Two Old Faiths Part 7

[Sidenote: Converts from sordid motives.]

Again, speaking of the various cla.s.ses brought over to Islam by sordid and unworthy motives, Al Kindy says:

Moreover, there are the idolatrous races--Magians and Jews--low people aspiring by the profession of Islam to raise themselves to riches and power and to form alliances with the families of the learned and honorable. There are, besides, hypocritical men of the world, who in this way obtain indulgences in the matter of marriage and concubinage which are forbidden to them by the Christian faith.

Then we have the dissolute cla.s.s given over wholly to the l.u.s.ts of the flesh. And lastly there are those who by this means obtain a more secure and easy livelihood.[54]

[Sidenote: Al Kindy contrasts the Christian confessor with the Moslem "martyr."

The Christian confessor and the Moslem martyr.]

Before leaving this part of our subject it may be opportune to quote a few more pa.s.sages from Al Kindy, in which he contrasts the inducements that, under the military and political predominance of Islam, promoted its rapid spread, and the opposite conditions under which Christianity made progress, slow, indeed, comparatively, but sure and steady. First, he compares the Christian confessor with the Moslem "martyr:"

I marvel much, he says, that ye call those _martyrs_ that fall in war. Thou hast read, no doubt, in history of the followers of Christ put to death in the persecutions of the kings of Persia and elsewhere. Say, now, which are the more worthy to be called martyrs, these, or thy fellows that fall fighting for the world and the power thereof? How diverse were the barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian confessors! The more they were slain the more rapidly spread the faith; in place of one sprang up a hundred. On a certain occasion, when a great mult.i.tude had been put to death, one at court said to the king, "The number of them increaseth instead of, as thou thinkest, diminis.h.i.+ng." "How can that be?" exclaimed the king. "But yesterday," replied the courtier, "thou didst put such and such a one to death, and lo, there were converted double that number; and the people say that a man appeared to the confessors from heaven strengthening them in their last moments." Whereupon the king himself was converted. In those days men thought not their lives dear unto them. Some were transfixed while yet alive; others had their limbs cut off one after another; some were cast to the wild beasts and others burned in the fire. Such continued long to be the fate of the Christian confessors. No parallel is found thereto in any other religion; and all was endured with constancy and even with joy. One smiled in the midst of his great suffering. "Was it cold water," they asked, "that was brought unto thee?" "No," answered the sufferer, "it was one like a youth that stood by me and anointed my wounds; and that made me smile, for the pain forthwith departed."

Now tell me seriously, my friend, which of the two hath the best claim to be called a _martyr_, "slain in the ways of the Lord:" he who surrendereth his life rather than renounce his faith; who, when it is said, Fall down and wors.h.i.+p the sun and moon, or the idols of silver and gold, work of men's hands, instead of the true G.o.d, refuseth, choosing rather to give up life, abandon wealth, and forego even wife and family; or he that goeth forth, ravaging and laying waste, plundering and spoiling, slaying the men, carrying away their children into captivity, and ravis.h.i.+ng their wives and maidens in his unlawful embrace, and then shall call it "Jehad in the ways of the Lord!" ... And not content therewith, instead of humbling thyself before the Lord, and seeking pardon for the crime, thou sayest of such a one slain in the war that "he hath earned paradise," and thou namest him "a martyr in the ways of the Lord!"[55]

And again, contrasting the spread of Islam, "its rattling quiver and its glittering sword," with the silent progress of Christianity, our apologist, after dwelling on the teaching and the miracles of the apostles, writes:

They published their message by means of these miracles; and thus great and powerful kings and philosophers and learned men and judges of the earth hearkened unto them, without lash or rod, with neither sword nor spear, nor the advantages of birth or "Helpers;"[56] with no wisdom of this world, or eloquence or power of language, or subtlety of reason; with no worldly inducement, nor yet again with any relaxation of the moral law, but simply at the voice of truth enforced by miracles beyond the power of man to show. And so there came over to them the kings and great ones of the earth. And the philosophers abandoned their systems, with all their wisdom and learning, and betook them to a saintly life, giving up the delights of this world together with their old-established usages, and became followers of a company of poor men, fishers and publicans, who had neither name nor rank nor any claim other than that they were obedient to the command of the Messiah--he that gave them power to do such wonderful works.[57]

[Sidenote: The apostles compared with the chiefs of Islam.]

And yet once more, comparing the apostles with the military chiefs of Islam, Al Kindy proceeds:

After the descent of the Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues the apostles separated each to the country to which he was called. They wrote out in every tongue the holy Gospel, and the story and teaching of Christ, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost. So the nations drew near unto them, believing their testimony; and, giving up the world and their false beliefs, they embraced the Christian faith as soon as ever the dawn of truth and the light of the good tidings broke in upon them. Distinguis.h.i.+ng the true from the false, and error from the right direction, they embraced the Gospel and held it fast without doubt or wavering, when they saw the wonderful works and signs of the apostles, and their lives and conversation set after the holy and beautiful example of our Saviour, the traces whereof remain even unto the present day.... How different this from the life of thy Master (Mohammed) and his companions, who ceased not to go forth in battle and rapine, to smite with the sword, to seize the little ones, and ravish the wives and maidens, plundering and laying waste, and carrying the people into captivity. And thus they continue unto this present day, inciting men to these evil deeds, even as it is told of Omar the Caliph. "If one among you," said he, "hath a heathen neighbor and is in need, let him seize and sell him." And many such things they say and teach. Look now at the lives of Simon and Paul, who went about healing the sick and raising the dead, by the name of Christ our Lord; and mark the contrast.[58]

[Sidenote: Such are the conclusions of a native of Chaldea.]

Such are the reflections of one who lived at a Mohammedan court, and who, moreover, flouris.h.i.+ng as he did a thousand years ago, was sufficiently near the early spread of Islam to be able to contrast what he saw and heard and read of the causes of its success with those of the Gospel, and had the courage to confess the same.

[Sidenote: Hinderances or inducements inherent in the faith itself.]

Apart, now, from the outward and extraneous aids given to Islam by the sword and by the civil arm I will inquire for a moment what natural effect the teaching of Islam itself had in attracting or repelling mankind. I do not now speak of any power contained in the truths it inculcated to convert to Islam by the rousing and quickening of spiritual impulses; for that lies beyond my present purpose, which is to inquire whether there is not in material causes and secular motives enough in themselves to account for success. I speak rather of the effect of the indulgences granted by Islam, on the one hand, as calculated to attract; and of the restraints imposed and sacrifices required, on the other, as calculated to repel. How far, in fact, did there exist inducements or hinderances to its adoption inherent in the religion itself?

[Sidenote: Requirements of Islam: prayer.

Prohibition of wine, games of chance, and usury.

Fast of Ramzan.]

What may be regarded as the most constant and irksome of the obligations of Islam is the duty of prayer, which must be observed at stated intervals, five times every day, with the contingent ceremony of l.u.s.tration. The rite consists of certain forms and pa.s.sages to be repeated with prescribed series of prostrations and genuflexions. These must be repeated at the right times--but anywhere, in the house or by the wayside, as well as in the mosque; and the ordinance is obligatory in whatever state of mind the wors.h.i.+per may be, or however occupied. As the appointed hour comes round the Moslem is bound to turn aside to pray--so much so that in Central Asia we read of the police driving the backward wors.h.i.+per by the lash to discharge the duty. Thus, with the ma.s.s of Mussulmans, the obligation becomes a mere formal ceremony, and one sees it performed anywhere and every-where by the whole people, like any social custom, as a matter of course. No doubt there are exceptions; but with the mult.i.tude it does not involve the irksomeness of a spiritual service, and so it sits lightly on high and low. The Friday prayers should as a rule be attended in the mosque; but neither need there be much devotion there; and, once performed, the rest of the day is free for pleasure or for business.[59] The prohibition of wine is a restriction which was severely felt in the early days of the faith; but it was not long before the universal sentiment (though eluded in some quarters) supported it. The embargo upon games of chance was certainly unpopular; and the prohibition of the receipt of interest was also an important limitation, tending as it did to shackle the freedom of mercantile speculation; but they have been partially evaded on various pretexts. The fast throughout the month of Ramzan was a severer test; but even this lasts only during the day; and at night, from sunset till dawn, all restrictions are withdrawn, not only in respect of food, but of all otherwise lawful gratifications.[60]

[Sidenote: Little that is unpopular in these ordinances.]

There is nothing, therefore, in the requirements and ordinances of Islam, excepting the fast, that is very irksome to humanity, or which, as involving any material sacrifice, or the renunciation of the pleasures or indulgences of life, should lead a man of the world to hesitate in embracing the new faith.

[Sidenote: Indulgences allowed in the matter of wives and concubines.]

On the other hand, the license allowed by the Koran between the s.e.xes--at least in favor of the male s.e.x--is so wide that for such as have the means and the desire to take advantage of it there need be no limit whatever to s.e.xual indulgence. It is true that adultery is punishable by death and fornication with stripes. But then the Koran gives the believer permission to have four wives at a time. And he may exchange them--that is, he may divorce them at pleasure, taking others in their stead.[61] And, as if this were not license enough, the divine law permits the believer to consort with all female slaves whom he may be the master of--such, namely, as have been taken in war, or have been acquired by gift or purchase. These he may receive into his harem instead of wives, or in addition to them; and without any limit of number or restraint whatever he is at liberty to cohabit with them.

[Sidenote: Polygamy, concubinage, and divorce. Practice at the rise of Islam.]

A few instances taken at random will enable the reader to judge how the indulgences thus allowed by the religion were taken advantage of in the early days of Islam. In the great plague which devastated Syria seven years after the prophet's death Khalid, the Sword of G.o.d, lost _forty_ sons. Abdal Rahman, one of the "companions" of Mohammed, had issue by sixteen wives, not counting slave-girls.[62] Moghira ibn Shoba, another "companion," and governor of Kufa and Bussorah, had in his harem eighty consorts, free and servile. Coming closer to the Prophet's household, we find that Mohammed himself at one period had in his harem no fewer than nine wives and two slave-girls. Of his grandson Hasan we read that his vagrant pa.s.sion gained for him the unenviable sobriquet of _The Divorcer_; for it was only by continually divorcing his consorts that he could harmonize his craving for fresh nuptials with the requirements of the divine law, which limited the number of his free wives to four. We are told that, as a matter of simple caprice, he exercised the power of divorce seventy (according to other traditions ninety) times. When the leading men complained to Aly of the licentious practice of his son his only reply was that the remedy lay in their own hands, of refusing Hasan their daughters altogether.[63] Such are the material inducements, the "works of the flesh," which Islam makes lawful to its votaries, and which promoted thus its early spread.

[Sidenote: Practice in modern times.

The Malays of Penang.

Lane's testimony concerning Egypt.

The princess of Bhopal's account of Mecca.]

Descending now to modern times, we still find that this s.e.xual license is taken advantage of more or less in different countries and conditions of society. The following examples are simply meant as showing to what excess it is possible for the believer to carry these indulgences, _under the sanction of his religion_. Of the Malays in Penang it was written not very long ago: "Young men of thirty to thirty-five years of age may be met with who have had from fifteen to twenty wives, and children by several of them. These women have been divorced, married others, and had children by them." Regarding Egypt, Lane tells us: "I have heard of men who have been in the habit of marrying a new wife almost every month."[64] Burkhardt speaks of an Arab forty-five years old who had had fifty wives, "so that he must have divorced two wives and married two fresh ones on the average every year." And not to go further than the sacred city of Mecca, the late reigning princess of Bhopal, in central India, herself an orthodox follower of the Prophet, after making the pilgrimage of the holy places, writes thus:

Women frequently contract as many as ten marriages, and those who have only been married twice are few in number. If a woman sees her husband growing old, or if she happen to admire any one else, she goes to the Shereef (the spiritual and civil head of the holy city), and after having settled the matter with him she puts away her husband and takes to herself another, who is, perhaps, good-looking and rich. In this way a marriage seldom lasts more than a year or two.

And of slave-girls the same high and impartial authority, still writing of the holy city and of her fellow-Moslems, tells us:

Some of the women (African and Georgian girls) are taken in marriage; and after that, on being sold again, they receive from their masters a divorce, and are sold in their houses--that is to say, they are sent to the purchaser from their master's house on receipt of payment, and are not exposed for sale in the slave-market. They are only _married_ when purchased for the first time.... When the poorer people buy (female) slaves they keep them for themselves, and change them every year as one would replace old things by new; but the women who have children are not sold.[65]

[Sidenote: Islam sanctions a license between the s.e.xes which Christianity forbids.

The laws of Christianity deter men from carnal indulgences.

Islam the "Easy Way."]

What I desire to make clear is the fact that such things may be practiced _with the sanction_ of the Scripture which the Moslem holds to be divine, and that these same indulgences have from the first existed as inducements which helped materially to forward the spread of the faith. I am very far, indeed, from implying that excessive indulgence in polygamy is the universal state of Moslem society. Happily this is not the case. There are not only individuals, but tribes and districts, which, either from custom or preference, voluntarily restrict the license given them in the Koran; while the natural influence of the family, even in Moslem countries, has an antiseptic tendency that often itself tends greatly to neutralize the evil.[66] Nor am I seeking to inst.i.tute any contrast between the morals at large of Moslem countries and the rest of the world. If Christian nations are (as with shame it must be confessed) in some strata of society immoral, it is in the teeth of their divine law. And the restrictions of that law are calculated, and in the early days of Christianity did tend, in point of fact, _to deter men_ devoted to the indulgences of the flesh from embracing the faith.[67] The religion of Mohammed, on the other hand, gives direct sanction to the s.e.xual indulgences we have been speaking of. Thus it panders to the lower instincts of humanity and makes its spread the easier. In direct opposition to the precepts of Christianity it "makes provision for the flesh to fulfill the l.u.s.ts thereof." Hence Islam has been well called by its own votaries the _Easy Way_. Once more, to quote Al Kindy:

Thou invitest me (says our apologist to his friend) into the "Easy way of faith and practice." Alas, alas! for our Saviour in the Gospel telleth us, "When ye have done all that ye are commanded, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have but done that which was commanded us." Where then is our merit? The same Lord Jesus saith, "How strait is the road which leadeth unto life, and how few they be that walk therein! How wide the gate that leadeth to destruction, and how many there be that go in thereat!" Different this, my friend, from the comforts of thy wide and easy gate, and the facilities for enjoying, as thou wouldst have me, the pleasures offered by thy faith in wives and damsels![68]

FOOTNOTES:

[a] A.D. 623.

[b] A.D. 630.

[c] A.D. 632.

[d] A.D. 635.

II.

WHY THE SPREAD OF ISLAM WAS STAYED.

[Sidenote: Islam stationary in area, and in civilization retrograde.]

Having thus traced the rapid early spread of Islam to its proper source, I proceed to the remaining topics, namely, the causes which have checked its further extension, and those likewise which have depressed the followers of this religion in the scale of civilization. I shall take the former first--just remarking here, in respect of the latter, that the depression of Islam is itself one of the causes which r.e.t.a.r.d the expansion of the faith.

[Sidenote: The Arabs ceased, in second century, to be a crusading force.]

As the first spread of Islam was due to the sword, so when the sword was sheathed Islam ceased to spread. The apostles and missionaries of Islam were, as we have seen, the martial tribes of Arabia--that is to say, the grand military force organized by Omar, and by him launched upon the surrounding nations. Gorged with the plunder of the world, these began, after a time, to settle on their lees and to mingle with the ordinary population. So soon as this came to pa.s.s they lost the fiery zeal which at the first had made them irresistible. By the second and third centuries the Arabs had disappeared as the standing army of the caliphate, or, in other words, as a body set apart for the dissemination of the faith. The crusading spirit, indeed, ever and anon burst forth--and it still bursts forth, as opportunity offers--simply for the reason that this spirit pervades the Koran, and is ingrained in the creed. But with the special agency created and maintained during the first ages for the spread of Islam the incentive of crusade ceased as a distinctive missionary spring of action, and degenerated into the common l.u.s.t of conquest which we meet with in the world at large.

[Sidenote: With cessation of conquest, Islam ceased to spread.]

The extension of Islam, depending upon military success, stopped wherever that was checked. The religion advanced or retired, speaking broadly, as the armed predominance made head or retroceded. Thus the tide of Moslem victory, rus.h.i.+ng along the coast of Africa, extinguished the seats of European civilization on the Mediterranean, overwhelmed Spain, and was rapidly advancing north, when the onward wave was stemmed at Tours; and as with the arms, the faith also of Islam was driven back into Spain and bounded by the Pyrenees. So, likewise, the hold which the religion seized both of Spain and Sicily came to an end with Mussulman defeat. It is true that when once long and firmly rooted, as in India and China, Islam may survive the loss of military power, and even flourish. But it is equally true that in no single country has Islam been planted, nor has it anywhere materially spread, saving under the banner of the Crescent or the political ascendency of some neighboring State. Accordingly, we find that, excepting some barbarous zones in Africa which have been raised thereby a step above the groveling level of fetichism, the faith has in modern times made no advance worth mentioning.[69]

From the Jewish and Christian religions there has (again speaking broadly) been no secession whatever to Islam since the wave of Saracen victory was stayed, excepting by the force of arms. Even in the palmy days of the Abba.s.side caliphs, our apologist could challenge his adversary to produce a single conversion otherwise than by reason of some powerful material inducement. Here is his testimony:

[Sidenote: Al Kindy's challenge to produce a Christian convert to Islam apart from material inducements.]

Now tell me, hast thou ever seen, my Friend, (the Lord be gracious unto thee!) or ever heard of a single person of sound mind--any one of learning and experience, and acquainted with the Scriptures, renouncing Christianity otherwise than for some worldly object to be reached only through thy religion, or for some gratification withheld by the faith of Jesus? Thou wilt find none. For, excepting the tempted ones, all continue steadfast in their faith, secure under our most gracious sovereign, in the profession of their own religion.[70]