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crisis of his history, when his power was threatened by rival prophets in his own land, and when he was gathering his forces to measure himself with the power of Rome with the power of Rome in all the glory of the Persian victories of Heraclius the Prophet is called away to his Companion in Paradise, and leaves none to succeed him on earth. At his death the greater part of the tribes of Arabia fall away. They are won back by the wisdom of Abou-Bekr and by the sword of Omar. The united powers of the peninsula, gathered together in the name of God and his Prophet, go forth to the conquest of the two great empires of the world. Within a few years the Eastern provinces of Rome are lopped away, and Persia is wiped out of the list of nations. A century has not passed away before the Caliph of Mahomet reigns alike on the banks of the Jaxartes and on the banks of the Guadalquiver, and the same faith is taught in the temples of Samarkand and in the temples of Cordova.

Such were the main events of the life of Mahomet, and of that first burst of zeal on the part of his followers after his death which can hardly be kept apart from the story of his life. What does such a tale lead us to think of the man himself and of his alleged revelation? We may dismiss without examination the exploded theory which once looked on Mahomet as a conscious impostor from the beginning of his career to the end. But many estimates may be formed of him ranging between the mere reviling of writers like Prideaux and Maracci and the implicit faith which Syed Ahmed is bound to put in the teaching of his Prophet and forefather. Of Mahomet's thorough sincerity, of his honest faith in the truth of his own mission, at all events during the first stages of his career, there can, we think, be no reasonable doubt; indeed, the opposite view seems no longer to have any adherents of whom much heed need be taken. The early Suras those which in the ordinary arrangement will be found at the end carry with them the stamp of perfect sincerity. To a Western taste they may often seem incoherent and unintelligible, but on this point Western taste is hardly a fair judge. As for their matter, there is in them as yet no legislation for a commonwealth; there is not even any dogmatic teaching for a religious sect. These early chapters are the outpouring of the heart of the man himself, the psalms, the musings, the ejaculations, for some of the Suras are so short as to be hardly

more than ejaculations of a man whose whole soul is given up to the contemplation of the goodness of God and of the ingratitude and wickedness of mankind. It is only gradually that Mahomet assumes the character of a preacher, of a Prophet sent by God to announce to man the last revelation of his will. How far then was he sincere, and, if sincere, how far was he justified in thus assuming the character of a divine messenger? Of his sincerity, as we have already said, there can be no doubt. It is impossible to conceive any motive, except faith in his own mission, which could have borne him up through the contempt and persecution which he underwent as long as he abode at Mecca. The mere fact of his lapse, followed as it was by his recantation, seems to us deci dedly in favour of his sincerity. No act of his life reads less like the act of a conscious impostor. It is the act of a man, believing in himself and in what he taught, but whose faith failed him for a season in a moment of temptation. But his mere belief in his own mission would not of itself prove that mission to be divine; it would not even prove the work which he undertook to be a work tending to the good of mankind. Now how far Islam, as preached to the world at large, has tended to the good or evil of mankind is altogether another question. That the early teaching of Mahomet, in the days of his first preaching at Mecca, was directly for the good of the men of that time and place there can be no doubt at all. His religious and moral teaching seems to us sadly imperfect; but it was a teaching which was a measureless advance on anything which his hearers had heard before. Whatever Mahomet may have been to the world at large, to the men of Mecca of his own time he was one who spake of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, one who taught, in the midst of a debasing idolatry, that there is one God, and that there is none other but he. Every man who at this stage accepted the teaching of Mahomet was at once raised to a higher rank in the scale of religious and moral beings. The fiercest revilers of the Prophet cannot deny that his first disciples, if not brought to the perfect knowledge of the truth, were at least brought far nearer to it than they had been before. The striving of his heart which led Mahomet, in the face of scorn and persecution, to preach to an idolatrous city the truth of the unity of God could never have arisen from any low personal motive; it may not be going too far to say that it

power of evil and not of good. Sir Wil liam Muir follows up this hint by a half timid suggestion of his own; that Mahomet was, at least in his later days, the subject of a real Satanic inspiration, which he mistook for an inspiration from heaven. This leads us on ground on which the historian of the outward events of Mahomet's life can hardly venture to tread, and the suggestion might perhaps lead us into a very wide range of thought indeed. If we believé, as every one who really believes in a God at all, must believe, that whatever good thing we say and do is said and done by his prompting, we can hardly refuse to acknowledge a divine influence in the call under which Mahomet felt himself to re

could only have been a movement from God himself. The earliest Suras are the outpourings of a soul athirst for God, a righteous soul stirred to wrath and sorrow by the unlawful deeds of the men around him. What these Suras teach is simple theism of the purest and highest kind, as opposed to a prevalent idolatry. It is not till a somewhat later stage that we have to ask any questions as to the relation of the new teaching towards the older teaching of Christianity and of Judaism. What then was the nature of the special prophetic inspiration to which Mahomet laid claim during this first and best period of his career? Dr. Sprenger, whose tendency is certainly to undervalue the character of the Prophet, insists strongly on the epilep-nounce the idolatry and evil practices of tic fits to which it appears that Mahomet was subject, and on the violent physical emotions with which throughout his life his prophetic utterances seem always to have been ushered in. If we rightly understand his theory, which is worked out at great length and with reference to a vast number of analogies in all ages, the prophetic inspiration of Mahomet was little more than what he calls a kind of "hysteric madness."* Dr. Sprenger goes deeper into the physiology of the matter than we can profess to follow him, and it is quite consistent with his whole view to refer as much as possible to physical causes. On the other hand, the writer in the Quarterly Review, whose Eastern lore seems to be well-nigh as deep as that of Dr. Sprenger, attaches. little or no importance to these alleged fits of epilepsy.

It is possible that fits of this kind may have suggested both to himself and to others the notion of a special inspiration, but the early Suras of the Koran, though they may be called the outpourings of a heated enthusiasm, are certainly not the ravings of a madman. Whatever share in the matter we may choose to attribute to physical causes, the moral position of Mahomet in his first days, as the teacher of a faith and practice, imperfect doubtless, but pure as far as they went, remains untouched. Sir William Muir has another suggestion. He starts from the doubts which are said to have been entertained by Mahomet himself at one stage of his mission, whether the supernatural influence under which he felt himself might not proceed from the

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his countrymen and to set before them a purer rule of faith and practice. In such a sense as this, however we may deem of Mahomet's later conduct and later teaching, we may surely look on Mahomet's original mission as divine. As to the alleged physical symptoms, as to his belief that he was in his utterances a mere channel of the divine word, let any one judge dogmatically, if he can first solve the daily mystery of his own thoughts, words, and actions. It is quite certain that men who do not call themselves prophets or divinely commissioned lawgivers do yet, in speaking from the depths of their hearts in a cause of truth and righteousness, sometimes feel a power which is not wholly within their own control, a power which as it were carries them beyond their ordinary selves, and which seems to put words in their mouths of which at other moments they would be incapable. But if, without committing ourselves to any technical definitions of inspiration and the like, we look on Mahomet, in the early stages of his career, as a true servant of God, honestly speaking in his name, we need not see in such a position as this any safeguard against the ordinary temptations of human nature. We may choose, or we may not, to personify these temptations in the direct Satanic influence suggested by Sir William Muir. If we may venture to throw out a hint as to anything so mysterious as the workings of another human soul, we should be inclined to say that the moment when Mahomet first erred, the moment when he began to fall away from the high position Iwith which he set forth, was when he, the teacher of an imperfect form of truth, failed to make a more diligent search than he actually did make after the more perfect forms of truth which came within his reach. As against the idolatry of Mecca, his posi

tion was perfect; his teaching was in every | ity had already assumed. He must surely sense an advance towards a higher stage; have misconceived the doctrines of any as against Christianity, his system was a conceivable sect, when he confounded the falling back it was a turning away from angel Gabriel with the Holy Ghost, and more perfect truth to less perfect. And represented Christians as looking on the this consideration at once leads us to the mother of Jesus as a person of the Trinity. historical relation between Islam and the That he cast away such doctrines as these other two great monotheistic religions. with indignation we cannot wonder, nor can we greatly wonder that he confounded the Christian doctrine of the divine sonship with the idolatrous belief in the daughters and other satellites of God which it was his special mission to overthrow. We cannot fairly blame Mahomet for rejecting Christianity in the shape in which it seems to have appeared in his eyes; but we can hardly acquit him of blame for not taking all the pains that he might have taken to find out what Christianity really was. If this neglect was owing to spiritual pride, to an overweening confidence in himself, as not only a divinely commissioned but an absolutely infallible teacher, we may see in this failure to seek after the truth with all his heart and with all his strength the first step in a downward career.

The teaching of the Koran with regard to both Judaism and Christianity is strangely fluctuating and uncertain, in marked contrast to its unflinching denunciations of idolatry in every shape. In the

It is one of the hardest problems in our whole story to find out the exact amount of knowledge of Christianity which Mahomet had at any time of his career. The old story of the monk Nestorius, or whatever his name might be, by whose help the older controversialists alleged that the Koran was put together, is now wholly exploded. But we hear of Mahomet listening to the preaching of a Bishop of Najrah. In other accounts, Waraka, one of the "Four Enquirers" of Arabian story, one of the men who began the search after religious truth before Mahomet appeared, is described as a friend of Mahomet himself and a cousin of his wife Khadijah. He is said to have been a convert to Christianity, or at all events to have had some acquaintance with its doctrines. It is certain that Mahomet, while still at Mecca, was on friendly terms with the Christian King of Abyssinia, and it was in his dominions that his early followers sought shelter from persecution. Some means earliest Suras there is no mention of either were therefore clearly open to Mahomet system. At a somewhat later stage, yet of gaining a knowledge of what Christian- one which begins before the Hegira, Maity really was; but it seems plain that he homet seems to delight in bringing in such never came across the genuine text of the knowledge as he had of either system, and New Testament or its genuine teaching in by the wild fables which he tells he shows any shape. His notion that the Gospel how small his knowledge was of the genuwas a book revealed to the prophet Jesus ine records of either faith. In a passage is of itself proof enough that he had never in one of the latest Suras of all, but which seen or heard the genuine record itself. seems, like many others, as if it had wanSingularly enough, the one Christian doc- dered out of its place from a time somewhat trine which he seems to have thoroughly earlier, Mahomet still pronounces Judaism. grasped, and which he puts forth in the Christianity, even Sabianism, any creed clearest terms, is that of the miraculous which taught the unity of God and his fubirth of Christ. The virginity of the moth- ture judgment, as being all of them safe er of Jesus is not only asserted, but is ways of salvation alongside of his own dwelt on with a kind of delight as a doc- Islam.t Yet in the very same Sura he trine specially cherished. But, on all oth-charges Jews and Christians with wilful er points, Mahomet's notions of Christianity seem to have been at all times of the vaguest kind. His ideas of the life of Christ are borrowed from the wild stories of the Apocryphal Gospels, and he emphatically denies the reality of the crucifixion. In this case indeed the denial is so emphatic that the truth must have been set before him and rejected by him. On purely theological points he seems to have utterly misconceived what Christian doctrine really was, even in the corruptest of the many corrupt forms which in his day Christian

His

corruption of their sacred books.
great controversy lay with the Jews far
more than with the Christians. The Jews
were by far the more important body in
Arabia. A considerable proportion of the
inhabitants of the peninsula, whe her of He-
brew origin or not, were at any rate pro-

See for instance the whole story of Joseph as given in the twelfth Sura (Rodwell, p. 20), and the story of Mary in the same Sura (Rodwell, p. 494). This last, however, is of later date. + Sura v. 73. (Rodwell, p. 644.) Sura v. 45. (Rodwell, p. 689.)

nearly the same date, we find Jews and Christians alike charged with the guilt of idolatry, and God is implored to do battle against both alike,* And in this last stage, when he was making ready for his attack on the Roman Empire, Mahomet practically dealt out the same measure to the Christian which he dealt out to the Jew and the idolator. To all alike the alternative was now offered of Koran, tribute, or sword.

fessors of the Hebrew faith. For a long time Mahomet clung to the hope of winning over to his side a body of men who had so much in common with himself, whose creed, like his, was a living protest against idolatry and a never-failing assertion of the unity of God. The expectation was not unnatural. Judaism, as it must have existed in Arabia, cut off from all the local and national associations of Palestine and embraced by many who were Jews only by adoption, might, one would have The relation which Islam in the end thought, have easily coalesced with a sys- took up towards both Judaism and Christem which agreed with all its essential tianity must be borne in mind. Each of doctrines, and which had the further the successive dispensations is a republicarecommendation of being preached by a tion of the earlier one, but all alike are national prophet. One great difficulty declared to be republications of the origidoubtless was that the Jew, in embracing nal faith of Abraham. Abraham, it must Islam, had also in some sort to embrace be remembered, fills a still greater place Christianity. He was in no way called on in Mahometan than he does in Jewish to cast aside Moses, though he was called memories. He is not only the forefather on to accept Mahomet as the teacher of a and the prophet; he is also the local more excellent way. But he was called founder of the national worship. The on also to accept the prophet of the inter- Kaaba of Mecca was the temple reared mediate system as being, no less than by Abraham and Ishmael to the one true either of them, a divine teacher. He was God, and it was only in the course of ages called on to confess that a Nazarene whom of corruption that it came to be desecrated his forefathers had rejected was, not in- into a shrine of idol-worship. As Western deed the Son of God, but one of God's criticism will attach very little value to greatest prophets, a prophet distinguished the endless genealogies of early Arabian from all before and after him by that tradition, † so it will attach just as little miraculous birth to which neither Moses value to the legend of the Abrahamic nor Mahomet laid claim. In Mahomet's origin of Mecca and its sanctuary. It scheme Christianity was, up to his own may be a native legend; it may have coming, God's last and most perfect revel- arisen from the spreading abroad of Jewation; not only Christ himself, but Chris- ish ideas; in either case the origines of tian saints and martyrs, are held up to Mecca stand on the same ground, from reverence as teachers and witnesses of an historical point of view, as the origines what then was the truth, just as we look of Rome and Athens. The famous black on the prophets and worthies of Old Tes- stone sinks in the eye of criticism into the tament history. The strictly theological fetish of some early super-tition, and the difficulty in embracing Islam must have strange rites of the Meccan pilgrimage been greater to the Christian than to the come within the sphere of the historian of Jew; but the Jew had to make, what the "Primitive Culture." But the belief in Christian had not, the humiliating confes- Abraham as the founder of the Kaaba, sion that he and his fathers had already worthless as the statement of an historical refused the latest manifestation of God's fact, becomes of the highest moment as a will. Here most likely was the great belief which had no small influence on the stumbling-block which hindered the Ara- mind and the career of Mahomet. Local bian professors of Judaism from accepting reverence for the local sanctuary was a teaching which otherwise must have had strong in his mind through his whole life. so many attractions for them. Certain it It stands forth with special prominence in is that in some of his very latest revela- the tale of the War of the Elephant, how tions, Mahomet speaks most bitterly of Abrahah, the Christian King of Hamyar, the Jews as enemies to his teaching no less marched against the holy place and was stubborn than the idolators themselves. driven back by a miraculous interposition. But of the Christians he speaks with the Mahomet records the tale with glee; yet, greatest tenderness, as men well disposed according to his own view, Abrahah, a to Islam and easily to be won over to its full profession.* Yet in another Sura of

Sura v. 85. (Rodwell. p. 645.)

Sura ix. 30. (Rodwell. p. 615.)

+ See the amusing analogies suggested by Dr. Sprenger, vol. iii. pp. cxliv cxlv.

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+ See Tylor's Primitive Culture,” ii. 152.

professor of what was then God's last rev- the supposed earlier faith of Abraham, he elation, ought to have been looked on as never ceased to proclaim that Moses and a forestaller of his own work, as one sent Jesus were the prophets of two successive to cleanse the Kaaba from its idolatrous divine dispensations, and that the sacred defilement. But local feeling was too books of their respective followers were strong for consistency, and the preacher two successive revelations of the divine of the unity of God could rejoice over the will. Those books, as they existed in his overthrow of the man who, in smiting time, were, in his view, utterly corrupted, down the idols of Mecca, would have made but in their original purity, they had been Mecca a vassal city. But to do the work the Word of God, no less than his own in which Abrahah failed, to sweep away Koran. It was therefore natural that he all taint of idolatry from the ancient sanc- should seek to show that these earlier revtuary, was from the beginning one of elations pointed to himself as a teacher Mahomet's most cherished objects, as its who was still to come. As the Christians actual accomplishment was the most strik- held that their prophet was pointed out ing outward badge of his success. As and foretold in the writings of the Jewish long as he had hopes of winning over the dispensation, so it might be expected that professors of the other monotheistic creeds, Mahomet himself would be pointed out and this tendency was to some extent kept in foretold in the writings of the Christian the background. He chose Jerusalem, the dispensation. In a well-known passage of Holy City of both Jews and Christians, to the Koran, Mahomet himself affirms that be equally the Holy City of Islam, to be Jesus had prophesied of him by the name the point to which his followers, like of Ahmed, a name radically the same as Daniel in his captivity, were to turn their Mohammed or Mahomet. There can be faces in prayer. When he found that there little doubt, as has been often shown, that was no hope of an union of all "the peo- this idea arose from some confusion or corple of the book," of all the believers in ruption of the text of the passage where the successive revelations he turned Christ promises the coming of the Paraaway from the holy place of Jew and clete.* Another passage, which has been Christian, from the temples of Constantine often and with real ingenuity held to refer and of Solomon, and bade that believers to Mahomet, is the passage of Isaiah which should turn in prayer to the holy place speaks of "a chariot of asses and a chariot of his own nation, to the far older sanc- of camels;"† more accurately, it would tuary of the Father of the Faithful, the seem, "a rider on an ass and a rider ou a Friend of God. And more than this, camel." Syed Ahmed has a whole essay, though the Kaaba was cleared of its idols, an essay showing a good deal of ingenuity, and became again the shrine of the God on the prophecies of Mahomet contained of Abraham only, yet, in the same spirit in the Old and New Testament. The which rejoiced over the overthrow of original promise to Ishmael is pressed Abrahah, Mahomet incorporated with his into the service; if, as Christian writers system the whole ritual of the Meccan hold, the promise made to Isaac was not pilgrimage, so far as it did not involve any- wholly temporal, but contained a promise thing which was manifestly idolatrous. of spiritual blessings also, then the analoBut the strange and superstitious ceremo-gous promise to Ishmael should also be nies which he retained, the running to held to take in the spiritual blessings and fro, the casting of stones, the slaying granted to the race of Ishmael by Mahomet of beasts, in sacrifice, the reverence paid coming of his stock. Mahomet, again, is to the primæval fetish, all form a strange the prophet whom the Lord was to raise contrast with the otherwise simple and up to the Israelites from among their reasonable forms of Mahometan worship brethren like unto Moses.§ For we are as ordained by their founder. So strange expressly told that in Israel itself there an anomaly could never have been en- never arose another prophet like unto dured by Mahomet, unless under the influence of the very strongest local feeling, not unmixed perhaps with indignation against those whom he had striven to win over by condescension to their traditions, but who had utterly refused to listen to the voice of the charmer.

Yet, while Mahomet thus cast aside all thoughts of amalgamation with Judaism and Christianity, and fell back on

• Παράκλητος might easily be corrupted into TepiκAUTOS, and Ahmed or Mohammed would be a fair Arabic translation of TepikλUTO. It will be remembered that the modern Greek pronunciation makes the likeness of the words aрúkλто and TEPiKAVTOç still closer, and the Latin form Parāclitus shows that both the accentual pronunciation

and the confusion of 77 and had already set in.
† Isaiah xxi. 7.
Genesis xvii. 20.
§ Deut. xv. 18.

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