PREMATURE END OF THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE EAST.
THE THREE ATTACKS, VANDAL, PERSIAN, ARAB.
THE VANDAL ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Africa.--Recovery of
that Province by Justinian after great Calamities._
THE PERSIAN ATTACK _leads to the Loss of Syria and Fall of
Jerusalem.--The true Cross carried away as a Trophy.--Moral
Impression of these Attacks._
THE ARAB ATTACK.--_Birth, Mission, and Doctrines of
Mohammed.--Rapid Spread of his Faith in Asia and Africa.--Fall
of Jerusalem.--Dreadful Losses of Christianity to
Mohammedanism.--The Arabs become a learned Nation._
_Review of the Koran.--Reflexions on the Loss of Asia and
Africa by Christendom._
[Sidenote: Three attacks made upon the Byzantine system.]
I have now to describe the end of the age of Faith in the East. The
Byzantine system, out of which it had issued, was destroyed by three
attacks: 1st, by the Vandal invasion of Africa; 2nd, by the military
operations of Chosroes, the Persian king; 3rd, by Mohammedanism.
Of these three attacks, the Vandal may be said, in a military sense, to
have been successfully closed by the victories of Justinian; but,
politically, the cost of those victories was the depopulation and ruin
of the empire, particularly in the south and west. The second, the
Persian attack, though brilliantly resisted in its later years by the
Emperor Heraclius, left, throughout the East, a profound moral
impression, which proved final and fatal in the Mohammedan attack.
[Sidenote: The Vandal attack.]
[Sidenote: Conquest of Africa.]
No heresy has ever produced such important political results as that of
Arius. While it was yet a vital doctrine, it led to the infliction of
unspeakable calamities on the empire, and, though long ago forgotten,
has blasted permanently some of the fairest portions of the globe. When
Count Boniface, incited by the intrigues of the patrician Ætius, invited
Genseric, the King of the Vandals, into Africa, that barbarian found in
the discontented sectaries his most effectual aid. In vain would he
otherwise have attempted the conquest of the country with the 50,000 men
he landed from Spain, A.D. 429. Three hundred Donatist bishops, and many
thousand priests, driven to despair by the persecutions inflicted by the
emperor, carrying with them that large portion of the population who
were Arian, were ready to look upon him as a deliverer, and therefore to
afford him support. The result to the empire was the loss of Africa.
[Sidenote: The reign of Justinian.]
It was nothing more than might have been expected that Justinian, when
he found himself firmly seated on the throne of Constantinople, should
make an attempt to retrieve these disasters. The principles which led
him to his scheme of legislation; to the promotion of manufacturing
interests by the fabrication of silk; to the reopening of the ancient
routes to India, so as to avoid transit through the Persian dominions;
to his attempt at securing the carrying trade of Europe for the Greeks,
also suggested the recovery of Africa. To this important step he was
urged by the Catholic clergy. In a sinister but suitable manner, his
reign was illustrated by his closing the schools of philosophy at
Athens, ostensibly because of their affiliation to paganism, but in
reality on account of his detestation of the doctrines of Aristotle and
Plato; by the abolition of the consulate of Rome; by the extinction of
the Roman senate, A.D. 552; by the capture and recapture five times of
the Eternal City. The vanishing of the Roman race was thus marked by an
extinction of the instruments of ancient philosophy and power.
[Sidenote: His reconquest of Africa.]
The indignation of the Catholics was doubtless justly provoked by the
atrocities practised in the Arian behalf by the Vandal kings of Africa,
who, among other cruelties, had attempted to silence some bishops by
cutting out their tongues. To carry out Justinian's intention of the
recovery of Africa, his general Belisarius sailed at midsummer, A.D.
533, and in November he had completed the reconquest of the country.
[Sidenote: Dreadful calamities produced by him.]
This was speedy work, but it was followed by fearful calamities; for in
this, and the Italian wars of Justinian, likewise undertaken at the
instance of the orthodox clergy, the human race visibly diminished. It
is affirmed that in the African campaign five millions of the people of
that country were consumed; that during the twenty years of the Gothic
War Italy lost fifteen millions; and that the wars, famines, and
pestilences of the reign of Justinian diminished the human species by
the almost incredible number of one hundred millions.
[Sidenote: The Persian attack.]
[Sidenote: Fall and pillage of Jerusalem.]
[Sidenote: Triumphs of Chosroes.]
It is therefore not at all surprising that in such a deplorable
condition men longed for a deliverer, in their despair totally
regardless who he might be or from what quarter he might come.
Ecclesiastical partisanship had done its work. When Chosroes II., the
Persian monarch, A.D. 611, commenced his attack, the persecuted
sectaries of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt followed the example of the
African Arians in the Vandal invasion, and betrayed the empire. The
revenge of an oppressed heretic is never scrupulous about its means of
gratification. As might have been expected, the cities of Asia fell
before the Persians. They took Jerusalem by assault, and with it the
cross of Christ; ninety thousand Christians were massacred; and in its
very birthplace Christianity was displaced by Magianism. The shock which
religious men received through this dreadful event can hardly now be
realized. The imposture of Constantine bore a bitter fruit; the sacred
wood which had filled the world with its miracles was detected to be a
helpless counterfeit, borne off in triumph by deriding blasphemers. All
confidence in the apostolic powers of the Asiatic bishops was lost; not
one of them could work a wonder for his own salvation in the dire
extremity. The invaders overran Egypt as far as Ethiopia; it seemed as
if the days of Cambyses had come back again. The Archbishop of
Alexandria found it safer to flee to Cyprus than to defend himself by
spiritual artifices or to rely on prayer. The Mediterranean shore to
Tripoli was subdued. For ten years the Persian standards were displayed
in view of Constantinople. At one time Heraclius had determined to
abandon that city, and make Carthage the metropolis of the empire. His
intention was defeated by the combination of the patriarch, who dreaded
the loss of his position; of the aristocracy, who foresaw their own
ruin; and of the people, who would thus be deprived of their largesses
and shows. Africa was more truly Roman than any other of the provinces;
it was there that Latin was last used. But when the vengeance of the
heretical sects was satisfied, they found that they had only changed the
tyrant without escaping the tyranny. The magnitude of their treason was
demonstrated by the facility with which Heraclius expelled the Persians
as soon as they chose to assist him.
[Sidenote: The moral impression of these events.]
In vain, after these successes, what was passed off as the true cross
was restored again to Jerusalem--the charm was broken. The Magian fire
had burnt the sepulchre of Christ, and the churches of Constantine and
Helena; the costly gifts of the piety of three centuries were gone into
the possession of the Persian and the Jew. Never again was it possible
that faith could be restored. They who had devoutly expected that the
earth would open, the lightning descend, or sudden death arrest the
sacrilegious invader of the holy places, and had seen that nothing of
the kind ensued, dropped at once into dismal disbelief. Asia and Africa
were already morally lost. The scimitar of the Arabian soon cut the
remaining tie.
[Sidenote: Birth of Mohammed.]
Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in
Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised the greatest influence
upon the human race--Mohammed, by Europeans surnamed "the Impostor." He
raised his own nation from Fetichism, the adoration of a meteoric stone,
and from the basest idol-worship; he preached a monotheism which quickly
scattered to the winds the empty disputes of the Arians and Catholics,
and irrevocably wrenched from Christianity more than half, and that by
far the best half of her possessions, since it included the Holy Land,
the birthplace of our faith, and Africa, which had imparted to it its
Latin form. That continent, and a very large part of Asia, after the
lapse of more than a thousand years, still remain permanently attached
to the Arabian doctrine. With the utmost difficulty, and as if by
miracle, Europe itself escaped.
[Sidenote: His preaching,]
[Sidenote: and title to apostleship.]
Mohammed possessed that combination of qualities which more than once
has decided the fate of empires. A preaching soldier, he was eloquent in
the pulpit, valiant in the field. His theology was simple: "There is but
one God." The effeminate Syrian, lost in Monothelite and Monophysite
mysteries; the Athanasian and Arian, destined to disappear before his
breath, might readily anticipate what he meant. Asserting that
everlasting truth, he did not engage in vain metaphysics, but applied
himself to improving the social condition of his people by regulations
respecting personal cleanliness, sobriety, fasting, prayer. Above all
other works he esteemed almsgiving and charity. With a liberality to
which the world had of late become a stranger, he admitted the salvation
of men of any form of faith provided they were virtuous. To the
declaration that there is but one God, he added, "and Mohammed is his
Prophet." Whoever desires to know whether the event of things answered
to the boldness of such an announcement, will do well to examine a map
of the world in our own times. He will find the marks of something more
than an imposture. To be the religious head of many empires, to guide
the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the
title of a messenger of God.
[Sidenote: His delusions.]
Like many of the Christian monks, Mohammed retired to the solitude of
the desert, and, devoting himself to meditation, fasting, and prayer,
became the victim of cerebral disorder. He was visited by supernatural
appearances, mysterious voices accosting him as the Prophet of God; even
the stones and trees joined in the whispering. He himself suspected the
true nature of his malady, and to his wife Chadizah he expressed a dread
that he was becoming insane. It is related that as they sat alone, a
shadow entered the room. "Dost thou see aught?" said Chadizah, who,
after the manner of Arabian matrons, wore her veil. "I do," said the
prophet. Whereupon she uncovered her face and said, "Dost thou see it
now?" "I do not." "Glad tidings to thee, O Mohammed!" exclaimed
Chadizah: "it is an angel, for he has respected my unveiled face; an
evil spirit would not." As his disease advanced, these spectral
illusions became more frequent; from one of them he received the divine
commission. "I," said his wife, "will be thy first believer;" and they
knelt down in prayer together. Since that day nine thousand millions of
human beings have acknowledged him to be a prophet of God.
[Sidenote: His gradual antagonism to Christianity.]
[Sidenote: Institution of polygamy.]
Though, in the earlier part of his career, Mohammed exhibited a spirit
of forbearance toward the Christians, it was not possible but that
bitter animosity should arise, as the sphere of his influence extended.
He appears to have been unable to form any other idea of the Trinity
than that of three distinct gods; and the worship of the Virgin Mary,
recently introduced, could not fail to come into irreconcilable conflict
with his doctrine of the unity of God. To his condemnation of those Jews
who taught that Ezra was the Son of God, he soon added bitter
denunciations of the Oriental churches because of their idolatrous
practices. The Koran is full of such rebukes: "Verily, Christ Jesus, the
Son of Mary, is the apostle of God." "Believe, therefore, in God and his
apostles, and say not that there are three gods. Forbear this; it will
be better for you. God is but one God. Far be it from Him that he should
have a son." "In the last day, God shall say unto Jesus, O Jesus, son of
Mary! hast thou ever said to men, Take me and my mother for two gods
beside God? He shall say, Praise be unto thee, it is not for me to say
that which I ought not." Mohammed disdained all metaphysical
speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, or of the origin and
existence of sin, topics which had hitherto exercised the ingenuity of
the East. He cast aside the doctrine of the superlative value of
chastity, asserting that marriage is the natural state of man. To
asceticism he opposed polygamy, permitting the practice of it in this
life and promising the most voluptuous means for its enjoyment in
Paradise hereafter, especially to those who had gained the crowns of
martyrdom or of victory.
[Sidenote: Results of his life.]
Too often, in this world, success is the criterion of right. The
Mohammedan appeals to the splendour and rapidity of his career as a
proof of the divine mission of his apostle. It may, however, be
permitted to a philosopher, who desires to speak of the faith of so
large a portion of the human race with profound respect, to examine what
were some of the secondary causes which led to so great a political
result. From its most glorious seats Christianity was for ever expelled:
from Palestine, the scene of its most sacred recollections; from Asia
Minor, that of its first churches; from Egypt, whence issued the great
doctrine of Trinitarian orthodoxy; from Carthage, who imposed her belief
on Europe.
[Sidenote: Causes of his success.]
It is altogether a misconception that the Arabian progress was due to
the sword alone. The sword may change an acknowledged national creed,
but it cannot affect the consciences of men. Profound though its
argument is, something far more profound was demanded before
Mohammedanism pervaded the domestic life of Asia and Africa, before
Arabic became the language of so many different nations.
[Sidenote: Civil weakness produced by ecclesiastical demoralization.]
The explanation of this political phenomenon is to be found in the
social condition of the conquered countries. The influences of religion
in them had long ago ceased; it had become supplanted by theology--a
theology so incomprehensible that even the wonderful capabilities of the
Greek language were scarcely enough to meet its subtle demands; the
Latin and the barbarian dialects were out of the question. How was it
possible that unlettered men, who with difficulty can be made to
apprehend obvious things, should understand such mysteries? Yet they
were taught that on those doctrines the salvation or damnation of the
human race depended. They saw that the clergy had abandoned the guidance
of the individual life of their flocks; that personal virtue or vice
were no longer considered; that sin was not measured by evil works but
by the degrees of heresy. They saw that the ecclesiastical chiefs of
Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria were engaged in a desperate
struggle for supremacy, carrying out their purposes by weapons and in
ways revolting to the conscience of man. What an example when bishops
were concerned in assassinations, poisonings, adulteries, blindings,
riots, treasons, civil war; when patriarchs and primates were
excommunicating and anathematizing one another in their rivalries for
earthly power, bribing eunuchs with gold, and courtesans and royal
females with concessions of episcopal love, and influencing the
decisions of councils asserted to speak with the voice of God by those
base intrigues and sharp practices resorted to by demagogues in their
packed assemblies! Among legions of monks, who carried terror into the
imperial armies and riot into the great cities, arose hideous clamours
for theological dogmas, but never a voice for intellectual liberty or
the outraged rights of man. In such a state of things, what else could
be the result than disgust or indifference? Certainly men could not be
expected, if a time of necessity arose, to give help to a system that
had lost all hold on their hearts.
When, therefore, in the midst of the wrangling of sects, in the
incomprehensible jargon of Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites,
Monophysites, Mariolatrists, and an anarchy of countless disputants,
there sounded through the world, not the miserable voice of the
intriguing majority of a council, but the dread battle-cry, "There is
but one God," enforced by the tempest of Saracen armies, is it
surprising that the hubbub was hushed? Is it surprising that all Asia
and Africa fell away? In better times patriotism is too often made
subordinate to religion; in those times it was altogether dead.
[Sidenote: Conquest of Africa.]
Scarcely was Mohammed buried when his religion manifested its inevitable
destiny of overpassing the bounds of Arabia. The prophet himself had
declared war against the Roman empire, and, at the head of 30,000 men,
advanced toward Damascus, but his purpose was frustrated by ill health.
His successor Abu-Bekr, the first khalif, attacked both the Romans and
the Persians. The invasion of Egypt occurred A.D. 638, the Arabs being
invited by the Copts. In a few months the Mohammedan general Amrou wrote
to his master, the khalif, "I have taken Alexandria, the great city of
the West." Treason had done its work, and Egypt was thoroughly
subjugated. To complete the conquest of Christian Africa, many attacks
were nevertheless required. Abdallah penetrated nine hundred miles to
Tripoli, but returned. Nothing more was done for twenty years, because
of the disputes that arose about the succession to the khalifate. Then
Moawiyah sent his lieutenant, Akbah, who forced his way to the Atlantic,
but was unable to hold the long line of country permanently. Again
operations were undertaken by Abdalmalek, the sixth of the Ommiade
dynasty, A.D. 698; his lieutenant, Hassan, took Carthage by storm and
destroyed it, the conquest being at last thoroughly completed by Musa,
who enjoyed the double reputation of a brave soldier and an eloquent
preacher. And thus this region, distinguished by its theological acumen,
to which modern Europe owes so much, was for ever silenced by the
scimitar. It ceased to preach and was taught to pray.
In this political result--the Arabian conquest of Africa--there can be
no doubt that the same element which exercised in the Vandal invasion so
disastrous an effect, came again into operation. But, if treason
introduced the enemy, polygamy secured the conquest. In Egypt the Greek
population was orthodox, the natives were Jacobites, more willing to
accept the Monotheism of Arabia than to bear the tyranny of the
orthodox. The Arabs, carrying out their policy of ruining an old
metropolis and erecting a new one, dismantled Alexandria; and thus the
patriarchate of that city ceased to have any farther political existence
in the Christian system, which for so many ages had been disturbed by
its intrigues and violence. The irresistible effect of polygamy in
consolidating the new order of things soon became apparent. In little
more than a single generation all the children of the north of Africa
were speaking Arabic.
[Sidenote: Conquest of Syria and Persia.]
[Sidenote: The fall of Jerusalem.]
During the khalifates of Abu-Bekr and Omar, and within twelve years
after the death of Mohammed, the Arabians had reduced thirty-six
thousand cities, towns, and castles in Persia, Syria, Africa, and had
destroyed four thousand churches, replacing them with fourteen hundred
mosques. In a few years they had extended their rule a thousand miles
east and west. In Syria, as in Africa, their early successes were
promoted in the most effectual manner by treachery. Damascus was taken
after a siege of a year. At the battle of Aiznadin, A.D. 633, Kalid,
"the Sword of God," defeated the army of Heraclius, the Romans losing
fifty thousand men; and this was soon followed by the fall of the great
cities Jerusalem, Antioch, Aleppo, Tyre, Tripoli. On a red camel, which
carried a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leather
water-bottle, the Khalif Omar came from Medina to take formal possession
of Jerusalem. He entered the Holy City riding by the side of the
Christian patriarch Sophronius, whose capitulation showed that his
confidence in God was completely lost. The successor of Mohammed and the
Roman emperor both correctly judged how important in the eyes of the
nations was the possession of Jerusalem. A belief that it would be a
proof of the authenticity of Mohammedanism led Omar to order the Saracen
troops to take it at any cost.
The conquest of Syria and the seizure of the Mediterranean ports gave to
the Arabs the command of the sea. They soon took Rhodes and Cyprus. The
battle of Cadesia and sack of Ctesiphon, the metropolis of Persia,
decided the fate of that kingdom. Syria was thus completely reduced
under Omar, the second khalif; Persia under Othman, the third.
[Sidenote: The Arabs become a learned nation.]
If it be true that the Arabs burned the library of Alexandria, there was
at that time danger that their fanaticism would lend itself to the
Byzantine system; but it was only for a moment that the khalifs fell
into this evil policy. They very soon became distinguished patrons of
learning. It has been said that they overran the domains of science as
quickly as they overran the realms of their neighbours. It became
customary for the first dignities of the state to be held by men
distinguished for their erudition. Some of the maxims current show how
much literature was esteemed. "The ink of the doctor is equally valuable
with the blood of the martyr." "Paradise is as much for him who has
rightly used the pen as for him who has fallen by the sword." "The world
is sustained by four things only: the learning of the wise, the justice
of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave."
Within twenty-five years after the death of Mohammed, under Ali, the
fourth khalif, the patronage of learning had become a settled principle
of the Mohammedan system. Under the khalifs of Bagdad this principle was
thoroughly carried out. The cultivators of mathematics, astronomy,
medicine, and general literature abounded in the court of Almansor, who
invited all philosophers, offering them his protection, whatever their
religious opinions might be. His successor, Alraschid, is said never to
have travelled without a retinue of a hundred learned men. This great
sovereign issued an edict that no mosque should be built unless there
was a school attached to it. It was he who confided the superintendence
of his schools to the Nestorian Masué. His successor, Almaimon, was
brought up among Greek and Persian mathematicians, philosophers, and
physicians. They continued his associates all his life. By these
sovereigns the establishment of libraries was incessantly prosecuted,
and the collection and copying of manuscripts properly organized. In all
the great cities schools abounded; in Alexandria there were not less
than twenty. As might be expected, this could not take place without
exciting the indignation of the old fanatical party, who not only
remonstrated with Almaimon, but threatened him with the vengeance of God
for thus disturbing the faith of the people. However, what had thus been
commenced as a matter of profound policy soon grew into a habit, and it
was observed that whenever an emir managed to make himself independent,
he forthwith opened academies.
[Sidenote: Rapidity of their intellectual development.]
The Arabs furnish a striking illustration of the successive phases of
national life. They first come before us as fetich worshippers, having
their age of credulity, their object of superstition being the black
stone in the temple at Mecca. They pass through an age of inquiry,
rendering possible the advent of Mohammed. Then follows their age of
faith, the blind fanaticism of which quickly led them to overspread all
adjoining countries; and at last comes their period of maturity, their
age of reason. The striking feature of their movement is the quickness
with which they passed through these successive phases, and the
intensity of their national life.
[Sidenote: Causes of the spread of Mohammedanism.]
This singular rapidity of national life was favoured by very obvious
circumstances. The long and desolating wars between Heraclius and
Chosroes had altogether destroyed the mercantile relations of the Roman
and Persian empires, and had thrown the entire Oriental and African
trade into the hands of the Arabs. As a merchant Mohammed himself makes
his first appearance. The first we hear in his history are the journeys
he has made as the factor of the wealthy Chadizah. In these expeditions
with the caravans to Damascus and other Syrian cities, he was brought in
contact with Jews and men of business, who, from the nature of their
pursuits, were of more enlarged views than mere Arab chieftains or the
petty tradesmen of Arab towns. Through such agency the first impetus was
given. As to the rapid success, its causes are in like manner so plain
as to take away all surprise. It is no wonder that in fifty years, as
Abderrahman wrote to the khalif, not only had the tribute from the
entire north of Africa ceased, through the population having become
altogether Mohammedan, but that the Moors boasted an Arab descent as
their greatest glory. For, besides the sectarian animosities on which I
have dwelt as facilitating the first conquest of the Christians, and the
dreadful shock that had been given by the capture of the Holy City,
Jerusalem, the insulting and burning the sepulchre of our Saviour, and
the carrying away of his cross as a trophy by the Persians, there were
other very powerful causes. For many years the taxation imposed by the
Emperors of Constantinople on their subjects in Asia and Africa had been
not only excessive and extortionate, but likewise complicated. This the
khalifs replaced by a simple well-defined tribute of far less amount.
Thus, in the case of Cyprus, the sum paid to the khalif was only half of
what it had been to the emperor; and, indeed, the lower orders were
never made to feel the bitterness of conquest; the blows fell on the
ecclesiastics, not on the population, and between them there was but
little sympathy. In the eyes of the ignorant nations the prestige of the
patriarchs and bishops was utterly destroyed by their detected
helplessness to prevent the capture and insult of the sacred places. On
the payment of a trifling sum the conqueror guaranteed to the Christian
and the Jew absolute security for their worship. An equivalent was
given for a price. Religious freedom was bought with money. Numerous
instances might be given of the scrupulous integrity with which the Arab
commanders complied with their part of the contract. The example set by
Omar on the steps of the Church of the Resurrection was followed by
Moawiyah, who actually rebuilt the church of Edessa for his Christian
subjects; and by Abdulmalek, who, when he had commenced converting that
of Damascus into a mosque, forthwith desisted on finding that the
Christians were entitled to it by the terms of the capitulation. If
these things were done in the first fervour of victory, the principles
on which they depended were all the more powerful after the Arabs had
become tinctured with Nestorian and Jewish influences, and were a
learned nation. It is related of Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, and
the fourth successor in the khalifate, that he gave himself up to
letters. Among his sayings are recorded such as these: "Eminence in
science is the highest of honours;" "He dies not who gives life to
learning;" "The greatest ornament of a man is erudition." When the
sovereign felt and expressed such sentiments, it was impossible but that
a liberal policy should prevail.
Besides these there were other incentives not less powerful. To one
whose faith sat lightly upon him, or who valued it less than the tribute
to be paid, it only required the repetition of a short sentence
acknowledging the unity of God and the divine mission of the prophet,
and he forthwith became, though a captive or a slave, the equal and
friend of his conquerer. Doubtless many thousands were under these
circumstances carried away. As respects the female sex, the Arab system
was very far from being oppressive; some have even asserted that "the
Christian women found in the seraglios a delightful retreat." But above
all, polygamy acted most effectually in consolidating the conquests; the
large families that were raised--some are mentioned of more than one
hundred and eighty children--compressed into the course of a few years
events that would otherwise have taken many generations for their
accomplishment. These children gloried in their Arab descent, and, being
taught to speak the language of their conquering fathers, became to all
intents and purposes Arabs. This diffusion of the language was sometimes
expedited by the edicts of the khalifs; thus Alwalid I. prohibited the
use of Greek, directing Arabic to be employed in its stead.
[Sidenote: Causes of the arrest of Mohammedanism.]
[Sidenote: Necessary disintegration of the Arabian system.]
If thus without difficulty we recognise the causes which led to the
rapid diffusion of Arab power, we also without difficulty recognise
those which led to its check and eventual dissolution. Arab conquest
implied, from the scale on which it was pursued, the forthgoing of the
whole nation. It could only be accomplished, and in a temporary manner
sustained, by an excessive and incessant drain of the native Arab
population. That immobility, or, at best, that slow progress the nation
had for so many ages displayed, was at an end, society was moved to its
foundations, a fanatical delirium possessed it, the greatest and boldest
enterprises were entered upon without hesitation, the wildest hopes or
passions of men might be speedily gratified, wealth and beauty were the
tangible rewards of valour in this life, to say nothing of Paradise in
the next. But such an outrush of a nation in all directions implied the
quick growth of diverse interests and opposing policies. The necessary
consequence of the Arab system was subdivision and breaking up. The
circumstances of its growth rendered it certain that a decomposition
would take place in the political, and not, as was the case of the
ecclesiastical Roman system, in the theological direction. All this is
illustrated both in the earlier and later Saracenic history.
[Sidenote: Effect on the low Arab class.]
War makes a people run through its phases of existence fast. It would
have taken the Arabs many thousand years to have advanced intellectually
as far as they did in a single century, had they, as a nation, remained
in profound peace. They did not merely shake off that dead weight which
clogs the movement of a nation--its inert mass of common people; they
converted that mass into a living force. National progress is the sum of
individual progress; national immobility the result of individual
quiescence. Arabian life was run through with rapidity, because an
unrestrained career was opened to every man; and yet, quick as the
movement was, it manifested all those unavoidable phases through which,
whether its motion be swift or slow, humanity must unavoidably pass.
[Sidenote: Review of the Koran.]
[Sidenote: Its asserted homogeneousness and completeness.]
[Sidenote: The characters it ought, therefore, to have presented.]
Arabian influence, thus imposing itself on Africa and Asia by military
successes, and threatening even Constantinople, rested essentially on an
intellectual basis, the value of which it is needful for us to consider.
The Koran, which is that basis, has exercised a great control over the
destinies of mankind, and still serves as a rule of life to a very large
portion of our race. Considering the asserted origin of this
book--indirectly from God himself--we might justly expect that it would
bear to be tried by any standard that man can apply, and vindicate its
truth and excellence in the ordeal of human criticism. In our estimate
of it we must constantly bear in mind that it does not profess to be
successive revelations made at intervals of ages and on various
occasions, but a complete production delivered to one man. We ought,
therefore, to look for universality, completeness, perfection. We might
expect that it would present us with just views of the nature and
position of this world in which, we live, and that, whether dealing with
the spiritual or the material, it would put to shame the most celebrated
productions of human genius, as the magnificent mechanism of the heavens
and the beautiful living forms of the earth are superior to the vain
contrivances of man. Far in advance of all that has been written by the
sages of India, or the philosophers of Greece, on points connected with
the origin, nature, and destiny of the universe, its dignity of
conception and excellence of expression should be in harmony with the
greatness of the subject with which it is concerned.
We might expect that it should propound with authority, and definitively
settle those all-important problems which have exercised the mental
powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many centuries, and
which are at the foundation of all faith and all philosophy; that it
should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language what is God, what is
the world, what is the soul, and whether man has any criterion of
truth; that it should explain to us how evil can exist in a world the
Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good; that it should reveal
to us in what the affairs of men are fixed by Destiny, in what by
free-will; that it should teach us whence we came, what is the object of
our continuing here, what is to become of us hereafter. And, since a
written work claiming a divine origin must necessarily accredit itself
even to those most reluctant to receive it, its internal evidences
becoming stronger and not weaker with the strictness of the examination
to which they are submitted, it ought to deal with those things that may
be demonstrated by the increasing knowledge and genius of man,
anticipating therein his conclusions. Such a work, noble as may be its
origin, must not refuse, but court the test of natural philosophy,
regarding it not as an antagonist, but as its best support. As years
pass on, and human science becomes more exact and more comprehensive,
its conclusions must be found in unison therewith. When occasion arises,
it should furnish us at least the foreshadowings of the great truths
discovered by astronomy and geology, not offering for them the wild
fictions of earlier ages, inventions of the infancy of man. It should
tell us how suns and worlds are distributed in infinite space, and how,
in their successions, they come forth in limitless time. It should say
how far the dominion of God is carried out by law, and what is the point
at which it is his pleasure to resort to his own good providence or his
arbitrary will. How grand the description of this magnificent universe
written by the Omnipotent hand! Of man it should set forth his relations
to other living beings, his place among them, his privileges, and
responsibilities. It should not leave him to grope his way through the
vestiges of Greek philosophy, and to miss the truth at last; but it
should teach him wherein true knowledge consists, anticipating the
physical science, physical power, and physical well-being of our own
times, nay, even unfolding for our benefit things that we are still
ignorant of. The discussion of subjects, so many and so high, is not
outside the scope of a work of such pretensions. Its manner of dealing
with them is the only criterion it can offer of its authenticity to
succeeding times.
[Sidenote: Defects of the Koran.]
[Sidenote: Its God.]
[Sidenote: Its views of man.]
Tried by such a standard, the Koran altogether fails. In its philosophy
it is incomparably inferior to the writings of Chakia Mouni, the founder
of Buddhism; in its science it is absolutely worthless. On speculative
or doubtful things it is copious enough; but in the exact, where a test
can be applied to it, it totally fails. Its astronomy, cosmogony,
physiology, are so puerile as to invite our mirth if the occasion did
not forbid. They belong to the old times of the world, the morning of
human knowledge. The earth is firmly balanced in its seat by the weight
of the mountains; the sky is supported over it like a dome, and we are
instructed in the wisdom and power of God by being told to find a crack
in it if we can. Ranged in stories, seven in number, are the heavens,
the highest being the habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran
does not reject Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The
shooting-stars are pieces of red-hot stone thrown by angels at impure
spirits when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of
praise, setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty.
Though it bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures
them that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the judgment-day
they must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about
whom ye disputed?" though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
merchandise of religion, its ideas of the Deity are altogether
anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man living in a paradise. In this
respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader rises
from a perusal of the 114 chapters of the Koran with a final impression
that they have given him low and unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising
that one of the Mohammedan sects reads it in such a way as to find no
difficulty in asserting that, "from the crown of the head to the breast
God is hollow, and from the breast downward he is solid; that he has
curled black hair, and roars like a lion at every watch of the night."
The unity asserted by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction
to the Trinity of the Christians, and the doctrine of a divine
generation. Our Saviour is never called the Son of God, but always the
son of Mary. Throughout there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion
of the human destiny of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse
enough respecting a future state, speaking with clearness of a
resurrection, the judgment-day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm
that never dies, the pains that never end; but, with all this precise
description of the future, there are many errors as to the past. If
modesty did not render it unsuitable to speak of such topics here, it
might be shown how feeble is his physiology when he has occasion to
allude to the origin or generation of man. He is hardly advanced beyond
the ideas of Thales. One who is so untrustworthy a guide as to things
that are past, cannot be very trustworthy as to events that are to come.
[Sidenote: Its literary inferiority compared with the Bible.]
Of the literary execution of his work, it is, perhaps, scarcely possible
to judge fairly from a translation. It is said to be the oldest prose
composition among the Arabs, by whom Mohammed's boast of the
unapproachable excellence of his work is almost universally sustained;
but it must not be concealed that there have been among them very
learned men who have held it in light esteem. Its most celebrated
passages, as those on the nature of God, in Chapters II., XXIV., will
bear no comparison with parallel ones in the Psalms and Book of Job. In
the narrative style, the story of Joseph, in Chapter XII., compared with
the same incidents related in Genesis, shows a like inferiority.
Mohammed also adulterates his work with many Christian legends, derived
probably from the apocryphal gospel of St. Barnabas; he mixes with many
of his own inventions the scripture account of the temptation of Adam,
the Deluge, Jonah and the whale, enriching the whole with stories like
the later Night Entertainments of his country, the seven sleepers, Gog
and Magog, and all the wonders of genii, sorcery, and charms.
[Sidenote: Causes of its surprising influence.]
An impartial reader of the Koran may doubtless be surprised that so
feeble a production should serve its purpose so well. But the theory of
religion is one thing, the practice another. The Koran abounds in
excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so
fragmentary that we cannot turn to a single page without finding maxims
of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction yields
texts, and mottoes, and rules complete in themselves, suitable for
common men in any of the incidents of life. There is a perpetual
insisting on the necessity of prayer, an inculcation of mercy,
almsgiving, justice, fasting, pilgrimage, and other good works;
institutions respecting conduct, both social and domestic, debts,
witnesses, marriage, children, wine, and the like; above all, a constant
stimulation to do battle with the infidel and blasphemer. For life as it
passes in Asia, there is hardly a condition in which passages from the
Koran cannot be recalled suitable for instruction, admonition,
consolation, encouragement. To the Asiatic and to the African, such
devotional fragments are of far more use than any sustained theological
doctrine. The mental constitution of Mohammed did not enable him to
handle important philosophical questions with the well-balanced ability
of the great Greek and Indian writers, but he has never been surpassed
in adaptation to the spiritual wants of humble life, making even his
fearful fatalism administer thereto. A pitiless destiny is awaiting us;
yet the prophet is uncertain what it may be. "Unto every nation a fixed
time is decreed. Death will overtake us even in lofty towers, but God
only knoweth the place in which a man shall die," After many an
admonition of the resurrection and the judgment-day, many a promise of
Paradise and threat of hell, he plaintively confesses, "I do not know
what will be done with you or me hereafter."
[Sidenote: Its true nature.]
The Koran thus betrays a human, and not a very noble intellectual
origin. It does not, however, follow that its author was, as is so often
asserted, a mere impostor. He reiterates again and again, I am nothing
more than a public preacher. He defends, not always without acerbity,
his work from those who, even in his own life, stigmatized it as a
confused heap of dreams, or, what is worse, a forgery. He is not the
only man who has supposed himself to be the subject of supernatural and
divine communications, for this is a condition of disease to which any
one, by fasting and mental anxiety, may be reduced.
In what I have thus said respecting a work held by so many millions of
men as a revelation from God, I have endeavoured to speak with respect,
and yet with freedom, constantly bearing in mind how deeply to this book
Asia and Africa are indebted for daily guidance, how deeply Europe and
America for the light of science.
[Sidenote: Popular Mohammedanism.]
As might be expected, the doctrines of the Koran have received many
fictitious additions and sectarian interpretations in the course of
ages. In the popular superstition angels and genii largely figure. The
latter, being of a grosser fabric, eat, drink, propagate their kind, are
of two sorts, good and bad, and existed long before men, having occupied
the earth before Adam. Immediately after death, two greenish, livid
angels, Monkir and Nekkar, examine every corpse as to its faith in God
and Mohammed; but the soul, having been separated from the body by the
angel of death, enters upon an intermediate state, awaiting the
resurrection. There is, however, much diversity of opinion as to its
precise disposal before the judgment-day: some think that it hovers near
the grave; some, that it sinks into the well Zemzem; some, that it
retires into the trumpet of the Angel of the Resurrection; the
difficulty apparently being that any final disposal before the day of
judgment would be anticipatory of that great event, if, indeed, it would
not render it needless. As to the resurrection, some believe it to be
merely spiritual, others corporeal; the latter asserting that the os
coccygis, or last bone of the spinal column, will serve, as it were, as
a germ, and that, vivified by a rain of forty days, the body will sprout
from it. Among the signs of the approaching resurrection will be the
rising of the sun in the West. It will be ushered in by three blasts of
a trumpet: the first, known as the blast of consternation, will shake
the earth to its centre, and extinguish the sun and stars; the second,
the blast of extermination, will annihilate all material things except
Paradise, hell, and the throne of God. Forty years subsequently, the
angel Israfil will sound the blast of resurrection. From his trumpet
there will be blown forth the countless myriads of souls who have taken
refuge therein or lain concealed. The day of judgment has now come. The
Koran contradicts itself as to the length of this day; in one place
making it a thousand, in another fifty thousand years. Most Mohammedans
incline to adopt the longer period, since angels, genii, men, and
animals have to be tried. As to men, they will rise in their natural
state, but naked; white winged camels, with saddles of gold, awaiting
the saved. When the partition is made, the wicked will be oppressed with
an intolerable heat, caused by the sun, which, having been called into
existence again, will approach within a mile, provoking a sweat to issue
from them, and this, according to their demerits, will immerse them from
the ankles to the mouth; but the righteous will be screened by the
shadow of the throne of God. The judge will be seated in the clouds, the
books open before him, and everything in its turn called on to account
for its deeds. For greater dispatch, the angel Gabriel will hold forth
his balance, one scale of which hangs over Paradise and one over hell.
In these all works are weighed. As soon as the sentence is delivered,
the assembly, in a long file, will pass over the bridge Al-Sirat. It is
as sharp as the edge of a sword, and laid over the mouth of hell.
Mohammed and his followers will successfully pass the perilous ordeal;
but the sinners, giddy with terror, will drop into the place of torment.
The blessed will receive their first taste of happiness at a pond which
is supplied by silver pipes from the river Al-Cawthor. The soil of
Paradise is of musk. Its rivers tranquilly flow over pebbles of rubies
and emeralds. From tents of hollow pearls, the Houris, or girls of
Paradise, will come forth, attended by troops of beautiful boys. Each
Saint will have eighty thousand servants and seventy-two girls. To
these, some of the more merciful Mussulmans add the wives they have had
upon earth; but the grimly orthodox assert that hell is already nearly
filled with women. How can it be otherwise since they are not permitted
to pray in a mosque upon earth? I have not space to describe the silk
brocades, the green clothing, the soft carpets, the banquets, the
perpetual music and songs. From the glorified body all impurities will
escape, not as they did during life, but in a fragrant perspiration of
camphor and musk. No one will complain I am weary; no one will say I am
sick.
[Sidenote: The Mohammedan sects.]
From the contradictions, puerilities, and impossibilities indicated in
the preceding paragraphs, it may be anticipated that the faith of
Mohammed has been broken into many sects. Of such it is said that not
less than seventy-three may be numbered. Some, as the Sonnites, are
guided by traditions; some occupy themselves with philosophical
difficulties, the existence of evil in the world, the attributes of God,
absolute predestination and eternal damnation, the invisibility and
non-corporeality of God, his capability of local motion: these and other
such topics furnish abundant opportunity for sectarian dispute. As if to
show how the essential principles of the Koran may be departed from by
those who still profess to be guided by it, there are, among the
Shiites, those who believe that Ali was an incarnation of God; that he
was in existence before the creation of things; that he never died, but
ascended to heaven, and will return again in the clouds to judge the
world. But the great Mohammedan philosophers, simply accepting the
doctrine of the Oneness of God as the only thing of which man can be
certain, look upon all the rest as idle fables, having, however, this
political use, that they furnish contention, and therefore occupation to
disputatious sectarians, and consolation to illiterate minds.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Effect of Mohammedanism on Christianity.]
Thus settled on the north of Africa the lurid phantom of the Arabian
crescent, one horn reaching to the Bosphorus and one pointing beyond the
Pyrenees. For a while it seemed that the portentous meteor would
increase to the full, and that all Europe would be enveloped.
Christianity had lost for ever the most interesting countries over which
her influence had once spread, Africa, Egypt, Syria, the Holy Land, Asia
Minor, Spain. She was destined, in the end, to lose in the same manner
the metropolis of the East. In exchange for these ancient and
illustrious regions, she fell back on Gaul, Germany, Britain,
Scandinavia. In those savage countries, what were there to be offered as
substitutes for the great capitals, illustrious in ecclesiastical
history, for ever illustrious in the records of the human
race--Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople? It was
an evil exchange. The labours, intellectual and physical, of which
those cities had once been the scene; the preaching, and penances, and
prayers so lavishly expended in them, had not produced the anticipated,
the asserted result. In theology and morality the people had pursued a
descending course. Patriotism was extinct. They surrendered the state to
preserve their sect; their treason was rewarded by subjugation.
[Sidenote: Reflexions on the course of historic events.]
From these melancholy events we may learn that the principles on which
the moral world is governed are analogous to those which obtain in the
physical. It is not by incessant divine interpositions, which produce
breaches in the continuity of historic action; it is not by miracles and
prodigies that the course of events is determined; but affairs follow
each other in the relation of cause and effect. The maximum development
of early Christianity coincided with the boundaries of the Roman empire;
the ecclesiastical condition depended on the political, and, indeed, was
its direct consequence and issue. The loss of Africa and Asia was, in
like manner, connected with the Arabian movement, though it would have
been easy to prevent that catastrophe, and to preserve those continents
to the faith by the smallest of those innumerable miracles of which
Church history is full, and which were often performed on unimportant
and obscure occasions. But not even one such miracle was vouchsafed,
though an angel might have worthily descended. I know of no event in the
history of our race on which a thoughtful man may more profitably
meditate than on this loss of Africa and Asia. It may remove from his
mind many erroneous ideas, and lead him to take a more elevated, a more
philosophical, and, therefore, more correct view of the course of
earthly affairs.