INDIAN MOHAMMEDANS
Mohammedans and marriage. Their conception of heaven. Their
trading on board ships. The smell of India. The Indian
"send-off." Use of the plural. Mistakes concerning it.
Unappreciated English jocosity. Indian free-and-easiness.
A Mohammedan asked me whether if he became a Christian we would
provide him with a wife, and he appeared surprised to learn that as a
Christian he could only have one wife. "Our religion allows four," he
said. When I urged that more than one wife destroyed the idea of the
unity of husband and wife, he replied, "We consider one of our wives
as being our real wife, and the others are like servants." I said that
the additional marriages, under such conditions, could only be
contracted for the gratification of fleshly desires. His answer was,
"If a man can afford it, why should he not give himself pleasure?"
After this there was nothing more to be said.
Mohammedans succeed better than Hindus as men of business, and there
are many Mohammedan firms who do a large trade. In the harbour at
Colombo and at other ports, Mohammedan jewel-merchants come on board
the steamers in order to try and sell their wares to the passengers.
In the interval between the departure of one batch of passengers and
the arrival of another, some of these merchants, having nothing to do,
came over to where I was standing on the deck of a steamer, to talk
about religion. They all spoke English in that pleasant way in which
many Easterns speak it--rather hazy about the verbs, but clear in
their pronunciation, so that it is easy to understand them. An Indian
who knows perhaps only a few English words, generally pronounces them
correctly.
"Good morning, father, I am very glad to see you," is how the
conversation began.
"Are you a Catholic?" I asked.
"I know all about the Catholic," was the reply, "I was taught in
Catholic school; I know all Catholic teaching."
"But you are not a Catholic yourself."
"No, I am a Mohammedan; but I like Catholic."
Some of the others then chimed in and began to urge their usual
objections concerning the Virgin birth, and the Holy Trinity. I was
interested in hearing what they had to say, because we do not often
meet Mohammedans in the Poona district. I thought that possibly the
assertion that their conception of heaven is so degraded might have
been exaggerated, so that I was glad of an opportunity to learn from
the lips of intelligent representatives of their religion what their
views really are. They affirmed that everything that there is on earth
will be in heaven, including all that concerns marriage. In order to
get at the bottom of the matter, I asked whether, as the result of
this, children would be born in heaven. They replied that nothing had
been revealed concerning that, but that probably children would not be
born. They were, therefore, only anticipating sensual gratification.
I told them the story of the seven brethren with the one wife, and
that Christ, whom they accepted as a true Prophet, said that they
neither marry nor are given in marriage in heaven. They answered that,
in spite of that, it was quite certain that there would be marriage in
heaven. It is hardly to be wondered at if, amongst nations specially
prone to sensuality, a religion spreads which allows four wives in the
present, and holds out such prospects for the future.
Yet there is something winning and attractive about many of these men
with their gentle courteous manners. Passengers coming on board, there
was prospect of business, so saying that they hoped that nothing that
they had said would have caused me any offence, they shook hands and
hurried off, and were soon deeply absorbed in the industry of trying
to see how much they could persuade the globe-trotter to give for
their wares. But their trade is not so good as it was some years back.
The traveller is more wide-awake, and his inclination now is to err
on the side of paying too little. Some shipping lines have also
forbidden traders to board the ships, because it gave an opportunity
for thieves to get on board under the guise of traders, and a good
many things had been stolen from passengers in this way.
Landing in Bombay from the same ship, an Australian lady said to me,
as the passengers were waiting on the Bunder while the luggage was
passing through the Customs, "What is this strange smell?" "It is only
the smell of India," I replied. "Then I don't like it," she said very
decidedly. There is in India a peculiar stale smell which you seldom
get entirely away from, unless on some lofty hills far removed from
the haunts of men. It is the smell of an undrained country, where the
habits of the people transgress the most elementary sanitary rules, so
that even out in country districts, if there are human habitations in
the neighbourhood, the air is tainted.
Whereas it is the English custom to receive a new-comer into office
with great ceremony, the Indian reserves his enthusiasm for the time
of departure. The new viceroy is welcomed with much state ceremonial,
but he departs in comparatively homely fashion. If the arrangements
were in the hands of Indians, it is the outgoing viceroy who would
receive the chief honours. After all, this may be the right way. The
new-comer has not yet been tried, whereas if he has done his duty
during his time of office, it is at the point of his departure that
display of gratitude is becoming. If the head of a mission has to go
to England on furlough, the residents at the mission-station will
probably give him a tremendous send-off, even if he is not
particularly popular. But when he returns, the Indians who saw him off
so enthusiastically will receive him back with gracious smiles and
kindly greeting, and half a dozen special friends may call and garland
him, but there will be no general demonstration, unless there are some
English people on the spot to suggest it as being the proper thing to
do.
Mistakes made in the effort to speak a difficult Eastern language are
inevitable. But the new-comer is not aware of certain subtle dangers
which exist, quite apart from mispronunciation, or wrong tenses and
genders, or words misapplied. To use the singular number instead of
the plural in speaking to an Indian, except of the lowest rank, is
considered by him as an act of great rudeness. In speaking to children
the singular number is always used, and very intimate friends use it
in speaking to each other. High-caste Hindus use it in speaking to
low-caste people, in order to emphasise their own superior position.
Missionaries generally begin to exercise their conversational powers
in the vernacular by trying to say a few words to the boys of the
mission. And as their efforts are generally welcomed by the boys in a
kindly and encouraging spirit, the missionary waxes bold and begins to
converse with the elder members of his flock, or even with dignified
outsiders, with sometimes unfortunate results, because he uses
unblushingly, but unknowingly, the singular number which he grew
familiar with in his conversations with the boys.
"Where art thou going?" I said to one of the senior members of the
congregation--proud to be able to address him in Marathi. "You speak
like a Brahmin," was his reply. At the time I took this to be fulsome
praise of my pronunciation, and it was not till long afterwards, as I
recalled his words, that I understood that he meant that I was
addressing him in the contemptuous way in which Brahmins speak to
their inferiors. A lady worker, after struggling bravely with the
intricacies of Marathi, said that at last she felt encouraged when,
after conversing with some Indian women, she heard one of them say,
"She speaks like a Hindu." Fortunately, or unfortunately, she did not
understand the real meaning of the remark.
Indians do not readily understand or appreciate the half-jocose way in
which Englishmen are wont to show friendliness to others. I saw at a
railway station some rather venerable Christians from a village
mission seeing off a young missionary. The new-comer was trying to be
"hail-fellow-well-met" with these members of his congregation,
smacking them on the back and laughing a good deal, and calling them
"old chaps." The latter expression they did not understand, but they
looked grave and puzzled; and probably the newly arrived missionary
learnt, after a little longer experience, that all English manners and
customs are not applicable to India.
The reverse is also true. There is an Indian kind of free-and-easy
manner which is meant to indicate a spirit of friendliness, which is
just as little understood by the Englishman, and which he not
unfrequently imagines to be intentional rudeness, and resents
accordingly.