§ 47. Christian Polemics against Mohammedanism. Note on Mormonism.
§ 47. Christian Polemics against Mohammedanism. Note on Mormonism.
See the modern Lit. in § 38.
For a list of earlier works against Mohammedanism, see J. Alb. Fabricius: Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, qui veritatem Christ. Adv. Atheos, ... Judaeos et Muhammedanos ... asseruerunt. Hamb., 1725, pp. 119 sqq., 735 sqq. J. G. Walch: Bibliotheca Theolog. Selecta (Jenae, 1757), Tom. I. 611 sqq. Appendix to Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet.
Theod. Bibliander, edited at Basle, in 1543, and again in 1550, with the Latin version of the Koran, a collection of the more important works against Mohammed under the title: Machumetis Saracenorum principis ejusque successorum vitae, doctrinae, ac ipse Alcoran., I vol. fol.
Richardus (about 1300): Confutatio Alcorani, first publ. in Paris, 1511.
Joh. de Turrecremata: Tractatus contra principales errores perfidi Mahometis et Turcorum. Rom., 1606.
Lud. Maraccius (Maracci): Prodromus ad refutationem Alcorani; in quo, per IV. praecipuas verae religionis notas, mahumetanae sectae falsitas ostenditur, christianae religionis veritas comprobatur. Rom. (typis Congreg. de Propaganda Fide), 1691. 4 vols., small oct.; also Pref. to his Alcorani textus universus, Petav., 1698, 2 vols. fol.
Hadr. Reland: De Religione Mohammedica. Utrecht, 1705; 2nd ed. 1717; French transl., Hague, 1721.
W. Gass: Gennadius und Pletho. Breslau, 1844, Part I., pp. 106–181. (Die Bestreitung des Islâm im Mittelalter.)
The argument of Mohammedanism against other religions was the sword. Christian Europe replied with the sword in the crusades, but failed. Greek and Latin divines refuted the false prophet with superior learning, but without rising to a higher providential view, and without any perceptible effect. Christian polemics against Mohammed and the Koran began in the eighth century, and continued with interruptions to the sixteenth and seventeenth.
John of Damascus, who lived among the Saracens (about a.d. 750), headed the line of champions of the cross against the crescent. He was followed, in the Greek Church, by Theodor of Abukara, who debated a good deal with Mohammedans in Mesopotamia, by Samonas, bishop of Gaza, Bartholomew of Edessa, John Kantakuzenus (or rather a monk Meletius, formerly a Mohammedan, who justified his conversion, with the aid of the emperor, in four apologies and four orations), Euthymius Zigabenus, Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople. Prominent in the Latin church were Peter, Abbot of Clugny (twelfth century), Thomas Aquinas, Alanus ab Insulis, Raimundus LulIus, Nicolaus of Cusa, Ricold or Richard (a Dominican monk who lived long in the East), Savonarola, Joh. de Turrecremata.
The mediaeval writers, both Greek and Latin, represent Mohammed as an impostor and arch-heretic, who wove his false religion chiefly from Jewish (Talmudic) fables and Christian heresies. They find him foretold in the Little Horn of Daniel, and the False Prophet of the Apocalypse. They bring him in connection with a Nestorian monk, Sergius, or according to others, with the Jacobite Bahira, who instructed Mohammed, and might have converted him to the Christian religion, if malignant Jews had not interposed with their slanders. Thus he became the shrewd and selfish prophet of a pseudo-gospel, which is a mixture of apostate Judaism and apostate Christianity with a considerable remnant of his native Arabian heathenism. Dante places him, disgustingly torn and mutilated, among the chief heretics and schismatics in the ninth gulf of Hell,
"Where is paid the fee
By those who sowing discord win their burden."204
This mediaeval view was based in
part upon an entire ignorance or perversion of facts. It was then believed that
Mohammedans were pagans and idolaters, and cursed the name of Christ, while it
is now known, that they abhor idolatry, and esteem Christ as the highest
prophet next to Mohammed.
The Reformers and older Protestant divines took substantially the same view, and condemn the Koran and its author without qualification. We must remember that down to the latter part of the seventeenth century the Turks were the most dangerous enemies of the peace of Europe. Luther published, at Wittenberg, 1540, a German translation of Richard’s Confutatio Alcorani, with racy notes, to show "what a shameful, lying, abominable book the Alcoran is." He calls Mohammed "a devil and the first-born child of Satan." He goes into the question, whether the Pope or Mohammed be worse, and comes to the conclusion, that after all the pope is worse, and the real Anti-Christ (Endechrist). "Wohlan," he winds up his epilogue, "God grant us his grace and punish both the Pope and Mohammed, together with their devils. I have done my part as a true prophet and teacher. Those who won’t listen may leave it alone." Even the mild and scholarly Melanchthon identifies Mohammed with the Little Horn of Daniel, or rather with the Gog and Magog of the Apocalypse, and charges his sect with being a compound of "blasphemy, robbery, and sensuality." It is not very strange. that in the heat of that polemical age the Romanists charged the Lutherans, and the Lutherans the Calvinists, and both in turn the Romanists, with holding Mohammedan heresies.205
In the eighteenth century this view was gradually corrected. The learned Dean Prideaux still represented Mohammed as a vulgar impostor, but at the same time as a scourge of God in just punishment of the sins of the Oriental churches who turned our holy religion "into a firebrand of hell for contention, strife and violence." He undertook his "Life of Mahomet" as a part of a "History of the Eastern Church," though he did not carry out his design.
Voltaire and other Deists likewise still viewed Mohammed as an impostor, but from a disposition to trace all religion to priestcraft and deception. Spanheim, Sale, and Gagnier began to take a broader and more favorable view. Gibbon gives a calm historical narrative; and in summing up his judgment, he hesitates whether "the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man .... From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the daemon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud."
Dean Milman suspends his judgment, saying: "To the question whether Mohammed was hero, sage, impostor, or fanatic, or blended, and blended in what proportions, these conflicting elements in his character? the best reply is the reverential phrase of Islâm: God knows.’ "206
Goethe and Carlyle swung from the orthodox abuse to the opposite extreme of a pantheistic hero-worshiping over-estimate of Mohammed and the Koran by extending the sphere of revelation and inspiration, and obliterating the line which separates Christianity from all other religions. Stanley, R. Bosworth Smith, Emanuel Deutsch, and others follow more or less in the track of this broad and charitable liberalism. Many errors and prejudices have been dispelled, and the favorable traits of Islâm and its followers, their habits of devotion, temperance, and resignation, were held up to the shame and admiration of the Christian world. Mohammed himself, it is now generally conceded, began as an honest reformer, suffered much persecution for his faith, effectually destroyed idolatry, was free from sordid motives, lived in strict monogamy during twenty-four years of his youth and manhood, and in great simplicity to his death. The polygamy which disfigured the last twelve years of his life was more moderate than that of many other Oriental despots, Califs and Sultans, and prompted in part by motives of benevolence towards the widows of his followers, who had suffered in the service of his religion.207
But the enthusiasm kindled by Carlyle for the prophet of Mecca has been considerably checked by fuller information from the original sources as brought out in the learned biographies of Weil, Nöldeke, Sprenger and Muir. They furnish the authentic material for a calm, discriminating and impartial judgment, which, however, is modified more or less by the religious standpoint and sympathies of the historian. Sprenger represents Mohammed as the child of his age, and mixes praise and censure, without aiming at a psychological analysis or philosophical view. Sir William Muir concedes his original honesty and zeal as a reformer and warner, but assumes a gradual deterioration to the judicial blindness of a self-deceived heart, and even a kind of Satanic inspiration in his later revelations. "We may readily admit," he says, "that at the first Mahomet did believe, or persuaded himself to believe, that his revelations were dictated by a divine agency. In the Meccan period of his life, there certainly can be traced no personal ends or unworthy motives to belie this conclusion. The Prophet was there, what he professed to be, ’a simple Preacher and a Warner;’ he was the despised and rejected teacher of a gainsaying people; and he had apparently no ulterior object but their reformation .... But the scene altogether changes at Medina. There the acquisition of temporal power, aggrandizement, and self-glorification mingled with the grand object of the Prophet’s previous life; and they were sought after and attained by precisely the same instrumentality. Messages from heaven were freely brought forward to justify his political conduct, equally with his religious precepts. Battles were fought, wholesale executions inflicted, and territories annexed, under pretext of the Almighty’s sanction. Nay, even baser actions were not only excused but encouraged, by the pretended divine approval or command .... The student of history will trace for himself how the pure and lofty aspirations of Mahomet were first tinged, and then gradually debased by a half unconscious self-deception, and how in this process truth merged into falsehood, sincerity into guile,—these opposite principles often co-existing even as active agencies in his conduct. The reader will observe that simultaneously with the anxious desire to extinguish idolatry and to promote religion and virtue in the world, there was nurtured by the Prophet in his own heart a licentious self-indulgence; till in the end, assuming to be the favorite of Heaven, he justified himself by ’revelations’ from God in the most flagrant breaches of morality. He will remark that while Mahomet cherished a kind and tender disposition, ’Weeping with them that wept,’ and binding to his person the hearts of his followers by the ready and self-denying offices of love and friendship, he could yet take pleasure in cruel and perfidious assassination, could gloat over the massacre of entire tribes, and savagely consign the innocent babe to the fires of hell. Inconsistencies such as these continually present themselves from the period of Mahomet’s arrival at Medina; and it is by, the study of these inconsistencies that his character must be rightly comprehended. The key, to many difficulties of this description may be found, I believe, in the chapter ’on the belief of Mahomet in his own inspiration.’ When once he had dared to forge the name of the Most High God as the seal and authority of his own words and actions, the germ was laid from which the errors of his after life freely and fatally developed themselves."208
Note on Mormonism.
Sources.
The Book of Mormon. First printed at Palmyra, N. Y., 1830. Written by the Prophet Mormon, three hundred years after Christ, upon plates of gold in the "Reformed Egyptian" (?) language, and translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jun., with the aid of Urim and Thummim, into English. As large as the Old Testament. A tedious historical romance on the ancient inhabitants of the American Continent, whose ancestors emigrated from Jerusalem b.c. 600, and whose degenerate descendants are the red Indians. Said to have been written as a book of fiction by a Presbyterian minister, Samuel Spalding.
The Doctrines and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. Contains the special revelations given to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young at different times. Written in similar style and equally insipid as the Book of Mormon.
A Catechism for Children by Elder John Jaques. Salt Lake City. 25th thousand, 1877.
We cannot close this chapter on Oriental Mohammedanism without some remarks on the abnormal American phenomenon of Mormonism, which arose in the nineteenth century, and presents an instructive analogy to the former. Joseph Smith (born at Sharon, Vt., 1805; shot dead at Nauvoo, in Illinois, 1844), the first founder, or rather Brigham Young (d. 1877), the organizer of the sect, may be called the American Mohammed, although far beneath the prophet of Arabia in genius and power.
The points of resemblance are numerous and striking: the claim to a supernatural revelation mediated by an angel; the abrogation of previous revelations by later and more convenient ones; the embodiment of the revelations in an inspired book; the eclectic character of the system, which is compounded of Jewish, heathenish, and all sorts of sectarian Christian elements; the intense fanaticism and heroic endurance of the early Mormons amidst violent abuse and persecution from state to state, till they found a refuge in the desert of Utah Territory, which they turned into a garden; the missionary zeal in sending apostles to distant lands and importing proselytes to their Eldorado of saints from the ignorant population of England, Wales, Norway, Germany, and Switzerland; the union of religion with civil government, in direct opposition to the American separation of church and state; the institution of polygamy in defiance of the social order of Christian civilization. In sensuality and avarice Brigham Young surpassed Mohammed; for he left at his death in Salt Lake City seventeen wives, sixteen sons, and twenty-eight daughters (having had in all fifty-six or more children), and property estimated at two millions of dollars.209
The government of the United States cannot touch the Mormon religion; but it can regulate the social institutions connected therewith, as long as Utah is a Territory under the immediate jurisdiction of Congress. Polygamy has been prohibited by law in the Territories under its control, and President Hayes has given warning to foreign governments (in 1879) that Mormon converts emigrating to the United States run the risk of punishment for violating the laws of the land. President Garfield (in his inaugural address, March 4, 1881) took the same decided ground on the Mormon question, saying: "The Mormon church not only offends the moral sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through the ordinary instrumentalities of law. In my judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen, to prohibit within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially of that class which destroy the family relations and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Government."
His successor, President Arthur, in his last message to Congress, Dec. 1884, again recommends that Congress "assume absolute political control of the Territory of Utah," and says: "I still believe that if that abominable practice [polygamy] can be suppressed by law it can only be by the most radical legislation consistent with the restraints of the Constitution." The secular and religious press of America, with few exceptions, supports these sentiments of the chief magistrate.
Since the annexation of Utah to the United States, after the Mexican war, "Gentiles" as the Christians are called, have entered the Mormon settlement, and half a dozen churches of different denominations have been organized in Salt Lake City. But the "Latter Day Saints" are vastly in the majority, and are spreading in the adjoining Territories. Time will show whether the Mormon problem can be solved without resort to arms, or a new emigration of the Mormons.
Mahomet and Mahometanism, is the usual, but Mohammad, Muhammad, or Mohammed, Mohammedanism, is the more correct spelling in English. Sale, Deutsch, B. Smith, Khan Bahador, and others, spell Mohammed; Sprenger, Mohammad; Nöldeke, Muhammed; Gibbon, Carlyle and Muir, retain Mahomet. The word means: the Praised, the Glorified, the Illustrious; but according to Sprenger and Deutsch, the Desired, perhaps with reference to the Messianic interpretation of "the Desire of all nations," Hagg. 2:7. See on the name, Sprenger, I. 155 sqq., and Deutsch, p. 68 note.
"Erhalt uns,Herr, bei deinem Wort,
Und steur’ des Papst’s und Türken Mord."
The words "all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics," were inserted by the framers of the Prayer Book in the first edition (1547); the rest of the collect is translated from the old Latin service. In the middle ages the word "infidel" denoted a Mohammedan. The Mohammedans in turn call Christians, Jews, and all other religionists, "infidels" and "dogs."
Archbishop Trench, l.c. p. 54: "We can regard Mohammedanism in no other light than as a scourge of God upon a guilty church. He will not give his glory to another. He will not suffer the Creator and the creature to be confounded; and if those who should have been witnesses for the truth, who had been appointed thereunto, forsake, forget, or deny it, He will raise up witnesses from quarters the most unlooked for, and will strengthen their hands and give victory to their arms even against those who bear his name, but have forgotten his truth." Similarly Dr. Jessup, l.c. p. 14: "The Mohammedan religion arose, in the providence of God, as a scourge to the idolatrous Christianity, and the pagan systems of Asia and Africa—a protest against polytheism, and a preparation for the future conversion to a pure Christianity of the multitude who have fallen under its extraordinary power." Carlyle calls the creed of Mohammed "a kind of Christianity better than that of those miserable Syrian Sects with the head full of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead. The truth of it is imbedded in portentous error and falsehood; but the truth makes it to be believed, not the falsehood: it succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity, but a living kind; with a heart-life in it; not dead, chopping, barren logic merely."
Life of Mahomet, IV. 321, 322.
See Ali Bey’s Travels in Asia and Africa, 1803-1807 (1814, 3 vols.); the works of Burckhardt, and Burton mentioned before; and Muir, I. 1-9.
The Cube-house or Square house, Maison carrée. It is also called Beit Ullah, (Beth-el), i.e. House of God. It is covered with cloth. See a description in Burckhaxdt, Travels, Lond., 1829, p. 136, Burton II. 154, Sprenger II. 340, and Khan Ballador’s Essay on the History of the Holy Mecca (a part of the work above quoted). Burckhardt gives the size: 18 paces long, 14 broad, 35 to 40 feet high. Burton: 22 paces (= 55 English feet) long, 18 paces (45 feet) broad.
Baliador says, l.c.: "The most ancient and authentic of all the local traditions of Arabia ... represent the temple of the Kaaba as having been constructed in the 42d century a. m., or 19th century b.c., by Abraham, who was assisted in his work by his son Ishmael." He quotes Gen. xii. 7; xiii. 18 in proof that Abraham raised "altars for God’s worship on every spot where he had adored Him." But the Bible nowhere says that he ever was in Mecca.
It is called in Arabic Hhajera el-Assouád, the Heavenly Stone. Muir II. 35.
Bahador discredits this and other foolish traditions, and thinks that the Black Stone was a Piece of rock from the neighboring Abba Kobais mountain, and put in its present place by Ishmael at the desire of Abraham.
See pictures of the Kaaba and the Black Stone, in Bahador, and also in Muir, II. 18, and description, II. 34 sqq.
Rodwell’s translation, pp. 446 and 648. Sprenger, II. 279, regards the Moslem legend of the Abrahamic origin of the Kaaba worship as a pure invention of Mohammed, of which there is no previous trace.
Sprenger I. 45: "Die bisher unbekannt gebliebenen Hanyfen waren die Vorläufer des Mohammad. Er nennt sich selbst einen Hanyf, und während der ersten Periode seines Lehramtes hat er wenig anderes gethan, als ihre Lehre bestätigt."
According to Sprenger, I. 91 sqq., he died a Christian; but Deutsch, l.c., p. 77, says: "Whatever Waraka was originally, he certainly lived and died a Jew." He infers this from the fact that when asked by Chadijah for his opinion concerning Mohammed’s revelations, he cried out: "Koddus! Koddus! (i.e., Kadosh, Holy). Verily this is the Namus (i.e., novmo", Law) which came to Moses. He will be the prophet of his people."
We know accurately the date of Mohammed’s death (June 8, 632), but the year of his birth only by reckoning backwards; and as his age is variously stated from sixty-one to sixty-five, there is a corresponding difference in the statements of the year of his birth. De Sacy fixes it April 20, 571, von Hammer 569, Muir Aug. 20, 570, Sprenger between May 13, 567, and April 13, 571, but afterwards (I. 138), April 20, 571, as most in accordance with early tradition.
According to Ihn Ishâk and Wâckidi. Bahador adopts this tradition, in the last of his essays which treats of "the Birth and Childhood of Mohammed." But according to other accounts, Abdallah died several months (seven or eighteen) after Mohammed’s birth. Muir. I. 11; Sprenger, I. 138.
On the pedigree of Mohammed, see an essay in the work of Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador, and MuirI1. 242-271. The Koreish were not exactly priests, but watched the temple, kept the keys, led the processions, and provided for the pilgrims. Hâshim, Mohammed’s great-grandfather (b. a. d. 442), thus addressed the Koreish: "Ye are the neighbors of God and the keepers of his house. The pilgrims who come honoring the sanctity of his temple, are his guests; and it is meet that ye should entertain them above all other guests. Ye are especially chosen of God and exalted unto this high dignity; wherefore honor big guests and refresh them." He himself set an example of munificent hospitality, and each of the Koreish contributed according to his ability. Muir I. CCXLVII.
Sprenger has a long chapter on this disease of Mohammed, which he calls with Schönlein, hysteria muscularis I. 207-268.
Sprenger discusses the question, and answers it in the affirmative, Vol. II. 398 sqq. The Koran (29) says: "Formerly [before I sent down the book, i.e. the Koran] thou didst not read any book nor write one with thy right hand!" From this, some Moslems infer that after the reception of the Koran, he was supernaturally taught to read and write; but others hold that he was ignorant of both. Syed Ahmed Khan Bahador says: "Not the least doubt now exists that the Prophet was wholly unacquainted with the art of writing, being also, as a matter of course (?), unable to read the hand-writing of others; for which reason, and for this only, be was called Ummee" (illiterate).
Sprenger attributes his faithfulness to Chadyga (as he spells the name) not to his merit, but to his dependence. She kept her fortune under her own control, and gave him only as much as he needed.
So Sprenger,III. 221. Others give seven hundred and ninety as the number of Jews who were beheaded in a ditch.
See Sprenger, III. 552 sqq., Muir, IV. 270 sqq.
This absurd story, circumstantially described by Abulfeda, is probably based on a dream which Mohammed himself relates in the Koran, Sura 17, entitled The Night Journey: "Glory be to Him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is remote" [i.e. in Jerusalem]. In the Dome of the Rock on Mount Moriah, the hand-prints of the angel Gabriel are shown in the mysterious rock which attempted to follow Mohammed to its native quarry in Paradise, but was kept back by the angel!
See an interesting essay on the "Miracles of Mohammed" in Tholuck’s Miscellaneous Essays (1839), Vol. I., pp. 1-27. Also Muir, I., pp. 65 sqq.; Sprenger, II. 413 sqq.
He speaks freely of this subject in the Koran, Sur. 4, and 33. In the latter (Rodman’s transl., p. 508) this scandalous passage occurs: "O Prophet! we allow thee thy wives whom thou hast dowered, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and of thy paternal and maternal aunts who fled with thee to Medina, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the Prophet desired to wed her, a privilege for thee above the rest of the faithful." Afterwards in the same Sura (p. 569) he says: "Ye must not trouble the Apostle of God, nor marry his wives after him forever. This would be a grave offence with God."
Sprenger, III. 61-87, gives a full account of fourteen wives of Mohammed, and especially of Ayesha, according to the list of Zohry and Ibn Saad. Sprenger says, p. 37: "Der Prophet hatte keine Wohnung für sich selbst. Sein Hauptquartier war in der Hütte der Ayischa und die öffentlichen Geschäfte verrichtete er in der Moschee, aber er brachte jede Nacht bei einer seiner Frauen zu und war, wie es scheint, auch ihr Gast beim Essen. Er ging aber täglich, wenn er bei guter Laune war, bei allen seinen Frauen umher, gab jeder einen Kuss, sprach einige Worte und spielte mit ihr. Wir haben gesehen, dass seine Familie neun Hütten besass, dies war auch die, Anzahl der Frauen, welche er bei seinem Tode hinterliess. Doch gab es Zeiten, zu denen sein Harem stärker war. Er brachte dann einige seiner Schönen in den Häusern von Nachbarn unter. Es kam auch vor, dass zwei Frauen eine Hütte bewohnten. Stiefkinderwohnten, so lange sie jung waren, bei ihren Müttern."
If Protestant missionaries enjoy more toleration and liberty in Turkey than in Roman Catholic Austria and in Greek Catholic Russia, it must be understood with the above limitation. Turkish toleration springs from proud contempt of Christianity in all its forms; Russian and Austrian intolerance, from despotism and bigoted devotion to a particular form of Christianity.
Among the traditional sayings of Mohammed is this (Gerock, l.c., p. 132): "I am nearest to Jesus, both as to the beginning and the end; for there is no prophet between me and Jesus; and at the end of time he will be my representative and my successor. The prophets are all brethren, as they have one father, though their mothers are different. The origin of all their religions is the same, and between me and Jesus there is no other prophet!’
Arabic qurân, i.e. the reading or that which should be read, the book. It is read over and over again in all the mosques and schools.
Sura 53 (Rodwell, p. 64):
"The Koran is no other than a revelation revealed to him:
One terrible in power [Gabriel, i.e. the Strong one of God]
taught it him.
Endued with wisdom, with even balance
stood he
In the highest part of the horizon.
He came nearer and approached,
And was at the distance of two bows, or even closer,—
And he revealed to his servant what he revealed."
I add the view of a learned modern Mohammedan, Syed Ahmed Khan Babador, who says (l.c., Essay on the Holy Koran): "The Holy Koran was delivered to Mohammed neither in the form of graven tablets of stone, nor in that of cloven tongues of fire; nor was it necessary that the followers of Mohammed, like those of Moses, should be furnished with a copy or counterpart, in case the original should be lost. No mystery attended the delivery of it, for it was on Mohammed’s heart that it was engraven, and it was with his tongue that it was communicated to all Arabia. The heart of Mohammed was the Sinai where he received the revelation, and his tablets of stone were the hearts of true believers."
Sura means either revelation, or chapter, or part of a chapter. The Mohammedan commentators refer it primarily to the succession of subjects or parts, like the rows of bricks in a wall. The titles of the Suras are generally taken from some leading topic or word in each, as "The Sun," "The Star," "The Charges," "The Scattering," "The Adoration," "The Spider," "Women," "Hypocrites," "Light," "Jonas," "The Cave," "The Night Journey," "The Cow," "The Battle," "The Victory."
"Bismillahi ’rrahonani ’rrahim." According to the Ulama (the professors of religion and law), "God of mercy" means merciful in great things; "the Merciful" means merciful in small things. But, according to E. W. Lane, "the first expresses an occasional sensation, the second a constant quality!" In other words, the one refers to acts, the other to a permanent attribute.
These scruples are gradually giving way, at least in India, where "printed copies, with inter-lineal versions in Persian and Urdoo—too literal to be intelligible—are commonly used." Muir, The Corân, p. 48. The manuscript copies in the mosques, in the library of the Khedive in Cairo, and in many European libraries, are equal in caligraphic beauty to the finest mediaeval manuscripts of the Bible.
The present order, Says Muir (Corân, p. 41), is almost a direct inversion of the natural chronological order; the longest which mostly belong to the later period of Mohammed, being placed first and the shortest last. Weil, Sprenger, and Muir have paid much attention to the chronological arrangement. Nöldeke also, in his Geschichte des Qôrans, has fixed the order of the Suras, with a reasonable degree of certainty on the basis of Mohammedan traditions and a searching analysis of the text; and he has been mainly followed by Rodwell in his English version.
The ornament of metre and rhyme, however, is preserved throughout.
Rodwell, p. X. Comp. Deutsch, l.c., p. 121.
Muir, Life of Moh., I. 35; Stanley, p. 366.
See a collection of these correspondences in the original Arabic and in English in Sir William Muir’s Coran, pp. 66 sqq. Muir concludes that Mohammed knew the Bible, and believed in its divine origin and authority.
Muir (Life, II. 313, 278) and Stanley (p. 366) adduce, as traces of a faint knowledge of the Canonical Gospels, the account of the birth of John the Baptist in the Koran, and the assumption by Mohammed of the name of Paracletus under the distorted form of Periclytus, the Illustrious. But the former does not strike me as being taken from St. Luke, else he could not have made such a glaring chronological mistake as to identify Mary with Miriam, the sister of Moses. And as to the promise of the Paraclete, which only occurs in St. John, it certainly must have passed into popular tradition, for the word occurs also in the Talmud. If Mohammed had read St. John, he must have seen that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, and would have identified him with Gabriel, rather than with himself. Palmer’s opinion is that Mohammed could neither read nor write, but acquired his knowledge from the traditions which were then current in Arabia among Jewish and Christian tribes. The Qur’ân, I., p. xlvii.
Decline and Fall of the R. E., Ch. 50.
As quoted in Tholuck.
The Qur’ân, Introd. I., p. 1.
On this difference Ewald makes some good remarks in the first volume of his Biblical Theology (1871), p. 418.
Translated by Lieut. Burton.
Rodwell, The Korân (2nd ed., 1876), p. 10.
E. H. Palmer, The Qur’ân, Oxford, 1880, Part I., p. 1.
· Sura 36 (in Rodwell, p. 128).
· The ostrich egg carefully protected from dust. Sura 37 (in Rodwell, p 69). Brides and wives always figure in the Mohammedan Paradise.
Luther said of the religion of the Turks: "Also ist’s ein Glaub zusammengeflickt aus der Jüden, Christen und Heiden Glaube." Milman (II. 139) calls Mohammedanism "the republication of a more comprehensive Judaism with some depraved forms of Christianity." Renan describes it as "the least original" of the religious creations of humanity. Geiger and Deutsch (both Hebrews) give prominence to the Jewish element. "It is not merely parallelisms," says Deutsch, "reminiscences, allusions, technical terms, and the like, of Judaism, its lore and dogma and ceremony, its Halacha and Haggadah (which may most briefly be rendered by ’Law’ and ’Legend’), which we find in the Koran; but we think Islâm neither more nor less than Judaism as adapted to Arabia—plus the apostleship of Jesus and Mohammed. Nay, we verily believe that a great deal of such Christianity as has found its way into the Koran, has found it through Jewish channels" (l.c. p. 64).
Lâ ilâha ill’ Allâh, wa Muhammeda rrasúlà ’llâh. Allâh is composed of the article al, "the," and ilâh, "a god," and is equivalent to the Hebrew Eli and Elohim. He was known to the Arabs before Mohammed, and regarded as the chief god in their pantheon.
A similar idea is presented in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies.
Mesich Isa ben Mariam.
In rude misconception or wilful perversion, Mohammed seems to have understood the Christian doctrine of the trinity to be a trinity of Father, Mary, and Jesus. The Holy Spirit is identified with Gabriel. "God is only one God! Far be it from his glory that he should have a son!" Sura 4, ver. 169; comp. 5, ver. 77. The designation and worship of Mary as "the mother of God" may have occasioned this strange mistake. There was in Arabia in the fourth century a sect of fanatical women called Collyridians (Kollurivde"), who rendered divine worship to Mary. Epiphanius, Haer. 79.·
As the Protevangelium Jacobi, the Evang. de Nativitate Mariae, the Evang. Infantis Servatoris, etc. Gibbon (ch. 50) and Stanley (p. 367) trace the doctrine of the immaculate conception directly to the Koran. It is said of Mary: "Remember when the angel said: ’O Mary! verily hath God chosen thee, and purified thee, and chosen thee above the women of the worlds.’ " But this does not necessarily mean more than Luke i. 28. The Koran knows nothing of original sin in the Christian sense.
Gerok, l.c. pp. 22-28. This would be a modification of the rabbinical fable that ordinary death and corruption had as little power over Miriam as over Moses, and that both died by the breath of Jehovah.
Rösch (l.c., p. 439) Die Geburtsgeschichte Jesu im Koran ist nichts anderes als ein mythologischer Mythus aus Ezech. 47 mit eingewobenen jüdischen Zügen, der seine Heimath im Ebionismus hat."
Sura 4. This view of the crucifixion is no doubt derived from apocryphal sources. The Gnostic sect of Basilides supposed Simon of Cyrene, the Evangel. Barrabae, Judas, to have been that other person who was crucified instead of Jesus. Mani (Epist. Fund.) says that the prince of darkness was nailed to the cross, and wore the crown of thorns.
Sura 61.
The Moslems refer also some other passages of Scripture to Mohammed and his religion, e.g. Gen. xvi. 10; xvii. 20; xxi. 12, 13; xxvii. 20 (the promise of God to bless Hagar and Ishmael); Deut. xviii. 15, 18 (the promise to raise up a prophet like Moses); Isa. xxi. 67 (where Mohammed is supposed to be meant by the "rider on the camel," as distinct from Jesus, "the rider on the ass"); John iv. 21; 1 John iv. 23 (where he is the spirit that is of God, because he proclaimed that Jesus was a true man, not God); Deut. xxxii.2 (where Sinai is said to mean the Jewish, Seir the Christian, and Paran the Mohammedan revelation).
So by John of Damascus and the mediaeval writers against Islâm. Peter of Clugny speaks of "haereses Saracenorum sive Ismaelitarum."Comp. Gass, Gennadius und Pletho, p. 109.
Lectures on the Reunion of Churches, p. 7 (transl. by Oxenham, 1872).
Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, Vol. I. (1871), p. 418.
Rom. i. 24sqq. See the statements of Dr. Jessup of Beirût, l.c., p. 47.
The lions in the court of the Alhambra farm an exception.
For an interesting description of a sermon from the pulpit of Mecca, see Burton’s Pilgrimage, II. 314; III. 117, quoted by Stanley, p. 379. Burton says, he had never and nowhere seen so solemn, so impressive a religious spectacle. Perhaps he has not heard many Christian sermons.
Gibbon’s statement that "the Mohammedan religion has no priest and no sacrifice;" is substantially correct.
They are given in Arabic and English by Palmer, l.c. I., Intr, p. lxvii. sq. The following are the first ten:
1. ar-Ra’hmân, the Merciful.
2. ar-Ra’hîm, the Compassionate.
3. al-Mâlik, the Ruler.
4 . al-Quaddûs, the Holy.
5. as-Salâm, Peace.
6. al-Mû’min, the Faithful.
7. al-Muhâimun, the Protector.
8. al-Haziz the Mighty.
9. al-Gabbâr, the Repairer.
10. al-Mutakabbir, the Great.
Description of Dean Stanley from his own observation in Cairo, l.c., p. 385.
204 Inferno, Canto XXVIII. 22 sqq. (Longfellow’s translation):
"A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
Was never shattered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: ’See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, am, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest
Sowers of scandal and of schism have been
While living, and therefore are thus cleft asunder.’ "
205 Maracci, Vivaldus, and other Roman writers point out thirteen or more heresies in which Mohammedanism and Lutheranism agree, such as iconoclasm, the rejection of the worship of saints, polygamy (in the case of Philip of Hesse), etc. A fanatical Lutheran wrote a book to prove that "the damned Calvinists hold six hundred and sixty-six theses (the apocalyptic number) in common with the Turks!" The Calvinist Reland, on the other hand, finds analogies to Romish errors in the Mohammedan prayers for the dead, visiting the graves of prophets, pilgrimages to Mecca, intercession of angels, fixed fasts, meritorious almsgiving, etc.
206 Lat. Christianity, II. 120.
207 The Mohammedan apologist, Syed Ameer Ali (The Life and Teachings of Mohammed, London, 1873, pp. 228 sqq.), makes much account of this fact, and entirely justifies Mohammed’s polygamy. But the motive of benevolence and generosity can certainly not be shown in the marriage of Ayesha (the virgin-daughter of Abu-Bakr), nor of Zeynab (the lawful wife of his freedman Zeyd), nor of Safiya (the Jewess). Ali himself must admit that "some of Mohammed’s marriages may possibly have arisen from a desire for male offspring." The motive of sensuality he entirely ignores.
208 Life of Mah., IV. 317, 322.
209 As stated in the New York Tribune for Sept. 3, 1877.