I do not desire to explain the importance and significance of Islam
among the religious systems of the world; nor am I to fix and ascertain
the exact position of Mohamed as a religious teacher among the world’s
great teachers of religions. My effort in this paper is simpler and
yet not altogether free from bewildering perplexities. I desire to
explain what Islam is and what its teachings are: Islam as preached and
delivered by the prophet of Arabia; Islam stripped of the accretions
of ages of theological disputes and controversies; in other words to
sketch out, to the best of my light and leading, Islam of the prophet
Mohamed. Difficult though this task is, it is not indeed a hopeless
venture for one who has kept himself clear and free from narrow
sectarianism.
To fully appreciate the message of Mohamed, it is essential that I
should say something about the condition of Arabia before Islam. I must
readily admit that so far as the Pagan Arabia is concerned, we are in
great dearth of authorities. Our information is shadowy, fitful, and
fragmentary and the industry of European scholars (such as Caussin De
Perceval, Krehl, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith and Sir Charles Lyall) has
succeeded but in lifting the veil merely at its fringe. But however
partial and unsatisfactory as the account is, of the Pagan days; we can
yet form an idea of the life that the Pagan Arabs led and the thoughts
that swayed and animated their conduct and their deeds. I will,
therefore, describe “The Pre-Islamic Arabia” as briefly as I can.
The Pre-Islamic Arabs were not a nation. Of the sense of nationality,
indeed, they had not the vaguest conception, though they were linked by
community of speech. Arabia was a sum-total of loose and disconnected
congeries of tribes and the tribe was the source and the limit of
social and political obligation. Beyond the tribe there lay no duty and
no obligation either. Political relations were moral; for morality was
confined within the limits of the tribe. Political organisation was
represented by the corporate feeling which found expression in the
exercise of the duties of brotherhood. Within the pale of the tribe
obtained the prohibition to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, &c.,
&c. Beyond it there was no such prohibition. Fidelity to one’s kinsman
was an imperative duty, apart from any question of the justness of the
cause.[1] Outside the tribe there was nothing but constant plunder
and unceasing warfare. “Certain large groups were, indeed, almost
continually at war with one another. Ma`add, the people of the Hijaz
and Al-yamamah generally looked upon Al-yaman as their natural prey
and were constantly raiding on the herds of their southern neighbours.
Between Tamim and Bakr, son of Wail, there was permanent bad blood,
Ghatafan and Hawazin had a standing feud. In the north the kingdom of
Al-Hirah, the representative of Persian predominance was the hereditary
enemy of Ghassan, the representative of the might of Rome.” (Lyall,
_Ancient Arabian Poetry_, p. xxiii.) Arabia, before Islam, was thus
a theatre of internecine warfare, restrained, but partially, by the
introduction of blood money. There was compensation for everything for
which vengeance could be exacted. All crimes were assessed as economic
damage. Every loss of honor, property, or life could be appraised by
agreement; all having their price in camels. We thus see that the
Arabs before Islam had scarcely emerged from barbaric conditions.[2]
There was no social order, no organised government. The law of sheer
brute force prevailed, untempered and unrestrained, by any civilizing
or controlling influence. Nor did they attain any refined idea of
religion. Their religion was nothing more or less than gross fetichism;
the worship of tree and stone, the veneration of certain personified
divine attributes, meaningless ritual and ceremonials. The true
religious spirit they never succeeded in grasping and the fear of God
never exercised any real, practical influence over their conduct and
actions. It was reserved for Islam to instil into them the sense of
responsibility to God and to make this idea of human responsibility
the guiding and controlling principle of life. To all appearance the
Arabs honoured the gods, went on pilgrimage to their sanctuaries,
made sacrifices in the temples, anointed with the blood of the victims
gods carved out of stone or made of wood, consulted the oracles, when
in difficulty, and questioned them about the future. But all this was
sham and counterfeit. Of real, genuine, religious feeling there was
none. This empty show, however, was kept up for purposes of gain; the
manifold sanctuaries yielding large incomes to certain noble families
and clans.[3]
In a soil, apparently so uncongenial, how did Islam strike its root?
This is an interesting and fascinating question and we must try to
solve it here. The solution of this question is to be found in the
existence of Judaism and Christianity, on the one hand, and in the
commercial activity of the Arabs, on the other. By commerce the
Arabs acquired an extended knowledge of foreign nations and their
civilisation. Frequent contact with the outer world widened their
intellectual horizon and awakened in them higher and more spiritual
thoughts. They learnt new ideas, acquired new habits and, what was
most valuable of all, they learnt to think for themselves. But not
merely did travel in foreign countries and intercourse with foreign
people exercise a disruptive influence, but there were forces, alike
subversive and destructive, nearer home. In Arabia itself the two
streams of Christianity and Judaism flowed, side by side, with the Arab
Heathenism.
That Christianity had made a considerable advance among the Arabs is
clear from the fact, that, at the time of Mohamed, it was considerably
diffused not merely among the Rabia tribes but even among the Tamim.
Nor did the Taiyy altogether escape its influence. Its growth, however,
was not so favourable in Hijaz and central Arabia, but even here
Christian ideas undoubtedly made their way through commerce and social
intercourse. Similarly the Jewish influence was equally powerful. When
the Jews came to Arabia we do not definitely know, but Dr. Nöldeke
points out that a great Jewish immigration into Arabia cannot be fixed
prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Hadrian. At all
events, it is clear that at the time of Mohamed there was a large
colony of Jews at Taima, Khaibar, Yathrib, Fedak and Yaman. They did
not live scattered amidst Arab population but kept together and,
though despised by the Ara`sq they were yet indispensible to them as
merchants, jewellers, and goldsmiths. It would, therefore, be not
an error to suppose that they exerted no small spiritual influence
over the Arabs.[4] That this is no unfounded theory or improbable
supposition is evidenced by the fact that in the works of four of the
most prominent Arabian poets of the Pre-Islamic time--An-Nabigah,
Zuhair, Al-Asha and Labid--we find expressions which show that they,
at least, if not the wild wanderers of the desert, knew very well what
a spiritual religion meant.[5] Ibn Qutaibah enumerates drinking, joy,
wrath and love among the “motive causes” which speed the poet but we
cannot fail to detect in their poems an undercurrent of deep religious
feelings. Individual minds felt a sense of uneasiness and sought to
find some plausible solution of the mysteries of life and death and
traces of such a frame of mind we notice frequently in ancient Arab
poetry. On no other basis, indeed, can we explain away the lamentations
of the royal poet Imra-ul-Qais over the worthlessness of the life of
pleasure that he had led and the conversion to Christianity of Qais B.
Zuhair, the leader of the Abs in the long fratricidal war against the
Dhubian.[6] In considering the rise of Islam we cannot be unwatchful
of the course of contemporary thought or unmindful of the religious
forces which contributed to its success. Such, indeed, were the forces
at work in Arabia before Mohamed; forces which could not have failed
to stir higher thoughts in enlightened minds and to create a reaction
against the Arab Heathenism. And a reaction, indeed, did set in. A
band of distinguished men, whom we must recognise as the heralds and
standard-bearers of Islam, no longer willing to tolerate idolatrous
practices, definitely cut themselves adrift from the Arabian Paganism.
They called themselves Hanifs; a word of doubtful meaning and the cause
of much controversy. “The most acceptable conjecture seems to me”, says
Sir Charles Lyall, “to be that of Sprenger that it is connected with
the Hebrew HANEF heretic.” Hanifism had certain specific features:
rejection of idolatory, abstention from certain kinds of food, and
the worship of “the God of Abraham.” Ascetic practices, such as the
wearing of sackcloth, are also ascribed to some of the Hanifs.[7]
Islamic tradition has handed down to us the names of a number of
religious thinkers before Mohamed, who are described as Hanifs and of
whom the following is a list:--
1. Warakah b. Naufal of Kuraish.
2. Ubaidulla b. Jahsh.
3. Uthman b. Al Huwarith.
4. Zaid b. ´Amr b. Naufal.