As a source of information, the traditions are obviously unreliable,
for they are coloured by the excessive zeal and irrational bias of
men whose judgment was warped by irrepressible fanaticism. They
attributed to their hero elements that are grotesquely impossible. His
advent was in their estimation, so portentous that it was celebrated
by events which, for the time, upset all natural law. And his whole
life has been linked with miraculous happenings of a most ludicrous
type. More reasonable men have exalted the prophet because they have
convinced themselves that he was what he ought to have been. This may
account for the pious confidence of some of the more intelligent, who,
accepting tradition as historical, have exalted their hero to the
ideal, and have received the imagined glory as real. This tendency to
exalt their master is well illustrated by the maxim of Shafy--"In the
exaltation of Mohammed it is lawful to exaggerate"--a maxim invaluable
to men who were seeking to glorify the prophet, and the usefulness of
which was fully appreciated by the legislators and doctors when they
were called upon to cope with the new relations and exigencies that
came into being after his death. The conquests and progress of Islam
necessitated almost daily the framing of new rules, while in the
application of the old, constant modification and adaptation were
required. To meet these needs, actual or supposed sayings and actions
of the prophet were eagerly sought after, and, in time, with the
growth of a professional body of traditionalists, all legitimate
sources being exhausted, that which was doubtful, and even disputed,
was accepted as authentic and reliable. Imagination augmented the
legitimate springs of information, and the result was an exhaustive
accumulation of precedents for every possible circumstance.
Sprenger, in his essay on "Tradition," regarding the value and nature
of the material needed for compiling a life of Mohammed, says:
"During the stir and activity of the first sixty years, thousands
and thousands occupied themselves with handing down traditions. In
every mosque they committed them to memory, and rehearsed them in
every social gathering. All such knowledge was the common property
of the nation; it was learned by heart and transmitted orally. It
possessed, therefore, in the highest possible degree, the elements
of life and plasticity. Bunson has discovered the divinity of the
Bible in its always having been the people's book. If this
criterion be decisive, then no religion has better claim to be
called the 'vox Dei,' because none is in so full a sense the 'vox
populi.' The creations of the period we have been considering
possess this character for hundreds of millions of our fellow men;
for modern Islamism is as far removed from the spirit in which the
Coran was composed, as Catholicism is from the spirit of the
Gospel; and modern Islamism is grounded upon tradition. But in
tradition we find nothing but the Ideal, Invention, Fancy,
Historical facts, however they may have been floating among the
people in the days if Ibn 'Abbas, and the other founders of
genealogy, were trodden under feet, because men wished to remove
every barrier which stood in the way of self-glorification. And of
the thousand inventions which every day gave birth to, only those
were recognised as true which most flattered the religious and
national pride ..."
He also goes on to say:
"The time of creative activity, the gestation era of Moslem
knowledge, passed away. Hajjaj choked the young life in its own
blood, and the Abbaside dynasty, with kingly patriotism, sold the
dearly-bought conquests of the nation, first to the Persians, and
then to Turkish slaves, with the view of procuring an imaginary
security for their throne. And thus there arose for the spiritual
life also a new period. Already Wackidi had begun to work up into
shape the mass of his traditionary stores, and busy himself in the
department of scholastic industry. In the schools one could as
little affect now the material tradition, or alter its nature, as
attempt to change the organism of the new-born child. However
arbitrary might be the invention of the 'Miraj' (Mahomed's heavenly
journey), and other fabrications of the first century, they still
formed in this way the positive element and soul of religious,
political and social life. The schools, as always, confined their
exertions to collecting, comparing, abbreviating, systematising,
and commenting. The material was altogether divine; and any
unprejudiced historical inquiry, any simple and natural
interpretation of the Coran, any free judgment on tradition or its
origin, was condemned as apostasy. The only task that remained was
to work up, in scholastic form, the existing material; and in this
way was developed a literature of boundless dimensions, which yet
at bottom possessed nothing real. The whole spiritual activity of
the Mohamedans, from the time of the prophet to the present day, is
a dream; but it is a dream in which a large portion of the human
race have lived; and it has all the interest which things relating
to mankind always possess for man."
Sir William Muir agrees with these views, subject to two
considerations. He says:--
"The tendency to glorify Mohammed and the reciters of the
traditions was considerably modified by the mortal strife which
characterised the factions that opposed one another at the period,
where, in attempting to depreciate one another, they would not be
averse to perpetuating traditions in support of their contentions;
such partisanship secured no insignificant body of historical fact,
which otherwise would have been lost."
He also points out that in a state of society circumscribed and
dwarfed by the powerful Islamic system, which proscribed the free
exercise of thought and discussion, tradition can scarcely be said to
be the "vox populi." The growth and development of tradition, the
flagrant distortion of historical fact, the ethical code of Islam, may
well give rise to a questioning of the validity of the prophet's
arrogant claims, and by their very methods of defence the apologists
of Islam exhibit its weakness and inadequacy to meet the religious
needs of man. The natural bias of Mohammed is evident throughout the
Coran. His conceptions of God, of the future life, and of the duty of
man, are all influenced by his consuming master passion. In all his
writings there are lacking those characteristics which distinguish the
true prophet--the messenger of God--from those to whom he is sent.
This will be apparent by contrasting his views with those of any of
the Old Testament prophets. They were eminently men prepared for their
high calling by lofty yet practical communion with God--men whose
message was inspired by a vision of Divine Majesty, and an impressive
conception of the justice and awful purity of Jehovah. Men who called
the nation to righteousness of life by a stirring appeal to
conscience, and an unfaltering denunciation of the evils of the time.
Their spiritual aspirations, therefore, by far surpass the loftiest
ideals of the prophet of Islam, while their ethical conceptions
infinitely transcend all that Mohammed dreamed of. The voice of the
Eternal is clearly heard in the earnest utterances that fell from
their lips, and through all their prophecies the willingness of Divine
Mercy to reason with men in spite of their erring ways, is apparent.
Three characteristic elements are perceived in their preaching--a very
keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of God;
and a very sharp perception of the politics of their day. Of these
elements, Mohammed's teaching possesses only the last.