His conception of God is essentially deistical. The intimate personal
communion, so characteristic of the Old Testament, is unknown and
unrealised: hence there is little, if anything, in his system that
tends to draw men nigh to God. Attempts to remedy this characteristic
defect have been vainly made by the dervish orders, which, while
acknowledging the claims of Mohammed and his book, have introduced
methods not sanctioned by the system, by which they attempt to find
the communion with the Unseen, for which their souls crave. These
methods are very much akin to the efforts of the devotees of Hinduism.
There is, therefore, lacking amongst Moslems that need which grows out
of personal relationship with the Divine--that need which leads to
moral transformation and spiritual intensity on the part of those who
enjoy such fellowship. The Creator exists apart from His handiwork. He
has predetermined the actions of men. They are destined to eternal
bliss or destruction by an Inflexible Will, so that there is no need
for Divine Interference in their affairs. "God is in His heaven, and
the world is working out its end according to His unalterable decree."
Because of this gross conception, Palgrave has designated the system
"The Pantheism of Force," and says:
"Immeasurably and eternally exalted above, and dissimilar from all
creatures, which he levelled before Him on one common plane of
instrumentality and inertness, God is One in the totality of
omnipotent and omnipresent action, which acknowledges no rule,
standard or limit, save His own sole and absolute will. He
communicates nothing to His creatures, for their seeming power and
act ever remain His alone, and in return He receives nothing from
them; for whatever they may be, that they are in Him, by Him, and
from Him only. And, secondly, no superiority, no distinction, no
pre-eminence, can be lawfully claimed by one creature ever its
fellow, in the utter equalisation of their unexceptional servitude
and abasement; all are alike tools of the one solitary Force which
employs them to crush or to benefit, to truth or to error, to
honour or shame, to happiness or misery, quite independently of
their individual fitness, deserts, or advantages, and simply
because 'He wills it,' and 'as He wills it ...'
"One might at first sight think that this tremendous Autocrat, this
uncontrolled and unsympathising Power, would be far above anything
like passions, desires, or inclinations. Yet such is not the case,
for He has, with respect to His creatures, one main feeling and
source of action, namely, jealousy of them, lest they should
perchance attribute to themselves something of what is His alone,
and thus encroach on His all engrossing kingdom. Hence He is ever
more prone to punish than to reward; to inflict pain than to bestow
pleasure; to ruin than to build. It is His singular satisfaction to
let created beings continually feel that they are nothing else than
His slaves, His tools, and contemptible tools also; that thus they
may the better acknowledge His superiority, and know His power to
be above their power, His cunning above their cunning, His will
above their will, His pride above their pride--or, rather, that
there is no power, cunning, will, or pride save His own.
"But He Himself, sterile in His inaccessible height, neither loving
nor enjoying aught save His own and self-measured decree, without
son, companion, or counsellor, is no less barren of Himself than
for His creatures, and His own barrenness and lone egoism in
Himself is the cause and rule of His indifferent and unregarding
despotism around. The first note is the key of the whole tune, and
the primal idea of God runs through and modifies the whole system
and creed that centres in Him."
Contrast this summary with the teaching of the Old Testament prophets,
the following quotations of which are but a small sample:--
"Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your
sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be
red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye
comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned."
"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me: because the Lord has
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me
to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, etc."
"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, saith
the Lord."
"Who is a god like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth
not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will
turn again; He will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our
iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the
sea."
"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God."
"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He
knoweth them that trust in Him."
In the light of such lofty teaching, the conceptions of Mohammed
appear gross and degraded. His asceticism and contemplation never
brought him a vision of God that overwhelmed him and purified as by
fire. He knew the Creator only from what he heard from the lips of
sinful, ignorant men, whose ideas of Deity were base and ignoble.
These ideas, and the passions that made up such a large portion of his
life, obscured his vision, warped his judgment, and led him to
postulate a God that inhabited not a Holy Spiritual Realm, but a
grossly carnal and sensuous paradise.
Millions have been brought beneath his sway because his system panders
to the natural inclinations of man. Spiritual insight is blinded by
carnal desire; conduct is influenced by unbridled license; bigotry and
hatred are fostered by his policy of intoleration; and his followers
are enslaved by a tyranny that blights the reason, because it
discountenances inquiry, and places an insurmountable barrier in the
way of all human progress.
In studying the life of Mohammed, the cause of his failure to uplift
humanity will be clearly seen. His early sincerity, if sincerity it
can be named, was absorbed by his consuming ambition. Had it been
otherwise he might have had his name inscribed with the honourable
ones of the earth--those men whose claims are ratified by their happy
effects. As it is, his name is linked with those whose deeds cause a
shudder of horror and repulsion to all who love honesty, purity, and
truth.