Mohammedanism

“ The evil of Mohammed's religion lies in its essential antagonism towards progress and civilization: scientific investigation is forbidden; a proverb runs, "Only fools and the very young speak the truth." Thus Mohammedanism will never advance or regenerate Morocco ”

“ Among peoples recently converted to Islam, on the contrary, this feeling is usually the first characteristic of Mohammedanism which sinks in to their very marrow, retaining its influence all the longer in proportion to the slowness of their growth in civilization and knowledge of the world. ”

“ Then the democracy of Islam and much of what it inculcates with regard to family and civil life are worthy of all respect, to say nothing of the hygienic principles which it succeeded in impressing at a very early stage upon a primitive people. At the same time there can be no doubt that Mohammedanism suffers from the fact that it was designed, all too definitely, for a primitive people. ”

“ Being in the daily habit of hearing the Arabic language spoken, they soon acquire a partial knowledge of it, and the Mohammedan religion teaching the unity of God, they readily reject paganism, and embrace Mohammedanism; their Mooselmin masters then instil into their vacant minds, ready to receive the first impression, the fundamental principles of the Mooselmin doctrine; the more intelligent learn to read and write, and afterwards acquire a partial knowledge of the Koran ”

“ Mohammedanism began to extend its conquests beyond Arabia, and when those wonderful expeditions under Abdulla ibn Saad, Moawia ibn el-Hodeidj and Okba ibn Nafa overran the whole of North Africa, they met with but little resistance from the Berbers, who had suffered so cruelly from one set of foreign invaders after another; they regarded the Arabs rather as liberators than conquerors, and willingly embraced the religion of El-Islam and recognised the authority of the Khalifa. ”

“ Although after the death of the prophet Islam had first to fight for its very existence, and although it was only by desperate courage and energy that the revolting tribes were reduced to sullen submission, Mohammedanism had this singular power that it could cast a spell over its reluctant converts and convert them into fervent disciples. ”

“ Mohammedanism, whatever its affinity for Africa as it has been, and its baleful power because of this, has no outlook for the future of that sad, but soon to be made glad, continent. The Foreign Missionary well says: “If we consider only the physical condition of success, it must be allowed that Islam has an immense advantage in its central position and its vicinage to the field to be won. ”

“ The popular idea, that fanatical intolerance of all professors of other religions is an essential and fundamental principle in Mohammedanism, cannot be maintained. The paganism of Mecca was distinctly latitudinarian, so Mohammed accepted in full the sacred books of the Jews and Christians, as would have seemed natural to an Arabian of that age, especially to a monotheistic teacher who was closely connected with the Ka’aba. ”

“ For though more warlike than we, they have not our weapons, and though they are finer physically, they have not our helps to Nature, nor our civilisation, nor our passion. They are apart, they are scarcely human beings in our Western sense of the term, and are negligible. Still, Mohammedanism is an extraordinary [40] portent in the world. The Mohammedans, those many millions, are not merely potential Christians, a set of people remaining in error because our missionary enterprise is not sufficient to bring them to the Light. ”

“ Even now, when Mohammedanism no longer wields the sword, it is spreading over wide regions in China, in the Indian Archipelago, and especially in Western and Central Africa, propagated only by self-educated individuals, trading travellers, while Christianity makes no progress and cannot exist on the Dark Continent without strong support from Government. Nor can we explain this honourable reception by the “licentiousness” ignorantly attributed to Al-Islam, one of the most severely moral of institutions ”

“ The Mohammedan religion appears to present peculiar attractions to the native tribes in Central Africa, and the false prophet is indebted for the number of his recruits to the enthusiasm of the converts to Mohammedanism, with whom the idea of the regeneration of Islam by force of arms is amazingly popular. ”

“ Morel’s friend, Sir Harry Johnston, than whom perhaps no man living knows more about Central Africa and its people, accounts for the rapid spread of Mohammedanism in a very simple and obvious manner, when he says: “Mohammedanism, as taught to the negro, demands no sacrifice of his bodily lusts.” Mohammedanism does improve the African—there is nothing gained by denying it. ”

“ Morocco, as has been said, accepted Mohammedanism of necessity, not from choice, at the hands of the conquering Arabs, and it is accepted to-day, as the corrupt Government is accepted, with a shrug of the shoulders and "What God wills cannot but be." ”

“ Before the time of Mohammed some Arab tribes, in order to check the increase of the female sex, used to bury alive some of their, so to say, 'surplus girls.' The appearance of Islam stamped out this most savage custom. After the foundation of Mohammedanism many sanguinary religious wars took place between Islamites and non-Islamites of Arabia, and a great number of men died in the battles. ”

“ As a modern traveller has said: “During the three expeditions which I conducted in East Central Africa I saw nothing to suggest Mohammedanism as a civilising power. Whatever living force might be in the religion remained latent. The Arabs, or their descendants, in these parts were not propagandists. There were no missionaries to preach Islam, and the natives of Muscat were content that their slaves should conform, to [344] a certain extent, to the forms of the religion. They left the East African tribes, who indeed, in their gross darkness, were evidently content to remain in happy ignorance. ”

“ Mohammedanism meets the traveller at every turn in Syria. Now and then a dervish is encountered—the extremest sort of Moslem. It would seem difficult to develop a mystic school within the pale of so clear-cut a faith as Mohammedanism ”

“ The grievances of the people are indeed great, but there is no proof whatever that they are incurable. Mohammedanism now appears in the light of experience to be radically incapable of establishing a good or tolerable government over civilized and Christian races; but what proof have we that in the case of a Mohammedan community, where there are no adverse complications of blood or religion, or tradition or speech, the ends of political society, as they understand them, may not be passably [Pg 57] obtained. ”

“ Now these startling facts can be explained only on the ground that Mohammedanism has great vital religious and moral truths underlying its system which appeal to the consciousness of mankind, or else that these truths are so blended with dangerous errors which appeal to depraved passions and interests, that the religion spread in consequence of these errors rather than of the truth itself. ”

“ While we repudiate emphatically the idea that Mohammedanism can be a substitute for Christianity in civilizing Africa, yet it is only just that we should admit that Islam brings with it some influences for good into that benighted land—influences that strongly appeal to the higher instincts and aspirations of the people, and are, therefore, an elevating power. First of all, the One True God of Islam tends to lift the African above his idols, his fetich, his witchcraft and his cannibalism. ”

“ Although for many reasons Mohammedanism appears more suited to the black than Christianity—it is a ceremonial religion and it moreover countenances polygamy—nevertheless, it is inadvisable that the State should in any way foster its progress in our African colonies, for it contains many dangerous elements. The Mohammedanism of East Africa is a mild variety, but there is much inflammable material lying about in the Mohammedan world, and it might at any time be blown over to that area. ”

“ The continuance of the religion of Mohammed in countries after the Arab dominion over them had ceased, may be also easily accounted for. "Everything in Asia is a matter of regulation; and freedom of opinion being but little permitted or encouraged in the despotic governments of the {235} East, Mohammedanism, when once received, became stationary. The human code is mingled with the divine, and the ideas of change and profanation are inseparable. ”

“ And the corruptions kept pace with the outward triumphs of the faith, especially when the pagans had yielded to the supremacy of the cross. The same fact is noticeable in the history of Mohammedanism. When it was first declared by the extraordinary man who claimed to be the greatest of the prophets of God, when it was a sublime theism, immeasurably superior to the prevailing religions of Arabia, and especially when it was promulgated by moral means, its converts were few, but these were lofty. ”

“ It is a corollary that wherever Mohammedanism extends it carries, in the belief of its votaries, the highest blessings, and that the whole human race would be enormously elevated if Mohammedanism should supplant Christianity everywhere. ”

“ Our prejudice as militant Christians, however, ought necessarily to be against Mohammedans. They have ever been our religious enemies in arms, the Saracens, the Paynim, the Tartar hordes; we are not very amicably disposed to those of our argumentative brothers who, to show their independence of thought, say they prefer Mohammedanism or Buddhism or Confucianism or what not. ”

“ Consequently it is a field which cannot be expected to last for ever, but of which advantage ought to be taken immediately, for it is very seldom that we find so exceptional an opportunity given to us for attacking Mohammedanism on its own ground. ”

“ In theory the often ridiculous miracle stories of Mohammedanism are non-essentials, in practice they impress the average believer far more than do the high religious moral ideals which are set forth with, and by, them. ”

“ Now, making all due abatement for the couleur de rose which these easy-going and politic Pashas may have employed with their English champion, it is undoubtedly true that a class of Mohammedans are found in the great cosmopolitan cities of the Levant who have come to recognize the spirit of the age in which they live. Many of them have been educated in Europe; they speak several languages; they read the current literature; they are ashamed of the old fanatical Mohammedanism. ”

“ As little as Mohammed, when he invoked the Meccans in wild poetic inspirations to array themselves behind him to seek the blessedness of future life, had dreamt of the possibility that twenty years later the whole of Arabia would acknowledge his authority in this world, as little, nay, much less, could he at the close of his life have had the faintest premonition of the fabulous development which his state would reach half a century later. ”

“ The Moslim of yore, going through the world with the Qorân in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy. We can but hope that modern civilization will not be so fanatical against Moslims, as the latter were unjustly said to have been during the period of their power. If the modern world were only to offer the Mohammedans the choice between giving up at once the traditions of their ancestors or being treated as barbarians, there would be sure to ensue a struggle as bloody as has ever been witnessed in the world. ”

“ Under the direct government of a modern state, the Mohammedan group is treated as a religious community, whose particular life has just the same claim to independence as that of other denominations. The only justifiable limitation is that the program of the forcible reduction of the world to Mohammedan authority be kept within the scholastic walls as a point of eschatology, and not considered as a body of prescriptions, the execution of which must be prepared. ”

“ We feel urged by missionary zeal of the better kind to make the Mohammedan world partake in its enjoyment. In the Turkish Empire, in Egypt, in many Mohammedan countries under Western control, the progressive elements of Moslim society spontaneously meet us half-way. But behind them are the millions who firmly adhere to the old superstition and are supported by the canonists, those faithful guardians of what the infallible Community declared almost one thousand years ago to be the doctrine and rule of life for all centuries to come. ”

“ The whole individual, domestic, social, and political life as it developed in the three centuries during which the simple Arabian religion was adjusted to the complicated civilization of the great nations of that time, that all life was theoretically justified by representing it as the application of minute laws supposed to have been elaborated by Mohammed by precept and example.
Thus tradition gives invaluable material for the knowledge of the conflict of opinions in the first centuries, a strife the sharpness of which has been blunted in later times by a most resourceful harmonistic method. ”

“ The extensive political program of Islâm, developed during the first centuries of astounding expansion, has yet not prevented millions of Mohammedans from resigning themselves to reversed conditions in which at the present time many more Mohammedans live under foreign authority than under their own. The acceptance of this change was facilitated by the historical pessimism of Islâm, which makes the mind prepared for every sort of decay, and by the true Moslim habit of resignation to painful experiences, not through fatalism, but through reverence for Allah’s inscrutable will. ”