such as Bishop Crowther, to their own countries. The object of 
 Mr. Johnson in dwelling on the sprea<l of Islam in Africa was no 
 doubt, as he has stated since, rather to stimulate the zeal of Christian 
 missionaries than to celebrate that of Musalmans ; but, whatever his 
 object, he sj)4)ke the simple truth, an»l the facts remain, and are 
 all the more striking, from the unexceptionable medium through 
 which they have come to us. 
 
INTELLECTUAL BENEFITS IN AFRICA. 35 
 
 moral precepts of the Koran, are of course, incul- 
 cated everywhere. But, in other respects, the 
 Musalman missionaries exhibit a forbearance, a 
 sympathy, and a respect for native customs and 
 prejudices, and even for their more harmless beliefs, 
 which is, no doubt, one reason of their success, 
 and which our own missionaries and schoolmasters 
 would do well to imitate. 
 
 We are assured, on all hands, that the Musalman 
 population has an almost passionate desire for educa- 
 tion, and those in the neighbourhood of our colonies 
 would throng our schools, first if the practical educa- 
 tion given was more worth having, and, secondly, if 
 the teachers would refrain from needlessly attack- 
 ing their cherished and often harmless customs. 
 Wherever Mohammedans are numerous, they estab- 
 lish schools themselves ; and there are not a few who 
 travel extraordinary distances to secure the best 
 possible education. Mr. Pope Hennessy mentions 
 the case of one young Mohammedan Negro who is in 
 the habit of purchasing costly books from Triibner in 
 London, and who went to Futah, two hundred and 
 fifty miles away, to obtain an education better than 
 he could find in Sierra Leone itself.^ Nor is it an 
 uncommon thing for newly-converted Musalmans to 
 make their way right across the Desert from Bornu, 
 or from Lake Tchad, or down the Nile from Darfur 
 or Wadai, a journey of over one thousand miles, that 
 they may carry on their studies in El-Azhar, the 
 great collegiate Mosque at Cairo, and may thence 
 
 ' Papers relating to Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions. Part II. 
 1873, 2nd division, p. 10. 
 
36 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 bring back the results of their training to their native 
 country, and form so many centres of Mohammedan 
 teaching and example.^ 
 
 Nor as to the effects of Islam when first embraced 
 by a Negro tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, 
 be any reasonable doubt. Polytheism disappears 
 almost instantaneously ; sorcer}^ with its attendant 
 evils, gradually dies away ; human sacrifice becomes 
 a thing of the past. The general moial elevation is 
 most marked ; the natives begin for the first time in 
 their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth 
 is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness ; 
 hospitality becomes a religious duty ; drunkenness, 
 instead of the rule, becomes a comparatively rare 
 exception. Though polygamy is allowed by the 
 Koran, it is not common in practice, and, beyond the 
 limits laid down by the Prophet, incontinence is rare ; 
 chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and 
 becomes, in fact, one of the commoner virtues. It is 
 idleness henceforward that degrades, and industry 
 that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are 
 henceforward measured by a written code instead of 
 the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain — a step, as every- 
 one will admit, of vast importance in the progress of 
 a tribe. The Mosque gives an idea of architecture at 
 all events higher than any the Negro has yet had. 
 A thirst for literature is created, and that for works 
 of science and philosophy as well as for commentaries 
 
 • Waitz, p. 251. He calculates the number of students returning 
 each year to be about fifty. To his book, and to the authorities 
 to whom ho refers, 1 owe many of the facts mentioned in the text 
 illustrative of the influence of Islam on the native mind and 
 character. 
 
MORAL BENEFITS IN AFRICA. 37 
 
 on the Koran.i There are whole tribes, such as the 
 Jolofs on the river Gambia, and the Hausas, whose 
 manly qualities we have had occasion to test in 
 Ashantee, which have become to a man Mohamme- 
 dans, and have raised themselves infinitely in the 
 process ; and the very name of Salt-water Mohamme- 
 dans given to those tribes along the coast who, from 
 admixture with European settlers, have relaxed the 
 severity of the Prophet's laws, is a striking proof of 
 the extent to which the stricter form of the faith 
 prevails in the far interior. 
 
 But lest any one should think that in giving so 
 favourable an account of Islam in Africa, I am draw- 
 ing on my own imagination, or depending on the 
 testimony of untrustworthy travellers, I will select 
 from a large number of those whose works I have 
 read, and whose testimony all tends in the same 
 direction, the explicit statements of two or three, as 
 bearing on the points at issue. 
 
 Browne, an Englishman, who undertook extensive 
 travels in Central Africa in the years 1799 and 1806,^ 
 remarks that, among the idolaters of Sheibon and of 
 other places, the only persons whom he saw wearing 
 decent clothes, or indeed clothing at all, were Mo- 
 hammedans ; that it was to the introduction of Islam 
 a century and a half before his time that Darfur 
 
 ' Waitz, p. 252-25-i. Aristotle and Plato are known to not a 
 few Mohammedans in the interior — Barth, in his ' Travels in Central 
 Africa,' Vol. V. p. 63, mentions that Sidi Mohammed, of Tirabuctoo, 
 maintained that they were both Musalmans, that is to say, wor- 
 shippers of the true God. Cf. III., 373, for the case of a Pullo at 
 Massera, who had read Plato and Aristotle in Arabic, was well 
 acquainted with the history of Spain, and sympathised with the 
 Wahhabis. 
 
 '^ See Pinkerton's • Voyages,' Vols. XV. and XVI. 
 
38 MO HA Am ED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 owed its settled government and the cultivation of 
 its soil ; and that the people of Bergoo were remark- 
 able for their zealous attachment to their religion, 
 and read the Koran dail}'. Here then we find the 
 use of decent clothing, and the arts of reading and 
 agriculture, attributed to Islam. 
 
 But Browne, perhaps, is not well known to those 
 who have not made a speciality of African travel. 
 Let us hear then what was the experience of a 
 traveller who is known to all the world, and who was the 
 first to explore a large district of the Western Soudan. 
 
 Mungo Park, educated as he was for the Scotch 
 church, and cruelly persecuted as he was throughout 
 his travels by Moorish banditti, would not be likely 
 to be a friend to Islam, and many of his remarks 
 show a strong bias against it : his testimony therefore 
 is all the more valuable. His travels lay almost 
 exclusively among Mohammedan or semi-Moham- 
 medan tribes, and he found that the Negroes were 
 everywhere summoned to prayer by blasts blown 
 through elephants' tusks. On reaching the Niger, 
 the main object of his wanderings, he found, to his 
 sui*prise, that Sego, the capital of BambaiTa, was a 
 walled town, containing some 30,000 inhabitants, that 
 the houses were square and ver}' often white- washed, 
 and that there were Moorish mosques in every 
 quarter. ^ The view of this extensive city,' he writes, 
 ' the numerous canoes upon the river, the crowded 
 population, and the cultivated state of the surrounding 
 country, foniied altogether a prospect of civilisation 
 and magnificence which I little expected to find in 
 the bosom of Africa.' ' 
 
 * See Mungo Park's * TraveU,' Cap. I. atl tin. 
 
TICSTIAWNY OF MUNGO PARK. 39 
 
 The Mandingoes, a Mohammedan tribe through 
 whose territories he returned, he describes as being, 
 unlike the Moors, a very gentle race, cheerful in their 
 dispositions, hospitable, inquisitive, and credulous. 
 The propensity to pilfer, so common amongst bar- 
 barians, though he suffered himself by it, he thought 
 to be not greater than could be found among many 
 European nations. His impression of the women 
 was most fevourable. ' I do not recollect,' he says, 
 ^a single instance of hard-heartedness towards me 
 among the women. In all my wanderings and 
 wretchedness I found them uniformly kind and com- 
 passionate.' One of the first lessons in which the 
 Mandingo women instructed their children was the 
 practice of truth. In the case of an unhappy mother 
 whose son had been murdered by the Moors, her 
 only consolation was, that in the whole of his blame- 
 less life he had never told a lie. On another point, 
 he remarks that the Negroes, whether Mohammedan 
 or Pagan, allowed a plurality of wives ; but that the 
 Mohammedans alone were by their religion confined 
 to four. Though in a position of inferiority com- 
 pared with more civilised nations, their wives were 
 not as a rule ill-treated, each wife taking her turn in 
 ruling the household. In a third and all-important 
 matter, that of sobriety, the advantage was entirely 
 on the side of the Mohammedans. ' The beverages,' 
 he says, ^ of the pagan Negroes are beer and mead, of 
 which they frequently drink to excess. ^ The Moham- 
 medan converts drink nothing but water.' 
 
 As to education, Mungo Park found schools and 
 active teachers everywhere ; not, of course, advanced 
 
 ' Cap. VI 1. 
 
40 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 schools nor highly educated teachers, but institutions 
 which, humble though they be, should not be scorned 
 as they often are by the representatives of Christian 
 missions, but treated with the respect and the sym- 
 pathy with which the Founder of Christian missions, 
 nay, of Christianity itself, would undoubtedly have 
 treated them. The master of one of these schools in 
 Kamalia, to whose care Mungo Park was himself for 
 some time committed, adhered strictly to the religion 
 of Mohammed, but was by no means intolerant 
 towards those who differed from him.^ His school 
 consisted of seventeen boys, most of whom were sons 
 of ' Kafirs,' i.e. unbelievers. He possessed the Koran, 
 some commentaries on it, and a considerable number 
 of Arabic manuscripts. Mungo Park witnessed the 
 examination held in presence of the assembled 
 ^Bushreens' for the purpose of conferring the like 
 degree on a young student. No one was admitted 
 to the degree unless he had read through the Koran^ 
 and could answer questions intelligently upon it. 
 Many of the Negroes were in possession of Arabic 
 versions of the Pentateuch, the Psalms of David, and 
 the Prophecies of Isaiah, and a considerable know- 
 ledge of the facts of Old Testament History was 
 diffused amongst them. As to the thirst for know- 
 ledge and the desire to get books, an Arabic copy 
 of the Pentateuch was often sold for the value of 
 a prime slave, while a Negro offered Park himself an 
 ass and sixteen bars of goods for an Arabic grammar I 
 It is strange to read these accounts of the spread 
 and influence of Islam in Africa, and to discover on 
 
 > Cap. XI. 
 
TESTIMONY OF DR. BARTH. 41 
 
 a searching inquiry that — if allowance be made for 
 bias, or ignorance, or unreasoning indignation on 
 the part of a few travellers who have attributed to 
 Islam in Africa every crime it has not been able 
 to prevent, or which has been perpetrated by the 
 most unworthy of its professors — every one of Mungo 
 Park's statements may be strengthened and supported 
 by a continuous succession of dispassionate and phi- 
 lanthropic travellers ever since, and then to find it 
 gravely stated by the editor of a quasi-official mis- 
 sionary periodical that ' more Mohammedanism 
 means more slavery, more brutality, more polygamy, 
 and, we do not scruple to add ' (as if such a writer 
 would feel scrupulous in making any statement upon 
 any subject !), ^ more drunkenness for Africa,' and 
 ' that in the waiting-room of Euston Squarp Station 
 all the Mohammedan Negroes in Africa who have 
 read the Koran, even once, could be most comfortably 
 accommodated.' ^ 
 
 But lest it should be said as a last resource by 
 such opponents that, whatever was the case at the 
 time of Browne and Mungo Park, and other 
 travellers, such as Caillie, and Laing, and Winter- 
 bottom, and Richardson, and Galton, and Winwood 
 Reade, whose evidence, had I the time and space, I 
 might quote, that Islam has now suddenly become a 
 curse to Africa, I will adduce here the testimony of 
 two other very recent travellers, each of whom is the 
 eye-witness of what he records. The first is that of 
 Dr. Barth, whose travels in Northern and Central 
 Africa are probably more extensive than those of any 
 
 ^ Church Missionary Intelligencer, August 1874, p. 2-17, and March 
 1875, p. 75. 
 
42 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 other European traveller, and whose bias is certainly 
 not in favour of Islam. The second is that of the 
 Rev. Edward Blyden, which has reached me only 
 since the first publication of these Lectures, and which is 
 therefore the most recent evidence that I can obtain. 
 
 As to the rapid spread of Islam, Dr. Barth says 
 that ^ a great part of the Berbers of the Desert were 
 once Christians, and that they afterwards changed 
 their religion and adopted Islam ; ' and he describes 
 ^that continual struggle which, always extending 
 further and further, seems destined to overpower the 
 nations at the very Equator if Christianity does not 
 presently step in to dispute the ground with it.' He 
 remarks in another place, that Mohammedans alone 
 seem able to maintain any sort of government in 
 Africa ; and, what is more important, that there * is a 
 vital principle in Islam which has only to be brought 
 out by a reformer to accomplish great things.^ 
 
 On the other hand, the Rev. Edward Blyden, a 
 native African of the purest Negro blood, a Christian 
 missionary who has given the energies of his life to 
 extending education and founding schools in the in- 
 
 ' Barth's 'Travels,' I. 1(54, 11>7, 310; II. liXi, cS:c. Mr. T. W. 
 Higginson, to whom I am indebted for some of these references, and 
 for several interesting publications on the subject of Comparative 
 Religion, in a suggestive address delivere<l by him at Boston in 
 America, on the ' Sympathy of Religions,* a«Uluce8 the testimony to 
 be found in favour of the effects of Islam in Africa in the following 
 works, which I have been unable to consult : — Wilson's ' Western 
 Africa;' Johnstone's 'Abyssinia;' Allen's 'Niger Expedition;' 
 Du Chaillu's ' Ashango Land;' Reade's 'Savage Africa;' but the 
 authorities I have myself read and have quoted or referre<l to in the 
 text seem to me to be ample to convince all who are open to convic- 
 tion, that Islam is, on the whole, a great forwanl movement for the 
 Negi'oes. 
 
TESTIMONY OF MR, BLYDEN. 43 
 
 terior of Liberia, and who has learned by experience 
 to deal with Mohammedan prejudices against Chris- 
 tianity, wTites to me as follows. It may be worth 
 while to add that he is now Principal of the 
 Presbyterian High School in Monrovia, West Africa, 
 that he was quite unknown to me before, and is 
 known to me now only by his wTitings and his 
 reputation. 
 
 ' It is curious,' he says, ' how at a distance from 
 the scene and only from ^^ the study of books in the 
 European languages, and from reflection upon the 
 materials they supply," you have arrived at precisely 
 the same conclusions with regard to the character 
 and influence of Mohammedanism in Africa which I 
 have reached after years of travel among, and inter- 
 course with, the people. Your remarks as to the 
 superiority of the Mohammedan Negro are quite in 
 accordance with my own observation and experience. 
 If those Christians who are so unmeasured in their 
 denunciations of Mohammedanism could travel, as I 
 have travelled, through those countries in the interior 
 of West Africa, and witness, as I have witnessed, the 
 vast contrast betw^een the Pagan and Mohammedan 
 communities — the habitual listlessness and continued 
 deterioration of the one, and the activity and growth, 
 physical and mental, of the other ; the capricious and 
 unsettled administration of law, or rather absence of 
 law, in the one, and the tendency to order and regu- 
 larity in the other ; the increasing prevalence of ardent 
 spirits in the one, and the rigid sobriety and con- 
 servative abstemiousness of the other — they w^ould 
 cease to regard the Musalman system as an unmiti- 
 gated evil in the interior of Africa.' 
 
44 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 It is melancholy to contrast with the wide-spread 
 beneficial influences of Mohammedanism, on which I 
 have insisted, the little that has been done for Africa, 
 till very lately, by the Christian nations that have 
 settled in it, and the still narrower limits within 
 which it has been confined. Till a few years ago 
 the good effects produced beyond the immediate 
 territories occupied by them were absolutely nothing. 
 The achievement of Vasco da Gama, for which Te 
 Deums were sung in Europe, proved for centuries to 
 be nothing but the direst curse to Africa. If the 
 Oceanic slave trade has been, to the eternal credit of 
 England in particular, at last abolished by Christian 
 nations, it cannot be forgotten that Africa owes also 
 to them its origin, and on the West Coast, at all 
 events, its long continuance. The message that 
 European traders have carried for centuries to Africa 
 has been one of rapacity, of cruelty, of selfishness, 
 and of bad faith. It is a remark of Dr. Livingstone's^ 
 that the only art that the natives of Africa have 
 acquired from their five hundred years' acquaintance 
 with the Portuguese, has been the art of distilling 
 spirits from a gun-barrel ; and that the only perma- 
 nent belief they owe to them is the belief that man 
 may sell his brother man ; for this, he says emphati- 
 cally, is not a native belief, but is only to be found in 
 the track of the Portuguese. 
 
 A century and a half before the time of Dr. Living- 
 stone, William Bosnian, a chief factor of the Dutch 
 at the castle of Elmina in 1705, and the author of a 
 valuable work on the Coast of Guinea, remarked on 
 the fatal results, which were even then apparent, of 
 
 ' Liviugutouu'b ' Kx|>editiou tu the Zambesi/ page 240. 
 
WHA T CHRISTIANS HA VE DONE FOR AFRICA. 45 
 
 the introduction of spirits among the Negroes ; ex- 
 cessive brandy drinking, he said, seemed to be the 
 favourite vice of the Negro, but that of the Gold 
 Coast exceeded all others whom he had ever met. 
 Islam, it should be remembered, had not then 
 approached the Gold Coast : if it had, his statement 
 as to the extent of the evil amongst the Negroes of 
 that part might have needed an important qualifica- 
 tion ; and when we reflect on the havoc wrought by 
 the ^ desolating flood of ardent spirits ' poured into 
 Africa ever since by European merchants, what 
 Christian should not rejoice that what a native 
 African well calls a ' Total Abstinence Association ' 
 extends now, owing to the spread of Islam, right 
 across Central Africa from the Nile to Sierra Leone ? 
 The stopping of the Oceanic slave trade by 
 England on the other hand is an enormous benefit 
 to Africa. Like the suppression of slavery itself 
 throughout the British dependencies, it is directly due 
 to the noble exertions of genuine Christian philan- 
 thropists ; and it is one of the greatest triumphs 
 which Christianity has ever won over the self-seek- 
 ing and baser instincts of a great nation. It were 
 to be wished that one could discern any imme- 
 diate prospect of a wave of such philanthropy sweep- 
 ing spontaneously through Musalman countries. 
 Musalmans would, as I hope to show hereafter,^ only 
 be true to the spirit of their Faith in now at length 
 striking the fetter from the slave, and in once and 
 for ever branding the slave hunter and the slave 
 seller as the worst of men. But, if we except the 
 small number of converts made within the limits of 
 
 1 See Lecture IV. p. 328. 
 
46 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 their settlements, the suppression of the foreign slave 
 trade has been the only benefit hitherto conferred by- 
 Europeans on Africa. The extension of African 
 commerce is of more than doubtful benefit at present. 
 The chief articles that we export from thence are the 
 produce of slave labour, and, what is worse, of a 
 vastly extended slave trade, in the inaccessible 
 interior.* Nor is it wholly without reason that in 
 spite of Krapf and Moffat, of Frere, and Livingstone, 
 and of a score of other single-hearted and energetic 
 philanthropists, the white man is still an object of 
 terror, and his professed creed an object of suspicion 
 and repugnance to the Negro race. 
 
 Here I must leave this, as I think, one of the 
 most interesting and important parts of my subject. 
 Do not let me be misunderstood. I contend here 
 only that Islam is a comparative benefit to Africa ; 
 that Christendom till very lately has failed to in- 
 fluence it in any direction extensively for good ; that 
 certain evils, such as drunkenness, always accompany 
 European progress there ; and that there is room 
 enough, and degradation enough, amidst its barbarous 
 races for any and for every elevating agency. 
 Making every deduction for possible exaggeration in 
 the accounts I have quoted ; granting freely, what I 
 have never denied, that there is a vast amount of 
 
 ' For the introduction, or rather the invention, of the Slave Trade 
 hy the Portuguese in the year 1444, see Helps' * Spanish Conquest in 
 America,' 1. 35 sq. ; and the quotation there given from the Chronicle 
 of Azumra, relating the capture of 200 Africans by a Portuguese 
 company at Lagos, and their shipment to Portugal. A disastrous 
 precedent from that time down to the end of the last century, only 
 too fatally followed by all the Christian nations of Europe which 
 had the chance ! 
 
ISLA M A CO.\fPA RA TIVE BENEFIT TO AFRICA. 41 
 
 superstition, of impurity, of cruelty among African 
 Mohammedans, as there is in every other semi-civiHsed, 
 I might add among other highly civilised races, I 
 yet think that enough has been demonstrated to any 
 unbiassed mind to justify the view I have taken. 
 A religion which indisputably has made cannibal- 
 ism and human sacrifice impossible, which has in- 
 troduced reading and writing, and, what is more, 
 has given a love for them ; which has forbidden, 
 and, to a great extent, has abolished, immodest 
 dancing and gambling and drinking, which incul- 
 cates upon the whole a pure morality, and sets 
 forth a sublime, and at the same time a simple 
 theology, is surely deserving of other feelings than 
 the hatred and the contempt which some por- 
 tions of our religious press habitually pour 
 upon it. 
 
 Truly, if the question must be put, whether it is 
 Mohammedan or Christian nations that have as yet 
 done most for Africa, the answer must be that it is 
 not the Christian. And if it be asked, again, not 
 what religion is the purest in itself, and ideally the 
 best, for to this there could be but one answer ; but 
 which, under the peculiar circumstances, historical, 
 geographical, and ethnological, is the religion most 
 likely to get hold on a vast scale of the native mind, 
 and so in some measure to elevate the savage cha- 
 racter, the same answer must be returned. The 
 question is, indeed, already half answered by a glance 
 at the map of Africa. Mohammedanism has already 
 leavened almost the whole of Africa to within five 
 degrees of the Equator ; and, to the south of it, 
 Uganda, the most civilised state in that part of 
 
48 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Central Africa, has just become Mohammedan. ^ A 
 few years ago, a Mosque was built on the shores of 
 the Victoria Nyanza itself, and the Nile, from its 
 source to its mouth, is now, with very few exceptions, 
 a Mohammedan river. 
 
 That Mohammedanism may, when mutual misun- 
 derstandings are removed, as I hope to show in a 
 future Lecture, be elevated, chastened, purified by 
 Christian influences and a Christian spirit, and that 
 evils such as the slave trade, which are really foreign 
 to its nature, can be put down by the heroic efforts 
 of Christian philanthropists, I do not doubt ; and I 
 can, therefore, look forward, if with something of anx- 
 iety, with still more of hope, to what seems the des- 
 tiny of Africa — that Paganism and Devil-worship will 
 die out, and that the main part of the continent, if it 
 cannot become Christian, will become, what is next 
 best to it, Mohammedan. 
 
 Anyhow, it is certain that the gains of Moham- 
 medanism, in Africa alone, counterbalance its ap- 
 parent losses from Russian conquests, and from 
 Proselytism everywhere else ; nor can I believe, not- 
 
 ' See some interesting remarks by Mr. Francis Galton at a meeting 
 of the British Association at Ijceds, on Sept. 22, 1873. I have also 
 to thank him for V^ing me, in conversation, his experience of Mo- 
 hammedanism in Africa, and for directing me to the best authorities 
 on the subject. Along the coast-line Mohammedanism of a di graded 
 kind has, of coui-se, extended much further South, beyond Zanzibar 
 to Mozambique and the Portuguese colonies. There are Mohamme- 
 dans to be found even among the Kaffirs and in Madagascar. The 
 original Portuguese settlers found the Arabs established along the 
 coasts of Mozambique and in the interior. They exterminated the 
 former ; but as they failed to dispossess the latter, it is possible, or 
 rather it has lately l^en proved to be the case, that some of the 
 terra pai-um nujnita in the interior is still Moharame<lan. 
 
ISLAM IN INDIA. 49 
 
 withstanding predictions inspired by the wish, that its 
 work is yet done, or nearly done, in any of the 
 countries, except, perhaps, those of Europe, that have 
 ever owned its sway. 
 
 I speak of the apparent losses from Russian con- 
 quest, for the onward march of the Russian Colossus 
 through Central Asia, so far from carrying any 
 form of Christianity with it, seems to intensify the 
 religious convictions of the half-conquered or threat- 
 ened races. What was dead in the religion before, 
 it revives ; to what was only half-alive, it gives fresh 
 vigour. Islam has now become with them a patriot- 
 ism as well as a creed ; and Mr. Gifford Palgrave, an 
 able and accurate observer, has lately described how 
 the distinctive precepts of the Mohammedan religion 
 — those enjoining the observance of the month of 
 Ramadhan, the reading of the Koran, the pilgrimage 
 of the Hajj, the abstinence from gaming, from to- 
 bacco, and from intoxicating drinks — are now much 
 more rigidly observed in the debateable territories ; 
 and, more than this, the Abkhasians with theii 
 immemorial antiquity, and the heroic Circassians 
 driven from their homes after a desperate struggle by 
 Muscovite oppression and bad faith, dropping such 
 traces of Christianity as they had, but carrying with 
 them a legacy of immortal hate to the creed and 
 country of their tyrants, have crossed the frontier of 
 the more liberal Turkish Empire, and coalescing with 
 Kurds, Turkomans, and Arabs, have settled down in 
 the uplands of Armenia, and are there forming, as 
 Mr. Palgrave believes, the nucleus of a new, and 
 vigorous, and unite i Mohammedan nation.^ 
 
 ^ Palgrave's ^ Es3 lys on Eastern Questions,' iv. and v. 
 
 B 2 
 
60 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 In India, again, where the two rehgions are brought 
 face to face, and where, if anywhere, we may expect 
 the great drama to play itself out, Mohammedanism 
 gives no sign of yielding. Unlike Brahmanism, which 
 the thousand influences of Western civilisation are 
 sapping in every direction, Mohammedanism, on the 
 contrary, seems to concentrate the strength it already 
 has, and owing to the efforts of its zealous missionaries, 
 is giving symptoms at once of a Revival and of a 
 Reform that may, at any time, change the religious 
 destinies of the country. The Faithful are as cour- 
 ageous, as sincere, as ardently monotheistic as they 
 ever were ; witness it the Indian Mutiny, the Wah- 
 habee Revival, and the last terrible argument of 
 assassination. The heroism and self-devotion of our 
 missionaries seem to be wasted on them in vain, and, 
 except in individual cases, I see no sign that it will 
 ever be otherwise. Buddhism and Brahmanism may 
 be driven out of India, but Mohammedanism never, 
 except by the Mohammedan method of the sword.^ 
 
 The most recent historian of India* remarks, that 
 ' few impartial observers will deny the fact that, to all 
 appearance, the people of India are drifting, slowly 
 but surely, towards the religion of the Prophet of 
 Arabia rather than towards that Christianity which 
 is freely offered to them, but which they are not 
 prepared to accept.' And if this be true, or nearly 
 true, how profound the importance to England, even 
 from an Imperial point of view, of a sympathetic study 
 of the religion which, under her ver}^ rule, threatens 
 to become dominant ; and how far more profoundly 
 
 ' See Appendix to this Lecture. 
 
 « Talboys Wheeler, in the Preface to his * History of India.' 
 
CAUSES OF MOHAMMED'S SUCCESS. 51 
 
 important to the Christian and to the philanthropist 
 to understand and to influence, while yet he may, a 
 system which, long probably after the British Empire 
 in India shall have passed away, will be the chief 
 motive power — for in most Eastern countries religion 
 and national feeling are one and the same thing — 
 among its two hundred millions of inhabitants ! Yet, 
 probably, nowhere is there a more profound ignorance 
 of Islam and its founder, and a greater indifference to 
 what it is doing in the world, than in England. 
 Popular preachers and teachers still call the Prophet 
 of Arabia an impostor ; and military officers, and even 
 civil servants of the Crown, have gone out to India, 
 passed years there, and returned again, still fancying 
 that Musalmans are idolaters. 
 
 Such are the leading facts of Mohammedanism 
 viewed from the outside ; and now how are we to 
 account for them ? 
 
 One thing is certain, that the explanations so 
 readily offered by historians and Christian apologists 
 till within a very recent period will not suffice now. 
 People who think they have nothing to do with a 
 system except to attack it, are not those who can 
 best explain the causes of its vitality or its success. 
 One historian tells us that Mohammedanism tri- 
 umphed by the mere force of arms ; another, by the 
 use Mohammed made of the tendency so deeply 
 planted in man to fall victims in masses to any well- 
 conceived imposture ; a third traces his success to his 
 skilful plagiarisms from faiths purer than his own ; 
 and a fourth to the elevated morality, or to the 
 lax morality, inculcated in the Koran ; for both of 
 these are strangely enough urged almost in the 
 
62 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 same breath by the same people : while, lastly, others 
 dwell on the inherent strength of the founder's cha- 
 racter and the enthusiasm that must accompany a 
 crusade against idolatry.^ We feel that most of 
 these have some truth in them ; some of them have 
 much ; and one or two of them are not only not true, 
 but they are the very reverse of the truth. But we 
 also feel that none of them singly, nor all of them 
 together, adequately account for the phenomena they 
 profess to explain. 
 
 In treating of Mohammedanism, as remarked by 
 M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire,'' we have to try in lifnine 
 to discard alike our national and our religious 
 prejudices. It was not till Mohammedanism had ex- 
 isted for eight hundred years that it was possible to 
 discard the one ; and not till very lately that it was 
 even attempted to discard the other. Since the con- 
 quest of Constantinople, or rather since the brilliant 
 naval victory of Don John of Austria at Lepanto, and 
 its final repulse by John Sobieski fron^ the walls of 
 Vienna two hundred and thirty years later, Moham- 
 medanism has ceased, in Europe at least, to be an 
 aggressive and conquering power ; and since then, it 
 has been possible Ibr the states of Christendom to 
 breathe more freely, and to forget the infidel in the 
 ally or the subject. 
 
 Religious prejudice is more difficult to overcome. 
 Men who are ardently attached to their own religion 
 find it difficult to judge another dispassionately, and 
 from a neutral point of view. The philosopher who, 
 
 ' See some of these explanations admirably dealt with by F. D. 
 Maurice, ' Religions of the World,' Leoture 1. 
 * 'Mahomet et le Koi-an/ preface, p. tj. 
 
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGION. 5S 
 
 according to Gibbon's famous aphorism, looked upon 
 all religions of the Roman Empire as equall}^ false, 
 and the magistrate who looked upon all as equally 
 useful, would be alike incapacitated for viewing the 
 Musalman creed from the Musalman stand-point. 
 Perhaps the populace who looked upon all religions 
 as equally true would have been the best judges of 
 the three ; but I doubt whether in this, as in most 
 epigrammatic sentences, something of truth has not 
 been sacrificed to the antithesis. Nature does not 
 arrange herself in antithetical groups for our conveni- 
 ence ; and I doubt whether the mass of any people, 
 at any time, have looked upon all religions as equally 
 true. 
 
 But the comparative study of religion is beginning 
 to teach, at all events, the more thoughtful of man- 
 kind, not indeed that all religions are equally true or 
 equally elevating, but that all contain some truth ; 
 that no religion is exclusively good, none exclusively 
 bad ; that any religion which has a real and con- 
 tinued hold on a large body of mankind must satisfy 
 a real spiritual need, and is so far good. God is in 
 all His works, and not the least so in the thoughts 
 and aspirations of His creatures towards Himself; 
 and what we have to do is to feel after Him in 
 each and all, assured that He is there, even if haply 
 in our ignorance we can find no trace of Him. 
 
 Truly, when we are dealing with religion at all, 
 even though it be Polytheism or Fetishism, we are 
 ' treading upon holy ground ; ' and in order that we 
 may treat that creed, sublime in its simplicity, which 
 is our special subject, with that union of candour and 
 of reverence which alone befits it, it is necessary 
 
54 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 before concluding this introductory Lecture that I 
 should lay down clearly one principle which must 
 guide us in our investigation. 
 
 It is this, that for the purposes of scientific investi- 
 gation, religions must be regarded as differing from 
 one another in degree rather than in kind. This is 
 the one postulate, itself the result of a careful induc- 
 tion, upon which alone the existence of any true 
 science of religion must depend. Without a clear 
 perception of this truth you enter upon the study of 
 the religions of the world, with a preconceived idea, 
 which will colour all your conclusions, and will invali- 
 date them the more gravely, the more favourable 
 those conclusions are to your own creed. The ordi- 
 nary distinctions of kind, therefore, drawn between 
 true and false, natural and supernatural, revealed and 
 unrevealed religions, are, for our present purpose, un- 
 real and misleading. The fact is, that from one point 
 of view all religions are more or less natural, from an- 
 other all are more or less supernatural ; and all alike 
 are to be treated from the same standpoint, and 
 investigated by the same methods. In the Science 
 of Religion, to quote an expression of Max Miiller's 
 used in this place, Christianity 'owns no prescriptive 
 rights, and claims no immunities.' It challenges the 
 freest inquiry ; and as it claims to come from God 
 Himself, so it fears not the honest use of any faculties 
 that God has given to man. Christianity is indeed a 
 revelation, and what it really reveals is true ; and, so 
 far, if the alternative must needs be put in this shape, 
 no Christian would have any doubt in which category 
 to place his own creed. 
 But does Christianity claim any such monopoly of 
 
DO RELIGIONS DIFFER IN KIND ? 55 
 
 what is good and true as is implied in this crude 
 classification, or will any one say that there is no 
 real revelation of God in the noble lives of Confucius 
 or Buddha, and no fragments of Divine truth in the 
 pure morality of the systems which they founded ? 
 Truth, happily for man, is myriad-sided, and happy 
 he who can catch a far-off glance of the one side of it 
 presented to him ! Claim, if you like, for the Bible 
 what the Koran does claim for itself and the Bible 
 does not— a rigid or a verbal inspiration. Grant that 
 the truth revealed passed mechanically through the 
 mind of the sacred writer without contamination and 
 without alloy, yet who can say, — since the Verities 
 with which religion deals are all beyond the world of 
 sense, — that the precise meaning attached by him to 
 any one word in his creed is the same as that attached 
 to it by any other ? — qiwt ho7nines tot sententm. 
 The recipient subject colours every object of sensation 
 or of thought as it passes into it, and is conscious of 
 that object, not as it entered, but as it has been 
 instantaneously and unconsciously transfomied in the 
 alembic of the mind. In religion, as in external 
 nature, the human mind is, as Bacon says, an unequal 
 mirror to the rays of things, mixing its own nature 
 indissolubly with theirs. And this relative element 
 once admitted into religion at all, it follows that to 
 divide religions by an impassable barrier into true and 
 false, natural and revealed, is like dividing music into 
 sacred and secular, and history into sacred and pro- 
 fane. It is a division convenient enough for those— 
 the majority of the human race — who are content 
 with an artificial classification, and who care for no 
 religion but their own ; but, for scientific purposes, it 
 
66 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 is a cross division, it begs the question at issue, and is 
 -as unphilosophical as it is misleading. * 
 
 Nor do Sacred Books, whatever be the theory of 
 inspiration on which they rest, lend to the religion to 
 which they belong any distinction of kind ; they fix 
 the phraseology of a religion, and we are apt to 
 believe that they also fix the thought. The}- do not 
 do so, however. The poetic and literary terms 
 'thrown out,' to use Mr. Matthew Arnold's happy 
 expression, by the highest minds at the highest 
 objects of thought, as faint approximations only to 
 the truth respecting them, become enshrined in the 
 Sacred Canon. They are misunderstood, or half 
 understood, even by those who hear them from the 
 Psalmist's or the Prophet's own lips, and in a few 
 years the misunderstanding grows till they become 
 fixed and rigid.- Poetic imagery is mistaken for 
 scientific exactness, and dim outlines for exhaustive 
 definitions. A virtue is attached to the words them- 
 selves, and the thought, which is the jewel, is hidden 
 by the letter, which is only the casket. If it be true 
 that man never knows how anthropomorphic he 
 himself is, still less do sacred writers know the 
 anthropomorphism and the materialism which will 
 eventually be drawn even from their highest and 
 most spiritual utterances. How little did the author 
 of the prayer at the dedication of the temple of 
 Solomon — the grandest assertion, perhaps, in the 
 
 ' Kor a full iliseussioii of the ordinary methods of classifying 
 religion, see Max Midler's • Science of Keliifion,' pp. 123-143. 
 
 * For illustrations of this, see * Literatui-e and Dogma,' cap. II. 
 and V. p. 12.S. This part of Mr. Arnold's work, it may be pretty 
 confidently asserted, is done once for all ; and its influence will be 
 felt, avowedly or not, throughout the domain of Biblical criticism. 
 
MISSION A EY WORK. 57 
 
 Old Testament of the infinite power and the infinite 
 goodness of God, His nearness to us and His dis- 
 tance from us — imagine that the time would ever 
 come when it would be held that in that temple 
 alone, and by Jews alone, the Father could be 
 worshipped ! 
 
 Christians may and must rise from an impartial 
 study of the religions of the world with their belief 
 vastly deepened that their Sacred Books stand, as a 
 whole, on a far higher level than other Sacred Books, 
 and that the ideal life of Christianity, while it is 
 capable of including the highest ideals of other creeds, 
 cannot itself be attained by any one of them. But 
 the value of this belief will be exactly proportioned 
 to the extent to which they have been able, for the 
 purposes of scientific study, to divest themselves of 
 any arbitrary assumption in the matter ; and they 
 must also acknowledge that it is possible and natural 
 for sincere Mohammedans or Buddhists to arrive at 
 the same conclusions concerning their own faiths. It 
 is not easy to be thoroughly convinced of this, or to 
 act upon it ; for intolerance is the ^ natural weed of 
 the human bosom,' and there is no religion which 
 does not seem superstitious to those who do not 
 believe in it. ^ 
 
 But this belief is far from necessitating in practical 
 life a religious indifference, nor, however it may seem 
 so at first sight, is it averse to all missionary efforts. 
 Missionaries will not cease to exist, nor will they lose 
 
 ' See Grote, VI. p. 15G, sq., on the death of Socrates. The boast 
 of Cicero, ' Majores nostri superstitionem a religioue separaverunt' 
 (de Nat. Deorum, II. 28), is the natural belief of every one, even 
 of the Fetish-worshipper, concerning his own, and none but his own, 
 creed. 
 
58 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMAEDANJSM. 
 
 their energy, their enthusiasm, and their self-sacrifice. 
 But they will go to work in a different way, will view 
 other religions in a different light, and will test their 
 success by a different standard. They will no doubt 
 be forced to acquiesce in what seems the will of 
 Providence, that a national religion is as much part of 
 a man's nature as is the genius of his language, or 
 the colour of his skin ; they will admit that the precise 
 form of a creed is a matter of prejudice and of cir- 
 cumstance with most of us, and that, in spite of the 
 rise of historical religions which have shattered other 
 faiths and risen upon their ruins, nine-tenths of the 
 whole human race have died, and will in all pro- 
 bability continue to die, in the profession of that 
 faith into which they were bom ; but this will no 
 longer seem to them, as it must seem now^, a mys- 
 terious and overwhelming victory of evil over good, 
 which appals the moral sense, and, if a man be not 
 better than the letter of his creed, must tend to shake 
 at once his belief in the Universal Fatherhood of God, 
 and the true brotherhood of humanity ; they will 
 rather, in proportion to the strength of their belief in 
 the goodness of God, believe that His creatures cannot 
 grope after Him, even in the dark, without getting 
 that light which is sufficient for them ; they will not 
 seek to eradicate wholly any existing national faith, if 
 only it be a living one ; nor, as the phrase is, will they 
 aim at ' bringing its adherents over to Christianity ;' 
 they will seek rather to bring Christianity to them, to 
 infuse a Christian spirit into what is, at worst, not an 
 anti-Christian, but merely a non-Christian, or, it may 
 be, a half-Christian faith. 
 
 The Apostles did not cease to be Jews because 
 
EXAMPLE OF ST. PAUL. 59 
 
 they became Christians, nor did they look up to 
 Moses less because they reverenced Christ more. 
 And yet the difference between Judaism and Christi- 
 anity, between the forms and the ceremonies and the 
 exclusiveness of the one, and the spirituality and the 
 freedom and the universality of the other, is at least 
 as great as, I hope to show, is the difference between 
 a sincere believer in the teaching of the Prophet of 
 Arabia and a humble follower of the character of 
 Christ. 
 
 St. Paul, the one model given us in the New 
 Testament of what a missionary should be in dealing 
 with the faith of a cultivated people much dissimilar 
 to his own, a faith, most people would say now, 
 differing in kind as well as in degree from Chris- 
 tianity, never thought himself of drawing so broad a 
 distinction between the two. He might well have 
 been disposed to do so, for the Polytheism of Athens 
 had long ceased to be an adequate expression of the 
 highest religious life of the people. It was in its 
 decadence even when it had inspired the profoundest 
 utterances of ^schylus or Sophocles ; it could not 
 have inspired them then, even had there existed 
 genius like theirs to be inspired. Its oracles were 
 dumb ; and yet St. Paul dropped not a word of scorn 
 for the echoes that still lingered, and the flames that 
 were still flickering, on its shattered altars. He did 
 not talk of false gods or of devil-worship, of imposture 
 or of superstition. Those whom our translation 
 calls ' superstitious ' he calls * God-fearing.' He 
 quotes their great authors with sympathy and with 
 respect. He professes only to give articulate utter- 
 ance to their own thoughts, and to declare more fully 
 
60 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
 to them that God whom, unknowingly, they already 
 worshipped. 
 
 And so, again, in writing to the converts to be 
 found even in the metropolis of the world, and, it 
 must be added, the head-quarters of its vices, while 
 he lashes its moral iniquities and its religious 
 corruptions with an unsparing hand, yet, with a 
 toleration wholly alien to the Jewish race, and with 
 out forfeiting his supreme allegiance to his Master, 
 he strikes at the root of the impassable distinc- 
 tion between revealed and unrevealed religion, 
 by pointing out that those who, not having the law, 
 yet did by nature the things contained in the law, 
 were in truth a law unto themselves. He showed 
 that the Eternal could reveal Himself as well 
 by His unwritten as by His written law, and 
 that the voice of conscience is, in very truth, to 
 everyone who follows it, the voice of the living 
 God. 
 
 The missionaries of the future, therefore, will try 
 to penetrate to the common elements which, they 
 will have learned, underlie all religions alike, and 
 make the most of those. They will be able, with a 
 sympathy which is real because it is drawn from a 
 knowledge of the history of their own faith, to point 
 out the abuses which have crept, and always will 
 creep, into an originally spiritual creed. They will 
 inculcate in their teaching, and exhibit in their lives, 
 as they do now, something of that highest morality 
 which they have learned from their Master, and 
 which they will then have learned is the very essence 
 of their faith, and which, in its broad outhnes at 
 least, in the ' secret ' as well as in the ' method ' of 
 
HOW MA Y CHRISTIANITY SPREAD ? 61 
 
 Jesus, ^ may adapt itself to the wants of every nation 
 and every creed. 
 
 They will never, therefore, think it necessary to 
 present Christianity to those of an alien creed as a 
 collection of defined yet mysterious doctrines w^hich 
 must be accepted whole or not at all, but wnll rather 
 be content to show them Christ Himself as He 
 appeared to His earliest disciples — before the mists of 
 metaphysics had gathered round His head, and the 
 w^atchw^ords of theology had half hidden Him from 
 the view^ — glorious in His moral beauty, sublime in 
 His self-surrender, Divine in His humanity and by 
 reason of it. And they may then leave it to the 
 moral sense of some, at least, in every section of the 
 race whose greatest glory and Ideal Representative 
 He is, to judge of Him aright, and to recognise in 
 His person the supreme and the final Revelation of 
 God. Here, in the ambition to set before the eyes 
 of all a higher Ideal, and a more perfect example 
 than any they have yet known ; in the proclamation 
 of the truth, wiiich Christ came to proclaim, of the 
 universal Fatherhood, and the perfect love of God — 
 here is ample w^ork for the enthusiasm of humanity ; 
 in this sense, Christ may live again upon the earth, 
 
 ' ' Of the all-importance of righteousness there is a knowledge in 
 Mohammedanism, but of the method and secret of Jesus, by which 
 alone is righteousness possible, hardly any sense at all.' — ' Literature 
 and Dogma,' p. 843. There is substantial truth in this ; but few can 
 read Mr. Arnold's own account of what he conceives the secret and 
 method of Jesus to have been, without feeling that all the higher 
 religions of the world,— any religion, in fact, which controlling the 
 lower part of man's nature and stimulating the higher, makes him to 
 be at peace with himself, which gives hope in adversity, and calm- 
 ness in the prospect of death, must contain much both of the one and 
 of the other. 
 
62 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 and in this sense, and only in this, is it likely that 
 Christianity will overspread the world. I have pre- 
 mised this much, even at the risk of anticipating some 
 of the conclusions to which we shall, I believe, 
 ultimately come, because I think it necessary to pre- 
 vent any misunderstanding as to my point of view. 
 
 €$ oiu)v Otoe ; how far the way was prepared for 
 Mohammed by circumstances, and what part he him- 
 self bore in the great revolution that goes by his name ; 
 what we are to say on the nature of his mission, on 
 the much-disputed question of his sincerity, of the 
 inconsistencies in his career and the blots upon it, 
 this will form the subject of mv next Lecture. 
 
MEDIEVAL VJEW OF MOHAMMED. 63 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 February 21. 1874. 
 
 MOHAMMED. 
 
 McyaXwv kavrbv d^Lol a^io? utv. — ARISTOTLE. 
 
 There goeth the soft of Abdallah, who hath his conversation in the 
 heavens.— The Kuraish. 
 
 A COMPLETE history of the opinions that have been 
 held by Christians about Mohammed and Moham- 
 medanism would not be an* uninstructive chapter, 
 however melancholy, in the history of the human 
 mind. To glance for a moment at a few of them. 
 
 During the first few centuries of Mohammedanism, 
 Christendom could not afford to criticise or explain ; 
 it could only tremble and obey. But when the 
 Saracens had received their first check in the heart of 
 France, the nations which had been flying before them 
 faced round, as a herd of cows will sometimes do when 
 the single dog that has put them to flight is called 
 off ; and though they did not yet venture to fight, 
 they could at least calumniate their retreating foe. 
 Drances-like, they could manufacture calumnies and 
 victories at pleasure : — 
 
 'Quae tuto tibi magna volant ; dum distinct hostemi 
 Ag'ijer murorum, nee inundant sanguine fossae.' 
 
04 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 The disastrous retreat of Charles the Great through 
 Roncesvalles, and the slaughter of his rear-guard by 
 the Gascons, is turned by Romance-mongers and 
 Troubadours into a signal victory of his over the 
 Saracens ; Charles, who never went beyond Pannonia, 
 is credited, in the following century, with a successful 
 Crusade to the Holy Sepulchre, and even with the sack 
 of Babylon ! The age of Christian chivalry had not 
 yet come, and was not to come for two hundred years. 
 In the romance of ' Turpin,' quoted by Renan, 
 Mohammed, the fanatical destroyer of all idolatry, is 
 turned himself into an idol of gold, and, under the 
 name of Mawmet, is reported to be the object of wor- 
 ship at Cadiz ; and this not even Charles the Great, 
 Charles the Iconoclast, the destroyer of the Irmansul, 
 in his own native Germany, would venture to attack 
 from fear of the legion of demons which guarded it. 
 In the song of Roland, the national Epic of France, 
 referring to the same events, Mohammed appears with 
 the chief of the Pagan Gods on the one side of him 
 and the chief of the Devils on the other ; a curious 
 anticipation, perhaps, of the view of Satanic inspira- 
 tion taken by Sir William Muir. Marsilles, Khalif of 
 Cordova, is supposed to worship him as a god, and 
 his favourite form of adjuration is made to be * By 
 Jupiter, by Mohammed, and by Apollyon,' — strange 
 metamorphosis and strange collocation ! Human 
 sacrifices are offered to him, if nowhere else indeed, 
 in the imagination and assertions of Christian writers 
 of the tenth and eleventh centuries, under the various 
 names of Bafum, or Maphomet, or Mawmet ; and in 
 the same spirit Malaterra, in his ' History of Sicily,' 
 describes that island as being, when under Saracenic 
 
MISCONCEPTIONS SHOWN BY LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 rule, ^ a land wholly given to idolatry/ ^ and the expe- 
 dition of the Norman Roger Guiscard is characterised 
 as a crusade against idol worship. Which people 
 were the greater idolaters, any candid reader of the 
 Italian annalists of this time, collected by Muratori, 
 can say. Even Marco Polo, the most charming and, 
 where his religious prejudices or his partiality for the 
 ' Great Khan ' do not come in, the most trustworthy 
 of travellers, yet speaks of the Musalmans whom he 
 met everywhere in Central Asia and in China as 
 * worshippers of Mahommet.' '^ It is not a little curious 
 that both the English and French languages still bear 
 witness to the popular misapprehension ; the French 
 by the word ' Mahomerie ' ; the English by the word 
 
 * B. IT. 1. ' Terrain idolis deditam.' 
 
 2 Marco Polo, II. 196, 200, 266. Colonel Yule, in his gorgeous 
 and exhaustive edition of the Venetian traveller, quotes, in illus- 
 tration of the misconception, from iBaudouin de Sebourg, where a 
 Christian lady who is renouncing her faith before Saladin is made to 
 say 
 
 ' Mahom voel aourer, apportez le moi cha.' 
 
 = I wish to worship Mahommed ; bring him to me here. Where- 
 upon Saladin commanded 
 
 ' Qu'on aportast Mahom ; et celle I'aoura.' 
 
 He also remarks that even Don Quixote, who ought to have known 
 better, celebrates the feat of Einaldo, who carried off, in spite of forty 
 Moors, a golden image of Mohammed ! In keeping with Marco Polo's 
 calling Musalmans ' Worshippers of Mahommet ' are his other remarks 
 on the subject (I. 70, 74, ifec.) : * Marvel not that the Saracens hate 
 the Christians ; for the accursed law that Mahommet gave them 
 commands them to do all the mischief in their power to all other 
 descriptions of people, and especially to Christians. See then what 
 an evil law and what naughty commandments they have I But in 
 such fashion the Saracens act throughout the world.' Perhaps the 
 best commentary on this, is, that Marco Polo himself passed un- 
 guarded through almost all Musalman countries, and came out un- 
 harmed in person and in property. 
 
 C 
 
66 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 V mummery,' still used for absurd or superstitious rites J 
 Nor has a Mohammedan nothing to complain of in 
 the etymolog>^ and history, little known or forgotten, 
 of the words * Mammetry ' and ' Paynim,' * terma- 
 gant ' and * miscreant ' ; '^ but to these I can only refer 
 in passing. 
 
 In the twelfth century * the god Mawmet passes 
 into the heresiarch Mahomet,' '* and, as such, of course 
 he occupies a conspicuous place in the ' Inferno.' 
 Dante places him in his ninth circle among the 
 sowers of religious discord ; his companions being 
 Fra Dolcino, a communist of the fourteenth century, 
 a^d Bertrand de Born, a fighting Troubadour : his flesh 
 i? torn piecemeal from his limbs by demons who re- 
 peat their round in time to re-open the half-healed 
 wounds. The romances of Baphomet, so common in 
 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, attribute any 
 and every crime to him, just as the Athanasians did 
 to Arius. * He is a debauchee, a camel stealer, a 
 Cardinal, who having failed to obtain the object of 
 
 ' Renan, 'fitudes d'Histoire Reli^euse,' p. 223, note. 
 
 '^ Mammetry, a contraction of Maliometry, used in early English 
 for any false religion, especially for a worship of idols, insomuch that 
 Mammet or Mawmet came to mean an idol. In Shakespeare the 
 name is extended to mean a doll : Juliet, for instance, is called by 
 her father 'a whining mammet.' See Trench 'On Wonls,' p. 112. 
 Paynim = I'agan or Heathen. Termagant, a term applied now only 
 to a brawling woman, was originally one of the names given to the 
 suppose<l idol of the Mohammedans. Miscreant, originally 'a man 
 who believes otherwise,' acquircnl its moral significance from the 
 hatred of the Saracens which accompanie«l the Crusades. The story 
 of Blue Beard, the associations connected with the name ' Mahound,' 
 and the dislike of European chivalry in Medieval times for the Mare 
 — the favourite animal of the Arabs— are t)ther in«lications of the 
 same thing. 
 
 * Benan, loc. eit. 
 
LANGUAGE OB' PROTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS. 67 
 
 every Cardinal's ambition, invents a new religion to 
 revenge himself on his brethren !' ^ 
 
 With the leaders of the Reformation, Mohammed, 
 the greatest of all Reformers, meets with little sym- 
 pathy, and their hatred of him, as perhaps was 
 natural, seems to vary inversely as their knowledge. 
 Luther doubts w^hether he is not worse than Leo ; 
 Melancthon believes him to be either Gog or Magog, 
 and probably both.^ The Reformers did not see that 
 the Papal party, fastening on the hatred of priestcraft 
 and formalism which was common doubtless to Islam 
 and to Protestantism, would impute to both a common 
 hatred of Christianity, even as the Popes had accused 
 the iconoclastic Emperors of Constantinople eight 
 centuries before. 
 
 The language of the Catholic Church, with the 
 accumulated wisdom and responsibilities of fifteen 
 centuries, was not more refined, nor its knowledge of 
 
 * Renan, p. 224. According to Bayle (Dictionary, Art. ' Mo 
 hammed,') Benvenuti of Imola started this idea. 
 > ^ See ' Quarterly Review,' Art. Islam, by Deutsch, No. 254, p. 296. 
 Cf . Shakespeare's view of him, 
 
 ' The prince of darkness is a gentleman : 
 Modo he's call'd, and Mahu ' ; Le. Mahound. 
 and 
 
 ' five fiends have been in poor Tom at once : of _lust, as Obidicut ; 
 Hobbididance, prince of dumbness ; Mahu, of stealing ; Modo, of 
 murder.' — King Lear, Act III. Scene IV. ; and Act IV. Scene I. 
 
 As a sample of the controversial works of the theologians of the 
 Reformed Church on this subject, take the following modest title- 
 page of a ponderous work written in 1666: — * Anti-christus Maho- 
 metes: ubi non solum per Sanctam Scripturam, ac Reformatorum 
 testimonia, verum etiam per omnes alios probandi modos et genera, 
 plene, fuse, invictc solideque demonstratur MAHOMETEM esse 
 unum ilium verum, magnum, de quo in Sacris fit mentio, ANTI- 
 CHRISTUM.' 
 
68 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Islam more profound, than was that of the Protes- 
 tants of yesterday. Genebrard, for instance, a famous 
 Cathohc controversialist, reproaches Mohammed with 
 having written his Koran in Arabic, and not in Hebrew, 
 Greek, or Latin, ^ the only civilised languages.' Why 
 did he do so ? asks he. ^ Because,' he replies to his 
 own question, * Mohammed was a beast, and only 
 knew a language that was suited to his bestial condi- 
 tion 1 ' Nor are some of his other arguments more 
 convincing, however seriously they were meant. 
 
 Now, too, arose the invention, the maliciousness of 
 which was only equalled by its stupidity, but believed 
 by all who wished to believe it — of the dove trained 
 to gather peas placed in the ear of Mohammed,^ 
 that people might believe that he was inspired by the 
 Holy Ghost — inspired, it would seem, by the very 
 Being whose separate existence it was the first article 
 of his creed to deny ! In the imagination of Biblical 
 commentators later on, and down to this very day, 
 he divides with the Pope the credit or discredit of 
 being the subject of special prophecy in the books of 
 Daniel and Revelation, that magnificent series of 
 tableaux, a part of which, on the principle that ' a 
 prophecy may mean whatever comes after it,' has 
 been tortured into agreement with each successive 
 act of the drama of history ; while from another part, 
 lovers of the mysterious have attempted to cast, and, 
 in spite of disappointment, will always continue to 
 cast, the horoscope of the future. He is Antichrist, 
 the Man of Sin, the Little Horn, and I know not 
 
 ' A similar st^^ry is told of the great Shamil ; only in this case it is 
 Mohammed himself who takes the form of a dove, and imparts his 
 commands to the Hero. 
 
SUPPOSED SUBJECT OF PROPHECY. 69 
 
 what besides ; nor do I think that a single writer, 
 with the one strange exception of the Jew Maimonides, 
 till towards the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 treats of him as otherwise than a rank impostor and 
 false prophet. 
 
 Things did not much improve even when it was 
 thought advisable, before passing judgment, or for the 
 purpose of registering one already passed, to ascend 
 as nearly as possible to the fountain-head. The 
 Koran was translated into French by Andre du Ryer 
 in 1649, and by the Abbe Maracci in 1698. Maracci, 
 the confessor of a Pope, of course dealt with the 
 Koran chiefly from a Romanist point of view : indeed 
 he accompanies his translation with what he calls a 
 ^ Refutatio Alcorani,' and a very voluminous and 
 calumnious one it is ; and when a certain Englishman, 
 named Alexander Ross, ventured to translate the 
 French version of du Ryer into English, he thought 
 it necessary to preface his work by what he calls ^ a 
 needful caveat or admonition,' which runs thus : 
 ' Good reader, the great Arabian impostor, now at 
 last, after a thousand years, is, by the way of France, 
 arrived in England, and his Alcoran, or Gallimaufry 
 of Errors, (a Brat as deformed as the Parent, and 
 as full of Heresies as his scald head was of scurf,) 
 hath learned to speak Enghsh.' And one who has 
 probably as much right to speak upon the subject as 
 any living Englishman,' after quoting this refined 
 description of the Koran and its author, remarks that, 
 ' though the education of two centuries has chastened 
 the style of our national literature and added much to 
 
 * Dr. G. P. Badger, in the ' Contemporary Review ' for June 1875; 
 Art. Mohamme-i and Mohammedanism. 
 
70 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 our knowledge of the East, there is good ground for 
 supposing that the views of Alexander Ross are in 
 accordance substantially with the views still held by 
 the great majority of Englishmen.' That he is not 
 far wTong, I would adduce as evidence from amongst 
 Churchmen the tone habitually taken by a large part 
 of the religious press when dealing with any subject 
 connected with Islam ; and from among Noncon- 
 formists the following hymn written by Charles 
 Wesley for ' believers interceding ' for Mohammedans, 
 and still, as I am informed, used by some of them at 
 their religious sei-vices : — 
 
 ' The smoke of the infernal cjive 
 Which half the Christian world o'erspread, 
 Disperse, thou heavenly li^^ht. and save 
 The souls by that impostor led — 
 That Arab thief, as Satan bold. 
 Who quite destroyed thy Asian fold. 
 
 ' Oh may thy blood once sprinkled cry 
 For those who spurn thy sprinkled blood ! 
 Assert thy glorious Deity. 
 Stretch out thine arm, thou triune God I 
 The Unitarian fiend expel. 
 And chase his doctrine back to hell." 
 
 France and England may, however, in spite of 
 the ^ needful caveat or admonition ' of Alexander 
 Ross, and the popular misconceptions which are 
 still afloat upon the subject, divide the credit of 
 having been the first to take a different view, and 
 to have begun that critical study of Arabian history 
 or literature which, in the hands of Gibbon and of 
 Muir, of Caussin de Perceval and of St. Hilaire, 
 of Weil and of Sprenger, has at length placed the 
 materials for a fair and unbiassed judgment within 
 
POPULAR VIEW OF MOHAMMED STFLL. 71 
 
 the reach of everyone. Most other writers of the 
 eighteenth century, such as Dean Prideaux and 
 d'Herbelot, Boulainvilhers and Voltaire, and some 
 subsequent Bampton lecturers and Arabic profes- 
 sors, have approached the subject only to prove a 
 thesis. Mohammed was to be either a hero or an 
 impostor ; they have held a brief either for the 
 prosecution or the defence ; and from them, there- 
 fore, we learn much that has been said about Mo- 
 hammed, but comparatively little of Mohammed him- 
 self. 
 
 It is not unnatural that in some cases extravagant 
 detraction should have given rise to equally extrava- 
 gant eulogy, and that the Prophet of Arabia should 
 have been, more than once, held up to admiration as 
 almost the ideal of humanity. But this is a length to 
 which it is quite unnecessary for me to go, and which 
 is inconsistent alike with what Mohammed claimed 
 for himself and with recorded facts. These facts are 
 now all or nearly all before us ; and what is most 
 needed now is, as has been well remarked by an able 
 writer in the ^ Academy,' the mind that can see their 
 true meaning, ^ that can grasp the complex character 
 of the great man whose life they mark out, like a 
 grand but intricate mosaic' 
 
 The founder of the reaction was Gagnier, a French- 
 man by birth, but an Englishman by adoption. 
 Educated in Navarre, where he had early shown a 
 mastery of more than one Semitic language, he be- 
 came Canon of St. Genevieve at Paris ; on a sudden 
 he turned Protestant, came to England, and attacked 
 Catholicism with all the zeal of a recent convert. 
 Having been appointed to the Chair of Arabic at 
 
72 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Oxford, he proceeded to write a history of 
 Mohammed, founded on the work of Abulfeda, the 
 earliest and most authentic of Arabic historians then 
 known. 
 
 The translations of the Koran into two different 
 European languages by Sale and Savary soon followed ; 
 and from these works, combined with the vast 
 number of facts contained in Sale's Introductory Dis- 
 course, Gibbon, who was not an Arabic scholar him- 
 self, drew the materials for his splendid chapter, the 
 most masterly of his ' three master-pieces of bio- 
 graphy,' Athanasius, Julian, and Mohammed. ' He 
 has descended on the subject in the fulness of his 
 strength,' has been inspired by it, and has produced 
 a sketch which, in spite of occasional uncalled-for 
 sarcasms and characteristic innuendoes, must be the 
 delight and the despair even of those who have access, 
 as we now have, thanks especially to Sprenger and 
 Muir, to vast stores of information denied to him. 
 But Gibbon's unfair and unphilosophic treatment of 
 Christianity has, perhaps, prevented the world from 
 doing justice to his generally fair and philosophic 
 treatment of Mohammedanism ; and, as a conse- 
 quence of this, most Englishmen, who do not con- 
 demn the Arabian prophet unheard, derive what 
 favourable notions of him they have, not from 
 Gibbon, but from Carlyle. Make as large deductions 
 as we will on the score of Carlyle's peculiar views on 
 ' Heroes and Hero-worship,' how many of us can 
 recall the shock of surprise, the epoch in our intel- 
 lectual and religious life, when we found that he 
 chose for his * Hero as prophet,' not Moses, or Elijah, 
 or Isaiah, but the so-called impostor Mohammed I 
 
X 
 
 \PARTIAL REACTION IN HIS FAVOUR. 73 
 
 And now, before we go further, let us leap back 
 in imagination to the times preceding the birth of 
 Mohammed, and enquire what the country was like 
 from which he sprung, what were the aptitudes of the 
 Arabs, their tastes, their organisation, their religions ; 
 we shall then, perchance, be better able to approach 
 the proper subject of this and the succeeding Lectures, 
 the character of the Prophet himself and of the creed 
 which he founded ; and to apply that historical and 
 relative judgment to the matter which is essential to 
 it. ^ Man is the creature of circumstances,' says the 
 English aphorism : if we know what the antecedents 
 of Mohammed were, we shall be better able to judge 
 how far the proverb is true or adequate — how far, 
 that is, Mohammed was formed by circumstances, and 
 how far he moulded them b}^ his mighty will and his 
 keen insight. 
 
 The most distinctive feature of the countless tribes 
 who have, from time immemorial, wandered over the 
 vast and arid plains of Arabia, and the one most 
 difficult for us to realise, is their immobility.^ Some 
 few there were among them who, like the inhabitants 
 of Mecca, lived, in the main, by legitimate commerce ; 
 some few also, like the inhabitants of Medina, who 
 lived by the cultivation of the soil ; but the vast 
 majority were shepherds of the desert. This was the 
 air in which alone they could breathe freely, here 
 they could wander at will. Nowhere in the world, 
 says Sprenger in a charming passage, is a man happier 
 than in the desert : the sky is always clear ; the air, 
 
 ^ For an admirable account, to which T am miach indebted, of the 
 characteristics of the Arabs, see the first two chapters of Dozy's 
 * Histoire des Musalmans d'Espagne.' 
 
74 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 even in hot weather, is strengthening and refreshing ; 
 every breath we draw makes us thank God for hfe. 
 A native of the Alps himself, though he would often 
 amidst the burning sands of Arabia dream of glaciers, 
 and long for the echoes of the Jiidel, he confesses 
 that neither the air of his own Alps nor that of the 
 Himalayas was so strengthening or so vivifying as 
 that of the desert. Such a climate, he goes on to 
 remark, had a powerful influence, physical and intel- 
 lectual, on its inhabitants. They were elastic and 
 quick ; their horses were swifter than any other 
 horses, and very healthy. No king of Hira, so their 
 historians say, ever died of ill-health brought on by 
 natural causes ! and Ibn Chaldun seriously attributes 
 the forty years' wanderings of the Israelites in the 
 desert to the natural feebleness of a race bom else- 
 where. It required a new generation bom in the 
 desert and endowed with the strength which the 
 desert alone can give to conquer Canaan !' 
 
 The Camel, it has been said, is tlie Arab's ship of 
 the desert ; the caravan is his fleet. Agriculture the 
 Arabs looked down upon as tethering the cultivator, 
 like a slave, to the soil on which he laboured. Com- 
 merce was in better repute with them, but only 
 because it gave more material for plunder : the fool- 
 ish merchants toiled, and the wise and wandering 
 Bedouins entered into their toils. What the Arabs 
 were in the time of Abraham, that they were in the 
 time of Mohammed ; and that, be it remembered, the 
 bulk of those who cling to their native deserts are, in 
 
 ' Sprenger, III., Preface, viii. : uiul chap. xvii. 8. C'uiupare alno 
 the testimony of Mr. LayanI in his popiUar condensjition of his 
 works on Nineveh, 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARABS. 75 
 
 Spite of the vast impulse given by him to the Arab 
 nation, to this very day ; that also, it is not too much 
 to add, they will be hundreds of years hence. They 
 feed on the same food, wield the same weapons of 
 war, water their cattle at the same springs as the 
 Patriarchs themselves. The accounts of Niebuhr and 
 of Burckhardt, of Burton and of Layard, are thus the 
 best commentaries on much of the Koran, on much 
 also of the Book of Genesis. The Bedouins of the 
 desert call themselves Musalmans, but they value 
 freedom too much to trouble themselves about obey- 
 ing the Musalman laws. ' They pray, many of them,' 
 says Burckhardt, ^ not five times a day, but never.' 
 The Bedouin, though not the noblest, is yet a noble 
 type of humanity. A stranger to the idea of progress, 
 he despises the hurry and the flurry, the breathless 
 race for wealth, the luxuries and the appliances, and 
 the accumulated knowledge of facts, that go to make 
 up what we call our civilisation. , It is surely a relief 
 to turn, if only for a moment, to the supreme content- 
 ment of an Arab with his lot, to his carelessness of the 
 future, to his ineffable dignity of repose, from the 
 feverish activity, the constant straining after an 
 ideal which can never be satisfied, the ^ life at high 
 pressure,' which is the characteristic of the more 
 active, but hardly the more highly gifted, races of 
 the West. 
 
 It is not that the Arab lacks the intelligence or 
 the power vto change his condition — he does not wish, 
 or rather he wishes not, to do so. He looks upon 
 himself as the highest type of creation, V upon his 
 language as the most perfect language ; and in this, if 
 
 ' Dozy, Vol. I. p. 4. 
 
76 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Arabic scholars are to be believed, and if the music ] 
 of the Koran is what they say it is, he is not so far 
 wrong. Upon him, and upon him alone, as he 
 proudly asserts, God has bestowed four privileges — 
 that their turbans should be their diadems, their tents 
 their homes, their swords their entrenchments, and 
 their poems their laws. Passionately fond of liberty, 
 the Arab may well boast that, whatever the cause, 
 his country has never been conquered by foreign foes. 
 Alexander dreamed, but only dreamed of conquering 
 Arabia. Trajan struck medals to commemorate his 
 conquests of it ; but what he conquered was not 
 Arabia at all, but only an outlying province of it, and 
 that he did not attempt to hold. 
 
 Nor are the individual and the social liberty of 
 the Arabs less than their national. Split up into 
 innumerable tribes, constantly at war with each other, 
 each tribe has a Sheik of its own, but that Sheik is 
 elected by the members of his tribe, not for his birth 
 or for his wealth, but for his individual merits. When 
 elected, he has duties only, not rights ; influence, not 
 power. His tent is pitched on that side of an encamp- 
 ment on which an enemy is most likely to attack it, or 
 a friend to visit it. To be the first to resist an enemy, 
 or to do honour to a guest, this is at once his duty and 
 his privilege. He can neither issue an order nor inflict 
 a punishment of his own free will. He must summon 
 the heads of all the families of the tribe, and, sitting 
 in council with them, he is only primus inter pares. 
 The tie most sacred in the eyes of the Arab is that 
 which binds him to his tribe : he calls his fellow 
 tribesmen his brothers, he will share his last morsel 
 or kill his last sheep to relieve any one of them who 
 
THE BEDOUINS. 11 
 
 is in distress.^ He will avenge any insult or injury 
 offered to him as if it were his own. 
 
 A true Bedouin despises wealth, for his only 
 property consists of flocks and herds. The descent 
 of a band of plunderers may hurry it all away, and 
 the despoiled owner must wait patiently till his turn 
 comes for reprisals. Amongst such a people hospi- 
 tality and open-heartedness would be not only one of 
 the higher, but also one of the easier and commoner 
 virtues. ^ Let the torrent of your liberality escape 
 from your hand,' says the Arab proverb, ^ without the 
 sound of it reaching your ear.' A man who had 
 ruined himself by his open-handed generosity was 
 held in high honour, while he who had amassed 
 riches was despised and hated. ' From the hand of 
 the greedy falls not even a grain of mustard seed,' 
 says one Arab proverb. ^ The miser puts a bridle 
 even on the rats of his house,' says a second, meaning 
 that he tries to guard even what cannot be guarded. 
 * The miser is like a glow-worm's spark, which gives 
 neither light nor heat that is good for anything,' says 
 a third.^ 
 
 Next to the passion for liberty, the affection for 
 their tribe, and the duty of hospitality, came, in the 
 breast of a true-bom Bedouin, the appetite for 
 plunder, the respect for valour, the love of poetry and 
 eloquence. The scanty sustenance which an arid soil 
 yielded they were fain to eke out by plundering 
 those who conducted caravans along the coast of 
 Hedjaz to exchange the spices and precious stones 
 
 ' Dozy, p. 10. 
 
 =* Quoted by M. Scholl, ' L'Islam et son Fondateur,' p. 12, 13, from 
 Meidani's collection of ancient Arabic Proverbs. 
 
78 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of India, of Hadramaut, or of Yemen, with the manu- 
 factures of Bozra and Damascus ; their hand was 
 against every man, and every man's hand was against 
 them ; yet even in their phmdering excursions 
 there was a contempt of danger and a sensibiHty of 
 honour which lends a charm to all we hear of their 
 loves and their wars, their greed and their hospitality, 
 their rapine and their revenge. The Bedouin has 
 been the same in these respects in all ages. ' Be 
 good enough to take off that garment of yours,' says 
 the Bedouin robber politely to his victim ; * it is 
 wanted by my wife ; ' and the victim submits with as 
 good a grace as he can muster to the somewhat un- 
 reasonable demands of a hypothetical lady. When a 
 woman is the victim, no Bedouin brigand, however 
 rude, will be ill-mannered enough to lay hands upon 
 her. He begs her to take off the garment on which 
 he has set his heart, and he then retires to a distance 
 and stands with eyes averted, lest he should do vio- 
 lence to her modesty.^ 
 
 El Mutanabi, a poet, prophet, and warrior, three 
 hundred years after the Hijrah, but who, no doubt, had 
 his prototypes before it, was journeying with his son 
 through a country infested by robbers, and proposed 
 to seek a place of refuge for the night : * Art thou 
 then that Mutanabi,' exclaimed his slave, ' who wrote 
 these lines, — 
 
 ' 1 am known to the night, and the wild and the stee*!, 
 To the gue^t and the sword, to the paper and the reed I ' 
 
 ' See an exquisite story illustrating the true knightly courtesy of 
 Othman, son of Zalha, to 0mm Salama, who afterwards became a 
 wife of the Prophet. (Sprenger, II. 535-538.) 
 
ARAB LOVE OF POETRY. 79 
 
 The poet-warrior felt the stain hke a wound, and 
 throwing himself down to sleep where he then was, 
 met his death at the hands of the robbers.' The 
 passion indeed for indiscriminate plunder had, before 
 the time of Mohammed, so far given way to the 
 growing love of commerce that a kind of Treuga Dei, 
 or Truce of God, was observed, in theory at least, 
 during four months of the year. But what the law 
 forbade then, ex hypothesi it allowed at other times, 
 and it is likely that the enforced abstention gave, at 
 once, the zest of novelty and a clear conscience to 
 the purveyors of the trade when the four months 
 were over. 
 
 Nor were the Arabs as uncivilised in other 
 respects as has often been supposed. They were 
 as passionately fond of poetry as they were of war 
 and plunder. What the Olympic Games did for 
 Greece in keeping up the national feeling, as 
 distinct from tribal independence, in giving a brief 
 cessation from hostilities, and acting as a literary 
 centre, that the annual fairs at Okatz and Mujanna 
 were to Arabia. Here tribes made up their dissen- 
 sions, exchanged prisoners of war, and, most important 
 of all, competed with one another in extempore poetic 
 contests. Even in the ^ times of ignorance,' each 
 tribe produced its own poet-laureate ; and the most 
 ready and the best saw his poem transcribed in letters 
 of gold,* or suspended on the wall of the entrance of 
 
 ' Burton's * Pilgrimage to Mecca,' III. p. 60, where he tells this 
 story and translates the Arabic lines. See the whole of chap. XXIV. 
 for a graphic account drawn from personal observation of Bedouin 
 knight errantry, and poetry, and generosity. 
 
 '■* Called Moallacat. Sprenger and Deutsch agree that this word 
 means not ' suspended,' but ' strung loosely together,' and question 
 
80 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 the Kaaba, where it would be seen by every pilgrim 
 who might visit the most sacred place in the country. 
 But the Arab poetry, rich as it was in sparkling 
 gems, in melody, and in all the graces of style, and 
 passionately fond as the Arab was of it, never rose 
 to the dignity of the epic. It was lyrical and descrip- 
 tive only : their amours and their love feuds, the 
 joys of the dice-box and the wine-cup, the heroic deeds 
 of their ancestors, the birth of a son or of a foal of 
 generous breed — these were the themes of their 
 greatest poets, and these the wild tribes of the 
 desert flocked to hear. ' The Kings of the Arabs/ 
 said the Khalif Omar, ^ are their orators and poets, 
 those who practise and who celebrate all the virtues 
 of a Bedouin.' ' 
 
 What those virtues were, the foregoing sketch may 
 indicate ; perchance we may think some among them 
 to be vices ; but there is a yet darker side to the 
 picture, which called aloud for the hand of a reformer, 
 if such could ever be found in so unchangeable a 
 people. 
 
 To forgive an injury was with the Arabs the sign 
 of a craven spirit ; revenge was a religious duty ; 
 blood feuds were handed down from father to son as 
 the most sacred of obligations ; the crime, or it might 
 be the misfortune, of an individual involved a whole 
 tribe in its consequences ; and the claim was some- 
 times not considered to be satisfied till the whole 
 tribe had been swept away. Arab writers celebrate 
 
 the truth of the story of the suspension in the ' Kaaba.' Some of these 
 poems, as, for Instance, that of the \x)et Labyd, still survive, and are 
 a standing proof of the untaught poetic genius of the Arabs. 
 * Quoted by Do/.y, p. 8. 
 
DISPOSAL OF FEMALE CHILDREN. 81 
 
 with patriotic pride this national characteristic, and 
 attribute it to the flesh of the camel, that most surly 
 and unforgiv-ng of creatures, which forms the main 
 animal food of the Bedouin/ Drunkenness was, as 
 many poems which have been preserved to us indi- 
 cate, very common, and very fatal in its effects. The 
 passion for gambling was so reckless that a man 
 would often stake all his possessions, and after losing 
 them at a throw, would next stake his freedom, and, 
 losing that also, become a slave.^ 
 
 But the most barbarous practice of these ^ times 
 of ignorance,' for so the Arabs after the time of Mo- 
 hammed call with proud humility the times before 
 him, was the burying alive of female children as soon 
 as they were born ; or, worse still, as sometimes- 
 happened, after they had attained the age of six 
 years. The father was generally himself the murderer. 
 ' Perfume and adorn,' he would say to the mother, 
 ' your daughter, that I may convey her to her mothers.' 
 This done, he led her to a pit dug for the purpose, 
 bade her look down into it, and then, as he stood be- 
 hind her, pushed her headlong in, and then filling up 
 the pit himself levelled it with the rest of the ground !. 
 It is said that the only occasion on which a certain 
 Othman ever shed a tear was when his little daughter 
 whom he was burying alive wiped the dust of the 
 grave earth from his beard. This inhuman practice 
 may have originated from motives of domestic eco- 
 nomy, or from fear of dishonour to the tribe if a 
 woman should be taken captive by the enemy, or, 
 
 ' Sale, ' Preliminary Discourse,' I. 22. 
 
 ^ See ' Christian Remembrancer ' for January 1855, by Dr. Cazenove 
 p. 68. 
 
 C 2 
 
82 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 what is more likely, from the general disregard of 
 female life and rights. Anyhow it had once been 
 very common, and in Mohammed's time it was still 
 not rare, even among the Kuraish.' 
 
 Some women there were who, like the Arabian 
 poetess El Khunsa, by sheer force of character or of 
 genius managed to assert themselves even in 'the 
 times of ignorance.' But the majority were in the most 
 degraded position, worse even than thatin which they ^ 
 were under the laws of Manu in Hindustan, or than 
 they are in Musalman states now. A woman had 
 no rights ; she could not inherit property ; her person 
 formed part of the inheritance which came to the heir 
 of her husband, and he was entitled to marry her 
 against her will. Hence spnmg the impious mar- 
 riages of sons with their step-mothers and others of an 
 even worse character which Mohammed so perempto- 
 rily forbade. Polygamy was universal and quite 
 unrestricted ; equally so was divorce, at least as far 
 as the man was concerned. We read of a certain 
 woman Omm-Charijeh, who had distinguished herself, 
 even amongst the Arabs, by having forty husbands. 
 A husband could dismiss his wife on the merest whim, 
 and then, if he so pleased, might recall her again 
 under the influence of a similar whim. A few ancient 
 Arab proverbs collected by an American Missionary 
 in Syria, Dr. Jessup,'"* will perhaps illustrate, more 
 forcibly than any statements of my own, the degrada- 
 tion of woman in the times preceding Mohammed. 
 Here are some of them : — 
 
 Sale, * Pielimiimry DiMtuux-,' V. in\ 
 ' 'Women of the Aral)8,' cap. I. 
 
FORMER DEGRADATION OF WOMAN. 83 
 
 ' To send women before to the other world is a benefit.' 
 
 ' The best son-in-law is the grave.' 
 
 ' Obedience to women will have to be repented of.' 
 
 ' A man can bear anything but the mention of his wives.' 
 
 * The heart of woman is given to folly.' 
 
 * Leave not a girl nor a green pasture unguarded.' 
 
 * Women are the whips of Satan.' 
 
 ' Our mother forbids us to err, and herself runs into eripr.' 
 
 * My father does the fighting, and my mother the talking about it.' 
 
 Such then were the leading social characteristics of 
 the nation from which Mohammed sprang. It is im- 
 portant for us to bear carefully in mind the difficulties 
 that were in the Prophet's way, that we may be 
 better able hereafter to appreciate the manner in 
 which he dealt with them, and the extent to which 
 he was able to overcome them. 
 
 Let us now turn to the religious systems and ideas 
 which prevailed in Arabia before Mohammed's time, 
 and which he, like every other reformer whose work 
 is to last, would have to take into account. 
 
 The two highest religions of the world, Judaism 
 and Christianity, were not unknown in Arabia. The 
 destruction of Jerusalem by Titus had caused a very 
 general migration of Jews from Palestine, southwards 
 and eastwards, beyond the limits of the Roman 
 Empire ; and from that time onwards the northern 
 part of Arabia was dotted over by Jewish colonies. 
 In the third century a whole Arabian tribe, even in 
 the south of the peninsula, had adopted the Jewish 
 faith, and the history of Mohammed proves that the 
 neighbourhood of Yathrib^ contained many Jewish 
 tribes, which, though they maintained in the land 
 
 ' Not called Medina, i.e. Medinat-an-Nabi, ' the City of the Prophet,' 
 till after the Hijrah. The Arab capital of Malta (now Civita Vecchia) 
 bore for several centuries the same name, Medina. 
 
84 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of their exile that proud rehgious isolation which was 
 their national birthright, were not without their influ- 
 ence on Arab politics. 
 
 Christianity may have been introduced into Arabia 
 by St. Paul himself. ' Neither went I up into Jerusa- 
 lem to them which were apostles before me/ he says 
 to his Galatian converts, ' but I went into Arabia.' 
 Anyhow, the persecutions which sprang up in the 
 Eastern Church in the third century drove large 
 numbers of Christians, chiefly those of the Jacobite 
 persuasion, into this land of liberty and free tolera- 
 tion. ^ I reign,' said Marthan, a king of Yemen in the 
 fourth century, ^over men's bodies, not over their 
 minds. I require of my subjects that they should 
 obey my government : of their opinions God alone 
 will judge.' Noble words, but mistimed by above 
 eleven centuries, and how imperfectly carried out even 
 now ! Accordingly, we hear of several tribes of 
 Yemen becoming to some extent Christianised. We 
 hear of churches, and even of bishops, at Djafar and 
 at Nadjran. But Christianity seems to have taken 
 even less hold than Judaism of the Arab character. 
 Controversies on the minutest points of Christian 
 doctrine absorbed all the energies of those who never 
 thought of leading a Christian life ; and the Khalif 
 Ali was not far wrong when he said of a tribe in 
 which Christianity seemed more than elsewhere to 
 be the dominant religion, 'The Taglibites are not 
 Christians : they owe nothing to Christianity except 
 the custom of drinking wine.'* 
 
 Thus neither Christianity nor Judaism ever struck 
 
 ' Dozy, p. 20. 
 
OBJECTS OF BEDOUIN WORSHIP. 85 
 
 deep root in the Arabian soil. The people were not 
 suited to them, or they were not suited to the people. 
 They lived on, on sufferance only, till a faith, which 
 to the Arabs should be the more living one, should 
 sweep them away. 
 
 I have admitted in my first Lecture that the re 
 ligion of Mohammed was in its essence not original. 
 Mohammed never said it was : he called it a revival 
 of the old one, a return to the primitive creed of 
 Abraham ; and there is reason to believe that both 
 the great religions of the Eastern world existing in 
 his time, Sabaeanism, that is, and Magianism, had 
 been, in their origin at least, vaguely monotheistic. 
 They had passed through the inevitable stages of 
 spirituality, misunderstanding, decline, and, lastly, 
 intentional corruption, till the God whom Abraham, 
 according to the well-known Musalman legend, had 
 been the first to worship, because, while He had 
 made the stars and sun to rise and set. He never rose 
 nor set Himself, had withdrawn behind them alto- 
 gether ; the heavenly bodies, from being symbols, 
 had become the thing symbolised ; temples were 
 erected in their honour, and idols filled the temples. 
 
 And, as with Sabseanism, so with Magianism ; 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman were no longer the principles 
 brought into existence, or existing, by the permission 
 of the one true God, who, as Zoroaster had taught, 
 would tolerate neither temples, nor altars, nor sym- 
 bols ; worshipped only on the hill-tops with the eye 
 of faith, quickened though it might be by the glory 
 of the rising or setting sun presented to the bodily 
 eye. Fire had itself become the Divinity ; and what 
 offering could be more acceptable to such a God 
 
86 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 than the human victim, overw^helmed by the myste- 
 rious flame, whose divine power he denied ? 
 
 And, combined with these two rehgions which 
 had been spiritual in their origin, and, probably, more 
 prominent and popular than either, was the grossest 
 Fetishism. The idea indeed of one God was not 
 altogether lost ; but a number of inferior divinities 
 were worshipped as mediators with Him, or, as the 
 Koran indignantly expresses it, as ' companions ' to 
 Him. Stocks, stones, trees, shapeless masses of 
 dough — such were some of the objects of the Bedouins' 
 worship. Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manah were wor- 
 shipped as angels under female names, and were 
 called the daughters of God. ' They attribute,' says 
 Mohammed, in a noble Sura of the Koran, ^ they 
 attribute daughters to God ; yet they wish not 
 daughters for themselves. When a female child is 
 announced to one of them, his face grows dark, and 
 he is as though he would choke.' ^ Al-Uzza was 
 worshipped under the form of a tree, Manah of a 
 large stone, Yaghuth of a lion, Sawa of a woman, 
 Ya'uk of a horse, Nasr of an eagle. Here was 
 material enough for the withering scorn of the 
 Prophet. 
 
 But the most famous and the most ancient sanc- 
 tuary in the country was the Kaaba, called Beit- 
 Allah, or House of God, built in the shape of a cube, 
 and forming a veritable Pantheon of all Arabia. 
 Here was the grim array of the three hundred and 
 sixty idols, one for every day in the year. Here was 
 the famous Hobal, the figure of a man carved in red 
 
 * Siinv XVI. .*»9, with Rodwell's note ad loc, 
 
SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ARABS. 87 
 
 agate and holding seven wingless arrows in his hand, 
 like those used in divination. Here, strange to say, 
 was a statue of Abraham ; and, stranger still, a statue 
 of the Madonna. Here was Zemzem, the sacred 
 spring which bubbled forth, as the Bedouins believed, 
 from the sandy soil to save the life of Ishmael, their 
 great progenitor, when perishing of thirst. Here 
 was the white stone which was supposed to form 
 his sepulchre ; and here, above all, was the black 
 stone, that stone which had fallen from heaven 
 in the time of Adam, once of dazzling whiteness, 
 but long since turned black by the kisses of sinful 
 mortals. 
 
 The religious ideas or superstitions of the Arabs 
 varied as much as did the objects of their worship. 
 A father not unfrequently sacrificed his own child to 
 appease an angry God ; a practice which, common 
 amongst other branches of the Semitic races, the 
 Phoenicians, the Moabites, the Carthaginians, and not 
 unknown even amongst the Jews, need not occasion 
 surprise when found amongst the Arabs. Divination 
 by arrows was a favourite method of finding out the 
 will of God. Seven of these pointless and featherless 
 arrows were kept in the Kaaba, but the number most 
 commonly employed was three : one of them marked 
 with the words, ' My Lord hath commanded thee ; ' 
 a second, ' My Lord hath forbidden thee ; ' the third 
 being left blank. The Arab was always ready to 
 consult these arrows, but not always so ready to 
 abide by their decision. A certain prince was anxious 
 to avenge the murder of his father. He consulted an 
 idol of much repute by drawing from three arrows in 
 his presence. On one of them was inscribed the word 
 
88 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 / command/ on the second ' prohibition,' on the third 
 ' delay.' He drew out ' prohibition : ' dissatisfied, he 
 shuffled the arrows a second time, and the second 
 time drew out the same. Twice again he shuffled 
 them, and each time with the same result. In his 
 anger he broke the arrows into pieces, and threw 
 them at the idol's head, exclaiming : ^ Wretch ! if it 
 were thy father who had been killed, thou wouldst 
 not have forbidden his being avenged.' ^ 
 
 The fact is, that though there were many religions 
 and many superstitions amongst the Arabs, they 
 were, as a whole, in temperament, neither religious 
 nor superstitious. They were careless, sceptical, mate- 
 rialistic. ^ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' 
 is the Epicurean tone of the majority of the poems 
 that have come down to us. What a contrast they 
 were in this respect to Mohammed, and what a 
 Herculean difficulty did this temperament of theirs 
 place in the way of the religious reformer ! Many of 
 the Arabs believed that death was extinction : some 
 few believed in a future life and a future judgment. 
 By these last a camel was tethered to a dead man's 
 grave, and was left to die of hunger, that the corpse 
 might have an animal to carry it at the day of resur- 
 rection. There was a weird superstition too among 
 them, that the soul of the dead hovered over his 
 grave in the form of an owl, and that if the person 
 had been murdered it might be heard crying ' Oscuni, 
 Oscuni,' that is, ^ Give me drink, give me drink ; ' nor 
 would it cease doing so till the blood of the murderer 
 had been shed.* 
 
 * Caussiu de Perceval, II. 810, quoted by Cazenove, p. 6t». 
 
 • Sale. * Preliminary Discourse,' p. 15. 
 
COULD ISLAM HAVE BEEN PREDICTEDV 89 
 
 Such then, ver}^ briefly, was the condition of the 
 Arabs, social and religious, when, to use an expres- 
 sion of Voltaire, quoted by Barthelemy St. Hilaire, 
 ' The turn of Arabia ' came ; ^ when the hour had 
 already struck for the most complete, the most 
 sudden, and the most extraordinary revolution that 
 has ever come over any nation upon earth. 
 
 One of the most philosophical of historians has 
 remarked that of all the revolutions which have had a 
 permanent influence upon the civil history of man- 
 kind, none could so little be anticipated by human 
 prudence as that effected by the religion of x\rabia. 
 And at first sight it must be confessed that the 
 Science of History, if indeed there be such a science, 
 is at a loss to find that sequence of cause and effect 
 which it is the object and the test of all history, which 
 is worthy of the name, to trace out. 
 
 The Emperor Justinian, not the least shrewd of 
 the Byzantine Emperors, who, some forty years be- 
 fore, had thought it necessary to protect his empire 
 from every possible and from many impossible 
 dangers, had neglected to erect a line of fortresses 
 on the side of his empire which, in defiance of nature, 
 really was the most vulnerable.^ ^By a precaution 
 which inspired the cowardice it foresaw,' he had 
 erected a fortress, even at Thermopylae, where the re- 
 ligio loci would rather have called for a Spartan ram- 
 part of three hundred men, if only they had been 
 forthcoming. He had kept the Sclavonians out of 
 Constantinople by one long wall, and the Russians 
 
 1 p. 211. See Cap. II., generally, for a description of Pre-Moham- 
 medan Arabia. 
 
 2 Cf. Gibbon, Vol. V. 102-111. 
 
90 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 out of the Crimea by another ; he had fortified Amida 
 and Edessa against the fire-worshippers ; had built 
 St. Catherine's half-monaster}^ and half-fortress in 
 the wilderness of Mount Sinai ; and had even taken 
 precautions against the savages of ^Ethiopia : but he 
 had trusted to the six hundred miles of desert which 
 Nature had interposed between him and a set 
 of robber tribes, intent onl}^ on molesting one an- 
 other. What hostile force could pass such an 
 obstacle ? 
 
 But we can see now, and Mohammed himself per- 
 haps saw, that the ground was in many respects pre- 
 pared for a great social and religious revolution. * It 
 detracts nothing from the fame of a great man to 
 show, so far as we can, how his success was possible.'^ 
 It is only another proof, if proof were wanting, that 
 genius is little else than insight joined to sustained 
 effort ; the eye sees what it brings with it the power 
 of seeing ; and the great man differs from his contem- 
 poraries chiefly in this, that he can read the dark 
 riddle of his time with an eye a few degrees less 
 obscured than those around him. He is the greatest 
 product of his age, but he is still its product, and he 
 is only the father of the age that is to succeed in so 
 far as he owns his parentage. He marches indeed in 
 front of his age ; but his influence will be permanent 
 or fleeting precisely so far as he discerns the direc- 
 tion in which it would advance at a slower pace 
 without him.*^ When he tries to go beyond this, and 
 
 ' M. Barthi'leray St. Hilaire, ' Mahomet et le Koran,' p. ."»!. 
 ' Cf . Guizot's * Lectures on History,' Vol. III. Lect. XX.; and 
 Mill's Review «if them in * Dissertations an<l Discussions,' II. 249, 
 250. 
 
GREAT MEN AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 91 
 
 to force the world out of its groove, to adopt hobbies 
 of his own, then begins the region of the remote, the 
 selfish, the personal ; in this the great man fails ; and 
 hence the commonplaces on the failure of greatness, 
 and the greatness of failure, with which we are all 
 familiar. ^ Perish my name,' said Danton, ' but let 
 the cause triumph ;'^ and personal failure of this kind 
 is to the great man no failure at all — it is only another 
 word for success. The truth is that greatness, so far 
 as it is the truest greatness, rarely fails altogether of 
 its object ; and that failure is great, only when the end 
 proposed is good, and the human means, though in- 
 adequate to its attainment, are yet a real advance 
 towards it. 
 
 It must be remembered therefore as regards what 
 seems the sudden birth of the Arabian nation, fully 
 armed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, that the 
 annual resort to Mecca for purposes of trade, poetry, 
 and religion, had pointed to the Holy City as to a 
 possible metropolis ; and to the Kuraish, the heredi- 
 tary guardians of the Kaaba, as the potential rulers 
 of a future people ; while as regards the new religion, 
 there was thQ groundwork of Monotheism underlying 
 all the abuses and corruption of Magianism and Sabae- 
 anism. There was also a class of people, called 
 Hanyfs, who prided themselves on preserving the 
 original creed of Abraham, and even his sacred 
 books ; while Ibn Ishak,^ the earliest known historian 
 
 ' A similar saying is attributed to Cavour : ' Perish my name and 
 memory, so that Italy be made a nation ! ' 
 
 2 See Sirat-er-raQoiil. Weil's Translation, 1. 107-1(J8. Ibn Ishak 
 died A.H. 151. His work has been preserved for us in the Sirat-er- 
 ra^oul of Ibn-Hisham, who died in the year of the Hijrah 213. The 
 
92 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of Islam, records a meeting of four or five among the 
 Kuraish at which it was resolved to open a crusade 
 against idolatry, and to seek for the original and only 
 true faith ; and they straightway abandoned their 
 homes and spread over the world in quest of this 
 Holy Grail. ^ 
 
 Mohammedanism therefore is no real exception 
 to the principle I provisionally laid down in my first 
 Lecture as to the origin of the Historical Religions of 
 the world, though, at first sight, it may appear to be 
 so. To Mohammed's own mind it is quite true that 
 the theological element was the predominant and in- 
 spiring one, but Mohammed's mind itself was the out- 
 
 fuUest and mo8t trustworthy historian, in the judgment of Muir and 
 Sprenger, whose writings have come down to us, is the Katib al 
 Wakidi, or secretary of the historian Wakidi : died 207 A.H. The MS. 
 was discovered by Sprenger at Cawnpore. Among other discoveries 
 of Sprenger may be mentioned a portion of the biography of Moham- 
 med by Tabari, who died A.H. 310, and a complete biographical 
 dictionary, termed I^aba, of the Companions of Mohammed, compiled 
 by Ibn-Hidjr, in the fifth century, from writers, whose names he 
 gives, of earlier and incontestable authority. It contains the 
 biographies of some 8,000 people. And it may be hope<i that the 
 Government of India, which numbers among its subjects more than 
 fifty million Musalmans, may recognise, if they have not already 
 done so, the imperial importance of publishing the three remaining 
 folios of the work. Sprenger brought out one volume, but an order 
 of the Court of Directors suspended the publication of the rest. See 
 Sprenger, Preface, p. 12, where it may be observed how modestly he 
 passes over his own gi*cat discoveries, and does not even allude to the 
 slight shown it by the Directoi-s. Learned and criticjil Mohammedans, 
 it would seem, do not think so highly of Wakidi and his secretaiy as 
 Muir and Sprenger do : they prefer Ibn-Hisham. — See Muir, 1. 77-10'), 
 and B. St. Hilaire, p. 19-25. Syed Ahmefl's ' Life of Mohammed,* 
 Preface, p. 14, 18, etc. Syed Ameer Ali, Preface, p. 7. 
 
 •sprenger, p. 81. These four * enquirers ' wei-e Wanika, Othniau, 
 Abayd, and Zeid. 
 
PRE- MO HA MMEDANS. 93 
 
 come, at least as much as it was the cause, of the 
 great revolution which goes by his name. There was 
 a general social and religious upheaving at the head 
 of which the Prophet placed himself, and which partly- 
 carried him on with it, partly he himself carried it on : 
 the train was already laid, and the spark from heaven 
 was all that was needed to set the Arab world ablaze. 
 In this sense it is perhaps true, as Renan has remarked 
 and the Koran itself declares, that Mohammedanism 
 was preached before the time of Mohammed ; but 
 there were Mohammedans before Mohammed, only 
 in the sense in which there were Zoroastrians before 
 Zoroaster, Lutherans before Luther, and Christians 
 before Christ. Renan has himself remarked else- 
 where, though he seems to have forgotten it in dealing 
 with Mohamm_edanism, that the glory of a religion 
 belongs to its founder, and not to his predecessors 
 or to his successors.^ It is easy, he says himself, to 
 
 ' It seems to me, though I would speak with the utmost diffidence 
 in venturing to dissent from the greatest European authority on the 
 subject, that Sprenger errs in the same direction as Kenan, when he 
 says in his volume, published at Allahabad (p. 171), that Abu Bakr 
 did more for the success of Islam than the Prophet himself ; and again 
 (p, 174), after enumerating all those who, merely from their vague 
 Monotheism, he calls the predecessors of Mohammed, he says that even 
 after Mohammed was acknowledged as the messenger of God, Omar 
 had more influence on the development of the Islam than Mohammed 
 himself. ' The Islam is not the work of Mohammed ; it is not the 
 doctrine of the impostor .... it is the offspring of the spirit of the 
 time, and the voice of the Arabic nation .... There is, however, no 
 doubt that the impostor has defiled it by his immorality and perverse- 
 ness of mind.' It is fair to say that this tone seems somewhat 
 moderated, or even altered, in the author's subsequent and greater 
 work. Cf., however, Vol. I. 209, and II. 83-88. One is inclined to 
 ask, if Islam was merely the spirit of the time, who proved himself 
 best able to read that spirit ? Was it Abu Bakr and Omar, or was it 
 
94 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 try to awake faith, and it is easy to be possessed 
 by it when once it has been awakened ; but it is not 
 easy to inspire it. It is the grandest gift, a very gift 
 of God. 
 
 But though, as I have said, the hour had come, the 
 youth of Mohammed gave few signs that he was the 
 man. The portents which ushered in his birth, and 
 that attended his early youth, are the offspring of 
 another country and of a later age. The celestial 
 light that beamed in the sky and from his newly- 
 opened eyes ; the Tigris overflowing its banks ; the 
 palace of Chosroes toppling over to the ground ; the 
 sacred fire of Zoroaster, which had burned for one 
 thousand years, suddenly extinguished ; the mules 
 that talked, and the sheep that bowed to him, were 
 unknown to the contemporaries of Mohammed, and 
 Mohammed himself says nothing of them ! * He be- 
 longed to the family of Haschim, not the least dis- 
 tinguished family of the Kuraish, who were then the 
 leading tribe at Mecca. He was bom on April 20, 
 575 A.D. His father Abd' Allah died before his 
 birth ; his mother Aminah was weak and sickly, and 
 was obliged to put him out to nurse with the wife of 
 a shepherd : thus the first few years of the Prophet's 
 life were spent in the tent of a nomad family. His 
 mother died when he was only six years old, and 
 his share of his father's property consisted of but five 
 camels, of a few sheep, and of a female slave. His 
 grandfather Abd'al Muttalib took charge of the orphan, 
 
 Mt)hainme<l that pioducctl the Komn ? And isitthuir i>ei>oimlity, or 
 liiH, wliich has staiupetl itself with ineffaceable clcanieti» for all time 
 ji|)<>n the Eastern world? 
 
 ' They aiUHJftr, however, in tlie Sinit-fr-ravoul alnjiU A.H.2<0. See 
 1.77-81. 
 
MOHAMMED'S MARRIED LIFE. 95 
 
 and on his death-bed committed him to the care of 
 his uncle Abu Taleb ; a charge which, though he never 
 beheved in his nephew's mission, he observed to the 
 day of his death, with all the fidelity of an Arab to 
 a member of his family. Abu Taleb himself, however, 
 was very poor ; the boy's small patrimony was soon 
 spent ; and then, as he loved to recall in after years, in 
 order to support life he was obliged to tend sheep in 
 the wilderness, a calling much despised among the aris- 
 tocratic Meccans, who got their wealth by merchandise, 
 but one which encouraged his fondness for solitude, 
 and supplied him with the vivid descriptions of the 
 scenery of the desert which we find in the Koran. 
 ^ God had never chosen anyone to be a prophet,' he 
 used to say in his later days, * who had not, like Moses, 
 like David, or like himself, tended sheep in the wilder- 
 ness.'^ But Mohammed was not always to remain a 
 shepherd. Hitherto a man of few words, and with 
 few friends, he was yet notable within his own small 
 circle for his truthfulness and good faith. Men called 
 him ' Al-Amin, or the trusty.' A rich widow, named 
 Khadijah, employed him to go on some trading] ourneys 
 for her to Syria. The shepherd became a camel-driver, 
 and the trust committed to him he discharged with 
 such fidelity and prudence, that Khadijah offered him 
 her hand in marriage. She was some fifteen years 
 older than he ; old enough, that is, in that Eastern 
 climate to be his mother; yet the marriage was 
 one of real affection and respect, and from that time 
 to the day of her death, a period of twenty-four years, 
 Mohammed remained faithful to her, and took no 
 
 * Sprenger, I. 148 
 
96 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 second wife, though the universal custom of his coun- 
 trymen would have countenanced him in so doing. 
 
 Mohammed's married life was still, what men would 
 call, an uneventful one. The birth of four daughters^ 
 and of two sons, both of whom, to the great grief of 
 their father, died in childhood ; his famous vow to 
 succour the oppressed ; and the skill with which he 
 managed to reconcile conflicting claims in placing the 
 Black Stone in the renovated Kaaba — these are the 
 only noteworthy external incidents in the next few 
 years of his life. Up to the age of forty, there is 
 nothing to show that any serious scruple had occurred 
 to him individually as to the worship of idols in 
 general, and in particular of the Black Stone, of 
 which his family were the hereditary guardians. 
 
 Of a nervous, excitable, imaginative temperament, 
 Mohammed was susceptible to influences too subtle 
 for robuster natures to feel. What a contrast in all 
 respects to those who lived around him, and what a 
 contradiction to Sprenger's theory that the Prophet 
 was only the type of his time and nation, and that 
 Islam was only an impersonation of its tendencies ! He 
 was liable, too, to fits,^ which, whether epileptic or not, 
 
 ' Sprenger (Vol. F. 207) has described these fits most minutely, and 
 with a great deal of curious learning. He thinks Mohammed suf- 
 fered from hysteria, followed by witalepsy, mther than epilepsy ; for 
 the Prophet does not seem to have lost all consciousness. It is 
 worth remarking that Sprenger's medical knowledge is not very 
 favourable in its result to Mohammed. He starts by sivying, p. 210, 
 that all hysterical people have a tendency to lying and deceit. This 
 is his major premise. His minor is that Mohammed was hysteriail, 
 and the inference is obvious. Acconlingly, we are not surprised to 
 find him (Vol, I. cap. IV. p. 30(5, note) si^aking of the 'r/x/Vw' of 
 the flight to Jerusalem as ojie ' lie,' an«l that to the seventh 
 heaven as another lie. 
 
CALL TO THE PROPHETIC OFFICE. 97 
 
 involved strange physical phenomena, which at that 
 time and place — like the so-called ^sacred disease' 
 among the Greeks, or ' the possession of the devil ' of 
 the Jews — would suggest both to himself and to his 
 friends influences that were not physical. The month 
 of Ramadhan, like other religious Arabs, he observed 
 with punctilious devotion ; and he would often retire 
 to the caverns of Mount Hira for purposes of medita- 
 tion and prayer. As time passed on, solitude became 
 a passion with him— that solitude which is ^ the school 
 of genius,' and in the silence of his own heart he held 
 high converse with the unseen God of the universe. 
 The sin of worshipping idols of wood and stone, which 
 could neither hear nor regard, began to flash at times 
 across him ; the crimes, too, of his countrymen weighed 
 upon his spirit ; when he walked forth from his cave, 
 he heard, or fancied that he heard, the rocks and 
 the shrubs of the desert calling him the Apostle of 
 God.i 
 
 It is possible that his interviews with Nestorian 
 monks, with Zeid, or with his wife's cousin Waraka, 
 may have turned his thoughts into the precise direc- 
 tion they took. Dejection alternated with excite- 
 ment ; these gave place to ecstasy or dreams ; and in 
 a dream, or trance, or fit, he saw an angel in human 
 form, but flooded with celestial light, and displaying 
 a silver roll. ' Read ! ' said the angel. ^ I cannot 
 read,' said Mohammed. The injunction and the 
 answer were twice repeated.^ ' Read,' at last said 
 the angel, ^ in the name of thy Lord, who created all 
 
 ^ ' Sirat-er-raQoul,' I. 153. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sura XCVI. Deutsch (Islam, p. 306) renders the word 
 usually translated ' Read ' by ' Cry,' comparing Isaiah xi. 6. 
 
98 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 besides Himself; who created man out of a clot of 
 blood ; read, in the name of the Most High, who 
 taught with the pen ; who taught man that which he 
 never knew.' Upon this Mohammed felt the heavenly 
 inspiration, and read, as he believed, the decrees of 
 God, which he afterwards promulgated in the Koran. 
 Then came the announcement, ^ O Mohammed, of a 
 truth thou art the Prophet of God, and I am his 
 angel Gabriel.' ^ 
 
 This was the crisis of Mohammed's life. It was 
 his call to renounce idolatry, and to take the office of 
 Prophet. Like Isaiah, he could not at first believe 
 that so unworthy an instrument could be chosen for 
 such a purpose. ^ Woe is me, for I am undone, be- 
 cause I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the 
 midst of a people of unclean lips ; ' but the live coal 
 was not immediately taken from the altar and laid 
 
 ' strangely enough, Sir William Muir, Vol. II. p. 89-96, selects 
 this period, above all others in Mohammed's life, as the one in 
 which to suggest his peculiar view, that the Prophet's belief in his 
 inspiration was Satanic in its origin ; and he supports his view by a 
 somewhat elaborate parallel with the temptations which presented 
 themselves to Christ at the beginning of His work. Whether such 
 a jDeus ex machina is required to untie the knot is hardly within my 
 province to inquire, since the whole matter is alike incapable of 
 proof and disproof ; but it seems pertinent to remark, first, that the 
 developed and quasi-scientific conception of such a being as Sir 
 William Muir pictures is Persian rather than Jewish in its origin, 
 and is found in Palestine only after the Captivity ; and, secondly, 
 that if the spirit of evil did suggest the idea to Mohammetl, he never 
 8o completely outwitted himself, since friend and foe must alike 
 admit that it was Mohammed's firm belief in supernatural guidance 
 that lay at the root of all he achieved. Without this we should 
 never have heanl of him except as one of a thousand short-lived 
 Arabian sectaries ; with it he created a nation, and revivified a third 
 of the then known world. 
 
OPPOSITION TO THE PROPHET. 99 
 
 upon his, as upon Isaiah's hps. Trembhng and agi- 
 tated, Mohammed tottered to Khadijah and told her 
 his vision and his agony of mind. He had always 
 hated and despised soothsayers, and now, in the irony 
 of destiny, it would appear that he was to become a 
 soothsayer himself. ' Fear not, for joyful tidings dost 
 thou bring,' exclaimed Khadijah. ' I will henceforth 
 regard thee as the prophet of our nation. Rejoice,' 
 she added, seeing him still cast down ; ^ Allah will 
 not suffer thee to fall to shame. Hast thou not been 
 loving to thy kinsfolk, kind to thy neighbours, charit- 
 able to the poor, faithful to thy word, and ever a 
 defender of the truth ? ' First the life, and then the 
 theology, in the individual, as in the tribe and the 
 nation. 
 
 But the assurances of the good Khadijah, and the 
 conversions of Zeid and Waraka, did not bring the 
 live coal from the altar. A long period of hesitation, 
 doubt, preparation followed. At one time Moham- 
 med even contemplated suicide, and he was only 
 restrained by an unseen hand, as he might well call 
 the bright vision of the future, pictured in one of the 
 earliest Suras of the Koran, ^ when the help of God 
 should come and victory, when he * should see the 
 people crowding into the one true Faith, and he, the 
 Prophet, should celebrate the praise of his Lord, and 
 ask pardon of Him, for He is forgiving.' Three years, 
 the period of the Fatrah, saw only fourteen proselytes 
 attach themselves to him. His teaching seemed to 
 make no way beyond the very limited circle of his 
 earliest followers. His rising hopes were crushed. 
 
 ' Sura ex. 
 
100 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 People pointed the finger of scorn at him as he passed 
 by : ' There goeth the son of Abdallah, who hath his 
 converse with the heavens I ' They called him a 
 driveller, a star-gazer, a maniac-poet. Thorns were 
 strewn in his path, and stones thrown at him. His 
 uncles sneered, and the main body of the citizens 
 treated him with that contemptuous indifference, 
 which must have been harder to him to bear than 
 active persecution. Well might he, to take an illus- 
 tration suggested by Sir William Muir himself,^ like 
 Elijah of old, go a day's journey into the wilderness, 
 and request for himself that he might die, and say, 
 ' It is enough, O Lord ; now take away my life, for I 
 am not better than my fathers : ' or, again, ' I have 
 been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, because 
 the people have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down 
 Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword ; 
 and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life 
 to take it away.' At times his distress was insupport- 
 able : 
 
 ' And had not his poor heart 
 Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
 Lets none, who speaks with Him, seem all alone, 
 Surely the man had died of solitude.' 
 
 And, as the Kuraish said in their bitter scorn, the son 
 of Abdallah did indeed ' have his converse with the 
 heavens ;' for out of weakness came forth strength at 
 last ; out of doubt, certainty ; out of humiliation, 
 victory. Another vision, in which he was commanded 
 to preach publicly, followed ; and now he called the 
 Kuraish of the line of Haschim together, those who 
 
 ' Muir, Vol. II., 228. 
 
COURAGE OF THE PROPHET. 101 
 
 had most to lose and least to gain by his reform, and 
 boldly announced his mission. 
 
 Content no longer with preaching in the abstract 
 the one true God, he now ventured to denounce those 
 who, as with righteous indignation he expressed it, 
 ' gave companions ' to Him. The Kuraish, the guard- 
 ians of the Kaaba, perceived, like the silversmiths at 
 Ephesus, that, if this went on, their position would 
 be endangered, and their gains gone. Finding that 
 bribes, and threats, and entreaties were alike power- 
 less to deter him, they expostulated with Abu Taleb, 
 his guardian. Abu Taleb, in his turn, expostulated 
 kindly with his nephew. ' Should they array against 
 me the sun on my right hand, and the moon on 
 my left,' said Mohammed, ^ yet while God should 
 command me, I would not renounce my purpose.' 
 These are not the words, nor this the course, of 
 an impostor. 
 
 ^Were there as many devils in Worms,' said 
 Luther, ' as there are tiles on the houses, yet would 
 I go there, putting my trust in God.' Luther 
 knew something of the Koran, and knew it only to 
 malign it : had he known how exactly his own noble 
 answer had been anticipated by the Prophet of 
 Arabia, would he not have recognised a singleness 
 and a sincerity of purpose in Mohammed which 
 would have made him honour him as a man, even if 
 he could not have welcomed him as a brother ? 
 Like the Hebrew prophets, like St. Anthony and 
 St. Benedict, like Joan of Arc and St. Theresa, like 
 Swedenborg,! like Luther himself, Mohammed had his 
 
 ^ I have to thank a friendly critic, Mr. I. de Maine Browne, for 
 directing my attention to the analogy to be traced between the 
 
102 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 visions. Luther's visions, as every one knows, were 
 material enough, for he threw an inkstand at the devil 
 which appeared to him at the Castle of Wartburg. 
 But if an imposture theory is not needed to explain 
 the visions of the one, why is it needed to explain 
 the visions of the other ? What Mohammed said he 
 saw, he did see, even if they were only the 'sub- 
 jective creations of his own brain ; ' and if results are 
 any test of truth, Mohammed's vision must have been 
 in some sense a true one, for it gave him strength for 
 his great work. 
 
 Ten more years passed away : his doctrine fought 
 its way amidst the greatest discouragements and 
 dangers by purely moral means, by its own inherent 
 strength. But with the number of his disciples, in- 
 creased also the persecutions they had to endure. 
 Mohammed, unwilling to expose their newly 
 awakened faith to too sore a trial, advised them to 
 take refuge in Abyssinia. They did so to the number 
 of fifteen, while Mohammed remained at his post. 
 That they took his advice is not to be regretted ; for 
 first it is a convincing proof, if proof be needed, how 
 throughout this period Mohammed's real strength lay 
 in what the world would call his weakness ; and 
 secondly, because to this, the first Hijrah, as it is 
 called, we owe the noblest summar}^ of the Prophet's 
 early teaching that we now possess. 
 
 The Kuraish sent to the Nagashy of Abyssinia 
 demanding that the exiles should be given up for 
 death ; but one of their number, Djafar, came 
 
 ' visions ' of Mohammcil and those of Sweilenbor^, as well as to one 
 or two fine passages in the writings of tlie remarkable Swede on the 
 founder of Islam. 
 
THE FIRST HIJRAH. 103 
 
 forward, and in the presence of the Christian bishops of 
 the country, who had been specially convened for the 
 purpose, and had ^ brought their Bibles with them/ 
 explained the change in their religion as follows : 
 
 * O King ! we were in ignorance and barbarism, 
 we prayed to idols, we eat animals that had died of 
 themselves, we committed hateful things, we wounded 
 the love of our own relations, and violated the laws 
 of hospitality ; the strong consumed the weak, till 
 God sent a messenger among us, of whose birth, 
 faithfulness, and purity we wxre aware ; he exhorted 
 us to worship God alone, and to turn ourselves from 
 stones and other gods, which we and our fathers had 
 associated with Him. He commanded us to speak 
 the truth, to be faithful to our trusts, to love our 
 relations, and to protect our guests ; not to consume 
 the property of the orphan, or to slander virtuous 
 women ; he bade us pray, give alms, and keep the 
 fast. We have obeyed Mohammed and have believed 
 in his message. Hence our people have maltreated 
 us, and have sought to bring us back to idolatry and 
 their other abominations ; we have come to thee for 
 help ; wilt thou not protect us ? ' 
 
 The Nagashy asked for a sample of the message 
 which had wrought such w^onders. Djafar read him a 
 Sura from the Koran, not to our ideas one of the most 
 remarkable ; but the effect was such that all present 
 burst into tears, and the Nagashy exclaimed, his tears 
 gushing down over his beard, and those of all the Bishops 
 upon their books, ^ I will never deliver you up ; ' and the 
 Kuraish messengers returned to Mecca discomfited.^ 
 
 ' Sirat-er-ra90ul, p. 219, 220. 
 
104 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Warned afterwards in his solitude by these same 
 Kuraish that 'they would not cease to oppose his 
 preaching till either they or he had perished, 
 Mohammed answered them only by fearlessly fre- 
 quenting the approaches to the Kaaba, the stronghold 
 of his enemies, and by delivering his message to the 
 wild Arabs of the desert who resorted to the national 
 fair or the pilgrims' festival there J But a greater 
 disaster than any Mohammed had yet experienced 
 was at hand. Khadijah, his faithful wife, died ; Abu 
 Taleb, his uncle and protector, died also. The 
 Prophet was now alone amongst his enemies, like 
 Elijah amongst the prophets of Baal ; and, persecuted 
 in his own city even to the death, he determined to 
 fly to another. He had already preached to pilgrims 
 from Medina, and had received from them an offer of 
 an asylum in case of need. Accompanied by Abu 
 Bakr he fled from the assassin's knife and took refuge 
 on Mount Thor, a league from Mecca : for three days 
 he lay concealed in a cavern there ; the Kuraish 
 pursuers scoured the country, thirsting for his blood. 
 They approached the cavern. *We are only two,' 
 said his trembling companion. ' There is a third,' said 
 Mohammed; 'it is God Himself.' The Kuraish 
 
 > Sp^enger {\l. XVI.) thinks that vei-ses 82, 83, cVc, of Sura XVI. 
 were delivered especially for the edification of these wandering 
 tribes ; ' Allah has given you tents for dwellings and animal skina 
 for coverings ; and ye tin^ them light to remove and easy to pitch 
 a^ain ; and He hath given you furniture uuule of their wool and 
 fur ; — these pleasures last for a time ; and Allah hath given you 
 places of shade and retreats in the mountains ; clothing also to 
 protect you from the heat, and to cover you in the day of battle. 
 He has mmlc His beuefits thus complete to you that ye may become 
 Muslims.' 
 
THE HIJRAH. 105 
 
 reached the cave : a spider, we are told, had woven 
 its web across the mouth, and a pigeon was sitting on 
 its nest in seemingly undisturbed repose. The Kuraish 
 retreated, for it was evident the solitude of the place 
 was unviolated ; and by a sound instinct, one of the 
 sublimest stories in all history has been made the era 
 of Mohammedan Chronology. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow connectedly and in 
 detail any other incidents in Mohammed's hfe. The 
 above may be found, with some variety in the details, 
 in any History of Mohammed ; but I have thought it 
 essential to dwell upon them, however familiar they 
 may be to some of us, as they seem to me, apart 
 from their own intrinsic beauty, to supply the key to 
 almost everything else in Mohammed's career. 
 
 With the flight to Medina the scene changes. The 
 Prophet and his creed now take their place for good 
 or evil on the theatre of the world. Was it for evil 
 or for good ? 
 
 On the one hand, it may be as fairly,^ as it has 
 been often, said that it might have been well for the 
 Prophet's memory if he had died a simple Prophet, as 
 he gave utterance to those grand words, ^ There is a 
 third with us, it is God Himself.' The utterance itself 
 would have been not less true, and the speaker would 
 have died, not indeed a great hero, a great lawgiver, 
 or a great ruler, but he would have died as he had 
 lived, and as so many men who were greater than 
 their generation, and of whom the world was not 
 worthy, have lived and died before and since. But 
 had he died then, his name would never have been 
 
 * Cf. ' Academy ' for June 6, 1874. 
 
106 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 known beyond the neighbourhood of Mecca. His 
 small band of followers would have melted away like 
 the other thousand sects that Arabia has produced, 
 leaving not a trace behind them, and Islam itself 
 might have been strangled in its cradle. 
 
 And what would this have meant for the Eastern 
 world, and for something too of the world which is 
 not Eastern ? 
 
 The practices that Mohammed forbade, and not 
 forbade only, but abolished, human sacrifices and the 
 murder of female infants, and blood feuds, and 
 unlimited polygamy, and wanton cruelty to slaves, 
 and drunkenness, and gambling, would have gone on 
 unchecked in Arabia and the adjoining countries. 
 The Mongols, the Tartars, and the Turks would have 
 devastated, as they did devastate, the fairest regions of 
 the earth without gaining that which, in some degree, 
 softened their national character, and alone prevented 
 their conquests from being an unmitigated evil.* In 
 
 ' The Mogul invasion of Hindustan, for instance, gave the peninsula 
 for nearly two hundred years, 1520-1707, a succession of princes who, 
 in spite of their passion for war, were the ablest, the most enlightened, 
 and the best whom, till within a very recent period, it has ever known. 
 Baber, the conqueror of Delhi and the founder of the dynasty, is 
 almost as famed for his poems and for his public works as for his 
 military adventures. The administration of Akbar, one of the great- 
 est monarchs of all time, need not shrink from comparison in any 
 respect with that of his great contemporary Elizabeth of England. 
 He introduced not only religious toleration, but entire religious 
 equality among his subjects. Shah Jehan was a great oi-ganiser ; and 
 Aurungzebe, with his energy and with his magniticence, tilled a large 
 place in the horizon of Europeans themselves. Even the less dis- 
 tinguished members of the dynasty may compare not unfavourably 
 with most of their Christian contem|)oraries. The architecture of the 
 Mogul emiKjrors, like that of their co-religionists, the Moors of Spain, 
 is the admiration anil the despair of the whole world. 
 
PRACTICES FORBIDDEN BY MOHAMMED. 107 
 
 Northern and Central Africa there would have been, 
 not the semi-civilisation of the Moors or of the Man- 
 dingoes, but the brutal barbarism of the Fans and the 
 Ashantees. The dark ages of Europe would have 
 been doubly, nay trebly dark ; for the Arabs who 
 alone by their arts and sciences, by their agriculture, 
 their philosophy, and their virtues, shone out amidst 
 the universal gloom of ignorance and crime, who gave 
 to Spain and to Europe an Averroes and an Avicenna, 
 the Alhambra and the Al-Kazar, would have been 
 wandering over their native deserts. As to religion 
 a Christianity which, in the East, had long become a 
 corrupt superstition, would have become yet more 
 corrupt, and would have sunk to the condition in 
 which it is in Abyssinia now. Over a seventh part of 
 the earth's service the Star-worshipper might have 
 been worshipping stars, and the Fetish-worshipper 
 Fetishes, to this very day. The answer therefore to 
 the question whether it would have been well for the 
 Prophet and well for the world, if he had died by 
 the sword of the Kuraish before a wider field, with 
 its greater dangers and temptations, opened before 
 him, is not a simple one ; and in the remainder of 
 this and the subsequent Lectures I hope to give, not 
 indeed a full answer to it — for that would be as much 
 beyond my powers as beyond my limits — but at least 
 to indicate the direction in which, as I think, the 
 answer lies. 
 
 The question of the sincerity of Mohammed has 
 been much debated, but to me, I must confess, that 
 to question his sincerity at starting, and to admit the 
 above indisputable facts relating to his early life, is 
 very like a contradiction in terms. Nor could anyone 
 
108 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 have done what Mohammed did without the most 
 profound faith in the reaHty and goodness of his 
 cause. Fairly considered, there is no single trait in 
 his character up to the time of the Hijrah which 
 calumny itself could couple wnth imposture : on the 
 contrary, there is everything to prove the real enthu- 
 siast arriving slowly and painfully at what he believed 
 to be the truth. 
 
 It has been remarked by Gibbon that no incipient 
 prophet ever passed through so severe an ordeal as 
 Mohammed, since he first presented himself as a 
 prophet to those who were most conversant with his 
 infirmities as a man. Those who knew him best, his 
 wife, his eccentric slave, his cousin, his earliest friend 
 — he who, as Mohammed said, alone of his converts, 
 ' turned not back, neither was perplexed ' — were the 
 first to recognise his mission. The ordinary lot of a 
 prophet was in his case reversed ; he was not without 
 honour save among those who did not know him 
 well. Strange that Voltaire, who himself wrote on 
 Mohammed, and even made him the subject of a 
 drama, should, with Mohammed's example before 
 him, have ventured on his immoral paradox that 
 ' No man is a hero to his valet ! ' Explained in 
 one sense, that a small mind cannot fully under- 
 stand or appreciate a great one, it is a feeble 
 truism ; explained in another, which was the sense 
 Voltaire meant, that the hero is only a hero to 
 those who see him at a distance, and that there 
 is no such thing as true greatness, it is an auda- 
 cious falsehood. It is almost equally strange that 
 Gibbon, who has done such full justice to Mohammed 
 in the general result, should say at starting, * Moham- 
 
MOHAMMEUS FAITH IN HIS CAUSE. 109 
 
 med's religion consists of an eternal truth, and a 
 necessary fiction — There is one God, and Moham- 
 med is His prophet.' It was, as I have endea- 
 voured to show, no fiction to Mohammed himself 
 or to his followers ; had it been so, Mohammedanism 
 could never have risen as it did, nor be what it is 
 now. 
 
 But before we go on to consider those points in 
 Mohammed's career which are really open to ques- 
 tion, it may be well to recall a few prominent charac- 
 teristics of the man who has stamped his impress so 
 deeply on the Oriental world. Minute accounts of his 
 appearance and of his daily life have been preserved 
 to us ; they may be found in most of the biographies, 
 and Sir William Muir in particular has given us 
 copious extracts from the writings of the secretary of 
 Wakidi. ' 
 
 Mohammed was of middle height and of a strongly 
 built frame ; his head was large, and across his ample 
 forehead, and above finely arching eyebrows, ran a 
 strongly marked vein, which, when he was angry, 
 would turn black and throb visibly. His e3^es were 
 coal black, and piercing in their brightness ; his hair 
 curled slightly ; and a long beard, which, like other 
 Orientals, he would stroke when in deep thought, 
 added to the general impressiveness of his appear- 
 ance. His step was quick and firm, ' like that of one 
 descending a hill.' Between his shoulders was the 
 famous mark, the size of a pigeon's Qgg, which his 
 disciples persisted in believing to be the sign of his 
 prophetic office ; while the light which kindled in his 
 
 ' Muir, Vol. IV., Supplement to Chap. XXXVII. ; cf. also 
 Deutsch's ' Islam,' pp. 302-304. 
 
110 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 eye, like that which flashed from the precious stones 
 in the breast-plate of the High Priest, they called the 
 light of prophecy. 
 
 In his intercourse with others, he would sit silent 
 among his companions for a long time together, but 
 truly his silence was more eloquent than other men's 
 speech, for the moment speech was called for, it was 
 forthcorning in the shape of some weighty apothegm 
 or proverb, such as the Arabs love to hear. When 
 he laughed, he laughed heartily, shaking his sides, 
 and showing his teeth, which * looked as if they were 
 hailstones.' He was easy of approach to all who 
 wished to see him, even as * the river bank to him 
 that draweth water therefrom.' He was fond of 
 animals, and they, as is often the case, under such 
 circumstances, were fond of him. He seldom passed 
 a group of children playing together without a few 
 kind words to them ; and he was never the first to 
 withdraw his hand from the grasp of one who offered 
 him his. If the warmth of his attachment may be 
 measured, as in fact it may, by the depth of his friends' 
 devotion to him, no truer friend than Mohammed 
 ever lived. Around him, in quite early days, gathered 
 what was best and noblest in Mecca ; and in no 
 single instance, through all the vicissitudes of his 
 chequered life, was the friendship then formed ever 
 broken. He wept like a child over the death of his 
 faithful servant Zeid. He visited his mother's tomb 
 some fifty years after her death, and he wept there 
 because he believed that God had forbidden him to 
 pray for her. He was naturally shy and retiring ; ' as 
 bashful,' said Ayishah, ' as a veiled virgin.' He was 
 kind and forgiving to all. 'I served him from the 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROPHET. Ill 
 
 time I was eight years old/ said his servant Anas, 
 'and he never scolded me for anything, though I 
 spoiled much.' The most noteworthy of his external 
 characteristics were a sweet gravity and a quiet 
 dignity, which drew involuntary respect, and which 
 was the best, and often the only, protection he en- 
 joyed from insult. 
 
 His ordinary dress was plain, even to coarseness ; 
 yet he was fastidious in arranging it to the best 
 advantage. He was fond of ablutions, and fonder still 
 of perfumes ; and he prided himself on the neatness 
 of his hair, and the pearly whiteness of his teeth. 
 His life was simple in all its details. He lived with 
 his wives in a row of humble cottages, separated from 
 one another by palm branches, cemented together 
 with mud. He would kindle the fire, sweep the 
 floor, and milk the -goats himself. Ayishah tells us 
 that he slept upon a leathern mat, and that he 
 mended his clothes, and even clouted his shoes, with 
 his own hand. For months together, Ayishah is also 
 our authority for saying that he did not get a sufficient 
 meal. The little food that he had was always shared 
 with those who dropped in to partake of it. Indeed, 
 outside the Prophet's house w^as a bench or gallery, 
 on which were always to be found a number of the 
 poor who lived entirely on his generosity, and were 
 hence called the ' people of the bench.' His ordinary 
 food was dates and water, or barley bread ; milk and 
 honey were luxuries of which he was fond, but which 
 he rarely allowed himself. The fare of the desert 
 seemed most congenial to him, even when he was 
 sovereign of Arabia. One day some people passed by 
 him with a basket of berries from one of the desert 
 
112 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 shrubs. ' Pick me out/ he said to his companion, 
 ' the blackest of those berries, for they are sweet — 
 even such as I was wont to gather when I fed the 
 flocks of Mecca at Adgad.' 
 
 Such were some of the characteristics of the man 
 whom the Arabs were now called upon to recognise 
 as the prophet of their countr}% and as a messenger 
 direct from God. 
 
 Monotheism, pure and simple, if it is to be a life 
 as well as a creed, almost postulates the prophetic 
 office. The Creator is at too great a distance from 
 His creatures to allow of a sufficiently direct com- 
 munication with them. The power, the knowledge, 
 the infinity of God overshadow His providence. His 
 sympathy, and His love. Renan has remarked that 
 in only two ways can such a gap be bridged over : 
 first, if, as in the Indian Avatar, from time to time, 
 or, as in Christianity, once for all, there is an actual 
 manifestation of the Godhead upon earth ; or, se- 
 condly, if, as in Judaism or in Buddhism, the Deity 
 chooses a favoured mortal, who may give to his 
 brother men a fuller knowledge of the Divine mind 
 and will/ The latter would seem the form most 
 congenial to the Semitic mind, if one may be allowed 
 to use that convenient, but since the bold generalisa- 
 tions in which Renan has indulged respecting them, 
 somewhat misleading word. The Arabs themselves 
 looked up to Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses as 
 prophets ; Mohammed did the same, and added Christ 
 to their number. He held that each successive 
 revelation had been higher than the preceding one, 
 though each was complete in itself, as being adequate 
 
 * Renan, p. 278. 
 
PROPHETIC OFFICE AMONG SEMITIC RACES. Il3 
 
 to the circumstances of the time. Was there, 
 Mohammed might ask, any reason to suppose that 
 Christ had been the last of the prophets, and that 
 His revelation was absolutely as well as relatively 
 final ; and were there not evils enough in Arabia and 
 in the world to call for a further communication from 
 heaven ? To say that Arabia needed renovation was 
 to say in other words that the time for a new prophet 
 had come, and why might not that prophet be Mo- 
 hammed himself? Sprenger, the most recent and 
 exhaustive writer on the subject, has shown that for 
 some hundred years before Mohammed the advent of 
 another prophet had been expected and even pre- 
 dicted. So strong was the general conviction on the 
 subject that the Arab tribes were guided by it even 
 in their politics.^ 
 
 But, if we admit the sincerity of Mohammed and 
 the naturalness of his belief up to the time of the 
 Hijrah, what are we to say of him during his first 
 years of exile at Medina, and again of his subsequent 
 successes ? 
 
 It is unquestionably true that a change does seem 
 to come over him. The revelations of the Koran are 
 more and more suited to the particular circumstances, 
 and caprices of the moment. They are often of the 
 nature of political bulletins, or of personal apologies 
 rather than of messages direct from God. Now ap- 
 pears for the first time the convenient but dangerous 
 
 ' Sprenger, I., p. 24."3, quotes a saying of the Arabs that the 
 children of Shem are prophets, of Japhet kings, of Ham slaves. We 
 are told that the Arab women were at this time in the habit of 
 praying for male children, in the hope that of them the long-expected 
 prophet might be born. 
 
 D 2 
 
114 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 doctrine of abrogation, by which a subsequent revela- 
 tion might supersede a previous one.^ 
 
 The Hmitation to the unbounded hcense of Orien- 
 tal polygamy which he had himself imposed, he 
 relaxes in his own behalf;^ it is a blot, and, in the 
 Christian view, an indelible blot, upon his memor}^ ; 
 but it is ^ ossible, on the one hand, that he may have 
 justified himself to his own mind b)- the Ethiopian 
 marriage not condemned in the case of Moses,^ 
 whom he always regarded as, in a peculiar sense, his 
 predecessor, and it is certain on the other, that if, in 
 accordance with Eastern notions, he claimed for him- 
 self as Prophet exceptional pri^^leges in this one 
 direction, he imposed upon himself exceptional pri- 
 vations, in the way of prayers, fasting, and poverty, in 
 QYQxy other. He was certainly, therefore, not a 
 sensualist or a voluptuary in the ordinary meaning of 
 that term. His marriage with Maria, a Christian, an 
 Eg}^ptian, and a slave, caused an uproar among his 
 lawful wives ; but it does not seem to have been any 
 violation of the Harem law, and it was certainly not 
 condemned by the Arabs themselves. His marriage 
 with Zeinab, the wife of Zeid, his freedman and 
 adopted son, after her divorce from him, bears on the 
 face of it a worse complexion ; but I am satisfied, 
 after a close examination of the circumstances of the 
 case, that it does not bear the interpretation usually 
 placed upon it by Christians. It raised an outer}' 
 among the Arabs of the Ignorance, not because they 
 suspected an intrigue on the Prophet's part to secure 
 a divorce ; but because they looked upon an adopted 
 
 • Sura XVI. 108, II. 100. • Sum XXXIII. 49, and LXVI. I. 
 » See Lecture IV. p. 262. 
 
APPARENT CHANGE IN MOHAMMED. 115 
 
 as though he were a real son, and considered, there- 
 fore, that the marriage fell within the prohibited 
 degrees. This restriction, which Mohammed, for what- 
 ever causes, considered to be an arbitrary one, he 
 abolished by his marriage, not for his own benefit 
 only, but for that of the Arabs at large. In the view 
 indeed usually taken of the whole transaction, there is 
 a strange compound of fact and fiction ; and much that 
 was comparatively innocent has been made to wear 
 the appearance of deep guilt ; but it must be admitted 
 with sorrow that in the matter of his marriages Mo- 
 hammed laid himself open to much misconception and 
 to much blame even on the part of the most temperate 
 and most truth-loving of his opponents.^ 
 
 * It should be remembered, however, that most of Mohammed's 
 marriages may be explained, at least, as much by his pity for the 
 foriorn condition of the persons concerned, as by other motives. 
 They were almost all of them with widows who were not remarkable 
 either for their beauty or their wealth, but quite the reverse. May 
 not this fact, and his undoubted faithfulness to Khadijah till her 
 dying day, and till he himself was fifty years of age, give us addi- 
 tional ground to hope that calumny or misconception has been at 
 work in the story of Zeinab ? There are some indications on the face 
 of it, besides those mentioned in the text, that this is the case. For 
 example, Zeinab was the Prophet's cousin, and there was nothing to 
 prevent his having married her himself when both he and she were 
 younger, instead of giving her in marriage to his f reedman. An able 
 and a friendly Muslim critic, Mir Aulad Ali, Professor of Oriental 
 Languages at Trinity College, Dublin, suggests to me that the 
 marriage of Zeinab; one of the Kuraish and first cousin to the 
 Prophet, with a f reedman, was distasteful to her ; and that it was an 
 unhappy one for the husband as well as for the wife, as is shown by 
 Zeid's continuing to demand a divorce, when the Prophet advised 
 him against it. Mohammed by his subsequent marriage with her 
 removed, he goes on to suggest, a restriction which he thought 
 unnecessary ; and showed that he at all events saw nothing degrading 
 in a marriage connection with a f reedman. Anyhow it is certain 
 
lie MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Whether, indeed, the various explanations of the 
 Prophet's conduct that have been suggested by the 
 piety or the admiration of his followers are quite 
 consistent with the facts or not, matters now com- 
 paratively little : but it matters very much, and 
 should be a subject of rejoicing to every Christian, 
 that pious Musalmans, instead of justifying an act 
 which, if it was in reality what it has often been 
 represented to have been, they, no less than we, know 
 to be wrong, are able to explain it to themselves in a 
 way which does not impute a crime to the founder of 
 their creed, nor involve them in condoning it. 
 
 The free toleration of the purer among the creeds 
 around him, which the Prophet had at first enjoined, 
 gradually changes into intolerance. Persecuted no 
 longer, Mohammed becomes a persecutor himself; 
 with the Koran in one hand, the scymitar in the other, 
 he goes forth to offer to the nations the threefold 
 alternative of conversion, tribute, death. He is once 
 or twice untrue to the kind and forgiving disposition 
 of his best nature ; and is once or twice unrelenting in 
 the punishment of his personal enemies, especially of 
 the Jews, who had disappointed his expectation that 
 they would join him, and of such as had stung him by 
 their lampoons or libels. He is even guilty more than 
 once of conniving at the assassination of inveterate 
 opponents ; and the massacre of the Bani Koraitza, 
 though they had deserted him almost on the field of 
 
 that Zeiil, if he had su8i)ectetl, as Christians have done, anjthiDg: in 
 the nature of an intri^ie on the Prophet's part to alienate his wife's 
 affection fmm him, couhl not have served him as he did even to the 
 <lay (tf his ilenth with all the loyalty and devotion of a zealous 
 disciple. 
 
HOW EXPLAINED. 117 
 
 battle, and their lives were forfeit by all the laws of 
 war, moved the misgivings of others than the dis- 
 affected. He might, no doubt, believing, as he did, 
 in his own inspiration, have found an ample precedent 
 for the act in the slaughter of the Midianites by- 
 Moses or the Canaanites by Joshua two thousand 
 years before, or even in the wars of Saul and David 
 with neighbouring tribes ; but, judged by any but an 
 Oriental standard of morality, and by his own con- 
 spicuous magnanimity on other occasions, his act, in 
 all its accessories, was one of cold-blooded revenge. 
 
 Can we explain away or extenuate these blots on 
 his memory, or, if we cannot, are they inconsistent 
 with substantial sincerity and singlemindedness ? 
 Here is a problem of surpassing interest to the 
 psychologist, and I have only time to touch lightly 
 upon it. 
 
 In the first place, the change in his character and 
 aims is not to be separated from the general condi- 
 tions of his life. At first he was a religious and moral 
 reformer only, and could not, even if he would, have 
 met the evils of his time by any other than by moral 
 means. If he was without the advantages, he was 
 also free from the dangers, of success. A religion 
 militant is, as all ecclesiastical history shows, very 
 different from a religion triumphant. The Prophet in 
 spite of himself became, by the force of circumstances, 
 more than a prophet. Not, indeed, that with him 
 height ever begot high thoughts. He preserved to 
 the end of his career that modesty and simplicity of 
 life which is the crowning beauty of his character ; 
 but he became a temporal ruler, and, where the Koran 
 did not make its way unaided, the civil magistrate 
 
118 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 naturally used temporal means. Under such circum- 
 stances, and when his followers pressed upon him 
 their belief in the nature of his mission, who can 
 draw the line where enthusiasm ends, and self-decep- 
 tion or even imposture begins ? No one who knows 
 human nature will deny that the two are often per- 
 fectly consistent with each other. Once persuaded 
 fully of his divine mission as a whole, a man uncon- 
 sciously begins to invest his personal fancies and 
 desires with a like sanction : it is not that he tampers 
 with his conscience ; he rather subjects conscience 
 and reason, appetite and affection, to the one domi- 
 nating influence ; and so, as time goes on, with 
 perfect good faith gets to confound what comes from 
 below with what comes from above. What is the 
 meaning of the term ^ pious frauds,' except that such 
 acts are frauds in the eyes of others, acts of piety 
 in the eyes of the doer ? The more fully convinced 
 a man is of the goodness of his cause, the more likely 
 is he to forget the means in the end ; he need not 
 consciously assert that the end justifies the means, 
 but his eyes are so fixed upon the end that they over- 
 look the interval between the idea and its realisation. 
 He has to maintain a hold over the motley mass of 
 followers that his mission has gathered round him. 
 Must he not become all things to all to meet their 
 several wants ? Perhaps he does become so, and, in 
 the process, what he gains in the bulk of his influence 
 he loses in its quality. Its intensity is in inverse 
 proportion to its extension. No man — I quote here, 
 with only such slight alteration as adapts them to my 
 subject, the noble words of George Eliot : * No man, 
 whether prophet, statesman, or popular preacher. 
 
MORAL VALUE OF CONSISTENCY. 119 
 
 ever yet kept a prolonged hold over a mixed multi- 
 tude without being in some measure degraded thereby., 
 His teaching or his life must be accommodated to the 
 average wants of his hearers, and not to his own 
 finest insight. But, after all, we should regard the 
 life of every great man as a drama, in which there 
 must be important inward modifications accompany- 
 ing the outward changes.' ^ Rigid consistency in 
 itself is no great merit, rather the reverse : what one 
 has a right to demand in a great man is that the 
 intensity of the central truth he has to deliver should 
 become, not less, but more intense ; that that flame 
 shall burn so clear as to throw into the shade other 
 objects which shine with a less brilliant light ; that 
 the essence shall be pure even if some of the 
 surroundings be alloyed ; and this, I think, if not 
 more than this, with all his faults, we may affirm of 
 Mohammed. 
 
 On the whole the wonder is to me not how much, 
 but how little, under different circumstance, Mo- 
 hammed differed from himself. In the shepherd of 
 the desert, in the Syrian trader, in the solitary of 
 Mount Hira, in the reformer in the minority of one, 
 in the exile of Medina, in the acknowledged con- 
 queror, in the equal of the Persian Chosroes and the 
 Greek Heraclius, we can still trace a substantial 
 unity. I doubt whether any other man, whose 
 external conditions changed so much, ever himself 
 changed less to meet them : the accidents are 
 changed, the essence seems to me to be the same 
 in all. 
 
 • Romola, Vol. II., Chap. V. p. 5. 
 
120 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Power, as the saying is, no doubt put the man to 
 the test. It brought new temptations and therefore 
 new failures, from which the shepherd of the desert 
 might have remained free. But happy is the man 
 who, hving 
 
 * In the fierce light that beats upon a throne, 
 And blackens even' blot,' 
 
 can stand the test as well as did Mohammed. A 
 Christian poet has well asked : — 
 
 * What keep-; a spirit wholly true 
 
 To that ideal which he beare ! 
 
 What record ? not the sinless years 
 That breathed beneath the Syrian blue.' 
 
 But it is a current misconception, and, subject to 
 the above explanation, a very great one, that a 
 gradual, but continuous and accelerating moral de- 
 clension is to be traced from the time when the 
 fugitive unexpectedly entered Medina in triumph. 
 ^ Truth is come — let falsehood disappear,' he said, 
 when, after his long exile, and after the temptations 
 of Medina had done their worst for him, he re-entered 
 the Kaaba, and its three hundred and sixty idols, the 
 famous Hobal amongst them, vanished before him ; 
 and in his treatment of the unbelieving city he was 
 marvellously true to his programme. There was now 
 nothing left in Mecca that could thwart his pleasure. 
 If ever he had worn a mask at all, he would now 
 at all events have thrown it off; if lower aims had 
 gradually sapped the higher, or his moderation had 
 been directed, as Gibbon supposes, by his selfish 
 interests, we should now have seen the eflfect ; now 
 would have been the moment to gratify his ambition, 
 
NO CONTINUOUS DECLENSION 121 
 
 to satiate his lust, to glut his revenge. Is there any- 
 thing of the kind? Read the account of the entry of 
 Mohammed into Mecca, side by side with that of 
 Marius or Sulla into Rome. Compare all the at- 
 tendant circumstances, the outrages that preceded, 
 and the use made by each of his recovered power, 
 and we shall then be in a position better to appreciate 
 the magnanimity and moderation of the Prophet of 
 Arabia. There were no proscription lists, no plunder, 
 no wanton revenge. 
 
 The chief blots in his fame are not after his un- 
 disputed victory, but during his years of chequered 
 warfare at Medina, and, such as they are, are dis- 
 tributed very evenly over the whole of that time. In 
 other words, he did very occasionally give way to a 
 strong temptation ; but there was no gradual sapping 
 of moral principles, and no deadening of conscience 
 — a very important distinction. One or two acts of 
 summary and uncompromising punishment ; possibly, 
 one or two acts of cunning, and, after Khadijah was 
 dead, the violation of one law which he had from 
 veneration for her imposed on others, and had always 
 hitherto kept himself, form no very long bill of in- 
 dictment against one who always admitted he was a 
 man of like passions with ourselves, who was ignorant 
 of the Christian moral law, and who attained to 
 power after difficulties, and dangers, and misconcep- 
 tions which might have turned the best of men into a 
 suspicious and sanguinary tyrant.^ 
 
 • Yet Sprenger (1. p. 359), on no more grounds than those here 
 mentioned, can say of Mohammed, that when he attained to power 
 in Medina, ' er wurde zum wolliistigen Theokraten und blutdiirstig 
 Tyrannen, Pabst und Konig.' What Christian Pope or King — to say 
 
122 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 As regards the relaxation of the marriage law in 
 his own favour it must be remembered that, accord- 
 ing to the notions of the Jewish Rabbis, a prophet 
 who was properly commissioned might supersede any 
 law ; ^ when Christ broke through the Sabbatarian 
 restrictions of the Pharisees, it was his mission only, 
 and not his right, if he was so commissioned, which 
 they called in question. The answer ^ He is a Pro- 
 phet' was a sufficient one to all who could receive it 
 as true. The Arab notions seem to have been sub- 
 stantially similar, and this must be carefully borne in 
 mind in estimating the blame we attribute to the 
 Prophet of Arabia. 
 
 It is no doubt true that some of the revelations of 
 the Koran, particularly the later ones, bear the ap- 
 pearance of having been given consciously for per- 
 sonal and temporary purposes, and these have led, 
 with some show of reason, even such impartial writers 
 as Sir William Muir to accuse Mohammed of ' the 
 high blasphemy of forging the name of God. ' But it 
 
 nothing of Oriental rulers, with whom alone is it fair to comi>are 
 him — had ns great temptations and succumbed to them as little as 
 did Mohammal ? 
 
 ' See Farrar's ' Life of Christ,' I. >^3, .tcq. Mir Aulad Ali, whom I 
 have quoted above, writes to me on this subject as follows : — ' We 
 Muslims are not bound to follow or accept as law any of the dee<lK of 
 any of the Prophets ; we are only bound to accept what they give us 
 as law. Mohamme<l has not enjoined polygamy, he has only allowed 
 it under certain conditions. This permission has often been abused ; 
 but whatever its abuses, it has lessened the immorality, the illegiti- 
 mate births, and the child-murder which are rife in monogjimous 
 countries. One Prophet may be right acconling to us Muslims in 
 practising polygamy, while another may be right in remaining celi- 
 bate, but it may not be right in others to follow the example of 
 either ; still less is it right to make their example binding.' 
 
DID HE FORGE THE NAME OF GOD'? 123 
 
 would be strange indeed if, viewed in the light of 
 what I have said above as to Mohammed's unfaltering 
 belief in his own inspiration, he had not occasionally, 
 or even often, revealed in the Koran the mental pro- 
 cesses by which he justified to himself acts about, 
 which he may have, at first, felt scruples, or which 
 his contemporaries may have called in question.^ Is 
 not this the true explanation of what is commonly 
 considered to be the deepest stain upon Mohammed's 
 memory, the production of a Sura*'* in which he 
 legalises in God's name his marriage with Zeinab, a 
 divorced wife of his adopted son? The production 
 of this Sura, whatever else it proves about Moham- 
 med, seems to me to prove not his conscious insin- 
 cerity, but the reverse ; he had already attained his 
 end, why then blazon his shame if shame he felt it to 
 be ? why ^ forge the name of God ? ' Why lay him- 
 self open to the crushing retort which his enemies 
 would at once bring against him? Surely a single 
 act of conscious imposture in the matter of the Koran 
 would have sapped all his strength ; it would have 
 been like 
 
 * The little rift within the lover's lute, 
 Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit, 
 That rotting inward slowly moulders all,' 
 
 It would have made such a speech as that wherein, 
 at the very close of his life, Samuel-like, he boldly 
 challenged all Musalmans to mention aught that they 
 had against him, impossible : moreover, such an act, 
 if successful, would have been repeated again and 
 
 ' Cf. the view of Mohler in his treatise ' on the Relation of Islam 
 to the Gospel.' p. 20-22. 
 » Sura XXXIII. 37. 
 
124 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 again ; the path would have been too slippery and 
 the descent have seemed too easy and inviting for 
 him to recall his footsteps. It seems pertinent also 
 to ask, by way of rebutting the charge, whether he 
 was not at least equally ready, when occasion re- 
 quired, to blame himself for what he had said or done, 
 and to call the whole Musalman world to be wit- 
 nesses of his self-condemnation ? ' 
 
 But what are the facts ? Take two samples. 
 
 On one occasion, in a moment of despondency, he 
 made a partial concession to idolatry. He thought to 
 win over the recalcitrant Kuraish to his views by 
 allowing that their gods might make intercession with 
 the supreme God. 
 
 *■ What think ye of Al-Lat, and Al-Uzza, and Manah, the third be- 
 sides ] 
 
 They are the exalted Females, and their intercession with God may 
 be hoped for.' 
 
 The Kuraish, overjoyed, signified their adhesion to 
 Mohammed, and it seemed that they would bring 
 over all Mecca with them. His friends would have 
 passed the matter over as quietly as possible. So 
 great was the scandal among the Faithful that some 
 of his earliest historians omit it altogether. But the 
 Prophet's conscience was too tender for that. In an 
 hour of weakness Mohammed had mistaken expe- 
 diency for duty, and having discovered his mistake, he 
 would recall the concession, at all hazards, as pub- 
 licly as he had made it, even at the risk of the impu- 
 
 ' Cf Sura XLVIII. 2, 'that Qoil may foi'ijive thee thy preceding 
 and thy subsequent sin.' 
 
DID HE FORGE THE NAME OF GOD? 125 
 
 tation of weakness and of imposture. The amended 
 version of the Sura ran thus : 
 
 ' What think ye of Al-Lat, and Al-Uzza, and Manah, the third be- 
 sides ? 
 
 They are nought but empty names which ye and your fathers have 
 invented.' * 
 
 I will give one more instance. It is a memorable 
 one. Mohammed was engaged in earnest conversa- 
 tion with Wallid, a powerful Kuraish, whose conver- 
 sion he much desired. A blind man in very humble 
 circumstances, Abdallah by name, happened to come 
 up, and, not knowing that Mohammed was otherwise 
 engaged, exclaimed, ^ Oh, Apostle of God, teach me 
 some part of what God has taught thee.' Mohammed, 
 vexed at the interruption, frowned and turned away 
 from him. But his conscience soon smote him for 
 having postponed the poor and humble to the rich 
 and powerful, and the next day's Sura showed that 
 this ^ forger of God's name ' was at least as ready to 
 forge it for his own condemnation as in his defence. 
 The Sura is known by the significant title * He 
 frowned,' and runs thus : 
 
 ' The Prophet frowned, and turned aside, 
 
 Because the blind man came unto 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 shouidst thou act thus.' 
 
 » Sura LIII. ; cf. also XVII. 75, and XXII. ol ; see Muir, II. 
 p. 149-158, and Sprenger, II. 17, where there is a curious dissertation 
 on the word Gharanyk, used for Females — 'swans which mount 
 higher and higher towards God.' 
 
126 ^ MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 And, ever after this, we are told that, when the 
 Prophet saw the poor bHnd man, he went out of his 
 way to do him honour, saying 'The man is thrice 
 welcome on whose account my Lord hath repri- 
 manded me,' and he made him twice Governor of 
 Medina.' 
 
 Mohammed never wavered in his belief in his own 
 mission, nor, what is more extraordinary, in his belief 
 as to its precise nature and well-defined limits. He 
 was a prophet charged with a mission from God ; no- 
 thing less, but nothing more. He might make mis- 
 takes, lose battles, do wrong acts, but none the less 
 did he believe that the words he spoke were the very 
 words of God. To every Sura of the Koran he 
 prefixed the words ' In the name of God, the Com- 
 passionate, the Merciful,' even as the Hebrew prophet 
 would open his message with his ^Thus saith the 
 Lord ; ' and before every sentence and every word of 
 the Sacred Book is to be read, between the lines, the 
 word ^ say,' indicating that Mohammed believed, what 
 Moses and Isaiah only believed on special occasions, 
 that in his utterances he was the mere mouthpiece, 
 and therefore the unerring mouthpiece, of the Infinite 
 and the Eternal. He might win his way against 
 superhuman difficulties, preserve a charmed life, do 
 deeds which seemed miracles to others, gain the 
 
 ' Sura LXXX., with Sale's note ad loc. ; and Muir, II. p. 128. 
 Sir William Muir tells the story much as 1 have related it, but 
 seems quite unable to see its grandeur, for he only remarks upon it, 
 * This incident illustrates at once the anxiety of Mohammed to gain 
 over the principal men of the Kumish, and when he was rejected, the 
 readiness with which he turned to the \yoov and uninfluential.' Wais 
 ever moral sublimity so marred, or heroism so vulgarisetl ? How 
 Mohammed towers above even his best histonans I 
 
NATURE AND LIMITS OF HIS MISSION. 127 
 
 homage of all Arabia, and present in his own person 
 an ideal of morality never before pictured by an Arab ; 
 and yet he never forgot himself, or claimed to be more 
 than a weak and fallible mortal. 
 
 As his view of his own mission is an all-important 
 point in estimating his character, let us deal, in con- 
 cluding this Lecture, with facts alone, and watch 
 his conduct at a few critical epochs which I 
 have purposely selected, as throwing light upon 
 the matter, in its different aspects, away from their 
 chronological order and from very different periods 
 of his life. 
 
 When the Persian monarch Chosroes was contem- 
 plating with pride, like Nebuchadnezzar of old, the 
 great Artemita that he had built and all its fabulous 
 treasures, he received a letter from an obscure citizen 
 of Mecca, bidding him acknowledge Mohammed as 
 the Prophet of God. Chosroes tore the letter into 
 pieces. ^ It is thus,' exclaimed the Arabian Prophet 
 when he heard of it, ' that God will tear his kingdom 
 and reject his supplications.' No prediction could 
 have seemed at the time less likely to be accomplished, 
 since Persia was at its height, and Constantinople at 
 its lowest. But Mohammed lived to see its fulfilment, 
 and yet never claimed in consequence, as others might 
 have done, the power of prophecy. 
 
 While he had as yet only half established his posi- 
 tion, a powerful Christian tribe tendered their submis- 
 sion, if only he would leave their chief some remnant 
 of his power. ^ Not one unripe date,' replied Moham- 
 med.' We remember how the French rhetorician the 
 
 ' Muir, Vol. TV. p. r>9. , . 
 
128 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 otlier day, knowing that his nation, if they are slaves 
 to nothing else, are always slaves to an epigram, pro- 
 longed resistance to the bitter end by his famous 
 declaration that not ^ an inch of their territory nor a 
 stone of their fortresses ' would the French surrender. 
 And we may imagine the effect produced upon the 
 handful of Mohammed's Meccan followers who were 
 still in exile at Medina by such an answer, coming 
 from one who was certainly no vapid rhetorician, who 
 preferred silence to speech, and who never said a thing 
 he did not really mean. 
 
 Moseilama, the most formidable of the rival pro- 
 phets whom Mohammed's success stirred up, thinking 
 that Mohammed's game was a merely selfish one, and 
 that two might play at it, sent to Mohammed to offer 
 to go shares with him in the good things of the world, 
 which united they might easily divide. The letter 
 was of Spartan brevity : ' Moseilama the apostle of 
 God to Mohammed the apostle of God. — Now let 
 the earth be half mine and half thine.' Moham- 
 med's reply was hardly less laconic : ' Mohammed 
 the apostle of God to Moseilama the liar. — The earth 
 is God's, He giveth it to such of His servants as He 
 pleaseth, and they who fear Him shall prosper.' 
 
 Again mark his conduct under failure or rebuff. 
 He had lost, within three days of each other, Abu 
 Taleb his one protector, and his venerable wife 
 Khadijah, that toothless old woman, as Ayishah 
 long afterwards in the bloom of her beauty called 
 her; the wife who, as Mohammed indignantly re- 
 plied, 'when he was poor had enriched him, when 
 he was called a liar had alone believed in him, when 
 he was opposed by all the world had alone remained 
 
MOSEILAMA THE LIAR. 129 
 
 true to him.' ^ What was he to do ? Silence and 
 the desert seemed the one chance of safety, but what 
 did he do? Followed only by Zeid, his faithful 
 freedman, he went to Tayif, the town after Mecca 
 most wholly given to idolatry ; and, like Elijah in 
 Samaria, he boldly challenged the protection and 
 obedience of the inhabitants. They stoned him out 
 of the city. He returned to Mecca defeated, but not 
 disheartened ; cast down, but not destroyed ; quietly 
 saying to himself, ' If thou, O Lord, art not angry, I 
 am safe ; I seek refuge in the light of thy countenance 
 alone.' ^ 
 
 After the tide had turned in his favour, and the 
 battle of Bedr had, as it seemed, put the seal to his 
 military success, he was signally defeated and 
 wounded almost to the death at Mount Ohud. 
 People began to desert him ; but a Sura, Moham- 
 med's ^ order of the day,' appeared : ^ Mohammed is 
 no more than a prophet. What if he had been 
 killed, needs ye go back ? He that turneth back 
 injure th not God in the least, but himself.' ^ The 
 spell of his untaught eloquence recalled them to 
 
 ' Sprenger characteristically remarks (I, 151) that Mohammed's 
 faithfulness to Khadijah to her dying day was due probably not to his 
 inclination, but to his dependence on her. Why, then, the interval 
 before Mohammed married again ? And why, long afterwards, his 
 noble burst of gratitude to her memory when Ayishah contrasted her 
 own youth and beauty with Khadijah's age and infirmities, and asked, 
 * Am not I much better than she 1 ' ' No, by Allah,' replied Moham- 
 med ; ' no, by Allah ; when I was poor she enriched me,' &c. Was 
 Mohammed dependent upon the dead ? For cynical remarks of a 
 similar kind see, amongst many other instances, Sprenger, II. 
 19, 23, 86. 
 
 2 See the story in full in Muir, Vol. II. p. 198-203. 
 
 ■■^ Sura III. 138. 
 
 E 
 
130 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 themselves, and we are assured that his defeat at 
 Ohud advanced his cause as much as did his victory 
 at Bedr. 
 
 Here is a story which illustrates the nature of the 
 revenge which the Prophet lived to take. He was 
 one day sleeping under a tree, alone, and at a distance 
 from his camp, when he awoke and beheld Durthur, 
 his deadly foe, standing over him with a drawn swords 
 ' Oh Mohammed,' cried he, ' w^ho is there now to save 
 thee ? ' ^ God,' said the Prophet. Struck with awe, 
 Durthur dropped his sword ; Mohammed seized it, 
 and exclaimed in his turn, ' Oh Durthur, who is there 
 now to save thee?' ' No one,' replied Durthur. 'Then 
 learn from me to be merciful ; ' and with these words 
 he gave him back his sword, and made him his 
 firmest friend. 
 
 Ayishah, his favourite wife, one day asked of him^ 
 'O Prophet of God, do none enter Paradise but 
 through God's mercy ? ' ' None, none, none,' replied 
 he. ' But will not even you enter by your own 
 merits?' Mohammed put his hand upon his head 
 and thrice replied, 'Neither shall I enter Paradise 
 unless God cover me with His mercy.' ^ There was 
 no ' false certitude of the Divine intentions,' the be- 
 setting temptation of spiritual ambition; no facile 
 dogmatising upon what he had only to hint to be 
 believed — his own preeminent position in the unseen 
 world. It would have been safe to do so : k a<pav\Q 
 rov fivBov aveveUag ovk t)(ii tXtyxov *. * and how few 
 could have resisted a like temptation I 
 
 And at the last grand scene of all, when the Pro- 
 
 » Mishkat-ul-Masibeli, I. Book IV. 280. " Hdt. II. 23. 
 
DEATH OF THE PROPHET. 131 
 
 phet had met his death, as he had always told his 
 doubting followers he must, and Omar, the Simon 
 Peter of Islam, in the agony of his grief drew his 
 scymitar and wildly rushing in among the weeping 
 Musalmans swore that he would strike off the head 
 of any one who dared to say that the Prophet was 
 dead — the Prophet could not be dead — it was by a 
 gentle reminder of what the Prophet himself had 
 always taught, that the venerable Abu Bakr, the 
 earliest of the Prophet's friends, and his successor in 
 the Khalifate, calmed his excitement : ^ Is it then 
 Mohammed, or the God of Mohammed, that we have 
 learned to worship i ' 
 
 \ 
 
132 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 FebeuARY 28, 1874. 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Hear, Israel, the Lord our God is one God. . , . Now there- 
 fore go and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt 
 say. — The Hebrew Bible, 
 
 Allahu Akbar — God is most great — there is no God but God. and 
 Mohammed is His messenger. — The Creed op Islam. 
 
 In the concluding part of my last Lecture I discussed 
 at length the question of the character of Mohammed, 
 and we arrived, I think, at the conclusion that, on the 
 one hand, he had grave moral faults which may be 
 accounted for, but not excused, by the circumstances 
 of the time, by the exigencies of his situation, and by 
 the weaknesses of human nature. And, on the other, 
 we saw reason to believe that he was not only pas- 
 sionately impressed with the reality of his divine 
 mission in early life, but that the common view of a 
 great moral declension to be traced in his latter years 
 is not borne out by the evidence, and that to the end 
 of his career, amidst failures and successes, in life and 
 in preparation for death, he was true to the one prin- 
 ciple with which he started. He became indeed, by 
 
TRUE CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 133 
 
 the force of circumstances, general and ruler, law- 
 giver and judge of all Arabia ; but above all and 
 before all, he was still a simple prophet delivering 
 God's message in singleness of heart, obeying, as far 
 as he could, God's will, but never claiming to be more 
 than God's weak and erring servant. 
 
 And now, perhaps, it is time to ask what was the 
 essence of Mohammed's belief, that which made him 
 what he was, which has given his religion its inex- 
 haustible vitality ? How did it resemble, and how 
 did it differ from, the religions which it overthrew, 
 and one of which at least we are accustomed to look 
 upon, and shall, in its pure form as it came from 
 Christ's own lips, and can still be read in Christ's own 
 acts, and eve n to some extent in the character of His 
 servants, always continue to look upon, as immeasur- 
 ably superior to Mohammedanism ? 
 <^The essence of Mohammedanism is not merely 
 the sublime belief in the unity of God, though it is 
 difficult to us to realise the tumult of the feelings, and 
 the intensity of the life, which must be awakened in a 
 Polytheistic people, who are also imaginative and 
 energetic, when, on a sudden, they recognise the One 
 in and behind the Many. Mohammed started indeed 
 with the dogmatic assertion that there was but one 
 God, the Creator of all things in heaven and earth, all 
 powerful, knowing all things, everywhere present. 
 He reiterates this in a thousand shapes as the fore- 
 front of his message; ^ and sublimely confident that 
 
 ' See especially Suras I. and CXI I., the beginning and end of the 
 Koran in the orthodox arrangement ; also Sura XXXV. 41-44. Cf. 
 also Sura II. 19-20, 109 ; VI. 1-6 ; XIII. 10, 11 ; XVI. 12-17 ; LIII* 
 and XCVI. 
 
134 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 it need only be stated to ensure ultimate acceptance, 
 he deigns not to offer proof of that which, in his judg- 
 ment, must prove itself 
 
 But it was more than the unity of God, and the 
 attributes which flow from that conception, which 
 Mohammed asserted. A theoretic assent to this 
 might have had but little influence on practice. 
 What is by its nature immeasurably above man, may 
 also be immeasurably removed from him ; and ac- 
 cordingly Mohammed reasserted that which had been 
 the life of the old Hebrew nation, and the burden of 
 the song of every Hebrew prophet — that God not 
 only lives, but that He is a righteous and a merciful 
 ruler ; and that to His will it is the duty and the 
 privilege of all living men to bow.' Nor was the 
 sublimity of this doctrine marred in its application by 
 the old Hebrew exclusiveness. The Arabian nation 
 was first called indeed ; but as in Christianity, and as 
 it was not in Judaism, the obligations of the Arabs 
 were to be measured by their privileges, and the call 
 was to be extended through them to the world at 
 large. /The Jew surrendered his birthright if he im- 
 parteoliis faith to other peoples. The Arab sur- 
 rendered his if he did not spread his faith wherever 
 and however he could. ^ 
 
 * See this well drawn out in Maurice's ' Reli^ons of the World,' p. 
 21-24. The passage is a most sug^stive one. I owe much to it, and 
 it seems to me that here, and in many other passages of his writings, 
 Mr. Maurice did far more, and penetrated far (leei)er, than is allowed 
 in a very brilliant passage of a recent work (see * Literature and 
 Dogma,' p. 34o). When the unacknowledged debts of the nineteenth 
 century to its great writers come to be added up, I am convinceil 
 that it will Ix; fully recognised that the mental iwjwera of Mr. 
 Maurice rank as high as did the purity and nobility of his life ; and 
 more can hardly be 8ai<l. 
 
ESSENCE OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 135 
 
 But Mohammed's assertion of the unity of God 
 and of His rule over every detail of man's life, was no 
 mere plagiarism from an older faith. The Jewish 
 people at large had, even in their best days, rushed 
 wildly after the worship of alien gods ; at last, indeed, 
 the iron of the Captivity had entered into their souls ; 
 they learned much during their sojourn in the East, 
 but they unlearned more; they unlearned there, once 
 and for ever, the sin of idolatry. But though they 
 never henceforward worshipped other gods, the higher 
 teaching of their prophets they still too much ig- 
 nored, and the period which might have been the 
 culmination of their glory ended in that tragedy of 
 tragedies which was the immediate precursor of their 
 fall. The sceptre departed from Judah, but the 
 Jewish exiles in Arabia still clung desperately to the 
 phantom of those proud religious privileges when all 
 which had given some claim to them had disappeared. 
 Christians too, such Christians as Mohammed had 
 ever met, had forgotten at once the faith of the Jews, 
 and that higher revelation of God given to them by 
 Christ which the Jews rejected. Homoousians and 
 Homoiousians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Jaco- 
 bites and Eutychians, making hard dogmas of things 
 wherein the sacred writers themselves had made no 
 dogma, disputing fiercely whether what was mathe- 
 matically false could be metaphysically true, and 
 nicely discriminating the shades of truth and false- 
 hood in the views suggested to bridge over the abys- 
 mal gulf between them ; turning figures into facts, 
 rhetoric into logic, and poetry into prose, had for- 
 gotten the unity of God, while they were disputing 
 about it most loudly with their lips. They busied 
 
136 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 themselves with ever^^ question about Christ except 
 those which might have led them to imitate Christ's 
 life. Now Mohammed came to make a clean sweep 
 of such unrealities. Images: what are they? 'Bits 
 of black wood, pretending to be God ; ' ' philosophical 
 theories, and theological cobwebs. Away with 
 them all ! God is great, and there is nothing else 
 great. This is the Musalman Creed. * Islam,' that 
 is, man must resign his will to God's, and find his 
 highest happiness in so doing. This is the Musalman 
 
 life. J 
 
 Was there anything in these two principles, an 
 objector may ask, that was either original or new? 
 There was nothing ; they were as old as the time of 
 Moses, as old, in reality, even as Abraham ; again 
 and again Mohammed asseverates that he has been 
 sent to bring the Arabs nothing new ; he has come 
 only to republish the creed of Abraham which had 
 always existed, however it had been forgotten or neg- 
 lectedT] Amongst sullen and isolated Jews, amongst 
 wrangling tritheistic Christians, amongst Fetish- 
 worshippers of every grade, came a camel driver, not 
 to teach them what was new, but to remind them of 
 what was old. On Arabian soil more than two 
 thousand years before, there had come to one who 
 was tending his father's flock in the desert, the simple 
 but the startling message, ' I am that I am. Hear, O 
 Israel : the Lord our God is one God ; now therefore 
 go and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what 
 thou shalt say; ' * and, at the words, from Africa the 
 chosen people had passed into Asia, slaves had 
 
 ' Carlyle, * Heroes,' p. 226. 
 
 « Exodus IF I. 14, IV. 12 ; Deut. VI. 4. 
 
HOW FAR WAS MOHAMMEDANISM NEW? 137 
 
 become freemen, and a family a nation. On that 
 same Arabian soil now came the same voice to 
 another shepherd of the desert, and that with effects 
 not less striking, and hardly less fraught with benefit 
 to the world at large : ' Allahu Akbar, God is most 
 great, there is no God but God, and thou, Moham.med, 
 art the Prophet of God.' The mission was accepted 
 and the message proclaimed, and within a century 
 its echoes were heard, and its truth recognised, 
 from Aden to Antioch, and from Seville to Samar- 
 kand. 
 
 And I would remark here, and would particularly 
 beg those who are doing me the honour to attend 
 these Lectures to bear in mind, that though I have, 
 in compliance with European custom, often spoken of 
 Mohammedanism and Mohammedans, the name was 
 never used by Mohammed himself, or by his earlier 
 disciples, and, in spite of the reverence paid to their 
 Prophet, it has always been rejected by his followers 
 themselves as a rightful appellation. To quote once 
 more the noble words of Abu Bakr, it was not Mo- 
 hammed, but the God of Mohamnr^ei that the Prophet 
 taught his followers to worship/The creed is ' Islam,' 
 a verbal noun, derived from a root meaning ' submis- 
 sion to ' and * faith in God,' and the believers who so 
 submit themselves are called Muslims, a participle of 
 the same root, both being connected with the words 
 'Salam,' or 'peace,' and 'Salym,' or 'health;^^^ 
 There was nothing, therefore, theoretically new in 
 what I have described as the central truth of Islam, 
 for it was this belief that lay at the root of the great- 
 
 ' Sprenger. Vol. 1. p. 09. 
 
138 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 ness of the Jewish nation, and their separation from 
 all other nationsTj Certain forms of Christianity have 
 asserted it as strongly as did Mohammed. It is this 
 principle which has been the strength of Calvinism 
 and of Puritanism, and in this direction perhaps lies 
 the explanation of the fact that those forms of reli- 
 gion which have been theoretically most fatalistic 
 have by their acts given the strongest practical asser- 
 tion of free-will. This was the spark from heaven 
 which lit the train. In his assertion of this, lay the 
 religious genius of MohammedTl This gave the Arabs 
 ' unity as a nation, discipline and enthusiasm as an 
 army.' ' This sent them forth in their wild crusade 
 against the world ; and, armed with this, they swept 
 away before them ever}^ creed, or memory of a 
 creed, which did not then contain any principle so 
 inspiring. 
 
 Such then were the two leading principles of the 
 new creed ) the existence of one God, whose will was 
 to be the rule of life, and the mission of Mohammed 
 to proclaim what that will was. The one doctrine as 
 old, if not older than the time when the father of the 
 faithful left his Chaldean home in obedience to the 
 Divine will ; the other sanctioned indeed, in its 
 general assertion of the prophetic office, by the 
 traditionary belief of both Jews and Arabs ; but 
 startling enough in the time at which the revelation 
 came, in the instrument selected, and in the way in 
 which he proclaimed it. In this consists the originality, 
 such as it is, of Mohammedanism. The other articles 
 of faith, added to the two I have already discussed — 
 
 * Maurice, loc. cit. 
 
PRACTICAL DUTIES OF ISLAM. 139 
 
 — Ihe written revelation of God's will, tltl responsibility 
 of man, me existence of angels and of Djinn, the 
 future life, the resurrection, and the final judgment 
 — are to be found, either developed or in germ, in the 
 systems, either of Jews, or Zoroastrians, or Christians. 
 Even in the times of ignorance, the camel tethered 
 to a dead man's grave was an indication that the 
 grave was, even to the wild Arab, not the end of all 
 things.^ 
 
 Nor was there anything much more original in the 
 four practical duties of Islam — in pr^er and alms- 
 giving, in fasting and in pilgrimage.fl- Prayer is the 
 aspiration of the human soul towards God, common 
 to every religion, from the rudest Fetishism to the 
 most sublime Monotheism. But it occupies in Islam 
 a more prominent place both theoretically and practi- 
 cally than it does in any other religion. Some of the 
 characteristics of Musalman prayer are almost peculiar 
 to it, and render it sometimes, perhaps, more pro- 
 foundly devotional, and sometimes more purely 
 mechanical, than is to be found amongst the followers 
 of.any other creed. 
 
 ^Almsgiving is the most easy and obvious method 
 of evidencing that love to man which leads up to, and 
 
 ' Sprenger says (I. 4, 801) that the reason why Mohammed refers 
 so often, e.g., in the very first Sura in chronological order, to the 
 * clot of blood ' from which man was created, is because he looked 
 upon it much as Christians have done to the emerging of the 
 butterfly from the chrysalis, as a proof or illustration of the resur- 
 rection. In Sura LI 1 1, Mohammed says he took not the doctrine 
 merely, but the illustration also, from 'the roll of Abraham.' Cf. 
 Sura LXXV., entitled ' The Resurrection,' ad Jin. : ' Is not the God 
 who foi-med man from a mere embryo powerful enough to quicken 
 the dead ? ' 
 
14U MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 is, in its turn, the result of love to Godv2/Fasting is 
 an assertion, though a superficial one, of the great 
 truth that self-denial is a step towards God ; but 
 it is peculiarly liable to abuse as fostering the belief, 
 so common among the ruder of the Semitic nations, 
 and still commoner among ascetics in modem times, 
 that God is to be feared rather than loved, and that 
 there is something pleasing to Him in pain as such ; 
 pain, that is, apart fro»rks effect upon the will, and 
 so upon the character.vfypilgrimage is a concession to 
 human feelings, not to say to human weakness, 
 common again, in practice, to all the religions of the 
 world. But this last calls, perhaps, for some special 
 remark here, since its actual influence has been so 
 great, while in theory and in reality it is alien alike 
 to Mohammedanism and to Christianity.' 
 
 ' A high authority, Ur. Badger, has remarked with reference to 
 this i)assage, that he is at a loss to undei'stand how the Hajj can be 
 spoken of as in any way alien to islam, seeing that it is enjoined in 
 the Koran : he has a much greater right to si>eak on the subject than 1 
 have, but I still tliiuk that a careful examination of the twenty-second 
 Sura of the Koran, entitled the Pilgrimage, compared with other 
 passages, will justify me in the way in which I have sjx>ken here of 
 it as alien in reality to so spiritual a religion as Islam, even though 
 it is enjoined in the Koran ; as a concession, and an inconsistent 
 concession, to natural weakness rather than as a part of the inner 
 belief of the Prophet, who so erai)hatically said, ' There is no piety in 
 turning your faces towards the East or West, but he is pious who 
 believeth in Gotl.' The gist of the Sum seems to me to be this (cf. 
 Bprenger, 11., xvi. oSl) : the chief ceremony of the faithful is the 
 pilgrimage, which it is well to observe with all its peculiarities 
 as an historical commemoration (v. 2**)). Every people has religious 
 rites and ceremonies of its own, and their use will dejiend on the 
 spirit in whicii they are jKjrformed. * By no means can the flesh of 
 camels which ye sjicrifice reach unto Gotl, neither their blootl ; but 
 piety on your part reachetli Him' (v. 3S). But ceremonies are ex- 
 
HOLY PLACES. 141 
 
 ' The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this 
 mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.' 
 'God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must 
 worship Him in spirit and in truth.' But from the 
 time the words were spoken, even to this day, a con- 
 tinuous living stream has poured towards the Holy 
 Land. For nineteen centuries Christian Pilgrims 
 have been seen to leave their homes and kindred, 
 facing, now privations, now dangers, and now ridicule, 
 that they might enjoy the sacred luxury, the ineffable 
 religious rapture, of beholding the city over which the 
 Saviour wept, of standing on the spot which gave 
 Him birth, of gazing on the lake whereon He taught, 
 and of worshipping in the shrine which covers the 
 rock wherein His body lay. And far be it from me to 
 say, spite of the invention of the true Cross, spite of 
 St. Andrew's lance and the relics of the Apostles, 
 spite of the Crusades themselves, spite of the keys of 
 the Holy Sepulchre, and even of the imposture of the 
 Holy Fire, that the evils belonging to- this reverence 
 for places have altogether predominated over the 
 good. A scientific and unimaginative age laughs at 
 the weaknesses and the follies involved, but it forgets 
 the dauntless faith and the heroic endurance, the 
 sacrifice of self, and the romance of danger ; it forgets 
 that it is the office of religion to deal with these very 
 human weaknesses and follies, and make the best of 
 such materials as it has to work upon. 
 
 Christ swept away some of the abuses of the 
 temple worship, and looked forward to its ultimate 
 
 ternals (v. 66) ; the essence of the matter consists in prayer, in giving 
 alms to the poor, in ' cleaving fast to Gro.l, to Him who is your liege 
 Lord, a goodly Lord and a great helper ' (v. 77). 
 
142 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 abolition ; but He did not sweep away the temple 
 itself. He rather paid it its customary honours. 
 Mohammed saw^ the dangers of the Kaaba worship, 
 and, once and again, proposed to destroy it altogether ; 
 but he had to deal with an historical faith, and with 
 a shrine of immemorial antiquity, one which Diodorus 
 Siculus, a hundred years before the Christian era, 
 tells us, was even then 'most ancient, and was 
 exceedingly revered by the whole Arab race.' The 
 traditions of the Kaaba ran back to Ishmael and 
 Abraham, nay even to Seth and Adam ; ^ and, as its 
 very name, ' Beit Allah,' shows, it might, in its first 
 rude shape, have been erected by some such ancient 
 patriarch as he who raised a pillar of rough stone 
 w^here in his sleep he had seen the angels ascending 
 and descending, and called it ' Bethel or Beit Allah : 
 this is the house of God, and this the gate of 
 heaven.' Arab poets went further back still, and 
 assigned to the holy city a date to be reckoned rather 
 by astronomical or geological time than historical : 
 even ' before Sirius was created,' so says a patriotic 
 poem w^hich commemorates the miraculous repulse of 
 Abrahah, the Christian King of Abyssinia, from the 
 Kaaba, ' even before Sirius was created, was Mecca a 
 holy place : therefore should even the mightiest 
 among men yield it homage. Ask the Nagashy of 
 
 ' Cf. Sura III. UO. 'The tirst temple that was founded for man- 
 kind was that in Becca (place of resort, i.c.^ Mecca) — Hlessctl, and a 
 {guidance to human beings. In it are evident sijfnsjcven the stan«ling- 
 place of Abraham, and he who entereth it is safe. And the pili^rim- 
 aj?e to the temple is a service due to God from those who ai-e able to 
 journey thither.' This sentence is still woven into the eovorintr of the 
 Kaaba, sent annually by the Sultan. 
 
PILGRIMAGE— ITS USE AND ABUSE. 143 
 
 Abyssinia about it : sixty thousand of them returned 
 not again to their homes ; they quitted hfe : God 
 sent a mighty wind which scattered them hke a flock 
 of sheep.' ^ Now Mohammed cherished all the family 
 associations of a Haschimite,^ as well as all the local 
 affections of a Meccan patriot ; and the family, and 
 the place, and the country, the historical lore, and 
 the religious imagination, combined to save the sacred 
 shrink Mohammed swept away the idols of the 
 Kaaba ; he abolished the nude processions ^ and the 
 other abuses of its worship ; but he retained the 
 Kaaba itself ; and tlie quaint rites, which were old in 
 Mohammed's time, are still religiously observed by 
 the whole Mohammedan world. Seven times the 
 pilgrim walks around the sacred mosque, seven times 
 he kisses the Black Stone ; he drinks the brackish 
 water of the sacred well Zemzem, buries the parings 
 of his nails, and the hair he has at length shaved, in 
 the consecrated ground ; he ascends Mount Arafat 
 and showers stones on the three mysterious pillars.* 
 Nor is the Kaaba present to the mind at those times 
 only when the prescribed pilgrimage is near at hand, 
 
 * Sirat-er-racoul, I. 29. 
 
 ^ See a curious conversation between Mohammed and Ayishah on 
 the Kaaba, illustrating the strong family feelings of the Prophet. 
 Sprenger, I. iv. 315. 
 
 3 Sura VII. 27 sq.- Cf. XXII. 27-40, and Mishkat-ul-Masibeh, I. 
 Book XI. 619. 
 
 ■* A plan of the Kaaba, as taken by Ali Bey, and a full description 
 of the Pilgrim ceremonies, which he himself went through, may 
 be seen in Burton's ' Pilgrimage,' III. 61. Burckhardt and Burton 
 have both described the Black Stone minutely from personal 
 observation ; and a picture of it, the size of the original, is given in 
 Muir, II. 18. 
 
144 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 in prospect or in retrospect. The first architectural 
 requisite of every Musahnan house of prayer is the 
 niche or arch which points with mathematical pre- 
 cision to the sacred pile ; and, guided by this, every 
 devout Musalman turns five times a day towards the 
 Kiblah of the world, in earnest prayer to Goci\ 
 * That man,' says Dr. Johnson, ^ has little to be envied 
 whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains 
 of Marathon, or whose pietv would not grow warm 
 among the ruins of lona.V^ The ceremonies of the 
 Kaaba may perhaps seem to us ridiculous, but the 
 shrine is one which kindled the feelings of the Arab 
 patriot, and roused the hopes of the Bedouin of the 
 desert, ages before Miltiades fought, and tens of ages 
 before Columba preached. It has been consecrated 
 in its later history by its connection with the grandest 
 forward movement that the Eastern world has ever 
 known ; and, in spite of the mummeries and the 
 abuses which have grown round the pilgrimage of the 
 Hajj in the course of ages, I should be slow indeed 
 to assert that the feelings which still draw, year after 
 year, Musalmans by myriads from the burning sands 
 of Africa, from the snows of Siberia, and the coral 
 reefs of the Malays, towards a barren valle)' in 
 Arabia, do not, on the whole, elevate rather than 
 depress them in the scale of humanity. In their own 
 rough and imperfect way, they raise the mind of the 
 nomad and the shepherd from the animal life of the 
 present to the memories of the distant past, and the 
 hopes of the far future. They are a living testimony 
 to the unity of God, and a homage paid by the un- 
 progressive nations of the world to that Prophet who 
 softened the savage breast, and elevated the savage 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE TALMUD ON THE KORAN. 145 
 
 mind, and taught them what, but for him, they had 
 never learned at all. "7 
 
 It will be appareni/, from what I have already said, 
 that of the previous faiths existing in the world, the 
 one that influenced Mohammed most was, be3^ond 
 all question, Judaism. Insomuch, that one whose loss 
 all who take interest in Eastern questions are now 
 deploring, the late Emanuel Deutsch, summed up 
 the connection between them in the celebrated dictum, 
 that ' when the Talmud was gathered in, the Koran 
 began — post hoc ergo propter hoc' And he went on 
 to endorse and to develope what Dean Milman had 
 hinted before him, that Islam was little else than- 
 a republicanism of Judaism, with such modifications 
 as suited it to Arabian soil, plus the important 
 addition of the prophetic mission of Mohammed, 
 The gifted author was, perhaps, from the very extent 
 of his knowledge of Talmudical literature, prone to 
 trace its influence everywhere ; and the proposition 
 is, perhaps, stated a little too nakedly, and, as he, 
 no doubt, would have been the first to admit, needs 
 some important qualifications ; ^ but nobody would 
 deny that it is substantially true. Indeed, the 
 general connection between race and creed has been 
 proved by the Science of Comparative Religion to be 
 so intimate, that it could hardly in any case have 
 
 ' It must be remembered also that in the new form of the faith the 
 ceremonialism which marked Judaism for the time almost entirely 
 disappeared; and its exclusive spirit permanently and completely. 
 The propagandist and missionary spirit of Islam is a point in which 
 it compares most favourably with Judaism. For a full account of 
 the influence of the Essenic communities and their doctrines on the 
 rise of Islam, see Sprenger, I. 17-21, and 30-3o ; and for that of the 
 Ebionites or Judaising Christians to the East of the Jordan, p, 21 -2S. 
 
 E 2 
 
140 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 been otherwise. It seems a cruel destiny that allows 
 a man of great original genius to accumulate such 
 vast stores of recondite learning, and then snatches 
 him away before he has had time to do more than 
 leave the world dimly and sadly conscious of what it 
 has lost in losing him ! 
 
 Anyhow, the Koran teems with ideas, allusions, 
 and even phraseology, drawn not so much from the 
 written as from the oral Jewish law, from the tradi- 
 tions that grew round it, and the commentaries on it. 
 The Talmud, in its two divisions of Halacha and 
 Haggada, sums up the intellectual and social and 
 religious life of the Jews during a period of nearly 
 a thousand years. It is the meeting point of the 
 three Monotheistic creeds of the world ; and, even 
 with the imperfect information that Eastern scholars 
 have yet given respecting it, it has done much to 
 throw light upon them all. Mohammed was never 
 backw^ard to acknowledge the intimate connection 
 between his faith and that of the Jews. And in 
 more than one passage of the Koran he refers with 
 equal respect to their oral and to their written law. 
 Nor did Christ really draw so broad a distinction 
 between these two as might be imagined from the 
 sweeping way in which He sometimes denounces 
 the Scribes and Pharisees. * Whatsoever they that 
 sit in Moses' seat bid 3'ou observe, that obser^'e and 
 do.' ' And it is incontestable that the Pharisees, 
 as a body, contained some of the best and noblest — 
 Hillel and Shammai, Gamaliel and St. Paul — as it 
 
 ' St. Matt. XX 111. 2 and 8. Sec this well argued in an article on 
 the Talmud, Edinhurgh Jfrricv for July 1873. 
 
EXCLUSIVENESS OF JUDAISM. 147 
 
 contained some of the worst and meanest, of their 
 nation. 
 
 And, accordingly, Mohammed, during the early 
 years of the Hijrah, struggled hard, and, as it might 
 have seemed to him, with every prospect of success, 
 to secure the adhesion of the Jewish tribes who dwelt 
 round Medina. He appealed to their Scriptures, 
 which, he said, he came not to destroy, but to fulfil, 
 and which, as he argued, for those who had eyes to 
 see, pointed to him. * A prophet shall the Lord your 
 God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me ; 
 to him shall ye hearken.' Was he not like unto 
 Moses ? he asked again and again ; and did he not 
 spring from their brethren, the children of Ishmael? 
 ^ In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed : ' 
 were Abraham's descendants by Ishmael, he asked, 
 to be altogether excluded from this blessing, and had 
 they not now their part of the prophecy to fulfil, as 
 Abraham's descendants by Isaac had already fulfilled 
 theirs? ^ The Lord came from Sinai, He rose up 
 from Mount Seir unto them. He shined forth from 
 Mount Paran.' ' From Sinai had come the law of 
 Moses, so argued others for Mohammed, if he did not 
 argue for himself, from Mount Seir the Gospel ; and 
 now from Paran, the hills round Mecca, had come the 
 Koran.^ He adapted the fasts and the feasts of the 
 
 1 Deut. III. 2. 
 
 * Other passages of Scripture taken by Mohammed himself, or by 
 Musalman doctors, to refer to Islam, are Gen. XVII. 20 ; Isa. XXI. 7, 
 XLII. LXIII. 1-6 ; Habakkuk III. 3 ; John I. 21, ' art thou that 
 Prophet ? ' John XIV. 16 ; Rev. VI. 4. The treatment of the passage 
 in Isa. XXI. 7 is interesting : the watchman, according to the right 
 translation of the Hebrew original, ' saw a chariot with a couple of 
 riders, the one a rider on an ass, the other on a camel : ' if, as 
 
148 MOTIA?fMED AND MOHA.VMEDANrSM. 
 
 new religion to the Jewish model. He took from 
 them the law of usury and the law of inheritance. 
 He owes to them some of his regulations respecting 
 ablutions and unclean animals. He even, till he 
 could hope no longer, made Jerusalem the Kiblah of 
 the world for the five daily prayers. 
 
 It must have surprised Mohammed, with his half 
 knowledge of their history, that the Jews should be 
 unable to enter into his views of a great Catholic 
 creed, or Religion of Humanity — the creed of 
 Abraham — embracing Jews, Arabs, and Christians 
 in one body. But it can surprise no one who has 
 ever in any degree entered into the religious genius 
 of the Jewish race, or who has reflected on the 
 almost insuperable difficulties which lay in the way 
 of the Jews accepting that higher creed, the Author 
 of which it is their eternal honour to have produced, 
 and their tragic destiny to have rejected. And the 
 Bani Kainucaa, and the Bani Xadhir, the Bani 
 Kuraitza, and the Jews of Kheibar, bitterly expe- 
 rienced in Mohammed's subsequent treatment of 
 them the truth of the now-all-too-familiar maxim in 
 ecclesiastical history, that they who differ least in 
 religious matters hate the most. 
 
 It is impossible to gain for oneself, and almost 
 equally so to give to others within a short space of 
 time, anything like an adequate idea either of the 
 form or of the contents of the book of which Moham- 
 med, whatever the general influences brought to bear 
 upon his mind, was the undisputed author, and which 
 
 ChriBtiaii controversijilists nmintainetl, the Trophet of Nazareth was 
 one. is not, so argue tlie Musalman doctors, the Prophet of Mecca 
 the other .> 
 
HISTORY OF THE KORAN. 149 
 
 still underlies the life of the vast fabric of the 
 Mohammedan world. In my First Lecture I com- 
 pared and contrasted the Koran with the Bible ; but 
 it is necessary, perhaps, to say something more of its 
 leading characteristics, or the want of th^m. The 
 Koran defies analysis, for that presupposes something 
 like method in the thing to be analysed. It can 
 hardly be characterised by any one epithet, for there 
 is not a single Sura of any length which sustains a 
 uniform character throughout. It has often been re- 
 marked that there is no more striking proof of the 
 discrepancies of national taste than the diametrically 
 opposite opinions held by the cultivated classes of 
 East and West on the literary merits of the Koran. 
 Having performed repeatedly, for the purpose of 
 these Lectures, a task w^hich Bunsen and Sprenger and 
 Renan all pronounce to be almost impossible — that of 
 reading the Koran continuously from beginning to 
 end, both in the orthodox and chronological order 
 — I have acquired a better right, perhaps, than most 
 people to endorse the superficial opinion that dulness 
 is, to a European who is ignorant of Arabic, the pre- 
 vailing characteristic of the book as a whole, until 
 he begins to make a minute study of it. The 
 importance of the subjects it handles, the unique 
 interest attaching to the speaker, and the unaffected 
 reverence with which every utterance is still regarded 
 by so large a portion of the world, are insufBcient to 
 redeem it from this general reproach. 
 
 Endless assertions as to what the Koran is, and 
 what it is not, warnings drawn from previous 
 Arabian history, especially the lost tribes of Ad and 
 Thamud ; Jewish or Arab legends of the heroes 
 
160 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of the Old Testament, stories told, and, it must b e 
 added, often spoiled in the telling of them ; laws^ 
 ceremonial and moral, civil and sumptuar>^; personal 
 apologies ; curses showered upon Abu Lahab or the 
 whole community of the Jews ; all this alternates 
 with sublime revelations of the attributes of the 
 Godhead, with bursts of admiration for Christ Him- 
 self, though not for the views held of Him by His 
 so-called followers, with flights of poetry, with scath- 
 ing rebukes of the hypocrite, the ungrateful, the un- 
 merciful. 
 
 That the book as a whole is a medley, however it 
 may be arranged, will seem only natural when we 
 remember the way in which it was composed, pre- 
 served, edited, and stereotyped. Dictated from time 
 to time by Mohammed to his disciples, it was by 
 them partly treasured in their memories, partly written 
 down on shoulder-bones of mutton or oyster-shells, 
 on bits of wood or tablets of stone, which, being 
 thrown pell-mell into boxes, and jumbled up together, 
 like the leaves of the Cumean Sibyl after a gust of 
 wind, were not put into any shape at all till after the 
 Prophet's death by order of Abu Bakr. The work of 
 the editor consisted simply in arranging the Suras in 
 the order of their respective lengths, the longest first, 
 the shortest last ; and, though the book once after- 
 wards passed through the editor's hands, this is sub- 
 stantially the shape in which the Koran has come 
 down to us. Various readings, which would seem, 
 however, to have been of very slight importance, 
 having crept into the different copies, a revising com- 
 mittee was appointed by order of the Khalif Othman, 
 and, an authorized edition having been thus prepared 
 
HISTORY OF THE KORAN. I5t 
 
 ^ to prevent the texts differing, like those of the Jews 
 and Christians/ all previous copies were collected 
 and burnt ! 
 
 Nor is it to be wondered at that the principle of 
 arrangement, combined with the impossibility of 
 keeping the rhyme or ryhthm in any translation, 
 have prevented European critics, as a body, from 
 endorsing the judgment, not merely of Mohammed 
 himself, for that, if it had stood alone, might be 
 looked upon as partial, but also of the whole Eastern 
 world. 
 
 ^ If ye be in doubt as to our revelation to our 
 servant, then produce a Sura like unto it, and 
 summon your witnesses, God and all, if ye be men 
 of truth; ' 
 
 And again, ' If men and genii were assembled 
 together that they might produce a book like the 
 Koran, they must fail.' '^ 
 
 It is to be remarked that Mohammed and 
 Mohammed's enemies are quite at one as to the 
 merits of the book. The Arabs said that the Koran 
 could not be Mohammed's work because it was too 
 good. Mohammed replied to the effect that they 
 were both right and wrong. They were right, for it 
 was too good for Mohammed uninspired ; they were 
 wrong, for it was too good to have come originally 
 from anyone but the All-Merciful. ^ 
 
 Of course, by the existing arrangement, even such 
 psychological development as there was in the Koran 
 has been obscured ; for, as a rule, what the editor put 
 
 1 Sura II. 21. 
 
 ^ Sura XVIl. 90. 
 
 ^ Sura XVI. 105, compared with XXV. 5, etc. 
 
152 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 last comes really first. These are the burning utter- 
 ances of the Prophet who knows no influence but the 
 inspiration pent within him ; in these are the pith 
 and poetry of the whole ; while the elaborate and 
 laboured arguments, the apologice pro vita sua, are 
 the product of the mind which the force of circum- 
 stances and the love of spiritual power, that most 
 exquisite and most dangerous of fascinations, had 
 driven to become conscious of itself. The very titles 
 of the earlier Suras, the imprecations with which they 
 abound, the imagery they employ, suggest the shep- 
 herd of the desert, the despised visionary, the poet 
 and the prophet. ' The folding up,' ' the cleaving in 
 sunder,' ^ the celestial signs,' ^ the unity,' ^ the over- 
 whelming,' ^ the striking,' ' the inevitable,' * the earth- 
 quake,' ' the war-horses,' tell their own story. There 
 are passages in these, though it must be admitted they 
 are rare, which may be compared in grandeur even 
 with some of the sublimest passages of Job, of David, 
 or of Isaiah. 
 
 Take, for instance, the vision of the last day with 
 which the eighty-first Sura, ' The folding up,' begins ; 
 
 ' When the sun shall be folded uj). 
 And when the stars shall fall, 
 And when the mountains shall l>e set in motion, 
 And when the she-camels with youn^ shall te neglected. 
 And when the wild beasts shall V)e luiddlcd toyrether, 
 And when the seas shall lx)il, 
 And when souls shall Ihj joined a .rain to their Ixnlies, 
 
 rnd when the female child that had been buried alive .shall ask for '\ 
 what crime she was put to death, 1 
 
 And when the leaves of the B(X)k shall be unrollc<l. 
 And 'when the Heavens shall be stripped away like a skin, 
 And when Hell shall Ikj made to blaze, 
 And when I'aiadise shall l)e brouifht neai, 
 Every k)uI shall know what it has done.' 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF KORAN. 153 
 
 Allusions to the monotony of the desert ; the sun 
 in its rising brightness ; the moon in its splendour ; 
 are varied in the Koran by much more vivid mental 
 visions of the great day when men shall be like moths 
 scattered abroad, and the mountains shall become like 
 carded wool of various colours, driven by the wind. 
 No wonder that Labyd, the greatest poet of his time, 
 forbore to enter the poetic lists with Mohammed 
 when he recited to him the description of the infidel 
 in the second Sura. 
 
 ^ They are like 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 out of heaven big with darkness, thunder 
 and lightning, thrust their fingers into their ears be- 
 cause 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 ears and of their 
 eyes would He surely deprive them ; verily God is 
 almighty.' 
 
 And at the end of the same Sura, which, it is to be 
 remembered, appeared quite late in the Prophet's life, 
 at a period when it might have been expected that 
 the cares of government would dim the brightness of 
 the Prophet's visions, we find the sublime description 
 of Him whom it had been the mission of his life to 
 
154 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
 proclaim, and which is still engraved on precious 
 stones, and worn by devout Musalmans. 
 
 ' God ! there is no God but He, the Living, the 
 Eternal. Slumber doth not overtake Him, neither 
 sleep ; to Him belongeth all that is in heaven and in 
 earth. Who is he that can intercede with Him but 
 by His own permission ? He knoweth that which is 
 past and that which is to come unto them, and they 
 shall not comprehend anything of His knowledge 
 but so far as He pleaseth. His throne is extended 
 over heaven and earth, and the upholding of both 
 is no burden unto Him. He is the Lofty and the 
 Great.' 
 
 Such is the theology of the Koran ; and here, in 
 the same grand Sura, is perhaps the best summary of 
 its morality : — 
 
 ^ There is no piety in turning your faces towards 
 the East or the West, but he is pious who belie veth 
 in God, and the Last Day, and the Angels, 
 and the Scriptures and the Prophets ; who for 
 the love of God disburseth his wealth to his 
 kindred, and to the orphans, and the needy, and 
 the wa}'farer, and those who ask, and for ransom- 
 ing ; who observeth prayer, and payeth the legal 
 alms, and who is of those who are faithful to their 
 engagements when they have engaged in them, and 
 patient under ills and hardships and in time of 
 trouble ; these are they who are just, and those who 
 fear the Lord.' 
 
 Almost equally well too, as a proof of his poetic 
 inspiration, might have Mohammed quoted that other 
 description of Infidelity also produced late in his 
 life, and pronounced by Sir William Muir and by 
 
POETRY OF KORAN. , 165 
 
 Emanuel Deutsch to be one of the grandest in the 
 whole Koran. 
 
 ' As to the Infidels, their works are like the Serab 
 on the plain/ which the thirsty traveller thinketh to 
 be water, and then when he cometh thereto, he findeth 
 it to be nothing ; but he findeth God 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 
 on 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.' ^^ 
 
 Strange and graphic accounts have been preserved 
 to us by Ayishah of the physical phenomena attending 
 the Prophet's fits of inspiration. He heard as it were 
 the ringing of a bell ; he fell down as one dead ; he 
 sobbed like a camel ; he felt as though he were being 
 rent in pieces, and when he came to himself he felt as 
 though words had been ^ written on his heart.' And 
 when Abu Bakr, ' he who would have sacrificed father 
 and mother for Mohammed,' burst into tears at the 
 sight of the Prophet's whitening hair, ^ Yes,' said 
 Mohammed, ^ Hud and its sisters, the Terrific Suras, 
 have turned it white before its time.' '^ 
 
 But in order to make the general outline of Mo- 
 hammed's system, which I am attempting to draw, as 
 little imperfect as it is possible for me to make it 
 
 * i.e. the Mirage of the Desert. 
 
 * Sura XXIV. 39, 40. See Muir, III. 308 ; and Deutsch, ' Islam,' 
 in ' Quarterly Review,' No. 254, p. 346. 
 
 3 Suras XI., Hud ; LVI., ' The Inevitable ; ' CI., ' The Striking.' 
 See Muir, II. 88. 
 
156 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 within the limits I have prescribed myself, it is neces- 
 sary to touch upon three difficult questions, which 
 have acquired different degrees of prominence at 
 successive periods in the history of Mohammedanism 
 — questions which have been much misunderstood, 
 and sometimes intentionall}' misrepresented, and 
 which call more loudly even than other matters which 
 we have been considering for a laborious investigation 
 and a candid judgment. They need also above all 
 things the historical sense, which does not apply the 
 standard of the nineteenth century to the seventh, of 
 Europeans to Asiatics, or of a high civilisation to 
 semi-barbarism ; and which is content to balance the 
 evil against the good, without requiring a verdict 
 either for an absolute acquittal or an uncompromising 
 condemnation. The three questions I refer to are the 
 relation of Mohammedanism to Miracles, to Fatalism, 
 and to wars for the sake of Religion. I propose in 
 the remainder of this Lecture to deal with these in 
 succession ; not I hope consciously shirking any 
 difficulty, or glossing over what is unquestionably bad, 
 but, of course, not professing in any degree to exhaust 
 the subject. 
 
 First, then. Miracles. Mohammedanism is a system 
 in many respects unique, but in none more so than in 
 this, that alone of the great religions of the world 
 it does not, in its authoritative documents, rest its 
 claims to reception upon miracles ; and yet the 
 attitude of Mohammed towards the miraculous has 
 been made the ground by different people of very 
 conflicting accusations. Superficial obser\'ers up to 
 the middle of the last century, and Christian mission- 
 aries of later times, whose zeal has not always been 
 
ATTITUDE OF MOHAMMED TO MIRACLES. 157 
 
 tempered by accurate knowledge of their subject, 
 fastening on the fantastic character of the few miracles 
 attributed to Mohammed by the pious credulity of 
 his followers or the ^ successors/ have triumphantly 
 torn the mask from the ^ impostor/ and have gone 
 on to contrast, as well they might from their point 
 of view, the purposeless character and impossibility 
 of his supposed miracles, with the sober nature and 
 the moral purpose which underlie the miracles of 
 the New Testament, however supernatural they may 
 be. Other writers — White in his ' Bampton Lectures,' 
 and Paley in his ^ Evidences of Christianity,' and 
 Butler in his ' Analogy ' — preferring to appeal to what 
 Mohammed said of himself, rather than to what was 
 said of him by others, have driven home the con- 
 trast between Mohammedanism and Christianity by 
 pointing out that Christianity is attested by super- 
 natural manifestations, and is therefore Divine, while 
 Mohammedanism is neither the one nor the other. 
 Let us enquire what the Koran itself, the only trust- 
 worthy authority on the subject, says, and then make 
 one or two remarks on the general question. 
 
 In the thirteenth Sura we read, — 
 
 'The unbehevers say, Unless a sign be sent down 
 with him from his Lord, we will not believe. But 
 thou art a preacher only, O Mohammed ! ' 
 
 Mohammed replies that God alone can work 
 miracles; and, after specifying some of them, he 
 says : — 
 
 ' God alone knoweth that which is hidden, and 
 that which is revealed. He is the great and the 
 Most High.' 
 
 In the seventh Sura the Infidels ask why Mo- 
 
158 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 hammed had not been sent with miracles, hke 
 previous prophets? Because, rephed Mohammed, 
 miracles had proved inadequate to convince. Noah 
 had been sent with signs, and with what effect ? 
 Where was the lost tribe of Thamud? They had 
 refused to receive the preaching of the prophet Sahleh 
 unless he showed them a sign, and caused the rock to 
 bring forth a living camel. He did what they asked. 
 In scorn they had cut off the camel's feet, and then, 
 daring the Prophet to fulfil his threats of judgment, 
 were found dead in their beds next morning, stricken 
 by the angel of the Lord. There are some seven- 
 teen places in the Koran in which Mohammed is 
 challenged to work a sign, and he answers them all 
 to the same effect. 
 
 There are in the whole of the sacred book only 
 two supposed exceptions to the attitude thus assumed 
 by him ; and those who know how large a part 
 the Miraj, or miraculous journey on the Borak,^ bears 
 in popular conceptions of Mohammedanism, will learn 
 with surprise, if they have not gone much into the 
 matter, that there is only one passage in the Koran 
 which can be tortured into an allusion to the journey 
 to heaven. 
 
 ' Praise be to Him who transferred His servant by 
 night from the sacred temple to one that is more 
 remote.' * 
 
 To make this refer at all to the Miraj, we have to 
 insert the word * Mecca ' in one place, and Jerusalem 
 or * seventh heaven ' in another, and this, though in 
 
 ' Homk, after all, means only Lightning ; the Barak of the Jews ; 
 the Barca of the Carthajdnians. 
 • Sura XVII. 1. 
 
THE MIRACULOUS. 159 
 
 the sixtieth verse of the same Sura Mohammed tells 
 lis he was not sent with miracles, because people 
 would not believe them ; and in the sixty-second 
 verse express mention is made of a vision he had 
 had, beyond doubt, of this very journey ! So, too, in 
 the verse : ' The hour hath approached and the mpon 
 hath been split in sunder; '^ people were so anxious 
 to see an allusion to their own extravagant invention 
 of the moon's descending on the Kaaba, and entering 
 Mohammed's sleeve, that they forgot that ' the hour ' 
 means ' the hour of judgment,' and that the tense 
 used is the prophetic preterite. To the eye of the 
 Semitic ^ nabi,' whether Jewish or Arab, the future is 
 as the past.^ 
 
 Without discussing the question of miracles at 
 length, I would make three remarks on the general 
 subject : — First, that in a new religion the real cause 
 for wonder is, not that it claims to be founded on 
 miracles, but that it should ever be able to profess to 
 do without them. In certain stages of the human 
 mind there is no natural phenomenon which will not 
 bear a supernatural interpretation. In fact, the super- 
 natural is then the rule ; the natural, the exception. 
 Gibbon, I think, has somewhere asked whether there 
 exists a single instance in ecclesiastical history of a 
 Father of the Church claiming for himself the power 
 of working miracles, and I am not aware that the 
 question has ever been answered in the affirmative. 
 And yet we know that during many centuries there 
 
 » Sura LIV. 1. 
 
 2 Cf. the past tense used in Sura XCVIIL, called < The Victory'— 
 ' Verily, we have won for thee an undoubted victory,' believed to 
 point to the conquest of Mecca two years later. 
 
160 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 was hardly a Father of the Church who did not have 
 miracles attributed to him by other men of equal, or 
 even greater, reputed sanctity. Among many others 
 I need only mention the names of St. Benedict and 
 St. Martin of Tours, of St. Bernard and St. Francis of 
 Assisi. They attribute even to inanimate remains, 
 and to relics, which were often fictitious, powers which 
 they would never dream of claiming for themselves. 
 St. Augustine, whose honesty is above suspicion, tells 
 us gravely that he had ascertained, on certain evi- 
 dence, that some small fragments of the disinterred 
 relics of St. Stephen had, in his own diocese, within 
 two years, performed no less than seventy miracles, 
 and three of them raisings from the dead ! St. Ber- 
 nard was believed by his admirers to have excommu- 
 nicated some flies which teased him, and * they 
 straightway fell down in heaps.' And if such be the 
 mental atmosphere of a Church in its adolescence, 
 a fortiori will an age which is capable of producing 
 or receiving a new religion throw a mystic halo of 
 supernatural! sm round the supreme objects of its 
 reverence. Even if the founder himself disclaims the 
 power of working miracles, they will be thrust upon 
 him in the most perfect good faith by the warm 
 imagination of his disciples. 
 
 Secondly, and what would seem to follow from 
 my first remark : in proportion as exact knowledge 
 advances, the sphere of the supernatural is narrowed ; 
 and therefore a proof which is fitted for an imaginative 
 and creative age is not best suited for a critical and 
 scientific one. Many minds, no doubt, will always 
 crave the supernatural, and they will always find 
 plenty of it ; but to many, also, in an age like this. 
 
RELIGIOUS INSTINCT AN ULTIMATE FACT. 161 
 
 miracles have been a stumbling-block, and have seemed 
 a reason for rejecting the religion which is made to 
 rest mainly on them. Where there is a choice, it is at 
 least wise to select the strongest ground we have ; nor 
 is there any fear that Science will ever explain too 
 much. Behind what she explains, there will always 
 remain the unexplained and the unexplainable. Let 
 her classify and explain the phenomena of Mind and 
 Matter as she will, but will she ever be able to tell 
 us what Mind and Matter are themselves ? Let her 
 analyse the springs of human action, and dissect the 
 complex anatomy of the human conscience ; but the 
 religious instinct will still remain, as an ultimate fact 
 of human nature ; and that instinct will find without, 
 or supply from its own resources, the verities with 
 which it deals, the verities which supplement and 
 explain to it the facts of Nature, and are not explained 
 by them ; which assure us that this life is not the only 
 life, nor death extinction; and that love, the main 
 source of human happiness, is not given us to make 
 all real happiness impossible ; which, in a word, supply 
 the soul with the supreme objects for its worship and 
 its aspirations. 
 
 Thirdly, I would remark that the answers given by 
 Mohammed himself to those who demanded miracles, 
 that God gave the power of working miracles to whom 
 He pleased ; that other prophets had wrought mira- 
 cles, and had not been believed ; that he who could 
 not know even himself adequately, could not know 
 what God had hidden ; that there were greater mira- 
 cles in nature than any which could be wrought out- 
 side of it ; that the Koran itself was a miracle, find at 
 least one line of thought in a greater than Moham- 
 
 F 
 
162 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 med, which is not opposed to, but identical with them. 
 People have raised questions about the authenticity 
 and meaning of much that is in the Gospels, but by 
 the rules of all critical interpretation, what they can 
 least question is the genuineness and accuracy of those 
 passages which the Disciples have, in their undoubted 
 honesty, recorded, as it were, in spite of themselves, 
 and which appear to run counter to other and loftier 
 conceptions of that majestic character on whose par- 
 tially-preserved utterances all Christendom still hangs. 
 He who said he could of His own self do nothing ; 
 it was the spirit which quickened, the flesh profiteth 
 nothing ; the words that He spake unto them, they 
 were spirit and they were life ; He who, when His 
 Disciples wondered at the withered fig tree, told them 
 that the trust in God which underlay His act would 
 enable even them to do greater things ; who, we are 
 told, cotcld not, in certain places, work m'racles because 
 of their unbelief ; and when people declined to accept 
 His teaching on higher grounds, told them, with a 
 touch of scorn, that they might do so if they liked on 
 the lower ground, for ^ His very works' sake ; ' and 
 lastly, who said it was an evil and adulterous genera- 
 tion which sought after a sign, and that no sign should 
 be given it ; and that if a man believed not Moses 
 and the Prophets, not even would he repent though 
 one rose from the dead ; in one aspect, at all events, 
 of His teaching agreed with the Arabian Prophet 
 whom Christians have so much discredited. He, at 
 all events, treated the miraculous as subordinate to 
 the moral evidences of His mission, and struck upon 
 a vein of thought and touched a chord of feeling 
 which, it seems to me, is reconcilable at once with 
 
FATALISM. 163 
 
 the onward march of Science, and all the admitted 
 weaknesses of human nature. 
 
 11. Fatalism. I have spoken above of the extra- 
 ordinary impulse given to the earlier followers of 
 Mohammed by their vivid sense of God's personal 
 presence with them. Inspiring, indeed, this principle 
 then was ; for it must never be forgotten, as I hope 
 now to prove, that the belief in an absolute predesti- 
 nation, which turns men into mere puppets, and all 
 human life into a grim game of chess, wherein men 
 are the pieces, moved by the invisible Hand of but a 
 single Player, and which is now so general in Moham- 
 medan countries, was, all appearances to the contrar)', 
 no part of the creed of the Prophet himself or of his 
 immediate successors ; ^ and I venture, therefore, to 
 think that Gibbon is wrong in tracing the desperate 
 valour of the primitive Musulmans mainly to the 
 notion that since there was no chance, there need be 
 no fear : the germ, indeed, of fatalism was there, but 
 its effects were as yet anything but fatalistic. 
 
 It is of course true that there are many passages 
 in the Koran which assert in the strongest way the 
 foreknowledge of God. For instance, ^The fate of 
 every man have we bound about his neck ; ' and the 
 relations of the slain at the battle of Ohud are com- 
 forted by the assurance that every one must die at 
 his appointed time, whether it be in his own bed or 
 on the field of battle. Nor is it possible to any reli- 
 gion to reconcile the conflicting dogmas of the fore- 
 knowledge of God and of the free will of man. The 
 New Testament does not try to do so. St. Paul's 
 
 1 Cf . ' National Review ' for July, 1858, p. 154. 
 
164 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 simile of the potter, for instance, in the Romans is as 
 fatalistic as is any passage in the Koran. It asserts 
 an absolute predestination as strongly as many other 
 passages in his Epistles assert free will. It is not 
 likely that Fathers of the Church or controversialists 
 will succeed in doing what an Apostle found it neces- 
 sary to leave undone, and the maxim of John of 
 Damascus, ^ ilhid scire oportet, Detim omnia prcBscire 
 sed 11071 omnia proefinire,' does not get over the 
 difficulty, though he appears to have imagined that it 
 did. Most assuredly our own Articles of Religion, 
 however successful they may be in finding a com- 
 promise between opposing views on other things, fail 
 to effect a compromise here. Press to its logical 
 result either the omnipotence or the omniscience of 
 God, and w^hat becomes of man's free wnll ? But logic 
 is not the only criterion of truth, nor is it the only 
 rule of life ; and consequently there is hardly a re- 
 ligion which does not, in words at all events, assert as 
 strongly as possible God's foreknowledge ; in acts, at 
 all events, man's freedom. Sometimes one will be 
 the more prominent, sometimes the other. 
 
 The Prophet of Arabia naturally dwelt most on 
 those attributes of God which, throwing the widest 
 gulf between the Creator and His creatures, would, 
 once and for all, rescue the Arabs from worshipping 
 what their owni hands had made.' He inculcates 
 hope in adversity, and humility in success, on the 
 ground that there is a supreme Ruler who never leaves 
 the helm ; who knows what is really best for man 
 when man himself does not ; and whose supreme will 
 
 • Cf. Qobineau, ' Les Religrions et les Philosophies dans I'Asie 
 Centrale.' See the whole passage on this subject, p. 72, 73. 
 
MOHAMMED NOT A FATALIST. 165 
 
 and power, where He asserts them, cannot be crossed 
 by the efforts of the creatures of His hand. But this 
 is not the only side to his teaching. He asserts that 
 man is a free agent ; free to refuse or to accept the 
 Divine message, responsible for his acts, and therefore 
 deserving, now of punishment, now of reward. The 
 future, in fact, is in his own hands, and Mohammed 
 incessantly urges him to use his opportunities. Ali, 
 the most saintly, I would almost sa}^ the most Chris- 
 tian, of all Musalmans, pronounces those who say the 
 will is not free to be heretics.^ There are at least 
 four sects among Mohammedans that differ from one 
 another on the one point of predestination and free 
 will. One of them, the Mutazalites, almost assert 
 what philosophers have called the ^ liberty of indif- 
 ference ; ' and there is little doubt that Mohammed 
 himself, if the alternative had been clearly presented 
 to him, would have had more in common with Pela- 
 gius than with Augustine, with Arminius than with 
 Calvin. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that, if Mohammed had 
 been the consistent fatalist he is often represented to 
 have been, he would have made prayer one of the 
 four practical duties enjoined upon the faithful, and 
 that, on an equal or even a higher footing than alms- 
 giving, fasting, and pilgrimage. He is said to have 
 called it the Pillar of Religion and the Key of Para- 
 dise. He told a tribe which, after its conversion, 
 begged for a remission of some of the daily prayers 
 enjoined upon them, that there could be no good in 
 a religion in which there was no prayer ; and, ac- 
 cording to one of his successors, prayer of itself lifts 
 
 ' Quoted by Gobinean. loc. cit. 
 
166 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 men half way to heaven.' Now, if all events are 
 absolutely fixed by the Divine will, and foreseen by the 
 Divine mind, then there is no possibility, I do not 
 say of altering the fixed laws of nature, for that is a 
 power which few would claim for prayer, but even of 
 a man's improving in the smallest degree, by any 
 acts or petitions of his, his own spiritual condition. 
 Prayer would thus be a superfluity and delusion if 
 explained in any other way than as an aspiration of 
 the heart towards God, which, being an end in itself, 
 necessarily brings its own answer with it. Now, 
 whether this last is a true view of prayer or not, it 
 was certainly not Mohammed's view. In neither case 
 would he have been quite a consistent fatalist ; but it 
 is not likely that he could have overlooked the 
 glaring inconsistencies involved between an absolute 
 predestination on the one hand, and material answers 
 
 1 As to the reality of Prayer amongst Mohammedans, see the testi- 
 mony of Lieutenant WocmI, the intrepid explorer of the Oxus, who 
 gave a signal proof of his high Christian chamcter by resigning his 
 post under the Indian Government, on finding that it had employed 
 him to make promises of friendship to the Afghans which it was not 
 prepared to keep. He says ( ' Journey to the Source of the Oxus,' 
 p. 93), after mentioning a remarkable proof of the importance which 
 liis Mohammedan guides attached to prayer, ' Often since that time 
 have I observed that the Mohammedans, both old and young, how- 
 ever worn out by fatigue or suffering from hunger and thii-st, have 
 postponed all thought of self-indulgence to their duty to their God. 
 It is not with them the mere force of habit ; it is the strong impres- 
 sion on their minds that the duty of prayer is so important that no 
 circumstances can excuse its omission.' Nor did their dependence on 
 God make them less ready to help themselves. As they nearetl the 
 dangerous whirlpools of the Indus below Attock (p. 77). * the crew 
 went to prayers : then, steering the oars, they fixed their eyes upon 
 the steersman, watching for his signal when they were to exert 
 themselves.' (Cf . Wali^le's * Ansayrii,' I. r>6-r»9. Curzon's * Mon- 
 asteries,' p. 5G, &c.) 
 
MOHAMMED'S VIEW OF PRAYER. 167 
 
 to prayer on the other. The prayers that he enjoined 
 five times a day ^ are still offered with full confidence 
 in their efficacy by all devout Musalmans, and the 
 cry of the Muezzin, before daybreak, from a myriad 
 mosques and minarets — ^ Prayer is better than sleep, 
 prayer is better than sleep ' — is a living witness, 
 wherever the influence of the Prophet of Arabia has 
 extended, more vivid than the letter of the Koran 
 itself, overpowering even the lethargy and quietism of 
 the East, to Mohammed's belief in God's providen- 
 tial government of the world, and in the freedom of 
 man's will. 
 
 Mohammed, on one occasion, complains of the Jews 
 that ' if good fortune betide them, they say it is from 
 God ; if evil betide them, they say it is from Moham- 
 med : ' say rather, he suggests, all is from God. But 
 what, he asks in the very next verse, has come to 
 these people that they are not near to understanding 
 what is told them ? 
 ^y,yJ^i 'Whatever good betideth thee is from God, and \f^^^'^^^^^ 
 ivhatever betideth thee of evil is from thyself.' ^ aw^l^ 
 
 There are the two contradictories brought face to 
 face, and left fronting one another for all time ; and 
 can any religion do more, and, perhaps, I may add, 
 less, than this ? 
 
 It is not difficult to see how one and the same 
 doctrine of God's foreknowledge on the one hand, 
 and of His actual intervention in human affairs on 
 
 ^ It is worth noticing, in passing, that the five daily prayers, like 
 the rite of circumcision, though universally observed by Musalmans, 
 are not enjoined in the Koran itself. Circumcision is not even men- 
 tioned in the Koran : it is one of the many Pre-Islamitic practices 
 which Mohammed tacitly sanctioned. 
 
 2 SuralV. 80, 81. 
 
168 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 the other, may have diametrically opposite effects in 
 different natures, or in even the same natures under 
 different circumstances. 
 
 • There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries.' 
 
 The early Musalmans, in the new burst of life 
 breathed into them by Mohammed, it inspired with 
 double energy and double enthusiasm, as in their best 
 days it inspired the Puritans, the Covenanters, the 
 Pilgrim Fathers. But to their descendants in their 
 more normal state — the dreamy Sufi, the brooding 
 Sepoy, the insensate Turk ; I would add, to those 
 religious people who refuse to prevent the miseries 
 and the diseases which Nature, they think, has 
 attached to guilt — it furnishes with a new excuse for 
 that life of inactivity to which they are already too 
 much disposed, since they believe that they are ac- 
 quiescing, as in duty bound, in the immutable decrees 
 ofGod.^ 
 
 III. One more question remains to be discussed 
 to-day — the wars of Islam and the relation they bear 
 to Mohammed's religion. It is true that it was not 
 till the Prophet found himself, to his surprise, in a 
 position of power at Medina, that we hear even a 
 whisper of the sword as an instrument of conversion. 
 It is then, and not till then, that we are told that 
 other prophets have been sent by God to attest His 
 different attributes in their own person and by their 
 
 ' Sec an eloquent passage on tbin subject in an article of the 
 •National Review' for October, 1861, entitletl the Great Arabian, 
 p. 312. 
 
USE OF THE SWORD. 169 
 
 miraculous acts ; but that men had closed their eyes 
 to the character, and denied the miracles, even of 
 Moses and of Christ. What remained to the last of 
 the prophets except that he should try the last argu- 
 ment of the sword ? Was the sword then an after- 
 thought and an accidental appendage merely to Mo- 
 hammed's religion, or was it an essential part ? I am 
 inclined to think that the nature of the case itself 
 and the verdict of subsequent experience will tend to 
 show that, however absent it was from Mohammed's 
 thoughts at first, and however alien to his gentle and 
 forgiving nature, it came in the progress of events to 
 some extent in his own life, and still more so in the 
 lives of his successors, to be the latter. How this 
 came about requires careful explanation. 
 
 Mohammed's notion of God had never been that of 
 a great moral Being who designs that the creatures 
 He has created should, from love and gratitude to 
 Him, become one with Him, or even assimilated to 
 Him. Mohammed believed in God, feared, reverenced, 
 and obeyed Him after his light, as few Jews or 
 Christians ever did ; but he could hardly be said in 
 the Christian, or even the Jewish sense of the word, 
 to love God. It is possible that repeated acts of 
 obedience to a God whom he always represents as 
 compassionate and merciful might imply or result in 
 love ; but at all events with him love was not, as it 
 is in Christianity, the fulfilling of the law, the inspiring 
 motive to action, the sum of its theology as of its 
 morality. Had it been so, Mohammed would have 
 seen more reason to doubt whether the sword could 
 ever be its best ally ; but though he must in any case 
 have seen that it was impossible to force men to love 
 
170 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 God, it may have crossed his mind that it was possible 
 to force men to abstain from idolatry, to acknowledge 
 one God with their lips, to fear and to obey Him, at 
 all events in their outward acts. 
 
 Had Mohammed remained master of himself — 
 had he remained, that is to say, the simple Prophet 
 throughout his career — it is possible, on the one hand, 
 that his message would never have spread in his life- 
 time beyond the walls of Mecca and Medina ; and it 
 is more than probable, on the other, that his character 
 
 ■ might now be held up to the world as that which we 
 feel the Founder of a religion ought to be ; that which 
 Confucius and Buddha were, and that which Moham- 
 med himself, throughout his life at Mecca, unques- 
 tionably was — a perfect model of the saintly virtues. 
 There is one glory of the founder of a religion, another 
 of the founder of a nation, another of the founder of 
 an empire. They are better kept distinct ; and the 
 limits of the human faculties are an adequate security 
 against their being often found united in one person. 
 It is the uncongenial mixture of earthly needs and 
 heavenly aspirations which has made Mohammed at 
 once a smaller and a greater man — at once more and 
 less commanding than he would otherwise have been. 
 
 I What he gains as a ruler of men, he loses as a guide 
 and as an example ; and people are, naturally enough, 
 led to condemn the prophet for the drastic energy of 
 the leader, and the leader for the shortcomings of the 
 prophet. It is, perhaps, inevitable that Christians 
 should do so ; for the image of Him whose kingdom 
 was not of this world, who did not strive nor cry, 
 whose servants were never to draw the sword in 
 His defence, forces itself upon the mind, in silent 
 
MOHAMMED SOLDIER AS WELL AS PROPHET. 171 
 
 and reproachful antithesis to the mixed and sulhed 
 character of the Prophet-soldier Mohammed. The 
 trumpet-call is not the still small voice ; it is im- 
 measurably below it : but there has been room for 
 both in the development of humanity. 
 
 Now, on a sudden, Mohammed found himself in a 
 position he had not courted, which was forced on him 
 l)y his enemies ; and the exigencies of his exiled 
 followers — the need of sustenance, the appetite for 
 plunder, the desire of revenge, and the longing for 
 their homes, no less than the impending attack of the 
 Kuraish — drove the Prophet for the first time to 
 place himself at their head ; and, for temporal pur- 
 poses only, to unsheath the sword. Mohammed thus 
 became a general by accident ; and the extraordinary 
 success of his first ventures deepened the impression, 
 already half natural to an Arab, that the sword might 
 be a legitimate instrument of spiritual warfare, and 
 that God had put into his power a new means, where 
 all other means, as in the case of previous prophets, 
 had failed. At all events the sword, originally drawn 
 for temporal purposes only, was found to have, half- 
 unexpectedly, answered another end as well. It was 
 found that the religion, once started by the sword, was 
 soon able to throw the sword away. The march of 
 the Faith anticipated the march of the army of the 
 Faithful, and the all but uniform success of the armies, 
 when they had to fight, seemed to stamp the means 
 used with the Divine approbation : and so it was 
 that Mohammed felt less and less scruple as to the 
 use of the sw^ord where it seemed to him to be 
 wanted ; and at the close of his life, in one of the last 
 Suras of the Koran we are hardly surprised to find 
 
172 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 the stern command and the 'magnificent presenti- 
 ment : ' 
 
 ' Fight on, therefore, till there be no temptation to 
 idolatry, and the religion becomes God's alone.' ^ 
 
 The early Khalifs obeyed the precepts and imi- 
 tated the example of the warrior-Prophet, and went 
 forth on their enterprise in all the plenitude of auto- 
 cratic power ; there was no rivalry between Church 
 and State to tie their hands, for the Khalif was the 
 head of both in one ; the State, so far as it had any 
 separate existence at all, being simply a creature of 
 the Church. And let us here turn aside for a moment 
 to examine the relation then subsisting between the 
 spiritual and temporal power, first in the Western, 
 and then in the Eastern Empire, and to contrast it 
 with the extraordinary concentration of all the ener- 
 gies of a new-born enthusiasm, placed in the hands of 
 the Khalif. We shall then see, on the one hand, 
 from what a vantage-ground the Arabs, at that precise 
 moment, entered the lists to contend with Christen- 
 dom ; but, on the other, we shall note how few are 
 the men who, even under the most exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, can, in the exercise of power, afford to 
 dispense with those checks which are a condition of 
 its permanence, and which alone can prevent it from 
 developing into unbridled tyranny, or dying of inani- 
 tion. 
 
 The Christianity of the West then had, centuries 
 before this, organized an imperium in imperio which 
 afforded a substantial check to the tyranny of the 
 Emperors, and, by its moral majesty, could restrain a 
 
 ' Sura VIII. 40. Cf. also XXII. 40. atul IX. pa^m : perhaps the 
 last Sura Mohammed <'om|X)so(l. 
 
SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL POWER. 173 
 
 savage barbarian even in the full career of conquest. 
 Ambrose had sternly rebuked Theodosius ; Innocent 
 had mitigated the horrors of the sack of Rome by 
 Alaric ; Leo had turned back Attila, and half-dis- 
 armed Genseric. The transference of the seat of 
 Empire to Constantinople forced the Bishops of Rome 
 into a political prominence which would not otherwise 
 have belonged to them ; and, in process of time, 
 the spiritual power thus fortified began to contend, 
 on something like equal terms, with the temporal. 
 Gregory the Great, whose pontificate ended shortly 
 before the ' call ' of the Prophet of Arabia, was the 
 virtual sovereign of Rome, able to protect it alike 
 from the ferocity of the Lombards, and from the pre- 
 tentious weakness of the Exarchs. Before long the 
 sacerdotal monarchs who reigned on the Tiber were 
 to be seen deposing by right Divine one Prankish 
 dynasty which ruled upon the Rhine ; setting up an- 
 other of their own creation ; and, finally, in the person 
 of Charles the Great, -giving new body to the phantom 
 of the ancient Roman Empire which had never ceased 
 to flit before the mind of Europe, and fancying, in 
 their superb audacity, that a breath might overthrow 
 what a breath had made. And, by the time that 
 the Eternal City itself heard the dreaded Tecbir 
 at their gates, it was to a Pope, and not a Caesar — 
 a Pope, too, elected in hot haste, without even the 
 formal sanction of the Caesar — that Rome owed her 
 safety ! ^ 
 
 But the religion of the Eastern Empire, to quote 
 Gibbon's epigram, could teach men only ' to suffer and 
 
 » Leo IV. 
 
174 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 to yield.' The Patriarch of Constantinople, unlike the 
 Patriarch of Rome, was the puppet of the Emperor, 
 endorsed his worst deeds, or was swept away if he 
 objected to them.^ And the Saracens who besieged 
 the ' ceremonious ' Emperor of the East in his own 
 capital must have enjoyed, if they could read, the 
 form of service, prescribed by Church and State 
 together, for the day on which the Emperor should 
 trample on the necks of the captive Musalmans, while 
 the singers were to chant, ' Thou hast made mine 
 enemies my footstool,' and the people were to shout 
 forty times the ^ Kyrie Eleeson.' '^ The crusading 
 spirit which might have been evoked by a proposition 
 of the great Emperors, Nicephorus and Zimisces, to 
 give a martyr's crown to those who fell in battle with 
 the infidels, was checkmated by a counter-proposition 
 of the Patriarch to exclude from the highest rites of 
 the Church all those who took up arms even in self- 
 defence.^ Had it been otherwise, the period of the 
 Crusades might have been anticipated by more than 
 a hundred years ! We see, therefore, that in the West, 
 by the time that the tide of Arab conquest had spread 
 from Mecca to Gibraltar, the spiritual power was in- 
 dependent of the temporal, and was often able to 
 
 • See the history of the Iconoclastic Emperors generally, A.D. 
 717-841, and their dealings with the Patriarchs of Constantinople. 
 Read esj^ecially, on the one hand, the account of the dastanlly sub- 
 mission of the Patriarch Anastasius to Leo, and, on the other, the 
 horrible cruelties inflicted on the Patriarch Constantine by Coprony- 
 mus. Milman, II. Chap. VII. 
 
 ' See the • De Ceremoniis Aulas et Ecclesias Byxantinse ' of Con- 
 stantine Porphyrogenitus, II. 19 ; quoted by Gibbon, Chap. LII 1. 116, 
 and Dote. 
 
 » See Gibbon, loc. cit 
 
KHALIFS, SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL RULERS, 175 
 
 control or neutralise its action, even in temporal 
 affairs ; while in the East, on which the storm was 
 first to burst, it was almost non-existent ; and if ever 
 it did cause its voice to be heard, the cry it uttered 
 was that of Phocion, not of Demosthenes — of Jere- 
 miah, not of Isaiah ; that of submission to the inevi- 
 table, not of resistance to the bitter end. 
 
 But with the Saracens the case was different. The 
 God of Mohammed, hke the God of the wanderers of 
 the wilderness, and unlike the God of Christendom, 
 was pre-eminently the God of Battles. The early 
 Musalmans shed tears when held back within their 
 leashes from the battle, and the Emperor Leo, who 
 condemned the Mohammedan idea of God, must have 
 secretly envied the vigour that it brought. Military 
 zeal under a tried leader is a strong passion, so is 
 religious enthusiasm ; and never probably in the 
 history of the world have these two passions burned 
 with so consuming a flame as they did in the breasts 
 of the early followers of Mohammed. The civil, the 
 religious, and the military were as indissolubly blended 
 together in his system as they were in mediaeval 
 chivalry. It was not so much religion that became 
 warlike, as w^ar, the normal condition of the Arabs on 
 a small scale, now itself became religious, with the 
 whole world for its battle ground. Probably in no 
 army in the world, not even among the Scotch 
 Covenanters, nor among Cromwell's Ironsides, did 
 religious exercises so form part of the military dis- 
 cipline, and religious enthusiasm so infuse an esprit 
 de corps. 
 
 The early battles of Islam, Bedr and Ohud, Kade- 
 sia and Nehavend, the Yermuk and Aiznadin ; its 
 
176 MO HA ^f MED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 early sieges, Bozra and Damascus, Jerusalem and 
 Aleppo, Memphis and Alexandria, are more than 
 Homeric in the reckless valour and the chivalrous 
 devotion that they exhibit. And it is to be re- 
 membered that they are, in the main, historical. 
 Khaled is the Achilles of the siege of Damascus, Amru 
 of that of Memphis, Dames of Aleppo. At Bedr, 
 Omeir, a mere stripling, who, fearing that he might 
 be rejected on account of his youth, had managed to 
 join the small army of the Faithful unknown to Mo- 
 hammed, flung away the dates he was eating, with 
 the vow that he would eat the next in the presence 
 of God. ' Paradise is before you, the devil and hell- 
 fire in your rear,' was the exhortation of the generals 
 at the battle of Yermuk. The Faithful courted death 
 with the ecstasy of martyrs, and received a martyr's 
 reward. At Aiznadin, Derar maintained a flying 
 fight single handed against thirty infidels, and killed 
 seventeen of their number. To Khaled, after he had 
 been fighting long, he cried, * Repose yourself : you 
 are tired of fighting with this dog.' ' He that labours 
 to-day,' replied Khaled, 'shall rest in the world to 
 come.' ' God is victorious,' said Ali, four hundred 
 times in a conflict, and each time he laid low an 
 unbeliever. At the siege of Damascus, a Saracen 
 heroine, who had followed her husband, Aban, to the 
 holy war, saw him killed by her side, stopped to bury 
 him, and then fought on in the post of danger till she 
 slew the famous archer who had killed her husband. 
 Nor is there any period in the histor}^ of Mohamme- 
 danism, late or early, in which the intensity of the 
 crusading spirit does not on occasion manifest itself. 
 It is God's battle that each Muslim is fighting ; and 
 
RELIGIOUS AND MILITARY ENTHUSIASM. IIT 
 
 as God may will, he is ready for either event, for 
 victory or defeat, for life or death. In the Crusades 
 themselves, when Christendom seemed to be seized 
 with a double portion of the Mohammedan spirit, by 
 the confession of the Christians, the generosity, the 
 reckless valour, the self-sacrifice, and the chivalry 
 were not all on one side. Richard of England and 
 Frederick Barbarossa found their match in Saladin ; 
 and even the history of our own Empire in India 
 teems with proofs that the vital spark of fanaticism 
 is latent only, not extinct. 
 
 Whenever hitherto, in the history of Mohamme- 
 danism, the belief has grown feeble that the Faithful 
 hold a commission from on high to put down evil, 
 wherever it shows itself, with a strong hand, it must 
 be admitted that the religion itself has proportion- 
 ately failed to do its proper work, both as a com- 
 pelling and as a restraining power. In the Middle 
 Ages the vitality and energy of Mohammedanism 
 evidenced itself most clearly, not in Arabia, or 
 Persia, or Northern Africa, where its success was 
 most complete, but in the Christian border lands, in 
 Spain, in Palestine, in Asia Minor, where the crusad- 
 ing spirit was most evoked. Where there was no 
 outlet for an active, and even a material warfare, 
 against what was believed to be evil, there corruption 
 crept in, and stealthily paralysed all the energies of 
 Musalman society. ^ Corruptio optimi Jit pessima." 
 Ommiade, and Abbasside, and Fatimite Khalifs ; 
 Ghaznevide, and Seljukian, and Ottoman Sultans 
 passed through the same dreary stages of luxury and 
 decay ; and the government that now represents, or 
 misrepresents, the Khalifate, and is by most people 
 
 F 2 
 
178 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 foolishly supposed to be the main support of Islam, 
 originally in the hands of men like Abu Bakr, or 
 Omar, the best, the simplest, and the most re- 
 publican of all absolute governments, has, in the 
 hands of the Ottoman Turks, ever since their faith 
 ceased to be militant, become the most hopeless 
 of despotisms, since the abject submission to the 
 ruler remains, while all reason for submission has 
 vanished.^ 
 
 In the eyes of many, the admission I have frankly 
 made that the propagation of religion by the sword 
 has been an essential part of Mohammedanism will 
 serve to condemn it at once, and so, in the abstract 
 and from the highest point of view, it ought. The 
 sword is a rough surgical instrument in any case ; but 
 the doctrine that religion can ever be propagated by 
 it, paradoxical as it sounds now, has seemed a truism 
 in more ages than one ; and though the Arabs were 
 semi-barbarians, the conquered nations were con- 
 strained to admit that in their conquests they were 
 not barbarous. Their wars were not mere wars of 
 devastation like those of Genseric or Attila in eariier 
 times, or of Chenghis Khan or Tamerlane in later. 
 It was the savage boast of Attila, the genius of 
 destruction, the ^ scourge of God,' that the grass 
 never grew where his horse had once trodden ; and 
 the proverb has, in later times, been applied by their 
 enemies to the conquests of the Turks, to those rich 
 provinces whose resources, from whatever causes, 
 have been so long wasted, and whose inhabitants 
 
 ' See this line of thought developed by Maurice, ' Religions of the 
 World,' p. 29 sq. I have done little more in this paragraph than 
 condense and illustrate his argument. 
 
TURKISH MISGOVERNMENT. 179 
 
 have been so misgoverned under the sway of the 
 Othmanhs. 
 
 The saying that the grass never grows in the foot- 
 prints of a Turk is, it must be admitted, not without 
 some truth. The system of government, never an 
 enhghtened one, has at all events since the so-called 
 ^ reforms ' of the Sultan Mahmoud been rotten at the 
 core. Stambul has become an asylum for the rascality 
 of West and East alike ; the finest peasantry in the 
 world, the inhabitants of Asia Minor, are dying by 
 starvation, partly, no doubt, owing to bad harvests, 
 but still more owing to the neglect of the most 
 ordinary precautions and duties of government. Roads 
 unmade, bridges broken down, mines unworked, un- 
 principled and exorbitant provincial Pashas, waste- 
 fulness and disorder and excessive centralisation ; 
 such is the picture which travellers give us of those 
 fair regions of the earth, ^ and unfortunately we know 
 it to be a true picture. But it is easy, for all this, to 
 be too hard upon the Turk — to forget how much 
 there is that is fine in his character, to forget that 
 many of the vices of which we complain are not 
 Turkish, but European in their origin — to forget that 
 those governments which are loudest in their com- 
 plaints are the very governments which by the 
 injurious privileges they have claimed in the ' Capi- 
 tulations, ' ^ for the most worthless of their subjects 
 
 » See Admiral Blade's ' Turkey, Greece, and Malta,' Vol. I. 295- 
 353, &c. Layard's 'Nineveh and Babylon,' I. i. p. 5, 11-13, &c. 
 * Quarterly Review,' Oct. 1874, Art. Provincial Turkey. 
 
 2 See Walpole's ' Ansayrii,' I. ii. 23, 24 ; * East and West,' Essays 
 I. and II. ; and compare Curzon's ' Monasteries of the Levant,' p. 69, 
 for the like deleterious effects produced by Western influences on 
 Cairo. See also the dignified protest of General Kheredine, Prime 
 Minister of Tunis, ' Reforms of Musalman States,' p. 34 seq. 
 
' 180 MOHA MM ED A ND MO HA MMEDA NISM. 
 
 resident at Stambul ; by their usurious loans, and by 
 their incessant interventions ; by the funeral orations 
 they have so frequently pronounced upon the sick 
 man, and by their ill-disguised eagerness to divide 
 his effects even before his death, have done most to 
 render anything like good government impossible. 
 
 The genuine Othmanli has many noble social and 
 national characteristics : he is, or was, till the ex- 
 ample and the precept of the Western money-makers 
 influenced him, eminently a man of his word ; his 
 word was his bond, and a bond which was a first-rate 
 security. He is still sober, temperate, dignified, and 
 courageous. Terribly cruel as he is when his passions 
 are aroused, he is at other times gentle, hospitable, 
 and humane. Nowhere in Christendom, with the one 
 exception perhaps of Norway, are beasts of burden and 
 domestic animals treated with such unvarying kind- 
 ness and consideration as they are in Turkey, and 
 nowhere probably, in spite of all the depressing in- 
 fluences of polygamy and the degradation of women 
 generally, does the mother retain more hold on her 
 children, or do children regard their mother with such 
 constant and indissoluble veneration. It was not a 
 Musalman, but a Christian Missionar}% and he a 
 zealous and successful one, who in rebuking some 
 younger missionaries at Stambul who were speaking 
 contemptuously of the Turks, remarked, ^ You will 
 see practised here the virtues we talk of in Christen- 
 dom ; ' * an over-statement, no doubt, but still with 
 some truth in it, and truth which we should do well 
 to bear in mind as a makeweight against the official 
 
 ' Dr. GooiWall, an American, * East an4 West,' p. 141. 
 
CHARACTER OF WARS OF ISLAM. 181 
 
 corruption and the misgovernment and the vices with 
 which the Turks may be justly charged, and which 
 those who most admire what is fine in their national 
 character have the best right to deplore. With all 
 their vices, the Turkish Sultans, as a whole, compare 
 favourably with many of the Christian Caesars who 
 preceded them ; nor is it certain that, taking differences 
 of time and circumstances into account, they compare 
 unfavourably with the Pontiffs of more than one 
 century of the Papacy. 
 
 But whatever may be said or thought of the con- 
 quests of the Ottoman Turks and of their rule now^ 
 of the early Saracen conquests it would rather be 
 true to say that after the first wave of invasion had 
 swept by, two blades of grass were found growing 
 where one had grown before ; like the thunderstorm, 
 they fertilised while they destroyed ; and from one 
 end of the then known world to the other, with their 
 religion they sowed seeds of literature, of commerce, 
 and of civilisation. And as these disappeared, in the 
 lapse of years, in one part of the Musalman world, 
 they reappeared in another. When they died out, 
 with the dying of the Abbasside Khalifate, along the 
 banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, they revived again 
 on the Guadalquivir and Guadiana. To the splendours 
 and civilisation of Damascus succeeded Bagdad ; to 
 Bagdad, Cairo ; to Cairo, Cordova. 
 
 Mohammedanism has been accused of hostility to 
 the growth of the human intellect. It may have been 
 so in its earliest days, when Omar, as the story goes, 
 condemned the Alexandrian Library to the flames by 
 his famous dilemma : ^ If these books agree with the 
 Book of God, they are useless ; if they disagree, they are 
 
182 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 pernicious ; and in either case they must be destroyed/ 
 It may be so whenever there is a passing outburst of 
 fanaticism ; but it is not so in its essential nature,, 
 nor has it been so historically not even in its wars. 
 The Prophet himself, it has been objected, was not a 
 learned man ; he was scarcely able to read or write ; 
 but even if the story be true, what does it prove ? 
 Theodoric the Great, the patron of art and science and 
 philosophy, was only able to sign his own name by 
 drawing a pen round the first four letters of it, which 
 having been carved in brass were placed on the paper 
 which was to receive the signature ; Charles the Great 
 strove laboriously in his later years to acquire the 
 simple arts, which, by the foundation of schools and 
 colleges throughout his vast empire, he took care that 
 his subjects should, as far as possible, acquire in their 
 youth. Nor was Mohammed less eager than the 
 Ostrogothic King or the Prankish Emperor to promote 
 the studies of which he felt that he had all too little. 
 * Seek for science, even though it be in China,' is one 
 of the sayings attributed to him. *A learned man is 
 as superior to a worshipper as the full moon to stars/ 
 is another. ^ One learned man is harder on the de\il 
 than a thousand ignorant believers,' is a third. To 
 impart knowledge to others was in Mohammed's 
 view as imperative a duty as to acquire it. * He who 
 concealeth his knowledge shall be reined with a bridle 
 of fire at the day of resurrection.' * The wise are more 
 exalted than those who pray. The latter hope to 
 attain by prayer their own desires, the former learn 
 themselves, that they may instruct the ignorant.'* 
 
 ' For these sayings aiul others of a like tendency, see Mishkat-ul* 
 Hasibeh, Book II. Cap. II. and III. 
 
HIS ENCOURAGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE. 183 
 
 The story of Balaustion, romantic as it is in itself, 
 and sung as it has been by a great poet, is known to 
 all the world ; but no poet has sung, and few have 
 ever heard of a story less romantic perhaps, but 
 certainly not less suggestive or less beautiful, of the 
 great Arabian. The Greeks, who, to gratify their 
 artistic tastes, allowed a shipwrecked maiden to 
 purchase the lives of her companions in misfortune 
 by reciting a tragedy of Euripides, did well ; but the 
 illiterate Prophet, who, when in exile at Medina, 
 allowed the Meccan prisoners who could write Arabic 
 to go free so soon as they should have taught twelve 
 lads of Medina the art of which he and they were 
 ignorant, did better/ 
 
 Nor have the best portion of Mohammed's followers 
 been unworthy of him. The religion which has 
 declared that ' the ink of the learned is as precious as 
 the blood of the martyrs ; ' ^ and which declares that 
 at the Day of Decision a special account will be given 
 of the use made of the intellect, cannot fairly be 
 accused of obscurantism. It was not so when, during 
 the darkest period of European history, the Arabs for 
 
 » Sprenger, XVIII. 131. 
 
 '•* Quoted by Gobineau, p. 26. So, too, Abulpharages, in his 
 ' Dynasties,' says that Almamun, Khalif of Bagdad, invited learned 
 men to his court because they were the elect of God, whose lives were 
 devoted to the development of the mind. (See Gibbon, VII. 34.) 
 Against the destruction of the Alexandrian Library by Omar may 
 fairly be set the destruction by the Crusaders of an immense library 
 at Tripoli, in Palestine. The General, finding that the first room of 
 the library contained the Koran only, ordered the whole library to be 
 burnt. So, too. Cardinal Ximenes, on entering the Moorish capital, 
 showed that a crass fanaticism is not the prerogative of one religion 
 only, by his order to destroy the vast collection of Arabic MSS. there, 
 with the exception of 300 medical works, which he reserved for his 
 own university. 
 
184 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMED ANISiM. 
 
 five hundred years held up the torch of learning to 
 humanity. It was the Arabs who then * called the 
 Muses from their ancient seats ; ' who collected and 
 translated the writings of the great Greek masters ; 
 who understood the geometr}' of Apollonius, and 
 wielded the weapons found in the logical armour}^ of 
 Aristotle. It was the Arabs who developed the 
 sciences of Agriculture and Astronomy, and created 
 those of Algebra and Chemistr)' ; who adorned their 
 cities with colleges and libraries, as well as with 
 mosques and palaces ; who supplied Europe with a 
 school of philosophers from Cordova, and a school of 
 physicians from Salerno. When we condemn the 
 Mohammedan wars, let us at least remember what of 
 good they brought with them. 
 
 Nor is Mohammedanism the only religion which 
 has tried to propagate itself by the sword. It is true, 
 of course, that a holy war waged by Christians is in 
 direct contravention of the spirit of their Founder, 
 while one waged by Mohammedans is in accordance 
 with both the practice and the precept of the Pro- 
 phet, and, so far, there is no parallel at all between the 
 two religions. The means authorised by Christ for 
 the spread of His religion were moral and spiritual 
 only. The means authorised by Mohammed were 
 persuasion and example first ; but, failing these, the 
 sword. 
 
 Yet, historically speaking, the contrast between 
 the practice of Christians and Mohammedans has not 
 been so sharp as is often supposed. The Saxon wars 
 of Charles the Great were avowedly religious wars, 
 and differed chiefly from the Syrian wars of Omar and 
 of All, from the Afiican wars of Amru and Akbah, 
 
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. 185 
 
 and the Spanish wars of Mussa and of Tarik, in that 
 they were much more protracted and vastly less suc- 
 cessful. Otto the Great, the best of Charles's succes- 
 sors, used the sword with vigour to extend the exter- 
 nal profession of Christianity among the Sclavonian 
 tribes who dwelt along the shores of the Baltic. The 
 Mediaeval Papacy, whatever its other services to pro- 
 gress, was never backward to unfurl the standard of a 
 religious war, whether against the common enemy of 
 Christendom, or, as more often happened, against a 
 sect of heretics, the Albigenses, or the Waldenses, 
 nearer home. Nor, in point of ferocity, is it clear 
 that religious wars waged by Christians will compare 
 favourably with those of Mohammedans. The Mo- 
 hammedan wars were never internecine. Even on 
 the field of battle, the conquering Musalman allowed 
 his conquered foe the two other alternatives of con- 
 version or of tribute. When Abu Bakr first invaded 
 Syria, he charged his troops not to mutilate the dead, 
 not to slay old men, women, and children, not to cut 
 down fruit-trees, nor to kill cattle unless they were 
 needed for food ; and these humane precepts served 
 like a code of laws of war during the career of Moham- 
 medan conquest. And this, be it remembered, among 
 Orientals, who had always been remarkable for their 
 disregard of human life. When we remember, on the 
 other hand, the massacre of 4,500 Pagan Saxons in 
 cold blood by Charles the Great — when we remember 
 the famous answer by which the Papal Legate, in the 
 Albigensian war, quieted the scruples of a too con- 
 scientious general, ' Kill all, God will know His own ' 
 — when we recall the Spanish Inquisition, the Con- 
 quest of Mexico and Peru, the Massacre of St. Bar- 
 
186 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 tholomew, and the sack of Magdeburg by Tilly, we 
 shall be disposed never, indeed, to justify religious 
 wars, but to point out that, of the religious wars 
 which the world has seen, the Mohammedan are cer- 
 tainly not the worst — in their object, in their methods, 
 or in their results. 
 
 Nor is the extermination of moral evil in all cases 
 an unworthy object of war. There are occasions even 
 in our modern civilisation, and in an era of non-inter- 
 vention, when one longs to feel that the sword a 
 nation wields may be, in their eyes at all events, the 
 sword of the Lord and of Gideon. An unselfish war 
 to put down the slave trade or the opium traffic, to 
 counteract some * Holy Alliance ' of Emperors against 
 the rights of peoples, to prevent a giant iniquity like 
 the partition of Poland, is perhaps the only kind of 
 war, except those of self-defence, to which the spirit 
 of Christianity is not opposed. Christianity /5 opposed 
 to wars of aggression, to dynastic wars, and, above 
 all, to religious wars ; for a religious war rests upon 
 the irreligious assumption that one fallible man holds 
 a fiat from Omnipotence to step between another 
 human soul and God ; and to enforce his partial views 
 of truth upon a fellow-mortal, who, for aught he knows, 
 may have as wide a prospect, and as deep an insight, 
 as he has himself. ^ Deorum hijurice Deis curce,' The 
 sword may silence ; it cannot convince : it may 
 enforce hypocrisy ; it can never force belief. But 
 this has not always seemed so self-evident ; and I say 
 it deliberately and with all the force of conviction, 
 compared with the war of the Confederate States in 
 the nineteenth century for the perpetuation of 
 slavery, compared with our own Japanese wars for the 
 
RELIGIOUS WARS OF CHRISTIANS. 187 
 
 extension of our trade, our Chinese wars for the sale 
 of our opium, and our miserable African wars waged 
 for the possession of a territory which we bought, 
 and had no moral right to buy, from those who sold 
 what they had no moral right to sell,^ the Mohamme- 
 dan wars for the propagation of a comparatively pure 
 religion and a higher morality were, in their time and 
 according to their light, inasmuch as they were not 
 purely selfish, I do not say excusable, but they were 
 at least intelligible and natural. 
 
 Here I must close for to-day. What of good and 
 what of evil the world owes to Mohammed ; what is 
 the condition and what the prospects of Mohamme- 
 danism now ; what, as a matter of fact, is the histori- 
 cal connection between Mohammedanism and Chris- 
 tianity — its points of difference as well as of resem- 
 blance ; finally, and most important of all, how that 
 connection ought to be regarded by Christians, and 
 under what conditions or modifications the two great 
 creeds may work together, or, if needs be, apart, for 
 their common object, the general good of humanity — ■ 
 these are some of the points I hope to be able to 
 discuss in my fourth and concluding Lecture. 
 
 ' See Appendix to Lecture III. 
 
188 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 March 7, 1874. 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Say unto the Christians, their Gocl and my God is one.— 
 
 The Koban. 
 
 "O ^f 'IrjaovQ diTf, M>) KioXveTt ahrov og yap oi'ik tort KaO' i)nC!iv, vnkp 
 rindtv iariv. — ST. MARK. 
 
 It may have been observed that in attempting, in 
 my last Lecture, to deal with some of the questions 
 connected with Mohammedanism, such as miracles, 
 fatalism, religious wars, which have much perplexed 
 the Christian mind, I omitted to say anything on a 
 point which, more even than any of these, has scan- 
 dalised those who view Mohammedanism from a 
 distance : I mean the notions Mohammedans have 
 fonned of a future state. The omission was not 
 altogether accidental, for I am inclined to think that 
 too much stress has been laid upon these notions, no 
 less by Mohammed's apologists than by his critics ; 
 more stress than the Koran itself, and more even than 
 the current Mohammedan belief, will wan-ant. But, 
 remembering a remark of Sprenger's,' that, although 
 
 • Sprenger, Vol. II. Chap. XI. p. 18. 
 
THE FUTURE LIFE OF ISLAM. 189 
 
 Islam has been described in many books, yet educated 
 people have not got much further in the knowledge 
 of it than that the Turks are Mohammedans, and 
 allow polygamy, I think it will be well to add a few 
 words to counteract the common notion, which I 
 should be disposed to place on a par with this, that 
 the Paradise of the Mohammedans is nothing more 
 than the enjoyment of polygamy, with its earthly 
 drawbacks and limitations removed. 
 
 So much has been said and written about the gross 
 nature of Mohammed's Paradise, the black-eyed 
 Houris, the perfumes and the spices, the cushions 
 and the carpets, with which his imagination furnished 
 it, that ordinary people may be excused for believing 
 that it was mainly, if not wholly, sensual. But this is 
 not, in the main, a true, and still less is it an adequate 
 account of the matter. The passages are few in 
 number in which Mohammed dwells much on these 
 aspects of the future, and, even in these, much of 
 what is said is explained by orthodox Mohammedans 
 to be merely Oriental imagery, while some of it is 
 especially suitable — the bubbling fountains and the 
 shady gardens above all — to the inhabitants of a dry 
 and thirsty land, such as Arabia is.' 
 
 Few people now put a literal interpretation upon 
 the gorgeous imagery and the glowing colours used 
 in the Book of Revelation to describe the Celestial 
 City ; and every one will admit that in all religions, 
 even the most spiritual, the circumstances of this life 
 must necessarily, to some extent, lend both form and 
 colour to the views of the life to come. The Red 
 
 " See Sale's ' Intrwluction,' p. 78 ; and Lane's ' Modern Eeyp- 
 tians,' I. Chap. ITT. 84. 
 
190 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Indian dreams of a heaven behind the cloud-topped 
 hills, enbosomed in woods, wherein his faithful dog 
 will bear him company. The fierce Norseman hoped 
 to be admitted after death to the Hall of Odin, and 
 there, reclining on a couch, to drink ale for ever from 
 the skulls of his enemies whom he had slain in battle. 
 The earnest Methodist pictures to himself a place 
 
 * Where congregations ne'er break up, 
 And Sabbaths never end,' 
 
 for the simple reason that he finds his highest 
 spiritual happiness in these things on earth. A 
 polygamous people could hardly have pictured to 
 themselves a heaven without polygamy. It would 
 never even have occurred to them that such a thing 
 was possible, since few of them had ever known a 
 society on earth which w^as without it ; nor do I sup- 
 pose that any individual Christian who has ever 
 known the luxury of home affection, has been able to 
 accept in any literal sense the doctrine that, in the 
 future world, there are to be no exclusive attach- 
 ments,* for the simple reason, again, that without 
 individual love no human heart can conceive of the 
 possibility of any happiness as complete or real. 
 
 Again, it is to be remembered that much that is 
 material, or even gross, in the Mohammedan concep- 
 tion of a future life is due, not to Mohammed, but to 
 Mohammed's successors ; and it is not the least of 
 the enigmas that attach to the extraordinar}^ and 
 unique character of the Prophet, that his views of a 
 future state are never more spiritual than at the time 
 when, according to the common theory, he had most 
 
 ' St. Matt. XXII. 80. 
 
THE FUTURE LIFE OF OTHER RELIGIONS. 191 
 
 entirely, and, in fact, he had to some extent, fallen 
 away from his austerely moral life. Contrast the tone 
 of the Suras, referring to this subject, which were writ- 
 ten at Mecca early in his life,^ with the third, for in- 
 stance, which was written at Medina many years 
 later. 
 
 ^ Fair,' says he, ^ in the sight of men are the plea- 
 sures of women and children ; fair are the treasured 
 treasures of gold and silver ; and fine horses ; and 
 flocks ; and corn-fields ! Such is the enjoyment of 
 this world's life. But God ! goodly is the home with 
 Him! 
 
 ^ Shall I tell you of better things than these, pre- 
 pared for those who fear God in His presence ? Theirs 
 shall be gardens beneath which the rivers flow, and 
 in which they shall abide for aye, and wives of stain- 
 less purity, and acceptance with God, for God regard- 
 eth His servants. 
 
 ^They who say, O our Lord, we have indeed be- 
 lieved, pardon our sins, and keep us from the torment 
 of the fire. 
 
 ' The patient are they, and the truthful, the lowly, 
 and the charitable, and they who ask for pardon as 
 each day breaks.' '^ 
 
 Surely here, as elsewhere, and increasingly so as 
 the Prophet drew near his end, it is the presence of 
 God, the knowledge of Him, the eternal Salaam or 
 Peace with which they shall salute one another, the 
 purity of love, and not its sensuality, which are the 
 most prominent ideas. 
 
 Heaven and Hell, indeed, were realities to the 
 
 ' Sura LV. 44-58 ; LVI. 17-36 ; LXXVI. 12-22. 
 a Sura XIII. 12-15. 
 
192 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Mohammedan mind in a sense in which they have 
 hardly ever been to any other nation. With a more 
 than Dantesque realism, Mohammed saw the tortures 
 of the lost no less than the bliss of the faithful. 
 
 * They shall dwell/ he says, * amidst burning winds 
 and in scalding water, under the shade of a black 
 smoke which is no shade, neither cool nor grateful, 
 
 and they shall surely eat of the fruit 
 
 of the tree Ez-Zakkoum, and shall fill their bellies 
 therewith, and they shall drink thereon boiling water, 
 even as a thirsty camel drinketh.' ' 
 
 And again he says : 
 
 ' They shall have garments of fire fitted unto them, 
 their bowels shall be dissolved thereby, and also their 
 skins, and they shall be beaten with maces of iron.' ^ 
 
 And once more, in one of his very early Suras, 
 which, if it is memorable for nothing else, is memor- 
 able for its superb audacity, when we recollect that 
 as yet Mohammed's prophetic claims were treated 
 only with contemptuous indifference, and he himself 
 was a mere outcast : 
 
 ' Woe be,' he says * on that day to those who 
 accused the prophets of imposture ! 
 
 ' It shall be said unto them. Go ye into that which 
 ye denied as a falsehood. 
 
 ^ Go ye into the shadow of the smoke of hell, which, 
 though it ascend in three columns, 
 
 * Shall not shade you from the heat, neither shall it 
 be of service against the flames ; 
 
 ' But it shall aist forth sparks as big as towers, 
 
 * And their colour shall be like unto that of red 
 camels. 
 
 ' Sura LVI. 41-66. ■* Sum XXII. 2) 21. 
 
REALITY OF FUTURE LIFE TO 310 HA MMED. 193 
 
 ' Woe be on that day unto those who accuse the 
 prophets of imposture ! '^ 
 
 'What shall be our reward/ asked his earliest 
 followers of Mohammed, ' if we fall in battle ? ' 
 'Paradise/ said the Prophet, without the slightest 
 hesitation. In the war of Tabuk his men demurred to 
 marching because it was harvest time. ' Your harvest 
 it lasts for a day/ said Mohammed ; ' what will come 
 of your harvest through all eternity ? ' They com- 
 plained of the burning sun. ' Hell is hotter/ said the 
 Prophet, and on they went.^ 
 
 That it was desirable to dwell with so much per- 
 sistence upon the enormous issues involved as re- 
 gards the future life, in every act and thought of this, 
 I am far from asserting ; since self-interest, how- 
 ever enlightened, and however refined, however even 
 spiritualised it may be, is self-interest still. But at all 
 events it was stern reality to Mohammed and to his 
 followers. The future was all as real and as instant 
 to him as it was to the Apostles when, expecting, as 
 they did, from the interpretation they put upon 
 Christ's words, to see Him in their own lifetime 
 coming in the clouds of heaven, they drove home their 
 warnings by bidding men flee from ' the wrath to come.' 
 In every successive crisis of the Christian Church, it 
 has been the belief of Christians that the darkest hour 
 is that before the dawn, and it has been used, however 
 mistakenly, yet with effect and with sincerity, to com- 
 
 ' Sura L XXV 1 1. 29 to end. The ' Woe be,' &c. is a refrain which 
 recurs ten times in the Sura. 
 
 * Carlyle's ' Heroes,' p. 239 ; and Sura IX. 82, &;c. In this expedi- 
 tion water was so scarce that the fainting troops were obliged to kill 
 the camels and drink the water out of their stomachs. 
 
 G 
 
194 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 fort the depressed, to awaken the sleeping, and to 
 arouse the dead. ' Fi7iem simm mu?idus jam 7io?i 
 nunciat solu7n, sed osteiidity says St. Gregory amidst 
 the devastations of the Lombards. ^ Appropinquante 
 jam mundi terminol is the heading of even legal 
 documents amidst the deeper depression of the tenth 
 century caused by the ravages of the Hungarians by 
 land and the Norsemen by sea. This is the burden 
 of St. Bernard's hymns, of Savonarola's preachings, 
 of Bunyan's allegories. Truly, if Mohammed sinned 
 at all in this respect, he sinned in good company. 
 
 But the future world, ever present though it was 
 to the minds of the early Mohammedans, did not 
 supply the motive by which they were really inspired. 
 Not such the motive which, at the present day, impels 
 the Wahhabi missionary to brave social and religious 
 ostracism in India, or the Negro Musalman to face 
 the Great Desert, or the terrors of cannibalism and of 
 human sacrifice, with the hope of winning new con- 
 verts to their faith ; still less is it a sufficient, or, as I 
 think, even a partial explanation of their astonishing 
 success. A selfish hope of Heaven, and a slavish fear 
 of Hell, may act as a ' negative stimulus ' — may possi- 
 bly teach passive resistance to temptation — but it does 
 not nerv^e the arm to strike, or quicken the eye to see. 
 Perhaps, indeed, the highest heroism of all, that 
 which consists in absolute conscious self-sacrifice or 
 self-annihilation for the good of others — the heroism 
 of the ideal just man in the second book of Plato's 
 Republic; the heroism of Moses when he prayed to 
 be blotted out of the Book that God had written ; the 
 heroism of a greater than Moses when He died upon 
 the cross — is impossible to those who believe firmly 
 
LEGITIMA TE INFL UENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 195 
 
 in a future life, the happiness or misery of which is to 
 be exactly detemiined by the life here. But there 
 may be true heroism even short of the truest ; and 
 all true heroism, even if it cannot deny or forget its 
 reward, is stimulated not so much by the reward as 
 by the difficulty of obtaining it. The reward, to use 
 an Aristotelian phrase, is an iTnyiyvo^^vov tl reXog^ 
 something thrown in, an after-thought and accessory 
 merely ; and this is what a future life was to the 
 primitive warriors of the Crescent. 
 
 Nor is it true, in any sense of the word, if we 
 appeal to its primal documents and not to the lives 
 of its more unworthy professors, that Mohammed's is 
 an easy or sensual religion. With its frequent fasts, 
 its five prayers a day, its solitudes, its almsgivings, its 
 pilgrimages, even in the tortures of Indian fakirs and 
 the bowlings of Mecca dervishes, which are the abuse, 
 and not the use, of the religion — it certainly does not 
 appeal much to the laziness, or the sensuality, or the 
 selfishness of mankind. 
 
 In his capacity even of temporal ruler, Mohammed 
 rarely gave material rewards to his followers. Abu 
 Bakr, Ali, Omar, Hamza, when in his early days they 
 ranged themselves as friends round the then friendless 
 enthusiast, sacrificed, as it must have appeared to 
 them, all their worldly hopes ; they little thought that 
 they were enrolling themselves in that most select 
 band of heroes who may be said to have made 
 History. On one occasion, late in his life, Moham- 
 med did give some material rewards to recent and 
 perhaps half-hearted converts ; but the exception only 
 proved the rule, and that in the most memorable 
 manner. The Helpers of Medina were naturally dis- 
 
196 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 satisfied, but Mohammed recalled them to their alle- 
 giance by words which went straight from his heart 
 to theirs : that he had given things of the world to 
 those who cared for such things, but to them he had 
 given himself. Others returned home with sheep 
 and camels, the Helpers with the Prophet of God. 
 Verily, if all the men of the earth went one way, and 
 the Helpers of Medina another, he would go the way 
 of the Helpers of Medina.^ The Helpers burst into 
 tears, and exclaimed that they were more than 
 satisfied with what he had given them. And, just 
 before his death, Mohammed commended these same 
 Helpers of Medina to the protection of the exiles who 
 had accompanied him from Mecca. ' Hold in honour,' 
 said he,/ the Helpers of Medina : the number of be- 
 lievers may increase, but that of the Helpers never 
 can.^ They were my family, and with them I found 
 a home ; do good to those who do good to them, and 
 break friendship with those who are hostile to them.' 
 ^ Perhaps there is no remark one has heard more 
 often about Mohammedanism than that it was so suc- 
 cessful because it was so sensual ; but there is none 
 more destitute of truth, as if any religion could owe its 
 permanent success to its bad morality ! I do not say 
 that its morality is perfect, or equal to the Christian 
 morality. Mohammed did not make the manners of 
 Arabia, and he was too wise to think that he could 
 
 'Alluded to in Sura LIX. H and 1», and VIII. 42. See Muir, IV. 
 151-154. 
 
 "^ Cf. Heixxlotus iii. I 111. it fiaaiKtv, avi)f> fc«v /<ot hv aWoQ yivotro, 
 (1 Saifiitv kOtXoi, Kai r'sKva aWa, ti ravra airo^aXoifii' narpoQ Si Kai 
 fitirpbg ovK ht fiiv swovrw*' dt^tX^tof &v dWoQ ovStvi rpon-y ytvoiro. 
 Cf. also Hoph. Anfhjo,ir, im)-'.)\)i. 
 
A TTITUDE TOWARDS EXISTING INSTITUTIONS. 197 
 
 either unmake or remake them all at once. Solon re- 
 marked of his own legislation that his laws were not the 
 best that he could devise ; but that they were the best 
 the Athenians could receive ; and his defence has gene- 
 rally been accepted as a sound one. Moses took the 
 institutions of a primitive society as he found them — • 
 the patriarchal power, internecine war, blood feuds, 
 the right of asylum, polygamy and slavery — and did 
 not abolish any one of them ; he only mitigated their 
 worst evils, and so unconsciously prepared the way, 
 in some cases, for their greater permanence, in others, 
 for their eventual extinction. 
 
 In like manner the religion of Christ did not sweep 
 into oblivion any national or political institutions. 
 He contented Himself with planting principles in the 
 hearts of His followers which would, when the time 
 was ripe for it, work out their abolition. Willing to 
 sow if others could reap, to labour if others could 
 enter into His labours. He cast into the ground the grain 
 of mustard seed, and was content, with the eye of 
 faith alone, to see it grow into the mighty tree whose 
 branches should overspread the world, and whose 
 leaves should be for the healing of the nations. With 
 sublime self-restraint and self-sacrifice, governed by 
 His thought for the boundless possibilities of the 
 future of His Church, rather than by the impulse of 
 the moment. He forbore to denounce in so many words 
 the inveterate evils of the Roman Empire, which 
 must have gone to His soul's soul — foreign conquest, 
 tyranny, the amphitheatre, slavery. He even used 
 words which have been wrongly construed to mean 
 that at all times passive obedience is a duty, and that the 
 people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey 
 
198 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 them. Nor has the Christian Church — sections of which 
 have for strange and various, but inteUigible, reasons, 
 canonised a Constantine and a Vladimir, a Cyril and a 
 Charles the Great, a Dunstan and a Becket — ever 
 attached the name of Saint to some who, in the ful- 
 ness of time, have carried out far more fully and in 
 spirit Christ's work, albeit in seeming contradiction to 
 the letter of the law which inculcated submission to 
 existing powders and institutions — to a Telemachus or 
 a Theodoric, to an Alfred or a Wilberforce. And yet 
 no Christian will deny that the monk Telemachus, 
 who threw himself between the swords of the 
 gladiators, and, braving the fury of the spectators 
 athirst for blood, accomplished by his death what his 
 life could never have won, did a deed which all the 
 'Acta Sanctorum' could be searched to parallel. 
 
 Now Mohammed was a legislator and a statesman, 
 as well as the founder of a religion ; and why is the 
 defence w^hich we allow to Solon, and the praise we 
 bestow upon the limited scope of the Mosaic legisla- 
 tion, denied to Islam ? 
 
 Polygamy is, indeed, next to caste, the most 
 blighting institution to which a nation, which has 
 passed through the early stages of its growth, can 
 remain a prey. It tends to degrade love into an 
 animal passion, and so to unspiritualise all the relations 
 between the sexes. It pollutes society at the fountain- 
 head, for the family is the source of all political and 
 of all social virtues. Mohammed would have more 
 than doubled the debt of gratitude the Eastern world 
 ow^es to him had he swept it away, but I cannot think 
 that he could have done so, even if he had fully seen 
 its evils. 
 
TREATMENT OF WOMEN. 199 
 
 Polygamy is an institution which springs from 
 causes far too deep down among the roots of society 
 for any reformer, however great, to abohsh it by the 
 word of his mouth or the stroke of his pen. In abo- 
 hshing idolatry, Mohammed found among the Arabs, 
 as I have shown in my last Lecture, an historical 
 groundwork of belief in the unity of the Godhead, 
 and even an existing religious sentiment in his favour, 
 and he was not backward to avail himself of its help. 
 But in forbidding polygamy he would have found no 
 audi extraneous support : there does not seem among 
 the higher spirits of Arabia to have been even so 
 much as a floating sentiment in favour of monogamy, 
 and the women themselves appear to have been as 
 contented with this part of their condition as were 
 their masters. 
 
 As a true Arab, Mohammed recognised polygamy 
 as an existing institution ; as a reforming legislator, 
 he made many regulations for lessening its evils ; but 
 it is hardly more fair on these grounds to say that 
 Mohammedanism is responsible for polygamy, than it 
 is to say that Christianity is responsible for slavery. 
 The New Testament contains, it is true, no direct con- 
 demnation of slavery ; on the contrary, it recognises 
 it as an existing institution ; and St. Paul is at 
 least as precise upon the duties of servants — whom, 
 by the way, he calls by the downright name of slaves, 
 a term hardly used in the Koran — to their masters, 
 as he is upon the duties of masters to them ; but no 
 Christian will grant, on this score, that his religion 
 has either sanctioned slavery, or is responsible for it, 
 for he will have no difficulty in showing that the 
 humanity everywhere inculcated in it is inconsistent 
 
200 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 with the prolonged maintenance of slavery, and would 
 of itself suffice, first in the case of individual Christians^ 
 and afterwards of -Christian nations, to secure, as now, 
 at last, it has secured, its abolition. Slavery, there- 
 fore, has simply co-existed with Christianity without 
 being mixed with it, even as the muddy Arve and the 
 clear Rhone keep their currents distinct long after 
 they have been united in one river-bed. Perhaps it 
 is strange that they ever could have co-existed, even 
 for a day ; but we have to deal with facts as they are ; 
 and it is a fact that slavery has co-existed with 
 Christianity, nay, has professed to justify itself by 
 Christianity, even till this nineteenth century. As a 
 code, indeed, of law and morals, it is of course fairer to 
 compare Islam with Judaism than, as I have just been 
 doing, with Christianity ; for in manners and in civili- 
 sation, as in race, the Arabs of Mohammed's time 
 resembled the Israelites far more nearly than they 
 did any of those nations upon whom Christianity was 
 destined to take real hold. Now the Mosaic law, so 
 far from prohibiting polygamy, did not even put any 
 limitation on it. The Patriarchs indulged in poly- 
 gamy ; so did the Judges ; so did the Kings ; and not 
 least so the more elevated and the more spiritually- 
 minded amongst them. The man after God's own 
 heart, and the king whose wisdom and magnificence 
 still form the folk-lore of so many Eastern countries, 
 can hardly be surpassed in this particular even by 
 those Musalman princes who break the laws of the 
 Koran, and strain the traditions almost to bursting, 
 that they may gi'atify their love of display, or their 
 brutal appetites. 
 
 Mohammed could not have made a tabula rasa of 
 
POLYGAMY. 201 
 
 Eastern society, but what he could do he did. He at 
 least put some limitations on the unbounded license 
 of Eastern polygamy,^ and the absolute recklessness 
 of Eastern divorce."^ If the two social touchstones 
 of a religion are the way in which, relatively to the 
 time, it deals with the weaker sex, and the way in 
 which it regards the poor and the oppressed, Mo- 
 hammed's religion can stand the test.^ The laws of 
 the Prophet in these particulars, as in others, were 
 greatly ahead of the pagan, and in some respects also 
 of the Hebrew practice. 
 
 The Arabs of the Ignorance, for instance, allowed 
 any number of wives ; the Koran limits the number 
 of lawful wives to four.* Among the Arabs of the 
 Ignorance divorce was a matter of the merest caprice, 
 and the divorced wife lost her dowry as well as all 
 conjugal rights. The Koran orders the dowry in all 
 
 ' Sura IV. 3, &c. 
 
 2 Sura IV. 89 and 127, XXXIIT. 48, 52, &c. 
 
 •' Among many other illustrations of this see («) the oath taken 
 early in his life Avith other Kuraish, ' to defend the oppressed so long 
 as a dro}) of water remained in the ocean,' an act the remembrance 
 of which Mohammed said ' he would rrot exchange for the choicest 
 camel in Arabia ;' (/-») the account given by Djafar to the Nagashy of 
 Abyssinia of the change wrought by Mohammed among his followers ; 
 perhaps the noblest and truest summary we have of the moral 
 teaching of the Prophet ; (^) the pledge of Acaba, a.d. 621, taken by 
 his first converts from Medina ; (rZ) Sura II. 172: ' There is no piety 
 in turning your faces towards the Bast or the West, but he is pious 
 who believeth in God .... who for the love of Grod distributeth 
 his wealth to his kindred, and to the orphans, and the needy, and the 
 wayfarer.' 
 
 * It was a remark of Napoleon's that Mohammed was the only 
 Eastern legislator who ever attempted to impose any restraint on 
 polygamy : a fact which should be borne in mind. See Lane's 
 ' Modern Egyptians,' I. 121-128 for an analysis of the laws of Islam 
 relating to women and slaves. 
 
202 MORA MMED A ND MO HA MM ED A NISM. 
 
 cases to be given back ; and to ensure deliberation, or 
 to prevent mere caprice, in carrying out or in recall- 
 ing what, unlike his countrymen, the Prophet con- 
 sidered so momentous and so objectionable a resolve, 
 he ordained that a man who had once pronounced 
 the formula of divorce should not be at liberty to 
 take his wife back till he had done some penance for 
 his thoughtless cruelty by setting a slave free.' 
 
 The Arabs of the Ignorance allowed a woman no 
 part of her husband's or father's property, on the 
 ground that none should inherit property who could 
 not bear arms. The Koran says women are entitled 
 to a share of the inheritance : a daughter, for instance, 
 should have half as much as a son.'^ The Arabs of 
 the Ignorance treated the wife of a deceased husband 
 as part of the inheritance of his heir-at-law, who 
 would often be her own step-son. Mohammed con- 
 demned all such marriages, which were not uncom- 
 mon before his time, as infamous. The Arabs of the 
 Ignorance buried alive their female children ; for as 
 the Arab proverb expressed it, ' To send women 
 /before to the other world is a benefit. The best son- 
 (jn-law is the grave ; ' and the wish offered to newly- 
 married couples, ' With concord and pennanence, with 
 sons and no daughters,' implied similar ideas.^ Mo- 
 
 ' See Sale's ' rreliminary Discourse,' VI. 95. If a mau had pro- 
 nounce<l the forrauUi twice at different times, he was not to liave the 
 right to chvim her a^ain at all, until she had fulfilled the condition 
 which, to the pride and jcjvlousy of an Arab, Mohammed knew would 
 be in»upportable, of being married previously to another person. A 
 third divorce was to Ix; absolutely irrevocjible. 
 
 'Sura IV. 12; and Sale's Preliminary Discom-se, VI. U8. 
 
 * * Women of the Arabfl,' by the Rev. flenry Jessup, AmcricaQ 
 Missioiiarj in Syria, p. 2. The first two chapters give a forcible 
 deecription of the degradation of women In the East now, among both 
 
DIVORCE. 203 
 
 hammed sternly forbade the cruel practice, and said 
 that at the last great day the girl who had been 
 buried alive would demand for what crime she had 
 been slain. The Arabs of the Ignorance who believed 
 in any form of future life denied all share in it to 
 woman, and Mohammed has been thought by many 
 to have done the same ; but the Koran says, ^ Whoso 
 doeth good works and is a true believer, whether 
 male or female, shall be admitted into Paradise.' An 
 old woman once came to the Prophet begging him to 
 intercede with God that she might be admitted into 
 Paradise. ^No old woman finds admittance there,' 
 replied Mohammed. She burst into tears, when 
 Mohammed smiled, and with the kindly humour 
 which was characteristic of him, said, ^ No old 
 woman, for all will there be young again.' * 
 
 It has been said that 4iusbands love your wives' 
 is a precept of the Bible, and not of the Koran.^ 
 Hear, however, the farewell address of Mohammed 
 to the pilgrims assembled on Mount Arafat in the 
 year before his death. ^ Ye people, ye have rights 
 over your wives, and your wives have rights over you. 
 Treat your wives with kindness : verily ye have taken 
 them on the security of God, and have made them 
 lawful unto you by the words of God.' 
 
 The Prophet's personal view of the prevalent 
 practice of divorce is well expressed in the beautiful 
 saying attributed to him in the Traditions, ' God has 
 
 Musalmans and Christians ; but in a summary, to which I am much 
 indebted, do full justice to the improvement in their condition 
 effected, or at least aimed at, by Mohammed. 
 
 ' Sale, ' Preliminary Discourse,' p. 73. 
 
 * By Dr. Jessup, loc. cit. 
 
204 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 created nothing which He likes better than the eman- 
 cipation of slaves, and nothing which He hates more 
 than divorce/ and it must be admitted that his ex- 
 ample, in this respect at all events, was as good as his 
 preceptyX^ It is difficult in this or in any other of his 
 sayings^ to find aught to justify the epithet used by 
 the most recent writer on the Life of Christ when he 
 speaks of the ' cynical sanction ' given by Mohammed 
 to polygamy or despotism ; '^ and it is to be regretted 
 that in his treatment of the religion of One who said 
 that ^ those who were not against Him were for Him,' 
 there is not a single passage which refers to the great 
 kindred creed of Islam, which does justice either to its 
 founder or to his reforms. Nor do the provisions I 
 have mentioned above constitute the whole of what 
 Mohammed did for the female sex, for besides imposing 
 restrictions on polygamy, by his severe laws at first^ 
 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 Mohammedan countries 
 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 fonn a part. 
 
 I do not forget, on the other hand, that Mohammed 
 
 ' c;f. Sum IV. 12«i-12S. 17.') ; ami LXV., ontitletl * Divorce,' 
 throughout. 
 
 ■"' Kan-jir'H 'Life of Christ,' I. 2(il>. The pivssiivfo in Sum IV. 32, 
 ' G(hI desireth to make your bunlen light, for man hath l)ecn createil 
 weak,' is, «urely, not ' cynical,' but the ivverse, and nuiy be CM)mpared 
 with the * hanhies8 of their hearts ' alloweil as a sutticient rcation for 
 divorce under the Afosaic law by Christ himself. .Matt. XIX. 8. 
 
SLAVERY. 205 
 
 authorised the corporal punishment of the wife by 
 the husband in extreme cases, provided it was done 
 with moderation ; that he allowed or enjoined the 
 seclusion of women ; that he relaxed in his own behalf 
 the restriction with regard to polygamy which he 
 imposed on others, and that he allowed concubinage 
 with captives taken in war ; ^ and I fully admit that 
 his followers have been far more ready to imitate and 
 to obey him in these, the defective parts of his teach- 
 ing and example, than in the more elevated ones ; 
 but I say confidently that compared with Paganism, 
 and even with Judaism, Mohammed gave women a 
 great advance on their previous position, and so has 
 deserved well of them. It must be remembered also, 
 what we are apt to forget, that it required not the 
 sublime moral precepts of Christianity alone, but the 
 influence of codes of Roman law, and the innate 
 respect felt by Teutonic nations for the female sex 
 and centuries of civilisation also, to raise woman to 
 her proper position in European countries ; and can 
 we be surprised that the unprogressive East is some 
 centuries behind us in this as in other respects ? I 
 think also that consistent and enlightened followers 
 of the Prophet, such as are Syed Ahmed and Syed 
 Ameer Ali in India, and Mir Aulad Ali, Professor 
 
 ' Sale maintains, and he is supported by many Muslim doctors, 
 and, to all appearance, by the words of the Koran (Sura IV. 3), that 
 under no circumstances is a man allowed to take his slaves as con- 
 cubines if he have the maximum number of four wives allowed him 
 by the law. Mr. Lane maintains the contrary, and supports his 
 argument by the authority of other Muslim doctors, and by the 
 practice of some of the Companions of the Prophet ; but it is surelj^ 
 dangerous to lay stress on this. No Musalman will contend that the 
 Companions are examples to be followed. 
 
206 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of Oriental Languages at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 have a right to say that Musalmans now would be 
 best canning out the spirit of the Prophet, as shadowed 
 forth in many precepts of the Koran, in pronouncing 
 polygamy to be out of date, and therefore unlawful. 
 
 And how was it with Slavery? Here, too, the 
 advance is incontestable, and much more decisive 
 than in his legislation for women. Mohammed did 
 not abolish slaver}^ altogether, for in that condition of 
 society it would have been neither possible nor de- 
 sirable to do so ; but he encouraged the emancipation 
 of slaves ; he laid down the principle that the captive 
 who embraced Islam should be ipso facto free, and, 
 what is more important, he took care that no stigma 
 should attach to the emancipated slave in consequence 
 of his honest and honourable life of labour. As to 
 those who continued slaves, he prescribed kindness 
 and consideration in dealing with them.' 'See,' he 
 said, in his parting address at Mina, the year before 
 his death, ' see that ye feed them with such food as 
 ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye 
 yourselves wear ; for they are the serv^ants of the 
 Lord, and are not to be tormented.' 
 
 A slave thus protected by the law and by the 
 highest sanctions of religion was hardly a slave in the 
 modern sense of the word at all. It is significant, 
 as I have remarked above, that the word itself seldom 
 occurs in the Koran. The phrase that is used, ' those 
 whom your right hand possesses,' means only those 
 who have been taken prisoners in lawful warfare, and 
 have lost their freedom. Such captives, if they bec<ime 
 
 ' Sura XXIV. 34, 57. 
 
SLAVERY. 207 
 
 Musalmans, were set free ; if they retained their own 
 faith, they were, as Mohammed told his followers, 
 none the less their brethren. The master who treated 
 them kindly would be acceptable to God ; he who 
 abused his power would be shut out of Paradise. 
 ' How many times,' asked a follower of Mohammed, 
 ' ought I to forgive a slave who displeases me ? ' 
 ^ Seventy times a day,' replied the Prophet. 
 
 Concubinage, indeed, with his female captives, 
 Mohammed, like the chiefs of every other semi-civilised 
 state that has ever existed, allowed to their captor, 
 but she who bore her master a child was never to be 
 severed from it. She could never again be sold, and 
 at her master's death she received her freedom. 
 These humane provisions are, as might be expected, 
 in the same plane as those of the Mosaic law, but 
 they are an advance, in many respects, upon it ; and 
 they are such as no European or American slave- 
 trading power ever enrolled in its code of laws till the 
 wave of total abolition swept over Christendom. For 
 example, when the Hebrew who had become a slave 
 had served his time, he might go free ; but the wife 
 his master had given him, and the children she had 
 borne to him, were to be severed from him and to 
 remain slaves.^ The Musalman master who chas- 
 tised his slave without cause was bound to set him 
 free ; the Hebrew, on the other hand, who chastised 
 his slave so severely as to cause his death at once, 
 was liable to a certain penalty, but if he survived for 
 a day or two, he got off scot-free ; for, as the English, 
 version of the Bible expresses it with terrible blunt- 
 ness, ^ he is his money.' ^ In the Slave States of 
 
 ' Exodus XXT. 4. ^ Exodus XXI. 21. 
 
208 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 America, again, a slave had no legal rights : if a 
 master treated his females slaves well, it was because 
 he happened to be humane, not because, as in Islam 
 in its best days, the courts were open to compel him 
 to be so. The equality of all men before God was 
 a principle which Mohammed everywhere maintained, 
 and which, taking, as it did, all caste feeling from 
 slavery, took awa}^ also its chief sting. To Moham- 
 med's mind labour could never be degrading ; and the 
 domestic slavery of the Arabs, under which, thanks 
 to him, parents were never to be separated from their 
 children, nor indeed relations from each other at all, 
 though always to be condemned in the abstract, be- 
 came, under the Prophet's hands, a bond closer and 
 more lasting, and hardly more liable to abuse, than 
 domestic service elsewhere. 
 
 Mohammedanism, in fact, preaches equality al- 
 most as explicitly as does Christianity. * No more 
 pride in ancestry,' said Mohammed to the assembled 
 Musalmans, the haughty Kuraish themselves among 
 them : ' ye Musalmans are all brothers, all equal ; ' 
 and it must be admitted that Mohammedans have, 
 from whatever causes, acted up to their creed in 
 this respect more fully than have Christians.' In 
 
 ' See Wood's ' Oxus,' p. 194. ' Nowhere is the difference between 
 European and Mohammedan society more stronjfly marked than in 
 the lower walks of life. The broad line that separates the rich and 
 |MK)r in civilised society is as yet but faintly drawn in Central Asia. 
 Here unreserved intercourse with their superiors has jMilishetl the 
 manners of the lower classes, and instead of this familiarity breetling 
 (Contempt, it begets self-respect in the dciwndent. . . . indeed all the 
 inferior classes |x)ssess an innate self-respect and a natural gravity 
 <»f deportment which differs as far from the suppleness of a Hin- 
 dustani as from the awkward rusticity of an English clown.' 
 
MOHAMMEDAN CONVERTS. 209 
 
 India, for instance, Mohammedans make converts by 
 hundreds from among the Hindus, while Christians 
 with difficulty make ten, and this partly at least 
 because the)^ receive their converts on terms of entire 
 social equality, while Europeans, in spite of all the 
 efforts of missionaries to the contrary, seem either 
 unwilling or unable to treat their converts as other 
 than inferiors. The Hindu who becomes a Christian 
 loses, therefore, his own cherished caste without being 
 admitted into that of his rulers. The Hindu who 
 turns Mohammedan loses his narrow caste, but he 
 becomes a member of the wide brotherhood of Islam. 
 In Africa there is, happily, no caste system analogous 
 to that of India, but like causes have, even there, pro- 
 duced like effects or like contrasts. The ^ Negro ' con- 
 vert to Islam is received at once as an equal by the 
 Arab, or the Moorish, or the Mandingo missionary 
 who has brought him his message ; he is enrolled in 
 a fraternity which has influenced half the world, and 
 in which Negroes themselves have played no incon- 
 siderable part. A literature and a language are 
 thrown open to him which, if they are not his own, 
 are yet a classical literature and language, and one 
 which he may wxll claim as, in some sense, his, in 
 view of what they have already done for his race. 
 He thus acquires a sense of independence, of dignity, 
 and of brotherhood, to which he was before a stranger. 
 The Christian Negro, on the other hand, with few 
 exceptions, still feels at an immeasurable distance 
 from those Europeans to whom, indeed, he owes the 
 message of love that he has received, but who, as a 
 race, for centuries past, have enslaved and sold him, 
 and, alien as they are to him in all respects, still 
 
 G 2 
 
210 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 debar him from the possession of his own coasts that 
 they may enrich themselves with his merchandise, 
 or flood his country with those ardent spirits which 
 are the curse of their own. He sets to work to 
 imitate, as best he may, the dress and the habits, the 
 virtues and the vices, of those who have so little in 
 common with him ; and the result is that with which 
 we are all familiar/ Christianity is not to blame for 
 this, but Christian nations are. As to his religion, 
 while nothing can quite deprive him of the sense of 
 equality before God, and of the bright hopes beyond 
 the grave which the self-sacrificing missionar}^ preaches 
 to him, in spite of all the caste prejudices and that 
 most fatal of obstacles to missionary work, the ex- 
 ample of the Europeans themselves, he naturally takes 
 hold of that side of Christianity which any religion 
 that is of such universal applicability must certainly 
 contain ; the side, I mean, which dwells upon the 
 helplessness of man to help himself, his dependence 
 upon merits not his own, the sense that even his best 
 efforts and aspirations have something in them of the 
 nature of sin. These notions have much truth in 
 them, but they are only one side of the truth, and 
 they require to be balanced and held in check by 
 that other side of Christianity which inculcates self- 
 reliance and self-respect, the active and the heroic, 
 as well as the passive and the saintly virtues. Races 
 which are more energetic, more fortunate, or more 
 
 ' See on this subject a very remarkable article in Fmser's Magazine 
 for November 1875, by a Negro, the Rev. EdwanI Blyden, headed 
 * MohammeilaniHm and the Negro Race.' The author speaks in great 
 measure from his own experience, and treats the subject with ori- 
 ginality, with eaniestness, and with deep pathos. 
 
CHRISTIANITY. 211 
 
 highly-gifted, are, in some imperfect sense, better able 
 to lay hold of this other side of Christianity, and the 
 result, such as it is, is seen in the progressive nations 
 of the West. Christianity has done much for Europe, 
 but Europe has done much also for Christians. Down- 
 trodden and unfortunate nations like the African, 
 which have been brought into contact with more 
 powerful races only to be oppressed by them, and 
 have, by their mere geographical peculiarities, been 
 unduly weighted throughout their history in the 
 struggle for existence, naturally lay hold, with few 
 exceptions, of that side of Christianity which comes 
 most home to them, and which appeals most to their 
 depressed condition. The same general causes which, 
 with or without reason, make the Turk despise the 
 Armenian, the Druse despise the Maronite, and the 
 Copt the Abyssinian, are at work in Central Africa 
 also ; and, in spite of the ineffable superiority of 
 Christianity in its purity, serve to point the contrast 
 between the dependence and the servility of the 
 average Christian, and the dignity and the self-reliance 
 of the average Musalman, Negro. 
 
 ^ La carriere ouverte aux talens ' has thus been 
 throughout the history of Islam something of a reality. 
 No considerations of birth, or race, or colour, or 
 money, have prevented a man rising to the post for 
 which it had been recognised that he was best fitted. 
 Zeid, the Prophet's freedman, led his armies in war. 
 Bilal, a blind Negro, became the first Muezzin ; and, 
 as Deutsch remarks, even Alexander the Great is at 
 this day an unknown personage in Asia compared to 
 him. A dynasty of Circassian slaves ruled Egypt 
 for a century before its conquest by the Ottoman 
 
212 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
 Turks, and it is said that Christians from the Caucasus 
 were glad to be carried off as slaves to Eg}^pt because 
 each one felt that he might rise to be sultan.^ In 
 Islam the emancipated slave is actually, as well as 
 potentially, equal to a free-bom citizen, and through- 
 out the Turkish Empire at all periods of its history^ 
 slaves have risen repeatedly to the highest offices, and 
 have never been ashamed of their origin.^ 
 
 The orphan was not less than the slave the object 
 of the Prophet's peculiar care, for he had been an 
 orphan himself; and what God had done for him, he 
 was anxious, as far as might be, to do for others.* 
 The poor were always present with him, and their 
 condition never absent from his mind. In one of his 
 early Suras, ' the steep,' as he calls it — that is to say, 
 the strait and narrow way, is said to be to release 
 the captive, to give food to the poor that lieth in the 
 dust, and to stir up one another to steadfastness and 
 compassion.* And in another Sura Jews and Arabs 
 are alike warned in their exclusive pride in their 
 common progenitor, Abraham, that verily the nearest 
 of kin to Abraham are they who follow him in his 
 works.^ 
 
 ' * Mohammed's Religion,' by J. J. Dbllinper, p. 32. 
 
 " Captain Burton mentions (* Pilgiimage,' 1. p. 89) that the pachs 
 of the Syrian camvan with which he ti*avelled to Damascus had 
 Ixjen the slave of a slave. JScbuktegin, the fatlier of the magnificent 
 Mahmud, and founder of the Ghaznevide dynjisty, was a slave ; so 
 was Kutl)-ud-din, the conqueror and first king of Delhi, and the true 
 founder, therefore, of the Mohammedan Empirc in India. (Sec 
 Elphinstone's 'India,' p. .H20, and 3G3, and 370.) The dynasty of 
 the Egyptian Mamelukes derived their name from an Ambic word 
 meaning slave. 
 
 ' Sum VIII. 42, and XPIII. f. to end. 
 
 < Sure XC. 12, IT), and poMini. * Sura III. 61. 
 
THE ORPHAN AND THE POOR. 213 
 
 And how, as a matter of history, has Islam dealt 
 with these classes of society, which more even than 
 the ordinary poor, need the help of those who are 
 richer, stronger, more fortunate than they ? It is the 
 glory of Christianity to have created that enthusiasm 
 of humanity which, from the earliest times, has made 
 the care of the sick and the relief of the distressed to 
 be not only the first of duties, but of happinesses. 
 The Emperor Julian, an unwilling and therefore a 
 trustworthy witness, remarked with reference to the 
 ' splendid outpouring,' even in his own day, of charity 
 among the Christians whom he despised, that it was 
 a scandal that the Galileans should support the 
 destitute not only of their own religion, but of his. 
 Following Christ's example, and believing what He 
 taught, that in finding out the afflicted and in tending 
 the leper and the outcast, Christ Himself may in 
 some sense be found and tended. Christians have 
 everywhere erected orphanages for the bereaved, 
 refuges for the aged, penitentiaries for the fallen, 
 hospitals for the sick, and asylums for the insane. 
 These institutions are the result not of any positive 
 external law among Christian nations, but of that 
 glowing impulse of love which Christ has breathed 
 into His true disciples, and which, under their influ- 
 ence, has become a second nature to numbers who do 
 not acknowledge either its origin or its sanction. They 
 have grown with the growth of Christianity, and 
 in their number, in their size, and their efficiency, 
 those of the present day throw into the shade the 
 efforts of all other religions and of all previous ages. 
 
 But no Christian need be sorry to learn, or be 
 backward to acknowledge, that, contrary to what is 
 
214 MOHAMMED AND 2I0HAMMEDANISM. 
 
 usually supposed/ two of those noble institutions which 
 flourish now most in Christian countries, and are 
 assuredly most characteristic of Christianity, owe their 
 origin and their early spread not to his own religion, 
 but to the great heart of humanity which beats in two 
 other of the grandest religions of the world. Hos- 
 pitals are the direct outcome of Buddhism, and from 
 the time of the charitable edicts of King Asoka for 
 the establishment of medical dispensaries both for 
 men and animals, three hundred years before Christ, 
 began to overspread the Buddhist East.^ To Moham- 
 medanism, it would seem, Christendom is indebted 
 for the foundation of lunatic asylums, and for the 
 comparatively humane treatment of the insane. The 
 lunatic asylum at Cairo was founded in a.d. 1304, 
 and it was not till more than a century afterwards 
 that we hear of any institutions of the kind in Europe, 
 and then only in that part of it which was most open 
 to Mohammedan influences — I mean in Spain. It was 
 
 • ' Amid all the boasted civilisation of antiquity there existetl no 
 hospitals, no penitentiaries, no asylums.' Farrar's ' Life of Christ,* 
 I. 334. 
 
 ' For the Buddhist origin of hospitals see some facts collected by 
 the Rev. J. Hoare, of Killiskey, Dublin, in an interesting and able 
 sermon on hospitals ; and for the origin of lunatic asylums, and some 
 of the facts here mentioned, see Mr. Lecky's * History of European 
 Morals,' II. 04. Mr. T. Wheeler in his 'History of India' (III. 2:)7) 
 quotes from Fa-hian, a Buddhist pilgrim from Chin i to India about 
 A.D. 40(), a vivid description of the hospitals at Patali-putra or Patua, 
 the former capital of King Asoka, which were oj)en gratuit^iusly to 
 the poor and the diseased of all countries. A hospital for tlie relief 
 of animal suffering (m an extensive scale existed at Surat »lown to 
 the beginning of this century. It doubtless owed its origin to 
 Buddhist influences, flourished throughout the periinl of the Musal- 
 man rule under the special guardianship of the Jains, ami has only 
 fallen into decay in very recent times. 
 
HOSPITALS. 215- 
 
 from Spain that they gradually spread over Europe ; 
 and it was to the Spaniards, strange to say, that Rome 
 itself, the capital of Christendom, owed in the year 
 1548 the foundation of its earliest asylum. In the 
 fifteenth century Leo Africanus found that portions 
 of several hospitals at Fez, in the interior of Morocco, 
 were dedicated to the care of the insane ; and the 
 Mosque itself, so far from being exclusively dedicated, 
 as Europeans commonly suppose, to those services 
 which alone we are apt to call religious, is in most 
 Musalman countries immediately connected with 
 schools for the young or hospitals for the sick and 
 the insane ; and its guardians, in the belief that 
 those serve God best who most benefit their fellow- 
 creatures, have generally devoted a part of the funds 
 of the foundation to these most truly sacred purposes. 
 Instead of the harsh treatment which, till lately in the 
 West, has been thought to be the only possible one, 
 lunatics have in the Mohammedan East been treated 
 generally not only with humanity, but with respect. 
 They are regarded in Egypt now, Mr. Lane tells us, 
 as men who, their minds being in heaven, are not 
 responsible for what their bodies do on earth : their 
 souls being absorbed in devotion, it is thought only 
 natural that their passions should be without con- 
 trol.i 
 
 Nor does Mohammed omit to lay stress on what I 
 venture to think is as crucial a test of a moral code, 
 and even of a religion, as is the treatment of the poor 
 and the weak^ — I mean the duties we owe to what we 
 call the lower animals. There is no religion which 
 
 Lane's ' Modern Egyptians,' p. 288. 
 
216 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 has taken a higher view in its authoritative documents 
 of animal Hfe, and none wherein the precept has 
 been so much honoured by its practical observance. 
 ^ 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 ; ' and it is the current belief that animals will 
 share with men the general resurrection, and be judged 
 according to their works. At the slaughter of an 
 animal, the Prophet ordered that the name of God 
 should always be named, but the words ^ the Compas- 
 sionate, the Merciful,' were to be omitted ; for on the 
 one hand such an expression seemed a mockery to 
 the sufferer, and, on the other, he could not bring 
 himself to believe that the destruction of any life, 
 however necessary, could be altogether pleasing to the 
 All Merciful. ^ In the name of God,' says a pious 
 Musalman before he strikes the fatal blow ; ' God is 
 most great ; God give thee patience to endure the 
 affliction which He hath allotted thee ! "^ In the East 
 there has been no moralist like Bentham to insist in 
 noble words on the extension of the sphere of morality 
 to all sentient beings, and to be ridiculed for it by 
 people who call themselves religious ; there has been 
 no naturalist like Darwin, to demonstrate by his mar- 
 vellous powers of observation hov; large a part of the 
 mental and moral faculties which we usually claim 
 for ourselves alone we share with other beings ; there 
 has been no Oriental * Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals ; ' but one reason of this is not far 
 to seek. What the legislation of the last few years has 
 
 ' Suiji VI. 3S, and Sale's note ad lor. 
 " Lane's ' M<»dern KjfA-ptians,' I. IIU. 
 
TREATMENT OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 'Ill 
 
 at length attempted to do, and, from the mere fact that 
 it is legislation, must do ineffectually, has been long 
 effected in the East by the moral and religious senti- 
 ment which, like almost everything that is good in that 
 part of the world, can be traced back, in part at least, 
 to the great Prophet of Arabia/ In the East, so far 
 as it has not been hardened by the West, there is a 
 real sympathy between man and the domestic ani- 
 mals ; they understand one another, and the cruelties 
 which the most humane of our countrymen uncon- 
 sciously inflict in the habitual use, for instance, of the 
 muzzle or the bearing-rein on the most docile, the 
 most patient, the most faithful, and the most intelli- 
 gent of their companions, are impossible in the East. 
 An Arab cannot ill-treat his horse ; and Mr. Lane 
 bears emphatic testimony to the fact that in his long 
 residence in Egypt he never saw an ass or a dog (though 
 the latter is there looked upon as an unclean animal) 
 treated with cruelty, except in those cities which were 
 overrun by Europeans. "^ 
 
 ' The sympathy of the Prophet for his domestic animals is well 
 known. There is a great variety of traditions respecting his horses, 
 his mules, his milch and riding camels, and his goats. It would be 
 easy to write a complete biography of his favourite she-camel, Al 
 Kaswa. Her eccentricities and perversities exercised an influence 
 on some critical occasions in the Prophet's life — e. g. on his entrance 
 to Medina, and at Kodeiba. Among the phenomena attending Mo- 
 .hammed's fits, it is recorded that if one came on him while riding, 
 his camel itself became first wildly excited, and then fixed and rigid ! 
 And I have little doubt that the story arose from the almost electric 
 sympathy that exists between an intelligent animal that is kindly 
 treated and its master. 
 
 2 Lane, I. 359-361. Many mosques in Egypt and in other parts 
 of the Mohammedan East have funds belonging to them which arc 
 specially appropriated to the relief or support of animals. 
 
218 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Mohammed was not slow to forbid the practices 
 nearest to the Arab heart if he saw them clearly to be 
 wrong ; a strong reason surely for putting the most 
 charitable interpretation possible upon his retention of 
 polygamy. All hostilities and plundering excursions 
 between neighbouring tribes that had become Musul- 
 man he forbade on pain of death ; and this among 
 those who had hitherto lived by plunder or by war, 
 and who he knew might be deterred by such pro- 
 hibition from joining him. ^ Let us make one more 
 expedition against the Temim/ said a tribe that was 
 almost, but not altogether, persuaded to embrace the 
 faith, ' and then we will become Musalmans.' ^ Usury 
 and divination, drunkenness and gaming, were, as I 
 have shown in my Second Lecture, among the darling 
 practices of the Arabs : how did the Prophet deal 
 with them ? ' O true believers, surely wine, and lots, 
 and images, and divining arrows are an abomination 
 of the work of Satan : therefore avoid them, that ye 
 may prosper. Satan seeketh to sow dissension and 
 hatred among you, by means of wine and lots, and to 
 divert you from remembering God and from prayer : 
 will ye not therefore abstain from them ? ' '^ 
 
 By thus absolutely prohibiting gambling and in- 
 toxicating liquors, Mohammed did much to abolish, 
 once and for all, over the vast regions that own his 
 sway, two of the worst and most irremediable evils of 
 European society ; evils to the intensity of which the 
 Christian Governments of the nineteenth century are 
 hardly yet beginning to awake. 
 
 ' Quote<l by Dr. Cazenove. * Christian Remembrancer,' January 
 1855, p. 71, from Caussin de Perceval. 
 « Sura V. 92. 
 
HOW SHOULD CHRISTIANS REGARD ISLAM? 219 
 
 Can anyone then who recollects what the Arabian 
 Prophet did for woman, and the slave and the orphan, 
 for the poor and the sick, and the lower animals, and 
 who knows also how much he has done to restrain 
 throughout the East certain vices which are still ram- 
 pant in Christendom, deny what I have already 
 hinted above, that, looking at him merely as a moral 
 reformer, and apart from his great religious revolution, 
 Mohammed was really doing Christ's work, even if he 
 had reverenced Christ less than in fact he did ? 
 
 And this brings me to the most important question 
 that I shall touch upon at present ; and one, but for 
 which, in its various bearings, I do not know that I 
 should have written these Lectures : I mean the at- 
 titude that Christianity ought to bear to Mohammed- 
 anism now. To say that in spite of the theoretic 
 intolerance of Mohammedanism, it ought, unless its 
 theory is put into practice, itself to be tolerated, is 
 happily now a mere truism. But it ought not to be 
 treated with a merely contemptuous or distant re- 
 cognition, or to be inserted tanquam i7if amice causa — 
 ^ Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics ' — in a collect, 
 once a year, upon that day of all others upon which 
 the universality of Christ's self-sacrifice is brought be- 
 fore us. When the draft of a treaty was brought to 
 the General of the armies of revolutionary France, the 
 first clause of which contained a formal recognition by 
 the Emperor Francis of Austria — the representative of 
 legitimacy, absolutism, and divine right — of the exist- 
 ence of the French Republic, ^ Strike that clause out,' 
 said Napoleon ; ^ the French Republic needs no re- 
 cognition from him — it is as clear as the sun at noon- 
 day.' Mohammedanism needs no formal recognition 
 
220 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 of its existence by a faith with which it has so much 
 in common. The immemorial quarrel between Mo- 
 hammedanism and Christianity is, after all, a quarrel 
 between near relations ; and, like most immemorial 
 quarrels, is based chiefly on mutual misunderstandings. 
 Without any appearance of extraordinary condescen- 
 sion, we should recognise the fact which Mohamme- 
 dans themselves might at present certainly be inclined 
 to deny, that Islam is the nearest approach to 
 Christianity, I would almost call it, remembering 
 Mohammed's intense reverence for Christ, the 
 only form of Christianit)^, which has proved itself 
 suited to the nations of the East. John Cantacuzene, 
 the Greek Emperor of Constantinople, who calls him- 
 self in the title of his book ^ the most pious and Christ- 
 loving ' king, and who was often compelled to sharpen 
 his sword, as well as his pen, against the Turkish foes 
 who were then closing in around his capital, yet treats 
 them throughout as sectaries only, and not pagans.* 
 Dante himself placed Mohammed in the ' Inferno/ 
 not as a heathen, but as a heretic ; and is there any 
 reason why our notion of Christianity should be less 
 comprehensive that that of the patriot Greek Em- 
 peror or of the Christian poet ? 
 
 Mohammedanism is the one religion in the world, 
 besides our own and the Jewish, which is strictly and 
 avowedly Monotheistic. ' Dispute not,' said Moham- 
 med to his followers, ' against those who have received 
 
 ' The title of the lK)ok is sujfirestive : roit ihotfitCTdrov Kai <fn\o' 
 \piOTov fiaffiXfwQ 'liodvvoi' tov KavraKov 0)vov .... Kara r^c 
 'i^apaxiiviov (iipKriiti unoXoyiai A. He nuinietl his djiu^hter to h 
 Turk. See Ibn Batiitii's TniveN. p. 71»-S.'). fur :n» intore-^tiiiir accouut 
 of H Himilftr occuri-eiiee. 
 
THREE MONOTHEISTIC CREEDS. 221 
 
 the Scriptures, that is Jews and Christians, except 
 with gentleness ; but say unto them we beheve in the 
 revelation which hath been sent down to us, and also 
 in that which hath been sent down to you ; and our 
 God and your God is one.' ^ And again he says in 
 another place, ^ Verily the Believers, and those who 
 are Jews, those who are Christians and Sabeans, who- 
 ever believeth in God, and the last day, and doeth 
 that which is right, they shall have their reward with 
 their Lord, there shall come no fear upon them, 
 neither shall they be grieved.' '^ And in a still more 
 striking passage we find it written : ^ Unto every one 
 have we given a law and a way. Now if God had 
 pleased. He w^ould surely have made you one people, 
 but He hath made you to differ that He might try 
 you in that which He hath given to each, therefore 
 strive to excel each other in good w^orks. Unto God 
 shall ye all return, and He will tell you that concerning 
 which ye have disagreed.' ^ 
 
 The three Creeds are branches from the same 
 parent stock, not different stocks ; and they all alike 
 look back to the majestic character of Abraham as 
 the first teacher of the unity of God. Mohammed 
 says, again and again, that the belief he inculcates is 
 no new belief — it is the original creed of Khalil Allah, 
 the Friend of God. The heroes of the Old Testament 
 history, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph and Joshua, David 
 
 ' Sura V. 73. 
 
 2 Sura II. 59. 
 
 * Sura V. 52, 53. Cf . Acts x. 35. These are passages on which the 
 comparative mythologist, the Musalman reformer, and the Christian 
 missionary would alike do well to dwell. It is noteworthy also that 
 the fifth Sura, from which two of them come, is placed by Rodwell 
 and others last in the chronological order. 
 
222 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 and Solomon, are heroes of the Mohammedan religion 
 as well as of the Jewish and Christian. 
 
 I remarked in my Second Lecture that Mohammed 
 may have thought himself justified in breaking the 
 moral law he himself imposed, because a somewhat 
 similar concession had been made to Moses. This is 
 not a mere conjecture on my part, for it is certain that 
 Mohammed had, for one who was so careless of facts, 
 acquired somehow a full and fairly accurate knowledge 
 of the history of the great Lawgiver. He relates it 
 at length,' and recurs to it with a passionate fondness 
 from an early period in his career, evidently dwelling 
 mentally on the striking parallels between himself and 
 Moses, the shepherd life, the call to the Prophet's 
 office, the rejection by their own countrymen, no less 
 than — be it always remembered to Mohammed's 
 credit that he does not disguise it — the main point of 
 difference, the prodigality of miracles performed by 
 the one, and the inability to work them in the other. 
 One most sacred spot actually connects the two 
 Prophets together. There is a tradition, to some ex- 
 tent authenticated, that Mohammed drove the camels 
 of Khadijah to the very place where Moses had tended 
 the flocks of Jethro. Moses and Mohammed may 
 have reposed on the same rock, watered their cattle 
 at the same springs, looked upon the same weird 
 mountains.* And it is a redeeming point, perhaps 
 the only redeeming point, in the melancholy history 
 of St. Catherine's Monastery, that from age to age 
 within the convent walls, Mosque and Church have 
 stood side by side, and Muslims and Christians have 
 
 • See especially Sums VII. XVIII. XXVII. XXVIII. LV. 
 
 • Surall. 67, VII. 1(50. 
 
SPIRITUALITY OF ISLAM. 223 
 
 knelt together worshipping the same God ; and there, 
 if only there in the world, venerating with a kindred, 
 if not with an equal reverence, the same prophets, 
 Moses and Mohammed, and One who is infinitely 
 greater than them both.^ 
 
 Again, Mohammedanism is in a true sense of the 
 word a spiritual religion. As instituted by Mohammed 
 it had ^ no priest and no sacrifice ;' ^ in other words, 
 no caste of sacrificing priests were ever to be allowed 
 to come between the human soul and God : forbid- 
 ding the representation of all living things alike, 
 whether as objects of use or of admiration, of venera- 
 tion or of worship, Mohammedanism is more opposed 
 to idolatry even than we are ourselves. Mohammed 
 hated images more sternly even than the Iconoclasts 
 of Constantinople or the soldiers of Cromwell. Every 
 mosque in the world of Islam bears witness to this. 
 Statuary and pictures being forbidden, variegated 
 marbles, and festoons of lamps, and geometric shapes 
 and tortuous inscriptions from the Koran, have to 
 
 * See the account of St. Catherine's and its degradation in ' The 
 Desert of the Exodus,' by E. H. Palmer ; and in Stanley's * Sinai and 
 Palestine,' p. 53-54. Dean Stanley draws my attention to the fact 
 that there is a large mosque in the principal street of St. Petersburg ; 
 and it is said that at Nijni Novgorod the same phenomenon, mosque 
 and church as near and not unfriendly neighbours, may be observed ; 
 but there no doubt it is commerce rather than religious sympathy 
 which we have to thank for it. 
 
 * The Sacrifice at the Annual Pilgrimage is a mere relic of the 
 Pagan practice ; it has little religious significance, and does not 
 imply priestcraft ; it indicates only the belief that sin deserves 
 death. At the feast of Beiram a victim is offered, but only in com- 
 memoration of the ram accepted by God in the place of Isaac, or 
 rather, as the Musalmans represent it, in the place of Ishmael. 
 Each worshipper, moreover, offers the victim for himself, without 
 the intervention of any official. 
 
224 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 supply their place as best they can, and form that 
 pecuhar species of ornamentation, strictly confined to 
 the inanimate world, which we call Arabesque, and 
 which is still to be traced in the architecture of so 
 many churches and so many mosques along the 
 frontier line of four thousand miles which divides the 
 realm of the Crescent from that of the Cross.* 
 
 This hatred of idolatry has been found even 
 among the most uncivilised followers of the Prophet. 
 The gorgeous ritual, the gaudy pictures, and the pious 
 frauds which play so large a part in the conversion of 
 the Sclavonian nations to Christianity seem only to 
 have alienated these semi-barbarians. Mahmud the 
 Ghaznevide, the son of a slave and the conqueror of 
 Hindustan, was offered a sum of ten millions sterling 
 if only he would spare the famous idol in the pagoda 
 of Somnat. Avarice is said to have been his beset- 
 ting fault, but he replied in the memorable words, 
 ^ Never shall Mahmud be a merchant of idols;' and 
 broke it into pieces.* 
 
 In this horror of all objective symbols, in the 
 simplicity of its liturgical forms,' in the Nai^sence of a 
 priestly caste, and therefore of all beflref in such 
 
 ' Cf. Stanley's 'Lectures on the Eastern Church,' p. 273. Without 
 discussing the general question at length, I may remark here that 
 Gothic architecture, though it is not very ready to acknowledge the 
 debt, owes much to Moorish architecture — in particular the Horse- 
 shoe or Crescent Arch. The pointed arch itself is to be found in 
 many early mosques, and some of the most famous Venetian build- 
 ings, St. Mark's among them, owe much to Saracenic architecture. 
 
 ' Ferishta's ' History of Mohammedan Power in India' (Brig^'s 
 translation), I. p. 72 ; and Elphinstone's * History of India,' p. 336. 
 
 » See the forms of pniyer, «S:c., given by Garvin de Tassy, 
 * L'Islamisme,' p. 207-2S.". Most of them are of course an after- 
 jfrowth. 
 
HA TRED OF IDOL A TR Y. 225 
 
 doctrines as those of apostolical succession, inherent 
 sanctity, indissoluble vows, the duty of confession or 
 powers of absolution, Islam stands alone among the 
 religions of the world. Yet without compromising 
 seriously this its essential character, it was able 
 originally, and it is able still, in Africa and in 
 Hindustan, in Central Asia and the East Indian 
 islands, to win over, and that often by pure conviction, 
 Pagans from the most debasing and materialistic 
 forms of idolatry, and this to an extent which is 
 quite unequalled in modern times by any form of 
 Christianity, or by any other proselytising creed. In a 
 Protestant country in which the missionary spirit is 
 still strong, but in some portions of which a florid 
 ritual and an exotic Bestheticism seem to be the order 
 of the day, it is well to draw pointed attention to 
 what another creed can do without any such accom- 
 paniments, and to the stumbling-block which these 
 would inevitably place in the way of a Musalman 
 who might otherwise be disposed to listen to the 
 Christian message.^ 
 
 Finally, Mohammedanism, in spite of centuries 
 of wars and misunderstandings, looks back upon the 
 Founder of our religion with reverence only less than 
 that with which the most devout Christians regard 
 Him. 
 
 So far from its being true, as is commonly sup- 
 posed, that Mohammedans regard Christ as Christians 
 
 ' One of the forms of idolatry which Mohammed found among the 
 Pagans of Arabia, and which he overthrew, was the worship of bread. 
 A tribe called the Hanifa used to pay Divine honours to a shapeless 
 lump of dough ; which, however, with characteristic levity, they were 
 not unwilling to eat when pressed by want of food. 
 
 H 
 
226 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 have too often regarded Mohammed, with hatred 
 and with contempt ; Sir Wilh'am Muir remarks 
 that devout Musalmans never mention the name of 
 Seyyedna Eesa, or Our Lord Jesus, without adding the 
 words ^on whom be peace.' The highest honour that 
 a Musalman can conceive is given to Christ in the 
 grave reserved for Him by the side of the Prophet 
 himself in the great Mosque at Medina. Moham- 
 medans expect that He will one day return to earth, 
 and having slain Antichrist, will establish perfect peace 
 among men. And Dr. Hunter ^ tells us that the 
 Indian Shiahs avowedly look forward to his reap- 
 pearance simultaneously with that of the last of their 
 twelve Imams, and to an amalgamation of the two 
 creeds ; of Islam as the followers of Ali hold it, and 
 of Christianity, not as it is, but as they believe it was 
 taught by Christ Himself.* A Christian indeed is 
 not received by Mohammedans with quite the open 
 arms of hospitality with which they welcome a brother 
 Mohammedan ; but a traveller who was the first to 
 explore the source of the Oxus, and the adjacent 
 countries in Central Asia, tells us, as the result of his 
 own wide experience, that a Christian may count 
 upon a courteous, if not upon a cordial, reception 
 from them, and that he is always treated with kind- 
 ness and respect.^ A Mohammedan, he goes on to 
 say, looks upon Christians in the light indeed of 
 benighted and misguided men, but yet, as the Prophet 
 himself so often called them, as 'people of the Book/ 
 
 ' • 'Our Indian MnBsulmanp,' p. 120, by W. W. Hunter. 
 
 « For a curious (HscuRsion on the return of the Messiah to earth 
 held at Tirabuctu, see Barth's ' Travels in Central Africa,' V., p. 4. 
 
 • Wood's * Oxus,' p. 9.S, 94. 
 
REVERENCE FOR CHRIST. 227 
 
 who, though not heirs to the high destinies of Moham- 
 med's followers, are nevertheless, from the sacred 
 character of Seyyedna Eesa, entitled to the commi- 
 seration and sympathy of the faithful. The fact is 
 that though, since the first spread of Islam, compara- 
 tively few Christians have ever become Musalmans, 
 a Musalman is still disposed to look upon a Christian 
 as, potentially at least, a brother Musalman. It was 
 a saying of the Prophet himself, that 'everyone is 
 bom a Musalman :' Abraham was one, so was Jesus, 
 in that he was resigned to God's will and had un- 
 bounded faith in Him. The two systems of belief, 
 therefore, were, in the Prophet's view, in no way con- 
 tradictory to each other. Islam was, as he taught 
 at one stage of his life, a religion co-ordinate with 
 Christianity ; at another a development, but not more 
 than a development of it. To revile Jesus has there- 
 fore always been looked upon by the Prophet's con- 
 sistent followers as no less an offence than to revile 
 Mohammed. In the time of Mohammed IV. a 
 convert to Islam at Constantinople, in order to prove, 
 as he thought, the sincerity of his conversion, or 
 to ingratiate himself with those who were now 
 his co-religionists, began to blaspheme Christ. He 
 was dragged off by the Musalmans who heard him 
 to the Divan, and was ordered out for instant exe- 
 cution. 
 
 If it be asked, why then did Mohammed not 
 accept Christianity, I apprehend that the reasons are 
 threefold ; and that it appears from the chronological 
 order lately assigned to the Suras of the Koran, that 
 at one period, that of the Fatrah, Mohammed did 
 consider whether first Judaism, and secondly Chris- 
 
228 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 tianity, as he knew it, contained the message he had 
 to give. 
 
 I. The first explanation I would suggest is, that 
 the Christ known to him was the Christ, not of the 
 Bible, but of tradition ; the Christ, not of the 
 Canonical, but of the Apocr^^phal Gospels, and even 
 these only from general tradition. The wonder is, 
 Mohammed's information being confined to the in- 
 coherent rhapsodies and the miraculous inanities of 
 the Gospels of the Infancy, the Acta Pilati and the 
 ' Descensus ad Inferos,' not that he reverenced Christ 
 so little, but so much. In the whole of the Koran 
 there are only three passages which look like any 
 direct acquaintance with the Evangelists ; and one of 
 these, the well-known passage about the Paraclete, he 
 misunderstands himself, and accuses Christians of 
 intentionally perverting from its proper meaning, a 
 prediction of the coming of the Periclyte, the Greek 
 form of Mohammed, the Illustrious, or the Praised.' 
 
 II. Secondly, the worship of saints and images, 
 and the shape which certain floating ideas had taken 
 when they were stereotyped in the formulas of the 
 Christian Church, seemed to Mohammed to conflict 
 with his fundamental doctrine of the unity of God. 
 The mysteries of the Trinity were to be appraised and 
 handled by every one who called himself a Christian, 
 not merely as a test, but as the test of his Christianity. 
 Mohammed accuses even the Jews of having lost 
 sight of their primary truth, which was also his, in 
 calling Ezra the Son of God,* and what wonder if he 
 rejected a religion the essence of which he understood, 
 
 ' Sura KXI. «5. « Hum IX. 30. 
 
WHY DID MOHA MMED REJECT CHRISTIANITY? 229 
 
 and too many Christians of his time understood to 
 be, not a holy life, but, as it is still represented in the 
 Athanasian Creed, an elaborate and unthinkable 
 mode of thinking of the Trinity ? It is doubtful 
 indeed whether a people that has once become mono- 
 theistic in any other form than the Christian, can ever 
 be brought to accept, I do not say Christianity 
 altogether, but the doctrines that are often supposed 
 to be of its very essence. Among such a people the 
 missionary invariably finds that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, however explained, involves Tritheism, and 
 their ears are at once closed to his teaching. To a 
 Pagan who accepts Christianity the change no doubt 
 is one from Polytheism to Monotheism, but to the 
 Jew or Mohammedan, except in very rare instances, 
 it is the opposite. 
 
 Let us hear on these points, however, Mohammed 
 himself, remembering all the while how slight was 
 his knowledge of the doctrine which he travestied, 
 and how dim the outline of the majestic character 
 which yet filled his imagination : — 
 
 ^ They surely are infidels who say God is the third 
 of three, for there is no God but one God.' ^ 
 
 ^ Say not three ; forbear, it will be better for thee ; 
 God is only one God.' '^ 
 
 Christ was with Mohammed the greatest of Pro- 
 phets.-^ He had the power of working miracles ; He 
 spoke in his cradle ; He made a bird out of clay.'* 
 He could give sight to the blind, and even raise the 
 
 » Sura V. 77. ^ Sura IV. 6. ' Sura II. 254. 
 
 * Incidents drawn from the Grospels of the Infancy or of St. 
 Thomas. 
 
230 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 dead to life.^ He is the Word proceeding from God ; 
 His name is the Messiah. Illustrious in this world 
 and in the next, and one of those who have near 
 access to God.'^ ' He is strengthened by the Holy 
 Spirit/ for so Mohammed, in more than one passage, 
 calls the Angel Gabriel.^ Mohammed all but believes 
 in the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,* and 
 certainly in the miraculous nature of the birth of 
 Christ, to which he recurs repeatedly.* But that 
 Jesus ever claimed, as is affirmed by the writers of 
 the New Testament, and as we know He did, to be 
 the Son of God, still less that He ever claimed to be 
 equal with God, Mohammed could not bring himself 
 to believe. 
 
 ^ It becometh not a man that God should give him 
 the Scriptures, and the Wisdom, and the spirit 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 
 them.' ^ 
 
 And again, ' For the Messiah himself said. Oh 
 children of Israel, worship God, my Lord and 
 yours.' ^ 
 
 And once more, ' Those who say that Jesus, the 
 Son of Mary, is the Son of God, are infidels, for who 
 could stop the arm of God if He were to destroy the 
 
 > Sura III. 41-43. « Sura III. 40. » Sura II. 81. 
 
 * Sura III. 30. There was a well-known sect of Christians calleil 
 CoUyridians 'in Arabia who paid the Virgin divine honours, and 
 offered her a twisted cake {k6\\v(>iq). Thence, no doubt, came Mo- 
 hammed's idea that the Virgin was one of the Persons of the Trinity. 
 
 • Sura XIX. 20. • Sura IIL 78. » Sura V. 76. 
 
MOHAMMED'S VIEWS OF THE TRINITY. 231 
 
 Messiah and His mother, and all who are in the earth 
 together ? ' ^ 
 
 Neither can Mohammed ever believe that Jesus 
 could have been crucified. ' It is so long ago, let us 
 hope that it is not true/ said an old Cheshire woman 
 when she heard for the first time in her life the story 
 of the Crucifixion. ^ If I and my brave Franks had 
 been there, we would have avenged His injuries,' 
 was the exclamation of the fierce barbarian Clovis 
 when he received his first lesson in the Christian life. 
 The Dreamer of the Desert sympathised rather with 
 the first of these. As Stesichorus '^ believed that 
 the Greeks and Trojans fought for the phantom of 
 Helen, and not for Helen herself; as the Docetists 
 held that the phantom of Jesus and not Jesus Himself 
 had been crucified ; so Mohammed rebels at the 
 thought that God can ever have allowed such a 
 tragedy to take place. Some one else, he curiously 
 supposes, who deserved such a death — perhaps it 
 was Judas himself — may have been substituted for 
 Christ ; and Christ being taken up to heaven, 
 must have felt that the deception thus practised 
 on the Jews was a kind of punishment to Himself 
 for not having taken greater pains to prevent men 
 calling Him the Son of God.^ And at the resurrec- 
 tion Jesus will Himself testify against both Jews 
 and Christians ; the Jews for not having received 
 Him as a prophet, the Christians for having received 
 Him as God. 
 
 There is a short chapter in the Koran which Mus- 
 
 Sura V. 19. » Plato, 'Republic,' IX. hd. 
 
 » Sura 111. 49, IV. 156. 
 
232 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANIISM, 
 
 lims look upon as equal to a third of the whole in 
 value : 
 
 ' Say there is one God alone — 
 God the Eternal ; 
 He begetteth not, and He is not Vjegotten, 
 And there is none like unto Him.' * 
 
 And once more, ' They say the Merciful hath 
 gotten offspring. Now have ye done a monstrous 
 thing ; almost might the very heavens rend thereat, 
 and the earth rend asunder, and the mountains fall 
 down in fragments, that they ascribe a son to the 
 Merciful, when it becometh not the Merciful to beget 
 a son. Verily there is nobody in the heavens nor in 
 the earth that shall approach the Merciful but as a 
 servant.' * 
 
 It is certain that the notions conveyed to Moham- 
 med's mind by the words he so often uses, ' begetting 
 and begotten,' and which called forth this torrent of 
 indignant invective, were such as might well do so ; 
 and such also as he might, under the circumstances, 
 not unnaturally attribute to Christians. A learned 
 critic to whom I am much indebted, Dr. G. P. Badger, 
 points out that the word * Walada ' used by Moham- 
 med throughout the Sura quoted just now, does neces- 
 sarily involve notions of sex and of physical pater- 
 nity ; and it was doubtless against these that Moham- 
 med hurled his anathemas. On the other hand, Dr. 
 Badger remarks that the equivalent of this word is 
 never used in the New Testament to express the 
 Christian doctrine of the Divine Sonship ; and that 
 the term * Word of God ' is applied to Christ as much 
 
 • Sum ex 11. » Sum XIX. Ul-y4. 
 
MOHAMMED'S VIEWS OF CHRIST. 233 
 
 by Mohammed and the Koran as by St. John in his 
 Gospel. If this can be made evident to Musalmans, 
 it is clear that one great cause of misconception will 
 be lessened or removed ; and, even if it cannot, it is 
 still fair to remember that for centuries the battle of 
 Ecclesiastical warfare in the East had been raging 
 round the words which should be used to express the 
 idea of a relationship which, it is admitted, human 
 language cannot adequately convey nor human 
 thought conceive. The followers of the party which 
 had triumphed at the councils of Ephesus and Chalce- 
 don, which had made the word Theotokos, for the 
 time, to be the watchword of mitres and of thrones ; and 
 had driven the Nestorians, with their rival watchword, 
 Christotokos, into exile in the remote East, were not 
 likely to steer clear of the physical questions which 
 might be involved in the controversy ; and no impar- 
 tial enquirer will be surprised to hear that in Arabia the 
 Christian doctrine of the Trinity was believed to be a 
 Trinity of a Father, a Mother, and a Son ; or that the 
 Almighty is represented in the Koran as enquiring of 
 Jesus, the son of Mary, ^ hast thou indeed said unto 
 men, Take me and my mother for two Gods besides 
 God ? ' The honours indeed paid to the ^ Mother of 
 God ' by the party which had triumphed, were little 
 less than divine ; and Mohammed may therefore be 
 excused for believing that in rejecting Christianity as 
 he knew it, he was rejecting Saint- worship and Poly- 
 theism, as well as the adoration of pictures and of 
 images. 
 
 I have dwelt thus at length upon Mohammed's 
 views of Christ, partly because of the intrinsic in- 
 terest and importance attaching to the views held by 
 
234 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 one so great of One so infinitely greater ; partly 
 because they show how little Mohammed, and in- 
 deed how little Christians themselves, understood 
 the real nature of Christianity ; partly also because 
 the strictures of Mohammed, however exaggerated 
 and however mistaken, seem to me to suggest a 
 caution necessary for us all. Christ came to reveal 
 God, not to hide Him ; to bring Him down to earth, 
 not to shroud Him in an immeasurable distance ; to 
 tell us that God is not primarily Justice, or Truth, 
 or Power, but Love. Do Christians always remem- 
 ber this ? Are our views of Justification, of Origi- 
 nal Sin, of a Future Life, when drawn out in the 
 forensic and almost legal language in which some 
 Churches foolishly delight to clothe them, always 
 consistent with it? Do our prayers always pre- 
 suppose a God who, in His own intrinsic nature, is 
 anxious to receive them ? Are we not apt to forget 
 the unity of God, while we doginatise on the Trinity? 
 Do we not sometimes place Christ as it were in front 
 of God, thinking so much of the Son who sacrificed 
 Himself, that we ignore the Father who ^ spared Him 
 not ; ' forgetting the Giver in the very magnitude of 
 the gift ? 
 
 HL And the third reason, and perhaps the 
 most important of all, for Mohammed's rejection of 
 Christianity is the fact that Christianity as he knew 
 it had been tried and had failed. It had been known 
 for three hundred years in Arabia, and had not been 
 able to overthrow, or even weaken, the idolatry of 
 the inhabitants. 
 
 It is strange, with this fact and the whole course 
 of history before him, with which evidently few are 
 
MOHAMMED'S REJECTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 235 
 
 more familiar, that a great writer can conclude a 
 review of Mohammedanism, which is otherwise fair 
 and able, by endorsing the charge made against it, 
 that it has kept back the East by hindering the spread 
 of Christianity. The charge has been often made 
 before,^ but it rests on so slender a basis that I should 
 not have thought it necessary to discuss it here, had 
 I not found at the last moment that one who is 
 apparently so high an authority has lent the weight 
 of his name to it. That I may do him no injustice, I 
 quote his own words : — 
 
 ' Mohammed in his own age and country was the 
 greatest of reformers — a reformer alike religious, 
 
 moral, and political But when his 
 
 system passed the borders of the land in which it was 
 so great a reform, it became the greatest of curses to 
 mankind. The main cause which has made the reli- 
 gion of Mohammed exercise so blighting an influence 
 on every land where it has been preached, is because 
 it is an imperfect system standing in the way of one 
 more perfect. Islam has in it just enough of good to 
 
 hinder the reception of greater good 
 
 Because Islam comes nearer to Christianity than any 
 other false system, because it comes nearer than any 
 other to satisfying the wants of man's spiritual nature, 
 for that very reason it is, above all other false systems, 
 pre-eminently anti-Christian. It is, as it were, the 
 personal enemy and rival of the Faith, disputing on 
 equal terms for the same prize ! ' ^ 
 
 This indictment is so well drawn, at first sight it 
 so carries conviction with it, and yet, if true, it is so 
 
 * As, for instance, by Sir W. Muir, IV. 321. 
 
 2 Britiith Quarterly Review, Jan. 1872, p. 132-134. 
 
236 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 fatal to any favourable or any fair judgment of 
 Mohammedanism, that I am compelled, while I gladly 
 acknowledge the author's fair and sympathetic treat- 
 ment of the subject in every page that precedes and 
 follows those I have quoted, to contest, from my 
 point of view, as strongly as I can, upon this ques- 
 tion, alike his facts and his inferences. 
 
 Upon what single fact then, either before or after 
 Mohammed's time, does the writer ground this charge ? 
 If the purest Christianity of all, preached by Christ 
 and His Apostles, did not make way in the Eastern 
 world ; if the few Christian Churches which did exist 
 among the half Roman or Hellenic inhabitants of 
 Syria and of Africa had sunk to the condition in which 
 we know they were when Mohammedanism swept 
 them away, what reason have we, either a priori or dt 
 posteriori^ for supposing that the Christianity of any 
 later time w^ould have been more successful ? Have 
 Christian nations been so energetic or so successful in 
 converting any of those African or Asiatic nations 
 which Mohammedanism has never reached, as to 
 entitle us to turn round upon the religion which has 
 re-moulded so large a portion of the human race, and 
 tell it that it is a curse to humanity because, forsooth, 
 while we admit it was in its time a grand forward 
 movement and has been a higher life to untold millions 
 since, we wish that Fetish worship should have lasted 
 on perhaps till now, that Christianity may now have 
 the chance of doing the work somewhat better ? If 
 this is Christianity, I only say most certainly it is not of 
 Christ. It is not of the Spirit of Him who said that 
 those who were not against Him were with Him ; and 
 rejoiced that good was done by others, even if it seemed 
 
CHRISTIANITY THE RELIGION OF THE WEST. 237 
 
 an infringement of His own Divine commission. Christ 
 was not like the Prsetorian prefect of Tacitus, ^ Co7isiliiy 
 quamvis egregiiy quod non ipse ajferret inimicusl 
 though some Christians would have it that He was. 
 The only monopoly of good that Christianity, if it is 
 of the spirit of its Founder, may claim, is the monopoly 
 not of doing good, but of rejoicing at it whenever it 
 is done, and whoever does it ; of showing, if it carries 
 out its Founder's intentions, that it is wide enough to 
 recognise as its own and to embrace within its ample 
 bosom all honest ' seekers after God,' and all true 
 benefactors of humanity. The most ^anti-Christian' 
 religion is not that which comes nearest to Christianity, 
 but that which is furthest removed from it ; and the 
 religion which after Christianity comes nearest to 
 'satisfying the wants of man's spiritual nature' is 
 really not its most deadly enemy, but its best ally. 
 To say otherwise, liberal and tolerant as the author 
 unquestionably is, is to encourage weaker men under 
 the shadow of his name,* not merely to indulge in the 
 odium theologicum, but to assert that the odium 
 theologicum itself is Christian. 
 
 ' NoQ tali auxilio nee defensoribus istis 
 Tempus eget,' 
 
 Can it be forgotten that the churches planted by 
 the great Apostle were, without exception, to the west 
 of Palestine — that star- worship and fire-worship were 
 unaffected by Christianity then, even as Brahminism 
 
 * This has actually been the case, for the passage I have quoted 
 was the only one in an otherwise most temperate essay upon which 
 religious periodicals pounced, and, by quoting apart from its context, 
 fanned the flame of misconception and prejudice which, even when 
 read with everything which tends the other way, it would, in my 
 judgment, be likely to kindle. 
 
238 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 and Buddhism, if we regard them broadly, are un- 
 affected by it now ? Can we point to a single 
 Oriental nation which has been able to accept and 
 to retain Christianity in its pure form, or to a single 
 religion to be named with Mohammedanism in 
 point of purity and sublimity, which has ever been 
 able to overthrow any national Oriental faith ? And, 
 if we cannot, what right have we to say that it is 
 Islam, and not Nature, that has hitherto stood in the 
 way of Christianity in Arabia and Persia, in Africa 
 and India ? The triumphs of the Cross have indeed 
 been far purer, far wider, far sublimer than those of 
 the Crescent ; but they have been hitherto confined to 
 the higher races of the world. Uncivilised nations of 
 the higher stock, Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Vandals 
 and Lombards, Franks and Northmen, the Celt, the 
 Teuton, and the Sclavonian, invaded Christianity only 
 to be conquered by it. But upon the Oriental bar- 
 barians of a lower race who invaded Europe, with 
 the one exception of the Magyars, whose case is 
 special,* Huns and Avars, Turks and Tartars, it has 
 
 ' The Magyars, whatever their original home — and it seems that 
 they were of the Finnish stock — are probably the most mixed race on 
 the Continent of Europe, and were so even before they settled within 
 the limits of the present Hungary. In their march towards Europe 
 they were joined by hosts of Chazars, Bulgarians, and Sclavonians. 
 During their ravages, which lasted for some fifty years, and spread 
 from the Oural Mountains to the Pyrenees, they transported women 
 and children wholesale from the countries they overran to their head- 
 quarters on the Danulx; ; and it is probable that at the time of their 
 avowetl conversion by Adalbert, about a.d. lOOU, they luul almost 
 as much German and Italian as they had Tartar bl«K^ in their veins. 
 8t. Piligrinus (quoted by Giblmn, VII. 172), the fii>«t raiasionary 
 who entered Hungary, says that he found the ' majority of the 
 population to be Christians,' qui rue omni parte mundi illuc tracti 
 sunt eaptivi. 
 
ISLAM THE RELIGION OF PASTORAL RACES. 239 
 
 had no influence. Shall Christians, then, complain 
 of Mohammedans for having succeeded in some 
 measure in doing for the East what they have failed 
 to do ; or would Christ have rejected what good 
 service Mohammed did because his credentials were 
 not precisely those of the Apostles ? What super- 
 ficial appearance of truth there is in the charge is this 
 — that no Mohammedan nation has hitherto accepted 
 Christianity, while some nations that were nominally 
 Christians have accepted Mohammedanism. But to 
 establish the charge, it would, of course, be necessary 
 to show that the East, if it had not accepted Moham- 
 medanism, would have accepted a real Christianity, or 
 any religion so much like Christianity as Mohamme- 
 danism unquestionably is ; and to do this we must 
 read history backwards. 
 
 Now Mohammed offered to the Arabs an idea of 
 God less sympathetic and less loveable, indeed, but 
 as sublime as the Christian, and perhaps still more 
 intense, and one, as it turned out, which they could 
 receive. Christianity was compelled to leave its birth- 
 place — the inhabitants and subsequent history of 
 which it has scarcely affected, except indirectly — to 
 find its proper home in the Western world, among 
 the inhabitants and progressive civilisation of Greece 
 and Rome. The lot of Mohammedanism has been 
 different ; ^ it is the religion of the shepherd and 
 the nomad, of the burning desert and the boundless 
 steppe.' So admirably suited was it to the region 
 in which it was bom, that it needed no foreign air or 
 change of circumstances to develope it.* 
 
 * Compare throughout this paragraph, M. Barth. St. Hilaire, 
 p. 230 seq. Sir Emerson Tennent, in his ' Christianity in Ceylon,' 
 
240 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 In its simple grandeur it has been able, without 
 tampering with that which is its Alpha and Omega — 
 the belief in one God, who reveals Himself by His 
 prophets — to leave the most essential elements of 
 national life to the various nations which made up the 
 Arabian empire ; and to adapt itself to ever^' pecu- 
 liarity, mental and moral, of the inhabitants of Central 
 and Western Asia. The rapid intuition and the wild 
 flights of imagination ; the vivid mental play around 
 the Antinomies of the reason, and the craving for 
 the supernatural in the utmost particularity of detail ; 
 the fervid asceticism of the Dervish, and the mystic 
 Pantheism of the Sufi, have each found in Islam some- 
 thing to meet their wants. 
 
 But, on the other hand, Mohammedanism has 
 never passed into countries of a wholly different 
 nature, and held them permanently. Spain is not a 
 case in point, though it was never so well governed as 
 under the Mohammedans ; for the Spaniards them- 
 selves never to any great extent became Moham- 
 medan, and the Moorish settlement there was only 
 
 lifter pointing out (p. 272, 273) that education must precede direct 
 missionary efforts, remarks that ' neither history nor more recent 
 experience can furnish any example of the long retention of pure 
 Christianity by a people themselves rude and unenlightened. In all 
 the nations of Europe Christianity has taken the hue and complexion 
 of the social state with which it was incorporated, presenting itself 
 unsullied, contaminated, or corrupted in sympathy with the enlighten- 
 ment, or ignorance, or debasement of those by whom it has been 
 originally embraced. The rapid and universal degeneracy of the 
 early Asiatic Churches is associated Avith the decline of education, 
 and the intellectual decay of the communities among whom they 
 were eatablished.' Apply these remarks, mutatis mvtandh, to Islam, 
 and how many of the charges made against it fall at once to the 
 ground, or fail to hit their mark ! 
 
ISLAM IN AFRICA AND SPAIN. 241 
 
 like a Greek lirLTuxiaiia or a Roman colonia — an out- 
 post in the heart of the enemy's country. Much the 
 same may be said of Turkey, where the majority of 
 the subject population has always remained Christian. 
 I cannot, therefore, 'pace tanti nommisl follow Gibbon 
 in his picture of the probable consequences to Euro- 
 pean civilisation had Charles Martel been conquered 
 at Tours ; of Musalman preachers demonstrating to a 
 circumcised audience, in the mosques of Paris and of 
 Oxford, the truth of the religion of Mohammed 1 
 The wave of conquest might have spread over Europe ; 
 but it would have been but a wave, and few traces 
 would have been left when it had swept on. In 
 Africa the case was different ; the Greek colonists 
 and Roman conquerors — the higher races, in fact — 
 were driven out by the Saracens, and, ' in their climate 
 and habits, the wandering Moors who remained behind 
 already resembled the Bedouins of the Desert.' ^ 
 Mohammedanism is the only form in which the know- 
 ledge of the true God has ever made way with the 
 native races of Africa ; and the form of Christianity 
 which it supplanted in the North — the Christianity 
 of the Donatists and of the Nitrian monks ; of Cyril, 
 strangely called a saint ; and of the infamous George 
 of Cappadocia, still more strangely transformed into 
 St. George of England, the patron of chivalry and of 
 the Garter — was infinitely inferior to Mohammedanism 
 itself. 
 
 I fully admit that Mohammedanism, if indeed it 
 had succeeded in conquering the most civilised races 
 of the world and the Christianity of the West, 
 
 ' Gibbon, VI. LI. p. 473. 
 
 H 2 
 
242 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 as it succeeded in conquering the Eastern nations 
 and their various fomis of belief, would have con- 
 quered something that was potentially better than 
 itself, and then it would have been what Christian 
 writers are so fond of calling it — a curse to the world 
 rather than a blessing. It would have stepped 
 beyond what I conceive to have been its proper 
 mission ; but I maintain that it stopped short of this, 
 and that it destroyed nothing that was not far inferior 
 to itself. 
 
 I should hesitate to say that even its conquest of 
 Spain was not, while it lasted, a blessing to Spain 
 itself, and through Spain to the whole of Europe. Has 
 Spain exhibited more order, more toleration, more 
 industry, better faith, more material prosperity, under 
 her most Christian Kings, or under her Ommiade 
 Khalifs ? The names of the three Abdul Rahmans, 
 and of Almamun, suggest all that is most glorious in 
 Spanish history, and much that has conferred benefit 
 on the rest of Europe in the darkest period of her 
 annals — religious zeal without religious intolerance, 
 philosophy and literature, science and art, hospitals, 
 and libraries, and universities. 
 
 Nearly three centuries have elapsed since the 
 fatuous decree of Philip III. banished from Spain and 
 from Europe the most enlightened and industrious 
 portion of his subjects ; yet even now the traveller in 
 Spain feels as he approaches Andalusia that he is 
 breathing a clearer atmosphere, that he is brought 
 into contact with a finer literature, and is contem- 
 plating a far nobler architecture, than any which the 
 more northern parts of the Peninsula can boast. 
 Moorish, not Catholic, is ever}'thing that appeals to 
 
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. 243 
 
 his imagination and to his finer feehngs ; Moorish are 
 the legends and the ballads of the country ; Moorish 
 are the Alcazar and the Giralda of Seville ; Moorish 
 everything that is not discordant in the once matchless 
 Mosque, now the interpolated Cathedral of Cordova ; ' 
 Moorish all the glories of the Alhambra. And 
 as the traveller passes the hill which is still called, 
 with such deep pathos, ^the last sigh of the Moor/ he 
 feels that the day which saw the fall of Granada is a 
 day over which every Spaniard may well sigh for 
 what it cost Spain, and every European for what it 
 cost humanity at large. 
 
 Sicily again was conquered by the Arabs and held 
 by them for two hundred years ; and it was their rule 
 that gave to the island the only period of prosperity 
 and good government which it has enjoyed from the 
 time of the first Punic war till now ; and when at last 
 the rule of the Fatimite Khalifs was overthrown by 
 the crusading chieftains of the house of Tancred of 
 Hauteville, the comparative prosperity which still 
 smiled on Sicily was due to those Norman princes 
 who adopted the customs and the manners of the 
 people they had overthrown ; and some of whom, 
 like William the Good, are said to have been at least 
 as much Musalman as Christian.* 
 
 In spite, however, of what I maintain it has done 
 under exceptional circumstances even for European 
 
 ' When Charles V. saw the havoc that had been wrought by those 
 who had converted the Mosque into a cathedral, he reproached the 
 bishop and chapter, saying, • You have built here what you might 
 have built anywhere else, but you have destroyed what was unique 
 in the world.' 
 
 ^ See Deutsch, ' Literary Eemains,' p, 457-160. 
 
244 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 countries, it follows from what I have equally freely 
 admitted above that Mohammedanism is not a world- 
 wide rehgion. The sphere of its influence is vast, 
 but not boundless ; in catholicity of application it is 
 as much below the purest Christianity as the Semitic 
 and Turanian nations which have embraced it are 
 below the Western Indo-Germanic. I say the 
 Western Indo-Germanic races, for among the Eastern 
 branches of that great family, the inhabitants of 
 Persia and of Hindustan, Mohammedanism did estab- 
 lish itself. 
 
 The Persians are of a race and genius widely dif- 
 ferent from the Arabs ; but the surroundings and the 
 general mode of life are the same in each, and the 
 exception, so far as it is an exception, to the rule I 
 have laid down, tends rather, in its results, to prove 
 its general truth, for the hold of Mohammedanism on 
 them has been much modified by the difference of 
 race. The religion which proclaimed the absolute 
 supremacy of God was no doubt an infinite advance 
 upon the ^chilhng equipoise' of good and evil to which 
 the creed of Zoroaster had at that time sunk.' Nor 
 was the national existence of Persia stamped out, as 
 has been often said, by the Khalifs ; for the Persian 
 province of Khorasan was itself strong enough to 
 place the Abbasside Khalifs on the throne of Bag- 
 dad ; the Persian dynasties of the Samanides and 
 Dilemites gave to the nation a new lease of life, and a 
 wholly new national literature ; and it is to a Moham- 
 medan Sultan of the Turkish race that Persia owes 
 her greatest literary glory, her national epic, the 
 
 • Sec Elpliinstonc's * India,' V. I. 818. 
 
ISLAM IN PERSIA AND INDIA. 245 
 
 'Shahnameh' of Firdausi. Still it cannot be said that 
 the religion proved itself altogether suited to the 
 people. In other countries the scymitar had no sooner 
 been drawn from its scabbard than it was sheathed 
 again. But in Persia the scymitar had not only to 
 clear the way, but for some time afterwards to main- 
 tain the new religion.^ The Persians corrupted its 
 simplicity with fables and with miracles ; they actually 
 imported into it something of saint-worship, and 
 something of sacerdotalism ; and, consequently, in no 
 nation in the Mohammedan world has the religion 
 less hold on the people as a restraining power. The 
 most stringent principles of the Koran are set at 
 nought ; beng and opium are common ; . the Ketman, 
 or religious equivocation, is held to be as allowable 
 as it has been by the Casuists or the Jesuits ; and the 
 nation which Herodotus tells us devoted a third of 
 its whole educational curriculum to learning to speak 
 the truth, now contains hardly an individual who will 
 speak the truth unless he has something to gain 
 by it. 
 
 In Hindustan, amidst the other branch of the great 
 Aryan race which did not move westward, Moham- 
 medanism has obtained finally a very strong footing ; 
 but it was slow in winning its way.; and the forty 
 millions of Musalmans over whom we rule — and a 
 tremendous and but half-recognised responsibility it 
 is^ — devout as they are, have become so by long 
 
 1 See Sir John Malcolm's ' History of Persia,' I. VIII. ]>. 277, &c. 
 
 * Since this was written, the grievances of Mohammedans in India, 
 so ably and temperately stated by Mr. Hunter, have been in part 
 alleviated by the adoption of some of the remedies he suggests, at 
 least as far as regards education. 
 
246 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 lapse of time, by social influences, and by intermixture 
 with conquering Arabs, Gheznevides, and Afghans, 
 rather than by the sudden fervour of religious enthu- 
 siasm.^ The reverence paid to saints and their tombs, 
 which has, in defiance of the letter of the Koran and 
 the traditions, crept into so many parts of the Musal- 
 man world, is, as was to be expected, more noticeable in 
 Persia and in India than elsewhere. The festival of the 
 Moharram, commemorating the martyrdom of Hassan 
 and Hosein, sons of Ali, and observed in Persia with 
 such passionate indications of grief, is celebrated with 
 hardly less solemnity in India also, and resembles in 
 many particulars the Mysteries and the Miracle-Plays 
 of the Middle Ages. Islam has in the course of 
 centuries and by long contact with Hindu idolatry 
 naturally made many compromises with it. Some of 
 the Musalman saints are reverenced by the Hindus 
 as well as by the Musalmans ; and these last have in 
 their turn accommodated the accessories of their 
 Pilgrimages, of their Fasts, and their Feasts, to the 
 tastes of the Hindus ; to a religion, that is, which 
 speaks more to the senses than to the reason, to the 
 imagination than to the soul.* 
 
 ' Elphinstone, V. I. 314, and Cap. III. on the Reign of the Sultan 
 Mahmud. 
 
 * See the interesting memoir appended by M. Gargin de Tassy to 
 his • Islamisme,' on the peculiarities of the Musalman religion in India, 
 p. 289-408, especially p. 290. I am indebtwl to the courtesy of the 
 Rev. T. P. Hughes, missionary at Peshawur, for some valuable 'Notes 
 on Mohamme<lanism,' in which he describes the ceremonies and the 
 formalities which unhappily now form so large a part of the religion 
 in India and elsewlicre, ami throws some light on the nature of the 
 Wahhabi revival— an obscure subject, on which he has Ixicn able to 
 obtain information from very original sources. It is worth remarking 
 
COMPROMISES OF ISLAM AND HINDUISM. 247 
 
 Those who have followed me thus far will perceive 
 that my main object in writing these Lectures has 
 been, if possible, to render some measure of that 
 justice to Mohammed and to his religion which has 
 been all too long, and is still all too generally, denied 
 to them. I have naturally, therefore, been led to dwell 
 rather on the points in which Mohammedanism 
 resembles Christianity than on the points in which it 
 differs, and 1 have been led, also, to some extent, to 
 compare the persons of their respective Founders. It 
 is not possible to avoid this. Of the Founder of 
 Christianity I have necessarily spoken only under 
 that aspect of His character which Muslim as well 
 as Christian, friend as well as foe, will perforce allow 
 Him ; and in which alone, by the nature of the case. 
 He can be compared with any other Founder at all. 
 In like manner, in comparing the two Creeds, I have 
 insisted mainly on the points in which they approxi- 
 mate to each other ; and to do this is more necessary, 
 more just, and, I venture to think, more Christian, 
 than to do the opposite. 
 
 But if, in order to prevent misconception, the two 
 Creeds must necessarily be contrasted rather than 
 compared, nothing that I have said, or am going to 
 say, will prevent my admitting fully — what, indeed, 
 is apparent upon the face of it — that the contrasts are 
 at least as striking as the resemblances. 
 
 The religion of Christ contains whole fields of 
 morality and whole realms of thought which are all 
 but outside the religion of Mohammed. It opens 
 
 that in India the schism between Sunuis and Shiahs is not nearly so 
 marked as in other parts of the Mohammedan world. They both 
 join, for instance, in the Moharram. 
 
248 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 iiumility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacri- 
 fice of self to man's moral nature ; it gives scope for 
 toleration, development, boundless progress to his 
 mind ; its motive power is stronger, even as a friend 
 is better than a king, and love higher than obedience. 
 Its realised ideals in the various paths of human 
 greatness have been more commanding, more many- 
 sided, more holy, as Averroes is below Newton, 
 Harun below Alfred, and Ali below St. Paul. Finally, 
 the ideal life of all is far more elevating, far more 
 majestic, far more inspiring, even as the life of the 
 founder of Mohammedanism is below the life of the 
 Founder of Christianity. 
 
 And when I speak of the ideal life of Moham- 
 medanism I must not be misunderstood. There is in 
 Mohammedanism no ideal life in the true sense of 
 the word, for Mohammed's character was admitted 
 by himself to be a weak and erring one. It was 
 disfigured by at least one huge moral blemish ; and 
 exactly in so far as his life has, in spite of his earnest 
 and reiterated protestations, been made an example 
 to be followed, has that vice been perpetuated. But 
 in Christianity the case is different. The words, 
 * Which of you convinceth me of sin ? ' forced from 
 the mouth of Him who was meek and lowly of 
 heart, by the wickedness of those who, priding them- 
 selves on being Abraham's children, never did the 
 works of Abraham, are a definite challenge to the 
 world. That challenge has been for nineteen cen- 
 turies before the eyes of unfriendly, as well as of 
 believing, readers, and it has never yet been fairly 
 met ; and at this moment, by the confession of friend 
 and foe alike, the character of Jesus of Nazareth 
 
CONTRAST BETWEEN MOHAMMED AND CHRIST. 249 
 
 stands alone in its spotless purity and its unapproach- 
 able majesty. We have each of us probably at some 
 period of our lives tried hard to penetrate to the 
 inmost meaning of some one of Christ's short and 
 weighty utterances — 
 
 ' Those jewels, five words long, 
 Which on the stretched forefinger of all time 
 Sparkle for ever.' 
 
 But is there one of us who can say there is no more 
 behind ? Is there one thoughtful person among us 
 who has ever studied the character of Christ, and has 
 not, in spite of ever-recurring difficulties and doubts, 
 once and again, burst into the centurion's exclama- 
 tion, ^ Truly this was the Son of God ' ? 
 
 Nor are the methods of drawing near to God the 
 same in the two religions. The Musalman gains a 
 knowledge of God — he can hardly be said to approach 
 Him — by listening to the lofty message of God's 
 Prophet. The Christian believes that he approaches 
 God by a process which, however difficult it may be 
 to define, yet has had a real meaning to Christ's ser- 
 vants, and has embodied itself in countless types of 
 Christian character — that mysterious something which 
 St. Paul calls a ^ union with Christ.' ^ Ye are dead, 
 and your life is hid with Christ in God.' 
 
 But this unmistakeable superiority does not shake 
 my position that Mohammedanism is, after all, an 
 approach to Christianity, and perhaps the nearest 
 approach to it which the unprogressive part of 
 humanity can ever attain in masses; and yet how 
 large a part of the whole human race are unpro- 
 gressive ! Whatever we may wish, and however 
 current conversation and literature may assert the 
 
250 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 contrary, progress is the exception, and not the rule, 
 with mankind. The whole Eastern world, with very- 
 few exceptions, has been hitherto, and is still, sta- 
 tionary, not progressive. What Oriental society is now, 
 it was in the time of Solomon — I might say, in the 
 time of Abraham. Even those nations which, like 
 the Chinese, have considerable powers of invention 
 and mechanical skill, reach a certain height rapidly, 
 and then stop short.^ 
 
 Accepting, then, the non-progressiveness of a large 
 part of the human race, when left to themselves, as a 
 fact, cannot we estimate other religions, not by our 
 conception of what we want, but by their bearing on 
 the life of those whom they affect, ennobling them 
 so far as the other conditions of their existence may 
 render possible ? 
 
 We are apt to forget that there are two factors to 
 be considered in testing the value of a religion in any 
 given case, the Creed itself and the people who 
 receive it. There are of course good and bad men, 
 and these of every degree of goodness and badness, 
 to be found professing every Creed, but the average 
 morality of the followers of an imperfect Creed may, 
 in this very imperfect world, be better than the 
 average morality of those who profess a higher one, 
 
 ' 1 specify China ; for I ainnot accept the chants relietl upon by 
 Dr. Hritlges, in his very able essay on China, in * International 
 Policy,' as being evidence of continuous and progressive change, 
 which is the real point at issue. Of coui-se this in no way affects the 
 more im|)ortant que-«tions treated of in the essay, the moral elevation 
 of which seems to me almost unequalled in the writings even of 
 those who, like the contributors to the volume referred to, and the 
 followers of Auguste Comte generally, have laboured most earnestly 
 to treat all political questions from a moral standpoint. 
 
RELATIVE STANDARD THE ONLY TRUE ONE. 251 
 
 and of course vice versa. TrdvTojv fiirpov avOpojirog, 
 Judged, then, by this relative standard — which is, as 
 I conceive, the only true one — Mohammedanism has 
 nothing to lose, and much to gain, by the keenest 
 criticism.^ I grant to the full everything that can be 
 said by travellers such as Burckhardt, and Burton, 
 and Palgrave, upon the degradation of the mass of 
 the Bedouins and the Turks, and the want of all 
 vital rehgion, sometimes of the very elements of 
 religion, among them. And no one will deny there 
 is much indeed in the present state of the whole 
 Mohammedan world to make every thoughtful person, 
 Musalman as well as Christian, ask himself with the 
 
 ^ Abyssinia is a case in point for those who think that a religion, 
 because it is better and purer in itself, is necessarily better than all 
 other religions, wherever and whenever and in whatever degree of 
 purity it may be found. Abyssinia has been nominally Christian 
 since very early times, and yet it would puzzle the greatest enemy of 
 Islam to name a single particular in which the inhabitants are 
 superior to their Musalman neighbours. In the matter, for instance, 
 of marriage and divorce see the following quotation from Bruce 's 
 ' Abyssinia.' IV. p. 487 : — ' There is no such thing as marriage in 
 Abyssinia, unless that is to be called so which is contracted by 
 mutual consent without other form, and subsists only till dissolved 
 by the dissent of one or other, to be renewed, however, or repeated 
 as often as it is agreeable to both parties ; for when they please, they 
 live together again as man and wife, after having been divorced, had 
 children by others, or whether they have had children by others or 
 not. I remember once to have been at Koscam in presence of the 
 Itighe (or Queen), when in the circle there was a woman of gi'eat 
 quality, and seven men, who had all been her husbands, but none of 
 whom was the happy spouse at that time.' See also a vigorous 
 description of the barbarism and superstitions of the Abyssinian 
 Church in Dean Stanley's 'Eastern Church,' p. 10-12. Spain may 
 suggest thoughts similar to those suggested by Abyssinia, and equally 
 applicable to the question in hand, which is indeed one of the main 
 questions of my Lectures. 
 
252 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 prophet of old, whether what seem to be dry bones 
 can live. 
 
 As regards the faith itself, schisms more numerous 
 even than the seventy-three which the Prophet him- 
 self predicted, have sprung up from a very early 
 period in Islam ; and, while they have doubtless con- 
 tributed to keep up a spirit of free enquiry and of 
 intellectual energy, which the simplicity of a creed 
 that ' can be written on a finger-nail ' has often been 
 supposed to suppress, they have turned chiefly upon 
 questions which have been still more unintelligible or 
 devoid of practical results, and have been fought out 
 with passions even fiercer than those which have pre- 
 vailed in Christendom. Questions as to the proper 
 successor of the Prophet, resulting first in the great 
 Shiah schism, and afterwards in the belief among 
 many Persian sects in the incarnation of God in Ali, 
 and the Imams ; questions as to the precise nature of 
 the Divine attributes, the upshot of which has now 
 been something resembling the dualism of the ancient 
 fire-worshippers, now the mystic pantheism of the 
 Sufis, and now again the strange amalgam of doctrines 
 which is to be found among the Druses, the Rosheinias 
 or the Yezidis. The predestinarian expressions of 
 Mohammed, harmonising, as they did, better than 
 his equally strong assertion of free-will, with the 
 natural quietism of the East, have degenerated into 
 a fatalism which tends to sap the springs of human 
 energ}^ in those countries where energ}' is now most 
 required, and have made men look upon a famine, 
 a pestilence, or a tyrant, as an inevitable dispensation 
 of destiny, to be patiently submitted to, not to be 
 grappled with and overcome. 
 
STAINS ON THE PROPHETS CHARACTER. 253 
 
 The few stains which, making every allowance for 
 his manifold temptations and for the times in which 
 he lived, a Christian must yet always consider to be 
 stains on the grand character of the Prophet, have 
 been fatally improved on by the Eastern dynasties 
 which own his sway. The assassinations at which the 
 Prophet once or twice connived, and the indulgence 
 which he claimed in the observance of the Harem 
 laws which he had himself made, have been prominent 
 features in the history of those who have called them- 
 selves his successors in the Khalifate, and of less 
 conspicuous Musalman rulers. The murder of the 
 nearest relations by a sovereign on his accession to 
 the throne, as the best means of securing his title to 
 it, has been a common occurrence ; and, though the 
 Ottoman Sultans might justly have retorted upon 
 Lord Bacon, who points one of his most brilliant 
 apophthegms by an allusion to it, that they were only 
 imitating the example of many of the Christian Caesars 
 who had preceded them, there is no doubt that the 
 horrible practice has been raised by them in times 
 past almost to the dignity of a maxim of Imperial 
 policy. The human body and human life itself have 
 rarely in the East been invested with that sanctity 
 with which Christianity alone of Eastern-bom reli- 
 gions regards them. With the example before them 
 of One who was solicitous for the happiness and the 
 lives of all around Him, and prodigal only of His own 
 — with the belief, too, that the human body is not the 
 prison but the temple of the soul, and of something 
 holier even than the soul, shame indeed would it be 
 to Christians if the respect for human life were not 
 greater, the average standard of personal purity far 
 
254 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 higher, and the enthusiasm of humanity more deep 
 and lasting, than in the average of the followers of 
 other Creeds. Unfortunately it has not been always 
 so; and the dealings of the Holy Father and the 
 Holy Office with suspected heretics, of the Spaniards 
 with the Indians of America, of the Portuguese and 
 the Dutch with the East Indian islanders, of the 
 French with the Arabs of Algeria, of the English, 
 under the rule of the East India Company, with the 
 Hindus, and of all the Christian nations, who in 
 bygone times have had the chance, with the down- 
 trodden Negroes of Africa, will hold their own in the 
 hideous race of cruelty and oppression with the worst 
 deeds of Orientals ; but in the absolute recklessness 
 of human life which has marked Eastern wars, and 
 in the barbarous nature of the punishments inflicted 
 by Eastern rulers, it cannot be said that Musal- 
 man nations have fallen far behind the Tartars 
 or the Chinese.' Again, the death-bed commands 
 of Musalman princes have rarely breathed forgiveness 
 of their enemies ; they have resembled the last in- 
 junctions of the aged David to his son Solomon — 
 surely one of the darkest pages in his history — or the 
 reckless revenge of the younger Marius when he saw 
 that his fate was sealed, rather than the ' Father, for- 
 
 ' VamWry ('Central Asia/ p. 139), after describinj^ a horrible 
 execution of prisoners by the Khan of Khiva, remarks, ' Such treat- 
 ment is indeed horrible, but it is not to be regaitied as an exceptional 
 case. In Khiva, as well as in the whole of Central Asia, wanton 
 cruelty is unknown ; the whole proceetling is regartlcd a.s perfectly 
 natural, and usaf^, law, and religion, all acconl in sanctioning it.' 
 The wortl * religion ' can only be undeixtcxxi here in a sense which 
 excludes the Koran and the Tra<litions— all the documents, in fact, 
 on which the Religion rests. 
 
CHRISTIANS AND MUSALAIANS CONTRASTED. 255 
 
 give them/ of the Founder of Christianity ; that 
 prayer which has done something to temper the 
 violence and sheath the swords of so many semi- 
 Christian conquerors or rulers, and has filled the souls 
 of so many Christian saints and martyrs. 
 
 Women, again, in spite of the beneficent legislation 
 of the Prophet — the nature of which it has been one 
 of my objects as clearly as possible to bring out — 
 have rarely exercised in the East the humanising, the 
 elevating, the spiritualising influence on husbands, 
 fathers, or sons, which it is their glory to have exer- 
 cised again and again in Christendom, and that even 
 through its darkest ages. The life of the Harem, so 
 far as its influence has extended, is not a life in which 
 any of the finer qualities of the human soul, still less 
 love itself in any sense of the word which entitles it 
 to be so called, naturally thrive. Triviality, selfish- 
 ness, heart-burnings, deadly hatreds, if nothing worse, 
 are the weeds which must, in the nature of things, as 
 soon as society has passed beyond its earlier stages, 
 find in it a congenial soil. 
 
 The professed teachers of the people, again, 
 whether theologians or legists — Muftis and Mullas, 
 Kadis and Imams — have sometimes, on the one hand, 
 claimed powers which Islam itself never gave them ; 
 and on the other, have all too often been without those 
 fundamental qualities of zeal for learning, of justice, 
 and of humanity, which should alone entitle them to 
 the offices they hold.^ As to the practical religion of 
 the masses in the towns — more especially those towns 
 which have received a whitewash of European civili- 
 
 ' Cf. the anticipation of the Prophet himself, quoted below, 
 p. 314. 
 
256 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 sation — it is not so much what its Founder intended it 
 to be, a brotherly affection, at all events, within the 
 ranks of the faithful, the relief of the orphan and the 
 oppressed, the practice of sobriety, truthfulness, and 
 liospitality, but, as has so often been the case in the 
 histor}^ of Christendom, a frigid round of traditional 
 observances, fastings for fasting's sake, and prayers 
 consisting of a mechanical enumeration of the Divine 
 attributes many times repeated, and accompanied by 
 a childish ceremonial.' An Arab will often say the 
 Bismillah when he is meditating an atrocious crime ; 
 just as * the Most Christian king ' would be most par- 
 ticular in his religious observances when he was per- 
 petrating his worst deeds ; the whole resulting, very 
 often, in as complete a separation between religion 
 and morality as was the case in Christendom, for 
 instance, in the age of Leo X. at Rome, of Charles II. 
 in England, or of Louis XV. in France. 
 ^ Nor, at first sight, is the prospect more bright 
 politically than it is in its social and its strictly re- 
 ligious aspects. ^ When the prophets prophesy falsely, 
 and the kings bear rule by their means,' what wonder 
 that the Khalifate of the faithful Abu Bekr, the in- 
 trepid Omar, the saintly Ali, has degenerated into 
 the self-seeking and short-sighted rule of the Sultan 
 or the Shah ? It has been said, not without exagge- 
 ration, but still not without some truth, that most of 
 the countries ruled by Musalman princes are deserts, 
 or tend to become so. Towns have dwindled into 
 villages, and whole villages have often disappeared. 
 Fields lying un tilled and mines un worked, justice 
 
 ' See Hughes, Notes, p. 63-75. 
 
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PROSPECTS. 25? 
 
 polluted at its source, excessive taxation and arbitrary 
 punishments — such are some of the features which 
 belong to the decadence of a once Imperial race, and 
 which we are apt to attribute to the decadence of 
 a religion. Meanwhile Christian nations, propelled 
 partly by ambition, partly by a blundering philan- 
 thropy, partly by the mere pressure of events, are 
 threatening to absorb large portions of the Musalman 
 world, and are putting the bit and bridle for the first 
 time in their history on the wildest and most fanatical 
 •of the followers of the Prophet who have roamed for 
 ages over the barren steppes of Central Asia, Kirghis 
 and Khivese, Uzbeks and Turkomans. The Caucasus, 
 again, has since the lamentable Circassian Exodus, 
 ceased to be Mohammedan, and become Christian, 
 if, indeed, a solitude can ever be so called. Algiers 
 belongs, by military occupation at least, to France ; 
 and Cairo under the rule of the Khedive is rapidly 
 becoming, for good or evil, a second Paris, and is 
 taking kindly to all the vices of the West. 
 
 How, then, it may be asked again, can these dry 
 bones live ? why busy ourselves about a dead creed, 
 or trouble about that against which, as it may seem, 
 has already gone forth the sentence of God and of 
 the big battalions ? 
 
 But look once more a little closer and see if this 
 is really so ; or if all the facts correspond to the super- 
 ficial appearances. I alluded in my First Lecture to 
 the claims which the marvellous history of Islam, its 
 achievements in centuries and on continents other 
 than ours, the intimate relations in which we must 
 stand to it now, the proselytising enthusiasm it still 
 exhibits, and the unmeasured influence it may yet 
 
 I 
 
258 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 exert on the virgin soil of Africa ^ or among the teem- 
 ing millions of India, have at once upon our attention, 
 our sympathy, and our respect ; but it may be well — 
 now that I have, in order to prevent misconstruction, 
 set forth, in spite of myself, the worst that can be 
 said with any approach to fairness of Musalman coun- 
 tries at the present day — to call renewed attention to 
 those claims, and thereby at once to appraise the 
 evils mentioned at their proper value, and to point 
 out the grounds of hope for the future. 
 
 And, first, it should be remembered that to say 
 that a religion is stationary, and presents an obstacle 
 to the progress and the innovations and the restless 
 struggles which are the life of the West, is no reproach 
 at all in the eyes of a people that is itself stationary 
 and unprogressive. It is precisely this that has 
 enabled it to take such deep hold of all the nations 
 that have accepted it, and to intertwine itself with all 
 their thoughts and feelings. 'A Musalman first and 
 a Turk, an Afghan or an Arab afterwards,' is no mere 
 formula or figure of speech with that vast assemblage 
 of peoples and of tongues to whom the Prophet of 
 Arabia, by teaching them to worship the one true 
 God, has given a bond of union stronger than any tie 
 of blood or nation ; and that, by means which were 
 nobler and with objects that were higher than those 
 with which Papal Rome is striving, in these latter days, 
 to implant a similar feeling in the Catholic. Sublime 
 and Eternal and Unchangeable as its God, Islam 
 appears to its votaries a religion worthy at once of 
 
 * ♦ In Cairo and Constantinople Islam may api)ear to be decaying, 
 hut in the heart of Africa it is young, vigorous, victorious as in the 
 early days.' — Winwooil Readers • African Sketch-book,' p. 315. 
 
ISLAM SUITED TO STATIONARY RACES. 259 
 
 the worshipper and of the B^ing that he worships ; 
 and is it for us to say that it is not so ? 
 
 Secondly, it must be borne in mind that Musal- 
 man countries and Musalmans themselves, whether 
 stationary or progressive, whether elevated or de- 
 graded, are not Islam itself, any mare than Christen- 
 dom and Christians are Christianity. The Faith is 
 something infinitely greater than even its greatest 
 and worthiest votaries ; else it would not be a living 
 Faith at all. The best cure for the evils of Christen- 
 dom is Christianity ; and the cure for many, at least, 
 of the evils in Musalman countries now, which, if not 
 ideally the best, is yet the most natural, the most 
 ready to hand, and the most likely to be efficacious, 
 is not, perhaps, Islam itself, yet something so nearly 
 akin to Islam that it can confidently appeal to its 
 most authoritative documents in its support. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the desolation of countries which 
 were once flourishing, the question has never, so far 
 as I know, been fairly raised how much of it is, even 
 at this distance of time, the direct consequence of the 
 wholesale havoc and destruction wrought by the 
 successive inroads of the Mongols and Tartars who 
 followed Chenghis, or Octai, or Kublai Khan.^ What- 
 
 ^ For the devastations of Chenghis Khan see Ibn Batuta, p. 87 
 seq. : — 'He came with the Tartars into the countries of Islam, and 
 destroyed them.' ' He left the country quite desolate, destroying the 
 cities, and slaughtering the inhabitants.' * In Irak alone 24,000 
 learned men were put to the sword' (p. 89). Balkh still lay in ruins, 
 ' not having been rebuilt since its destruction by the cursed Chenghis 
 Khan ' (p. 93). Cf . also the terrible illustrations collected by Col. 
 Yule, in his edition of Marco Polo, I. 256-257, Marshman (' History 
 of India,' I. 49) says: 'From the Caspian to the Indus, more than 
 1,000 miles in extent, the whole country was laid waste witli fire and 
 sword by the ruthless barbarians who followed Chenghis Khan. It 
 
■260 MOHAMMED AND MOHAM M IIDAMSM. 
 
 ever the answer to such an enquiry might be, Asia 
 would not be the only part of the globe in which 
 devastations far less than theirs would seem in very 
 truth to have sown the land with salt and to have 
 rendered it incapable of revivification. Has Sicily, 
 in spite of all its changes of rulers, ands its incom- 
 parable advantages of air and soil, ever recovered 
 from the havoc wrought in it by the first Punic War ? 
 Fourth and lastly, the same travellers who give 
 us so gloomy a picture of the condition of the 
 Ottoman Empire are careful to point out that that 
 condition is, in great part, the result of the misgovern- 
 ment and the corruption of a clique ; of elements, in 
 fact, which in great measure have intruded into Islam 
 and are not of it, and is in no respect the result of the 
 religion.^ On the contrary, it is that religion which 
 
 was the greatest calamity which had befallen the human race since 
 the Deluge, and five centuiies have been barely sufficient to repair 
 that desolation.' 
 
 • See 'Quarterly Review' for October, 1874: Art. 'Provincial 
 Turkey ;' Admiral Slade's * Turkey, Greece, and Malta,' I. 298 seq., 
 318 seq. ; Urquhart's * Spirit of the East;' and Palgrave's * Eastern 
 Essays,' j9a«*///i. Admiral Slade says : 'If people were only to take 
 the trouble to enquire into the state of the Mosque, their voices would 
 be hushed ; for they would see in the Mosque the healer of the sores 
 caused by the worst of governments ; they would find libraries, and 
 schools, and haspitals for the insane on the foundation of the Mosque ; 
 they would see well-cultivated estates belonging to it, and would learn 
 that through its agency a man may secure a provision for his wife or 
 daughter after his death. . . . Not one of the reasons ordinarily urged 
 against a Church establishment — tithe, ministere of religion chosen 
 from particular classes, monastic seclusion, celibacy — is applicable to 
 the Mosque.' So, too, Mouradgiad'Ohsou, a high authority, quoted in 
 * East and West,' p. 185, says : ' Tous les maux politiques qui affligent 
 les pcuplcH MuKsalraans devinrent de leurs pr^jugt^s, de leurs fausses 
 opinions, les vices dc gouvernement, mais non des vraies principcs de 
 In religion et de la loi.' 
 
VITALITY OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 261 
 
 alone gives stability to the tottering fabric, and is the 
 one principle of life amidst all the jarring elements of 
 destruction. It is the religion which merges all 
 colours, ranks, and races in the consciousness of a 
 common brotherhood.^ It is the religion which 
 elevates the mind by drawing it from the Transitory 
 to the Eternal, and which gives to the half-starved 
 or ill-used peasant that courage in calamity, that calm 
 amidst confusion, and that ineffable dignity in distress, 
 which is found nowhere but in Islam. Without a 
 Khalif, without a hierarchy, without good schools or 
 teachers, the peasants of Asia Minor still cling to 
 their creed as firmly as ever, and what is more im- 
 portant, to the practical duties enjoined by it. No- 
 where in the world — so I heard it stated at a meeting 
 in London the other day for the relief of the Turkish 
 famine, by traveller after traveller who knew the 
 country well — is there more hospitality to strangers, 
 greater self-respect, more personal cleanliness, greater 
 temperance, freer toleration, than amongst them. The 
 one building well cared for everywhere, well built, 
 well white- washed, well swept, is the village Mosque. 
 The houses of the peasantry may be mere hovels 
 falling into decay for lack of the means to build 
 them up, but each Mosque possesses the niche which 
 
 ' ' Among Mohammedans there is much kindly feeling ; their 
 religion knits them as it were into a general fraternity, in which every 
 member, rich or poor, is, though a stranger, affectionately received. 
 Much of this charitable disposition is no doubt to be traced to those 
 causes which make the inhabitants of thinly-peopled districts so 
 generally hospitable : more, however, is attributable to the precepts of 
 the Koran, nor are the followers of Mohammed exclusive in their 
 benevolence, for all strangers share their charities.' — Wood's ' Oxus,' 
 p. 93. 
 
262 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 points towards the holy place, and five times a day- 
 does each peasant, at the summons of the village 
 Muezzin, pour forth his heart to God, not so much in 
 petitions for relief of his pressing temporal necessities 
 — for this, be it remembered, is not the characteristic 
 of Musalman prayer ^ — but rather in a meditation on 
 the power and the majesty, the wisdom and the mercy 
 of God. 
 
 Does all this look much like decadence in their 
 religion ? And even if every item of the accusation 
 detailed above be true, and no account be taken of 
 the considerations which, as I have endeavoured to 
 indicate in the enumeration itself, may be urged in 
 explanation or extenuation of many of them, I still 
 ask whether the state of the Mohammedan world, as 
 
 • The notion of the duty of submission to God's will, whatever it 
 may be, is perhaps stronger among Muslims than among Christians : 
 on the other hand, the idea of a filial relation on the part of the 
 worshipper to the Being whom he worships, which enables a man 
 to lay all his wants before God as before a father, is almo^t wanting 
 in Islam ; and hence the distinguishing characteristics of Musalman 
 and Christian prayer. The ordinary form of pmyer among the Muslims 
 is as follows: — 
 
 Holiness to Thee, God ! 
 
 And praise be to Thee ! 
 
 Gi-eat is Thy Name ! 
 
 Great is Thy greatness ! 
 
 There is no God but Thee ! 
 
 Then comes the Fatihah, or first chapter of the Koi-an : 
 Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds ! 
 The compassionate, the merciful, 
 King on tlie day of reckoning 1 
 
 Thee only do we worehip,and to Thee do we cry fi>r help. 
 Guide Thou us in the straight path : 
 The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious ; 
 With whom Thou art not angrj', 
 And who go not astray. Amen. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MOHAMMEDANISM 263 
 
 a whole, is worse, in proportion to its light, than has 
 been that of Christendom in many stages of its 
 history, and which it has yet passed safely through ? 
 Is it half as bad, for instance, as the age when Brune- 
 haut and Fredegonde ruled the Franks ; as the age 
 when Theodora and Marosia dispensed the patronage 
 of the Church from the Vatican ; or as the age when, 
 at length, the cup of iniquity of Papal Rome was full, 
 and a Luther was born ! To take an instance nearer 
 home, has religion less hold upon the Arabs than it 
 had upon the English throughout the last century, till 
 the evangelical revival of Wesley and Whitefield 
 roused it from its sleep ? Has it less hold even upon 
 the ' Frenchmen of the East,' eis the Persians have 
 been called — liars, drunkards, profligate though they 
 are — than it has at this moment upon the Frenchmen 
 of the West ? What account do travellers in Russia 
 give us of the state of religion among the masses 
 there ? And what judgment must pious Mohamme- 
 dans form of Christianity, if their knowledge of it is 
 confined to the average lives of Europeans who pro- 
 fess it ? 
 
 To say that gross abuses have crept into Moham- 
 medanism — that the lives of many, or even of the 
 majority, who profess it are a disgrace to their name — 
 is only to say that it is not exempt from the common 
 conditions of humanity. 
 
 Take one instance drawn from the history of the 
 Christian Church. Christianity was in its origin and 
 in its essence a creed entirely spiritual ; but Christians, 
 forming, as they did, a new human society, were 
 allowed by their Founder to symbolise this close 
 union, and to bring it home more vividly to them- 
 
264 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 selves and to the world, by two external rites. The 
 mere fact that they were external, in a religion which 
 was otherw^ise a matter of the heart, ought to have 
 put men on their guard, lest they should assume in 
 time a too prominent place ; lest what was accidental, 
 and secondary, and relative, should dominate over 
 what was absolute, and primary, and eternal. Baptism 
 w^as of considerable importance in the infancy of the 
 Church, for it was a pledge of fidelity consciously and 
 voluntarily given by a new recruit, in the face of the 
 enemy, to a cause whose victories were yet in the 
 future. It was, as it were, the uniform assumed by 
 the small army which at its Master's bidding went 
 forth against the world. The Love-feast also was of 
 special importance among the earliest Christians, as 
 a constant reminder that those who had taken upon 
 themselves the commission of the Cross, that crown- 
 ing act of love, were bound to one another by the 
 same enthusiasm of love which bound them to their 
 common Master. Both did good service then, and in 
 the history of the Christian Church have done good 
 service since, in so far as they have acted upon the 
 heart, and thence upon the conduct, through the 
 medium of a very powerful appeal to the religious 
 imagination. But in so far as any mysterious or 
 supernatural efficacy has been attached to the form 
 of either, they have sapped the root of Christianity. 
 They have done for Christianity what of good, no 
 doubt, Mohammed thought, and, half rightly, half 
 "WTongly, thought, that pilgrimages to the holy places 
 might do for Mohammedanism. Both were so far 
 concessions to human weakness that they introduced 
 formal, or even material, conceptions into a spiritual 
 
PERVERSIONS AND CORRUPTIONS. 265 
 
 religion ; both, in fact, were capable of being used to 
 advantage ; and experience has proved that they were 
 both alike liable to the same kind of abuse. 
 
 Every human institution, therefore — religion itself, 
 so far as man can affect it — is exposed to inevitable 
 decay ; and the purer the religion, the more inevitable 
 the degradation which contact with the world, which 
 is not of it, nmst bring. ^ Accordingly, a religion which 
 is not waiting for a revival is waiting only till it be 
 swept away. 
 
 But, on the other hand, we must not judge of a 
 religion by its perversions or corruptions ; and it is as 
 fair to take Turkish despots, and maniac dervishes, 
 and Persian libertines, as types of the Mohammedan 
 life, as it would be to take Anabaptists, or Pillar Saints, 
 or Shakers, as types of the Christian life. Most of 
 the well-known vices of our Mohammedan fellow- 
 subjects in India are Indian vices, and not Moham- 
 medan. Professor Max Miiller has remarked with 
 truth, that without constant reformation — that is to 
 say, without a constant retu rn to the fountain head — 
 every religion, however pure, must gradually degen- 
 erate. Christianity has always reformed itself, and 
 will to the end of time continue to reform itself, by 
 going back to the words and to the life of Christ. It 
 is a maxim of the Buddhists that Svhat has been 
 said by Buddha, that alone is well said;"^ and 
 it is currently believed that Mohammedanism is dying 
 out because it has no such power of revival. But the 
 very reverse of this is, rather, true. The Prophet him- 
 self must have foreseen the need there would be for a 
 
 ' Max Miiller, • Chips,' Preface, p. 23. 
 ^ Quoted by Max Miiller, loc. cit. p. 23. 
 
266 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 reformer when he so sorrowfully remarked to Abu 
 Taleb, * The time is near in which nothing will remain 
 of Islam but its name, and of the Koran but its mere 
 appearance ; and the mosques of Musalmans will be 
 destitute of knowledge and worship, and the learned 
 men will be the worst people under the heavens, and 
 contentions and strife will issue from them, and it will 
 return upon themselves ;' but he also confidently hoped 
 that when the time was ripe for it, a reformer w^ould be 
 found. 'Certainly,' he said to Abu Hurairah, 'cer- 
 tainly, God will send my sect at the expiration of 
 ever)^ hundred years a person who will renew my 
 religion.' ' Probably no religion has produced, in the 
 various parts of its vast empire, a more continuous 
 succession of reformers whose aim has been to bring 
 it back, by fair means if possible, and, if not, by 
 force, to its original simplicity and purity.'^ Such 
 was one object, how^ever wildly they set about it, of 
 the Carmathians in the ninth century ; and, to select 
 one amongst many individual reformers, such was the 
 career of Abdul Wahhab, the son of a petty Arabian 
 sheik, a hundred and fifty years ago. The facts I 
 take almost verbatim from an interesting and able 
 essay on ' Our Indian Mussulmans,' by Dr. Hunter.* 
 Beginning with a moral attack upon the profligacy 
 of the Turkish pilgrims and the mummeries which 
 profaned the holy cities, Abdul Wahhab gradually 
 
 » * Mishkat-ul-Masabih; 11., III., 68, and II. II., iV2. 
 
 ' Sec Dollinger, p. 42-49, for an enumemtion of attempted re- 
 formern throuj^hout the history of Islam. He hardly does justice to 
 some of them. 
 
 * See Hunter, p. r>.">-60 ; and for a further account of the Arab 
 movement, see Burckhardt's ' Notes on the Bedouins and Wahhabis.' 
 
THE WAHHABIS. 267 
 
 elaborated a theological system which is substantially 
 identical with the original creed of Mohammed. He 
 taught, first, absolute reliance on one God, and the 
 rejection of all mediators between man and God, 
 whether saints or Mohammed himself; second, the 
 right of private interpretation of the Koran and of 
 the Traditions ; third, the prohibition of all forms and 
 ceremonies with which the pure faith has been over- 
 laid in the lapse of centuries ; finally — and this is the 
 only part to be regretted in the movement — he reas- 
 serted the obligation to wage war upon the infidel. 
 In 1803 Wahhab's successors took the holy cities, and 
 desecrated the sacred mosque at Mecca and the 
 Prophet's tomb at Medina, to save them from the 
 greater desecration, as it seemed to those Puritans of 
 the Desert, involved in the almost Divine honours 
 lavished on them by ignorant or profligate pilgrims. 
 
 Here was an act upon the significance of which 
 we may well dwell for a moment, and endeavour, by 
 comparing it with somewhat parallel and better- 
 known cases, to realise what it must have seemed like 
 then, and what it proves about Mohammedanism 
 now. Imagine the feelings of pious Jews when their 
 most religious king broke into pieces the relic of 
 relics, the memorial of the Divine deliverance and of 
 their desert life, and stigmatised it as a bit of brass ! 
 Imagine, if you can, the feelings of the Apostles when 
 it dawned upon them that one of their number, even 
 then, was a traitor in his heart ! Imagine, to take a 
 parallel case suggested by Dr. Hunter,^ Mediaeval 
 Christendom, when the news spread that Bourbon's 
 cut-throats were installed in the Vatican, and that the 
 
 ' Hunter, p. 59, 
 
268 .VO HAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 head of the Christian Church had been taken captive 
 by a revolted subject of the Church's eldest son ! 
 Imagine Luther, when in the fervour of youthful 
 enthusiasm he visited the Rome of the Martyrs and 
 of the Apostles, and found it to be the Rome of the 
 Papacy, the Rome of impostures and indulgences, of 
 the Borgias and the Medici ! And we can then 
 picture to ourselves the thrill of horror that must 
 have passed through the orthodox Musalman world 
 when they heard that a sect of reformers, whose one 
 idea of reform was a return to the life and doctrine 
 of the Prophet, had rifled the mosque whose imme- 
 morial sanctity the Prophet had himself increased 
 by making it the Kiblah of the world, and had 
 even violated the Prophet's tomb. Imagine, on the 
 other hand, what it must have cost the Wahhabis to 
 have, like Luther, the courage of their convictions, 
 to appear to stultify themselves, to dishonour their 
 Prophet, and all that they might make their religion 
 the spiritual religion that it had once been ! And 
 then say if you can, that Mohammedanism has 
 no power of self-reform, and is dying gradually of 
 inanition ! 
 
 Beaten down at last by the strong arm of Mo- 
 hammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt in 1812, helped, I regret 
 to say, by Englishmen, the Wahhabis disappeared 
 temporarily from Arabia,* only to reappear in 1821 
 
 ' For a i^mphic and not very favourable account of the Wahhab 
 Knipire as it exists now in Arabia, and its scat of Government at 
 Riail, sec Talprave's 'Arabia,' Chap. IX. XIII. There are one or 
 two passives in this account — c. g., Vol. I. 3r>5-.S78, 427-437 — in 
 which 1 cannot but think, with all my admiration for Mr. Palgrave's 
 varied powei-s, that he has not been, even on his own showinu: else- 
 where, alt(^ether fair to Islam as a system. 
 
MOHAMMEDAN REVIVAL. 269 
 
 in India, under the leadership of the prophet Syed 
 Ahmed ; and the despised sect of Wahhabis are now, 
 perhaps, the real ruling spirit of Musalman politics 
 in India, and enjoy the singular honour of having, as 
 much, no doubt, by their gloomy fanaticism as by 
 their moral lives and their missionary zeal, attracted 
 to themselves considerable attention even from their 
 English rulers at home. Puritans of the Puritans of 
 Islam, they are despised and hated by the so-called 
 orthodox Musalmans, as the Lutherans were hated 
 by Leo, and the Covenanters by Claverhouse. 
 
 And it must be remembered that Wahhabiism, 
 while it denounces, as I have shown, all the existing 
 forms of Islam, and, in its turn, is denounced by them, 
 has yet done much outside of the sphere of its im- 
 mediate influence to purify the Faith, and to reform 
 abuses throughout the Musalman world. The Refor- 
 mation, it has often been observed, did as much good 
 for Europe by the reforms which it drove the nations 
 who rejected it, for very shame, to introduce for them- 
 selves, as by what it did directly for those German 
 peoples who threw off for ever the yoke of Rome. 
 Even so has Wahhabiism compelled many who are 
 anything but Wahhabis to reform the most crying 
 abuses, and so to make the discrepancy between 
 their practice and their creed less glaring than it was 
 before. 
 
 The extraordinary phenomena attending the great 
 religious movement called Babyism now going on in 
 Persia, the ecstatic martyrdoms and the prodigality 
 of tortures submitted to amidst songs of triumph by 
 women and children, the followers of the ' Bab,' are 
 well worth the study of all who are interested in the 
 
270 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 history of religion; and, however we explain the 
 facts, much that I have said of Wahhabiism may, 
 mutatis mutandis^ be said of it; and at all events its 
 existence is a standing proof that Persian Moham- 
 medanism possesses so much of vitality as is necessary 
 to adapt an old creed to a new belief.' 
 
 When I first wrote the above paragraphs on the 
 power of revival which I conceive to be inherent in 
 Islam, I did not know^ that my words were at that 
 very time being illustrated in the most striking way, 
 not only in India and Persia and Arabia upon which 
 I then dwelt, but also throughout the Asiatic do- 
 minions of the Ottoman Sultans. Since then Mr. 
 Palgi'ave's most interesting ' Essays on Eastern Ques- 
 tions ' have come into my hands ; and I find in them 
 both evidence to show that there is such a revival, 
 and a graphic account of its leading symptoms. 
 
 Secular and denominational schools are everywhere 
 giving place to schools of the most strictly Musalman 
 type. Mosques which were deserted are now crowded 
 with worshippers ; mosques which were in ruins are 
 rebuilt. There is a general reaction, not perhaps to 
 be wondered at, against the employment in public 
 offices of the European and the Christian. Wine and 
 spirit shops are closed, for their trade is gone except 
 among the Levantine residents. Even opium and 
 tobacco are becoming luxuries which are not for- 
 bidden only, but forsaken. 
 
 Add to this, what Mr. Palgrave has also shown, 
 that a new nation is, as it were, growing up under our 
 eyes in Eastern Anatolia, rich with all the elements 
 
 • Sec Gobineau, ' Les Religions et les IMnlosophics dans I'Asie 
 Centralc; p. 141-215. 
 
THE OTTOMAN SUPREMACY. 271 
 
 of a vigorous national and religious life ; and we shall 
 then have reason to believe that though the Ottoman 
 supremacy may pass away, as Khalifs and Sultans, 
 Attabeks and Khans, Padishahs and Moguls, have 
 passed away before them, yet Islam itself is a thing of 
 indestructible vitality, and may thrive the more when 
 rid of the magnificent corruptions and the illusory 
 prestige of the Stambul successors of the Prophet. 
 In truth, Islam has existed for centuries in spite of 
 Othmanli rule, and not because of it ; and this the 
 ambassadors lately sent to the Porte from the most 
 distant parts of the Musalman world — from Bokhara 
 and Khokand, from the Sultan of Achin and the 
 Sultan of the Panthays — must have learnt to their 
 cost, when the}^ found that the so-called Commander 
 of the Faithful was sufficiently employed nearer home, 
 and had neither the power nor the will to give them 
 the help or even the advice they asked. 
 
 Mohammedanism, therefore, can still renew its 
 youth, and it is possible that the present generation, in 
 face of the advance of semi-barbarous Russia, may see 
 a revival of the old Crusading spirit — an outburst of 
 stern fanaticism, which, armed with the courage of 
 despair, obliterating, as it did among the tribes of the 
 Caucasus in the Circassian war,^ even the immemorial 
 
 ' See Baron Von Haxthausen's ' Tribes of the Caucasus ; ' especially 
 his interesting account of the rise of Muridism, and the heroic struggle 
 of Shamil, his personal influence, and his genius for military and 
 political organisation. Truly while Mohammedanism can throw oflE 
 geniuses like Shamil, it may well be able to dispense with such govern- 
 ments as that of the Turks. The Baron's prophecies of a general 
 collapse of Mohammedanism are being signally falsified. The union of 
 Sunnis and Shiahs was one principle of Muridism as taught by 
 Mulla Mohammed, and after him by Shamil. Elijah Mansur, the 
 
272 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 schism of Sunni and Shiah, may hurl once more in 
 simple self-defence the united strength of the Crescent 
 upon the vanguard of advancing Christendom. It is a 
 prospect formidable to every Christian Power — for- 
 midable above all to those who for good or for evil 
 rule forty millions of Musalmans in India. Then if 
 anywhen, and there if anywhere, will be the Arma- 
 geddon of Islam. 
 
 It may be that nothing — not even a holy war 
 waged in self-defence — can arrest the onward march 
 of the Colossus which, gaunt and grim and inex- 
 orable, like one of the primeval forces of Nature, 
 is pressing, or is being pressed on, towards the East 
 and South ; and is, in the nineteenth centur}% 
 turning back, in some sense, itself upon itself, that 
 tide of Tartar agression which, in by-gone times, 
 carried now an Attila from the wall of China to the 
 Catalaunian fields, and now a Tamerlane from Kara- 
 korum to the Vistula or the Danube. Licking up 
 Khanates and kingdoms like the grass of the field in 
 its gradual but irresistible advance, it is threatening 
 at once the national existence of Turks and Persians, 
 and is exciting the uneasy apprehensions alike of 
 those who rule at Calcutta, and of those who rule at 
 Pekin. Doubtless it is well that something like 
 order should be introduced into the wildest and most 
 lawless people in the world, the nomade hordes of 
 Turkistan ; but it is at least open to question whether 
 
 great Circassian hert) towanls the cltmc of the last century, apiKjai-s to 
 have been far superior even to Shamil in ability. Like him, he united 
 the characters of warrior, priest, and pn)phet, and there is a belief 
 amouK: the natives that he is to reappear at the end of a hundred years 
 and drive buck the Muscovite from his native country. 
 
PROGRESS OF RUSSIA IN THE EAST. 273 
 
 this could not be as well done by the religious en- 
 thusiasm of some new Comm.ander of the Faithful, of 
 some heroic Elijah Mansur or Shamil or Abdel Kader 
 on a vaster scale, as by the dull, heavy tread of mili- 
 tary despotism beneath the shadow of the Czars of 
 All the Russias. The rule of General Kaufmann is 
 not likely to do more for Central Asia^ than is already 
 in the way of being done for it by Yakub Beg ; and 
 surely those who imagine that the Russian arms of 
 precision are carrying any form of Christianity with 
 them which will get hold of the native mind and 
 character, are indulging in the wildest of chimseras. 
 Injustice has doubtless often been done by travellers 
 who know them but superficially to the sterling 
 qualities which are to be found on a closer investi- 
 gation in some of the scattered Christian communities 
 of the East. They have expected to find in them 
 energies which can only be the offspring of freedom ; 
 and one who knows them intimately avers that credit 
 has not been given to the Christians of the East for 
 the industry, the enterprise, and the social morality, 
 which are to be found amongst them in spite of all the 
 drawbacks of their political position. But Dr. Badger 
 himself would probably admit that the isolation of 
 these communities is too great, their superstitious 
 practices and their mutual misconceptions too nume- 
 rous, and the want of a missionary spirit amongst 
 them too marked, to enable them, under any circum- 
 stances, to do more than hold their own in the East ; 
 and as to the religion of the ' orthodox ' Greek Church, 
 
 ' The attack on the Yomud Turkomans in the recent Khiva cam- 
 I)aign was as murderous, as purposeless, and as cruel as any of which 
 the wildest Asiatics were ever guilty. 
 
 I 2 
 
274 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 which is the form of Christianity, if any, which will 
 accompany the Russian arms, who can find in its 
 history of a thousand years any germ of progress, 
 any spark of missionary enthusiasm, any sublimer 
 idea of God, or any nobler conception of man's duty 
 to Him and to his brother man, than is to be found in 
 the authentic documents of Islam ? 
 
 And here, perhaps, will be the place to make 
 a few remarks upon a subject which cannot have 
 failed to attract the attention of the more thoughtful 
 among us in recent years — I mean the attempt made 
 to introduce Western manners and customs into 
 Eastern countries. 
 
 We live in days when we hear of Khans and 
 Khedives, Shahs and Sultans, giving up their imme- 
 morial passivity and seclusion, and even coming to 
 Europe with the avowed intention of carrying back to 
 Asia or Africa what they can of Western science and 
 civilisation. I should be slow indeed to complain of 
 any steps taken by the Western Powers to do away 
 with any institutions which, like the Suttee, the festivals 
 of Juggernaut, the East African slave trade, or the 
 traffic in opium, are a curse to our common humanity, 
 or are not grounded on any fundamental peculiarity 
 of the Eastern world. But to attempt by force, or 
 even by influence brought to bear upon Eastern 
 rulers, to do away with any domestic or national 
 institutions, such as the form of government, or 
 patriarchal slavery, or even polygamy, can do no 
 good. 
 
 Eastern despotism is not what Western despotism 
 is, nor — as I have already pointed out — is Oriental 
 slavery like American. Nor is even polygamy in the 
 
EASTERN DESPOTISM. 275 
 
 East SO intolerable an evil as it would be in the 
 social freedom of the West. For example, an Eastern 
 sovereign has all the power over his subjects that a 
 father had in the most primitive times, and had even 
 in Rome, over his children. His power is liable to 
 the same abuses ; but it has also some of its safe- 
 guards and redeeming points. To introduce into his 
 government, as the Shah has been supposed to wish, 
 a system of Boards and Parliaments, of checks and 
 counter-checks, such as works fairly well in this 
 country because it has grown with our growth and is 
 suitable to our instinct of compromise in everything, 
 would be to make many tyrants instead of one, and 
 to cripple the power and lessen the responsibility of 
 the only man in Persia whose interest it is, whether 
 he sees it or not, to let no one commit injustice but 
 himself. Asia, till its whole nature be changed, can 
 probably never be better governed than it was by the 
 early Khalifs ; and if an Abu Bakr or an Omar, or even 
 a Harun or a Mahmud, a Baber or an Akbar, do not 
 come twice in a century, it is probable that Nature 
 has endowed Asiatics with precisely those qualities of 
 patience, docility, and inertness which harmonise better 
 with the evils of such a government than with those 
 of any other. 
 
 Polygamy is a more difficult question, and it is 
 impossible, for obvious reasons, to discuss it adequately 
 here. It is a gigantic evil, worse even than slavery ; 
 for with its attendant mischiefs, so far as it extends, 
 it does away with all real sympathy and companion- 
 ship between man and woman ; it is unnatural, in 
 the fullest sense of the word, in a highly civilised 
 nation, for Nature, by making the number of men 
 
276 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 and women equal, has declared decisively for mono- 
 gamy. But, in a barbarous people, polygamy has 
 this one redeeming point, that it is less likely that 
 any woman will be left without a natural protector ; 
 and, as a matter of fact, it is almost universal in 
 primitive stages of civilisation.^ In the East it is 
 the almost inevitable result of that fundamental in- 
 stitution of Eastern, as well as of Muslim society, 
 the absolute seclusion of women. There is an imper- 
 vious bar to all social intercourse between the sexes 
 before marriage. The husband's knowledge of his 
 future wife is at second hand only, and rests on the 
 report of a Khatibeh,* or professional match-maker. 
 Such a marriage is more than a lottery ; there can be 
 no affection to begin with, and, except on rare occa- 
 sions, it is not likely that it will turn out to be really 
 happy. If it be thoroughly uncongenial, a man tries 
 his luck once more in the same miserable lotter}^, and 
 for his own happiness, and probably also for that of 
 all concerned, annuls the previous bond. Hence poly- 
 gamy implies freedom of divorce, and both together 
 
 ' In an uncivilised nation, split up, as Arabia was before Mohammetl, 
 into a number of hostile tribes, or overrun by its more powerful 
 neighbours, as was Palestine in the time of the Judges, the number 
 of births of men and women is, no doubt, as in more civilised nations, 
 about equal ; but the adult male population being reduced by war to 
 half its proper number, the preponderance of women in such a state 
 of society renders Polygamy possible, and the insecurity renders it 
 perhaps from that one point of view allowable. Sir Samuel Baker, 
 in his ' Albert Nyanza,' Introduction, p. 25, remarks that * In all 
 tropical countries Polygamy is the prevailing evil.' He might have 
 gone on to say much the same of slavery ; but then what would 
 become of the charge he so often makes against Islam — that it is 
 responsible for polygamy and slavery ? 
 
 ■ Lane's ' Modern Egyptians,' I. 199. 
 
POLYGAMY. 277 
 
 are the inevitable result of the seclusion of the female 
 sex. But to abolish by law the two former without 
 dealing with the far more fundamental institution 
 which is its root, would be to carry on a war with 
 symptoms only, and to introduce evils worse than 
 those it is wished to prevent. The only way of going 
 to the root of the matter would be, if it were pos- 
 sible, to allow a freer intercourse between the sexes at 
 all times ; and Sir William Muir admits that this could 
 not be done at all with the present freedom of divorce.* 
 It is a melancholy fact, but a fact still, that the strict 
 checks imposed by Mohammed on married women, 
 degrading though they are,'-^ are essential to prevent 
 what is still worse, and, be it remembered, what was 
 far worse, before the reforms and limitations which 
 Mohammed himself imposed. It is a complete dead- 
 lock ; and the greatest reformers, Moses no less than 
 Mohammed, have been unable to deal with the root 
 of the evil. It is to be remembered, on the other 
 hand, that both Moses and Mohammed did what they 
 could to restrain and modify its abuses ; and at pre- 
 sent neither polygamy nor divorce is so common as 
 is often supposed. The humanity of human nature 
 has asserted itself; and Lane, the most accurate of 
 observers, says that polygamy is in Egypt at all 
 events very rare among the higher classes, and not 
 common even among the lower.^ 
 
 ' Muir, III. 234, and note. 
 
 •■^ Sura XXXIII. 6 and 56. Also Sura XXIV. 32. 
 
 ^ Lane, I. 231 ; ' Not more than one husband in twenty has two 
 wives at the same time.' But divorce is very common. If it were 
 not for Lane's proverbial accuracy, one would be inclined to suspect 
 that in the passage referred to in the text he had either accidentally 
 transposed the words higher and lower, or had for once made a mis- 
 
278 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Much the same may be said of slavery. The 
 slavery of the East is a patriarchal institution, coeval 
 with the very dawn of history. It is an institu- 
 tion allowed and modified by Moses, even as it was 
 allowed and modified by Mohammed, for people in 
 that stage of civilisation which required it. In neither 
 nation has it anything in common with slavery as it 
 was in America, or indeed with slavery at all as prac- 
 tised by civilised nations. It has been remarked with 
 truth that the cruel treatment of domesticated slaves is 
 the shameful and exclusive prerogative of civilisation. 
 To do away with domestic slavery by force, as has 
 been the case in Khiva, though we naturally rejoice 
 at it, will probably do little pemianent good. It 
 will revive in another, and probably a worse, shape. 
 Perhaps we have hit upon the one means of gradu- 
 ally getting rid of it in Arabia by making it as diffi- 
 cult as possible to recruit slavery from without by 
 means of the slave trade. Much will have to be done 
 henceforw^ard by free labour in Arabia, in Persia, and 
 in Egypt, which has hitherto been done by slaves ; 
 and we need not fear but that the result will be 
 so good, that even in a stolid Oriental people the 
 gradual movement will be one in the direction of 
 abolition. 
 
 The horrors of the Slave Trade in East Africa have 
 
 take on a matter of fact. It appeal's, however, that he is strictly 
 accurate : and tlie dropping of Polygamy in Kgypt by the higher 
 classes is a clear indication that its continuance there is only a ques- 
 tion of time. Certainly in other parts of the Mohammedan world 
 polygamy is, for obvious reasons, much more common among the rich 
 than among the poor. Hut the current of opinion, like the general 
 conditions of society, seems to be everywhere setting against it, espe- 
 cially in India 
 
SLAVERY. 279 
 
 recently been most graphically described by Dr. 
 Livingstone, by Dr. Schweinfurth, and by Sir Samuel 
 Baker ; and all that they have written falls probably 
 far short of the terrible and overwhelming reality. 
 ' May Heaven's rich blessing/ says Dr. Livingstone, 
 and in accents that are all the more touching, and it 
 is to be hoped may be all the more effectual, because 
 they come to us from his grave, ' may Heaven's rich 
 blessing descend on every one, American, English, or 
 Turk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world! ' 
 Every true friend of humanity will echo his prayer, 
 and will rejoice to know that every one, whether he 
 be Jew or Christian, Hindu, Musalman, or Buddhist, 
 who joins in healing that open sore will be acting not 
 against but in accordance with the precepts and the 
 spirit of his religion. The Slave Trade, in fact, rests 
 for its support on no religion at all, but only on that 
 which is cruel and selfish and licentious in human 
 nature. It is a common mistake, but a mistake still, 
 to suppose that the Slave Trade ever received any 
 sanction either from Moses or from Mohammed. 
 Moses ordered the man-stealer and the man-seller to 
 be put to death. ^ Mohammed is reported by the 
 Sunna to have said, ' the worst of men is the seller of 
 men.' It is no more fair, then, to tax Islam itself, as 
 is often done, with the horrors of the East African 
 Slave Trade, than it would have been in the last cen- 
 tury to blame Christianity for the still greater horrors 
 of the West African traffic and its segue Ice in America. 
 It is well therefore, in furtherance of my object in 
 writing these Lectures, to remind once more those 
 who, like the great travellers I have mentioned, have 
 
 1 Exod. XXT. 6. 
 
280 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 been led to condemn in the most sweeping terms 
 Islam itself, because it happens now that Arabs and 
 Egyptians are the chief slave traders, that the Slave 
 Trade is not Islam, but is opposed to it.^ It is con- 
 demned by the whole spirit of the Koran, condemned 
 by the Traditions, condemned by the doctors of the 
 Mohammedan law. If so-called Musalmans are now 
 the chief slave-traders, it is not long since so-called 
 Christians were the same ; and some of them, the 
 Portuguese for example, are not clean-handed even 
 yet. The spread of Islam over the African continent 
 from the North and West, so far from extending the 
 Slave-Trade, tends, in one important particular, to 
 suppress it, by limiting more and more the area from 
 which slaves are drawn ; for even the most degraded 
 Musalmans have that notion of brotherhood amongst 
 themselves which forbids them to enslave one another. 
 Dr. Schweinfurth himself admits in one passage, what 
 he unfortunatel)^ forgets in a score of others, that the 
 Arabs in Eastern and in part of Central Africa * have 
 suppressed the true doctrines of their Prophet which 
 would have enfranchised the very people whom they 
 oppress, and would have raised them to a condition of 
 brotherhood and equality.'* And if this be true, as it 
 
 ' I should be as sorry to think that the (loing:s of the Arab slave- 
 hunters described in such forcible laujfuaofe by Sir Samuel Baker 
 were characteristic of Islam in its sacred book, and in its true spirit, 
 as I should be sorry to think that some of the doings of Sir Samuel, 
 as describetl by himself in 'Ismailia' (see es|>ecially his dealing;H 
 with the Baris), were in any way characteristic of Christianity. 
 
 * The Aral) slave-trader does not preach Islam in Eastern Africa 
 for two reasons : first, Ixjcause he cares not for his Crcal himself ; 
 and secondly, because to do so would lessen his huntinjf-pmund, and 
 cut off the supplies of his nefarious tmtflc. 
 
THE SLAVE TRADE. 281 
 
 undoubtedly is, would it not be well for Christian 
 missionaries to attempt to carry their message of love 
 to African Musalmans by telling them that the Slave- 
 Trade is inhuman in itself, and should be doubly 
 hated by those whose Creed in its authentic docu- 
 ments condemns it, rather than by telling them that 
 their whole Creed is worthless and detestable because 
 many amongst them are untrue to it ? Which course 
 is likely to be the most successful, which is the truest, 
 which the most Christian ? 
 
 The question indeed is answered by being asked. 
 Yet authoritative Missionary periodicals,^ and there- 
 fore it is to be feared Missionaries themselves, have 
 all too often adopted the latter course. They have 
 treated Islam as the deadliest foe instead of a poten- 
 tial friend of Christianity, and then they wonder at 
 their want of success in dealing with it. 
 
 Western science, with its railways, its canals, and 
 its printing-presses, may, no doubt, do something for 
 the material prosperity of Eastern countries, but by 
 itself it will do little for their moral welfare ; and a 
 thin varnish of Western civilisation introduced by 
 rulers who have been forced to admire the material 
 power of the West, and have lost their own self- 
 
 ' See 'Church Missionary Intelligencer' for July 1872, August 
 1874, March 1875, April 1875, &c., &c. In the number for August 
 1874, one excellent missionary, the Kev. H. Townsend, who, it is 
 said, has been a missionary in Africa for forty years, makes the 
 astounding assertion that ' even the religious creed of Muhammadans 
 is further removed from the truth than is that of the heathen ; ' 
 in other words, Polytheism is better than Monotheism, and idolatry 
 than a sublime spiritualism. After this we need not be sur- 
 prised at being told by the same writer that the morality of Islam 
 * makes its Negro Proselyte twofold more a child of Hell than 
 before ! ' 
 
282 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 AVrespect in the process, is earnestly to be deprecated. 
 Those Orientals who have been most influenced by 
 the Franco-mania of Stambul are, beyond all com- 
 parison, the most degraded and profligate of their 
 race, and no earnest observer can wish to see im- 
 ported into other parts of the Mohammedan world 
 that indescribable combination of all that is con- 
 temptible in human nature conveyed by the word 
 Levantine. 
 
 The heroic and unselfish lives of a few such men as 
 Livingstone are the only legitimate means of intro- 
 ducing into semi-civilised countries such benefits as 
 we think we have to bestow. A life and character 
 like Livingstone's has done more to regenerate the 
 African races than any amount of direct preaching, 
 or any number of European settlements, with the 
 miserable and immoral wars that so often follow in 
 their train. Such men are the true pioneers of 
 civilisation and Christianity — of the only species of 
 civilisation and the only form of Christianity which 
 we have any reason to expect will be a real benefit 
 to the East. 
 
 But does it follow, from what I have said of the 
 immobility of the East, that it is impossible for Islam 
 to make any advance at all ; that it is impossible for 
 it to yield anything to the progressive civilisation of 
 Christianity and of the West ? 
 
 How Christianity and civilisation should deal with 
 Mohammedanism I have partly indicated already, 
 and shall have a very few more words to say upon 
 the subject presently. But, first, what can Islam do 
 on its part ? Where religion and law are indissolubly 
 bound up together, as they are in the Koran, each 
 
REFORMERS AMONG INDIAN MUSALMANS. 283 
 
 loses, and each gains, something. What they gain in 
 stabihty, they more than lose in flexibility. And yet 
 it may be safely said that there is nothing more 
 extraordinary in the whole history of Islam than the 
 way in which the theory of the verbal inspiration of 
 the Koran, and the consequent stereotyped and un- 
 alterable nature of its precepts, have, by ingenuity, 
 by legal fictions, by the ' Sunna,' or traditional sayings 
 of Mohammed, and by responsa priidentu7n, been 
 accommodated to the changing circumstances and the 
 various degrees of civilisation of the nations which 
 profess it. When the Kadi fails to find in the law 
 laid down for the nomad Arabs a rule precisely appli- 
 cable to the more complex requirements of Smyrna 
 or of Delhi, he places the sacred volume upon his 
 head, and so renders homage to human reason and to 
 the law of progress. He does what Puritans and 
 Churchmen would alike do well to remember, when 
 each professes to find in the varying or convertible 
 expressions of the writers of the New Testament a 
 divinely ordered and unalterable model of Church 
 government. It is not, therefore, quite so true as is 
 commonly supposed, that Islam is reconcileable with 
 one narrow form of government or society only ; and 
 it is quite possible that where so much has been done 
 already, more may be done in future, and means may 
 be found for reconciling, for instance, the laws against 
 taking interest for money with the requirements of 
 modern society. Already within the ranks of Indian 
 Musalmans is to be found a party of social and reli- 
 gious reformers, who, without a suspicion of heresy, 
 so far as I know, having been breathed against them 
 by their co-religionists, can yet maintain that the 
 
284 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
 passages of the Koran which legaHse Polygamy and 
 Slavery have done their work, that they are out of 
 date, and that the spirit and purpose of the great 
 Arabian can now be best attained by abolishing them 
 altogether.^ In other Musalman countries the intole- 
 rant principles of the Koran have long since been 
 reconciled, except where there is a passing outburst of 
 fanaticism, with the utmost practical toleration ; and 
 the standard of the ' Jihad,' or holy war, will probably 
 never henceforward be raised on an extensive scale, 
 except in a war of self-defence, and unless the lives 
 and liberties of Mohammedans, as well as their reli- 
 gion, are at stake. 
 
 And, what is infinitely more important, it seems to 
 me that while Mohammedans cling as strongly as 
 ever to their rigid Monotheism, and to their unfalter- 
 ing belief in the Divine mission of their Prophet — 
 and what serious person could wish them to do 
 otherwise? — to give up those beliefs which have 
 made them what they are, which have given them 
 a glorious history, and which have influenced half a 
 world ; to give up — 
 
 ' . . . Those first affectious. y 
 
 Those Hhaclowy recollections, y^ 
 
 Which, be they what they may, X 
 
 Are yet the fountain-light of all their day, 
 Are yet a mastei'-light of all their seeing ; 
 
 Uphold them — cherish — and have jxiwer to make 
 Their noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal silence : truths tliat wake 
 To i>eri8h never ! ' — 
 
 ' See on this subject some interesting details in M. Garyin do 
 Tassy's 'Annual Lectures on the Hindustani Language and Litera- 
 ture.' 
 
CAN IT APPROXIMATE TO CHRISTIANITY'? 285 
 
 while they ding, I say, to these, as strongly, yes, more 
 strongly than ever, they may yet be brought to see that 
 there is a distinction between what Mohammed said 
 himself, and what others have said for him ; and that 
 there is a still broader distinction between what he said 
 as a legislator and a conqueror, and what he said as a 
 simple prophet. There are some among them who see 
 now, and there will be more who will soon see, that 
 there may be an appeal to the Mohammed of Mecca 
 from the Mohammed of Medina ; that there may be an 
 idolatry of a book, as well as of a picture, or a statue, 
 or a shapeless mass of stone ; and that the Prophet, 
 who always in other matters asserted his fallibility, 
 was never more fallible, though certainly never more 
 sincere, than when he claimed an equal infallibility for 
 the whole Koran alike. Finally, with the growth of 
 knowledge of the real character of our faith, Moham- 
 medans must recognise that the Christ of the Gospel 
 was something ineffably above the Christ of those 
 Christians from whom alone Mohammed drew his 
 notions of Him ; that He was a perfect mirror of that 
 one primary attribute of the Eternal of which Moham- 
 med could catch only a far-off glance, and which, had 
 it been shown to him as it really was, must needs have 
 taken possession of his soul. 
 
 All this may or may not be in our own time ; but 
 in a sympathetic study even of Mohammedanism as 
 it is. Christians have not a little to gain. There is the 
 protest against Polytheism in all its shapes ; there is 
 the absolute equality of man before God ; there is the 
 sense of the dignity of human nature ; there is the 
 simplicity of life, the vivid belief in God's providence, 
 the entire submission to His will ; and last, not least, 
 
286 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 there is the courage of their convictions, the fearless 
 avowal before men of their belief in God, and their 
 pride in its possession as the one thing needful. There 
 is in the lives of average Mohammedans, from what- 
 ever causes, less of self-indulgence, less of the mad 
 race for wealth, less of servility, than is to be found 
 in the lives of average Christians. Truly we may 
 think that these things ought not so to be ; and if Chris- 
 tians generally were as ready to confess Christ, and to 
 be proud of being His servants, as Mohammedans are 
 of being followers of Mohammed, one chief obstacle to 
 the spread of Christianity would be removed. And 
 the two great religions which started from kindred 
 soil, the one from Mecca, the other from Jerusalem, 
 might work on in their respective spheres — the one the 
 religion of progress, the other of stability ; the one 
 of a complex, the other of a simple life ; the one 
 dwelling more upon the inherent weakness of human 
 nature, the other on its inherent dignity ; ' the one the 
 religion of the best parts of Asia and Africa, the 
 other of Europe and America — each rejoicing in the 
 success of the other, each supplying the other's 
 wants in a generous rivalr}' for the common good 
 of humanity. 
 
 A few words more about Mohammed himself, and 
 I have done. The world, in its wisdom or unwisdom, 
 has never thought proper to distinguish Mohammed 
 from the millions of Mohammeds named after him, 
 by calling him 'the Great.'* Perhaps he was too 
 great for such an external distinction. People call 
 the conqueror of Constantinople, eight centuries later, 
 
 ' Perhaps the two views ai-e, nfter ull. only iliffeient asiH-'cts of the 
 same truth. 
 
WHAT CAN CHRISTIANS LEARN FROM ISLAM? 287 
 
 Mohammed the Second. But I do not think they 
 ever speak of the Prophet as Mohammed the First ; 
 and perhaps the unconscious homage thus rendered 
 to him by a world which ostensibly, and till very 
 lately, has done him such scant justice, is the 
 highest tribute that can be given to his greatness. 
 The Greeks paid the highest compliment they could 
 to the surpassing splendour of the King of Persia 
 when, consciously or unconsciously, they dropped the 
 article before his name, and so put him on a level, 
 grammatical and moral, with the sun, the moon, and 
 the earth, which could by no possibility need any 
 such distinguishing mark. Compare Mohammed with 
 the long roll of men whom the world by common 
 consent has called ^ Great ; ' while I admit that there 
 is no one point in his character in which he is not 
 surpassed by one or other, take him all in all, what he 
 was, and what he did, and what those inspired by him 
 have done, he seems to me to stand alone, above and 
 beyond them all. A distinguished writer on the Holy 
 Roman Empire has remarked of Charles the Great 
 that, ' like all the foremost men of our race, he was 
 all great things in one.' ^ But though Mr. Bryce 
 does not illustrate the truth of his remark by Moham- 
 med — nay, by not including him among the foremost 
 men of the world whom he goes on to enumerate, he 
 seems designedly to exclude him — I venture to think 
 thatof Jio one of them all is the remark more strictly 
 true. 
 
 Mohammed did not, indeed, himself conquer a 
 world like Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon. He 
 did not himself weld together into a homogeneous 
 
 ' Bryce's ' Holy Koman Empire,' p. 7i). 
 
288 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 whole a vast system of states like Charles the Great. 
 He was not a philosophic king like Marcus Aure- 
 lius ; nor a philosopher like Aristotle or like Bacon, 
 ruling by pure reason the world of thought for cen- 
 turies with a more than kingly power ; he was not 
 a legislator for all mankind, nor even the highest 
 part of it, like Justinian ; nor did he cheaply earn the 
 title of 'the Great' by being the first among rulers to 
 turn, like Constantine, from the setting to the rising 
 sun. He was not a universal philanthropist, like the 
 greatest of the Stoics, 
 
 • Non sibi seel toti genitum se credere miiiido ;' 
 
 nor was he the apostle of the highest form of religion 
 and civilisation combined, like Gregory or Boniface, 
 like Leo or Alfred the Great. He was less, indeed, 
 than most of these in one or two of the elements 
 that go to make up human greatness, but he was also 
 greater. Half Christian and half Pagan, half civilised 
 and half barbarian, it was given to him in a marvel- 
 lous degree to unite the peculiar excellences of the 
 one with the peculiar excellences of the other. ' I 
 have seen,' said the ambassador sent by the tri- 
 umphant Kuraish to the despised exile at Medina ; 
 ' I have seen the Persian Chosroes and the Greek 
 Heraclius sitting upon their thrones, but never did I 
 see a man ruling his equals as does Mohammed.' 
 
 Head of the State as well as of the Church, he was 
 Caisar and Pope in one ; but he was Pope without the 
 Pope's pretensions, and Caesar without the legions of 
 Ca3sar. Without a standing anny, without a body- 
 guard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue, if 
 ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a 
 
CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 289 
 
 right Divine, it was Mohammed ; for he had all the 
 power without its instruments and without its supports. 
 He rose superior to the titles and ceremonies, the 
 solemn trifling, and the proud humility of court eti- 
 quette. To hereditary kings, to princes born in the 
 purple, these things are, naturally enough, as the breath 
 of life ; but those who ought to have known better, 
 even self-made rulers, and those the foremost in the 
 files of time — a Caesar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon — 
 have been unable to resist their tinsel attractions. 
 Mohammed was content with the reality, he cared 
 not for the dressings, of power.^ The simplicity of 
 his private life was in keeping with his public life. 
 ' God,' says Al Bokhari, ' offered him the keys of the 
 treasures of the earth, but he would not accept them.' 
 
 Hagiology is not history ; but the contemporaries 
 of Mohammed, his enemies who rejected his mission, 
 with one voice extol his piety, his justice, his veracity, 
 his clemency, his humility, and that at a time before 
 any imaginary sanctity could have enveloped him. 
 A Christian even, as is remarked by a great writer 
 whom I have quoted above, with his more perfect 
 code of morality before him, must admit that Mo- 
 hammed, with very rare exceptions, practised all the 
 moral virtues but one ; and in that one, as I have 
 shown, he was in advance of his time and nation. 
 
 Assuredly, if Christian missionaries are ever to win 
 over Mohammedans to Christianity, they must alter 
 their tactics. It will not be by discrediting the great 
 Arabian Prophet, nor by throwing doubts upon his 
 mission, but by paying him that homage which is his 
 due; by pointing out, not how Mohammedanism 
 
 * See 'British Quarterly Review,' Jan. 1872, p. 128. 
 
 K 
 
290 MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM, 
 
 differs from Christianity, but how it resembles it ; by 
 dweUing less on the dogmas of Christianity, and more 
 on its morality ; by showing how perfectly that 
 Christ, whom Mohammed with his half-knowledge so 
 reverenced, came up to the ideal which prophets and 
 kings desired to see, and had not seen, and which 
 Mohammed himself, Prophet and King in one, could 
 only half realise. In this way, and in this alone, is it 
 likely that Christianity can ever act upon Moham- 
 medanism ; not by sweeping it into oblivion — for what 
 of truth there is in it, and there is ver}^ much truth, 
 can never die — but by gradually, and perhaps un- 
 consciously, breathing into its vast and still vigorous 
 frame a newer, a purer, and a diviner life. 
 
 By a fortune absolutely unique in history, Mo- 
 hammed is a threefold founder — ' of a nation, of an 
 empire, and of a religion.' Illiterate himself, scarcely 
 able to read or write, he was yet the author of a 
 book which is a poem, a code of laws, a Book of 
 Common Prayer, and a Bible in one, and is rever- 
 enced to this day by a sixth of the whole human 
 race as a miracle of purity of style, of wisdom, and of 
 truth. It was the one miracle claimed by Moham- 
 med — his * standing miracle ' he called it ; and a 
 miracle indeed it is. But looking at the circumstances 
 of the time, at the unbounded reverence of his fol- 
 lowers, and comparing him with the Fathers of the 
 Church or with mediaeval saints, to my mind the most 
 miraculous thing about Mohammed is, that he never 
 claimed the power of working miracles, ^^^latever 
 he had said he could do, his disciples would straight- 
 way have seen him do. They could not help attri- 
 buting to him miraculous acts which he never did, 
 
MOHAMMED A TRUE PROPHET. 291 
 
 and which he always denied he could do. What more 
 crowning proof of his sincerity is needed ? Moham- 
 med to the end of his Hfe claimed for himself that 
 title only with which he had begun, and which the 
 highest philosophy and the truest Christianity will 
 one day, I venture to believe, agree in yielding to 
 him — that of a Prophet, a very Prophet of God. 
 
 The religion, indeed, that he taught is below the 
 purest form of our own as the central figure of the 
 Mohammedan religion is below the central figure of 
 the Christian — a difference vast and incommensurable ; 
 but, in my opinion, he comes next to Him in the 
 long roll of the great teachers and benefactors of the 
 human race ; next to him, lo7igo intervallo certainly, 
 but still next. He had faults, and great ones, which 
 he was always the first himself, according to his light, 
 to confess and to deplore ; and the best homage we 
 can render to the noble sincerity of his character is to 
 state them, as I hope I have tried to do, exactly as 
 they were. ^ It was the fashion of old,' to quote once 
 more the words of our greatest novelist and greatest 
 psychologist — and so to conclude this course of Lec- 
 tures, of the manifold imperfections and shortcomings 
 of which no one of those who have so kindly listened 
 to me week after week can be half so conscious as 
 myself—' It was the fashion of old, when an ox was 
 led out for sacrifice to Jupiter, to chalk the dark 
 spots, and give the offering a false show of un- 
 blemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, 
 and boldly say — the victim is spotted, but it is not 
 therefore in vain that his mighty heart is laid on the 
 altar of men's highest hopes.' 
 
( 293 ) 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX TO LECTURE 1. 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere, in an interesting and able and catholic 
 essay in ' The Church and the Age ' on Indian Missions, takes a 
 hopeful view of the future of India, as influenced by Western 
 civilisation and Christianity, He begins (p. 318) by showing, 
 rightly enough, that almost everything we do in India tends 
 to break up old beliefs, and so to prepare the way for a new 
 one, and is, therefore, more or less Missionary work ; ' not only 
 railways and printing-presses, education, commerce, and the 
 electric telegraph ; our impartial codes and uniform system of 
 administration ; but our misfortunes and our mistakes, our wars, 
 our famines, and our mutinies.' He then gives (p. 334-337) 
 elaborate statistics of the Missionary agencies at work in 1865 
 in Western India ; they have enormously increased in the last 
 30 years, and he estimates the number of Missionaries at work 
 at about 105, and the number of converts at somewhere about 
 2,200 ; and this, multiplied by six or seven, would probably, he 
 thinks, give a general idea of the direct results of Missionary 
 work during that period throughout all India (I would remark 
 here that an official statement published in 1873 gives a much 
 more favourable account, estimating the number of communi- 
 cants at 78,494 ; but when Sir Bartle Frere comes to deal with 
 Mohammedanism (p. 354-356) he gives no statistics on the point 
 we most desiderate — the number of converts, if it be at all 
 appreciable, from Islam to Christianity ; the general remarks, 
 indeed, he does make, seem to go exactly contrary to the 
 
294 APPENDICES. 
 
 conclusions he draws from them — e.g.^ Mohammedans study- 
 portions of the Bible more than they did formerly ; but these 
 portions unfortunately seem to be the prophetical writings, espe- 
 cially those of Daniel ; and they find therein the denunciations, 
 of Christianity which Christians find in it against other creeds ; 
 they are humiliated by the fact that Mohammedanism is no 
 longer the Imperial creed of India ; but the upshot of their 
 depression is not Christianity, but Wahhabiism, i.e., a return to 
 Islam in its simplest and sternest shape. Brahmoism, which 
 is really Brahmanism as modified by Christianity, Brah- 
 manism minus caste and minus idolatry of every kind, 
 seems to be in some respects the beginning of a national 
 movement, and, judging from the authoritative sermon 
 (p. 346-352) delivered in Calcutta on the 39th anniversary of 
 the Brahma Samaj, and entitled ' The Future Church,' seems to 
 me to give real hope for the future, and to be very suggestive 
 as to the way in which Missionaries should go to work. ' The 
 answer,' says the preacher, 'of Jesus the immortal Son of God, 
 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
 all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
 and thy neighbour as thyself, is the essence of true religion 
 simply and exhaustively expounded.' ' The composite faith of 
 the future Church is to combine in perfect harmony the pro- 
 found devotion of the Hindu and the heroic enthusiasm of the 
 Musalman ;' but, unfortunately, the simplicity and intelligibility 
 of the Mohammedan creed render it incapable at present of 
 actually coalescing with the eclectic spirit of Brahmoism. It 
 is strange at first sight that Mohammedanism, originally the 
 most eclectic of religions, should, in India at all events, prove 
 itself to be the least capable of settling down on terms of 
 equality with other creeds, or of combining with them. No 
 doubt the fact that Mohammedanism has been the Imperial 
 creed and is so no longer, and the proud memories of Mahmud 
 and Akbar, of Baber and of Aurungzebe, are a formidable, 
 though it is to bo hoped a passing, difficulty. If the Moham- 
 medan revival now going on in India under the influence of the 
 Wahhabis, the Firazeea, and the followers of Dudu Miyan, can 
 only be accompanied by a great moral reformation, such as 
 Sprenger himself does not seem to despair of (I., p. 459, ' the 
 
APPENDIX TO LECTURE I. 295 
 
 Arabs only want another Luther'), the result, partially at least, 
 of Christian influences, the simplicity of Islam will no doubt 
 in its turn give it a great advantage over the Brahma Samaj in 
 the struggle to fill the void created by the crumbling fabric of 
 Hinduism. It has another great advantage in being already to 
 some extent in possession of the ground. I observe that one of 
 the speakers at the recent Allahabad Missionary Conference says 
 that thirty milUons, the estimated number of Musalmans in India, 
 is much below the mark. 
 
 The unfavourable opinion expressed by Dr. Livingstone on 
 the effects of Mohammedanism in Africa (Expedition to the 
 Zambesi, p. 513-516, and 602-603) appears opposed to the 
 general view I have taken in the Lecture ; and of course, so far 
 as his personal experience goes, is unimpeachable and conclusive. 
 But it is clear that Dr. Livingstone drew his general conclusions 
 almost entirely from his acquaintance with the Arab slave 
 traders in the south and east of Africa, whom it was the main 
 purpose of his noble and heroic life to put down. In the 
 Lecture I have purposely not dwelt upon the extension of Islam 
 along the coast to the south of the Equator, for the simple 
 reason that the inhabitants are Mohammedans in nothing but 
 the name. The Arabs there are of the most degraded type, 
 and are engaged almost to a man in the brutalising slave trade, 
 which by itself is a complete obstacle to every species of civilisation 
 and religion. No doubt, as Dr. Livingstone remarks, the native 
 African there contrasts favourably with the Mohammedan — ^as 
 favourably, I would add, as he does even with the Portuguese ; 
 but that Dr. Livingstone judged of the whole of Mohammedan 
 Africa by his experience of its worst part, is clear from his 
 remark — opposed as it is to the unanimous testimony of travel- 
 lers in Northern and Central Africa — ' that the only foundation 
 for the statements respecting the spread of Islam in Africa is 
 the fact that in a remote corner of North- West Africa, the 
 Foulahs and Mandingoes, and some other tribes in Northern 
 Africa, have made conquests of territory ; but that even they 
 care so little for the extension of their faith, that after conquest 
 no pains whatever are taken to indoctrinate the adults of the 
 tribe' (p. 513). Captain Burton asserts that 'Mohammedans 
 alone make proselytes in Africa.' Dr. Livingstone says as 
 
296 APPENDICES. 
 
 explicitly ' in Africa the followers of Christ alone are anxious to 
 propagate their faith.' Here is a direct contradiction ; and it is 
 obvious that in a country of such vast extent as Africa no such 
 sweeping statement can be absolutely true. Perhaps Sierra 
 Leone, to which Dr. Livingstone paid a visit for the purpose of 
 testing the results of missionary enterprise, and to which he 
 specially refers (p. 663), will furnish us with the best materials 
 for pointing out how far the two statements are reconcileable 
 with each other, and with substantial accuracy. In Sierra Leone 
 there is a large negro community, the members of which having 
 been brought for many years into contact not only with direct 
 Christian preaching, but, what is more important, with Christian 
 education, government, and example, are both excellent citizens 
 and sincere Christians, and, as one would expect, contrast 
 favourably in point of morality even with the best Mohamme- 
 dans. This is unquestionably true ; and of the self-denying 
 efforts of the missionaries, especially the native ones, within 
 certain limits, it is impossible to speak too highly. As to the 
 exact number of Christians in the colony at this moment it is 
 rather difficult to arrive at an accurate conclusion ; but to take 
 Dr. Livingstone's figures, he remarks (p. 605) that in the census 
 of 1861 the whole population of Sierra Leone itself was 41,000 
 souls, 27,000 of them being Christian, and 1 ,774 Mohammedan, 
 ' not a very large proportion,' he observes, ' for the only sect in 
 Africa which makes proselytes.' It is not a large proportion, 
 but what is the number now ? Sierra Leone now affords the 
 most striking proof that can be given of the extent to which 
 on the one hand Islam is spreading in that part of Africa by the 
 efforts of unassisted missionaries, and on the other of the 
 absence of any such propagation of the Christian faith among the 
 tribes beyond the limits of the settlement. When Dr. Living- 
 stone visited Sierra Leone a few years ago, Islam was, as he 
 says, hardly known there ; since then Mohammedan mission- 
 aries have come thither from the Foulahs and from the far 
 interior, and with what result ? No one will say that it is the 
 sword to which they owe their success, for the peace of Sierra 
 Leone has been for years undisturbed. And now we have 
 (Government Report of West African Colonies, 1873) the 
 testimony of Mr. Johnson (p. 15), the able and excellent mis- 
 
APPENDIX TO LECTURE I. 297 
 
 sionary whom I have quoted in my Lecture, endorsed as it 
 would seem by the Bishop of the Diocese, that the Christian 
 community at Sierra Leone, however flourishing itself, has exer- 
 cised no influence on the large number of native Africans 
 resorting annually to the town for the purpose of trade, and 
 still less has it done anything to propagate itself by sending out 
 missionaries among adjoining tribes. On the other hand, a few 
 active and zealous Mohammedan missionaries have carried their 
 peaceful war into the enemies' country, and have produced 
 great results even among the Christian and native population of 
 Sierra Leone itself ; insomuch that the religion of a large 
 portion, the Governor says of the majority, of the Christians 
 within the settlement has been actually changed by their 
 preaching ! There may be, and it is to be hoped there is, 
 exaggeration as to the numbers ; but there can be no doubt, 
 looking to the consensu-'! of testimony, that Islam is propagated 
 in "Western, ISTorthern, and Central Africa ; that it is propagated 
 by simple preaching and with marked success even where a 
 Christian Government, and, what is better, Christianity itself, 
 is to a great extent in possession of the ground. One wishes 
 that Dr. Livingstone, the greatest and most single-minded of 
 all the friends of Africa, had himself come into contact with 
 a few of these simple and single-minded Mohammedan mis- 
 sionaries. They come so near in many respects to his own ideal 
 of what a Christian missionary ought to be, that one feels sure 
 he would have been led to modify his judgment as to the system 
 which produces them, and to the great teacher whom he rarely 
 mentions but as the ' false prophet.' 
 
 The remarks I have made in the Lecture as to the attitude 
 which it seems to me that Christian Missionaries should adopt, 
 wherever their efforts appear to have a chance of being success- 
 ful — and surely there is too much evil in the world that is 
 remediable, to allow of a great expenditure of labour or money 
 where there is no such prospect — have been suggested to me 
 mainly by way of contrast to what I have read in most books 
 devoted to the cause of Missions. Even so noble, and self- 
 sacrificing, and single-hearted a man as Henry Martyn appears 
 to have gone out as a Missionary to India, nay to have argued 
 with Mohammedans, without having first read a word of the 
 
298 APPENDICES. 
 
 Koran, even in its English dress (Memoir of Rev. Henry 
 Martyn, by Rev. J. Sargent, p. 177 : cf. 225) ; and throughout 
 his career he treats it as an ' imposture ; ' ' the work of the 
 devil.' He is sent to fight the ' four-faced devil of India,' — e.e., 
 Hindus, Mohammedans, Papists, and Infidels (p. 2r)9) ; and see 
 a summary of his written arguments against Mohammedans 
 (on p. 335), which are quite enough by themselves to account for 
 his ill-success. See also the account by another devoted mis- 
 sionary, the Rev. C. B. Leupolt, of his mission at Benares 
 ('Recollections of an Indian Missionary'), who takes much the 
 same position. ' The so-called Prophet of the Mohammedans ; ' 
 the ' Koran ' is an assemblage of facts and passages taken from 
 the Bible mixed with a great number of gross and cunningly 
 devised fables ; ' 'no Mohammedan who believes the whole 
 Koran can have the notion of the true God ; ' ' the Koran is 
 calculated to lead man daily further from God, and to unite him 
 closer to the Prince of darkness ; ' ' Satan holds them enthralled 
 by a false religion,' and so on. How not to deal with a dif- 
 ferent faith could hardly be better demonstrated than by the 
 writings of two such admirable and devoted men. Surely the 
 system has been to blame ! There is an anecdote related of 
 Aidan, first Bishop of Lindisfarne, which every one interested 
 in missions, and most of all those who themselves attempt to 
 bring over to their own faith the followers of another creed, 
 and that one so sublime and so nearly connected with their own 
 as is Islam, would do well to bear in mind. When a monk of 
 lona who had been sent at the request of King Oswald to 
 preach the Gospel to the heathens of his Northumbrian king- 
 dom, returned disheartened to his native country, and reported 
 that success was impossible among a people so stubborn and so 
 barbarous : ' Was it their stubbornness or your severity?' asked 
 another monk, who was sitting by ; 'did you forget God's word 
 to give them the milk first and then the meat ? ' The speaker 
 was Aidan. He was begged, by all present, himself to take in 
 hand the mission that had been abandoned. He settled as 
 Bishop in the isle of Lindisfarne, and, influenced by his spirit 
 and instinct with his charity and wisdom, missionaries went 
 forth from there, who, in a generation or two, evangelised all 
 the north of England. 
 
APPENDIX TO LECTURE I. 299 
 
 Happily, as is shown from the general tone of the Allahabad 
 Conference, and the explicit testimony of the Government of 
 India in 1873, there has been a great advance in the right 
 direction lately. Not to go beyond the limited circle of one's 
 own acquaintance, such men as Bishop Cotton and . the Rev. T. 
 P. Hughes, in India ; the Rev. George and the Rev. Arthur 
 Moule, in China ; and the Rev. James Johnson, native of 
 Sierra Leone — though I would not venture to say that they 
 would in any degree accept my point of view — yet in reality 
 would have much in common with it ; and all would certainly 
 admit the immense amount of good that is to be found in the 
 creeds, which it is their duty to controvert. Alas, that those 
 who knew Bishop Cotton well, and who therefore know what 
 his catholic spirit might have done for India, can only now, 
 when they think of him, repeat to themselves, consciously or 
 unconsciously, the touching lament, 
 
 ' But oh for a touch of the vanished hand, 
 And a sound of the voice that is still ! ' 
 
( 301 ) 
 
 APPENDIX TO LECTURE III. 
 
 That the assertions I have made in the Third Lecture, as to the 
 comparative ferocity of Christian and Musalman religious wars, 
 are within the mark, it would be easy to bring abundance of 
 proof, I will adduce here one illustration only, drawn from the 
 chief battle-ground of the contending forces, the Holy Land. 
 Jerusalem capitulated to Omar, the third Khalif , after a pro- 
 tracted blockade in the year 637. No property was destroyed 
 except in the inevitable operations of the siege, and not a drop 
 of blood was shed except on the field of battle. Omar entered 
 the city with the Patriarch, conversing amicably about its his- 
 tory ; at the hour of prayer he was invited by the Patriarch to 
 worship in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but he refused to 
 do so for fear that his descendants might claim a similar right, 
 and so the freedom of religious worship, which he wished to 
 secure to the inhabitants by the articles of capitulation, might 
 be endangered. In the year 1099 the Holy City fell before the 
 arms of the Crusaders after a much shorter siege. It was taken 
 by storm, and for three days there was an indiscriminate slaughter 
 of men, women, and children ; 70,000 Musalmans were put to 
 the sword, 10,000 of them in the mosque of Omar itself : ' in 
 eodem templo decern millia decollata sunt / pedites nostri usque ad 
 hasen cruore peremptorum tingebantur, nee feminis nee parvuUs 
 pepet'cerunW This comes not from an enemy but from the 
 monkish historian, an eyewitness and a partaker of what he re- 
 lates, Foulcher of Chartres. Raymond of Agiles and Daimbert, 
 Archbishop of Pisa, give similar details, and all with approval. 
 The city itself was pillaged ; but the turn of the Saracens came 
 once more in the year 1187. The breach was already forced, 
 
302 APPENDICES. 
 
 when the great Saladin retracted a hasty vow he had made to 
 avenge the innocent blood that had been shed when the city had 
 been sacked by the Crusaders, and took not Godfrey de Bouillon 
 but Omar for his model. No blood was shed, and the captives 
 were allowed to ransom themselves, the Prankish Christians 
 leaving the city, the Eastern Christians continuing to reside 
 there in peace. 
 
 As to humanity in war in general, the progress made has not 
 been so great as is commonly supposed, even among those who 
 pride themselves, and who to some extent pride themselves with 
 reason, on being the pioneers of Christianity and civilisation. 
 Take the case of Africa. I am not aware that the Saracens in 
 the full career of conquest deliberately burnt a single city in the 
 whole of the North of Africa, whether as a precautionary mea- 
 sure, or to support their prestige, or to glut their revenge. Can 
 England say the same ? If we assume — a large assumption — 
 that the war on the Gold Coast in 1874 is wholly justifiable, if 
 we also assume that the burning of the enemy's capital was 
 indeed a necessity, it was a necessity for which a Christian 
 nation should go into mourning, and should contemplate not 
 with feelings of triumph, but with those of humiliation and 
 regret. Is there anything of the kind, or has one single ruler 
 either in Church or State — now that the elections are over, and 
 the moral iniquity of the war has been condoned by its success — 
 been heard to raise his voice in condemnation of it, Jis even 
 Omar or Saladin might have done ? It is difficult to see how 
 the English nation, which has abolished the slave trade in the 
 West of Africa, and is in its best portions profoundly philan- 
 thropic, can honestly believe that they are advancing the objects 
 they have at heart when, in support of such a treaty as I have 
 alluded to in the Lecture, they lead on a weaker bjirlxirous 
 nation, whom pro hac vice we designate as ' our allies,' against a 
 more powerful one, and deliberately burn out of their homes a 
 people who, barbarous and cruel as they were, have offended us 
 not by their cruelty, or by their human sacrifices, but by their 
 honest belief that we had come to Africa to bar them from 
 access to their own coast. It seems not to have occurred to 
 anyone that our ' prestige ' would have been sufficiently vindi- 
 cated, and our future security sufficiently provided for, if we 
 
APPENDIX TO LECTURE III. 303 
 
 had burned down the palace of the king, the chief offender. 
 But our ' prestige ' serves as an ample excuse for committing 
 what we should condemn as crimes in any other nation. It is 
 an entity that has juggled us into the belief that to destroy what 
 we cannot retain and cannot use is the prerogative, not of bar- 
 barism, but of civilisation and of Christianity. Had the war 
 upon the Gold Coast been avowedly a war not for the spread of 
 our influence, or for the security of a territory acquired by 
 questionable means, but a moral crusade against human sacrifice, 
 or for any purely unselfish object, the case would have been 
 different. Truly this war will be a damnosa hereditas to posterity, 
 alike whether we accept or disclaim the fearful responsibilities 
 in which it has involved us. 
 
 There is an anecdote related of Mahmud the Ghaznevide, the 
 great Turkish conqueror of Central Asia, which seems to me to 
 be suggestive. Soon after the conquest of Persia, a caravan was 
 cut off by robbers in one of its deserts, and the mother of one 
 of the merchants who was killed went to Ghazni to complain. 
 Mahmud urged the impossibility of keeping order in so remote 
 a part of his territories, when the woman boldly answered : 
 ' Why, then, do you take countries which you cannot govern, 
 and for the protection of which you must answer in the Day of 
 Judgment ? ' Mahmud was struck with the reproach : whether 
 it would have prevented all further conquests on his part we do 
 not know, for he died soon afterwards ; but he liberally rewarded 
 the woman, and took immediate and effectual steps for the pro- 
 tection of the caravans. 
 
 i 
 
ft 
 
INDEX. 
 
 305 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 A BAN, 176 
 
 ^ Abd' Allah, father of Mo- 
 hammed, 94 
 
 Abd' Allah, the blind, 125 
 
 Abd' al Muttalib, 94 
 
 Abd'-al-kader, 273 
 
 Abd'-al-Rahman, 242 
 
 Abkhasians, 49 
 
 Abrahah, 142 
 
 Abraham, 85, 136, 148, 221 
 
 Abu Bakr, 21, 104, 131, 137, 
 150, 185 
 
 Abu Hurairah, 18, 266 
 
 Abu Lahab. 150 
 
 Abu Taleb, 95, 101, 104, 128, 266 
 
 Abulf eda, 72 
 
 Abyssinia, 102, seq., 251 
 
 Achin, 29, 271 
 
 Acta Sanctorum, 198 
 
 Ad, Bani, 148 
 
 Adalbert, 238 
 
 Adhan, 24 
 
 Africa, Islam in, early spread of, 
 30 seq.; spreading now, 33 seq., 
 35 ; intellectual benefits of, 35, 
 209; moral benefits of, 37 seq., 
 106, 209 ; testimony of travel- 
 lers to, 37-43; slavery and slave 
 trade in, 47, 278, 280; probable 
 destiny of , 48 seq. ; Christianity 
 in, 47, 48, 211 seq., 241 
 
 Africanus, Leo, 215 
 
 Aidan, 298 
 
 Aiznadin, battle of, 176 
 
 Akbah, the conqueror, 30 
 
 Akbar, 106, 294 
 
 Albigenses, 185, 186 
 
 Alexander, 76. 287 
 
 Alfred the Great, 198, 288 
 
 Alhambra, 107, 243 
 
 Ali, 84, 165, 176, 246 
 
 All, Bev, 143 
 
 Ali, Mohammed, 268 
 
 Allahabad Missionary Confe- 
 rence, 295, 299 
 
 Al-Kazar, 107, 243 
 
 Al-Lat and Al-Uzza, 86, 124 
 
 Alliance, Holy, 186 
 
 Almsgiving, 111, 139 
 
 America, Islam in, 30 ; slavery 
 in, 207, 278 
 
 Aminah, 94 
 
 Amru, 176, 184 
 
 Anatolia, 58, 261, 270 
 
 Animals, kindness of Turks to, 
 180 ; of Mohammed to, 215 ; 
 of Egyptians and Arabs to, 
 217; funds devoted to, 214, 
 217 ; future life of, 216 
 
 Anti-Christ, 68, 69 
 
 Apocryphal Gospels, 228, 229 
 
 Arabesques, 224 
 
 Arabs. See Bedouins. 
 
 Arafat, Mount, 203 
 
 Architecture, Moorish, 106, 224, 
 243 ; Mogul, 106 
 
 Armageddon, 272 
 
 Arnold, Mr. Matthew, 56, 61 
 
 Ashanti, 187, 302, 303 
 
 Asia, Central, Islam in, 27; Rus- 
 sian advance into, 257, 272, 273 
 
 Asoka, 214 
 
 Asylums, lunatic, 215 
 
 Attila, 173, 178, 272 
 
 Augustine, St., 160 
 
 Aurungzebe, 106, 294 
 
 Avatar, 112 
 
 Ayishah, 110, 111, 130, 143, 
 155 
 
 Azurairah, Chronicle of, 46 
 
 BABBR, 106, 275, 294 
 Babyism, 269 
 Bacon, Lord, 55, 253 
 
 I 
 
306 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 BAD 
 
 
 GIB 
 
 Badger, Dr. G. P., xiii, 69, 
 
 140, 
 
 Cantacuzene, Emperor, John, 220 
 
 141, 273 
 
 
 Capitulations. 179 
 
 Baker, Sir Samuel, 276, 279 
 
 
 Cappadocia, George of, 241 
 
 Balaustion, 183 
 
 
 Carlyle, Mr. T., xix, 72, 193 
 
 Barth, Dr., 37, 41, 42, 226 
 
 
 Carmathians, 266 
 
 Bayle, 67 
 
 
 Caste, absence of, in Islam, 208; 
 
 Beal, Mr., 4 
 
 
 among Hindus, 209 ; amongst 
 
 Becket, Thomas \ 198 
 
 
 Christians, 209 ; effect on Ne- 
 
 Bedouins, immobility of, 72, 
 
 73; 
 
 groes, 209 
 
 passion for the desert, 
 
 74; 
 
 Cavour, Count, 91 
 
 heathenism, 75 ; never 
 
 con- 
 
 Cazenove. Dr., xiii, 81, 88, 218 
 
 quered, 76 ; tribal organisa- 
 
 Charity, St. Paul on, 17 ; Mo- 
 
 tion, 77 ; hospitality 
 
 and 
 
 hammed's apologue on, 18 
 
 plunder, 78 ; chivalry. 
 
 79; 
 
 Charles Martel, 22 
 
 )oetry,79; revenge and cruelty. 
 
 Charies V., 243 
 
 iJO, 81 ; treatment of women, 
 
 Charies the Great, 64, 182, 186,288 
 
 82 ; proverbs, 83 ; religions, 
 
 Chenghis Khan, 178, 259 
 
 83-86 ; . superstitions, 87 
 
 
 China, Islam in, 25; early civili- 
 
 Bedr, battle of, 129, 175 
 
 
 sation of, 250 ; Dr. J. Bridges 
 
 Beiram, feast of, 223 
 
 
 on, 250 
 
 Beit-Allah. See Kaaba. 
 
 
 Chosroes, 119, 127, 288 
 
 Bench, people of. Ill 
 
 
 Christ, His life and teaching, 6-7; 
 
 Bentham, 216 
 
 
 our imperfect knowledge of , 11 ; 
 
 Bernard, St., 160, 194 
 
 
 nature of His miracles, 161,162; 
 
 Bible compared with Koran 
 
 16- 
 
 nature of His kingilom, 169; 
 
 24 ; criticism of, 59 seq. 
 
 
 attitude towards existing insti- 
 
 Bilal, 211 
 
 
 tutions. 197; spirit of, 204; 
 
 Bismillah, 256 
 
 
 how he would have viewed 
 
 Blyden, Rev. E., 42, 43, 210 
 
 
 Mohamraai, 219, 236, 238; 
 
 Bokhara, 27 
 
 
 Mohammedan ideas of, 226 ; 
 
 Bokhari, Al, 289 
 
 
 Mohammed's ideas of, 227, 
 
 Boniface, St., 288 
 
 
 231 ; contrasted \vith Moham- 
 
 Borak, 158 
 
 
 med, 247-249 
 
 Bosman, William, 44 
 
 
 Christianitv, origin of, 5 seq.; in 
 
 Brahma Samaj, 294, 296 
 
 
 Africa, 4>>, 44; 210, 241 ; pre- 
 
 Brahmanism, 50, 209, 246, 
 
 294, 
 
 eminent, but not exclusive 
 
 295 
 
 
 claims of, 138-142; how it may 
 
 Bridges, Dr. J., 250 
 
 
 spread, 60, 62 : in Arabia, 84, 
 
 Browne, traveller, in Africa, 37 
 
 138 ; relation to Judaism, 59, 
 
 Browne, Mr. I. de Maine, 101 
 
 146; spread by peaceful means, 
 
 Bruce, traveller, in Abyssinia 
 
 ,261 
 
 185 ; attitude to slavery, 204 ; 
 
 Brunehaut, 263 
 
 
 enthusiasm of humanity, 211 ; 
 
 Bryce, Mr. J., 287 
 
 
 relation to Islam, 219 seq. ; 
 
 Buddha, 4, 23, 170 
 
 
 rapid degeneracy in the East, 
 
 Buddhism, 3, 214 
 
 
 234-236 ; comprehensiveness 
 
 Burckhardt, 75, 143, 266 
 
 
 of, 237-244; contrasted with 
 
 Burton, Capt.,75,79, 143,251,295 
 
 Islam, 247 
 
 Bushreens, 40 
 
 
 Christotokos, 2S3 
 Cicero, 57 
 
 pAIRO, 35, 181, 214, 257 
 ^ Cairoan, 30 
 
 
 Circassians, 212, 271 
 
 
 Circumcision, 167 
 
INDEX. 
 
 307 
 
 CLA 
 
 Claverhouse, 269 
 Collyridians, 230 
 Comparative religion, 1-3, 53-56 
 Conception, Immaculate, 230 
 Concubinage, 207, 208 
 Confucius, 11, 14, 170 
 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 
 
 174 
 Constantine the Great, 198, 288 
 Constantinople. 24, 173, 179, 
 
 180 
 Cordova, 22, 64, 184, 243 
 Cotton, Bishop, 299 
 Covenanters, the, 269 
 Crawfurd, 28, 29 
 Creed, Athanasian, 229 
 Crowther, Bishop, 34 
 Cruelties, of Christians, 254 ; of 
 
 Musalmans, 253, 254 
 Crusades, 177, 301-302 
 Curzon, R., 24, 166, 179 
 Cyril. St.. 198. 241 
 
 TVAIMBERT OF i>LSA, 301 
 
 ^ Damascus, John of, 164 
 
 Damascus, siege of. 176 
 
 Dante, 68, 192, 220' 
 
 Dan ton, 91 
 
 Darwin, Mr. Charles, 216 
 
 Dervishes, 195, 240 
 
 Desert, characteristics of, 73, 74 
 
 Despotism, Eastern, 274 
 
 Deutsch, E., xiii,, 109, 145, 243 
 
 Divination by arrows, 87 ; for- 
 bidden, 218 
 
 Divorce, 201-203 
 
 Djafar, 102 
 
 Djinn, 14, 139, 151 
 
 Docetists, 231 
 
 D'Ohson, Mouradgia, 260 
 
 Dollinger, Dr., xii., 212, 266 
 ' Dozy, Professor, xii., 30, 73, 75, 
 77,80 
 runk 
 218 
 
 Druses, 211, 252 
 
 Dudu Miyan, 294 
 
 Dunstan, St., 198 
 
 Durthur, 130 
 
 Dutch, 29, 44 
 
 GIB 
 
 l^AST AND WEST, 179, 181 
 
 -^ Ebionites, 145 
 
 Eesa, Seyyedna, 226 seq. 
 
 El Azhar, 24, 35 
 
 El Khunsa, 82 
 
 El Mutanabi, 78. 79 
 
 Elijah, 104, 129 ' 
 
 Eliot, George, 118, 291 
 
 Blphinstone, Mount Stuart, 212, 
 
 224, 246 
 Epilepsy, 96, 155 
 Essenes, 145 
 
 F 
 
 A-HIAN, 214 
 
 Fairs, annual, in Arabia, 79, 
 104 
 
 Farrar, Dr. F. W., 122, 204, 214 
 
 Fatalism, not a dogma of Mo- 
 hammed, 163 ; nor of St. Paul, 
 164; common in East, 252 
 
 Fatihah, 262 
 
 Fatrah, 99, 227 
 
 Female children, burial alive of, 
 81 ; prohibited, 106, 203 
 
 Ferishta, 224 
 
 Fetishism, 53 ; Arabian, 86, 107 
 
 Fez, 30, 215 
 
 Firazees, 294 
 
 Firdausi, 245 
 
 Fire-worship, 23, 25, 85 
 
 Forsyth, Sir D., 27 
 
 Foulahs, 32, 295 
 
 Foulcher, of Chartres, 301 
 
 Fredegonde, 263 
 
 Frere, Sir Bartle, 46, 293, 294 
 
 Future life, Arab ideas of, 88, 
 138 ; of Islam, 188-192 ; of 
 other religions, 191 ; legitimate 
 influences of, 194 ; of animals, 
 216 
 
 AAGNIER, 71 
 ^^ Galton, Mr. F., 48 
 Gambling prohibited, 218 
 Genebrard, 68 
 Genseric, 178 
 Gharanyk, 125 
 
 Ghaznevide, 177. See Mahmud. 
 Gibbon, xviii., 53, 72, 89, 108, 
 120, 159, 174 
 
308 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 GOB 
 
 Gobineau, Count, xix., 164 seq., 
 
 183, 270 
 Great men, influence of, 91 seq. 
 Greece, religion in, 7, 59 
 Greek Church, 173, 174, 273, 274 
 Gregory the Great, 173, 194, 288 
 Guiana, Dutch. 30 
 Guizot, 90 
 
 HAJJ, 140, 141, 144 
 Hallam, xix.. 89 
 Hanifa, tribe of, 225 
 Hamza, 195 
 Hanyfs, 91 
 
 Hardy, Mr. Spence, 4 • 
 Harun al Raschid, 248, 275 
 Hassan, Prince, 25, 26 
 Hassan and Hosein, 246 
 Hausas, 37 
 
 Haxthausen, Baron von, 271 
 Helpers of Medina, 195 
 Helps, Sir A., 46 
 Hennessy, Mr. Pope, 34, 35 
 Heraclius, 119, 288 
 Hijrah, the fii-st, 102 
 Hijrah, the, 104 
 Hilaire, Barth^lemy St., xix., 52, 
 
 89, 92, 239 
 Hillel, 146 
 
 Hinduism. See Brahmanism 
 Hira, Mount, 97. 
 Hoare, Rev. J., 4,214 
 Hobal, 86, 120 
 Hospitals, 214 
 Hughes, Rev. T. P., xiii., 246, 
 
 256, 299 
 Hunter, Dr. W. W., 226, 245, 
 
 266 seq. 
 
 TBN BATUTA, 25, 28, 31, 220, 
 
 ■■■ 259 
 
 Ibn Chaldun, 75 
 
 Ibn Hisham, 91 
 
 Ibn Ishak, 91 
 
 I<jaba, 92 
 
 Iconoclasm, 174, 22S, 224 
 
 Idolatry, 85, 86,223,224 
 
 India, Islam in, 49, 50, 249, 246, 
 
 246 ; Mogul invasion of, 106 
 Isaiah, 98, 126 
 
 JUD 
 
 Ishmael, 87, 223 
 
 Islam, historic origin, 15 ; spreatl, 
 20-22 ; extent, 23, 24 ; in 
 China, 25 ; in Central Asia, 
 27 ; in East Indian Islands, 28, 
 29 ; in America, So ; in Africa, 
 31, 47 ; in Asiatic Turkey, 49 ; 
 in Hindustan, 49, 50, 209, 245. 
 246, 294, 295, 297, 299 ; 
 causes of success, 51 ; prepara- 
 tion for, 91, 93 ; essence of, 
 133 seq. ; meaning of, 137 ; 
 relation to Judaism, 136, 137 ; 
 practical duties, 139 ; relation 
 to the miraculous, 159 seq. ; 
 to fatalism, 163 seq. ; to use of 
 sword, 163 seq. ; to temporal 
 power, 173 seq. ; to future life, 
 189 seq. ; not sensual, 196, 198 ; 
 nature of its reforms, 200, 219 ; 
 relation to Christianity, 220, 
 234 ; not anti- Christian, 235, 
 
 238 ; religion of pastoral races, 
 
 239 ; in Spain, 242, 213 ; in 
 Sicily, 243; in Persia, 244, 
 245 ; schisms in, 252 ; corrup- 
 tions and' abuses, 253, 257 ; 
 potentiality of, 258 ; vitality, 
 260, 261 ; power of revival, 
 265, 271 ; can approximate to 
 Christianity, 285 ; lessons to 
 be learnt from Christians, 286 
 
 Itigh6, 251 
 
 TAINS, 214 
 
 " Jerusalem, 148, 176, 301, 302 
 
 Jessup, Dr., 89, 202, 203 
 
 Jews, Mohammed's eflPorts to gain, 
 148; later hostility, 116, 149, 
 150. 
 
 Jihad, 267, 284 
 
 Joan of Arc, 101 
 
 Johnson, Rev. J., 34, 299 
 
 Jolofs, 37 
 
 Judaism, its origin, 3 ; in Arabia, 
 82 ; exclusive spirit, 134-136, 
 148 ; relation to Christianity, 
 11 seq., 57, 146; relation to 
 Islam, 136, 137 ; slavery and 
 polygamy in, 200 seq., 207 
 
INDEX. 
 
 309 
 
 JUG 
 
 MIR 
 
 Juggernaut, 274 
 
 Leupolt, Eev. C. B., 298 
 
 Julian, Emperor, 213 
 
 Levantine, 282 
 
 Justinian, 89, 288 
 
 Library, Alexandrian, 181 ; at 
 
 
 Tripoli, 183 ; at Cordova, 183 
 
 IZAABA, 24, 80, 91. 101, 120, ' 
 ■^ 142 seq. 
 
 Lindisfarne, 298 
 
 Literature and Science in Islam, 
 
 Kadis, 255, 283 
 
 181, 184. 244 
 
 Kafirs, 40 
 
 Livingstone, Dr., 44,279, 295-297 
 
 Karakorum, 272 
 
 Lubbock, Sir J., 12 
 
 Katherine's, St., Monastery. 90, 
 
 222 
 Kaufmann, General, 273 
 
 Luther, 67, 101, 102, 263, 268 
 
 MAGIANISM, 85 
 ^^ Magyars, 238 
 
 Kepler, 2 
 
 Ketman, 245 
 
 Mahmud, the Ghaznevide, 212, 
 
 w^ Khadijah, 95 seq., 99, 104, 129, 
 
 224, 303 
 
 . 222 
 
 Mahu, 67 
 
 Khaled, 176 
 
 Maimonides, 69 
 
 Khalifate, 172, 177, 253, 256 
 
 Malaterra, 64 
 
 Khalifs-Abassides, 181 seq. ; 
 
 Malay Peninsula, Islam in, 27 
 
 Fatimite, 244 
 
 Malcolm, Sir John, 245 
 
 Khatibeh, 276 
 
 Mamelukes, 212 
 
 Kheredine, General, xiii., 179 
 
 Mammetry, &Q 
 
 Khiva, 26, 278 
 
 Mandingoes. 31, 32, 39, 40, 295 
 
 Khoten, 26 
 
 Mansur, Elijah, 271, 272 
 
 Kiblah, 148, 268 
 
 Manu, laws of, 82 
 
 Kirghis, 23, 257 
 
 Maracci, the Abbe, 69 
 
 Koraitza, Bani, 116 seq. 
 
 Marco Polo, 4, 25, 26, 28, 65 
 
 Koran, compared with Bible, 15- 
 
 Maria, 114 
 
 19 ; translations of, 72, 75 ; 
 
 Marshman, Mr., 259 
 
 characteristics, 146 ; history, 
 
 Marosia, 263 
 
 149 ; editions, 151 ; poetry, 
 
 Marriages, Mohammed's, 95, 96, 
 
 155, 157 : theology, 157 ; mo- 
 
 114 
 
 rality, 158 ; on miracles, 159 
 
 Marsilles, 64 
 
 seq. ; on predestination, 163 ; 
 
 Marthan, 84 
 
 on the sword. 170 ; on the fu- 
 
 Martyn, Kev. Henry, 297 
 
 ture life, 191, 193 ; on tolera- 
 
 Maurice, Rev. F., xix., 52, 134, 
 
 tion, 219 ; a miracle, 290, 291 
 
 178 
 
 Krapf, Dr., 46 
 
 Mawmet, 66 
 
 Kuraish, the, 94, 100, 103-105, 
 
 Max Muller, xviii., xix, 4, 7 
 
 124-126 
 
 seq., 54, 265 
 
 Kutb-ud-din, 212 
 
 Mecca, 73, 94 seq., 120, 142 
 
 
 Medina, 21, 83, 104, 128, 168 
 
 T ABYD, 80, 153 
 
 ^ Lane, Mr., 14, 24, 215, 216, 
 
 Milman, Dean, xix., 21, 145, 174 
 
 Miracles, at Mohammed's birth. 
 
 217, 277, 278 
 
 94 ; attributed to the Church 
 
 Layard, Mr., 74, 75, 179 
 
 Fathers, 159 ; Mohammed's 
 
 Lecky, Mr., 214 
 
 attitude towards, 23, 156, 157 ; 
 
 Leo Africanus, 215 
 
 Christ's attitude towards, 163 ; 
 
 Leo the Great, 29 
 
 the Koran a miracle, 290 
 
 Leo X., 67, 256 
 
 Miraj, 19, 158 
 
 Lepanto, battle of, 52 
 
 Mir Aulad Ali, 115, 122, 205 
 
310 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Miscreant, 66 
 
 Mishkat-ul-Masabih, xii., 17, 130, 
 143, 182, 266 
 
 Missionaries, Musalman, in Afri- 
 ca, 33 ; St. Paul as a, 59, 60 ; 
 of the present and future. 6 1 ,62, 
 287, 288 : mistakes of, 297-298 
 
 Missionary Intelligencer, 41, 281 
 
 Missions, results of Christian, 
 in Africa, 33, 209, 287- 
 297 ; in India, 49, 293, 294 ; 
 legitimate objects of, 60 
 
 Modllacat, 79 
 
 Moffat, Dr., 46 
 
 Moguls, 106 
 
 JIohanMaed, full knowledge of, 
 15 ; opinions about, 63, 71 ; 
 youth, 94 ;_ marriage to Kha- 
 <iijah(^9§"; call to be prophet, 
 97 ; persecuted, 99 seq. ; 
 visions, 102 ; flight, 105 ; 
 life at Medinn, 106 ; sin- 
 cerity, 108, 123-125 ; cha- 
 racteristics, 109, 112 ; apparent 
 
 change in, 113, 1 17 ; mnrriagrps 
 
 .of^ll4-llA; consistency, 119 
 faults, 121 ; nature of mission 
 127 : anecdotes of, 128-131 
 feelings towards Jews, 146, 
 147 ; miracles, 157 seq. 
 soldier and conqueror, 171 seq. 
 encouragement of learning, 
 183 ; moral reformer and legis- 
 lator, 200 ; views of Christ and 
 Christianity, 226 seq. ; place 
 in history, 286 seq. ; true pro- 
 phet, 290, 291 
 
 Mohammed II., 287 
 
 Mohammed IV., 227 
 
 Mohammedanism. See Islam. 
 
 Mohler. xii., 123 
 
 Mohammed, Mulla, 271 
 
 Moharram, 246 
 
 Momiem, 26 
 
 Monotheism, 9, 112, 189 seq., 
 220, 229, 282, 284 
 
 Moors, 107, 177, 184 seq., 242 seq. 
 
 Moseilama the liar, 128 
 
 Moses, 95, 117, 146, 222, 277-279 
 
 Mother among Turks, reverence 
 for, 180 
 
 PEE 
 
 Muezzin, 24. 167, 211 
 
 Muir, Sir W., xviii., 64, 92, 93, 
 
 109, 114. 226, 236, 277 
 Mullas, 255 
 Mungo Park, 38-41. 
 Muridism, 271 
 Muza, 31 
 Mythology, growth of, 19 
 
 NABI, 159. See Prophetic 
 Office 
 
 Nagashy, 102 seq., 142 
 
 Napoleon, 201, 219, 287 
 
 Negro, effects of Islam on, moral, 
 intellectual, and political, 32- 
 43 ; the Mohammedan Negro 
 compared with the Christian, 
 209 
 
 Nehavend, battle of, 175 
 
 Nestorians, 233 
 
 Nicephorus, 174 
 
 Niger, 31, 38 
 
 Nijni Novgorod, 223 
 
 Nirvana, 4 
 
 Nitria, 241 
 
 Norway, 180 
 
 
 
 DIN, 190 
 
 Ohud, battle of Mount, 129, 
 
 163 
 Okatz, fair of, 79 
 Omar, 21, 131, 181, 301 
 0mm Salama, 78 
 Opium traffic, 187, 274 
 Originality of Islam, 9, 91, 137- 
 
 139 
 Ormuzd, 23, 85 
 Orphans, treatment of, 218 
 Othman, 81, 150 
 Otto the Great, 185 
 
 PALEY, W., 157 
 Palgrave, Mr. GiflEord, 49, 
 251, 270, 271 
 Palmer, Prof. E. H., 228 
 Panhellenism, 8 
 Panthays, 25, 271 
 Papacy, 173, 174, 268 
 Paraclete, 228 
 Paul, St., 6, 17, 59, 60, 163 
 Perceval, Caussin de, xvii., 70, 84 
 
INDEX. 
 
 311 
 
 PER 
 
 Persia, Islam in, 244 
 
 Philip III., 242 
 
 Pilgrimage, 140 seq. 
 
 Piligrinus, 238 
 /^^^j&iljtgamy, Authorised by Moham- 
 ^^^"nied, 198 ; limited, 202 ; diffi- 
 culty of dealing with, 275-277 
 
 Poole, Mr. Stanley Lane, 72, 105 
 
 Portuguese, 29, 44, 48, 2'.^5 
 
 Prayer. Mohammed's views on 
 139, ' 166, 262, character of 
 Muslim, 166 seq., 262 
 
 Predestination. See Fatalism. 
 
 Pre-Mohammedans, 93 
 
 Price, Major, xii 
 
 Prideaux, Dean, 71 
 
 Prophecies, supposed, of Moham- 
 med, 69, 147 ; forced interpre- 
 tation^of, 68 
 
 Prophetic office, 112, 113, 122, 
 128, 138, 159. 
 
 Proverbs, Arab, 77, 82 
 
 Puritans, 269 
 
 BAFFLES, Sir Stamford, 29 
 ^ Kamadhan, 97 
 Kaymond of Agiles, 301 
 Reade, Winwood, 42, 258 
 Religious instinct, 160 ; origin of, 
 
 3 ; nature of , 10 ; elements of, 
 
 13 ; relative element in all, 60 
 Renan, M., xix., 10, 66, 67, 
 
 112 
 Revival of Islam, in Armenia, &c., 
 
 50, 270 ; in Arabia, 266, 269 ; 
 
 in Persia, 270 ; in India, 51, 294 
 Rodwell, Rev. J. M., xviii., 221 
 Ross, Alexander. 69, 70 
 Russia, progress of ,48,257, 272 seq. 
 Ryer, Andr6 du, 69 
 
 a AB^ANISM, 85, 108 
 
 ^ Sacraments, their use and 
 abuse, 264, 265 
 
 Sacrifice, human, 86 ; no sacri- 
 fices in Islam. 223 
 
 Sahleh, 158 
 
 Saladin, 177 
 
 Sale. G., 72, 82, 83, 88, 202, 203, 
 205 
 
 Saltrao, 184 
 
 SYE 
 
 Samanides, 244 
 Savary, xviii, 72 
 Savonarola, 194 
 SchoU, M. J. C, xiii., 77 
 Schweinfurth, Dr., 279, 280 
 Science and literature, Moham-" 
 
 med's attitude to, 182 seq. ; in 
 
 Africa, 36, 37, 40 seq., 242 seq. 
 Sego, 31, 38 
 
 Sensuality of Islam, supposed, 195 
 Sermon on the Mount, 6, 11 
 Shah, the, 256, 275 
 Sicily, Islam in, 243, 260 
 Siculus, Diodorus, 142 
 Sierra Leone, 33, 296, 297 
 Sirat-er-ra90ul, xii., 94, 97, 103, 
 
 143 
 Shamil, 68, 271, 272 
 Shaw, R. B., 27 
 
 Sheik, privileges and duties of, 76 
 Shiah, 20, 226, 247. 252, 271 
 Slade, Admiral, 179, 260 
 Slave trade, 45, 46, 278, 281 
 Slavery, ameliorations in, 105, 
 
 205 ; Jewish, 207- ; American, 
 
 207 ; African, 281 
 Sobieski, John, 52 
 Solimaii, Sultan, 25 
 Solon, 198 
 
 Spain, Islam in, 240 seq. 
 Spirituality of Islam, 223 
 Sprenger, xviii, 73, 74, 92, 95. 
 
 96, 97, 98, 104, 113, 121, 125, 
 
 129, 137, 139, 143, 145, 183, 
 
 185, 188 
 Stanlev, Dean, xix., 16, 223, 
 
 224,251 
 Stephen, St., 160 
 Stesichorus, 231 
 Sumatra, 28 
 Sunna, 20, 279, 283 
 Sunni, 23, 271 
 Superstitions, 87 
 Sufi<, 168, 252 
 Suras, titles and variety of, 149 : 
 
 the terrific, 152. See Koran. 
 Surat, 214 
 Suttee, 274 
 Swedenborg, 101, 102 
 Syed Ahmed, xii., 205 
 Syed Ahmed,'Wahhabileader, 269 
 
312 
 
 INDEX 
 
 SYK 
 
 
 ZOB 
 
 Syed Ameer Ali, xii, 205 
 
 
 Wakidi, Katib al, 92 
 
 Sword, use of. See War. 
 
 
 Walada, 232 
 
 VValpole, Hon. F., • Ansayrii,' 24 
 
 m ABUK, war of, 193 
 
 -*■ Talmud, influence of, 
 
 
 179 
 
 on 
 
 Waraka, 97-99 
 
 Koran, 146 
 
 
 Wars, Musalmau, 174-178 ; 
 
 Tamerlane, 178, 272 
 
 
 character of, 181. 301 ; Chris- 
 
 Taoism, 27 
 
 
 tian, 184 seq., 302, 303 ; what 
 
 Tassy, Garoin de, xii, 147, 
 
 224, 
 
 are Christian, 186 
 
 246, 284 
 
 
 Wartburg, 102 
 
 Tayif, 129 
 
 
 Weil, xviii., 91 
 
 Tecbir, 173. 
 
 
 Wesley, J., 263 
 
 Telemachus, the monk, 198 
 
 
 Wesley, Charles, 70 
 
 Temim, 218 
 
 
 West, influence of, on East, 255, 
 
 Tennent, Sir Emerson, 239 
 
 
 257, 282 
 
 Termagant, 66 
 
 
 Wheeler, Mr. Talboys, 4, 50, 51, 
 
 Thamud, Bani, 149, 158 
 
 
 214. 
 
 Theodora, 268 
 
 
 White, Professor, 71, 157 
 
 Theodoric, 182, 198 
 
 
 Whitefield, 263 
 
 Theotokos, 233 
 
 
 Wilberforce, 198 
 
 Thor, Mount, 104 
 
 
 Wiili^m the Good, 243 
 
 Toleration, 219, 220 
 
 V>' 
 
 Cffiamenr^former degradation of, 
 
 Trajan, 76 
 
 
 83 ; amelioration in their posi- 
 
 Trinity, Mohammed's views of 
 
 tion, 198-207; yet still inferior, 
 
 the, 229, 231 
 
 
 255 
 
 Tritheism, 136, 229 
 
 
 Wood, Lieutenant, 166, 208, 226, 
 
 Turks, conversion of Seljukian, 22 
 
 261 
 
 Turks, Ottoman, 24 ; vices 
 
 and 
 
 Worms, 109 
 
 virtues of, 180 seq., 270 
 
 
 
 Turpin, romance of, 64 
 
 
 ^IMENES, Cardinal, 183 
 
 TTGANDA, 47 
 
 ^ Drquhart, Mr. D.. 260 
 
 
 
 
 VAKUB, Beg, 27, 273 
 -•■ Yermuk, 175 
 
 Usury, prohibited, 218 
 
 
 
 
 Yezidis, 252 
 
 VAMBI:RY, Professor, 254 
 ' Veth, Professor, 29 
 
 
 Yule, Colonel, 4, 25, ()5 
 
 
 Yunnan, 24 
 
 Visions of Mohammed, 97, 
 
 99 ; 
 
 
 their nature, 100, 101 
 
 
 7 ANZIBAR, 23, 48 
 
 ^ Zeid, the enquirer, 92. 97 
 
 Voltaire, 89, 108 
 
 
 Vladimir, 198 
 
 
 Zeid, the Prophet's free<lnian, 
 97,99, 110,129,211 
 
 WAHHAB, Abdul, 266 
 " WahhabiH, 266-270, 294- 
 
 
 Zeinab, 114, 115,123 
 
 -295 
 
 Zemzem, 87, 143 
 
 Waitz, 13, 32, 36 
 
 
 Zoroaster, 93, 244 
 
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