A BRIEF SUMMARY OF MOHAMMED’S WORK AND WORTH
Taken as a whole, the Koran is certainly not a work of literary art.
Mohammed, in a literary sense, was neither a poet nor a writer. He was,
as he says of himself, only an illiterate apostle. This, from an
artistic point of view, is of course regrettable. In his mother tongue
he had a rich and splendid medium. A language of high philosophical and
poetical character, that “follows the mind,” as Burton says, and gives
birth to its offspring: that is free from the “luggage of particles”
which clogs our modern tongues--leaves a mysterious vagueness between
the relation of word to word, which materially assists the sentiment,
not the sense of the poet. A language too that luxuriates in “rich and
varied synonyms, illustrating the finest shades of meaning,” that are
artfully used--“now scattered to startle us by distinctness, now to form
as it were a star about which dimly seen satellites revolve.” Finally
which revels in a wealth of rhyme that leaves the poet almost
unfettered to choose the desired or exact expression. Undoubtedly in a
literary sense, here at hand, was a mighty and magnificent weapon. A
quiverful of musical arrows, quivering as they waited for the poetic
muse--the fine frenzy, the seething imagination, the running ready
fire--to launch them forth into the humming haunts and hearts of men.
But in no sense was this Merchant-Prophet a knight-errant. Kindly and
tender as he was towards women and children, he was not addicted (as his
countrymen were) to chivalry in any form. The race of heroines of Al
Islam had no attraction for him. The “Hawa (or ‘Ishk’) uzri,”
“pardonable love,” of the Bedawin, a certain species of platonic
affection, did not exist for him. He had no room for such trivialities
in his life. It was too serious and pre-occupied. Too much occupied with
the affairs of his Master, and worldly business matters that had to be
attended to. So that he had no time to waste on such pleasantries.
Trifles that were as light as air in contrast to the stern and deadly
realities of existence. Yet without doubt he must have attended the
annual fairs that were held at various places, at “Zul Mejaz,” at Majna,
and at Okadh. The latter, Syed Ameer Ali tells us, was a place famous in
Arab tradition. It was the Olympia of Yemen. The fair held here in the
sacred month of “Zu’lkada,” was a great national gathering. A sort of
“God’s truce” was then proclaimed. War and the shedding of human blood
was forbidden. To it came merchants with their wares from all parts of
Arabia and other distant lands; also the poets and heroes of the desert.
These (many of whom were disguised from the avengers of blood feuds in
masks or veils) recited their poems, displayed their literary talents,
and sang of their glory and their prowess. But Mohammed’s aims and
inclinations did not lie in this direction. He was too much of a working
philosopher to be a mere poetic dreamer or play actor. His genius lay in
his profound earnestness, his great moral strength, his capacity for
work, his political foresight and acumen, his iron will and his
inexhaustible patience. It is certain that he believed (in the
philosophic principle) that “everything comes to him who waits.” For he
himself says: “Wait therefore the event, for I also will wait it with
you.” Obviously he was imbued with the same tenacity, and many of the
imperturbable characteristics of the camel of his own Arabian deserts.
Unquestionably he knew how “_to wait_,” recognized that the essence of
all human wisdom lies in this single feature, and that the greatest, the
strongest and the most successful is he who waits and watches. It was
thus that he waited with the unvarying purpose and pertinacity of a man
who knew and appreciated his own value at its proper worth. For he felt
in every nerve and fibre of his consciousness, that as God makes no man
or no thing in vain, the future must have some (great) thing, some great
prize, in reserve for him. We know what that prize was. We know also
that it only came to him after a life of unwearied toil, and assiduous
devotion to his great and noble purpose, and then only in reality
through the moral and spiritual victory which death gave him.
Yet, in spite of its artistic defects, Mohammed’s work turned out, as we
know, into a success that even he himself could never have anticipated.
But in a spiritual sense, judging merely by results, the Koran has lost
nothing because of its lack of literary art and beauty. Had it gushed
all over with the eastern music of the Songs of Solomon, had it arrested
the attention by the same aphoristic wisdom of the Proverbs, thrilled
its readers by the recital of a tragedy so intensely powerful, so
realistic and majestic as the drama of Job, and appealed to them through
the joys, the sorrows and the grand poetry of the Psalms! Had it, in
fact, sparkled all over with those beauties of language and metaphor
that distinguish the Bible, the result that it might have attained could
scarcely have been greater than that which it has accomplished without
these trappings. It is, in fact, probable that it might have lost. It is
just possible that what it would have gained as an ornate work, it would
have lost in sincerity. The Koran, in fact, was essentially the
offspring of Mohammed’s own unique personality. This, as I have tried to
show, was the peculiar outcome of his dual environment--the frowning,
rugged and arid aspect of stony mountains and sandy wastes, plus the
commercial and political instincts that were inherent as well as
developed on his trade journeys and at the various towns and marts which
he visited. Nevertheless there was in this Semitic Puritan, as there is
in almost every Arab, a certain rugged vein of poetry--the wild song of
freedom--that bursts out here and there. But only now and then like the
thunderstorm that is so great a rarity in the desert. For the gravity
and over-concentration of his thoughts on the one definite object,
oppressed him so weightily, that it left no time for others. Just as
fast as rain is swallowed up by the parched and thirsty sand after a
long spell of drought, so his soul, thirsting as it did after God,
gulped and kept down the poetry and sentiment at bottom of him. All the
same, if a book is to be gauged by its net results--by the effect it has
produced on all that is deepest and best in human nature--then the
Koran must necessarily take high rank as one of the world’s greatest
works. In much the same way, only in another and more material
direction, the _Wealth of Nations_ has also left its impress on the
shaping of human destinies.
Mohammed’s sincerity and fixity of purpose is a fact we cannot get away
from. It is this which has chained his followers as with the sure cord
of God to the Faith. Islam, in a word, is a creed of practice not
theory. By practice it was formed. On practice it has lived. It was
because Mohammed practised what he preached, that the small seed of his
original idea blossomed at last into the mighty “Igdrasil” of the
East--the great banyan tree of existence. Verily this sun-burnt son of
Arabia Petræa was a tangible reality and no desert simulacrum. A reality
that lives in the soul of Islam. A reality that will endure until the
end of all things human. It is not manners that maketh the man. It is
man that makes the manners. It is the nature that is around him, the
nature that is in him, and that comes out of him as mental and moral
energies, that makes the man. Town bred as he was, it was the desert in
all its naked and silent grandeur that made Mohammed, that inspired him
with all the might and majesty of God, and turned him into a prophet.
Yet it was his career as a trader and the inherent tribal instinct that
developed the political element in him. As Longfellow says: “Glorious
indeed is the world of God around us; but more glorious is the world of
God within us. There lies the land of song, there lies the poet’s native
land.” But in Mohammed’s case, as in the case of all great workers and
thinkers, the world that is around us, is the world of our inner
consciousness. The two are synonymous if not one. Only with him the
native earth was religion, and he was the Prophet, not the Poet of it.
“It is Nature’s highest reward to a true, simple, great soul, that he
gets thus to be _a part of herself_.” It was thus with Mohammed.
Thought, though changeable, is eternal. It never dies. So the one idea
that possessed Mohammed now possesses (differing only in merely
superficial degrees) some two hundred and fifty millions.
Carlyle is mistaken, certainly much too premature, when he says: “Even
in Arabia, as I compute, Mahommet will have exhausted himself and become
obsolete, while this Shakespeare, this Dante may still be young; while
this Shakespeare may still pretend to be a priest of mankind, of Arabia
as of other places, for unlimited periods to come.” Religion is
entirely an universal matter, Thought a question of environment. Roughly
speaking, the world of Thought is divided into two camps of east and
west. To the former belongs Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam; to the latter
Christianity and the growing cult of Rationalism. It is impossible to
predict or in any way to foreshadow any fusion of these hostile
elements. The day when humanism--i.e. the religion of humanity, as the
natural product of her highest intellectual effort--shall have fused and
humanized all the nations of the Earth into one great civilized family,
is too far distant and beyond the present scope of human speculation.
If men are to be regarded especially as to the weight and power with
which they operate on the minds of their fellow-men, then this
camel-driving trader must without question be estimated as a great
man--a man a long way above his fellows. Assuredly too it is chiefly
through the Koran that his great and God-like thoughts, crystallized
into greater motives and actions, have filtered down through the events
and developments of thirteen centuries, as a purifying, fertilizing, and
elevating factor.
Looking at him and his work from every aspect, Mohammed was not merely a
heroic prophet. He was much more. A king and a leader of men. A ruler
and a judge over them. If we are to judge of him, to take him for what
he is worth, by his work--the rich ripe fruit of his rare and strenuous
effort--the Koran on the one hand, and, on the other, the mighty
spiritual force he has left behind him in the Church of Islam, we must
pronounce him to have been a great and remarkable man. A man who, when
his true value is understood and appreciated, will stand out in history
as a political and religious reformer of a virile and heroic type. A man
who will be regarded in even a greater light than he now is, when
humanity shall have become less denominational and more rationally
humanitarian. In reality Mohammed was an ultra great man. The difference
(as it appears to me) between other great men and himself was wide. The
ordinary type of great man--a John Knox for example--is a patriot
essentially. He is for his country first, then for God and humanity. As
I have shown, with Mohammed it was just the reverse. An Arab by accident
of birth, he put God and nature before everything. It was this that made
him a humanist; this that placed him before his age. For Mohammed,
without a shadow of a doubt, was centuries before his age. In his God
concept, in his rejection of the ancient myth of immaculate conception,
in his refusing to acknowledge Christ’s divinity, he was essentially a
modern--a modern of the twentieth century. It was this catholicity
therefore that made Islam blossom into a spiritual energy that embraces
so many national units.
Mohammed fought with all his might and main. In exact proportion to his
labour he has prevailed. Prevailed over the issues of life and death.
Death had no terrors for him. Life alone was full of terror--i.e. of the
fear of God. In death there was no sting. In the grave there was no
victory. Death but killed the mortal part of him. The spiritual it has
increased and multiplied out of all proportion. The present soul of
Islam is the spirit of Mohammed. Only when this exhausts itself will
Islam wither and die! To this day he is, and for many æons to come he
will be in spirit, the ruler and judge over Islam. In spite of sects and
theological speculators, as long as Islam lasts, his spirit will
continue to preside over its destinies. His spirit lives in the spirit
of the creed that he bequeathed as a divine legacy to humanity--i.e. to
those sections of it which have been nurtured in the system and
adoration of the Patriarch. For though the material part of him is dead,
the spiritual still speaks with a voice that is myriad-tongued. As God’s
word, there is a sanctity in the Koran for every Moslem that exceeds
the reverence of the Christian for the Bible, as much as the fiery
splendour of the sun surpasses the cold pale glamour of the moon--which
is but a shadow, a pale reflection of the substance and reality. There
is, in fact, on the part of the Moslem a veneration accorded to the
Koran that practically equals the veneration of the African or the Irish
for their land. Compatible with this, there is for the Moslem but one
Prophet. As God’s chosen agent for the dissemination of His word,
Mohammed stands alone and aloof on a pinnacle that is humanly
unapproachable. Many faults have been imputed to him, many charges
brought against him. To the average, indeed even to the educated
Christian, Mohammed is nothing but the very strangest compound of right
and wrong, of error and truth, the abolisher of superstition according
to his own showing, yet a believer in charms, dreams, omens, and jinns.
But what of all this? Does not reasoning such as this itself prove how
very inconsequent and inconsistent is man, even though he be a European
and a Christian? Is not superstition of the same kind as rife at this
very moment in Europe, nay in the very centres and strongholds of
Christendom? What about the ikons, the charms, the amulets, the sacred
relics and the images of the Greek and Romish Churches? Is not this but
a form of materialism which itself is a phase or part--a very large
part--of Nature? Did not superstition (derived from “super,” above or
beyond measure, and “sto,” to stand) originally imply excess of scruple,
or of ceremonial observances in religion? Did it not describe a
superfluity of worship that exceeded what was either enjoined or
fitting? What does Cicero say of it in his treatise on _The Nature of
the Gods_? (I quote from an old translation): “Not only Philosophers,
but all our forefathers dydde ever separate _superstition_ from true
religion. For they whiche prayed all day that theyr children might
overlyve (superstites essent), were called _superstitious_; which name
after was larger extended.” Is not this thing we call superstition--this
belief in the super or rather outside natural as distinguished from the
vague and merely vulgar absurdities that are so common--but the result
of inherent instincts that humanity, as simply one form of natural
development, derives direct from Nature? Is not this Naturism more or
less developed in us all--more in the ignorant, less in the educated,
and least of all in the scientist; the sceptic who knows most, because
he has looked and searched more into the truth and reality of things;
because he has learnt by experience, fact, knowledge, therefore a
greater intelligence to discriminate which from what and why from
wherefore? In any case, does not the fact that Mohammed was
superstitious all the more clearly prove that he was no mere vulgar
designer who practised self-deception and pretensions with regard to his
mission, but that he was thoroughly sincere in believing himself to be
the specially selected Apostle of the Great Designer and Controller of
the universe?
But it is not to Mohammed’s faults that we must look. All great men are
moulded out of faults. It is in his virtues and greatnesses--and they
are many--that we will find the true man. In this Carlyle was a right
guide, and showed his own breadth of mind and greatness. These prove
Mohammed to have been one of humanity’s greatest constructors. It is
true that he destroyed, but on a small scale comparatively in proportion
to the immensity of his constructive labour. As evidence of this, the
physical, the moral and the spiritual wealth of Islam speaks in round
numbers and solid realities. In another of his great romances, Dumas,
speaking of John Knox, says: “He who had raised such a storm had need to
be, and he was, a Titan; indeed John Knox was one of those men whom
great religious and political revolutions invariably beget. Born in
Scotland or England during the Presbyterian Reformation, they are
called John Knox or Oliver Cromwell; born in France, in the time of
political reform, they are called Mirabeau or Danton.” Mohammed was, in
every sense of the word, more titanic than a Cromwell or a Mirabeau. He
was not by nature or at heart a destroyer. When he destroyed it was only
because his hand was forced by the crass and obstinate antagonism of
those upon whom his sincerity and persuasiveness had aroused an envious
and deadly hatred. The whole aim, end and object of his existence was to
develop the adoration and religion of God. The storm he raised was
conjured into being by the God that obsessed him. Hence the soul and
constructiveness in it. Hence the mighty spirit of Islam, measurable
only by a soul capacity which has never ceased to expand and develop. No
sane man surely can deny that Islam was and is a great work? The moral
figs and grapes that she has achieved are not such as could have been
gathered from the thorn and thistle of human effort. Yet curiously
enough, as I have shown, the environment in which it was born was
strangely stern and sterile! This, however, is one of those natural
anomalies that we would do well to leave alone. One of those paradoxes,
those mysteries which Nature teems with, that are altogether beyond
human comprehension.
Whether or not he had made a study of the Socratic precept “Γνῶθι σεαυτόν”
“know thyself,” Mohammed knew himself as thoroughly as it is possible for
a man to do. Early in life he took his own measure. Gauged his own strength
and weakness. Estimated the breadth, the length, and the depth to which he
could go. As a result of this moral estimate, he felt that his resources
without God were as slender as a broken reed buffeted by storm winds. He
knew that his real strength lay in the knowledge and power of God and of
Nature. The temperament and character of the Psalmist--he who looked on
God as the strong tower and rock of his defence, his refuge, not however
in time of trouble alone, but at all times--was strongly developed in him.
The genius of the whole Semitic race was centred in Mohammed. It was this,
amounting as it does to the sublimest egotheism, that gave him confidence,
then conviction. It was this righteous conviction that carried him as it
were on the wings of the wind--immortal breath and soul, as he pictured
it--of the living and eternal God. Through this feeling he converted the
innate fear and veneration that inspired him into the hand and power of
the Almighty. If genius implies a keen psychological insight into the
nature and inner consciousness of life’s issues, added to inexhaustible
energy, capacity for work and patience, then Mohammed was a genius.
Certainly, if we accept Buffon’s definition of genius, as, “but a greater
aptitude for perseverance,” he was without doubt a genius of the highest
degree. The founder of a faith--one of the greatest the world has
produced--spiritual commander of the faithful, his genius was
essentially moral and religious. His whole life was one long labour of
love and devotion to achieve his object, i.e. to proclaim God to the
nations of the earth: the first half of it passed in secular work but in
silent contemplation; the second half, itself divisible into two
periods, twelve years of persuasion, followed to the close by active
aggression and battle.
Impulsive, passionate, and spontaneous Mohammed may have been, for like
all great leaders he was many-sided. But in no sense of the word can
Islam be said to have been the outcome of spontaneity. On the contrary,
it was in every way the result of calm and deliberate reflection, of
long and continuous contact with the forces and phenomena of Nature; but
above all of an unceasing concentration and communion with the unseen
power that controls them. Stretching over some twenty years, it went on
uninterrupted by domestic cares or trade transactions. All these were
secondary matters and had to give way to the central idea that occupied
his whole mind, that revolved around his work and his thoughts, as the
earth gyrates about the sun. His centre of gravity was God. This gravity
formed his character, gave him courage and endurance in all his trials
and afflictions, counselled and guided him in his ordinary vocations. It
was this gravity and concentration that commanded the respect and trust
of all who knew him and came under his magnetic influence.
But Mohammed was not infallible. Dogma--everything human in fact--is
open and liable to error. Even infallibility itself--as we speak of
it--is fallible. As Draper so aptly remarks: “He who is infallible, must
needs be immutable.” In many of the ordinary ways of life he was no
doubt changeable and inconsistent. He was, after all, only human--but
not with regard to the Faith. Here was he as firm as a rock, and showed
a fixity of purpose that nothing could shake or alter. With him, “Life
was but a means to an end, that end, beginning, mean and end to all
things--God.” Only synchronous with this ruling principle was the idea
of national unity. Never once did he falter or swerve from it. To this
allegiance and fidelity of his to God and centralization it is possible
to trace the devotion of Moslems to their Faith. “We are, as we often
say, the creatures of circumstances. In that expression there is a higher
philosophy than might at first sight appear. Our actions are not the pure
and unmingled results of our desires. They are the offspring of many
various and mixed conditions. In that which seems to be the most voluntary
decision, there enters much that is altogether involuntary--more perhaps
than we generally suppose.” This was very much the case with Mohammed.
He was largely the creature of circumstances--the personification of his
environment. It was the genius of this that entered into and obsessed
him. That formed and swayed him as it willed. That made him as strong
and inflexible as itself. That, combining with the commercial knowledge
and experience he possessed and the political acumen he acquired, made
him what he was. Here in a tiny nutshell lies the kernel and origin of
the soul of Islam. The possibility that Mohammed was rather of Caucasian
than Ishmaelitish descent, in reality makes little if any difference in
the psychological analysis of his character. Fundamentally, human nature
is human nature all the world over. In this respect racial and colour
distinctions make no difference. Even moral and physical characteristics
are merely superficial classifications. Inherent tendencies, strong and
rooted as they are, may be amended or modified by environment. So that
although it is vaguely possible that his moral courage and other mental
features were of Caucasian origin, in the main he was essentially
Semitic in character, patriarchal in principle, and humanistic in
spirit. In Lecky’s opinion: “If we take a broad view of the course of
history and examine the relations of great bodies of men, we find that
religion and patriotism are the chief moral influences to which they
have been subject, and that the separate modification and mutual
interaction of these two agents may almost be said to constitute the
moral history of mankind.” This most certainly has been the case with
regard to Islam. Religion was the medium chosen by Mohammed for the
furtherance of his truly imperial design. It was entirely through
religion, or rather the interpretation he placed upon it, that he built
up first of all a natural patriotism, then an international spirit, that
expanded into the mighty creed of Islam. Prior to this, Arabia as he
found it was narrow to an extreme. The only patriotism--if patriotism it
can be called--was clannish and communal. Outside these stilted limits,
every one was regarded with suspicion, contempt, indifference, and
invariably with undisguised hostility. Yet the great and solid
foundation of this splendid spiritual and temporal empire was laid by
one man. But how great and how heroic! Indeed, “take him all in all, the
history of humanity has seen few more earnest, noble and sincere
‘prophets,’ men irresistibly impelled by an inner power to admonish and
to teach, and to utter austere and sublime truths, the full purport of
which is often unknown to themselves.”