All those emotions are meant only for a small number of chosen ones. Even
Ghazâlî's ethical mysticism is not for the multitude. The development of
Islâm as a whole, from the Hijrah on, has always been greater in breadth
than in depth; and, consequently, its pedagogics have remained defective.
Even some of the noblest minds in Islâm restrict true religious life to an
aristocracy, and accept the ignorance of the multitude as an irremediable
evil.
Throughout the centuries pantheistic and animistic forms of mysticism have
found many adherents among the Mohammedans; but the infallible Agreement
has persisted in calling that heresy. Ethical mysticism, since Ghazâlî, has
been fully recognized; and, with law and dogma, it forms the sacred trio of
sciences of Islâm, to the study of which the Arabic humanistic arts
serve as preparatory instruments. All other sciences, however useful and
necessary, are of this world and have no value for the world to come. The
unfaithful appreciate and study them as well as do the Mohammedans; but,
on Mohammedan soil they must be coloured with a Mohammedan hue, and their
results may never clash with the three religious sciences. Physics,
astronomy, and philosophy have often found it difficult to observe this
restriction, and therefore they used to be at least slightly suspected in
pious circles.
Mysticism did not only owe to Ijmâ' its place in the sacred trio, but it
succeeded, better than dogmatics, in confirming its right with words of
Allah and His Prophet. In Islâm mysticism and allegory are allied in the
usual way; for the _illuminati_ the words had quite a different meaning
than for common, every-day people. So the Qorân was made to speak the
language of mysticism; and mystic commentaries of the Holy Book exist,
which, with total disregard for philological and historical objections,
explain the verses of the Revelation as expressions of the profoundest soul
experiences. Clear utterances in this spirit were put into the Prophet's
mouth; and, like the canonists, the leaders on the mystic Way to God
boasted of a spiritual genealogy which went back to Mohammed. Thus the
Prophet is said to have declared void all knowledge and fulfillment of the
law which lacks mystic experience.
Of course only "true" mysticism is justified by Ijmâ' and confirmed by the
evidence of Qorân and Sunnah; but, about the bounds between "true" and
"false" or heretical mysticism, there exists in a large measure the
well-known diversity of opinion allowed by God's grace. The ethical
mysticism of al-Ghazâlî is generally recognized as orthodox; and the
possibility of attaining to a higher spiritual sphere by means of methodic
asceticism and contemplation is doubted by few. The following opinion has
come to prevail in wide circles: the Law offers the bread of life to all
the faithful, the dogmatics are the arsenal from which the weapons must be
taken to defend the treasures of religion against unbelief and heresy, but
mysticism shows the earthly pilgrim the way to Heaven.
It was a much lower need that assured the cult of saints a place in the
doctrine and practice of Islâm. As strange as is Mohammed's transformation
from an ordinary son of man, which he wanted to be, into the incarnation
of Divine Light, as the later biographers represent him, it is still more
astounding that the intercession of saints should have become indispensable
to the community of Mohammed, who, according to Tradition, cursed the Jews
and Christians because they worshipped the shrines of their prophets.
Almost every Moslim village has its patron saint; every country has its
national saints; every province of human life has its own human rulers,
who are intermediate between the Creator and common mortals. In no other
particular has Islâm more fully accommodated itself to the religions it
supplanted. The popular practice, which is in many cases hardly to be
distinguished from polytheism, was, to a great extent, favoured by the
theory of the intercession of the pious dead, of whose friendly assistance
people might assure themselves by doing good deeds in their names and to
their eternal advantage.
The ordinary Moslim visitor of the graves of saints does not trouble
himself with this ingenious compromise between the severe monotheism of his
prophet and the polytheism of his ancestors. He is firmly convinced, that
the best way to obtain the satisfaction of his desire after earthly or
heavenly goods is to give the saint whose special care these are what he
likes best; and he confidently leaves it to the venerated one to settle the
matter with Allah, who is far too high above the ordinary mortal to allow
of direct contact.
In support even of this startling deviation from the original, traditions
have been devised. Moreover, the veneration of human beings was favoured
by some forms of mysticism; for, like many saints, many mystics had their
eccentricities, and it was much to the advantage of mystic theologians if
the vulgar could be persuaded to accept their aberrations from normal
rules of life as peculiarities of holy men. But Ijmâ' did more even than
tradition and mysticism to make the veneration of legions of saints
possible in the temples of the very men who were obliged by their ritual
law to say to Allah several time daily: "Thee only do we worship and to
Thee alone do we cry for help."
In the tenth century of our era Islâm's process of accommodation was
finished in all its essentials. From this time forward, if circumstances
were favourable, it could continue the execution of its world conquering
plans without being compelled to assimilate any more foreign elements.
Against each spiritual asset that another universal religion could boast,
it could now put forward something of a similar nature, but which still
showed characteristics of its own, and the superiority of which it could
sustain by arguments perfectly satisfactory to its followers. From that
time on, Islâm strove to distinguish itself ever more sharply from its most
important rivals. There was no absolute stagnation, the evolution was not
entirely stopped; but it moved at a much quieter pace, and its direction
was governed by internal motives, not by influences from outside. Moslim
catholicism had attained its full growth.
We cannot within the small compass of these lectures consider the
excrescences of the normal Islâm, the Shî'itic ultras, who venerated
certain descendants of Mohammed as infallible rulers of the world,
Ishma'ilites, Qarmatians, Assassins; nor the modern bastards of Islâm, such
as the Sheikhites, the Bâbî's, the Behâ'îs--who have found some adherents
in America--and other sects, which indeed sprang up on Moslim soil, but
deliberately turned to non-Mohammedan sources for their inspirations. We
must draw attention, however, to protests raised by certain minorities
against some of the ideas and practices which had been definitely adopted
by the majority.
In the midst of Mohammedan Catholicism there always lived and moved more or
less freely "protestant" elements. The comparison may even be continued,
with certain qualifications, and we may speak also of a conservative and
of a liberal protestantism in Islâm. The conservative Protestantism
is represented by the Hanbalitic school and kindred spirits, who most
emphatically preached that the Agreement (Ijmâ') of every period should be
based on that of the "pious ancestors." They therefore tested every dogma
and practice by the words and deeds of the Prophet, his contemporaries, and
the leaders of the Community in the first decades after Mohammed's death.
In their eyes the Church of later days had degenerated; and they declined
to consider the agreement of its doctors as justifying the penetration
into Islâm of ideas and usages of foreign origin. The cult of saints was
rejected by them as altogether contradictory to the Qorân and the genuine
tradition. These protestants of Islâm may be compared to those of
Christianity also in this respect, that they accepted the results of the
evolution and assimilation of the first three centuries of Islâm, but
rejected later additions as abuse and corruption. When on the verge of our
nineteenth century, they tried, as true Moslims, to force by material means
their religious conceptions on others, they were combated as heretics by
the authorities of catholic Islâm. Central and Western Arabia formed the
battlefield on which these zealots, called Wahhâbites after their leader,
were defeated by Mohammed Ali, the first Khedive, and his Egyptian army.
Since they have given up their efforts at violent reconstitution of what
they consider to be the original Islâm, they are left alone, and their
ideas have found adherents far outside Arabia, _e.g._, in British India and
in Northern and Central Africa.
In still quite another way many Moslims who found their freedom of thought
or action impeded by the prevailing law and doctrine, have returned to the
origin of their religion. Too much attached to the traditions of their
faith, deliberately to disregard these impediments, they tried to find in
the Qorân and Tradition arguments in favour of what was dictated to them by
Reason; and they found those arguments as easily as former generations had
found the bases on which to erect their casuistry, their dogma, and their
mysticism. This implied an interpretation of the oldest sources independent
from the catholic development of Islâm, and in contradiction with the
general opinion of the canonists, according to whom, since the fourth or
fifth century of the Hijrah, no one is qualified for such free research. A
certain degree of independence of mind, together with a strong attachment
to their spiritual past, has given rise in the Moslim world to this sort
of liberal protestantism, which in our age has many adherents among the
Mohammedans who have come in contact with modern civilization.
That the partisans of all these different conceptions could remain together
as the children of one spiritual family, is largely owing to the elastic
character of Ijmâ', the importance of which is to some extent acknowledged
by catholics and protestants, by moderns and conservatives. It has never
been contested that the community, whose agreement was the test of truth,
should not consist of the faithful masses, but of the expert elect. In
a Christian church we should have spoken of the clergy, with a further
definition of the organs through which it was to express itself synod,
council, or Pope. Islâm has no clergy, as we have seen; the qualification
of a man to have his own opinion depends entirely upon the scope of his
knowledge or rather of his erudition. There is no lack of standards, fixed
by Mohammedan authorities, in which the requirements for a scholar to
qualify him for Ijmâ' are detailed. The principal criterion is the
knowledge of the canon law; quite what we should expect from the history
of the evolution of Islâm. But, of course, dogmatists and mystics had also
their own "agreements" on the questions concerning them, and through the
compromise between Law, Dogma, and Mysticism, there could not fail to
come into existence a kind of mixed Ijmâ'. Moreover, the standards and
definitions could have only a certain theoretical value, as there never has
existed a body that could speak in the name of all. The decisions of Ijmâ'
were therefore to be ascertained only in a vague and general way. The
speakers were individuals whose own authority depended on Ijmâ', whereas
Ijmâ' should have been their collective decision. Thus it was possible for
innumerable shades of Catholicism and protestantism to live under one roof;
with a good deal of friction, it is true, but without definite breach or
schism, no one sect being able to eject another from the community.
Moslim political authorities are bound not only to extend the domain of
Islâm, but also to keep the community in the right path in its life and
doctrine. This task they have always conceived in accordance with their
political interests; Islâm has had its religious persecutions but tolerance
was very usual, and even official favouring of heresy not quite exceptional
with Moslim rulers. Regular maintenance of religious discipline existed
nowhere. Thus in the bond of political obedience elements which might
otherwise have been scattered were held together. The political decay of
Islâm in our a day has done away with what had been left of official power
to settle religious differences and any organization of spiritual authority
never existed. Hence it is only natural that the diversity of opinion
allowed by the grace of Allah now shows itself on a greater scale than ever
before.
III
THE POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ISLÂM
In the first period of Islâm, the functions of what we call Church and
what we call State were exercised by the same authority. Its political
development is therefore of great importance for the understanding of its
religious growth.
The Prophet, when he spoke in the name of God, was the lawgiver of his
community, and it was rightly understood by the later Faithful that his
indispensable explanations of God's word had also legislative power. From
the time of the Hijrah the nature of the case made him the ruler, the
judge, and the military commander of his theocratic state. Moreover, Allah
expressly demanded of the Moslims that they should obey "the Messenger
of God, and those amongst them who have authority."[1] We see by this
expression that Mohammed shared his temporal authority with others. His
co-rulers were not appointed, their number was nowhere defined, they were
not a closed circle; they were the notables of the tribes or other groups
who had arrayed themselves under Mohammed's authority, and a few who had
gained influence by their personality. In their councils Mohammed's word
had no decisive power, except when he spoke in the name of Allah; and we
know how careful he was to give oracles only in cases of extreme need.
[Footnote 1: Qorân, iv., 62.]
In the last years of Mohammed's life his authority became extended over a
large part of Arabia; but he did very little in the way of centralization
of government. He sent _'âmils, i.e._, agents, to the conquered tribes
or villages, who had to see that, in the first place, the most important
regulations of the Qorân were followed, and, secondly, that the tax into
which the duty of almsgiving had been converted was promptly paid, and
that the portion of it intended for the central fund at Medina was duly
delivered. After the great conquests, the governors of provinces of the
Moslim Empire, who often exercised a despotic power, were called by the
same title of _'âmils_. The agents of Mohammed, however, did not possess
such unlimited authority. It was only gradually that the Arabs learned the
value of good discipline and submission to a strong guidance, and adopted
the forms of orderly government as they found them in the conquered lands.
Through the death of Mohammed everything became uncertain. The combination
under one leadership of such a heterogeneous mass as that of his Arabs
would have been unthinkable a few years before. It became quite natural,
though, as soon as the Prophet's mouth was recognized as the organ of
Allah's voice. Must this monarchy be continued after Allah's mouthpiece had
ceased to exist? It was not at all certain. The force of circumstances and
the energy of some of Mohammed's counsellors soon led to the necessary
decisions. A number of the notables of the community succeeded in forcing
upon the hesitating or unwilling members the acceptance of the monarchy as
a permanent institution. There must be a khalîf, a deputy of the Prophet in
all his functions (except that of messenger of God), who would be ruler
and judge and leader of public worship, but above all _amîr al-mu'minîn_,
"Commander of the Faithful," in the struggle both against the apostate
Arabs and against the hostile tribes on the northern border.
But for the military success of the first khalifs Islâm would never have
become a universal religion. Every exertion was made to keep the troops of
the Faithful complete. The leaders followed only Mohammed's example
when they represented fighting for Allah's cause as the most enviable
occupation. The duty of military service was constantly impressed upon the
Moslims; the lust of booty and the desire for martyrdom, to which the Qorân
assigned the highest reward, were excited to the utmost. At a later period,
it became necessary in the interests of order to temper the result of this
excitement by traditions in which those of the Faithful who died in the
exercise of a peaceful, honest profession were declared to be witnesses to
the Faith as well as those who were slain in battle against the enemies of
God,--traditions in which the real and greater holy war was described as
the struggle against evil passions. The necessity of such a mitigating
reaction, the spirit in which the chapters on holy war of Mohammedan
lawbooks are conceived, and the galvanizing power which down to our own day
is contained in a call to arms in the name of Allah, all this shows that
in the beginning of Islâm the love of battle had been instigated at the
expense of everything else.
The institution of the Khalifate had hardly been agreed upon when the
question of who should occupy it became the subject of violent dissension.
The first four khalîfs, whose reigns occupied the first thirty years after
Mohammed's death, were Qoraishites, tribesmen of the Prophet, and moreover
men who had been his intimate friends. The sacred tradition relates a
saying of Mohammed: "The _imâms_ are from Qoraish," intended to confine the
Khalifate to men from that tribe. History, however, shows that this edict
was forged to give the stamp of legality to the results of a long political
struggle. For at Mohammed's death the Medinese began fiercely contesting
the claims of the Qoraishites; and during the reign of Alî, the fourth
Khalîf, the Khârijites rebelled, demanding, as democratic rigorists, the
free election of khalîfs without restriction to the tribe of Qoraish or to
any other descent. Their standard of requirements contained only religious
and moral qualities; and they claimed for the community the continual
control of the chosen leader's behaviour and the right of deposing him
as soon as they found him failing in the fulfilment of his duties. Their
anarchistic revolutions, which during more than a century occasionally gave
much trouble to the Khalifate, caused Islâm to accentuate the aristocratic
character of its monarchy. They were overcome and reduced to a sect, the
survivors of which still exist in South-Eastern Arabia, in Zanzibar, and in
Northern Africa; however, the actual life of these communities resembles
that of their spiritual forefathers to a very remote degree.
Another democratic doctrine, still more radical than that of the
Khârijites, makes even non-Arabs eligible for the Khalifate. It must have
had a considerable number of adherents, for the tradition which makes the
Prophet responsible for it is to be found in the canonic collections. Later
generations, however, rendered it harmless by exegesis; they maintained
that in this text "commander" meant only subordinate chiefs, and not "the
Commander of the Faithful." It became a dogma in the orthodox Mohammedan
world, respected up to the sixteenth century, that only members of the
tribe of Qoraish could take the place of the Messenger of God.
The chance of success was greater for the legitimists than for the
democratic party. The former wished to make the Khalifate the privilege
of Alî, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and his descendants. At
first the community did not take much notice of that "House of Mohammed";
and it did not occur to any one to give them a special part in the
direction of affairs. Alî and Fâtima themselves asked to be placed in
possession only of certain goods which had belonged to Mohammed, but which
the first khalîfs would not allow to be regarded as his personal property;
they maintained that the Prophet had had the disposal of them not as owner,
but as head of the state. This narrow greed and absence of political
insight seemed to be hereditary in the descendants of Ali and Fâtima; for
there was no lack of superstitious reverence for them in later times, and
if one of them had possessed something of the political talent of the best
Omayyads and Abbasids he would certainly have been able to supplant them.
After the third Khalîf, Othmân, had been murdered by his political
opponents, Ali became his successor; but he was more remote than any of his
predecessors from enjoying general sympathy. At that time the Shî'ah, the
"Party" of the House of the Prophet, gradually arose, which maintained that
Ali should have been the first Khalîf, and that his descendants should
succeed him. The veneration felt for those descendants increased in the
same proportion as that for the Prophet himself; and moreover, there
were at all times malcontents, whose advantage would be in joining any
revolution against the existing government. Yet the Alids never succeeded
in accomplishing anything against the dynasties of the Omayyads, the
Abbasids, and the Ottomans, except in a few cases of transitory importance
only.
The Fatimite dynasty, of rather doubtful descent, which ruled a part
of Northern Africa and Egypt in the tenth century A.D., was completely
suppressed after some two and a half centuries. The Sherîfs who have ruled
Morocco for more than 950 years were not chiefs of a party that considered
the legality of their leadership a dogma; they owe their local Khalifate
far more to the out-of-the-way position of their country which prevented
Abbasids and Turks from meddling with their affairs. Otherwise, they would
have been obliged at any rate to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Great
Lord of Constantinople. This was the case with the Sherîfs of Mecca, who
ever since the twelfth century have regarded the sacred territory as their
domain. Their principality arose out of the general political disturbance
and the division of the Mohammedan empire into a number of kingdoms, whose
mutual strife prevented them from undertaking military operations in the
desert. These Sherîfs raised no claim to the Khalifate; and the Shî'itic
tendencies they displayed in the Middle Ages had no political significance,
although they had intimate relations with the Zaidites of Southern Arabia.
As first Egypt and afterwards Turkey made their protectorate over the holy
cities more effective, the princes of Mecca became orthodox.
The Zaidites, who settled in Yemen from the ninth century on, are really
Shî'ites, although of the most moderate kind. Without striving after
expansion outside Arabia, they firmly refuse to give up their own Khalifate
and to acknowledge the sovereignty of any non-Alid ruler; the efforts of
the Turks to subdue them or to make a compromise with them have had no
lasting results. This is the principal obstacle against their being
included in the orthodox community, although their admission is defended,
even under present circumstances, by many non-political Moslim scholars.
The Zaidites are the remnant of the original Arabian Shî'ah, which for
centuries has counted adherents in all parts of the Moslim world, and some
of whose tenets have penetrated Mohammedan orthodoxy. The almost general
veneration of the sayyids and sherîfs, as the descendants of Mohammed are
entitled, is due to this influence.