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from us. With us the feeling of the multitude about Mohammed and Islam is still much the same as it was at the time of the Crusades and during the Middle Ages, though of late several weighty voices have been raised against the ignorant condemnation both of the Prophet and of his religion. Carlyle’s essay on Mohammed, and Mr. Bosworth Smith s excellent work, Mohammed and Mohammedanism , have powerfully influenced public opinion. The old feeling of hostility against Islam was in its origin political rather than religious. Europe has never forgotten the cruelties perpetrated both in Asia and Europe by Mohammedan armies recruited not only from Arabia but from Mongolia and Tartary, and their violent invasion of the East and West of Europe still rankles in the hearts of many. Eveiy- thing was believed of the armies of the Mahound, and in modern times the unspeakable atrocities in Bulgaria and Anatolia have revived the slumbering feelings of hatred among the great masses in Euiope.
Still it was not always so, particularly in England, when 300 years ago it was for the first time brought into political relations with the Turkish Empiie. There were periods in the history of England when the feeling towards Islam was more than tolerant. Queen Elizabeth, when arranging a treaty with Sultan Murad Khan, states that Protestants and Moham- medans alike are haters of idolatry, and that she is the defender of the faith against those who have falsely usurped the name of Christ1. Her ambassador was still more outspoken, for he wrote on the 9th of November, 1587: ‘Since God alone protects His own,
1 Hist. Review, July, 1893, p. 4S0.
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He will so punish these idolaters (the Spaniards) through us, that they who survive will be converted by their example to worship with us the true God, and you, fighting for this glory, will heap up victory and all other good things.’ The same sentiments were expressed on the part of the Sublime Porte, by Sinan Pasha, who about the same time told the Roman ambassador that to be good Musulmans all that was wanting to the English was that they should raise a finger and pronounce the Eshed, or Confession of Faith1. The real differences between Islam and Christianity were considered so small by the Moham- medans themselves that at a later time we find another Turkish ambassador, Ahmed Rasmi Effendi, assuring Frederick the Great that they considered Protestants as Mohammedans in disguise 2.
As for the atrocities charged against Mohammedan armies, it is for the historian to clear up this matter, and to find out whether the armies of the Sultan have really been the only armies guilty of committing atrocities in war. Even during the more recent Bulgarian troubles American missionaries, who were eye-witnesses, assure us that the atrocities committed by Turkish Bashibazuks were not greater than those committed by Christian armies when the day of victory and revenge had come. But, whatever the historical truth may be, no student of the history of religion, no reader of the Koran, would venture to say that the atrocities of Mohammedan warfare were sanctioned by the Koran. On that point, on teaching clemency towards the vanquished, the Kordn is not
1 Hist. Review , July, 1893, p. 430.
2 New Review , 1893, p. 49.
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behind the Old Testament or the Laws of Manu. If it had not been for the political part which the followers of Mohammed acted in the history of the world, their religion as taught in the Koran would have been, or at all events ought to have been, welcomed as a friend and ally both by Chris- tians and by Jews. It was not at first a new or hostile religion ; it was, as Mohammed declared him- self, the old religion of Abraham, preached to the ignorant and idolatrous tribes of Arabia. Long before the time of Mohammed, Arabia was full of Jews and Christians. Gibbon speaks of Jews settled in Arabia 700 years before Mohammed, and he men- tions new arrivals after the wars of Titus. As to Christianity, we know from Philostorgius 1 that in the year 342 an Italian bishop (Theophilus) was sent by the Emperor Constantius to the King of Yemen, and was allowed to build three Christian churches, one at Zafar, another at Adan, and a third at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf. The same writer speaks of the city of Najran in Yemen as the seat of a Christian bishop, and affirms that some important tribes had been converted there to Christianity. There was a magnificent church at Sana, to which the Arabs were ordered to go by the Christian ruler of Abyssinia when performing their pilgrimage, instead of visit- ing the Ka'ba. This led to the famous War of the Elephant in the very year of Mohammed’s birth, so called because the Viceroy of Egypt, at the head of an army of Abyssinians, was fighting mounted on an elephant. Mohammed’s immediate instructors in Christianity were Jabr and Yasar, and they are
1 Hist. Eccles., i. p. 4.
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said to have read to him both the Old and the New Testament. Nor is this all. The prophet’s favourite wife Khadijah and her cousin Waraka, the Prophet’s intimate friend, were both suspected of having em- braced Christianity. They were, at all events, acquainted with Christian doctrines. Among the Prophet’s numerous wives we find a Jewess and a Coptic Christian. Among his advisers we meet with the name of a Christian monk called Sergius, in Arabic Boheira (Buhairah). No historian, there- fore, can doubt that Mohammed was acquainted with Judaism and Christianit}-, and must have been in- fluenced by them — nay, that he was favourably disposed towards them, more particularly in his strong antagonism to idolatry and polytheism. For a time it might indeed have seemed as if Mohammed was but the founder of a new Jewish or Christian sect. Not only did he distinctly represent the reli- gion which he preached as the old religion of Abra- ham, but he spoke of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, and he spoke of Jesus in even higher terms than of Abraham. All he wished to do at first was to explain much of what was hidden of the Book1 and to remove the false opinions enter- tained of Christ. Unfortunately the form in which Christianity reached him was most corrupt, and offended him by the perverted doctrine of the Trinity even more than it had offended the Jews. He accepted the Gospel as the revelation of God, and Jesus as the true prophet of God, but he wished to see Christianity purified and freed from later corrup- tions. Christian theologians of the narrowest school
1 Koran, v. 18.
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have admitted this, and even the Rev. Marcus Rods, now in the full odour of orthodoxy, declares that, if Mohammed had but known the true character of Christ, ‘Christianity would have had one more reformer.’ There is, of course, no evidence for saying that Mohammed ever was a Christian, but he might have been, except for the corruptions which had crept into Christianity through the most ignorant of Christian sects. Mohammed’s feelings at first were evidently more friendly towards the Christians than towards the Jews. He declares that both Jews and Christians will be saved if they do what is right. ‘Verily,’ he says1, ‘those who believe and those who are Jews, and the Sabaeans and the Christians, whoso- ever believes in God and the last day, and does what is right, there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.’ But, he adds2, ‘Thou wilt surely find that the strongest in the enmity against those who believe are the Jews and the idolaters, and thou wilt find the nearest in love to those who believe to be those who say, “We are Christians”; that is because there are amongst them priests and monks, and because they are not proud.’ It was the false doctrine of the Trinity, as taught at the time by certain Christian sects with whom Mohammed had to deal, that most strongly repelled him from Christianity. ‘They mis- believe,’ he says3, ‘who say, Verily, God is the Messiah, the son of Mary, but the Messiah said, O children of Israel, worship God, my Lord and your Lord.’ A prophet who had abolished Al-Lat, Al- Uzza, Manat, and the other goddesses of Arabia, was natur- ally horrified at seeing Mary, the mother ot the
1 Koran, v. 73- 3 v* ^5- 3 v> 7®*
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Messiah, worshipped in the same way as a goddess, for instance by the Colly ridian Christians. After the repeated condemnations pronounced by Mohammed against what he wrongly believed to be Christianity, because it happened to be the Christianity of his neighbours, missionaries have found it extremely difficult to convince his followers that Mohammed was mistaken, and that Christ Himself never taught that His mother was a goddess, that God was the Messiah or the Messiah an alter Deus. It is too late now to regret the misunderstanding between Moham- med and his Christian contemporaries. Many things can be prevented, but few things can be undone, and the loss which Christianity has suffered in alienating the powerful support of Mohammed in the East seems now almost impossible to repair. I felt this in every conversation which I had with enlightened Turks, and their number is by no means small. After long discussions we had generally to admit in the end that, in all the essential points of a religion, the differences between the Koran and the New Testament are very small indeed, and that but for old misunderstandings the two religions, Islam and Christianity, might have been one. In our friendly discussions my Turkish friends differed from each other on many points, for the number of sects is larger in Islam than even in Christianity ; but in the end they could not resist my appeal that we should be guided in our discussions by the Koran, and by the Koran alone.
They all agreed that there were six articles of faith which all Musulmans accepted as fundamental, and as resting on the authority of the Koran : the unityr of God, the existence of angels, the inspired character
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of certain books, the inspired character of certain prophets, the day of judgement, and the decrees of God. Some added a seventh article, a belief in the resurrection, but this is really included in the belief in a day of judgement.
On the first and most important article — i.e. the unity of Godhead — Christians, Mohammedans, and Jews are all of one mind. If certain Christian sects exposed themselves to the suspicion of recognizing three Gods, I had no difficulty in proving to my Turkish friends that this was a later corruption, a mere invention of theologians and philosophers, and diametrically opposed to the true spirit of Christi- anity, though similar ideas might possibly not be quite extinct even at the present day among some theological schools. Nowhere has the misunderstand- ing of a metaphor wrought more serious mischief than in the dogmatic conclusions that were based on the simple expression of ‘Son of God.’ It is perfectly true that as soon as people are made to realize what Son of God would mean if it were not a metaphor, or if it were taken in a mythological not in a philoso- phical sense, they shrink with horror from realizing the thought ; still they think they may play fast and loose with the metaphorical wording, and they repeat words which they would not dare to translate into clear thought. I had to admit that on this point, on the relation between Divinity and Humanity, the language of the Koran is far more elevated and less liable to misapprehension. The Koran says ‘ God will create what He will ; when He decreeth a thing, He only saith Be, and it is/ It would never tolerate even a metaphorical nativity. It may be said that
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1 Word of God,’ a name which Mohammed, like St. John, assigns to Christ, and to Christ alone, is likewise a metaphor. So it is, but it is the most perfect metaphor, the most sublime conception of the relation between man and God, recognizing God in man, and man in God ; nor is it exposed to the almost inevitable misunderstandings arising from sonship. That Mohammed calls Christ the Word of God, and that he places the first man Adam above the angels, shows that he had some idea of the Logos, as con- ceived by Christian philosophers. Thus, when speak- ing of Adam the Koran calls him the viceregent or caliph of God. God Himself taught Adam the names, which means the knowledge, of all things, while the angels remained ignorant till Adam himself told them the names. Hence the angels lay prostrate before Adam. This shows how high and how true a con- ception Mohammed had of man and of his divine birthright which places him above all angels. With all this, Mohammed distinguished carefully between Adam and Christ, for while it is said that God breathed His spirit into Adam, Adam himself is never, like Christ, called the spirit of God (Ruhu ’llah).
On the first and fundamental article of Islam, the unity of God, I and my friends agreed that there could be no real difference of opinion between an orthodox Musulman and an orthodox Christian, and I succeeded in convincing them by historical evidence that the false opinion which the Prophet had formed of the Trinity as a disguised Tritheism was entirely due to the corrupt opinions held by Christian sects settled in Arabia in the seventh century.
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Nor did we find much difficulty in arriving at an understanding about the second article, a belief in angels. It is true that this is not an essen- tial article of faith in Christianity, still both in Christian and Jewish traditions angels (Malak) have their recognized place, and in a certain sense even a higher place than in Islam. For while in the Bible Adam is represented as a little lower than the angels, in the Koran the angels have to bow before Adam.
On the third article, however, there was naturally at first much greater difference of opinion. That there are books which may be called inspired both religions hold alike, but they differ as to the books which deserve that name. The most important point, however, is the admission of the possibility of inspira- tion, or of an immediate communication between the Deity and man. The Mohammedans distinguish between two kinds of inspiration. The first called wahy zdhir, or external inspiration, the second wahy bdtin, or internal inspiration. We should call the former literal, when every word and every letter wore believed to have proceeded from the mouth of Gabriel ; the latter general, when the Prophet was led by thought and reasoning to the perception of truth and enunciated it in his own words. Now it is quite possible that Christians would not allow that the Arabic words of the Koran came from the Deity, whether directly or indirectly, and my friends pointed out that many portions in the Bible also — the his- torical chapters, for instance — could not possibly have been spoken by Jehovah, still less by God the Father. That Christ, however, was divinely inspired no Muslim
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would deny, nor need any Christian deny the gift of wahy bdtin to Mohammed whenever his doctrines are the same as those of Christ — that is, whenever they are true.
Much the same question had to be discussed again when we came to consider the third article of the Mohammedan faith, a belief in inspired prophets. Mohammed believed in a whole class of chosen people who at all times and in all countries were meant to act as mediators between God and man. This is a most important belief, and wherever it prevails man- kind is at once raised to a higher level, and brought into closer communion with the unseen world. The same belief lies at the root of Buddhism ; for the Buddha $akyamuni is represented as but one of a class of Buddhas or enlightened beings who in different ages are to deliver mankind from sin and misery. St. Paul expressed the same thought when he said, ‘ God, who at sundry times in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.’ Mohammed would have understood these words better than many Christian interpreters, for to him the Son is in the true sense the Kalimatu ’llah, ‘the Word of God.’ Mohammed took the most comprehensive views of the historical growth of the religions of the world, as far as he knew them, and it is much to his credit that he did not represent the religion which he preached himself as a new religion, but simply as the old religion believed in by Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, but purified by him from misunderstandings and corruptions, par- ticularly such as had crept into it among the Christian sects in Arabia. In this respect he did no more than
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what the Reformers did at a later time in Europe: he freed Christianity from human corruptions and misinterpretations. He protested against Christ being made another God, and against the Virgin being worshipped as a goddess. In Arabia the doctrine of the Trinity had been so completely misunderstood that the official formula was no longer the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but the Father, Mary, and their Son.
In protesting against such heresy every Christian, particularly every Protestant Christian, would go hand in hand with Mohammed, nor need it be feared that Mohammed would ever usurp the place due to Christ alone. Mohammed claims to be the last, but not the greatest, of the prophets. He himself expresses greater reverence for Christ than for any other prophet. Pie called Him the Word of God, which is the highest predicate that human language can bestow, and which to Mohammed meant far more than the name of Son of God.
There remained, therefore, two articles only for our discussion : the fourth and fifth, the Day of Judgement and the Decrees of God. On the broad doctrines that there will be a day of judgement and a resurrection, I and my adversaries, or rather my friends, were able to agree without difficulty. The divergences began as usual when we came to minutiae ; but here I think I was able to convince my friends that that religion is best which says least, or says what Christ said :
‘ Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only’; and again, ‘ What no eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God
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hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit.’
Lastly, as to the Decrees of God, or what we should call Predestination and Free Will, we find among Mohammedans the same disputes as among Christians. The fundamental principle ‘ that by no means can aught befall us but what God hath destined V is acknowledged by both religions, and likewise, e Who- ever doeth that which is right will have their reward with the Lord.’ An}^ attempt to go beyond these two principles leads to barren controversy only. We are told that when Mohammed found his companions debating about fate, he was angry and his face became red to such a degree that you would say the seeds of a pomegranate had been bruised on it. And he said, ‘ Hath God ordered you to debate of fate ? Was I sent to you for this? Your forefathers were destroyed for debating about fate and destiny. I adjure you not to argue these points.’ This reminds us of the stern manner in which Buddha rebuked his companions, whenever they asked him questions which he con- sidered as beyond the grasp of the human under- standing, and it would have been well if the same rebuke could sometimes have been administered to Calvin and his disciples.
If, then, these are the six fundamental articles of the Mohammedan faith, we agreed that they would offer no excuse for a split between Islam and Christianity. Every Christian could subscribe to every one of them. The mischief begins when an attempt is made to define things which cannot be defined or to speak of them even in metaphors,
1 Surah ix. 51.
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which after a time are sure to be taken in a literal sense.
It has often been said that a religion must be false which teaches what the Koran teaches about a future life. I do not think so. In every religion we must make allowances for anthropomorphic imagery, nor would it be possible to describe the happiness of Paradise except in analogy with human happiness. Why, then, exclude the greatest human happiness, companionship with friends, of either sex, if sex there be in the next world ? Why assume the Pharisaical mien of contempt for what has been our greatest blessing in this life, while yet we speak in very human imagery of the city of Holy Jerusalem, twelve thousand furlongs in length, in breadth and height, and the walls thereof one hundred and forty- four cubits, and the building of the wall of jasper and the city of pure gold, and the foundations of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones, jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, ' chrysolite, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and amethyst ? If such childish delights as that of women in certain so-called precious stones are admitted in the life to come, why should the higher joys of life be excluded from the joys of heaven? If Mohammed placed the loveliness of women above the loveliness of gold and amethyst, why should he be blamed for it? People seem to imagine that Mohammed knew no other joys of heaven, and represented Paradise as a kind of heavenly harem. Nothing can be more mistaken. In many places when he speaks of Paradise the presence of women is not even mentioned, and where they are mentioned they are generally men-
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tioned as wives or friends. Thus we read1: ‘ Verily, the fellows of Paradise upon that day shall be employed in enjoyment, they and their wives, in shade upon thrones, reclining ; therein they shall have fruits, and they shall have what they may call for, Peace, a speech from the merciful God.’ Or2: ‘For these shall enter Paradise, and shall not be wronged at all, gardens of Eden, which the Merciful has promised to His servants in the unseen ; verily, this promise ever comes to pass.’ Is it so very wrong, then, that saints are believed to enter Paradise with their wives, as when we read3: ‘ 0 my servants, enter ye into Paradise, ye and your wives, happy ? ’
In this and similar ways the pure happiness of the next life is described in the Koran, and if, in a few passages, not only wives but beautiful maidens also are mentioned among the joys of heaven, why should this rouse indignation ? True, it shows a less spiritual conception of the life to come than a philosopher would sanction, but, however childish, there is nothing indelicate or impure in the description of the Houris.
The charge of sensuality is a very serious charge in the Western world, and it is difficult for us to make allowances for the different views on the subject among Oriental people. From our point of view, Mohammed himself would certainly be called a sen- sualist. He sanctioned polygamy, and he even allowed himself a larger number of wives and slaves than to his followers. Mohammedans, however, as I was informed, take a different view. They admire 1 Surah xxxvi. 55. 2 xix. 60. 3 xliii. 62.
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him for having remained for twenty-five years faithful to one wife, a wife a good deal older than himself. They consider his marrying other wives as an act of benevolence, in granting them his protection while others were ‘averse from marrying orphan women L* Mohammedans look upon polygamy as a remedy of many social evils, and they are not far wrong. We must not forget that Mohammed had to give laws to barbarous and degenerate tribes, with whom a woman was no more than a chattel, carried off, like a camel or a horse, by whoever was strong enough to defy his rivals. In Arabia, as elsewhere, women were more numerous than men, and the only protection for a woman, particularly an orphan woman, was a husband. Much worse than polygamy was female slavery ; still even that was better than what existed before. We must not forget that even now the slave who has become a mother has a recognized position in the famity, and that her child is legitimate. They have in Turkey no young mothers who commit suicide or drown their illegitimate offspring. Though neither polygamy nor slavery can be approved, I confess that I found it hard to answer Mohammedan critics who had seen the streets and prisons of Paris and London. There are many enlightened Mohammedans who condemn polygamy and slavery. Polygamy, in fact, is dying out. Mohammed did not enjoin it, he simply tolerated it, as it was tolerated among the Jews, and carried even to excess by some of their kings such as David and Solomon — men, we are told, after Jehovah’s own heart.
In all my discussions, however, with my Turkish
1 Surah iv. 12 c.
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friends there was one point which they could not gainsay, the high ideal of human life as realized in Christ and by no other prophet. This is, and always will be, the real strength of Christianity. Christianity was not only taught, it was lived, by Christ. As judged by his own contemporaries, Mohammed was no doubt a highly estimable character. He had gained the name of el Amin, the Faithful, among his people, long before he became a prophet. No breach of the law as then existing can be laid to his charge during a long life in which he made open war against the most cherished errors and prejudices of his compatriots. He devoted his life to the cause of truth and right, and to the welfare of his fellow creatures. That he recognized the spirit of God in the spirit of truth within him stamps him at once as a true prophet ; that he mistook that still small voice for the voice of the Archangel Gabriel only shows that he spoke a language which we no longer understand. The results which he achieved were very marvellous, if we consider that he was originally a poor camel- driver at Mekkah in Arabia, and that his religion extended rapidly from the rising to the setting of the sun. One thing is greatly to his credit. His followers soon ascribed to him the power of working miracles ; he himself declared most strongly against all miracles, though in his case also they were clamorously demanded by an adulterous generation. And, as if foreseeing the difficulties which always arise when the thoughts and commands of one man or of one generation are stereo- typed for all time, he left behind him these memorable words : ‘ I am no more than a man : when I order you anything with respect to religion, receive it ; and when