Wants the faculty of adaptation.]
The reason is not far to find. Islam was meant for Arabia, not for the
world; for the Arabs of the seventh century, not for the Arabs of all
time; and being such, and nothing more, its claim of divine origin
renders change or development impossible. It has within itself neither
the germ of natural growth nor the lively spring of adaptation. Mohammed
declared himself a prophet to the Arabs;[71] and however much in his
later days he may have contemplated the reformation of other religions
beyond the Peninsula, or the further spread of his own (which is
doubtful), still the rites and ceremonies, the customs and the laws
enjoined upon his people, were suitable (if suitable at all) for the
Arabs of that day, and in many respects for them alone. Again, the code
containing these injunctions, social and ceremonial, as well as
doctrinal and didactic, is embodied with every particularity of detail,
as part of the divine law, in the Koran; and so defying, as sacrilege,
all human touch, it stands unalterable forever. From the stiff and rigid
shroud in which it is thus swathed the religion of Mohammed cannot
emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest
days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet
shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves to the
varying circumstances, the wants and developments, of mankind.
[Sidenote: Local ceremonies: pilgrimage.
Fast of Ramzan.]
We may judge of the local and inflexible character of the faith from one
or two of its ceremonies. To perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount
Arafat, with the slaying of victims at Mina, and the worship of the
Kaaba, is an ordinance obligatory (with the condition only that they
have the means) on all believers, who are bound to make the journey even
from the furthest ends of the earth--an ordinance intelligible enough in
a local worship, but unmeaning and impracticable when required of a
world-wide religion. The same may be said of the fast of Ramzan. It is
prescribed in the Koran to be observed by all with undeviating
strictness during the whole day, from earliest dawn till sunset
throughout the month, with specified exemptions for the sick and
penalties for every occasion on which it is broken. The command, imposed
thus with an iron rule on male and female, young and old, operates with
excessive inequality in different seasons, lands, and climates. However
suitable to countries near the equator, where the variations of day and
night are immaterial, the fast becomes intolerable to those who are far
removed either toward the north or the south; and still closer to the
poles, where night merges into day and day into night, impracticable.
Again, with the lunar year (itself an institution divinely imposed), the
month of Ramzan travels in the third of a century from month to month
over the whole cycle of a year. The fast was established at a time when
Ramzan fell in winter, and the change of season was probably not
foreseen by the Prophet. But the result is one which, under some
conditions of time and place, involves the greatest hardship. For when
the fast comes round to summer the trial in a sultry climate, like that
of the burning Indian plains, of passing the whole day without a morsel
of bread or a drop of water becomes to many the occasion of intense
suffering. Such is the effect of the Arabian legislator's attempt at
circumstantial legislation in matters of religious ceremonial.
[Sidenote: Political and social depression owing to relations between
the sexes.]
Nearly the same is the case with all the religions obligations of Islam,
prayer, lustration, etc. But although the minuteness of detail with
which these are enjoined tends toward that jejune and formal worship
which we witness every-where in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in
these observances themselves which (religion apart) should lower the
social condition of Mohammedan populations and prevent their emerging
from that normal state of semi-barbarism and uncivilized depression in
which we find all Moslem peoples. For the cause of this we must look
elsewhere; and it may be recognized, without doubt, in the relations
established by the Koran between the sexes. Polygamy, divorce, servile
concubinage, and the veil are at the root of Moslem decadence.
[Sidenote: Depression of the female sex.
Divorce.]
In respect of married life the condition allotted by the Koran to woman
is that of an inferior dependent creature, destined only for the
service of her master, liable to be cast adrift without the assignment
of a single reason or the notice of a single hour. While the husband
possesses the power of a divorce--absolute, immediate, unquestioned--no
privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She
hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual
slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced she can,
indeed, claim her dower--her _hire_, as it is called in the too plain
language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this
claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and
in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power
of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical
husband. Authority to _confine_ and to _beat_ his wives is distinctly
vested in his discretion.[72] "Thus restrained, secluded, degraded, the
mere minister of enjoyment, liable at the caprice or passion of the
moment to be turned adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of
a wife was improved by the code of Mohammed."[73] Even if the privilege
of divorce and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its
existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self-respect, and
in like degree to weaken the influence of the sex, impairing thus the
ameliorating and civilizing power which she was meant to exercise upon
mankind. And the evil has been stereotyped by the Koran for all time.
[Sidenote: Principal Fairbairn on home-life under Islam.]
I must quote one more passage from Principal Fairbairn on the lowering
influence of Moslem domestic life:
The God of Mohammed ... "spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion
that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race; one that
depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood is to
be sacred if manhood is to be honorable. Spoil the wife of sanctity
and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so it has
been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes; it has
depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its
fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms
soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of man, then his
state were hopeless; before him could only be retrogression,
tyranny, and despair."[74]
[Sidenote: Demoralizing influence of servile concubinage.]
Still worse is the influence of servile concubinage. The following is
the evidence of a shrewd and able observer in the East:
All zenana life must be bad for men at all stages of their
existence.... In youth it must be ruin to be petted and spoiled by
a company of submissive slave-girls. In manhood it is no less an
evil that when a man enters into private life his affections should
be put up to auction among foolish, fond competitors full of
mutual jealousies and slanders. We are not left entirely to
conjecture as to the effect of female influence on home-life when
it is exerted under these unenlightened and demoralizing
conditions. That is plainly an element _lying at the root of all
the most important features that differentiate progress from
stagnation_.[75]
[Sidenote: Deteriorating influence of relations established between the
sexes.]
Such are the institutions which gnaw at the root of Islam and prevent
the growth of freedom and civilization. "By these the unity of the
household is fatally broken and the purity and virtue of the family tie
weakened; the vigor of the dominant classes is sapped; the body politic
becomes weak and languid, excepting for intrigues, and the throne itself
liable to fall a prey to a doubtful or contested
succession"[76]--contested by the progeny of the various rivals crowded
into the royal harem. From the palace downward polygamy and servile
concubinage lower the moral tone, loosen the ties of domestic life, and
hopelessly depress the people.
[Sidenote: The veil.]
Nor is the veil, albeit under the circumstances a necessary precaution,
less detrimental, though in a different way, to the interests of Moslem
society. This strange custom owes its origin to the Prophet's jealous
temperament. It is forbidden in the Koran for women to appear unveiled
before any member of the other sex with the exception of certain near
relatives of specified propinquity.[77] And this law, coupled with other
restrictions of the kind, has led to the imposition of the _boorka_ or
_purdah_ (the dress which conceals the person and the veil) and to the
greater or less seclusion of the harem and zenana.
[Sidenote: Society vitiated by the withdrawal of the female sex.
Mohammedan society, thus truncated, incapable of progress.
The defects of Mohammedan society.]
This ordinance and the practices flowing from it must survive, more or
less, so long as the Koran remains the rule of faith. It may appear at
first sight a mere negative evil, a social custom comparatively
harmless; but in truth it has a more debilitating effect upon the Moslem
race perhaps than any thing else, for by it _woman is totally withdrawn
from her proper place in the social circle_. She may, indeed, in the
comparatively laxer license of some lands be seen flitting along the
streets or driving in her carriage; but even so it is like one belonging
to another world, veiled, shrouded, and cut off from intercourse with
those around her. Free only in the retirement of her own secluded
apartments, she is altogether shut out from her legitimate sphere in the
duties and enjoyments of life. But the blight on the sex itself from
this unnatural regulation, sad as it is, must be regarded as a minor
evil. The mischief extends beyond her. The tone and framework of society
as it came from the Maker's hands are altered, damaged, and
deteriorated. From the veil there flows this double injury. The bright,
refining, softening influence of woman is withdrawn from the outer
world, and social life, wanting the gracious influences of the female
sex, becomes, as we see throughout Moslem lands, forced, hard,
unnatural, and morose. Moreover, the Mohammedan nations, for all
purposes of common elevation and for all efforts of philanthropy and
liberty, are (as they live in public and beyond the inner recesses of
their homes) but a truncated and imperfect exhibition of humanity. They
are wanting in one of its constituent parts, the better half, the
humanizing and the softening element. And it would be against the nature
of things to suppose that the body, thus shorn and mutilated, can
possess in itself the virtue and power of progress, reform, and
elevation. The link connecting the family with social and public life is
detached, and so neither is _en rapport_, as it should be, with the
other. Reforms fail to find entrance into the family or to penetrate the
domestic soil where alone they could take root, grow into the national
mind, live, and be perpetuated. Under such conditions the seeds of
civilization refuse to germinate. No real growth is possible in free and
useful institutions, nor any permanent and healthy force in those great
movements which elsewhere tend to uplift the masses and elevate mankind.
There may, it is true, be some advance, from time to time, in science
and in material prosperity; but the social groundwork for the same is
wanting, and the people surely relapse into the semi-barbarism forced
upon them by an ordinance which is opposed to the best instincts of
humanity. Sustained progress becomes impossible. Such is the outcome of
an attempt to improve upon nature and banish woman, the help-meet of
man, from the position assigned by God to her in the world.
[Sidenote: Yet the veil necessary under existing circumstances.]
At the same time I am not prepared to say that in view of the laxity of
the conjugal relations inherent in the institutions of Islam some such
social check as that of the veil (apart from the power to confine and
castigate) is not needed for the repression of license and the
maintenance of outward decency. There is too much reason to apprehend
that free social intercourse might otherwise be dangerous to morality
under the code of Mohammed, and with the example before men and women of
the early worthies of Islam. So long as the sentiments and habits of the
Moslem world remain as they are some remedial or preventive measure of
the kind seems indispensable. But the peculiarity of the Mussulman
polity, as we have seen, is such that the sexual laws and institutions
which call for restrictions of the kind as founded on the Koran are
incapable of change; they must co-exist with the faith itself, and last
while it lasts. So long, then, as this polity prevails the depression of
woman, as well as her exclusion from the social circle, must injure the
health and vitality of the body politic, impair its purity and grace,
paralyze vigor, retard progress in the direction of freedom,
philanthropy, and moral elevation, and generally perpetuate the normal
state of Mohammedan peoples, as one of semi-barbarism.
To recapitulate, we have seen:
[Sidenote: Recapitulation.]
_First._ That Islam was propagated mainly by the sword. With the tide of
conquest the religion went forward; where conquest was arrested made no
advance beyond; and at the withdrawal of the Moslem arms the faith also
commonly retired.
_Second._ The inducements, whether material or spiritual, to embrace
Islam have proved insufficient of themselves (speaking broadly) to
spread the faith, in the absence of the sword, and without the influence
of the political or secular arm.
_Third._ The ordinances of Islam, those especially having respect to the
female sex, have induced an inherent weakness, which depresses the
social system and retards its progress.
[Sidenote: Contrast with Christianity.]
If the reader should have followed me in the argument by which these
conclusions have been reached the contrast with the Christian faith has
no doubt been suggesting itself at each successive step.
[Sidenote: Christianity not propagated by force.]
Christianity, as Al Kindy has so forcibly put it, gained a firm footing
in the world without the sword, and without any aid whatever from the
secular arm. So far from having the countenance of the State it
triumphed in spite of opposition, persecution, and discouragement. "My
kingdom," said Jesus, "is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this
world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to
the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.... For this end came I
into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one that
is of the truth, heareth my voice."[78]
[Sidenote: Nor by worldly inducements.]
The religion itself, in its early days, offered no worldly attractions
or indulgences. It was not, like Islam, an "easy way." Whether in
withdrawal from social observances deeply tainted with idolatry, the
refusal to participate in sacrificial ceremonies insisted on by the
rulers, or in the renunciation of indulgences inconsistent with a
saintly life, the Christian profession required self-denial at every
step.
[Sidenote: Adaptive principles and plastic faculty of Christianity.]
But otherwise the teaching of Christianity nowhere interfered with the
civil institutions of the countries into which it penetrated or with any
social customs or practices that were not in themselves immoral or
idolatrous. It did not, indeed, neglect to guide the Christian life. But
it did so by the enunciation of principles and rules of wide and
far-reaching application. These, no less than the injunctions of the
Koran, served amply for the exigencies of the day. But they have done a
vast deal more. They have proved themselves capable of adaptation to the
most advanced stages of social development and intellectual elevation.
And, what is infinitely more, it may be claimed for the lessons embodied
in the Gospel that they have been themselves promotive, if indeed they
have not been the immediate cause, of all the most important reforms and
philanthropies that now prevail in Christendom. The principles thus laid
down contained germs endowed with the power of life and growth which,
expanding and flourishing, slowly it may be, but surely, have at the
last borne the fruits we see.
[Sidenote: Examples: slavery.
Relations between the sexes.]
Take, for example, the institution of slavery. It prevailed in the Roman
Empire at the introduction of Christianity, as it did in Arabia at the
rise of Islam. In the Moslem code, as we have seen, the practice has
been perpetuated. Slavery must be held permissible so long as the Koran
is taken to be the rule of faith. The divine sanction thus impressed
upon the institution, and the closeness with which by law and custom it
intermingles with social and domestic life, make it impossible for any
Mohammedan people to impugn slavery as contrary to sound morality or for
any body of loyal believers to advocate its abolition upon the ground
of principle. There are, moreover, so many privileges and gratifications
accruing to the higher classes from its maintenance that (excepting
under the strong pressure of European diplomacy) no sincere and hearty
effort can be expected from the Moslem race in the suppression of the
inhuman traffic, the horrors of which, as pursued by Moslem
slave-traders, their Prophet would have been the first to denounce. Look
now at the wisdom with which the Gospel treats the institution. It is
nowhere in so many words proscribed, for that would, under the
circumstances, have led to the abnegation of relative duties and the
disruption of society. It is accepted as a prevailing institution
recognized by the civil powers. However desirable freedom might be,
slavery was not inconsistent with the Christian profession: "Art thou
called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made
free, use it rather."[e] The duty of obedience to his master is enjoined
upon the slave, and the duty of mildness and urbanity toward his slave
is enjoined upon the master. But with all this was laid the seed which
grew into emancipation. "_Our Father_," gave the key-note of freedom.
"Ye are _all_ the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." "There is
neither bond nor free, ... for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."[f] "He that
is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman."[g] The
converted slave is to be received "not now as a servant, but above a
servant, a brother beloved."[h] The seed has borne its proper harvest. Late
in time, no doubt, but by a sure and certain development, the grand
truth of the equality of the human race, and the right of every man and
woman to freedom of thought and (within reasonable limit of law) to
freedom of action, has triumphed; and it has triumphed through the
Spirit and the precepts inculcated by the Gospel eighteen hundred years
ago. Nor is it otherwise with the relations established between the
sexes. Polygamy, divorce, and concubinage with bondmaid's have been
perpetuated, as we have seen, by Islam for all time; and the ordinances
connected therewith have given rise, in the laborious task of defining
the conditions and limits of what is lawful, to a mass of prurient
casuistry defiling the books of Mohammedan law. Contrast with this our
Saviour's words, "_He which made them at the beginning made them male
and female.... What therefore God hath joined together let not man put
asunder_."[i] From which simple utterance have resulted monogamy and (in
the absence of adultery) the indissolubility of the marriage bond. While
in respect of conjugal duties we have such large, but sufficiently
intelligible, commands as "to render due benevolence,"[j] whereby, while
the obligations of the marriage state are maintained, Christianity is
saved from the impurities which, in expounding the ordinances of
Mohammed, surround the sexual ethics of Islam, and cast so foul a stain
upon its literature.
[Sidenote: Elevation of woman.]
Take, again, the place of woman in the world. We need no injunction of
the veil or the harem. As the temples of the Holy Ghost, the body is to
be kept undefiled, and every one is "to possess his vessel in
sanctification and honor."[k] Men are to treat "the elder women as mothers;
the younger as sisters, with all purity."[l] Women are to "adorn themselves
in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety."[m] These, and such
like maxims embrace the whole moral fitness of the several relations and
duties which they define. They are adapted for all ages of time and for
all conditions of men. They are capable of being taken by every
individual for personal guidance, according to his own sense of
propriety, and they can be accommodated by society at large with a due
reference to the habits and customs of the day. The attempt of Mohammed
to lay down, with circumstantial minuteness, the position of the female
sex, the veiling of her person, and her withdrawal from the gaze of man,
has resulted in seclusion and degradation; while the spirit of the
Gospel, and injunctions like that of "giving honor to the wife as to the
weaker vessel,"[n] have borne the fruit of woman's elevation, and have
raised her to the position of influence, honor, and equality which
(notwithstanding the marital superiority of the husband in the ideal of
a Christian family) she now occupies in the social scale.
[Sidenote: Relations with the State.
Christianity leaves humanity free to expand.]
In the type of Mussulman government which (though not laid down in the
Koran) is founded upon the spirit of the faith and the precedent of the
Prophet the civil is indissolubly blended with the spiritual authority,
to the detriment of religious liberty and political progress. The
_Ameer_, or commander of the faithful, should, as in the early times, so
also in all ages, be the _Imam_, or religious chief; and as such he
should preside at the weekly cathedral service. It is not a case of the
Church being subject to the State, or the State being subject to the
Church. Here (as we used to see in the papal domains) the Church is the
State, and the State the Church. They both are one. And in this we have
another cause of the backwardness and depression of Mohammedan society.
Since the abolition of the temporal power in Italy we have nowhere in
Christian lands any such theocratic union of Cæsar and the Church, so
that secular and religious advance is left more or less unhampered;
whereas in Islam the hierarchico-political constitution has hopelessly
welded the secular arm with the spiritual in one common scepter, to the
furthering of despotism, and elimination of the popular voice from its
proper place in the concerns of State.
[Sidenote: The Koran checks progress.]
And so, throughout the whole range of political, religious, social, and
domestic relations, the attempt made by the founder of Islam to provide
for all contingencies, and to fix every thing aforehand by rigid rule
and scale, has availed to cramp and benumb the free activities of life
and to paralyze the natural efforts of society at healthy growth,
expansion, and reform. As an author already quoted has so well put it,
"_The Koran has frozen Mohammedan thought; to obey it is to abandon
progress_."[79]
[Sidenote: Is Islam suitable for any nation?]
Writers have indeed been found who, dwelling upon the benefits conferred
by Islam on idolatrous and savage nations, have gone so far as to hold
that the religion of Mohammed may in consequence be suited to certain
portions of mankind--as if the faith of Jesus might peaceably divide
with it the world. But surely to acquiesce in a system which reduces the
people to a dead level of social depression, despotism, and
semi-barbarism would be abhorrent from the first principles of
philanthropy. With the believer, who holds the Gospel to be "good
tidings of great joy, _which shall be to all people_,"[o] such a notion is
on higher grounds untenable; but even in view of purely secular
considerations it is not only untenable, but altogether unintelligible.
As I have said elsewhere: