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ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
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 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
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ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 BY 
 
 Duncan Black Macdonald, m.a., d.d. 
 
 :♦' 
 
 s5w 
 
 OF f 
 
 Sometime Scholar and Fellow of the University of Glasgow; 
 
 Professor of Semitic Languages in Hartford Theological 
 
 Seminary ; Author of Development of Muslim 
 
 Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitu- /\^ 
 
 tional Theory; The Religious Attitude 
 
 and Life in Islam, etc. I* JUN 7 
 
 '^s, 
 
 %/CJlL 
 
 "The paradox, in truth, of the missionary's life is that he 
 must have a liking for his people and their queerest 
 little ways even while he is trying to change them.'* 
 
 P. 359. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1911 
 
 All rights rtttrvtd 
 
Copyright, 1911, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1911. 
 
 Nnrfajooli ^rtsg : 
 Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
TO THE DEAR AND HONORED MEMORY OF 
 
 Daniel 9@met Koger0 
 
 MISSIONARY OF CHRIST IN ASIA MINOR, 
 WHO WAS KILLED AT ADANA ON 
 APRIL 15TH, 1909, WHILE MIN- 
 ISTERING MERCY AND 
 PEACE, THESE PAGES 
 ARE DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The present volume contains the Hartford- 
 Lamson Lectures for 1909. To the eight lectures 
 actually delivered in accordance with the require- 
 ments of that foundation two have here been 
 added, the present eighth and ninth, in order 
 somewhat to round out these aspects of Islam 
 and to make them a more complete introduction 
 for the young missionary to his new and strange 
 world. For this is a book for beginners rather 
 than scholars; it deals in broad outlines and 
 statements and not in details and qualifications. 
 Yet I would not suggest that I have made asser- 
 tions more sweeping than can be defended. 
 Nothing is set down in these pages that I am not 
 prepared to maintain with proof at length, al- 
 though I am well aware that there are some 
 statements here which some Arabists will regard 
 dubiously. I would entreat such to believe that 
 they are not due to careless rhetoric but have 
 sprung from long consideration and express set- 
 tled convictions. It has seemed best also to re- 
 
 ■ • 
 
 Vll 
 
Vlll PREFACE 
 
 tain the somewhat colloquial tone due in the first 
 instance to delivery before an intimate audience 
 and in a small room. 
 
 If any stray student of Romance runs through 
 these pages and comes across my reference to the 
 author of Aiicassin et Nicolete in the eighth lec- 
 ture, I trust that he will not think that I have 
 too lightly essayed to settle a serious problem in 
 a field not my own. The fact is that there is a 
 class of popular Arabic romances which exhibit 
 exactly the movement of the cante-fable, the 
 story being told in alternate sections of prose and 
 verse and in such a way that these, to a consider- 
 able extent, cover the same matter. Of this the 
 Romance of Bihars, lately printed in full at 
 Cairo, is a good example. I hope to deal with! 
 this subject at greater length elsewhere. 
 
 Again it is a pleasant duty to thank my col- 
 league Professor Gillett for much generous 
 assistance both in talking over points in meta- 
 physics and in reading the whole book in MS. 
 
 In my wife's debt I am more deeply than ever 
 before for, in truth, her assistance in this book 
 has fallen little short of formal collaboration. 
 The personal experiences in the East of which I 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 have made use were in great part hers as well as 
 mine, and in describing them a plural pronoun 
 might often more fitly have been employed. We 
 have discussed, too, these experiences and the 
 situations which we observed to such an extent 
 that it is impossible now, even if we desired so 
 to do, to separate out the ideas and explanations 
 which we have each contributed. I can now 
 only take the general responsibility and acknow- 
 ledge a large indebtedness. 
 
 DUNCAN B. MACDONALD 
 
 Hartford, Conn., U. S. A 
 October, 1910 
 
NOTE 
 
 The Hartford-Lamson Lectures on *The 
 Religions of the World" are delivered at Hart- 
 ford Theological Seminary in connection with 
 the Lamson Fund, which was established by a 
 group of friends in honour of the late Charles 
 M. Lamson, D. D., sometime President of the 
 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign 
 Missions, to assist in preparing students for 
 the foreign missionary field. The Lectures are 
 designed primarily to give to such students a 
 good knowledge of the religious history, beliefs 
 and customs of the peoples among whom they 
 expect to labour. As they are delivered by 
 scholars of the first rank, who are authorities 
 in their respective fields, it is expected that in 
 published form they will prove to be of value 
 to students generally. 
 
 XI 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Lecture I. 
 
 The Muslim East as it presents itself i6 
 
 Lecture IL 
 
 The Person and Life of Muhammad 46 
 
 Lecture IIL 
 
 The Qur'an; the present Muslim attitude 
 
 towards Muhammad 77 
 
 Lecture IV. 
 
 Muslim Theology and Metaphysics 115 
 
 Lecture V. 
 
 The Mystical Life and the Darwish Fraternities 145 
 Lecture VI. 
 
 The Mystical Life and the Darwish Fraterni- 
 ties continued 176 
 
 Lecture VII. 
 
 The Attitude of Islam to the Scriptures and 
 
 to the Person of Christ 210 
 
 Lecture VIII. 
 
 The Missionary Activity of Muslims 250 
 
 Lecture IX. 
 
 Muslim Ideas on Education 288 
 
 Lecture X. 
 
 The Inner Side of Muslim Life — Popular 
 
 Literature — a Missionary's Reading 323 
 
 Index 363 
 
 xiii 
 
V 
 
 THE HARTFORD-LAMSON LECTURES 
 
 ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION 
 
 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the following lectures I have endeavored 
 to avoid direct suggestion as to the training and 
 methods of the missionary to Muslims, except in 
 such broad and humane aspects as sympathy, 
 courtesy and patience. Let him combine these 
 with the fullest knowledge possible to him and 
 he cannot go far astray. On the side of training, 
 the foundations must, ever be broad, unbiassed 
 and uncontroversial knowledge, and, on the side 
 of methods, nothing can take the place of instinct 
 and experience. 
 
 But it is true also that some details on training, 
 whatever their value, and some ideas as to 
 methods, whatever their validity, may legitimately 
 be expected from the writer of one of the hand- 
 books in this series. With diffidence, then, but 
 frankness, I put in this introduction what has 
 come to me on a vast and tangled question. 
 
 The peculiar characteristic of the Muslim 
 field, and, in consequence, the ruling considera- 
 tion in the training of missionaries for it, is that 
 I I 
 
ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 we have to consider Muslims as being very near 
 to ourselves in point of theology. What is 
 needed, therefore, is a power of fine discrimina- 
 tion, combined with sympathy and an apprecia- 
 tion of points of agreement. The missionary to 
 them must emphatically be a large, all-round 
 man of personality and, if possible, of mystical 
 tendency. He must be able to realize that when 
 Muslims accept Christianity they will have to 
 make it over for themselves; they will have to 
 construct their own theology; and it is his busi- 
 ness to supply them with general ideas, with con- 
 ceptions of character and conduct, and to help 
 them discreetly in the development of their own 
 system. By no means should he attempt to force 
 any system upon them or be surprised at any 
 deviations which they may develop. 
 
 He should also be of breadth enough not to 
 tend, as so many do, to exaggerate the evils of 
 his own field. If he is the right man, he will 
 have fallen in love with it and will feel that the 
 people are his people, to have and to hold, even 
 though their God may hardly be his God. Liking 
 is a necessity, and the right man, while he is 
 hammering at them himself, will be slow to de- 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 fame and publicly reproach them. When he is 
 met by strange or repellent theological doctrines 
 in Islam, it will be for him to consider in how 
 many uncouth ways the doctrines of Christianity 
 are often presented, and also that in Islam, as in 
 every religion, very many different views may 
 be held of a single doctrine. He must take ac- 
 count of all. Secondly, when he meets with 
 grave social difficulties and diseases in the struc- 
 ture of Islam, he must be a man of mind enough 
 to remember the classes with which he peculiarly 
 comes in contact ; that they, on the one hand, are 
 what we would call the slum classes, and, on the 
 other hand, belong to what is parallel to our 
 social Four Hundred. We would not regard 
 either of those classes as typical of our civiliza- 
 tion. I venture especially to think that the 
 pastorate of a slum district with us is a very 
 close and suggestive parallel for many Muslim 
 mission fields. As is the case with such a pastor, 
 the missionary, whether man or woman, will be 
 compelled to make himself thoroughly acquainted 
 with very repellent conditions of life, and also to 
 estimate these at their true value. In this con- 
 nection I trust that my last lecture will be read 
 
ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 sympathetically and broadly. It will be, I doubt 
 not, a hard doctrine for many; but the kernel of 
 the matter Is there. Upon the missionary, just 
 as upon the home pastor, there lies the heavy 
 necessity that he must know and yet keep his 
 mind and heart clean; that he must realize and 
 yet must hope. If he does not know, he cannot 
 help; if he does not realize, he cannot see. The 
 woman missionary in Egypt, to take a single 
 point, who does not know about the Zar, cannot 
 have really known the women of her district, 
 does not intimatelv touch their lives and cannot 
 fully help them. 
 
 The missionary must, further, from the nature 
 of the field, be capable of, and even have a relish 
 for, scholastic metaphysics and philosophical dis- 
 cussion. He must himself be able to enter into 
 and carry on such discussions. It will always 
 be possible that native converts may know more 
 Arabic metaphysics than he does ; but it is always 
 true also that the native convert cannot handle 
 people, especially large assemblies of people, as a 
 missionary can. 
 
 He should, therefore, train himself to suit the 
 methods and ways of these people. He should 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 try to be quiet, slow even, and democratic in 
 attitude. He must not forget that the Muslim 
 peoples theoretically, and to a great extent prac- 
 tically, are the most democratic in the world, al- 
 though this is modified always by their respect 
 for learning, provided it is the kind of learning 
 that appeals to them. 
 
 He should, therefore, cultivate the habit of 
 reading their literature very widely. He should 
 especially read the more modern books that are 
 the literature of the masses. He should beware 
 of hmiting his reading to translations of Chris- 
 tian literature into the language of his field or to 
 modern Christian literature written in that lan- 
 guage. Such reading may give him language; 
 but, being essentially foreign, it will never give 
 him the native atmosphere and ideas. He need 
 not pay any especial attention to their classical 
 literature, except so far as may be required to 
 retain the respect of the learned. Let him con- 
 sider, here, the parallel of a Muslim missionary 
 coming to a Christian country. Such a mission- 
 ary, if he went to work really to try to under- 
 stand his people, would require to read upon two 
 sides. He would require to understand Chris- 
 
6 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 tian theology, and for that he would need to go 
 to the more technical books. If he trusted en- 
 tirely to what he might hear in sermons or pick 
 up in conversation, he would be seriously misled 
 with regard to the whole basis of our faith. But, 
 on the other hand, to understand the people he 
 would need to go to the current literature. He 
 would need to go to the newspapers, the maga- 
 zines, the popular books that they would read. 
 
 I pass now to the education of the missionary 
 in a more precise sense, and in what follows I 
 am considering the case of a man who is to stand 
 independently upon his own feet and not be part 
 simply of some scholastic machinery. In a word, 
 I am thinking of the missionary who must meet 
 the situation of his field as a whole, alone. 
 
 Now in accordance with what I have said 
 above, it is plain that he must be primarily a good 
 theologian, of a solid, well-schooled type. Even 
 the mysticism of Islam is metaphysical and has a 
 definite system under it as a basis. He must 
 not be of a sentimental, revivalistic type; but 
 should have a clear, well-worked reason for his 
 faith. Independent even of any Biblical basis, 
 he should, so far as possible, be able to work his 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 doctrine back to metaphysical ideas. But, sec- 
 ondly, he must know Muslim theology thoroughly. 
 He must have studied the books of the Muslim 
 theologians themselves. Simply to read the 
 Qur'an is not sufficient. That might give him 
 the Islam of Muhammad. It v^ould not give 
 him the Islam of today. 
 
 But besides that, he should study to know 
 Muslim life, the attitudes of Muslims, their 
 governing ideas. The more of this he has before 
 he goes out to his field, the better, and for the 
 following reasons. First, it will guard him 
 against being led into essential error at the start. 
 Almost certainly, when he enters first upon his 
 field, he will meet with what I have described in 
 my first lecture as a conspiracy of misinforma- 
 tion, and unless he has a solid knowledge of what 
 he has to expect and has also, from his previous 
 study, learned how to test the things told to him, 
 he may receive ideas that will bias him towards 
 error for all the rest of his career. Second, on 
 no Muslim field is it possible, at present at least, 
 to get thoroughly good teaching. The native 
 teachers of language may know their languages 
 well, but it is very rarely that they have any ideas 
 
8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of teaching them. And it is still more difficult 
 to read theology and philosophy with them. They 
 know their systems after a fashion; they cannot 
 state them in any clear way. And as for the 
 missionaries on the field, their time is far too 
 much taken up for them to be able to do anything 
 else than give the merest suggestions to other 
 men. Third, a good library is seldom accessible 
 to any mission field. Fourth, whenever a mis- 
 sionary arrives, he is liable to be sw^allowed up at 
 once by the work of the station. It is true that 
 he is supposed to have a certain time for prepara- 
 tion, but as a matter of practice that rarely holds. 
 What I have now said applies to the classical 
 language of the field but not to the vernacular. 
 No attempt should be made to study the vernac- 
 ular before the missionary goes out. But if he 
 has the beginnings at least of a thorough grasp 
 of the classical language, and in this case it is 
 Arabic, he is in possession of an enormously im- 
 portant tool for his work anywhere. First, it 
 goes without saying that in Arabic-speaking 
 lands a knowledge of classical or literary Arabic 
 will be a help of primary importance to the acqui- 
 sition of the vernacular. Such a knowledge will 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 also prevent him from falling into the too preva- 
 lent blunder of confusing the literary language 
 and the vernacular. Second, the languages of 
 Persia, Turkey and India are largely permeated 
 by Arabic vocabulary. It may be said that all 
 the scientific terms in Persian, Turkish and 
 Hindi are of Arabic origin. Third, Arabic 
 can be called most exactly the Latin of all Mus- 
 lim countries. Without a knowledge of it, 
 Muslim theology, philosophy and the literature 
 of thought in general are either inaccessible or 
 incomprehensible. 
 
 I would finally throw out the suggestion that 
 it might be of advantage for a missionary, after 
 he has received such training as is sketched 
 above and before he goes to his own field, to spend 
 some months in some other Muslim country, in 
 order personally to study the people, their ideas 
 and customs, without the handicap of a profes- 
 sional environment. It Is very diflficult for a 
 professed missionary to secure intimate access to 
 Muslims. It can undoubtedly be done, has been 
 done; but it is certainly difBcult. On the other 
 hand, a man who knows Arabic, has read Arabic 
 theology and is interested in those things, will 
 
lO ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 find that they are in themselves a passport with 
 Muslims. They will talk with him and open their 
 ideas to him, it being always understood that 
 they do not regard him as a missionary. I be- 
 lieve, therefore, that six months of such contact, 
 apart from missionary associations, would be of 
 inestimable value at the beginning of any mis- 
 sionary's career. In this I write from my own 
 experience. 
 
 On methods I must speak with still greater 
 diffidence. A missionary's work I take to con- 
 sist of two things, a planting of germinal ideas 
 and an upbuilding of character. For both the 
 slow way round is best. With regard to ideas 
 especially, spiritual and moral, the missionary 
 will probably discover that the East has quite as 
 many as he has himself, and can propound them 
 much more fluently and impressively. But are 
 they germinal? Do they strike roots down into 
 the being and branch upwards into life, producing 
 the fruits of good works ? The East has suffered 
 for centuries from creeds without relation to con- 
 duct and mystical religion without contact with 
 realities. So he will learn that these beautiful 
 sentiments are an inheritance of words only and 
 
INTRODUCTION 1 1 
 
 mean nothing. His ideas must be different and 
 show their difference. They must be related to 
 Hfe, and he, in all his walk and conversation, 
 must exemplify them and commend them. 
 
 Again, in the past the missionary has of neces- 
 sity been an educator and such he must still be. 
 But his province is rapidly changing. Once, 
 practically all training, both intellectual and 
 moral, was in his hands ; now he is being gradu- 
 ally driven aside by the pressure of the state 
 schools. It is plain that there is going to be an 
 abundance of intellectual education but little train- 
 ing of character and drill in morals. And there 
 lies the future problem of the missionary. As 
 he goes back to his primary work of preaching 
 and witnessing to Christ, how can he retain his 
 influence upon education and upon the upbuilding 
 of the character of the young? The solutions to 
 this question are still in the darkness and will 
 probably be different in different localities and 
 under different conditions. The Christian col- 
 leges will help; it will be long before there are 
 Muslim schools which can compete with them. 
 The Christian high-schools, too, handicapped as 
 they will be for buildings, apparatus and teach- 
 
12 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ers, will long hold their own by the weight of 
 their moral training. Muslim parents will en- 
 trust to them their children, and especially their 
 daughters, rather than to teachers of their own 
 faith. But everywhere the missionary, whatever 
 happens, must learn to control by example or 
 competition or stimulus or however it may be 
 this upbuilding of character. 
 
 But again, in what direction, under this pres- 
 sure of education. Is the Muslim world drifting 
 and towards what end ? Unless all signs deceive, 
 there lies before the Muslim peoples a terrible 
 religious collapse. Islam as a religion is not 
 holding its own against the unbelief that is flood- 
 ing it from the European civilization. Young men 
 are growing up into crass and material forms 
 of atheism, forms that the best intellectual life of 
 Europe has itself thrown off. And as education 
 spreads and deepens, as history vindicates for 
 itself its place, as the moral feeling becomes more 
 watchful and sensitive, so the legend of Muham- 
 mad will crumble and his character be seen in its 
 true light. And with Muhammad the entire 
 fabric must go. It is then for the Christian 
 schools and preachers to save these peoples, not 
 
INTRODUCTION I3 
 
 only for Christianity but for any religion at all; 
 to vindicate to them the claims upon their lives 
 of religion in the broadest sense. 
 
 So the missionary must learn to mix with the 
 young, and especially with young men, in easy 
 unconstrained intercourse. Clubs and associa- 
 tions with lectures and informal conversation 
 have a large future. As their own historical 
 religion breaks before criticism and the stern test 
 of the moral law, these young men must be led 
 to see that all religion is not therefore false. The 
 missionary will not be a controversialist, al- 
 though he must know controversy and be able 
 with dialectic to give a reason for the faith that 
 is in him. Often he will find that it Is not best 
 to attack Muhammadanism directly, but to let the 
 new ideas eat away its foundations. An attack, 
 however valid and logical, arouses resistance ; but 
 the conclusions which we have reached for our- 
 selves from given and accepted premises are our 
 own. And always it will be his endeavor to 
 bring those with whom he is In contact to read 
 the Bible for themselves with open and enquiring 
 minds. Then the greater part of his labour is 
 accomplished, for what our old divines called the 
 
14 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 witness of Scripture to itself is a very striking 
 reality, as every missionary to Islam knows. It 
 needs no comment, requires no preaching, but 
 does Its own work. Of that I had myself, in my 
 own experiences, ample evidence. 
 
 Thus, face to face with the Bible, we can safely 
 leave the Muslim. When he needs help he will 
 seek it; it is for the missionary to see to it that 
 so seeking he will find. And in that search of 
 his, very much will depend upon the theological 
 training of the missionary to whom he turns, for 
 none but a schooled theologian can meet the needs 
 of an educated Muslim. One such convert to 
 Christianity, a thorough theologian in his old 
 faith, told me that the only missionary from 
 whom he had really got help in his time of con- 
 fused search had been a Jesuit priest ; he had been 
 systematically trained In a scholastic method akin 
 to that of Muslims and could put his faith in 
 logical form. But the missionary must also see 
 to it that he does not by a stiff doctrine of inspi- 
 ration and inerrancy lay up future dangers for 
 his convert. It is true that the tendency of the 
 Muslim enquirer will be to welcome such a stiff 
 doctrine ; for him the stiffer it is, the better. But 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 our Biblical criticism is already penetrating the 
 East, and the time is near when faith built upon 
 Old Testament proof-texts will not stand the 
 test. That reconstruction of our attitude towards 
 the Bible which we are all facing is of immediate 
 and practical imminence in the Muslim field. 
 The missionary there must have his opinion and 
 doctrine ready to state and to teach. But, on 
 another side, he has a help towards this and a 
 comfort and strength in it which many of us 
 now-a-days seem to lack. All his work brings 
 in upon him the fact of the difference of the 
 Bible, taken broadly, from other books, and of 
 the reality of its unique influence upon men. 
 Knowing that, he can go forward the more 
 quietly with the working out in theological form 
 of what it means. The thing itself is surely 
 there. 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 THE MUSLIM EAST AS IT PRESENTS ITSELF 
 
 In this series of the Hartford-Lamson Lectures, 
 with the dehvery of which I have been entrusted, 
 I shall not endeavor to put before you a complete 
 outline of the theology of Islam nor any descrip- 
 tion in systematic form of its religious life and 
 thougfht. I have alreadv dealt with these in two 
 books, and I have no desire to repeat what I have 
 said there. Still less do I desire to give you in 
 lecture form a little hand-book of Muslim con- 
 troversy or to describe the methods which the 
 prudent missionary should adopt and the argu- 
 ments which he should use. Such books exist; 
 but I am very dubious, I confess, in the abstract, 
 as to their value for the missionary or for any 
 one else, and the individual volumes which I have 
 examined have not tended to do away with my 
 doubts/ 
 
 1 By far the best of those which I have seen is Cru- 
 saders of the Twentieth Century, by W. A. Rice, M. A., 
 London, 1910. It appeared after these lectures were writ- 
 ten and could certainly be used with advantage after a 
 broad historical and theological foundation had been laid. 
 
 16 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 1 7 
 
 Let me give one example of the too frequent 
 tactlessness and inaccuracy of these books, taken 
 from a much used missionary hand-book. There 
 is a chapter of the Our'an which is called the 
 Chapter of the Cow. It gains that name from 
 the fact that there is mention in it of the Red 
 Heifer of the Mosaic law. But it so happens 
 that in another place the law of marriage and 
 divorce is set forth. In this manual of contro- 
 versy, then, the title of "The Cow" is used to 
 illustrate and demonstrate the supposed Muslim 
 attitude towards women — that they are regarded 
 as cattle. Now, it would have been perfectly 
 allowable to quote for that purpose verse 223, 
 ''Your women are a tillage of yours," always 
 provided that the use of this metaphor was 
 explained from the context; but the title of the 
 chapter has nothing whatever to do with this 
 subject. 
 
 So there are here two very unfortunate things : 
 one of them is the ignorance displayed ; the other 
 of them is the attitude of mind which is exhibited. 
 The determination is to make a point at all 
 hazards, in this case the somewhat important 
 hazard, or certainty, of alienating and repelling 
 
1 8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 any intelligent Muslim to whom such an argu- 
 ment may come. Nor, in general, need I empha- 
 size to you the danger that lies in all knowledge 
 gained in controversial form. No true knowl- 
 edge can be reached In that fashion; and it is 
 not, therefore, in controversial form or in such 
 a way that it can be used at once in debate by 
 the missionary that I wish to communicate any- 
 thing in the course of these lectures. If the 
 combative spirit is awake in the missionary, It 
 will soon be aroused in the Muslim. For this 
 reason I regret that in the recent renewal of inter- 
 est in Muslim missions there has been so much 
 warlike denunciation and beating of the crusad- 
 ing drum. The Muslim world knows of it and 
 takes its attitude from it, and the young men who 
 go out under its influence cannot easily return 
 to the sanity, sympathy and charity which the 
 spirit of their Master requires. 
 
 But there is another danger In such a method 
 as this, the very great danger that always lies 
 in the belief that if you simply study how to do 
 a thing, you will, forthwith, become able to do 
 it. We see this again and again amongst our- 
 selves with regard to such an ordinary, everyday 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST IQ 
 
 thing as teaching. There are innumerable meth- 
 ods of teaching; but it all depends in the end 
 upon the teacher, and the man who depends upon 
 his methods will never become a teacher. 
 
 Again, there is still another danger, the danger 
 of difference. It was said to me, for instance, 
 by a missionary, about the same book from which 
 I have culled the above argument, that inasmuch 
 as it was constructed by a man who worked in 
 another field from his own, he found it of no use. 
 Being controversial, it dealt with details and 
 not with simple elements, and details tend every- 
 where to be different. 
 
 But what I desire to put before you now is Islam 
 as it will always present itself. As it has always 
 presented itself, perhaps I should say; I know 
 nothing about the future. But, at any rate, it 
 will portray Islam in its broad outline; as you 
 may see it in any Muslim land; in its spirit and 
 not in its details. In a word, I would display 
 and turn before you, if I may so put it, the many 
 coloured globe of Muslim life and thought — for 
 remember that there is life and there is thought 
 there too — and show to you Islam in certain of 
 its permanent and outstanding phases and aspects. 
 
20 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 But when I say Islam, what does that mean? 
 I can best bring its meaning home by saying that 
 Islam for the Muslim means formally and histor- 
 ically the same thing that the word Christendom 
 does for us. It is the broadest of all expressions 
 for them; just as Christendom covers all our 
 thought, all our life, all our history. It is a 
 unity to them, a unity more absolute than the 
 term Christendom covers for us ; but it is a unity 
 of the same nature; and only as you look at it 
 in that way — as a unity and not as a multitude 
 of details — can you possibly get any idea of its 
 real, essential character. 
 
 What, then, I am now going to put before you 
 is simply this Islam, and I desire to show you 
 some of its phases and aspects, such as may be 
 suggestive of the whole, such as may open up, 
 and that especially for the missionary, what lies 
 under that term Islam. It will, then, be for you 
 who may be interested in the Muslim world and 
 may be looking toward a missionary career to fol- 
 low this up. I suggest to you a beginning and a 
 search, and I put before you some examples. 
 
 But, again, in these examples I fear that I 
 must be personal in tone. What I have to say to 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 21 
 
 you is not drawn only from what I have read; 
 it is drawn also from what I have seen; from 
 the contact which I have had with Muslims. It 
 would have been impossible for me, I am free 
 to admit, to deliver this course of lectures in their 
 present form a year ago ; and it was only by the 
 permission and help of the Seminary, which 
 enabled me to pass a year in Muslim lands, 
 that the way was opened and that much of such 
 insight as I have gained was made a possibility. 
 I shall, therefore, have to draw very largely in 
 the future upon my own personal experiences. 
 I shall need to ask your indulgence for much 
 introduction of myself in describing the people 
 I have met and the things I have seen. And, 
 with that, I must also beg of you to believe that 
 when I put before you any anecdote, it is abso- 
 lutely the fact as it came to me ; that in no way, 
 in no degree, have I touched up my experiences 
 in order to make them more telling. 
 
 But above all, I would hear and throughout 
 suggest and entreat sympathy. I would lay 
 emphasis on the great facts of religious unity 
 between us and the Muslim world, and not upon 
 the points of controversy that may arise. It is 
 
2.2 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 my endeavor and desire, as you will see, to say 
 here what may help the missionary to understand 
 Islam, rather than what may be of direct advan- 
 tage to him in order to convert Islam. After 
 he understands, he may know how to deal with 
 the problem ; but my first purpose is to help him — 
 so far as is in my power — to understand; and an 
 understanding can be reached only by thorough, 
 entire sympathy, by sinking the points of differ- 
 ence and holding the points of unity. 
 
 For example, several times in my wanderings 
 I was brought into contact — religious contact — 
 with darwishes. Among them I met with as 
 true hospitality, as fervent religious feeling as I 
 have anywhere experienced. Their method of 
 life and their ideas I will take up hereafter in 
 detail. At this point, I would allude only to the 
 sympathy and openness with which they spoke 
 with me upon religious things — the broad religion 
 of the spirit, be it always understood. I will 
 admit that I was exceedingly careful not to speak 
 of Muhammad as ''The False Prophet" — as I 
 have heard too many do — and when they spoke of 
 my Father in Heaven as Rabhiina, *'Our Lord," 
 I took their words according to the meaning, 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 2^ 
 
 and together we were able to speak of Our Lord, 
 meaning God Most High, and thus meet upon 
 a common plane. 
 
 Further, it is certainly true that many things in 
 the world of Islam were a great deal more open to 
 me, that much more was shown to me and said 
 to me, coming as I did as a wandering scholar 
 amongst them, a student of Arabic and of their 
 religion, than if I had been recognized by them 
 as a missionary. But, at the same time, I am 
 persuaded that these things could be more open, 
 more accessible to a great many missionaries 
 than they are. It all lies in the attitude. 
 
 Let me now take up some examples of such 
 contact, such reaching and touching the Muslim 
 world in what I would call a sympathetic way. 
 For many people sympathy means weakness. 
 I confess to having a weakness for saints. They 
 make the romance of the religious life, and 
 their biographies — try, for example, The Golden 
 Legend — move in an air as remote from our tread- 
 mill existence as The Arabian Nights, and yet are 
 instinct with spiritual realities and vitalizing 
 energies. For them the ancient world is ever 
 fresh and young, and the Spirit of God still 
 
24 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 broods visibly over it. The milk of Paradise is 
 on their lips and they hear the footsteps of the 
 Almighty. There is nothing too wonderful to 
 happen to them, and through everything that 
 happens they look straight back to God. But of 
 such absolute saints we, in these western lands 
 and in our harder age, can know alive but few, 
 and I, for my part, have had to fall back upon 
 dead saints, and of these Islam has furnished me 
 with an abundance. 
 
 Before I went to the East at all, I had come 
 to know a good deal about some of the more 
 important saints of Islam ; I had read their books, 
 had studied their lives and ideas and had come 
 to respect and esteem a great many of them, in 
 a very high degree. When I, then, found myself 
 on Muslim soil, the possibility was opened to me 
 of visiting the tombs of those saints whom I thus 
 knew through books and whom I respected and 
 reverenced. What was I to do? The course 
 that I followed, a course which I believe was 
 perfectly right under such circumstances, was 
 to visit them frankly in reverence, and I found 
 that the fact that I did so — that I behaved, as 
 my Eastern friends would say, like a religious- 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 2$ 
 
 minded man and a gentleman — helped me indef^ 
 initely in my intercourse with Muslims. 
 
 There is one usage, for example, that is of rule 
 when visiting the tombs of Muslim saints. 
 You advance to the railing that surrounds the 
 tomb, you hold it in your right hand — in the 
 East do everything public with the right hand — 
 and you recite the Fatiha, the first chapter of 
 the Qur'an, which holds pretty much the place 
 with the Muslim that the Lord's Prayer does 
 with us. Now let me recite to you a translation 
 of the Fatiha. It runs thus : — In the name of 
 Allah, the merciful Compassionator! Praise 
 helongeth unto Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, 
 the King of the Day of Doom. Thee do we 
 serve and of Thee do we ask aid. Guide us in 
 the straight path, the path of those to whom 
 Thou hast been gracious, not of those with whom 
 Thou art angered or of those who stray. Amen. 
 
 I do not know how strict theologians would 
 regard my action ; but I confess I found no diffi- 
 culty at all when I had come to the tombs of these 
 saints, in reciting the above prayer according 
 to usage. Very frequently there would be an 
 inscription on the door of the tomb asking, ''O 
 
26 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 thou visitor to my tomb, forget me not with a 
 pious petition, but lift up thy hands unto the 
 Lord and recite the Fdtiha for me." I do not 
 know whether the saints in question were much 
 benefited by this. I do not know whether any 
 one of those standing by were especially spiritu- 
 ally benefited by it. I do know, however, that 
 I was benefited by feeling the nearness of the 
 spiritual kindred of all that call upon the Lord, 
 and I know, too, that those Muslims who 
 saw me do this or who knew that I did it, 
 felt that here was a spiritual unity, that this 
 man, Christian though he might be, reverenced 
 their saint and knew what it meant to recognize 
 holiness and the life hid in God. 
 
 For example, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, 
 on the Mount of Olives, there is what is called the 
 Mosque of the Ascension. It is a very curiously 
 sacred place, because it is holy ground for both 
 Muslims and Christians. Islam does not accept 
 the crucifixion; it, therefore, does not accept the 
 resurrection, but it does accept the ascension. 
 It holds that Christ ascended into one of the 
 heavens, which one is a matter of dispute, and 
 is there even now, although it will not put it 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 2^ 
 
 in the form that He sat down at the right hand 
 of God the Father Almighty. Along the walls 
 of the mosque there are altars for each one of the 
 Christian sects, and upon Ascension Day their 
 priests are admitted to the mosque and it is free 
 to them to celebrate upon their own altars. 
 When I went to that mosque and visited it as one 
 of our sacred spots, I found that there was near 
 it a darwish monastery — I have learned since that 
 in former times it was an Augustinian Abbey 
 — ^and, as I did almost always on such occasions, 
 I visited the monastery also. I was received 
 there in the most friendly manner. There was 
 a young man sitting at the door of the monastery 
 repeating or reciting the Qur'an, with the book 
 spread open upon his knee, but reciting it, as they 
 commonly do, from memory, and when I came to 
 stand before him, with lifted hand I repeated the 
 common prayer that would bring us both together. 
 Again, on another occasion in the neighbor- 
 hood of Cairo, at the tomb of the great mystical 
 poet, *Umar ibn al-Farid, I found the same 
 observance of the greatest possible value. I 
 remember when I advanced in the fitting manner 
 towards the grated window which looks in on the 
 
28 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 tomb of the saint, hearing whispers from the 
 Muslim guardians of the tomb, "He knows what 
 is the right thing to do. He has a sense of 
 reverence." The same thing happened when I 
 visited, in Cairo, the tomb-mosque of the great 
 mystical saint, ash-Sha'ranI ; I did it with as great 
 reverence for the man, for his work and person- 
 ality, as I have ever felt at any tomb to which 
 my steps have been led. Of course, I might 
 say that I was careful in all this to pick my saints. 
 There are many saints in the Muslim calendar, 
 as in that of Christendom, that I could not visit 
 with any reverence at all. They may have had 
 their redeeming qualities ; but these did not appeal 
 to me. But there are many saints — and this 
 is my point — with regard to whom I felt and 
 feel that there is a perfect possibility for the 
 most absolute Christian to visit their tombs and 
 to feel that he is visiting the tombs of good men, 
 and I am persuaded that my being able to do 
 so suggested nothing to the Muslims that were 
 with me, but simple unity and charity. It is per- 
 fectly true that occasionally some may have 
 thought that I was personally inclined towards 
 Islam. If they did, I could not help it. But 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 29 
 
 here is a curious illustration which shows how 
 such a thing could arise only in the case of the 
 ignorant. 
 
 I came to a saint's tomb at Tiberias. The 
 tomb itself was nothing more than a rubbish heap, 
 as the tombs, even of the saints, tend to become 
 in the East; In fact I came upon it unawares. 
 I had no knowledge that there was any saint's 
 tomb there, until I heard my guide being abused 
 by some one for permitting me to enter the 
 sacred precincts. What did my guide say? 
 Well, very nearly in part, the words of the elders 
 about the centurion. ''He loveth our people, and 
 the Lord may open his heart to Islam." Such 
 cases were rare; but the cases of mutual under- 
 standing on the basis of differing faith were 
 not rare. 
 
 I am perfectly conscious, of course, that a 
 missionary might hesitate to follow such a method 
 as this in the country of his labours; but I can 
 imagine also that a man of strong personality, 
 and sympathetic genius, one of the giants of the 
 mission field of whom we have known many, 
 such a man might do it and still remain a mis- 
 sionary and all the better a missionary for it. 
 
30 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 He would not fear all the time lest he should be 
 misunderstood. The people around him would 
 know well what kind of a man he was and why 
 he did this thing. 
 
 But now I must turn from these preliminaries. 
 I have been endeavoring in them to give some 
 clue as to the way in which I approach my subject. 
 It is the sincere way of sympathy ; the broad way 
 of unity ; the honest way of endeavoring to under- 
 stand from within. 
 
 What is the first thing — the first thing out- 
 standing and to be reckoned with — that meets 
 any one who studies Islam on the spot, whether 
 he be a student or a missionary or simply a 
 traveller? I think that it is what can only be 
 described, most unhappily but truly, as a con- 
 spiracy of misinformation. All seem to be leagued 
 together to this end, to tell you the thing 
 that is not. And this conspiracy of misinfor- 
 mation is so fundamental, is so subtle, goes 
 through so many phases of life, is so constant, 
 that the student or the missionary will have to 
 deal with it throughout his entire residence in the 
 East. It is not a thing that you meet on the 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 31 
 
 threshold and then pass beyond. It must always 
 be reckoned with. 
 
 Now, because it is so fundamental and con- 
 stant, I must spend a little time over it. This 
 is not a case, understand, of paying too much 
 attention to the statements of the common drago- 
 man; him even the rawest Cook's tourist, whom 
 the native calls a "Cookee," has learned to dis- 
 trust ; nor is it the case of the mercenary hanger- 
 on upon missions, and so far as my experience 
 goes I do not think there are so many of these as is 
 commonly supposed; nor is it even in general a 
 case of the Oriental desire to please. It goes a 
 great deal farther and a great deal deeper. Even 
 Europeans who have been long in the East are 
 themselves dragged into it and come to be incon- 
 ceivably reckless in their statements. Here is an 
 example. 
 
 In all the Muslim countries or towns that have 
 been taken by force of arms from unbelievers 
 it is a custom that the khatih, the preacher who 
 delivers the Friday prayer-sermon, should carry 
 in his hand a sword and should lean upon it in 
 preaching as though it were a staff. That holds 
 true only in such towns as have been taken by 
 
32 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 force of arms. When, then, I began to try to 
 get some first-hand information about this, I 
 immediately met with the most extraordinary nest 
 of fabrications. One man, a man of high posi- 
 tion in Cairo, a European who had spent there 
 the greater part of his hfe, w^ho had been in 
 intimate contact with Mushms precisely on that 
 side of things — mosques and religious observ- 
 ances — and who, you would have imagined, 
 should have known about this if any one did, 
 this man assured me gravely that it was a Mus- 
 lim custom to shake this sword to the four winds 
 of heaven as a sign that Islam must conquer all 
 the world. Now, there is absolutely not a word 
 of truth in that. The sword is used as a staff 
 and as a staff only. Of course, it is also a symbol 
 of the historic conquest of that place where it 
 Is used. 
 
 Another bit of curious misinformation that I 
 gathered with regard to this same thing was that 
 the MusHms did not like Christians to see this 
 sword. I was induced, for a time, rather to 
 believe that there must be something in this sec- 
 ond point because, when being shown different 
 mosques and enquiring as to this thing and that, 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 33 
 
 I experienced difficulty in obtaining a sight of the 
 sword used by the khattb. And when the guard- 
 ian of a mosque did finally show it to me — there 
 it was of painted wood only — I thought I saw 
 a somewhat suspicious smile upon his face. But 
 that idea, again, I discovered in time was abso- 
 lutely false. There is no such feeling regarding 
 the khatWs sword. Let me illustrate to show 
 how false it was. 
 
 In the course of my wanderings, I came to 
 Nablus, the ancient Shechem, and there I had 
 peculiar opportunities of access to the mosques. 
 Now Nablus has the reputation of being a very 
 fanatical town, a town where Christians are in 
 danger of being ill-used and will certainly not be 
 received in a friendly fashion. I myself had no 
 experience of the kind. For example, in the 
 great mosque, when I began to speak — of course 
 in Arabic — with the men whom I met there 
 about the different parts of the building and their 
 use, they showed me the sword — in this case a 
 real sword — and made me tell them what the 
 usage regarding it was, where it was used and 
 where not. It was for them, evidently, a kind of 
 examination in Muslim science, and when I had 
 3 
 
34 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 passed, they at once received me with open arms. 
 I was an obvious kafir in an egregious sun-helmet 
 and with a Baedeker in my pocket, but I was not 
 entirely uneducated. A teacher in the College 
 or madrasa connected with the mosque led me 
 into his private room and we had some interesting 
 talk on theology and metaphysics; but as to the 
 sword, there was not a trace of evidence that 
 there was any secrecy about it. 
 
 Again, when the caravan of pilgrims for Mecca 
 sets out from Cairo, there accompanies it what 
 is called the Mahmal. It is a small, square 
 palanquin, mounted on the back of a camel; 
 a kind of a camel-carriage in a very convention- 
 alized form in which a woman might possibly 
 travel. Few foreigners in Cairo seem to know 
 what is its purpose or meaning. I was told that 
 in this palanquin, a thing of limited size and 
 carried on the back of this one camel, there was 
 packed the covering called the kiswa, or robe, 
 which is spread over the Ka'ba at Mecca and 
 which is renewed every year — a most obvious 
 absurditv. One ladv even assured me, and this 
 is an illustration of how careful you must be 
 in accepting information from what seems a cer- 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 35 
 
 tain source, that she knew that such must be the 
 use of it because she had been told so by the 
 French tutor of one of the sons of the Khedive. 
 She may have misunderstood him ; but if he did 
 tell her that, then he was very ignorant or else 
 he was lying. The fact about this palanquin 
 is that it is simply a symbol of sovereignty. 
 Historically it is a conventionalized reproduction 
 of the palanquin in which the Mamluk queen 
 Shajarat-ad-durr — the same who held St. Louis 
 to ransom — made the pilgrimage to Mecca. It 
 now takes the place of the Khedive himself going 
 on pilgrimage to Mecca, and it is very much the 
 same thing, one might say, as when in old- 
 fashioned England a man who could not go to 
 a funeral sent his carriage by way of showing 
 respect. When the Hajj caravan sets out from 
 the great square under the citadel at Cairo, the 
 Khedive solemnly gives over the halter of this 
 camel Into the hand of the Amir al-Hajj, the 
 leader of the pilgrimage, and thus constitutes 
 him his representative on the journey. Similarly, 
 he receives back the halter when the Hajj returns. 
 These are cases due to foreign ignorance; but 
 even the native scholar may supply misinforma- 
 
36 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 tion. It may be unintentionally. With one of my 
 Cairo friends, a graduate of Azhar University. 
 I had a great deal of trouble once in getting at a 
 certain doctrine. He could not remember the 
 point I was trying to develop or any passage 
 bearing upon it. He had never seen it in any 
 theological book. But that was only a curious 
 example of what you might call the Oriental 
 possibility of passing things over. I had, eventu- 
 ally, to show him the doctrine in the IJiyd of 
 al-Ghazzali, a regular authority at the Azhar. 
 Again, another case, and this time intentional. 
 When I was reading with a distinguished scholar 
 a commentary upon the Qur'an, we came to the 
 passage which I have already translated to you 
 as 'The Lord of the Worlds.'* Now, the univer- 
 sally accepted interpretation of that phrase — 
 accepted by all Islam — is that "the worlds" are 
 the three classes of intelligent beings, mankind, 
 the angels and the jinn, the genies of our old 
 ^Arabian Nights. But my guide had no intention 
 of saying anything in my presence that would 
 expose to the ridicule of an unbeliever the super- 
 stitions and weaknesses of the Muslims. I could 
 get nothing more from him in Interpretation of 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 37 
 
 these words than that they meant "everything." 
 Kidl shay' he said again and again, and further 
 than that he would not. 
 
 This misinformation is so thorough, goes so 
 deep, is given to you with such an air of cer- 
 tainty, that I must confess that, though I had 
 been reading Arabic and MusHm theology for 
 some twenty-five years, I was staggered at several 
 points before I discovered what were the possi- 
 bilities in the case, and was for some weeks in 
 doubt as to whether my Arabic authorities might 
 not have misled me. But when it came to getting 
 information upon questions of fact — not of theol- 
 ogy or anything of that kind but of historical 
 events in the past and situations and attitudes 
 in the present — I was driven, at last, to absolute 
 agnosticism. How did the different officials stand 
 with Lord Cromer? What of the Khedive's 
 matrimonial experiments? I was told so many 
 opposing things and that so dogmatically, that 
 I had to give up trying to reach anything upon 
 which I could depend as to such points. 
 
 The thing is not simply untruthfulness, it is a 
 strange carelessness as to fact. On one side, the 
 Oriental and the Orientalized European has a 
 
38 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 feeling of, as you might say, "What does it mat- 
 ter anyway?" It is the slackness of one for 
 whom this world is only the fleeting show of a 
 phantasmagoria. And he recognizes it himself. 
 The phrase by which the Cairene is known and 
 by which also he himself marks his typical repre- 
 sentative like the Spanish, ''Quien sahe?" is 
 Ma'alesh, "It doesn't matter." "What indeed." 
 it is as though he asked, "does really matter in 
 this world?" And, on another side, he has the 
 creative imagination of a child. If the Oriental 
 does not know what you ask him, he will create 
 something for you, and he is so w^ell pleased with 
 his creation that it becomes solid and real in his 
 eyes. This he does, apparently, with a good 
 conscience because it fills a vacuum of knowledge, 
 a thing which he, like nature, abhors. So far 
 as I can remember, I met only one man who was 
 prepared to say, "I do not know," and, most 
 astounding of all, that was a donkey-boy. When 
 questioned as to the names of mosques or 
 tombs, he would pause and think, and at last, 
 if need were, come to the point of admitted 
 ignorance. But the dragoman, be it noted, 
 always knows. 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 39 
 
 Now, there follows this; and it is the moral. 
 There is danger for the missionary of believing 
 too much, and there is perhaps greater danger 
 of his becoming cynical and believing nothing 
 at all. 
 
 The practical consequence is that the man who 
 is prepared to believe anything on less than the 
 word of a dozen witnesses should never go to the 
 East. Nor should the man go who is inclined 
 to hold that all men are liars, and to become 
 soured in consequence. You have got to take 
 things as you find them and keep an open mind. 
 And let me add to this a still more practical 
 suggestion. It is eminently desirable that mis- 
 sionaries, before they reach the East and are 
 plunged into its chaos of misinformation, should 
 have learned at least enough of Islam to main- 
 tain a cautious attitude. I have known cases 
 where such errors, remaining inveterate, have 
 biassed better knowledge for years. This, then, 
 is one outstanding aspect of the East, and, I 
 think, the first that will meet any one who begins 
 to look at all into the subject. 
 
 Another is the Oriental's assured feeling of 
 religious superiority. It is a somewhat galling 
 
40 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 thing to us of the West to meet people who 
 dare, calmly, unquestioningly, without imagining 
 that there can be a shadow of doubt, to look down 
 upon us and to say, "But you cannot know this; 
 we know, we understand." Their certitude is 
 as absolute as that of Browning's Abt Vogler, 
 "'Tis we musicians know." But such is, undoubt- 
 edly, the fundamental attitude of the Muslim 
 East towards Western religious life. 
 
 Here are two illustrations. At the Congress 
 of Orientalists held at Algiers in April, 1905, 
 Prof. Karl Vollers read a paper on the origin 
 of the Qur'an. His thesis was that the Qur'an, 
 as we have it at present, in its precise wording 
 and grammatical form, did not proceed from 
 Muhammad ; that the language which Muhammad 
 used had been of a colloquial type; and that it 
 was later, at the hands of editors, that the Qur'an 
 had been put into the careful grammatical form 
 which it at present has. This thesis was, cer- 
 tainly, new and strange, and European scholars 
 are not yet, by any means, ready to accept it. 
 But how was it received by Muslim scholars? 
 For the first time, at Algiers, a large number 
 of these were present at the Congress of Orien- 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 4I 
 
 talists. Professor Voller's paper raised with 
 them tremendous opposition. One thing was 
 clear ; the world of scholars in Islam had not yet 
 reached the point of objectively discussing any- 
 thing looking towards religion, so that the remot- 
 est approach to a Congress of Religions would 
 be utterly impossible if Muslims were to form 
 part of it. One Muslim, whom I afterwards met 
 in Egypt, delivered a long and personal address 
 against Professor Vollers, and finished with this, 
 "In the matter of the Qur'an we will take nothing 
 from a stranger." He was prepared — they are 
 all prepared — to learn from Europe and America 
 anything dealing with the material side of life. 
 Such things of the world do not really matter, 
 of course; but when it comes to religion, when 
 it comes to the world of religious thought, there 
 the Muslim must stand alone. He is superior to 
 all Christians; knows it; feels it. No Christian 
 can really feel the things of God as he does. 
 
 Again, another example of the same. One of 
 my Muslim friends with whom I came to be on 
 a very pleasant personal footing, was in conver- 
 sation with me in his house, and the talk drifted 
 towards philosophy. He asked me, ''What is the 
 
42 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 present tendency of philosophy in Europe?" 
 That was rather a large question, especially as 
 I had to answer it in Arabic, and I was afraid that 
 I might use terms which would mislead him. I 
 ventured, however, to tell him that I thought 
 that the tendency in Europe was distinctly towards 
 an idealistic position. But how was I to express 
 "idealistic position"? I used the term Suflism, 
 but went on to guard myself by explaining that I 
 did not use it in the Muslim sense but in the sense 
 in which it might have been employed by Plato. 
 He nodded his head very approvingly, and said 
 that he had no idea there was so much right 
 philosophical feeling left in Europe. Evidently 
 what I had said took more or less of a load from 
 his mind. These people, he thought, are not 
 so much left to themselves after all. So, at 
 every turn, if you get into any real contact with 
 the religious minded Muslim, you will meet with 
 the feeling that religion is of Islam and not 
 of the outside world. 
 
 Let me take one other aspect of Islam. For 
 it I ask you to go with me to Cairo, to the wind- 
 swept, bird-haunted mosque of Ibn Tulian. That 
 mosque, as it stands at present, is probably the 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 43 
 
 oldest left in Egypt, and one of the oldest in the 
 Muslim world. It is a great square courtyard 
 surrounded by deep colonnades and has not, for 
 many generations, been used for worship. Now, 
 when you enter it, all that you find of signs of life 
 are the foot-prints of birds marked in the soft, 
 fine sand that covers all the courtyard and their 
 cries as they hover and dart overhead. The 
 roar of the city . without dies away ; within is 
 silence. There it lies in the midst of Cairo, 
 abandoned, full of crumbling memories, a monu- 
 ment of the past to the grandeur of those who 
 built it. In its prayer-niche, towards which dur- 
 ing centuries millions of the faithful must have 
 bowed in the worship of Allah, I found some 
 Arabic verses which had been written in pencil 
 in 1877, t)y a certain Darwish Mustafa. They 
 are deeply significant for the attitude of Islam 
 
 to the world and to Allah. They run as follows : 
 
 Where are the kings and those who peopled the earth? 
 
 They have left what they built in it and what they 
 peopled. 
 
 And have become a pledge of the grave for that which 
 they wrought. 
 
 They have turned to decayed bones in it, after they 
 had been forgotten. 
 
 Where are their armies which repelled not and availed 
 not? 
 
44 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 And where is that which they gathered in the earth 
 and that which they treasured? 
 
 There came to them the command of the Lord of the 
 Throne in haste, 
 
 And there availed them from it neither weahh nor 
 fortress.^ 
 
 Such is the burden of all Muslim thought. 
 One generation cometh and another goeth; but 
 Allah abideth for ever. Nothing else is sure; 
 nothing else permanent. "Oh, where are kings 
 and empires now?" is ever recurring on Muslim 
 lips; but those other lines which mean so much 
 to Christendom, ''But, Lord, thy Church is pray- 
 ing yet, To endless years the same," could be 
 repeated by Muslims, if at all, only with grave 
 differences of meaning. The conception of the 
 Church Militant, a Church in travail, labouring, 
 striving for an unaccomplished ideal, is foreign 
 to all Islam. The Muslim world is the Muslim 
 Church, not any encircling mass to be leavened 
 and conquered by that Church, then to abide as a 
 Church Triumphant. That world and Church, 
 rather, are fleeting, evanescent, a mere shadow- 
 show cast upon the screen of existence, while 
 
 *I do not know who was the author of these lines. 
 They are quoted also in The Arabian Nights, I Bulaq 
 Ed., Vol. ii. p. 45 ; see, too, Lane's Arabian Nights, Vol. iii, 
 p. 127. 
 
THE MUSLIM EAST 45 
 
 Allah is the only reality. God has not taber- 
 nacled in human flesh for Muslims, nor does He 
 as the Holy Ghost still dwell in men and thus 
 make them partakers of the divine nature. They 
 remain his creatures always, of a dependent exist- 
 ence, to be swept, in the end, from the board of 
 life. It came easily, therefore, to some Muslim 
 sects to teach that at the last heaven and hell 
 with their dwellers would be destroyed and Allah 
 would remain enthroned alone, even as He had 
 been in the beginning. 
 
 Here, perhaps, we find the absolute, the essen- 
 tial difference between Islam and ChristianityH 
 
LECTURE II 
 
 THE PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 
 
 As in the case of any historical question, you 
 must divide the consideration of the person and 
 life of Muhammad under two aspects. First, 
 what really was that life; what really was that 
 person and that individuality? Secondly, what 
 did people come in time to think of them, and 
 what do they think of them now? 
 
 Even Muslims, in their religious research, Have 
 realized the necessity of reaching again the histor- 
 ical facts in the case. There was, for instance, 
 a distinct tendency in one part of the Muslim 
 Church — the reforming, or, in a sense. Puritanic 
 part — to keep labouring to return to the faith of 
 Muhammad himself, as distinguished from later 
 theories and accretions. So far back, for in- 
 stance, as the life and work of Ibn Taymiya, a 
 theologian who died in A. D. 1328 (A. H. 726), 
 we find this tendency appearing strongly, and 
 he was simply a prominent carrier-on of the atti- 
 tude of the Hanbalite, the irreconcilable school. 
 
 46 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 47 
 
 In the latter part of the eighteenth and early part 
 of the nineteenth centuries, the same drift was 
 represented by the Wahhabite movement, which 
 threatened at one time to spread over and affect 
 the whole Muslim world. At the present day, 
 this tendency is not guided so much by the old 
 Puritanic and Hanbalite principles as it is by the 
 penetration of modern thought into some part, 
 at least, of Muslim life. 
 
 But to bring home to you the necessity of thus 
 dividing our study of the life and person of 
 Muhammad, and to show how intimately this 
 tendency towards criticism of Islam as it devel- 
 oped is working in some elements of the Muslim 
 mind, let me describe to you a scene in Cairo at 
 which I was present. It was the day of what is 
 called, commonly but absurdly, the Procession 
 of the Holy Carpet. It is really a procession 
 in which the kiswa, that is ''robe," the covering 
 of the Ka'ba is carried from the place where 
 it has been manufactured and embroidered, to 
 the holiest mosque in Cairo, the mosque of the 
 Hasanen, there to be sewed together and packed 
 into the boxes in which it is to be conveyed to 
 Mecca. The day of this procession is one of the 
 
48 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 great days of religious Cairo. I was privileged 
 to see it from the balcony of a native school that 
 looked out on the corner of two streets; in one 
 direction we looked down the street through 
 which the procession came ; in the other down the 
 street to that very sacred mosque of the Hasanen 
 itself. The first thing that came to my ears was 
 the strange though familiar skirl of the bagpipes, 
 and I wondered for a moment if it were possible 
 that the English control had found it advisable 
 to guard the route with a detail from one of 
 the Highland regiments. But that was only a 
 deception of the moment. I soon saw that these 
 were native Egyptian troops and that this was 
 only another instance of the Western invasion 
 of Eastern lands. The bagpipes of the Scottish 
 clans have come to their own ; the East has fallen 
 in love with them; and they shriek at the head 
 even of circumcision processions in the streets 
 of Cairo. So the tune these bagpipes were play- 
 ing was not "Lochaber No More" or even "The 
 Barren Rocks of Aden," but some strange 
 Egyptian melody. Down the street, then, came 
 the kiszva, carried on wooden frames to show 
 its embroidery of rich gold flashing in the sun- 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 49 
 
 light, and with it and after it trooped a motley 
 procession of darwishes of all the different frater- 
 nities of Egypt, the Qadirites, the Rifa'ites, the 
 Ahmadites, the Burhamites, the SaMites, all 
 carrying banners of their own colours, beating 
 little drums and chanting their distinctive litanies. 
 As they went by, the air was charged with emo- 
 tional electricity; all nerves were a-quiver and 
 ready to leap to a signal. Here, as time and 
 again thereafter at Muslim religious scenes, I 
 felt the grip of the will of the crowd, and knew 
 practically how slight a touch may turn and 
 sweep a great concourse into a simultaneous 
 brain-storm. 
 
 But there was another and more immediately 
 surrounding atmosphere of cool criticism and 
 scepticism, and it was that, strangely enough, 
 of the little Muslim group round me, on the 
 balcony. It met me thus. I have always had 
 a great deal of interest in the history and usages 
 of the different fraternities of darwishes; for 
 emotional religion in all its phases, eastern and 
 western, has always attracted me. On this occa- 
 sion, I am afraid, I scandalized my sober-minded, 
 broad church Muslim friends by asking many 
 
 4 
 
50 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 things about these darwishes and their ways and 
 the things they were doing. Especially did I 
 scandalize them when I showed an interest in 
 one man who was carrying a banner, and who — 
 really or feignedly — was borne away by the force 
 of his religious excitement and had fallen into 
 a kind of fit. He was being carried along by 
 some of his companions, jerking his limbs and 
 rolling his head. At that my Muslim friends 
 became very grave, and had I known no Arabic 
 at all there was one phrase that I certainly would 
 have learned in that forenoon, Laysa mm ad-dm. 
 I was told that again and again. It means, *lt 
 is not part of the Faith.'' 
 
 You see, then, the position held by the more 
 intelligent and better educated Muslim who has 
 had some contact with the outside world, and 
 who feels the necessity of protecting his religion 
 against false or one-sided criticism from non- 
 Muslims. Those around me on the balcony were 
 very much afraid, evidently, that I should gather 
 a false opinion of the real Islam — as they under- 
 stood it — from the scene going on in the street 
 below. My attitude, of course, was quite differ- 
 ent from theirs. I was not so much interested 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 5 1 
 
 just then in reaching a conception of the essence 
 of Islam, as I was in seeing what Islam had 
 become as it had worked Itself out, what were the 
 actual facts of today In the Muslim masses. For 
 of course you will remember that these darwishes, 
 processioning and chanting below, were in great 
 part drawn from the working classes of Cairo 
 and represented the religious-minded uneducated 
 people. It is, then, of the very first importance, 
 as you may easily see, that the missionary should 
 have a grasp of those different attitudes towards 
 and understandings of Islam, those of the unedu- 
 cated religious public and those of the educated 
 few, who are trying to purify their faith from 
 superstitious accretion; that he should always 
 be able to realize what Muhammad must have 
 been himself, as he lived among his fellows, first 
 as a citizen of Mecca and thereafter as a ruler 
 in Medina and what after ages have made him. 
 Let us take up, first, the historical Muhammad. 
 It is hard for Muslims, with all desire to rid 
 Islam either of what they believe to be sprung 
 of superstition or of what they feel to be elements 
 exposing it to derision amongst non-Muslims — 
 it is hard for them to develop and retain an 
 
52 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 historical sense. In spite of their iron industry, 
 in spite of the elaborate, critical methods which 
 they have built up, almost never do we find 
 among them men with a genuine historical sense ; 
 certainly such men could be counted upon one 
 hand. 
 
 Let' me illustrate this. Suppose that there 
 have come down to us a number of traditions 
 with regard to any episode in the life of Muham- 
 mad. We wish to get at the truth in the case. 
 We know that the great majority of those tradi- 
 tions are forged; the Muslim, too, is prepared 
 to admit that a considerable proportion of them 
 are forged. I think that, in all probability, 
 what we would do, in such a case, would be to 
 try to consider those traditions as a whole, and 
 build up from them a picture. We would lay 
 them side by side; see which fitted together; which 
 agreed ; which seemed to adjust themselves to the 
 picture of the whole; which could be explained 
 as rising out of others; which seemed p.'ycho- 
 logically impossible; which could not have been 
 invented later; which spoke clearly of later con- 
 troversy. That is the method, I fancy, that would 
 be followed by Western historians. 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 53 
 
 But what does the Mushm? He examines 
 very carefully what he calls the isnad, the chain 
 of testimony that carries the tradition back to 
 its original speaker. .With each tradition there 
 comes the list of the men who have passed it 
 along from lips to ear, lips to ear, straight down 
 to the time when it was finally fixed in book form. 
 He examines that list ; he considers whether those 
 men were really in contact ; he considers also, and 
 this is perhaps the one sound point in his pro- 
 cedure, their relative reputation for veracity, and 
 out of that process he comes to a conclusion which 
 of the traditions should be accepted and whicH 
 should not. Now, I need hardly say that by that 
 method, considering the frequency and the ease 
 with which the chains of traditions are forged, 
 no real historical result can be reached, and yet, 
 with precisely that external testimony, this is 
 the way the Muslim historian goes to work. H 
 our methods tend to subjectivity run wild, theirs 
 tend to objectivity without a basis. With the 
 materials gained in that way he thinks that he 
 can get back to the historical fact. There is also 
 a later, educated school which is trying to 
 modernize Islam and make it a possible faith for 
 
54 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the world of today. It does that by rejecting 
 everything in tradition which it cannot ration- 
 ahze, and by explaining away the passages in the 
 Qur'an which it cannot reject. We have known 
 the same method applied to Christianity; as 
 applied to Islam it must in the end be equally 
 unsatisfactory. Certainly it is quite unhistorical. 
 Joined to this lack of historical sense as to 
 what is really there, comes the lack of a compara- 
 
 « ^tive method. We are aided by comparison in a 
 great many ways when we try to understand 
 
 •. the beginnings of Islam. We have, for example, 
 although this has not been applied so much as it 
 might have been, the parallel or strongly similar 
 development of prophetism in the Old Testament. 
 But that, of course, except as it has reached them 
 by strange, misleading paths, which I shall de- 
 scribe in a later lecture, is absolutely sealed 
 and unknown to the Muslims. We can also 
 compare early Muslim religious words and 
 phrases with their cognates and parallels in the 
 other Semitic languages, and frequently In this 
 way find their origins. We can tell what words 
 and Ideas Muhammad drew from Abyssinian 
 Christianity, from South Arabia, Christian and 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 55 
 
 Zoroastrian, from the Hebrew and Aramaic 
 vocabulary of the Jewish tribes of Arabia. 
 
 I remember one very interesting talk I had 
 with a Muslim scholar in which I laid before 
 him in the original characters and in Arabic 
 transliteration the different cognates of the word 
 Allah in all the Semitic languages I knew. It 
 was all absolutely new to him ; he had never seen 
 such things before, although he was a man of 
 great learning, and he evidently found it curi- 
 ous — interesting, perhaps, so far as the Muslim 
 understands what interesting is; but instead of 
 leading his mind to any historical comparisons, 
 or raising problems of relationship, it brought 
 from him only the thought that Allah is the same 
 everywhere, that all peoples, in a sense, were 
 called by His name — a significant and noble 
 thought, but not an historical one. 
 
 Again, there is another source which is open to 
 us and which has, with one exception, I believe, 
 been entirely neglected by Muslims. It is the 
 study of the parallels which appear in the casei 
 of what we call now-a-days trance-mediums; the\ 3 
 phenomena exhibited by those mediums who enter 
 a trance, speak in that trance, and give signs in 
 
56 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 one way or another while in a hypnotic state. 
 In such cases, I have no question, is really to be 
 found the clue to Muhammad; but that method, 
 except, as I have said, by one man, has been 
 left unused by Muslims. In these ways, there- 
 fore, it is possible for us to attack the problem 
 of the real Muhammad in a way that is not 
 possible for the Muslims themselves. 
 
 But we begin by asking, What were the out- 
 standing elements In the Arabia of Muhammad's 
 own time, the elements that made him possible, 
 the environment which conditioned him? One 
 of them was that for about one hundred years 
 before his time and for some little time after him, 
 Arabia had been passing through what can be 
 described only as a great literary renaissance. 
 It was not only a great renaissance for Arabia, 
 a great outburst of ideas and a great blossoming 
 of Arabian poetry ; but it must be reckoned, when 
 we consider the quality of the poetry produced 
 and its effects upon after history, one of the great 
 literary blossoming times of the world. Of 
 course the poetry that came forth then was not 
 of the character, perhaps, to appeal to us very 
 closely; it is all of the tolerably uniform type; 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 57 
 
 the forms it assumes have a sameness; the ideas 
 that appear in it repeat themselves again and 
 again; but, besides that and along with that, we 
 have the fact that in the Arabia of a century 
 before and half a century after Muhammad there 
 did appear a long succession of great poets. 
 
 Then, parallel with this — naturally connected 
 with this, I presume — there was a growing sense 
 of nationality. For long the Arab tribes, limited 
 on one side by Byzantium and on the other by 
 Persia, had been swept back and cooped up within 
 their borders. Thus the distinction of Arab 
 and non-Arab had been forcibly impressed upon 
 them, and they had been driven to recognize that 
 they were all Arabs; that they were really one 
 people. From time to time, at long intervals, 
 that has happened in Arabia. But it has never 
 lasted any length of time. The Arabs have 
 always fallen back again into their apparently 
 natural state of inter-tribal warfare. Then, how- 
 ever, and for a short time, such a condition was 
 reached. 
 
 Again, the population of Arabia had evidently 
 been growing for a considerable time beyond its 
 possibilities of support. The period was drawing 
 
58 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 near when Arabia must, in a sense, pour over 
 its frontier; must throw part of its population 
 on the adjacent lands. Its population lives nor- 
 mally close to starvation point; but at intervals 
 of some hundreds of years there come regularly 
 periods when the population passes that starva- 
 tion point and some relief must be found. One 
 of those previous periods — perhaps the most 
 important of all for the history of Arabia, cer- 
 tainly for the history of the world — was that 
 when the tribes of the Hebrews were thrown 
 out in a similar fashion and compelled by the 
 necessities of the case to occupy Canaan. It was 
 evident about the birth of Muhammad that such 
 a time was again coming. 
 
 And again, and lastly, though perhaps most 
 important of all, Arabia was passing through 
 a period of religious unrest. What precisely 
 had led to this we do not know. Whether there 
 had really been an influence working from Chris- 
 tianity upon the heathen tribes, or whether it 
 came from within out of their own primitive 
 religion itself, that is absolutely dark to us; but 
 the fact is that the literary renaissance of which 
 I have spoken was accompanied by a marked 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 59 
 
 revival of religious feeling, by a recognition that 
 there is something more in life than simply the 
 production of beautiful poems. Again and again 
 in the thoughts of these poets there emerges, as 
 it were, an echo from Ecclesiastes ; the feeling 
 of the passing generations revolving with the 
 stars and all going down into the one place, and 
 that place what man knows? the absolute cer- 
 tainty, too, that there must be some force, some 
 personality, hidden behind the dark phenomena 
 of life. 
 
 Into such a world, then, Muhammaa was born. 
 In these lectures it is not my intention to go Into 
 history in the usual sense, the history of dates 
 and supposedly hard facts. I desire, rather, to 
 gives attitudes and aspects, the atmosphere and 
 point of departure for future study. So all that 
 I will say here is that, probably, Muhammad 
 was born about A. D. 570; that, possibly, he 
 began his mission as a prophet in 610; that he 
 was compelled to retire from Mecca to the neigh- 
 boring city of Medina In 622, the date of the 
 Hijra, the Muslim era; and that he died in the 
 year of the Hijra 11. 
 
 These are the main fixed points of the life of 
 
60 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Muhammad; not all very irrevocably fixed. But 
 what of Muhammad himself? Is it possible tc 
 express him in his essential personality and char- 
 acter with certainty in a word ? I think that it is. 
 If there is one thing that is certain about him, 
 his character, his personality, it is that he was 
 essentially a pathological case. But for that 
 fate, he, too, might have been one of the great 
 poets of the Arabian renaissance. As it is, you 
 might describe him as a poet manque. He was 
 spoiled for poetry by his prophetship in much 
 the same way — dare I say it before a New Eng- 
 land audience? — that Emerson was spoiled for 
 poetry by his philosophy. 
 
 He was early left an orphan, and had to find 
 his own way through the world. That way was 
 evidently a hard one. It left in him a sense of 
 wrong, a sense that the world is a cruel world 
 for those who cannot protect or take care of 
 themselves. This developed in two ways. It 
 developed, on the one hand, into a strong sense 
 of the evil of the world, and, on the other hand, 
 into a strong feeling that in any religion great 
 stress must be laid upon the helping of the poor, 
 the oppressed, the orphan, the widow. This 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 6l 
 
 sense of evil in the world is rather difficult to 
 distinguish because It does not seem to have 
 struck him so much in the form of a personal 
 sense of sin — although traditions have come down 
 that speak somewhat in those terms — but it is 
 rather a sense of the world as a whole being 
 wrong before God ; of the whole race of mankind 
 needing help, needing grace, needing acceptance 
 at the hand of God. It is very strange that with 
 this feeling of his there has grown up in Islam 
 absolutely no doctrine of what we would call 
 original sin. The Muslim knows what we call 
 the Fall, he knows about the Garden, and the 
 eating from the tree and the expulsion. But 
 the Fall, for him, so far as there was one, was a 
 strictly literal fall from the Earthly Paradise on 
 the top of a mountain. Of a fall in the sense of 
 an entering into a sinful state the Muslim knows 
 nothing. Of course, it is true that the Old Testa- 
 ment knows nearly as little of anything of the 
 kind. After the narrative in Genesis, the only 
 reference to the story of the Fall is a very obscure 
 one in Ecclesiastes. For the Old Testament in 
 general man is sinful because he is a creature 
 of flesh and therefore unclean. But the Pauline 
 
62 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 doctrine of the Fall had developed in the interval, 
 yet had left no trace on Muhammad. Whatever 
 Christian influence worked upon him had not 
 conveyed it. 
 
 For Muhammad, then, this sense of evil was 
 overwhelming. The invisible world, the awful 
 thing lying behind this world that we look out 
 upon, which conditions it and works in and 
 through it, was very dreadfully near. At every 
 turn he felt what has been so well put as "a sense 
 of the wrath to come." 
 
 Now, two things seem especially to have stim- 
 ulated and pointed this feeling and developed this 
 side of his character. The one was what he saw 
 and learned from the many Christian hermits 
 whom he found scattered through the Syrian 
 desert. It is a commonplace in the poetry of the 
 time to find allusions to the life of the solitary 
 hermit in the vast spaces of the desert, and evi- 
 dently just as these hermits had left a picturesque 
 impression upon the poets of the time, they had 
 made a religious impression upon Muhammad. 
 Their prayers, their night watchings, their fast- 
 ings, their scourgings had touched his heart, 
 even as their solitary lamps shining through the 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 63 
 
 darkness of the desert and the mountain soHtudes 
 had caught the imagination of the poets. 
 
 Another thing that affected him, and that per- 
 haps even more strongly, was the multitude of 
 rock-hewn caves that lie along the caravan route 
 which stretches up from Mecca and Medina into 
 Syria proper. Now we know what those rock- 
 caves are. They are the tombs of the Aramean 
 and Nabatean trading-colonies which at one time 
 held the route from Syria down the coast of the 
 Red Sea to Yemen. But somehow Muhammad 
 with his vivid imagination and morbid fancy saw 
 in these all that was left of the dwellings of long 
 bygone tribes who had done evil on earth and 
 had been struck down for it by the hand of God. 
 There their remains still lay, in their houses where 
 the hand of God had touched them; and before 
 that hand of God he trembled. Of course, in the 
 time to come, these judgments of God developed 
 for him into a definite Day of Judgment ; but so 
 far, these ideas were simply working in his mind ; 
 that was all the distance he had reached. 
 
 As I have said before, the fundamental thing In 
 him was that he was a pathological case. It is 
 evident that, from comparatively early days, he 
 
64 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 had trances; fell into fits in which he saw and 
 heard strange things. There came to him voices, 
 either, apparently, in a trance condition or when 
 he was awake. Driven by fear for his soul, he 
 had got Into the habit of retiring into desert 
 recesses and there spending days in solitary 
 prayer. So there the voices came to him; there 
 he even saw figures — vague, dim — and the fear 
 fell upon him, "What are they? What is the 
 matter with me? Is this of God? Or am I 
 possessed by some spirit ?" Now, the conception 
 of possession by a spirit was a high possibility. 
 Indeed, Muhammad was thus explained, at first, 
 by the people around him as possessed by one 
 of the jinn, the genii of the Arabian Nights of our 
 childhood. When a soothsayer was called upon 
 to tell where some stolen or lost thing was ; where 
 some stray beast had wandered; or what was 
 going to be the outcome of some enterprise, it 
 was one of the jinn that entered into the sooth- 
 sayer, possessed him and spoke through him. 
 The idea lay very near Muhammad, then, that 
 he might be possessed In the same way by some 
 spirit or other, probably evil. 
 
 But we find that he gradually reached the 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 65 
 
 belief that what was in him was not an evil spirit. 
 How that came about is still obscure to us and 
 I do not suppose that it will ever become per- 
 fectly clear. But we do find him arrived at the 
 point where he judges that, instead of being 
 possessed by one of the jinn, he is — and this is 
 the great fact — in the line of the inheritance of 
 the Old Testament prophets. What is supposed 
 to be, what traditionally, at least, is said to be 
 the first revelation to him runs in almost the same 
 words as the words of Isaiah : "The voice said, 
 ^Cry !' and I said, What shall I cry ?' " So there 
 came to Muhammad the angel messenger telling 
 him ''Cry!" and he said, "I cannot cry!"^ I 
 cannot but believe that here we have a case of 
 the re-appearance on the lips of Muhammad, in 
 perfectly unconscious fashion, of some phrase 
 which his sub-memory had picked up when he 
 was in a Christian church, which he had heard 
 read at a Christian service. There are many 
 phrases in the Qur'an which suggest that he 
 must have had some such experiences. At any 
 
 * Qur. xcvl and Bukhari's Sahih, Book of the Beginning 
 of Revelation; Isaiah xl, 6 and compare Ixx and Vulgate 
 readings. 
 
 5 
 
66 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 rate, to him there comes at last a certainty that 
 it is not one of the jinn that has spoken to him; 
 but that he is a successor of the long line of 
 prophets. 
 
 Yet I do not mean by that that he had any 
 very clear conception of what being an Old Testa- 
 ment prophet meant. He knew that the Jews 
 and Christians had their sacred books and that 
 they looked back upon an ordered series of 
 prophets, one following another. What his mind 
 then did w^as this. These scattered fragments 
 that he had picked up of the history of the Old 
 Testament he proceeded to weave together into 
 a whole. To these, too, he made additions. 
 It is evident that in his time there were traditions 
 of prophets who had come to the Arabs them- 
 selves. These he wove together with the stories 
 of the Old Testament in strange, broken frag- 
 ments and confused, anachronistic order, and 
 made them into what has since become to the 
 Muslim Church its canonical history of revelation. 
 
 But there w^as another side. While he went 
 thus to work, following blind ideas and broken 
 recollections, with no real historical method, on 
 another side he was truly in the succession of 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD (i*J 
 
 the Old Testament prophets. He was certainly 
 no advance upon them. No one could dream of 
 comparing him personally or his religious and 
 moral ideas with Amos, Hosea or Isaiah and their 
 ideas. But he sprang, as they did, from the soil 
 of Semitic prophetism. His origin went back, 
 as their origins went back, to the soothsaying 
 prophet that we know in the Old Testament, the 
 prophet who tells where a stray beast is, or a 
 stolen thing is, and who heals and helps in so 
 many different ways. Such existed, we know, 
 amongst the Hebrews ; they existed, too, amongst 
 the Arabs of Muhammad's time. 
 
 In regard to these soothsaying and very minor 
 prophets and their methods, there has come down 
 to us a very singular little group of traditions 
 that throws a brilliant light upon the phenomena 
 of Muhammad himself. During his later life 
 in Medina he discovered that there was a Jewish 
 boy of some thirteen or fourteen years of age who 
 exhibited the same trance phenomena that he 
 himself did, and who gave out utterances in 
 trance in what Muhammad recognized were 
 exactly the same ways, conditions, forms that he 
 himself used. He found that there was even 
 
68 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 growing up a tale that thi^ boy was a prophet to 
 the Jews as opposed to him himself, the prophet 
 to the Arabs. There was even danger that he 
 might be used as a weapon against Muhammad. 
 So it is an interesting story which the traditions 
 tell of how Muhammad went to work to investi- 
 gate this boy. 
 
 In the records of the Society for Psychical 
 Research we have many tales of the investigation 
 and exposure of the methods of different medi- 
 ums; but I believe it is somew^hat rare to 
 have one prophet investigating, strictly accord- 
 ing to the methods of that society, another 
 prophet. Yet that is precisely what we find here. 
 Muhammad s^t to work, as you might say, to 
 stalk this boy, to follow him about; he tried to 
 catch him when he was in the process of trance 
 and utterance. But he did not get much out of 
 it. His conclusion was that the boy was harm- 
 less and that he had better let him alone. The 
 interesting thing is that he perfectly clearly recog- 
 nized that the phenomena exhibited by that boy 
 were the same as his own, and that he did 
 not like the comparison. 
 
 But to return, Muhammad, as I have said, 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 69 
 
 placed himself in the succession of the Old Testa;?/ 
 ment prophets. There come in the Qur'an very 
 strange scraps drawn from the Old Testament, 
 drawn from the New Testament, drawn also, 
 so far as I can understand them, from different 
 Christian liturgies. We have, for example, 
 *Tight of Light" ; God 'The Light of the World" 
 (Qur. xxiv, 35) ; ''Which proceedeth from the 
 Father" (Qur. xvii, 87). Even the longer salu- 
 tation of Islam, "And upon thee be peace and the 
 mercy and blessing of God" may be best derived 
 from the solemn benediction of the Christian 
 Church, as the constant recurrence of "The 
 Peace'^ in Islam has almost certainly that origin. 
 Muhammad's brain had for long been treasuring 
 up such things; but treasuring them up with 
 the most singular, most unparalleled inaccuracy; 
 and then making them over with the utmost free- 
 dom of imagination. Only in that way can we 
 explain the conception which he worked out and 
 expressed of the Old and New Testaments, and 
 the form in which his memories of them were 
 cast. 
 
 So much, then, for Muhammad upon that side. 
 But what were his doctrines; what the positions 
 
70 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 with which in the end he came out? One of 
 them was, "There is absolutely in existence no 
 God at all save Allah." That is to say: — The 
 Arabs of his day, the Arab tribes in general, had 
 reached what might be described as a modified 
 monotheism with a one God in the background 
 and a crowd of minor deities, the remains of 
 tribal gods, coming in between and supposed to 
 stand in some subsidiary position to the one God 
 in the background. Muhammad's great stroke 
 was to sweep out of existence as gods all those 
 intermediate deities and to say to the Meccans, 
 'There is no God at all save that one God whom 
 you already know and recognize as Allah." The 
 other gods became for him angels, or they fell 
 back into the position of the jinn and the devils — 
 all strictly created beings, essentially different 
 in nature from Allah. 
 
 Another of the doctrines with which Muham- 
 mad, in the end, came out of the labyrinth, was 
 that of the Last Day. You remember, in my 
 first lecture when I recited to you the Fdtiha, 
 one curious phrase was, ''The King of the Day 
 of Doom." That conception always haunted 
 Muhammad. That there was coming a Day of 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 7I 
 
 Doom when all must be judged, and that at 
 that Day of Doom there would rule and judge — 
 Allah. Few would be saved then; but Muham- 
 mad's doctrine varied as to the conditions of 
 salvation. At one time, apparently, he was pre- 
 pared to admit that the followers of all non- 
 idolatrous religions — Jews, Christians, Magians — 
 would be among the saved. Later, he narrowed 
 this down until those only who had accepted 
 Islam and the Prophet of Islam would have a 
 chance there, and not even all of them. 
 
 Another doctrine, or rather a moral attitude 
 which he practically exalted to the position of a 
 religious dogma, was the duty of caring for the 
 poor and the needy. You know, of course, how 
 important a place in the system of Islam the 
 Zakat, the tithe for the poor, has held, and how 
 honorably distinguished Muslims have been by 
 their personal, direct charities. That goes back 
 to Muhammad and Muhammad's own experi- 
 ences when he was one of the poor ; he had been 
 needy, oppressed and an orphan himself. 
 
 And last, we must here include, if somewhat 
 illogically, certain exercises of piety and devo- 
 tion — the five daily prayers and the prayers of 
 
'J2 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 supererogation, the Fast, the Pilgrimage — differ- 
 ent observances but all of the nature of submitting 
 the soul to Allah, bringing man into the position 
 of giving over his self and his all entirely into 
 the guidance of Allah. These sprang in part 
 from Muhammad's own devotional tendencies, 
 for he v^as truly a devout soul, and in part from 
 the necessity upon him of conciliating the Mec- 
 cans by taking over certain elements from their 
 former worship. 
 
 Other aspects of the faith of Muhammad I 
 shall take up in subsequent lectures; but these 
 are what belong peculiarly and naturally to the 
 doctrine of his own person and life. 
 
 But what are we to think of him as he was in 
 himself? Always trying, as it is my effort to 
 do throughout these lectures, to feel and state 
 these matters sympathetically from within, this 
 Is to be said: — Emphatically, Muhammad was 
 not in his beginnings a self-seeking insincere 
 impostor — of that we can be assured as a funda- 
 mental fact. He was a pathological case. His 
 revelations came to him in trance and, like all 
 trance-mediums, he had strangely perverted ideas ; 
 but an impostor he certainly was not. The mere 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 73 
 
 fact of what he did ; the witness of the men whom 
 he gathered about him; the impression that he 
 made upon his people; that he was able to gain 
 the sword of which we have heard so much ; all 
 these things are enough to show that the man 
 was real. Browning says, "an unbelieving Pope 
 will never do." I think we may echo that an 
 unbelieving prophet is an unthinkable thing, and 
 to my mind there can be no question that Muham- 
 mad, however low he stood below the level of the 
 Old Testament prophets, though he never entered 
 into the air that they breathed, though his ideas 
 were far from their ideas, still, having sprung 
 from the same soil, was of their kind and might, 
 under other conditions, have reached their height. 
 Again, he was not, as so many have thought, 
 a schemer, a politician, a man who set out to 
 unite Arabia and to become its head, and who at 
 every move knew exactly what he was doing 
 and why he did it. He was not a schemer; he 
 was very often the most unpolitic of men. As 
 a politician, as a strategist, he made mistakes 
 right and left. He was not even a great general, 
 a brilliant leader In war. The Muslim armies 
 accomplished little indeed so long as they were 
 
74 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 led by him. He was not a clear-headed man, least 
 of all as to himself. He certainly had a gift 
 of judging character; but he had a still greater 
 gift of attaching men to himself. This uncon- 
 scious personal influence accomplished more than 
 could any shrewdness. 
 
 But do not think that I, in this, would slur 
 over in any respect the last terrible ten years of 
 Muhammad's life, when he ruled absolutely in 
 Medina. I am speaking now of what he was 
 in the beginning; what he was before temptation 
 fell upon him and he fell before temptation ; what 
 he was on one side of his character, even through 
 those ten years. There can be no shadow of 
 question that in those last years he forged the 
 awful machinery of divine inspiration to serve 
 his own ignoble and selfish purposes. How he 
 passed over, at last, into that turpitude is a prob- 
 lem again for those who have made a study of 
 how the most honest trance-mediums may at any 
 time begin to cheat. We know that as a fact; 
 but the moral declension, the slope into the abyss 
 of evil, down which Muhammad so calmly walked 
 in those ten years, that can never be explained 
 away. 
 
PERSON AND LIFE OF MUHAMMAD 75 
 
 If we look at him, further, on the side of 
 philosophy, his case is equally strange, equally 
 contradictory. Again we must go back to our 
 clue, to the essentially pathological state of his 
 mind. He was a dualist on one side and at one 
 time when the reality of the world was strong 
 upon him. There was Allah ; there was also the 
 world, Allah's world, but separate. At another 
 time, he seems to pass over and become an uncon- 
 scious monist. The fleeting aspect of the world 
 so impressed him that he came very close to say- 
 ing that the time would come when all save 
 Allah would have passed away. As it is, he 
 does say, "Allah's are the East and the West; 
 wherever ye turn, there is the Visage of Allah" 
 (Qur. ii, 109), and once and again he speaks 
 of Allah as the Reality (al-haqq). In truth 
 he could never have framed a rounded system 
 or held to it. As well ask a popular preacher 
 to have a body of divinity behind his sermons. 
 The emotions and needs of the moment were 
 more to him than any dream of consistency. 
 His mind, on one side, was of the crassest 
 concreteness. He dealt, in the most bizarre 
 details of the heavens and the earth and the 
 
76 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 abyss and all the creatures therein. Of the 
 masses of tradition telling of his tales on these 
 matters, much must be authentic. For instance, 
 in the description of the Night Journey from 
 Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence up into the 
 heavens and even to the Farthest Lote Tree, the 
 details of those traditions must, to a great extent, 
 go back to Muhammad himself. His mind 
 rejoiced in such concrete imaginations, odd and 
 grotesque as they are to us now. But, on another 
 side, Muhammad was a mystic; he was adrift 
 on the mystic sea; he could not have compared, 
 defined nor explained his wavering thoughts. 
 These he had to express as they came, and so 
 the two elements are in his Qur'an and in the 
 records of his talk, and in the history of Islam 
 all down through the generations these two 
 elements continued. 
 
 So, then, I take it that the essential and charac- 
 teristic elements in the prophetship, in the creed, 
 in the personality, in the philosophy of Muham- 
 mad all lead us back to something unhealthy, un- 
 unified ; but to something also in its earlier phases 
 and through the greater part of its life and growth 
 absolutely sincere — absolutely, entirely real. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE QUR'AN; PRESENT MUSLIM ATTITUDE 
 TOWARD MUHAMMAD 
 
 In my last lecture I tried to put before you 
 a sketch of the personality of Muhammad, with 
 his diseased genius, his trances and the visions 
 and the voices that came to him in those trances. 
 From it you will see that the question, What 
 is the Qur'an? is practically answered. 
 
 The Qur'an is simply a collection of fragments 
 gathered up from those trance utterances of 
 Muhammad. When we look at it, as it is in 
 itself, we find that it is an absolute chaos, yet 
 a chaos, curiously enough, with a mechanical 
 arrangement. In that respect it is very like 
 indeed to the Book of Amos ; in fact, the nearest 
 parallel, I think, that can be found for It is that 
 book. There you have a collection of fragmen- 
 tary utterances from Amos, gathered up after 
 his time, perhaps by one of his disciples, and 
 arranged by the collector according to purely 
 mechanical principles. So it was with the 
 
 Qur'an. 
 
 77 
 
78 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 But when we take those fragments; when we 
 try to work back from them to Muhammad 
 himself — to the speaker of them — what do we 
 find? Perhaps the most starthng characteristic 
 is an external one, an enormous difference in 
 their length and form. We find a great many 
 of them couched in short, broken, jerky language, 
 and we find a great many others couched in long, 
 winding sentences, clumsy and lumbering to the 
 last degree. 
 
 Now, what does that mean? This problem 
 the Muslims saw quite clearly, and their answer 
 is equally clear and to the point. They laid 
 down the distinction that the short-sentenced 
 utterances belong to Muhammad's earliest period, 
 while the long-sentenced utterances belong to his 
 later time. And their criticism of them, external 
 as it was, is perfectly sound. 
 
 But there go other distinctions along with 
 that. I do not see, as I said to you in the last 
 lecture, that there can be the slightest shadow 
 of doubt that Muhammad, in his earlier times, 
 fell really into such trances; heard really such 
 voices; that these to him seemed to come from 
 the outside. When he decided finally that they 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 79 
 
 were divine revelations, he may have been draw- 
 ing a wrong conclusion; but he had his basis to 
 go upon. He felt that they did not come from 
 himself; so much for his earliest period, I feel, 
 is certain. Then it was natural that these earlier 
 revelations should fall into such short, jerky 
 utterances. They were pressed out of him, as 
 it were — out of his sub-conscious self, or what- 
 ever you choose to call it — and naturally they 
 were short and broken ; they were scattered ; they 
 came in jerks. But later, when he came — and I 
 am afraid we cannot possibly escape this as a 
 fact — when he came consciously to manipulate 
 these utterances, we find their characteristics 
 strangely applied. 
 
 In the first place, these utterances continue, 
 in a sense, to agree in form; they all rhyme 
 together in the same fashion as did the earlier 
 ones; but now the rhyme often comes in with 
 the most grotesque, lumbering effect. It is the 
 length of the sentences that makes all the differ- 
 ence, and the length of the sentences is conditioned 
 by the subject-matter and the source from which 
 it is evidently derived. You cannot possibly 
 imagine, in the case of long periods dealing with 
 
80 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the law of inheritance, or with the usages of mar- 
 riage, with the quarrels of his own followers, or 
 emphasizing the position and dignity of the 
 prophet himself — you cannot possibly imagine 
 that these things rose to him from his sub- 
 consciousness ; that he did not know very well 
 what he was saying and had not his own distinct 
 objects in the way in which he expressed himself. 
 Such conclusions we can draw perfectly defi- 
 nitely with regard to the external form of the 
 Qur'an. At first, we have only those trance- 
 utterances of Muhammad. But in his later life, 
 especially during his life in Medina, I presume 
 that these revelations can best be compared to 
 sermons, or, as one man has very exactly said, 
 to leading articles or editorials in newspapers. 
 Their objects, frequently, were exactly those of 
 such leading articles or editorials in the organ 
 of a party. Then, further, and now on the side 
 of thought and its implications, another ^oint 
 which strikes us in the Qur'an is that all of it 
 is couched in the direct words of Allah. Allah 
 is supposed to be the speaker from first to last. 
 He is addressing the prophet, and these are the 
 words which he uses. This, as you will see, has 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 8l 
 
 its bearings on these later revelations which 
 Muhammad forged for his own advantage. He 
 could not equivocate; all had to be, as it were, 
 prefaced with a *Thus saith the Lord." To 
 later Hebrew writers of religious tracts "the 
 word of the Lord came" similarly; b^t with how 
 different a moral burden 1 • \. * 
 
 Finally, all is in exactly the form,, of language 
 that was used in heathen Arabia by the sooth- 
 sayers of whom I have spoken. The jerky utter- 
 ances are theirs; the rhymes are theirs; all is 
 stamped with their stamp throughout. So it 
 becomes perfectly intelligible to us how it 
 came about that the heathen Meccans said of 
 Muhammad, "Why, he is nothing but one of the 
 soothsayers." It was only too true. He spoke 
 the language of the soothsayers ; in every respect 
 his external appearance was that of the sooth- 
 sayers. And what he had become when the 
 spiiit worked upon him and swept him away in 
 his earlier days, he was compelled by the principle 
 of unity to carry out in the later days, when he 
 knew very well indeed every word he was bring- 
 ing forth. 
 
 Again, another strange point is that though 
 
82 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Muhammad gave out these as being the direct 
 words of Allah to himself, he does not seem to 
 have taken any pains at all about the preservation 
 of them. Yet he speaks, again and again, of a 
 Book as being revealed through him, although 
 he seems to have given no care to build up such 
 a book out of what came to him. It is conceiv- 
 able that in his early visions and contact with 
 the revealing Spirit he may have seen such a 
 book and heard his revelations read from it. He 
 would thus have a fixed idea that what came to 
 him was extracted from that book, and that, as 
 it existed in the heavens, God would see to its 
 preservation on earth. At any rate, we have no 
 record whatever that he gave care to have the 
 words of Allah reduced to writing. If his fol- 
 lowers chose to gather them up, to imprint them 
 upon their memories, to use passages in their 
 devotions, that was their affair. He does not 
 seem to have urged anything of the kind, except 
 as to using certain portions in public prayer. It 
 was due only to those tenacious memories of 
 his followers and to scattered scraps of writing 
 that they had jotted down, that it was possible, 
 after the death of Muhammad, to gather up 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 83 
 
 fragments — some portion, at least — of what had 
 been his utterances and to preserve them for 
 future ages. And stranger still beyond even 
 that, the Muslims themselves at first do not seem 
 to have felt this necessity. It was only after 
 the early battles of Islam had threatened the loss 
 of much of the Qur'an — so much had already 
 been lost which had been held only in the mem- 
 ories of the fallen in those battles — only then does 
 it seem to have struck some of them that it 
 might be well to gather up from memories and 
 writings all that still survived of what the 
 prophet had left to them. They gathered them up 
 then; they put together, as well as they could, 
 the bits that seemed to refer to the same subjects. 
 In that way they compiled a number of chapters, 
 varying in length, and then they simply arranged 
 these according to their length. The longest 
 was put first, and thence they tapered down to the 
 last which contains some six verses. At the 
 beginning they put that Fatiha which I have 
 already recited to you, and the Qur'an was 
 complete. 
 
 Now, as it happened, what this resulted in was, 
 first, that in each chapter of the Qur'an there 
 
84 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 [ may be fragments derived from entirely different 
 periods, and, secondly, that you must — if you 
 want to get anything in even rough chronological 
 arrangement — begin your reading at the end of 
 the book. The confusions within the chapters 
 and the questions of how to date each element 
 in them were early recognized by the Muslim 
 scholars themselves. In this they contrast hap- 
 pily with the scholars both of the Synagogue and 
 of the Church. When these saw, for example, 
 at the beginning of a psalm the title "Of David," 
 they regarded that title as being entirely sacred 
 and not to be touched, and if any one sug- 
 gested that the psalm might not be by David, 
 that that was only a title, they felt sure that there 
 was something wrong with that person. In 
 Islam I am not aware of any trace of such objec- 
 tion to higher criticism. And the parallel is very 
 close and striking. The early compilers of the 
 Qur'an put at the head of each chapter the place 
 where they thought it had been revealed, whether 
 it was at Mecca or at Medina. The later criti- 
 cism — yet not so much later, for the criticism 
 began comparatively early — never had the slight- 
 est hesitation, never seems to have run risk of 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 85 
 
 rebuke in any way for indicating that those head- 
 ings were not correct ; that passages in the chapter 
 were probably revealed somewhere else and that 
 the chapter itself was probably a conglomerate. 
 This is one point of clear-sightedness and of true 
 scientific attitude that is to be put to the credit 
 of Islam. Of course, as I have said, the criticism 
 began very early and the chapter heading had 
 not time to become so integral a part of the 
 text as did the titles of the Psalms. 
 
 But now that we have this book, this Qur'an, 
 before us, which has been called, and called very 
 well *'The Mind of Muhammad," how are we to 
 read it? How are we to find our way through 
 its labyrinths? The Muslim scholars, it is true, 
 have gone before us. But we cannot always 
 consent to follow in their steps; their results are 
 not always such as to appeal to us. Yet, admit- 
 ting their prepossessions and prejudices, one way 
 or the other, we must admit that a great part 
 of the critical work upon the Qur'an was done 
 before we approached it. I do not believe that 
 any book, with the exception of the Christian 
 Scriptures — and then only, if we take in the 
 work on them in the last century — has been ana- 
 
86 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 lyzed, studied and commented upon so mmutely 
 and scrupulously as has been the Qur'an. These 
 studies are of certain tolerably definite descrip- 
 tions. There is quite a library, for example, 
 dealing with the critical analysis of the text; 
 where and when each portion was revealed, and 
 which portions have abrogated others by coming 
 after them and correcting them. There is a 
 large library connected with what we would 
 call Introduction to the Qur'an, the necessary 
 sciences for him who would study it; and there 
 are commentaries of all kinds. There are com- 
 mentaries, for example, which have as their 
 object simply to guard or to gather together all 
 the traditions of the first generation as to the 
 interpretation of the different passages. There 
 are other commentaries that take the text as it 
 stands, and try by grammatical analysis to reach 
 what precisely, on the face of the text. Is its 
 meaning. Then, of course, there are other 
 commentaries, the objects of which are theo- 
 logical, and which develop at great length, with 
 great ingenuity, and, at least so it seems to us, 
 hair splitting minuteness, the doctrines that are 
 to be deduced from this and that. But, in this 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 87 
 
 connection, we must always remember that the 
 Muslim exegetical and theological method has 
 always been that of scholastic analysis. 
 
 It is impossible, then, to exaggerate, really 
 to over-state, the amount of work that has been 
 put by Islam into the understanding of the 
 Qur'an, and yet, as I suggested in my last lecture, 
 at the best there is much left for us to do — for 
 us of the Western world who come with, I think, 
 on the whole, clearer eyes, fewer prejudices and 
 a really wider knowledge of the external sur- 
 roundings of Muhammad. 
 
 We often hear it said that the great thing 
 which any one must do who desires to understand 
 Islam is to study the Qur'an; **You must read 
 the Qur'an" is how it is frequently put. But 
 when you talk about reading the Qur'an, you 
 talk about an exceedingly difficult thing. If you 
 read it to understand it; trying to put yourself 
 back into the environment of Muhammad ; trying 
 to think what, precisely, these phrases meant 
 for him there in Mecca, or there in Medina, with 
 such and such surroundings ; if you try to do 
 that it becomes a different matter from simply 
 reading a bit of Arabic, and therefore I would 
 
88 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 throw out this warning to you : — Just as in the 
 case of the Old Testament there is no translation 
 at present in existence that can be called even 
 approximately adequate, so in the case of the 
 Qur'an there is no translation that you can trust. ^ 
 That work is still to be done. It does not matter 
 whether you regard it as simply the work of 
 translating the Qur'an as it is understood by the 
 native Muslim scholars, following one of their 
 grammatical commentaries and basing your trans- 
 lation upon that; or whether you take up the 
 broader and, in time to come, certainly unavoid- 
 able task of translating the Qur'an from your 
 own knowledge of the language, the environ- 
 ment, the religious situation. Whichever view 
 you take, the translation of the Qur'an is still 
 to come. 
 
 But even though there is no adequate trans- 
 lation of the Qur'an in existence, do not think that 
 it is not very fairly understood by the Muslims. 
 
 *I notice that Palmer's translation is much used and 
 quoted by missionaries. Palmer was a wonderful linguist 
 and an admirable scholar in many ways, but his translation 
 has some most extraordinary blunders, many of which 
 must have been due to haste. Rodwell's translation is a 
 careful piece of work but hardly represents the tone of the 
 original. Sale's can now be neglected. 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 89 
 
 It is often represented to us that Muslims take 
 the Qur'an mechanically. In a way that is 
 possibly true. I am afraid that we similarly 
 sometimes take the Bible and the prayer book 
 mechanically. But never think that at the bot- 
 tom of it all they take it mechanically. When 
 you see a Muslim sitting somewhere in the 
 corner of a mosque, reciting to himself passages 
 from the book — reciting always from mem- 
 ory, although the book may lie open upon his 
 knee — these are cadences which have become 
 familiar but which also mean much for him in 
 his devotional life. And do not be misled to 
 think that such reciting is anything like the 
 mechanical operation of a Buddhist prayer-wheel, 
 where the turning means everything. That is 
 not so. The feeling of the educated Muslim 
 for the meaning of the Qur'an is quite as precise ; 
 his endeavor to reach it, to feel it, is quite as 
 close and living as anything we have with regard 
 to our Scriptures. 
 
 I have now put before you very shortly what 
 seems to me to be the true historical position with 
 regard to the person of Muhammad and with 
 regard to the Qur'an, its origin and its nature. 
 
90 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 So much should be known for the sacred truth 
 of history. It should also be known for our 
 estimate of the man Muhammad, for charity 
 and right feeling towards him. But, of course, 
 for the missionary who is living amongst Mus- 
 lims, who has to work with them, who has to 
 affect them, a far more important thing than that 
 is the question, What does Muhammad mean 
 for present-day Muhammadans ? Similarly what 
 does the Qur'an mean for its Muslim reader now ? 
 What does he think, believe of it and of its 
 utterer ? What are his attitudes to them ? These 
 
 « 
 
 questions I must now approach. 
 
 In the first place, you must not think that Islam 
 holds one thought only on these matters. The 
 truth is that Islam is more broken into sects 
 than even Christendom. Let me illustrate this 
 by perhaps the most remarkable experience I had 
 in my Eastern wanderings. 
 
 I suppose every child has at some time wished 
 that he could have had part in the procession 
 of the prophets coming down the hill to meet 
 Saul, "prophesying" with pipe, timbrel and harp 
 before them, and then sweeping Saul up, he, too, 
 "prophesying," now in their midst. I suppose 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 9I 
 
 that he has also wished that he might have wit- 
 nessed that scene at Mount Carmel — the priests of 
 Baal crying aloud to their god and leaping about 
 the altars, cutting themselves with knives. It 
 was my privilege — rather a rare one — to take part 
 in what was practically the same as that scene, 
 a procession of darwishes marching down and 
 "prophesying" as they came; and it was also 
 made possible for me, on the same occasion, to 
 see what is probably the nearest parallel to that 
 other scene on Mount Carmel with the priests 
 of Baal that still survives amongst people that 
 can, in any respect, be called civilized. I am 
 bound to confess that the spirit did not fall upon 
 me and make me "prophesy," as it did Saul ; but 
 I was sufficiently affected to make very real to 
 me the pull upon the nerves which such scenes 
 must exercise. 
 
 It fell in this wise : — On the tenth day of the 
 month of Muharram, the first month of the Mus- 
 lim year, on the night of that day, the Shrite sect 
 of Muslims has a great mourning ceremony for 
 the slaughter of the grandson of the Prophet, 
 al-Husayn, and of many of his family at Kerbela 
 near Baghdad, who fell there in battle against 
 
92 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 fearful odds. If there is a thing that stirs Persian 
 Islam to utter frenzy, a frenzy of grief, a frenzy 
 of hate, a frenzy of love, it is the memory of 
 this — the great tragedy of Islam, and every year 
 when the day comes round it is celebrated at 
 Kerbela by what can be called, in a sense, a Pas- 
 sion Play in which the whole tale, as tradition 
 tells it, is reproduced in scenes. In other import- 
 ant centres of Islam where any sufficient number 
 of Shrites are gathered, it takes the form of a 
 great procession at night followed by a speech, 
 reciting the wrongs, the sorrows and the death 
 of al-Husayn and his family. 
 
 It was my very great privilege, then, while in 
 Cairo, to have part in that procession and to hear 
 that speech. The procession itself let me describe 
 to you. It passed through the principal streets 
 of the native part of Cairo, the Medina, or City 
 in the strict sense, starting from the Gamaliya, 
 passing the mosque of the Hasanen proceeding 
 down the New Street and finally through 
 by-ways reaching the house in the Hamzawiya, 
 the use of which for these ceremonies during 
 the first ten days of Muharram was bequeathed 
 by a pious Shrite. Had it not been that the 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 93 
 
 men composing the first three or four ranks in 
 the procession wore black fezzes, instead of tall 
 hats, they might, so far as their appearance was 
 concerned, have been the kirk session or elders 
 of some Presbyterian church. These maintained 
 a decent and composed solemnity of visage. 
 But behind them came the bands of darwishes, 
 stripped to the waist and prophesying after their 
 fashion. The prophesying consisted of loud wail- 
 ings, ejaculations, groans ; of striking their breasts 
 with their fists and slapping their shoulders 
 with their open hands; of beating their backs 
 with heavy iron chains; or of cutting their fore- 
 heads with swords. The only light came from 
 great iron cressets filled with burning wood, 
 carried In the midst and showering fiery frag- 
 ments everywhere, and from two rows of candles 
 in tall candle glasses, carried by boys down each 
 side of the procession and a little ahead of it and 
 moving as it moved. Otherwise we walked 
 through darkness with the black houses rising 
 on either hand and sudden flashes of the eager 
 faces of spectators along them. There was 
 no music, for this was a procession of mourners, 
 and tumultuous, violent, orgiastic as they were, 
 
94 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 theirs seemed to me to be very genuine mourning. 
 They had prepared, I knew, for the cutting of 
 their foreheads by shaving clean the forward 
 part of the scalp; but that did not prevent the 
 blood and wounds from being very real. All 
 in all, it was the strangest, the most striking, 
 the most individual scene I have ever witnessed 
 in my life. 
 
 So down the street in the front rank between 
 the Persian consul-general and his secretary I 
 marched. To have been farther back in the 
 midst of the chaos behind would certainly have 
 been more interesting; but that could not be. 
 Yet I do not think that there would have been 
 any danger there, even if I had been discovered 
 not to be a Muslim. An element in the Kerbela 
 legend is that a Christian ambassador exerted 
 himself to save al-Husayn and he is often made 
 part of the drama. My dress was the frock 
 coat suit which I am wearing at present, except 
 that then I had on a fez. At last the procession 
 reached the court-yard of the house of which I 
 have spoken, and in that court-yard came out still 
 more plainly the analogy, or " rather the exact 
 similarity, that such scenes bear to those of which 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 95 
 
 we read in the Old Testament, especially to the 
 tumultuous shrieking, leaping and crying aloud 
 upon their god of the priests of Baal and the 
 cutting themselves with knives. It was all per- 
 fectly genuine; the blood was real blood; the 
 blows were hard, real blows; and with regard to 
 the great masses — that is, with the exception of 
 some of the upper classes who were distinctly per- 
 functory in their breast-thumpings — there could 
 be no question at all of sincerity. 
 
 This was mourning, then, for the grandson of 
 the Prophet, and reverence for the family of the 
 Prophet is a universally accepted duty in Islam. 
 When by any chance, I alluded in the presence of 
 one of my Muslim friends to the mosque of the 
 Hasanen, as it is commonly called, he always 
 took occasion, a moment afterwards, to speak 
 of it as the mosque of Sayyidna Husen, "Our 
 Lord Husen." 
 
 But yet I am in grave doubt — or rather in no 
 doubt whatever — how my Sunnite friends would 
 have regarded my thus taking part in a Shi'Ite 
 procession. How would an Orangeman regard 
 a friend who was seen celebrating Saint Pat- 
 rick's Day? One of my Cairene friends, who 
 
96 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 had been a Sunnite Muslim but who had become 
 a Christian, had taken over with him his hatred 
 of Shrites, and could not find enough to say to 
 their discredit. It is curious, also, to notice that 
 in Lane's monumental and nearly exhaustive 
 work on the modern Egyptians, there is almost 
 no mention of the Shi'ites. 
 
 I have told this to illustrate the enormous gulf 
 that has entered Islam at this point. It affects 
 even our precise subject — the doctrine of Islam 
 as to the person of Muhammad — because, by a 
 hardly intelligible development, the descendants 
 of Muhammad have come to be of more Import- 
 ance for Shrites than Muhammad himself. But 
 into the ramifications of the Shi'ite position I 
 cannot now enter. Some of them involve a prac- 
 tical deifying of *Ali and his descendants; all tend 
 to w^hat may be called a more High Church 
 doctrine than that of the Sunnites. Practically, 
 this comes to two systems of theology and law, 
 Sunnite and Shi^ite, with, inside of each of these, 
 further endless subdivisions. Crossings and mix- 
 ings take place also, to some extent, and the old 
 pre-Muslim faith of each geographical district 
 has coloured its special variety, of heresy. Each 
 
 •-■ — --.i Vli 11^ 'i . I •., 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 97 
 
 missionary will need, while holding fast as a 
 clue the broad outlines of what may be called 
 ''book-Islam," to study for himself the particular 
 phases of his own field. 
 
 But returning to our other broad difference, 
 the difference, I mean, between the attitude of the 
 historian towards the Qur'an and Muhammad 
 and the present-day attitude towards them, how 
 does that stand ? Here there has come into play 
 one of the most striking characteristics of Islam. 
 It is a readiness to pick up odds and ends of 
 doctrine from the outside, non-Muslim world. 
 These are then adapted, made over more or less 
 into Muslim form, yet still leaving it perfectly 
 plain that they have been thus promiscuously 
 gathered up. 
 
 This is the only explanation possible of the 
 strange development that has taken place in the 
 doctrine of the person of Muhammad. For 
 example, there Is in circulation a tradition, and 
 it is generally accepted in Islam — I do not believe 
 that it is doubted by any orthodox Muslim — 
 that puts into the mouth of Allah the following : — 
 "Had it not been for thee (Muhammad) I had 
 not created the worlds." That is, Muhammad 
 7 
 
98 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 or the determination to create Muhammad had 
 been there from the beginning and the worlds 
 were created and exist only for his sake. 
 
 Again, there is a statement put into the mouth 
 of Muhammad himself which tradition univer- 
 sally accepts : — '*I was a prophet when Adam 
 was still between clay and water," that is, when 
 Adam was not yet formed. You see that the 
 prophetship of Muhammad is thus moved back 
 before the creation of the human race. Yet this 
 may be taken as a development of another tradi- 
 tion by which Islam has endeavored to construct 
 for Allah a legal claim on the worship of man- 
 kind. When Adam was created, Allah drew 
 forth from him all his seed to be, like millions 
 on millions of swarming ants, and asked them, 
 "Am I not your Lord?" To which they replied, 
 **Yea, verily!" This was the primal covenant 
 in Islam, and is alluded to in Muslim theological 
 systems as 'The Day of 'Am I not?'" 
 
 Then there is another that calls Muhammad 
 "The first created and the last to rise in the 
 resurrection." Another still stranger series of tra- 
 ditions, complicated and contradictory in many 
 ways, speaks of a certain mysterious Light of 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD 99 
 
 Muhammad. This Hght is supposed to have 
 been a pecuHar radiance that shone in the faces 
 of Muhammad's ancestry in the direct Hne back- 
 ward. That is to say, the idea is that he was 
 being passed down through that ancestry, in a 
 pecuharly personal way, and that his presence in 
 each Hnk of the genealogy was indicated by this 
 peculiar radiance. In other traditions this has 
 taken a still more extravagant form. You will 
 meet with such sayings as this: "Allah created 
 in the beginning of all things the Light of 
 Muhammad. From a portion of it He then cre- 
 ated His throne; from another portion of it He 
 created the lower worlds; from another portion 
 of it He created the tablet on which the decrees 
 of destiny are written, and lastly from another 
 portion, preserved for the purpose, came the 
 Prophet himself." 
 
 You see, then, that there grew up under partly 
 Christian, partly Neo-Platonic, partly Persian 
 influences what can be described as almost 
 precisely the Arian doctrine of Christ. The 
 Uncreated Word of Christian doctrine, the dy- 
 namic emanations of Neo-Platonism, the Karend, 
 or Royal Splendour of the Persian Kings have 
 
lOO ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 all been absorbed after a fashion, but by no means 
 assimilated. 
 
 To this there have been curious consequences. 
 If Muhammad was this peculiar first-created of all 
 creatures, a Light from Allah Himself — Light of 
 Light, you might say — if he was that, what of his 
 moral nature? Islam has been driven to laying 
 down the position that he was morally perfect, 
 is — Muslim theologians would put it — the one 
 morally perfect creature that has ever been. 
 That, of course, is directly in the teeth of 
 statements in the Qur'an (e. g. xlviii : i, 2); 
 but the logic that is derived from the aspirations 
 of religion does not care anything for such con- 
 tradictions, and so Islam holds, at the present 
 time, a fixed doctrine of the sinlessness of its. 
 Prophet. 
 
 But, further, if he was this sinless being, and 
 if a peculiar radiance could be traced down the 
 line of his descent, what of the faith and conduct 
 of his parents and ancestors? Upon that subject 
 the first generations of Islam had no question. 
 There are traditions still in existence which assert 
 that both the father and the mother of Muham- 
 mad must of necessity be in the Fire. Before 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD lOI 
 
 the coming of Muhammad there was no true 
 guidance; there was no one to follow. He 
 entered upon his mission as a prophet after they 
 were dead. Their fate, logically, was settled. 
 Hypothetically they might have been saved as 
 holders of the doctrine taught by Jesus, the last 
 prophet; but Islam always takes it for granted 
 that none so believing was left, that all had fallen 
 away to the Christian perversion of the teaching 
 of Jesus. What, then, was to be done with the 
 clash between these traditions, this theological 
 position, and the doctrine of the Light of Muham- 
 mad? It was easy to hold that their conduct 
 was immaculate, especially that they must all 
 have been born In wedlock, lawful even accord- 
 ing to strict Muslim law. But what of their 
 faith? As to that, a great many devices were 
 tried, and one of them, for long, held the field, 
 I do not know how the Muslims of the present 
 day regard it. One doctrine grew up that after 
 Muhammad had appeared as a prophet, he asked 
 Allah what had been the fate of his parents, and 
 was told that as they had not followed one of 
 the prophets — had not been able to, but still had 
 not — that they, of necessity, would be in the 
 
102 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Fire. Upon that he prayed Allah that such might 
 not be the fate of his father and mother, and the 
 heart of Allah was touched, and he raised up 
 from the dead the father and mother of Muham- 
 mad, and they there and then professed their 
 faith in their son and returned unto their dust. 
 So the situation was saved. I do not know that 
 the same thing was applied to Muhammad's 
 ancestry any further back. That might have 
 been a more complicated and difficult situation. 
 But, further, from this doctrine of the per- 
 son of Muhammad, as it grew up, there came 
 an immense strengthening of another attitude 
 towards Muhammad which had existed practi- 
 cally from the beginning. The Semiteis have 
 always been a moralizing race; they have liked 
 to have things put before them in sententious 
 sentences. The Book of Proverbs, in its differ- 
 ent parts, exactly represents different phases of 
 this tendency. They have liked, especially, to 
 have concrete examples put before them, and 
 they have felt that if they only followed those 
 examples, did as this man did who was notori- 
 ously a wise man, or followed the counsel of this 
 other man who was certainly a very pious man, 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD IO3 
 
 that then they would be safe and successful for 
 this world and the next. To follow the custom 
 of the fathers and to keep in the old paths has 
 been the tendency of all the Semites and especially 
 the tendency of the desert. 
 
 To that came Muhammad, and upon his one 
 example early Islam learned to lean. It is the 
 desire of every pious Muslim to model his life 
 in every possible particular upon that of the 
 Prophet. And, after a fashion, it has been pos- 
 sible to do so. We hear a great deal nowadays 
 from time to time about the doing as Jesus did; 
 the thinking of what He would do; the model- 
 ling of our life upon His; and some one, recently, 
 greatly daring, said that such an attitude had 
 always led to unhealthy results. It was, perhaps, 
 rather a broad statement; but I think we can 
 understand what he meant. At any rate, we 
 must distinguish two sides of this imitation : 
 one, the following in the inner life; and another, 
 the copying of the external actions of life. 
 
 But in Islam, the close following of Muhammad 
 as a guide in life means the second of these 
 only. Yet it is of the deepest and most wide- 
 reaching importance. For example, I do not 
 
104 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 think that there can be any question that the 
 position of women in Islam is practically due 
 to the attitude of Muhammad himself. This 
 is pretty well admitted in the attempts which 
 have been made — and this is the common explan- 
 ation and defense of the present day — to show 
 that Muhammad's position was peculiar; that 
 he did these things bearing upon women as a 
 prophet; as a politician; as a political leader; 
 for one reason or another. But to put the case 
 in a word, I cannot conceive of anything that 
 would have made such an enormous difference 
 in the position of woman in Islam as if Muham- 
 mad, after the death of his first wife, had 
 remained a monogamist, for one point; and, if, 
 for another point, he had encouraged his wife 
 to go with unveiled face as was the custom and 
 is the custom to this day, for that matter, for the 
 free women of the desert. That would have 
 been enough ; the woman question in Islam would 
 hardly now exist. Every Muslim would have 
 followed in that, as in everything else, the example 
 of his prophet. Monogamy would be the rule 
 in Islam, while the veil would never have existed 
 except for the insane jealousy of Muhammad. 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD IO5 
 
 Further, it is a very curious criticism upon this 
 doctrine of the imitation of the Prophet that 
 when MusHms of the present time — that is, 
 educated MusHms — speak about the veil, they in- 
 variably explain that the veil is not binding upon 
 all women; that it was binding only upon the 
 wives of the Prophet. By that means an attempt 
 is now being made to get rid of the obligation 
 of wearing it. There is no prophet at present 
 alive with wives over whom to be jealous. 
 
 So much, then, broadly, for the doctrine of the 
 person of Muhammad. What of the doctrine 
 of the nature of the Qur'an? Here, again, the 
 tendency of Islam to assimilate doctrines from 
 without early asserted itself, and there can be 
 no question that the development of the doctrine 
 of the Qur'an was very early affected by the 
 doctrine of the Word of God that became flesh 
 and dwelt among men, especially as that was 
 formulated by the Greek Church. The view 
 which we find crystallizing may be put thus : — 
 The Qur'an is to be regarded as uncreated. 
 That is, It has existed from all the ages with 
 Allah. It is not that it was the first of all 
 created things, as was Muhammad, rather, it is 
 
I06 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 absolutely uncreated and existent, from all eter- 
 nity, in the essence of Allah. 
 
 Now In what sense is that said? I think I 
 can illustrate its meaning by a parallel with the 
 Christian doctrine of the Logos that was from 
 all eternity in the bosom of the Father by whom 
 all things were made, and the Word as it became 
 incarnate in Jesus and moved amongst us. 
 That is precisely the distinction — of course, with 
 slightly changed language — that is made by the 
 Muslim theologian, when he defines the doctrine 
 that the Qur'an is uncreated. He says, "From 
 all eternity there was a quality existent in the 
 essence of Allah, a quality not written in letters ; 
 not pronounced in sounds; but simply a quality 
 called Speech." With that eternal essential qual- 
 ity Allah created all things. We have that, then, 
 on the one hand, this quality from all eternity. 
 On the other hand, we have a manifestation of 
 that quality of Speech so existent in the essence 
 of Allah, a manifestation here upon earth which 
 is written with letters, which is pronounced In 
 sounds, and which is called the Qur'an. The 
 term "Qur'an" and the term "Word of God" 
 may be used of either of these. 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD IO7 
 
 The parallel, in all this, with the Christian 
 Logos is so close that I make no question that the 
 Muslim view is dependent upon it. Yet it should 
 be noticed that while the Christian Logos involves 
 the two ideas of ratio and oratio, the Muslim 
 has that of oratio, "speech" only. Muslim theo- 
 logians seem to shrink from connecting "reason" 
 with Allah. But it will be asked, What is the 
 real relationship between Allah's quality called 
 Speech and the Qur'an? What do we mean 
 when we say that Speech is manifested here in 
 written form? The answer is put thus: What 
 is understood from the words of the Qur'an 
 equals what would be understood from Allah's 
 quality of Speech if the veil were withdrawn 
 from our minds, and we could enter into direct 
 contact with that divine quality. The theologians 
 are careful to add that the one is not the other ; 
 that would be to confuse created and uncreated; 
 but what is understood from the one is the 
 equivalent of what would be understood from 
 the other if we could reach it, as we, In this 
 tabernacle of flesh, cannot. 
 
 Now, of course, that is a statement which only 
 pushes the matter a little further back and which 
 
I08 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 leads to other questions. It led, for instance, 
 to the question, To whom are we to ascribe the 
 words, the phrasing, in which this eternal, uncre- 
 ated word of Allah is couched in the Qur'an, and 
 through which it is manifested to man? In 
 answer, some held that the phrasing is due to 
 the revealing spirit, Gabriel; others even tried 
 to hold that it was Muhammad himself who sup- 
 plied the words; but, in general, the position 
 reached by Islam has been that the phrasing also 
 goes back to the writing of the revelation upon 
 the Preserved Tablet by the Pen moved by the 
 creative Will of Allah Himself, and has thus no 
 human element. There, I think, the theologians 
 have tried to be more precise than they logically 
 could. But, at any rate, these questions have 
 been asked; and that is the final answer that 
 has been reached by the strictly orthodox school. 
 It would have meant much for Islam if the con- 
 ception of a human element in its sacred book 
 could have gained a secure footing; as It is, the 
 standing of that conception has wavered between 
 that of damnable unbelief and that of a more 
 or less heretical innovation. 
 
 In this sense, then, the Qur'an is called the 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD IO9 
 
 Word of Allah and is said to be uncreated. 
 But, of course, this position which I have put 
 before you is only the general one; others have 
 been held in the Muslim world. So there have 
 been extremists, and there still are, who attempt 
 to take up the position that it is not what is 
 understood from the words that is uncreated; 
 the words themselves are the Word of Allah. 
 They have even felt themselves driven by the 
 logic of the situation to say that when any one 
 repeated the Qur'an, the words that came from 
 him, his very utterance itself, must be spoken of 
 as eternal in their nature. Such, then, broadly, 
 have been the positions upon Muhammad and 
 upon the Qur'an reached by the Church of Islam. 
 But what are the tendencies at the present 
 day, the tendencies, I mean, among the more 
 educated Muslims who are beginning to face 
 the outside world and are trying to bring their 
 theology into some accordance therewith? A 
 very pronounced one is, Go back to Muhammad ; 
 throw away everything and try to reach what 
 he said, what he thought ; take his positions as a 
 starting point and not the reasonings of the 
 theologians about him; sweep away systematic 
 
no ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 theology and go back simply to the words of the 
 Prophet himself and begin again. Now, that, 
 undoubtedly, is a possible course to follow; but 
 when they do get back to Muhammad they will 
 be driven to take him upon a historical basis. 
 They will have to say to themselves, We are 
 going back to Muhammad; who, really, was 
 Muhammad, and what kind of a man was he? 
 When they do that, an era for Islam will have 
 drawn near. We can safely say, Go back to 
 Christ. Whatever may happen with the Gospels, 
 whatever criticism may apply to them, we feel 
 and believe — historically and critically, we are 
 justified in believing — that that person, that 
 figure will remain untouched. But no one at 
 all who has studied the life of Muhammad can 
 have any dream of such an imimunity and safety 
 for him. Ut is only when his figure is seen 
 through the mist of tradition, surrounded by 
 the awe and reverence of the unexamining, the 
 uncritical and the morally undeveloped, that there 
 can be any thought of taking him as a religious 
 guide and as a pattern for life. ) As the moral 
 standard of the masses of Islam is raised and 
 the facts of the life of Muhammad become more 
 
 O 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD III 
 
 widely known, a tremendous overturning will 
 be inevitable. 
 
 But another tendency is, Go back to the 
 Our'an; drop away all traditions; drop away all 
 the subtleties of the schoolmen and take the word 
 of the Our'an as it stands; it is the Word of 
 Allah, the unerring guide which He has given 
 to man. That, too, is a very possible course. 
 But when we do go back to the Qur'an, it will 
 simply mean going back to the question of the 
 historical Muhammad; the question will really 
 be the same. It is possible for the educated 
 Muslim of the present day to use these as his 
 methods; to try to seek safety and salvation for 
 his faith in these ways; only because he has not 
 yet traced them out to the end. The end will 
 come, and when that end comes will Islam 
 escape, and if so, how? Is there any possibility 
 of guessing at the drift of the reconstruction 
 that will follow? Many, I know, will say that 
 there can be no reconstruction; that Islam will 
 be ended. But religions are never ended; they 
 develop into new forms, absorb new life and go 
 on again. By no such easy method will Qiris- 
 tianity conquer. As for Islam, I think that the 
 
112 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 line of escape for it will be, first, through its 
 mystical position, with which I have already 
 dealt briefly. That position, upon which I shall 
 have to enter hereafter in more detail, will hold 
 its own, even after the feeling has been reached 
 that it is unsafe to study Muhammad any 
 further; that things come up in that study which 
 are not possible in a religious leader for this 
 century. But secondly, even then there will 
 remain loyalty to the abstraction, Islam, to its 
 history and all that there has been in it of 
 religious fervour and life. And, thirdly, there 
 will come into play and will make practical appli- 
 cation of the mystical attitude and of the loyalty 
 to Islam, a great formative principle, the prin- 
 ciple of life and development in Islam, which 
 is called the Agreement of the Muslim people. 
 Tradition from Muhammad lays down, "My 
 people will never agree upon an error," and, going 
 upon that, Islam has felt that whenever the general 
 body of the Muslim people has reached a con- 
 clusion upon a doctrine or a point of law, such 
 a conclusion Is to be accepted, because it is the 
 voice of the people. 
 
 This agreement has overridden, again and 
 
MUSLIM ATTITUDE TOWARD MUHAMMAD II3 
 
 again, direct commands in the Qur'an. It has 
 overridden absolutely certain and accepted tradi- 
 tions from the Prophet. The mere fact that 
 the people of Muhammad agreed that this must 
 be the position to be held, has been enough. 
 The other has quietly dropped out of sight and 
 survives in history only. You will see that this 
 is like the principle of a dogma-forming power 
 inherent in the Christian Church, and like the 
 principle, too, of Vincent of Lerins : What 
 always ; what everywhere ; what by everybody has 
 been held to be Christian verity, that is Chris- 
 tian verity. Using, then, this principle of 
 Agreement, loyalty to Islam and the mystical 
 attitude, Muslims may escape from the supposed 
 cul-de-sac of the life of Muhammad, and it seems 
 perfectly fair to say that at the present day all 
 thinking and devout Muslims are mystics. That, 
 at least, was my experience. Of course, there 
 is a residuum that you cannot call sincere; 
 another that you cannot call devout; but when 
 you take the man in Islam who really does think 
 and is sincerely religious, you may be perfectly 
 sure that his attitude is mystical. 
 
 Certainly there is still a considerable element in 
 8 
 
114 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Islam who may be said to think in a way, and 
 to whom the mechanical formulae of the scho- 
 lastic theology and philosophy bring satisfaction; 
 when the scholastic theology and philosophy go, 
 they will go with it. There is also a large 
 element whose faith is based upon the faith of a 
 former generation and is cultivated with inherited 
 religious phrases. But taking the spiritually 
 alive in Islam, so far as my experience goes, so 
 far as I was able to learn at any point, their 
 conceptions are those of the mystical life. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 
 MUSLIM THEOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 At the close of my last lecture I was beginning 
 to open up slightly the present subject, that is, 
 the religious attitudes, views, ideas, re-construc- 
 tions current amongst the different classes of 
 Muslims. I divided these roughly into three. 
 Practically all thinking men who are also 
 religious-minded are mystics. This class I must 
 leave over for the next lecture. But that leaves, 
 second, the masses of the people who are emi- 
 nently religious-minded but of whom we cannot 
 say exactly that they are thinkers; and, third, 
 the great body of scholastic theologians. 
 
 First, then, with regard to the masses of the 
 people, their religion is to a great extent a 
 religion of phrases. I do not say this in any 
 contemptuous sense; the religion of all masses 
 of people, our own included, tends to crystallize 
 itself in religious phrases. For example, I have 
 here in my hand the rosary of Islam. In this, 
 its largest form, it consists of ninety-nine beads, 
 
 115 
 
Il6 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 in three divisions of thirty-three each. The 
 smaller form consists of thirty-three beads only; 
 but what I have here is the more regular form 
 in use today. There are still larger forms but 
 these are used by darwishes or other religious. 
 Each of these beads is dedicated to one of what 
 are called the ninety-nine Most Beautiful Names 
 of God. These go back to Muhammad, follow- 
 ing Arabic usage. All Arabic poetry tends to 
 use descriptive epithets. Jt was, therefore, per- 
 fectly natural that Muhammad should express 
 his ideas about Allah by such names describing 
 His qualities. There are very many of these 
 in the Qur'an and in the Traditions, or derivable 
 from verbs used in the Qur'an, and, out of these, 
 ninety-nine have been taken and have become 
 stereotyped for use in private devotion. 
 
 So the Muslim, as he walks, uses his rosary, 
 slipping it through his fingers, until he has gone 
 through the ninety-nine Names, and if he does 
 not choose to trouble himself to remember all 
 the names in exact order, he will simply turn 
 it over, running it through his hand, and murmur 
 under his breath, "Allah, Allah, Allah." I do 
 not know exactly how much feeling there goes 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 117 
 
 with that. Certainly, from the generality of the 
 habit and its fixity, he cannot be thinking about 
 things very different from those of the ordinary 
 circle of religious thought ; he cannot be indulg- 
 ing in religious speculation of any freedom; at 
 any rate that is the habit, normal, regular. But 
 religious usages go further than such simple 
 phrases as these. 
 
 I suppose that for us to have some one read 
 the New Testament over aloud in our presence 
 at a family festivity would not be regarded as 
 exactly an exhilarating amusement. In Islam 
 it is different The reading of the Qur'an in 
 that way by a professional reader is listened to 
 very gravely by a circle who find it quite enter- 
 taining. It will make part of a holiday for them, 
 and when they wish anything more wildly excit- 
 ing than that there will take place a performance 
 which can be best compared to the Christmas 
 Cantata with us. It is carried out by a principal 
 singer with an assistant chorus of four voices 
 and perhaps one or two musical instruments of 
 the legally permissible kind, and they go over 
 in a series of songs and choruses an account of 
 the traditional history of the birth of the Prophet. 
 
Il8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 That very frequently takes place on the occasion 
 of a marriage. A great tent is erected in the 
 street, outside of the bridegroom's house, and 
 there the singer and his chorus are seated, and all 
 are welcome to come and listen; the family joy 
 being expressed in this way. I was present at 
 one of these song-recitations, and, having been 
 introduced to the singer, he, out of the courtesy 
 of his heart, sent and asked whether I would 
 like him to somewhat expurgate the contents 
 of this cantata, as there were references in it 
 to the end of the world and the state of things 
 in the world to come for the unbeliever. He 
 thought I might take it personally, and would 
 rather have such things cut out. Of course I 
 assured him that what I came for was the delight 
 of hearing his voice and, having that, did not 
 mind in the least what w^ords he might use. 
 
 These are simply illustrations of the religious 
 tendencies of the masses of the people and of the 
 ways in which such tendencies show themselves. 
 I use these rather than the five legal daily prayers 
 and the Friday sermon because they have 
 developed themselves more spontaneously and are 
 more characteristic of the natural drift. But it 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY IIQ 
 
 would be a mistake to think that the masses of 
 Islam have not also some definite theological basis 
 for themselves of a precise, almost a philosophical 
 kind. 
 
 Here I have, for instance, a little booklet, very 
 widely read and costing some fraction of a cent. 
 It contains at the beginning those ninety-nine 
 Most Beautiful Names of Allah, and then it goes 
 on to give a series of suitable prayers, religious 
 ejaculations, moral reflections, extracts from the 
 Qur'an, etc. But no one could go over it without 
 picking out from it quite a little of what you 
 might call philosophical theology. Different 
 phrases such as "From all eternity," "unifying," 
 "if ambiguity have entered into my knowledge 
 of Thee," etc., are scattered through it, and the 
 ordinary user of this little book is bound to pick 
 up and to understand in that way a certain 
 amount of the definite scholastic theology. 
 
 To that definite scholastic theology, then, I 
 now turn. I have chosen a system to put before 
 you, in part at least — I cannot give you it all — 
 that is very thorough and definite indeed. This, 
 for me, is the only sound course, if you desire to 
 understand any theology at all. If, for example, 
 
120 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 you want to understand the Christian theology, 
 I do not see any escape for it from taking up 
 some one definite system — that of Augustine or 
 Thomas Aquinas or of Calvin, it may be — of as 
 thorough a character as possible, and working 
 that out and getting to understand it. There- 
 after, you can study and understand the different 
 modifications of it and easily master the general 
 field of theology. But for a basis you are bound 
 to take some system that is thoroughgoing, 
 master it and then build up your knowledge of 
 theology round it and its modifications. For 
 that purpose, then, I pick a quite thoroughgoing 
 system with a metaphysical basis of a kind. 
 
 But before going on to actual theology we 
 must first make sure of our preliminary training. 
 That the Muslim takes very seriously, and he 
 has no opinion at all of the metaphysical train- 
 ing of the Westerner. Whenever, for example, 
 I began at any time to discuss theology with a 
 Muslim, the first thing he did was to put me 
 through my paces as to whether I was really 
 intellectually fitted and had the necessary prepa- 
 ration to approach this subject. There was a 
 kind of metaphysical pons asinoruni that had to 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 121 
 
 be passed before we could proceed further. Let 
 me now put that bridge before you. They 
 always began by saying that there are three essen- 
 tial things to be understood and distinguished. 
 Unless you can understand these, you need not 
 go on any further with your study of theology. 
 You must understand what is meant by the neces- 
 sary; what is meant by the possible; and what 
 is meant by the impossible. My interlocutor 
 would either make me explain these, or else he 
 would go on to expound them himself as fol- 
 lows : — The necessary, its non-existence cannot 
 be thought; there is only one necessary — that 
 is Allah. The possible; that is you and I — any- 
 thing — the things of the world. They may be 
 or may not be. They are betwixt and between. 
 I still remember with pride, how pleased one 
 theologian was when I applied a literal Arabic 
 translation of this colloquialism. I had invented 
 a new terminus technicus! — But when we came 
 to the impossible, we got into deep water. Its 
 existence cannot be thought. A thing cannot be 
 and not be at the same time. 
 
 Starting with that, then, it was possible to 
 go on and further develop the theological 
 
122 ' ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 scheme. But let me, first, throw in another point. 
 In what follows you will be struck, I am per- 
 fectly certain, with the mechanical and concrete 
 nature of all the argumentation. The Muslim 
 reasoner deals with ideas as If they were blocks 
 of wood, solid things In your possession, as to 
 which there was no question what they w^ere ; you 
 could handle them as you pleased and move them 
 this way and that. Recognition that an idea is 
 essentially Indefinable in its exactness, and that 
 there Is a biological aspect to all things which 
 makes them Incalculable Is still far before them. 
 They are still at the stage where when you have 
 got an Idea you know exactly what It is, and 
 you can play with It In any way you please. 
 That, I think, is best Illustrated by the system 
 of controversy — or better, the system of ascer- 
 taining truths — that was built up by the great 
 and the very successful missionary to the Mus- 
 lims, Ramon Lull. His system Is worthy of 
 careful notice because It was really successful in 
 its way. He had worked out a method of 
 developing all the possible relationships between 
 different ideas in which substances, attributes, 
 categories were arranged on concentric circles 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY I23 
 
 of card-board. You turned those circles round 
 and made various combinations from card to card 
 and thus got your result — an infallible result. 
 Everything was down upon the cards; you had 
 simply to turn the wheel, and the result came 
 out. This is a somewhat crude account of Lull's 
 idea of a logic-machine; but it gives the point 
 of interest to us now. And the remarkable 
 thing is that Lull was one of the few successful 
 missionaries to Muslims; that seems certain. 
 His method corresponded exactly with their 
 mental workings, with their way of approaching 
 and thinking about things.^ 
 
 Starting with these three conceptions, the 
 necessary, the possible, and the impossible, the 
 next point in Muslim theology is that about nine- 
 tenths of the space is taken up with the discussion 
 of the nature of the Person of Allah. For 
 instance, if there are fifty articles of belief in an 
 Arabic theological treatise, you may be perfectly 
 sure that more than forty deal with the Person 
 
 ^It is only fair to draw attention also to Ramon Lull's 
 eminence as a creative literary artist, with especial ability 
 in illustrative apologues. See, on this side, a long and 
 excellent account of him by Menendez y Pelayo, in his 
 Origencs de la Novela, Vol. I, pp. Ixxii ff. 
 
124 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of Allah, while less than ten will be left for 
 other things such as the nature of prophecy, 
 etc. One origin, undoubtedly, of this singular 
 onesidedness was the overwhelming importance 
 for Muhammad of the idea of Allah, and the 
 form which it took was conditioned by the 
 tendency in Muhammad's mind to characterize 
 Allah by those names of which I have spoken. 
 That was the form in which the doctrine of the 
 Person of Allah expressed itself for him, and 
 naturally his attitude and method continued them- 
 selves in the succeeding development. But, 
 further, it is, I think, a perfectly fixed historical 
 fact, that the development of Muslim theology was 
 most largely conditioned and afifected — absolutely 
 conditioned and affected — by the theology of the 
 Greek Church and especially by that theology 
 as formulated by John of Damascus. In it the 
 doctrine of the Person of God is given a far 
 more primary position and greater space than 
 in the theologies of the Latin Church, not to 
 speak of the theologies of the Reformation. 
 Thus the second influence worked to the same 
 purpose as the first. The theologian, in conse- 
 quence, has to give by far the greater amount of 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY I25 
 
 ^ 
 
 his space to statement and proof of the qualities 
 of Allah. 
 
 Of these, the first quality is, of course, exist- 
 ence. But what is existence? Remember that 
 this is long prior to Kant, and yet one Muslim 
 school has come within a very measurable dis- 
 tance of him in its idea of the meaning of 
 existence. On that point there are two views. 
 One is that existence is a state belonging to the 
 essence of an entity and necessary to that essence 
 as long as the entity shall last. It is a personal 
 quality, you may say, without which the entity 
 is unthinkable, and it has no cause, except, of 
 course, Allah. That means that John's being 
 strong, for example, springs from John's strength ; 
 but there is nothing in John from which his 
 existence springs. In this view the point is that 
 existence is a state or quality ; not the entity itself, 
 or its essence; insepaiable from the entity. But 
 the other view holds 'hat existence is the self 
 of the essence of the entity; is that through and 
 in which it is, and not an addition to it externally. 
 Both of these views have been and are held in 
 Islam. 
 
 But how can we prove that this quality, namely 
 
126 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 existence, belongs to Allah; that Allah exists? 
 The proof, in a word, is the world itself. "Look 
 out upon the world," says the Muslim theologian, 
 "you will see that it consists of bodies and acci- 
 dents." — He might go farther back and speak 
 of substances in the philosophical sense, and some 
 treatises do so; but the great majority of theo- 
 logical books begin with the concrete things 
 of the world, bodies. — Regard then the world. 
 It consists of bodies and accidents. Now, the 
 accidents are very evidently originated ; they have 
 had an origin; they will have an end. This 
 book, for example, which I am holding is now at 
 rest; possesses the quality or accident "at rest." 
 Now, again, it is in motion. It has come to 
 possess another quality, "motion." Now, again 
 it is at rest. Each of these accidents, then, had 
 evidently an origin. So ^/e must regard acci- 
 dents in this world as bCxUg things originated. 
 But they are always jrmed to bodies. They 
 do not occur separately and, further, bodies are 
 inseparable from accidents. Every body has 
 accidents : It is in motion or at rest ; it is hot or 
 it is cold; it is light or it is heavy. But what is ^ 
 inseparable from originated things must itself be 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 12/ 
 
 originated. Therefore, the world as a whole — 
 bodies and accidents — is originated; had an 
 origin. 
 
 But what, further, does that teach us? If the 
 world did not exist from all eternity, there must 
 have been an originator. That is to say, there 
 must have been some being who is the originator 
 of this world. Observe that this reasoning goes 
 no further. That this Originator of the world 
 is to be called Allah or given any of the Most 
 Beautiful Names we can learn from the prophets 
 only. There Revelation must step in. But tak- 
 ing it for granted that this Originator may be 
 called Allah, then the second quality that we are 
 compelled to assign to him is Priority. That 
 means that whatever we may think of the things 
 of the world, of the existing entities as we know 
 them, Allah must be thought of as being prior 
 to them. He is prior to everything else than 
 himself. You must think of him as before every- 
 thing. But why have we to ascribe this further 
 quality to Allah ? The answer lies in the finding 
 of the cause for the world. What is the nature 
 of the cause to be? Is it to be an absolute 
 cause — that is to say, prior to everything else? 
 
128 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Or can we take up any other possible position 
 as to its nature? In answer, the MusHm theo- 
 logians say — and this they borrow from Aristotle 
 — "You must have an absolute cause — a first 
 cause." But some have asked, "Can you not 
 have an infinite, regressive series of contingent 
 causes, dependent causes?" Can we not say, "Let 
 A be the cause of the world ; B, the cause of A ; 
 C, the cause of B; and so on backwards ad 
 infinitum f Or, again, is it possible to go round 
 in a circle with regard to those causes ? A is the 
 cause of the world; B is the cause of A; A is 
 the cause of B. Those were the questions which 
 the Muslim theologians had to face. Those three 
 possibilities were before them; but, generally 
 speaking, in their treatises, they say simply that 
 the endless chain and the circle — as they call 
 the two — are impossible, and that, therefore, it 
 is only left that there must be an absolute cause. 
 But when they do face the question of the 
 endless chain, let us see how it is proved impos- 
 sible. This series itself of contingent, dependent 
 causes, going back indefinitely, must in itself 
 as a series be either necessary or contingent. But 
 it cannot be necessary because it consists of a 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY I29 
 
 series of contingent causes only, causes dependent 
 upon something else. That would be to make 
 the necessary to exist through contingents, 
 which, they hold, would be absurd. Yet I con- 
 fess that, for myself, I cannot see why an endless 
 series backwards of contingents may not very 
 fairly represent an absolute. 
 
 The series itself, then, being contingent, must 
 depend for its existence on a cause, must have 
 its cause in something else. As to that some- 
 thing else, there are four possibilities. It may 
 be internal to the series, or it may be external to 
 it; it may be necessary itself, or it may be 
 only a contingent, dependent upon something 
 else. Combining these you get four possibilities. 
 Let us exhaust them. 
 
 Internal in the series and necessary — but we 
 have seen already that all that is in the series is 
 the possible, contingent, only. Internal in the 
 series and contingent — then it is the cause of 
 the series ; therefore of the elements of the series ; 
 therefore the absolute cause of itself. External to 
 the series and contingent — but all the contingent 
 causes are supposed to be in the series ex hypoth- 
 esi. So, as you see, this series, if it is to be 
 9 
 
130 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 a possible explanation, must depend on, go back 
 to, something that is external to itself and neces- 
 sary of existence in itself — that is to say, it must 
 go back to our First Cause, and so you may as 
 well do without the series and go back to the 
 First Cause at once. 
 
 Similar reasoning does away with the circle. 
 Inasmuch, then, as it is proven that it is unthink- 
 able to condition things by this indefinite chain 
 of possibilities or by circular reasoning, we are 
 driven to say that the cause, the Originator of 
 the world, must also be Prior to everything else — 
 must be a primary first cause, necessary in its 
 own existence. 
 
 The third quality is that of Continuance. It 
 follows, of course, necessarily. If there could 
 be a time, away in the future, at which Allah 
 hypothetically did not exist, then the existence 
 of Allah would be only possible, that is, he would 
 be originated. But we have already seen that 
 he is prior to everything, the originator of every- 
 thing. We have, therefore, to consider that this 
 being that, so far, we have called Allah, is prior 
 to everything, continuing indefinitely. 
 
 But the fourth quality Is the most character- 
 
f MUSLIM THEOLOGY I3I 
 
 istic element in the whole Muslim scheme. This 
 being, whom we are defining, step by step, must 
 possess also the quality of Difference. That is, 
 he must be different from all other beings. If 
 he could be described in terms of other beings, 
 which means in terms of originated things — for 
 all beings except himself are originated — he would 
 be an originated thing. Therefore, it must he 
 impossible to use of him the terms and descriptions 
 that can he used of originated heings. That 
 is a fundamental theological position. Yet 'it 
 threatens, in a sense, to cut away the possibility 
 of any theology. What, especially, is the Mus- 
 lim to do with the descriptions of Allah in the 
 Qur'an ? What with the ninety-nine Most Beauti- 
 ful Names? That problem has been approached 
 in different ways and different solutions have 
 been found. Some held that we must take these 
 expressions literally, as they stand, and swallow 
 the theological difficulty that they thus raise. 
 These were frank anthropomorphists. Others 
 said that these expressions could not be taken in 
 the first, material sense; that the w^ords were to 
 be explained differently. These were on the way 
 to recognize the existence of anthropomorphisms. 
 
132 ASPECTS OF ISLAM } 
 
 Others held them to be mysteries; you are 
 bound to use those names and descriptions and 
 expressions in speaking of Allah; but you must 
 not attach any meaning to them such as could be 
 attached to them when used of men. 
 
 One technical phrase arose very early in the 
 development of Muslim theology and maintained 
 itself very long. It is this: Without^_enquiring 
 how and without comparison. For example, the 
 Qur'an in seven different places (vii, 52; x, 3; 
 xiii, 2; XX, 2; XXV, 60; xxxii, 3; Ivii, 4) says 
 that Allah settled himself firmly upon his throne. 
 The phrase used is exactly the phrase used of a 
 man when he adjusts himself carefully upon his 
 camel-saddle (e. g. in Qur. xliii, 12). What 
 does that mean when used of Allah? The 
 anthropomorphic exegetes said quite frankly, *Tt 
 means that Allah did take his seat upon his 
 throne in exactly that way. That is the word of 
 the Qur'an." Some theologians even wrote above 
 the door of their mosques the seven texts in the 
 Qur'an, given above, describing how Allah settled 
 himself upon his throne. It was their challenge 
 to the world, "We believe that what these 
 verses say of Allah is literally true." Another 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY I33 
 
 used defiantly to rise up and sit down and say, 
 **Thus did Allah settle himself upon his throne." 
 Another school of exegetes held that these 
 expressions were to be explained as metaphors of 
 different kinds. One theologian, for example, 
 when he read in the Qur'an about the foot or the 
 hand or the face of Allah, hunted in his diction- 
 ary until he found some possible secondary mean- 
 ing of these Arabic words which could be taken 
 non-materially, and said that that must have been 
 what was meant. 
 
 But the normal position which Islam has 
 reached is expressed in the phrase. Without 
 enquiring how and without comparison. The 
 meaning of these expressions is not to be asked. 
 How Allah can be and do such things you must 
 leave alone, and, above all, you must not make 
 any comparison between Allah and men. You 
 must not think that anything which Allah does 
 is really measurable in terms of our thought. 
 That is where the doctrine of the Difference of 
 Allah essentially comes in. 
 
 And so here is the end of the matter. When, 
 for example, the Qur'an says that Allah is the 
 Most Merciful of those that show mercy (Qur. 
 
134 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 vii, 150; xii, 64, 92; xxi, 83), you must not 
 by any chance imagine that that involves in him 
 the quaHty of mercy as we understand it. That 
 the theologians prove in a very direct, inhumanly 
 direct, manner. Look around you in the world. 
 Does it strike you that the world is being gov- 
 erned by the Most Merciful of those who show 
 mercy? — Muslim theology, you will observe, is 
 thoroughgoing. Here it is certainly taking 
 Providence by the throat with a vengeance. — 
 Consider the case of innocent children. They are 
 afflicted with all kinds of diseases. How could 
 that be if "the Most Merciful of those that show 
 mercy" meant that Allah possessed the quality 
 of mercy as we understand it ? Evidently it can 
 not. Allah has simply given that phrase in the 
 Qur'an as one of his names, and what he meant 
 by it we do not know. We may call him by 
 that name ; we may not draw any conclusion from 
 it. The same argument has been used, I believe, 
 by some Christian theologians. 
 
 Further, the fifth quality that must be in Allah 
 is Self-subsistence. We cannot think of him as 
 being in any need of a locus or subject, in which 
 to exist; nor can we think of him as being in 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 135 
 
 need of a specifier, some one who will specify him, 
 define him in this way and not in any other. 
 That would mean either that he is a quality, if 
 he stood in need of a locus or subject; or that 
 he is originated, if he stood in need of a specifier. 
 
 Then, sixthly, there comes another curious and 
 very significant quality. We are compelled to 
 believe that this being whom we have called Allah 
 is the Originator of the world; the Prior, the 
 Continuing, the Different, the Self-subsisting. 
 Now we must learn that this being is also One; 
 that he possesses the quality Unity. But there 
 are two kinds of unity: there is internal unity, 
 unity within the being; and there is external 
 unity, i. e. there is no other being like this being. 
 Further, there is another, a three-fold division: 
 there is unity in essence ; unity in qualities ; unity 
 in acts; the first two of these divide also into 
 internal and external. 
 
 First, to take the unity necessary in qualities. 
 That means, internally, that there are not two 
 qualities called Priority, say, in Allah. That, 
 I think, you will probably admit. Externally, it 
 means that no one possesses a quality like any 
 quality of Allah. Next, the unity in essence. 
 
136 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Take the Internal unity first : I shall return to the 
 external. Is it necessary to believe that the 
 essence of Allah must possess internal unity? 
 Now, I am bound to say that in the ordinary theo- 
 logical treatises at least, this is not really made 
 out. The other things are simple enough — the 
 unity in qualities; the unity in acts; the external 
 unity. But so far as I have gone, I do not find 
 a really satisfactory proof in Muslim theology 
 that the essence of Allah must be an internal 
 unity. I do not see, that is to say, that they 
 have logically disproven the possibility in Allah 
 of the Christian Trinity, even if we regard that 
 as meaning a division in essence. 
 
 However, let us turn now to the unity in 
 acts. That does not mean — and the theologians 
 are always careful to make this clear — that does 
 not mean that no created being possesses an act 
 like Allah. It means — and this is where the 
 sweeping nature of it comes in — that no other 
 being than Allah possesses any act at all — any ,- 
 act at all From Allah and of Allah are all 
 acts. In no sense can it be said when, for 
 example, I lift this book, that that act belongs 
 to me. How, then, does the Muslim theologian 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 1 37 
 
 of this thoroughgoing school regard the matter? 
 He regards the world and all the events in the 
 world as a perpetual miracle — a miracle always 
 and constantly going on. It is not only that, by a 
 creative miracle, the world was brought into 
 existence; it is not only that, by an overseeing 
 Providence, the world is maintained in existence; 
 but all through the existence of the world — from 
 moment to moment — there is this miraculous 
 creation going on. What happens, from this 
 point of view, when, for example, I lift this book? 
 It is quite a complicated thing that happens, an 
 involved process. There are a great many crea- 
 tions by Allah during that process. First of all, 
 the book is lying there. From moment to 
 moment as it lies it is being recreated, or, at 
 least, retained in existence by the direct, personal 
 working of Allah. When I lift it, as I do now, 
 what happens? Allah has created in me the 
 will to lift it. He has created in me the move- 
 ment of my hand, and he has created in the 
 book — you cannot say a movement but, rather, 
 a series of books, as it goes up on its way 
 until it lands here. You see, we have in this 
 scheme not only an atomic system of matter; 
 
138 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 we have also, and this is the most curious device 
 of the MusHm metaphysicians, an atomic system 
 for time. Let me illustrate this last idea. n 
 
 Listen to the tick of a clock with a very short 
 pendulum, and imagine that for each tick there 
 Is a new creation of everything. So we perceive 
 changes and action in the constant flux of these 
 creations. Or it is very much like the movement, 
 in a sense, of a cinematograph which contains 
 so many pictures, and these are flitting past so 
 rapidly that we are given the impression of a 
 thing happening. Allah, in the same way, cre- 
 ates everything in such a rapid, unending series, 
 and he creates it in each new condition, situation, 
 fashion, required by the changes of this world. 
 So the movement of my hand to take hold of 
 this book, its movement up with the book, the 
 movement of the book itself upwards, all involve 
 a series — rapid of course — Invisible — of miracu- 
 lous creations directly by Allah. 
 
 But you may ask what would happen if Allah 
 were to remove his ever re-creating hand. On 
 that Islam had two hypotheses. One was that 
 the world would stop, frozen in the attitude and 
 state of a moment, and so remain until Allah 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 139 
 
 grasped it again. The other, and to my mind 
 the more logical, was that it would at once drop 
 out of existence into nothingness. With other 
 details — for example, the size of an atom of time, 
 are such atoms in contact? and the like — I cannot 
 now deal. 
 
 You see at once the consequences that follow 
 from this. There can, of course, be no such 
 thing as nature. When fire burns or when a 
 knife cuts, that Is not by any nature in the fire 
 or quality in the knife. The cutting and the 
 being cut, the burning and the being burned are 
 all by Allah. The burning and its direct effects 
 are the direct creation of Allah. ^ 
 
 And further, here is one point which I omitted. 
 According to the Ash'arites, the dominant school 
 of Muslim theologians, Allah also creates in my 
 mind, when I do anything, an acceptance by 
 myself of the doing of it. Of this doctrine of 
 ^'acceptance" the theologians of other schools 
 
 ^ There is a confession and exposition of much the same 
 view in Mr. G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, Chap. IV, "The 
 Ethics of Elfland." And the links of descent are clear. 
 They are two and go back through Thomas Aquinas and 
 Pascal to the Pugio Fidei of Ramon Marti, a student of 
 al-Ghazzali. Mr, Chesterton, like a great many other ex- 
 cellent people, is an unwitting Ghazzalian. 
 
140 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 have made a great deal of solemn fun. But 
 what did al-Ash'ari mean by It? As far as I 
 can see, It Is really an attempt by him to explain 
 why we think we are free. God has created in 
 our minds, along with the purpose and along 
 with the action, the feeling that we are doing 
 it ourselves. 
 
 But what of the external unity In essence? 
 Is it unthinkable that there might exist some 
 other being like Allah In essence and equal to 
 him? Why must we think that the being that 
 we have built up in this fashion must be One, 
 externally? The answer to this Is that If there 
 were two beings, they would either agree or they 
 would disagree in what they wanted to do. If 
 they disagreed, to take that first, then, either they 
 would counterbalance each other, being equally 
 strong, and nothing would be done ; or one would 
 be weaker and would practically push aside the 
 other. That would mean that he was more than 
 equal to the other, and they were, ex hypothesi, 
 to be equal. But suppose they agreed. Then 
 the Muslim theologian lays it down that two 
 things cannot make an impression, one impress- 
 ion, at the same time. You stamp a piece of 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY I4I 
 
 wax with a seal. You cannot make, at the same 
 time, the same impression upon the same bit of 
 wax with two seals. So, even if the two beings 
 did agree, their working together would be impos- 
 sible. In this way, then, it is proven that Allah 
 must be a Unity. 
 
 But, again, let me say that, so far as I know, 
 it is still possible for the Christian controver- 
 sialist to maintain that it is not yet proven that 
 the essence of Allah must be an internal unity. 
 Also the question might be raised whether we are 
 not compelled to go on and ascribe to Allah 
 internal unity in acts also. That would be that 
 Allah possesses only one act, and comes perilously 
 close to the philosophical position that Allah 
 knows universals only. 
 
 I have now put before you six of those neces- 
 sary qualities in Allah. There are other four- 
 teen necessary and then twenty impossible; but 
 I will not inflict these upon you. And beyond 
 these is the great possibility, in the case of Allah, 
 that every logically possible thing is open to him, 
 while nothing is incumbent upon him. This is 
 the great possibility for man as well, for it means 
 that every slightest element in the life of man 
 
142 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 is absolutely in the hand of Allah. When com- 
 bined with the doctrine of Allah's Difference, it 
 reaches religious nihilism, or rather anarchy. 
 There is no unity in the world, moral or physical 
 or metaphysical; all hangs from the individual 
 will of Allah. Of course, this is the doctrine 
 of philosophizing theologians ; the people of Islam 
 have always, if unconsciously, known better. 
 
 This curious, concrete, mechanical attitude in 
 theological reasoning must now be tolerably clear 
 to you. But, of course, behind this, which is 
 the system of the scholastic theologians, there 
 lies, as I have already indicated, a real metaphys- 
 ical system. The metaphysics do not become 
 prominent except when you come to the Unity 
 of Allah. But throughout there is thought behind 
 the theology. You may say that in Arabic there 
 are two systems of philosophy. One of them 
 is a very curious compound of Aristotelianism 
 and Neo-Platonism. The compound was rendered 
 possible by one of the most epoch-making of 
 pseudographs, a quite overwhelming bit of liter- 
 ary mischief. Sometime or other in the ninth 
 century, A. D., a Syrian Christian of Emessa 
 took parts of the "Enneads" of Plotinus, trans- 
 
MUSLIM THEOLOGY 143 
 
 lated them into Arabic and called them "The 
 Theology of Aristotle." The Muslims took this 
 audacity quite solemnly. Here there was a solu- 
 tion at last of the century-old problem. The 
 labour of reconciling Aristotle and Plato, on 
 which the great Greeks themselves had spent so 
 many generations, was accomplished by the 
 stroke of an oriental pen. If this w^as the 
 theology of Aristotle, the final, absolute basis 
 of his system, why then he and Plato practically 
 came together, and came together in a Neo-Pla- 
 tonic form. In consequence it is a very hard 
 thing now to tell with regard to any Arabic 
 writer upon philosophy whether he is more an 
 Aristotelian or a Platonist. 
 
 But, of course, the Muslim theologians who 
 wanted to get a bottom to their faith could not 
 accept any position of that kind. It led them 
 too directly to pantheism. It is true that they, 
 though they knew it not, were bound for the same 
 goal from another side. Their absolute, per- 
 sonified Will, from which all things depend, was 
 leading them to a monism In which nothing but 
 that very personal Will had any real existence 
 and of which the material world was a mere 
 
144 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 passing dream. But to that their eyes were 
 holden. So they worked out the system that 
 I have already put before you, that strange 
 development of the atomic philosophy, in which 
 you have not only the atoms of matter but have 
 also the atoms of time passing like the tick of 
 a clock — change, change, change — and behind it 
 all, creating it all, conditioning it all, the Will 
 of Allah. They did not need to introduce the 
 Lucretian conception of some mysterious deflec- 
 tion of atoms raining through the void, and 
 making possible their coming together into forms. 
 They did not need any pre-established harmony 
 nor self-developing monads of Leibnitz. The 
 Will of Allah continually produced those atoms, 
 continually reproduced them, continually combined 
 them into forms, and so the world kept rising, 
 shifting, changing. This is the true metaphysic 
 of Islam. The original contribution of the Mus- 
 lim people to philosophy was not in their taking 
 up and passing on Aristotle and Plato. In that 
 they were but blundering pupils and unfaithful 
 transmitters. 'It lay really in this grotesque, it 
 may be, but still tremendously thorough concep- 
 tion and application of the atomic scheme. 
 
 <:> 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 THE MYSTICAL LIFE AND THE DARWISH 
 
 FRATERNITIES 
 
 In beginning such a lecture as this, I am com- 
 pelled by the situation itself to ask first, What is 
 mysticism? In spite of a fair unity of thought 
 on the subject, the expression "mysticism" is 
 still used in some very curious and divergent 
 ways. But Islam, for its part, in its use of the 
 different Arabic terms which apply to our present 
 subject, has always been exceedingly precise as to 
 what it meant thereby, as to what lay behind 
 those terms for its thought. 
 
 I presume that we shall all agree that the basis 
 for religion, viewed broadly, is three-fold. There 
 is tradition — what we have learned from our 
 fathers; what has been taught us under a great 
 many different forms and in a great many differ- 
 ent ways. There is reason — by which we reach 
 truth for ourselves under guidance of our own 
 intellects. And there is also — though Christian- 
 ity has not always recognized this basis very 
 10 145 
 
146 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 fully and clearly — there is also what Quakers 
 have called the Inner Light, a spiritual insight 
 which does not come from without, which you 
 cannot ascribe to the operations of reason but 
 which comes immediately, of itself apparently, 
 into the soul or into the mind, whichever term 
 you choose to employ. 
 
 Now, Islam recognizes all three of these bases. 
 It recognizes tradition as a trustworthy source; 
 that a doctrine has been handed down from the 
 fathers is In itself enough to gain recognition 
 for it and that to a degree which, I suppose, for 
 us is passing away. We feel constantly the 
 necessity of working out our ideas for ourselves 
 in one way or another; the doctrine must com- 
 mend itself to us. Islam does not feel that but 
 is prepared to give full weight to what it has 
 been taught. A pedigree legitimates a doctrine. 
 That, of course. Is part of the general Semitic 
 inheritance. But Islam always recognizes, also, 
 the value, in reaching or in defining religious 
 truths, that lies in reason, although with very 
 curious limitations. 
 
 In the earlier generations of Islam reason had 
 a hard fight for its existence, at that time against 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 147 
 
 tradition. In the later generations of Islam, 
 when reason had been admitted, after a fashion, 
 as a trustworthy source of religious knowledge 
 by what you might call the orthodox or syste- 
 matic theological party, it had to enter upon 
 another fight and again for its existence. It had 
 to fight against what was agnosticism of the most 
 absolute, if not scepticism in the precise sense. 
 In my last lecture I put before you a part, at 
 least, of the creed of the dogmatic theologian in 
 Islam, and you will have noticed how carefully 
 it was reasoned from point to point; with what 
 infallible linking of proof to proof it moved. But 
 I am bound now to tell you that these argumenta- 
 tions have been recognized by other Muslim 
 thinkers as distinctly fallacious. They have not 
 hesitated to find breaks in the chain of reasoning, 
 to show that such reasonings can never be an 
 absolutely trustworthy foundation for religion. 
 
 I do not purpose now to go into the different 
 breaks that have been found in the links of the 
 dogmatic chain. One only is worth putting be- 
 fore you. This critical, reasoning party in the 
 Muslim Church recognized that even what seems 
 so primary a necessity of our thought as a prin- 
 
148 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ciple of causation, could not be relied upon, was 
 not really given in the facts before us. They 
 said, "When you think that you see causation, all 
 that you really see is one thing and then another 
 thing. How do you know that the one is the 
 cause of the other? Can you really see the one 
 producing the other? Are you not imposing an 
 imaginary explanation upon what you see?" — 
 And the dogmatic theologians had themselves be- 
 gun this cutting of the nexus of causation by 
 their explanation of every event as an immediate 
 working of the divine will. — With that and with 
 other such criticisms, a party in the Muslim 
 Church cut clear away the foundations of dog- 
 matic theology as based upon reason. 
 
 What use, then, did they find for reason? Its 
 use, they found, was to demonstrate that it was 
 not of any use. They went through exactly the 
 process that Hamilton, followed by Mansel, went 
 through in our fathers' times. They proved 
 most satisfactorily that the finite, the limited, the 
 conditioned can never deal with the infinite, the o 
 unlimited, the unconditioned; can really know 
 nothing about it. They cut away the possibility 
 of dealing with religion by means of reason; but 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 149 
 
 then they did not do as our generation tends to 
 do, fall back from this position into one absolutely 
 agnostic with regard to religion. They did not 
 say, ''So it follows that you do not and cannot 
 know anything about religion." They fell back 
 partly upon tradition, but still more upon the 
 third basis, the Inner Light. Their minds were 
 so constructed that they could not stop at the 
 point of ignorance. They could not say, "Rea- 
 son can only prove negatives and therefore we 
 can know nothing." They used reason to cut 
 away the possibility of philosophizing about the 
 world and about life, and, then, having driven 
 philosophy off the field and any possibilities on 
 that side, they fell back upon what their fathers 
 had told them and upon what came to them in 
 their own religious experience. That last, then, 
 has come to be really the ultimate, the final basis 
 for all thoughtful religion in Islam. With us 
 what is called the Inner Light has appeared here 
 and there, in one form and another, at one time 
 and another; but it has never, for the general 
 body of Christendom, been the dominant element 
 in the basis of the faith. In Islam that position 
 has been reached. 
 
150 ASPECTS OF islam: 
 
 So much, then, for mysticism in its meaning 
 for the MusHm. It is the knowledge of religious 
 things that comes directly, immediately, to the 
 individual soul, apart from any tradition, apart 
 from any reasoning. It comes, they say them- 
 selves, as the light comes. It falls upon the sur- 
 face of the soul as the rays of the sun fall upon 
 a wall, and there it is received. 
 
 Next as to the exponents of this mystical atti- 
 tude. The vehicles of the religious life asso- 
 ciated with the mystical attitude are to be found 
 in what are called the darwish fraternities; prac- 
 tically amongst them, that is ; although, of course, 
 also, more widely amongst men who are not 
 especially associated with darwishes and who 
 might, perhaps, hesitate to become darwishes, but 
 who are still mystics. But, In the broad fact, 
 the darwish fraternites carry on this religiously 
 important phase of life in Islam. 
 
 It was as a consequence of this, I suppose, that 
 during my wanderings in the East I found that 
 by far the most accessible people — accessible 
 without needing to become formally acquainted 
 — were the Franciscans and the darwishes. Mem- 
 bers of both of those bodies received me at once. 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE I5I 
 
 They needed no introduction; they simply began 
 to talk about religious things and to enter into 
 some kind of communication. Especially, per- 
 haps I might say, did this hold true of the dar- 
 wishes. This was not an isolated experience; I 
 met it again and again; and I have heard the 
 same fact commented upon with some surprise 
 by missionaries; they were astonished that they 
 found it so possible, nay so easy, to get along with 
 the darwishes in their own districts. If they had 
 considered that the fundamental thing in the 
 religious life of the darwishes was simply this, 
 the mystical attitude, and that this mystical atti- 
 tude is common to all mankind, they would have 
 found the solution of what, I know, has puzzled 
 a good many. 
 
 But in spite of all that, with this unity of the 
 mystical life as their basis, they are also divided 
 into separate bodies which, curiously enough, are 
 very shy of one another. I have met with warn- 
 ings by one body of darwishes, or by men who 
 were not darwishes, against having too much to 
 do with another body. There was one instance 
 which puzzles me to this day. When I was 
 approaching the monastery of the Qadirites near 
 
152 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the Qasr al-'aini hospital on the banks of the Nile, 
 a man shouted out to me, *'He" — meaning my 
 companion, a humble lay brother — ''is a darwish,'* 
 and this was evidently spoken in a tone of warn- 
 ing. My companion looked very sheepish at 
 that, and I confess I have not been able to puzzle 
 out what was meant. 
 
 On another occasion, when I intended to visit 
 a Mawlawite monastery in the heart of Cairo, a 
 very respectable old man stopped me and began 
 to remonstrate with me seriously, saying that 
 these were not good people, that I would find a 
 monastery of good darwishes further down the 
 street, which meant that the first had no connec- 
 tion with the fraternity of darwishes of which he 
 approved. There is one fraternity of darwishes, 
 the Bektashites, that is represented by a single 
 monastery only in the whole of Egypt. It lies 
 at the entrance to a very curious cave, penetrating 
 deep into the Muqattam hills, and is perched 
 there high up among the rocks. The cave is cer- 
 tainly an old quarry, but in local belief it was the 
 work of the jinn who were compelled to cut it 
 out by a certain saint. His object was to pro- 
 vide a tunnel to Mecca; but he died when only 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 153 
 
 SO much was accomplished. At present It is used 
 partly as a cemetery by the brethren. They, I 
 think, are all Turks and Albanians with no 
 Egyptians or Syrians. I found in time that they 
 were regarded by the other fraternities in Cairo 
 with the gravest suspicion ; they were not of their 
 kind. 
 
 But I am bound to say that In the case of all 
 of these I was received with the greatest hospital- 
 ity. They were all prepared to talk on religious 
 matters. The point of difficulty between them is 
 really this. The different fraternities are of 
 varying degrees of orthodoxy and moral strict- 
 ness. The Qadirites, for example, are ordinary 
 Sunnite Muslims, as is almost the whole popula- 
 tion of Egypt. They are thus upon the same 
 basis of faith and religious observance as the rest 
 of Egypt. The Mawlawites, on the other hand, 
 are supposed to be tinged with pantheism and 
 antinomianism and other kinds of isms that plain 
 Muslims find objectionable; they are, therefore, 
 more or less under a ban in Egypt. But in 
 Turkey, where they are much more at home and 
 where is the great majority of their fraternity 
 houses, they are not under a ban at all ; they are 
 
154 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 regarded with favour; they belong to the coun- 
 try. As for the Bektashites, they are viewed 
 with suspicion everywhere, both of their creed 
 and of their conduct and, while I do not believe 
 at all in the stories told of their immoral orgies 
 — much like those told of the early Christians 
 and of which the East is full — yet it is probable 
 that they are Muslims in name only. 
 
 The differences, then, which I found, seemed 
 to be mainly in the degree of orthodoxy; but 
 under them all there lies the mystical basis, the 
 spiritual life guided by the Inner Light. 
 
 I have spoken of this Inner Light as being the 
 one thing that is absolutely common to the re- 
 ligious life of all mankind. You may ask, "Is 
 its bond of community strong enough for it to be 
 possible for Christians to become members of any 
 of these darwish fraternities; or is the separatist 
 element of Islam still so strong in them as to 
 render that impossible?" I must confess that 
 when I tried to find out the facts in regard to 
 this point, I got only the most contradictory re- 
 sults. Of course, if you take what is laid down 
 in theological books, it would be plainly impos- 
 sible for any one not a Muslim to become a mem- 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 155 
 
 ber of any of these fraternities. But when you 
 begin to ask individuals about the actual usage of 
 the particular fraternities themselves, your results 
 become difficult and mixed. For example, one 
 man, a Syrian Christian and the editor of one of 
 the most important newspapers in Cairo, told me 
 that there was a certain fraternity, the Mirghan- 
 ite, the predominant one in the Sudan, which was 
 quite prepared to accept Christians; that they 
 would put no bar in their way; and that there 
 was nothing in their ritual to prevent a Christian 
 from using it. The French scholars in Algeria 
 have been told the same thing about fraternities 
 there. But, on the other hand, when I put the 
 question to the Shaykh al-Bekri in Cairo, who is 
 the legal head of all the darwish fraternities in 
 Egypt, he had no hesitation in replying at once 
 that it was impossible for any one not a Muslim 
 to enter into any relationship with these frater- 
 nities. But, again, when I reached Constanti- 
 nople and began to ask particularly about the 
 attitude of the Bektashites, supposed to be about 
 the broadest sect of all there, I was told by one 
 of them that there was not the slightest trouble 
 about any Christian becoming a member of their 
 
156 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 fraternity; that the requirements of membership 
 would not put any difficulty at all in his way. I 
 am sorry that my stay in Constantinople extended 
 to only ten days and that thus I had not the time 
 to experiment in this direction. It would have 
 given me a great deal of pleasure to have returned 
 as a member of a darwish fraternity. Since my 
 return to this country I have been told by Mr. 
 Ananikian, our Sub-Librarian, that he had 
 known a member of the Gregorian Church who 
 was called ''the Bektashite" and who was under- 
 stood to have become a member of that fraternity 
 and to have taken part in its religious services. 
 I am afraid I can only put these contradictory 
 statements before you; I have not been able so 
 to arrange them or to correct them as to eliminate 
 the contradictions. 
 
 I may say, further, that the more I have had 
 to do with the investigation of religious matters, 
 the less I feel is it possible to be dogmatic in al- 
 most any way as to the usages or as to the beliefs 
 which you may chance to find. In Islam, for 
 example, there is the broad faith that is laid 
 down in the theological texts. It is quite easy 
 to fix and to understand that; but when you be- 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 157 
 
 gin to move about in Muslim countries, you find 
 everywhere little bits of observance, usage, creed, 
 tradition, that are, often, in quite distinct con- 
 tradiction to the opinions laid down in books. In 
 consequence, it is the most hazardous thing pos- 
 sible, when you are told anything about a par- 
 ticular district — that such and such is what the 
 people there believe or do — it is the most hazard- 
 ous thing to say that it is impossible; that they 
 cannot so do or believe. On the other side, how- 
 ever, there is one thing which must be said. Al- 
 though there is this possibility of divergence, 
 even of flat contradiction, always present in the 
 local conditions, these local conditions are never 
 really intelligible unless you have the basis of a 
 thorough knowledge of the theological system as 
 it is generally accepted, believed and applied. 
 When you have attained to that, you can trace 
 out these varying local opinions and usages; but, 
 until you have so much of fixed knowledge, you 
 have really no starting point from which to 
 investigate. 
 
 But what part do these fraternities of darwishes 
 play in the normal life of Islam? How do they 
 make themselves felt? How are they the chan- 
 
158 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 nels of the religious life? Broadly, there are 
 two kinds of darwishes. There is what you 
 might call the professional darwish, the monk or 
 friar who has taken absolute vows; he is separ- 
 ated entirely from the world and lives in a mon- 
 astery or wanders as an ascetic begging his way. 
 He need not necessarily be unmarried; Islam, 
 under all conditions, commends and honours the 
 married state. These now are by far in the 
 minority. Some centuries ago there must have 
 been a much larger proportion of such monks or 
 friars, as you may choose to call them, because 
 you see everywhere in Muslim lands the ruins or 
 the neglected remains of monasteries that must 
 once have been inhabited by large communities 
 of darwishes. Of them there are now hardly 
 any left, and the buildings have come to be simply 
 rest houses where pilgrims are put up. The 
 "son of the road" can find help and shelter here. 
 The other class of darwishes constitutes by far 
 the larger proportion. Its members are exactly 
 parallel to the Tertiaries of the Dominican and 
 Franciscan orders. That is, they live in the 
 world in every respect; but they have taken vows 
 which require them daily or weekly, as the case 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 159 
 
 may be, to go through certain rehgious cere- 
 monies ; they carry a certain badge with them and 
 regard themselves as under a certain obhgation 
 to the general body and as standing in a certain 
 affiliation with it. 
 
 A very large percentage of the population of 
 Cairo, especially of the masses of the people, be- 
 longs in one way or another to the darwish fra- 
 ternities as such Tertiaries. They do not live in 
 the monasteries; they go there only occasionally 
 from time to time, but they have their relationship 
 to them, and, when there is any great occasion, 
 they will turn out in the procession of the fra- 
 ternity. They attend what you might call, as 
 nearly as could be, prayer-meetings in the mon- 
 asteries, and regard themselves each as part of. 
 his fraternity. 
 
 You see, then, that with these great numbers 
 of Tertiaries, as I have called them, the life of 
 the darwish fraternities extends far beyond the 
 limits of the few full members, and practically 
 goes out through the mass of the people. It is 
 in this width of lay memberships that the great 
 importance of the fraternities consists. 
 
 Let me put before you a description of one of 
 
l60 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the services that I was privileged to attend. It 
 is exceedingly difficult, now, in Egypt to get ad- 
 mission to any of their religious services. At 
 one time, as you know, these were crowded with 
 tourists. That led to scandal. The darwishes 
 were accused of making money out of the unbe- 
 lievers; and the tourists certainly did not add to 
 the religious value of the services which they 
 attended. I was told a good deal about the evils 
 on both sides. At last the government stepped 
 in, acting through the Shaykh al-Bekri as the 
 head of all the fraternities, and these services 
 were closed to all except Muslims. So far as 
 the Shaykh al-Bekri was concerned, he would 
 have preferred to stop the services entirely, but 
 that was impossible. 
 
 However, through a friend it was made pos- 
 sible for me to attend one of them. Of course, 
 I had to wear a fez, and the Shaykh in charge 
 of the ceremony knew that I was not a Muslim, 
 though no one else there did. It would be exceed- 
 ingly difficult to describe the service exactly, and 
 I must content myself with a general and impres- 
 sionistic picture of it and its emotional effects on 
 the worshippers and on myself. This sikr, as it 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE l6l 
 
 is called, or "remembering" of Allah, took place 
 in a long shaped room. On both sides benches 
 were arranged. In the middle was a carpeted 
 space with a railing round it in the form of a 
 horseshoe. The Shaykh took his place at the 
 open end of the horseshoe with his back towards 
 the wall. The darwishes, evidently men who 
 had simply come in from the street, stood round 
 about inside the railing in this horseshoe form. 
 The service began by the Shaykh kneeling, sit- 
 ting back on his heels, and repeating the Fatiha. 
 Then they began to recite, rapidly and in cadence, 
 certain religious formulae. I could not catch all 
 that they were saying, but it was generally of a 
 very simple character; the confession of faith; 
 some ascriptions of praise to the Prophet, etc. 
 They accompanied these, however, with certain 
 motions and gestures of the head and body and 
 by great care, evidently, with regard to breathing. 
 For example, one of the most frequently re- 
 curring elements was the Muslim confession of 
 faith. La ilaha ilia llah, "There is no God save 
 Allah," and it had evidently to be performed In 
 a certain way. At La ilaha, "There is no God," 
 the head of each went down In front of one 
 II 
 
l62 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 shoulder; this Is the phrase of denial; the noth- 
 ingness of all things is to be felt. Then, at 
 illa-lldh, "except Allah," the head went down in 
 front of the other shoulder. This second phrase 
 is assertion, and the absoluteness of Allah's 
 existence must be felt. This movement also di- 
 rected and controlled the breathing. The recita- 
 tion and movement gradually grew faster and 
 faster, heads going from side to side in perfect 
 time; head down at the one point; down at the 
 other point. There is a reason for this. It is 
 part of a great discovery, as you might call it, 
 that has been made by both Indian and Muslim 
 mystics, in regard to breathing in connection 
 with religious effects. If the breathing is regu- 
 lated In a certain way in the utterance of such 
 formulae as these, the emotional effect is increased. 
 I suppose it has some influence on the heart 
 action, and that that reacts in turn. I presume, 
 also, that with ourselves something of the same 
 kind takes place in the singing of hymns ; but the 
 historical fact is that oriental mystics have ob- 
 served this, and that they apply It systematically 
 and normally to the stimulation of religious 
 emotion. 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 163 
 
 But it was perfectly evident that the young 
 men who were taking part were intensely inter- 
 ested in it all. While I watched them my ques- 
 tion at first was, Why do they do this ? Does it 
 amuse them? It was not in itself, apparently, 
 an amusing thing; but it was certainly a thing 
 into which they threw themselves with zest. I 
 felt that there must be something distinct which 
 they got out of it, and I think they got out of it 
 at first a certain heightening of religious emotion, 
 a throwing off, in a sense, of the physical veil, 
 and also that they got out of it a certain effect 
 of auto-hypnosis. They produced in themselves 
 a pleasant dreaminess. Watching them for a 
 long time, these were the only definite results I 
 could obtain. But, later, there were other and 
 more violent motions; the phrases, too, were 
 varied. After a time they introduced darwishes 
 who played upon drums, some of which were 
 very sharp in pitch, and some very dull and 
 brooding. These were kept going at the same 
 time with the reciting of these formulae. The 
 speed gradually increased, up, and up, and up, 
 until the tension upon the nerves was something 
 indescribable. It was perfectly clear to me now 
 
164 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 how such effects were produced as those of which 
 I had often read. And it was perfectly clear to 
 me at last how it was that those young men went 
 night after night to do this kind of thing. The 
 attraction evidently lay in a very curious mixture 
 of esthetic pleasure — derived from the nerve ten- 
 sion and the lightly hypnotic, or hypnoidal, state 
 into which they were cast — and undoubtedly 
 religious exaltation. The latter element was cer- 
 tainly there. 
 
 Now, as I have already said several times, in 
 all my dealings with Muslims I have tried to 
 approach them in a sympathetic spirit so that I 
 might feel with them as they felt and thus, as 
 much as possible, reach Islam on the inside, if I 
 may use that phrase. In this case I did my best 
 to let the swinging chant work upon me, and 
 more than once it came over me that I should like 
 to go down and join the circle there; to take my 
 part in this thing and discover more precisely 
 how it all felt from within. I suppose I should 
 be somewhat ashamed to confess, further, that 
 the only thing that really deterred me was that I 
 knew that I would have a great deal of difficulty 
 in getting off my boots, and still more difficulty 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 165 
 
 in getting them on again. If any one wishes to 
 investigate religious conditions in the East, he 
 must be careful to wear a pair of shoes which will 
 slip easily off and on. 
 
 But I do not want you to think that the effect 
 of this scene upon me was not, and that in a pre- 
 cise sense, religious in character. I wish to say 
 as emphatically as possible that I did feel religious 
 reality in it; did feel that behind all this there 
 was a real devotional spirit; and that certain, at 
 least, of those young men were getting something 
 out of it that perhaps they could not have got 
 otherwise. There was this, at any rate, to be said 
 for it, that there was in it none of the irregulated 
 transports, outbreaks, shriekings, which so often 
 appear in what we call times of revival. The 
 whole performance was kept carefully in hand. 
 It was plain to me that throughout it all the 
 Shaykh who was presiding, or his assistant — as 
 it lasted a long time he was once or twice relieved 
 by an assistant — one or other had his hand upon 
 this great machine, was keeping in touch with it, 
 holding it in and down. Exactly as a conductor 
 will regulate and keep hold of his orchestra; so 
 he played upon them; so he kept them within 
 
l66 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 bounds. There was nothing there oi the nature 
 of an outbreak; nothing of the disgraceful scenes 
 — if I may say it — which have appeared at revi- 
 vals. This was normal, regular; their religious 
 life week by week. It was not any working of 
 themselves up for a particular occasion. I saw 
 special public ^ikrs on one or two other occasions ; 
 but nothing in any way, in any degree, so impress- 
 ive as this plain prayer-meeting — for a Muslim 
 prayer-meeting it really was — which I have 
 described to you. 
 
 On the birthday of the Prophet, for example, 
 there is a great festival in Cairo, and on the plain, 
 outside of the city to the north, tents are erected 
 in which the different darwish fraternities hold 
 exhibitions. For this reason, inasmuch as they 
 are perfectly open to the public and inasmuch as 
 the public passes along from one to another, tak- 
 ing up stall after stall, the solemnity and religious 
 reality were greatly impaired. It was evident 
 to me what must have been the effect on those 
 sikrs when tourists were freely admitted. 
 
 Still more mechanical and perfunctory was the 
 performance held at the exhibition of the sacred 
 covering of the Ka'ba, before it was sent off to 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 167 
 
 Mecca. There the performers were evidently 
 hired professionals who took no interest in what 
 they were doing. In the very middle of it, for 
 instance, when they were supposed to be quite 
 overcome with religious emotion, I noticed one 
 taking out his watch and looking at it. So abso- 
 lutely different was the spirit of this comedy from 
 that scene of religious sincerity which I have 
 attempted to describe in detail. 
 
 But, to return, what was the relation of those 
 young men to this monastery? That is not very 
 easy to define, but as far as I could see, it seemed 
 to be for them a kind of combination of club- 
 house and church. They did not go there simply 
 to perform such religious exercises as these. 
 They evidently went there to meet one another, 
 to sit round and talk ; and only a certain number 
 of them joined the circle. I noticed, for example, 
 one or two that strolled from the ante-room into 
 the room where it was held. They were asked 
 to join the zikr but shook their heads. They did 
 not feel like it that night, evidently. But it was 
 clear that they all had some relationship or other 
 with this building, with this Shaykh and with one 
 another, and I think I can describe that relation- 
 
l68 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ship most exactly as being a combination of club 
 membership and church membership. 
 
 What, finally, are the religious and moral 
 effects of such performances as I have just 
 described? In answering that question we must 
 distinguish, for undoubtedly some of the effects 
 are good, and some are equally distinctly bad. I 
 suppose it depends upon the individual and upon 
 his way of taking it. 
 
 It was my very good fortune in Cairo to become 
 tolerably well acquainted with one convert from 
 Islam to Christianity who had been well educated 
 and had also been a darwish. He was a grad- 
 uate of the Azhar University, one of the *Ulama, 
 the learned in theology and canon law, and if he 
 had remained in Islam he would have become a 
 college or university professor. He had also 
 reached a tolerably advanced grade In the Khal- 
 watl fraternity of darwishes. What spoke most 
 to me for his sincerity and his religious reality, 
 both as Muslim and as Christian, was the fact 
 that still, even though he was known and accepted 
 as being a Christian, he was welcome at the 
 Azhar and was also on good terms with his dar- 
 wish friends and teachers in his old fraternity. 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 1 69 
 
 It threw a good deal of light, I confess, for me 
 upon what I have heard so much, at one time and 
 another, of the difficulty of the position of the 
 convert. That depends very largely upon the 
 convert himself. 
 
 This man, by the solidity of his character, by 
 the respect in which he had been held before he 
 became a Christian, by his own tact and careful- 
 ness after he had become a Christian, managed 
 to remain upon perfectly good terms with his 
 friends. But my point here is as to his darwish 
 connection. I asked him one time, "Supposing 
 the specifically Muslim references in the religious 
 ejaculations and prayers that are used at those 
 darwish circles were expunged, especially, of 
 course, the references to Muhammad, and there 
 were left only what was acceptable, possible, both 
 to Christian and Muslim — nor would It be a very 
 difficult thing to do that — supposing that were 
 done, could you now, with your present religious 
 insight and attitude, take part In one of those 
 sikrs to your spiritual advantage?" This was, 
 evidently, a rather new Idea, for he thought a 
 moment ; but then he answered quite emphatically 
 and certainly that he could. 
 
170 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 He began then to explain to me the ideas that 
 went with each one of those motions of the body ; 
 that when the head was bowed on this side, there 
 was a certain f eeHng that you were to have ; when 
 the head was bowed on the other side there was 
 another feehng that you ought to have, each 
 regularly, mechanically, along with the bowing. 
 And he was perfectly certain that it would still 
 be to his spiritual advantage, help, growth, to 
 have part in such things if that were otherwise 
 possible. In fact, I thought I could sometimes 
 trace in him a little pathos in looking back upon 
 the times of that emotional religious life, a cer- 
 tain regret that now it should not be possible. 
 It had been for him, you could see, when he was 
 a Muslim, all in all ; and now it was cut off. 
 
 At one time he had as a darwish developed 
 rather remarkable telepathic gifts, that is, the 
 ability under certain favorable spiritual condi- 
 tions to know what might be doing at a distance, 
 to hear words spoken at a distance, and things 
 of that kind. He, evidently, had not the slightest 
 doubt in his own mind that such things really 
 took place; Islam registers them among the 
 regular minor miracles of saints, and he accepted 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE I7I 
 
 the facts, whatever he had come to think of Islam. 
 It is probable — let me here throw in — that the 
 general underestimating among us of the religious 
 meaning and value of the life of darwishes is due 
 to those minor miracles. They are often excel- 
 lently attested but we have decided that all such 
 things are impossible. So Lane even in his 
 Modern Egyptians treats the darwishes in a chap- 
 ter on Superstitions. But to return to my fri'end, 
 he knew of a great many such occurrences and 
 told me much about them; he was perfectly pre- 
 pared to admit that for Orientals such occurrences 
 must be commoner and easier — more natural and 
 normal — than they could be for Occidentals. I 
 told him that of late years we had been investi- 
 gating those things ourselves here in the West, 
 trying to bring them under rule by scientific 
 method, and that we knew a great deal more 
 about them now than we had done not a great 
 many years ago. Then he told me some of the 
 things that had happened to himself as a darwish, 
 and especially he told me this, with a plainly re- 
 gretful if also humorous tone in his voice: "At 
 one time my Shaykh, when he knew of some of 
 those things, said to me, 'Thou art a saint.' " 
 
172 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 (He evidently regarded this promising disciple as 
 one marked by Allah as a saint through those 
 gifts of miracle) ''Then I was a saint; but now I 
 am a Christian," my friend added. But I think 
 that he also recognized that in Christendom it 
 was not as easy to be a saint as in Islam. I may 
 add that his telepathic gifts did not cease when 
 he became a Christian, but they had no recognized 
 place in his new scheme of religion. In general, 
 however, my point is this: this man, certainly, 
 although he never put it in so many words to me, 
 missed that side of his religious life, and was per- 
 fectly sure that, in the past, he had got spiritual 
 advantage and edification out of it. So much for 
 the good. 
 
 What of the bad? I never knew in my own 
 experience any such cases; but I heard stories 
 from time to time, about effects of such sikrs 
 upon some of those taking part in them which 
 suggested possible elements of evil. It may be 
 rather a startling thing to suggest that the first 
 downward steps of a young man had been his 
 going too much to prayer-meetings, but in Islam 
 that actually does take place. 
 
 I was told, for example, by one of my friends 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE I73 
 
 in Cairo that he had been compelled to discharge 
 two of the compositors in his printing office be- 
 cause they had become quite useless, in a business 
 sense, from too much darwishing, if I may coin 
 a verb. As he described it, they would go to 
 these zikrs several times a week, and the conse- 
 quence was that all through the day, when they 
 sat at the composing bench, they were droning 
 over to themselves religious phrases, scraps of 
 hymns as it were, while they were doing their 
 work, and their work necessarily suffered. Now, 
 I think the fact was simply that they had learned 
 the knack of putting themselves into a hypnoidal 
 or dreamy condition that was enjoyable in itself 
 but was just as bad, just as destructive of all 
 activity, as indulgence in opium. They had 
 acquired this knack and they kept themselves in 
 that state all through the day, under a continuous 
 auto-hypnosis. The ^ronsequence was perfectly 
 simple and inevitable. Of course, they became 
 useless for ordinary life. 
 
 That, broadly, is the evil that may come of 
 such things. They have to be kept in hand in 
 the most careful, rigorous fashion, or they may 
 pass out of control. And this moral, I need 
 
174 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 hardly say, applies to much so-called religious 
 fervour amongst ourselves, although, from the 
 nature of the Western temperament, it remains 
 epidemic or even individual only. In the East 
 it is fairly endemic. 
 
 In connection with this it should be said that 
 in the East, in general, there is far more use 
 made of hypnotism than with us. For the 
 Oriental, it is a normal and ordinary thing. 
 What we, from time to time, have come to dis- 
 cover, again and again anew, and each time find 
 very wonderful, they accept and use and under- 
 stand after a fashion all the time. 
 
 For example, I was told in Jerusalem by an 
 observer of absolute veracity and keenness of 
 observation, and who happened also to have a 
 good working knowledge of hypnotism, that she 
 had seen, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
 on one of the great festivals, the officer in charge 
 of the Turkish guard, when some of his men were 
 beginning to droop under the heat and excite- 
 ment of it all, go up to them and go through 
 what were evidently the motions of hypnotism, 
 stiffening them again to keep the positions they 
 were in, 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 175 
 
 That is only one illustration of the way in 
 which this thing which we often think so very 
 wonderful and on the border-line of the super- 
 natural, enters into the ordinary working usage 
 of the life of the Muslim East. They know it 
 there, but they have no theories about it, and 
 they do not study it as our psychologists do. 
 They simply use it for practical purposes in their 
 own rule of thumb fashion. It is not at all super- 
 natural for them, except so far as everything is 
 supernatural. 
 
LECTURE VI 
 
 THE MYSTICAL LIFE AND THE DARWISH 
 FRATERNITIES CONTINUED 
 
 T CANNOT open this lecture without a tribute, 
 however brief, to the beloved memory of my 
 pupil and friend, Daniel Miner Rogers. He is 
 the second of my pupils to give, in the most literal 
 sense, his blood for the kingdom of God and His 
 Christ in the Muslim world. With his name I 
 would associate this course of lectures and to his 
 memory I will, God willing, inscribe them as a 
 book.^ 
 
 In my last lecture I was putting before you 
 the value and importance that lie for the religious 
 life of the Muslims in the darwish fraternities 
 and in their meetings for worship. I suggested 
 that it was in those fraternities, in <:heir meeting- 
 houses and in their acts of worship, tuat we might 
 find the nearest parallels to our separate church 
 
 ^ This lecture was delivered on April 20th, 1909, a day or 
 two after the tidings of Mr. Rogers' murder had reached 
 America. 
 
 176 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 177 
 
 organizations and church buildings, and also to 
 our stated worship. 
 
 And here a very curious question confronts at 
 once the investigator of Muslim religious life 
 upon the spot. What do we find there which 
 takes the place of our churches, of those religious 
 organizations which are also with us fast becom- 
 ing social ones and around which both our indi- 
 vidual and our community lives are tending to 
 crystallize so peculiarly ? That place is not taken 
 — this becomes plain in a very short time to any 
 open-eyed on-looker — that place is not taken by 
 the mosques. The worship that goes on there is 
 a very curious combination of congregational and 
 individual worship. It is congregational inas- 
 much as the individuals there join together in 
 praise and prayer to Allah; but it is individual 
 inasmuch as no one has a peculiar association 
 with any particular mosque; nor has the organ- 
 ization, have the officials of any mosque, any. 
 particular jurisdiction or relationship — religious 
 or civil — with those who worship there. The 
 most that has been reached is that in Turkey the 
 imam of each mosque is more or less a paid serv- 
 ant of the state and is responsible for such mat- 
 
 12 
 
1^8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ters as the issuing of passports and performing 
 the rites of circumcision, marriage and burial. 
 That is the nearest approach that the mosque 
 organization has made to being a parish organ- 
 ization, responsible and useful, in certain ways, 
 for those living in its neighborhood. 
 
 But it is a perfectly conceivable thing that 
 those in the neighborhood of any mosque may 
 not worship there. I discovered by particular 
 enquiry that the Muslim had no feeling that the 
 preacher of any mosque was peculiarly his 
 preacher; that he stood in any spiritual relation- 
 ship to him. He might go anywhere; he might 
 have part in any worship ; wherever he was when 
 the time of prayer came round, there was his 
 mosque, there he might worship. 
 
 I took pains at one time to enter into particular 
 conversation on this subject with one of my 
 Muslim friends and, in order to make plain to 
 him what my point really was, I tried to put be- 
 fore him the relationship which existed between 
 the minister of a parish church and the congre- 
 gation in his charge. His feeling about it was 
 rather interesting. He evidently regarded it — 
 I trust I gained a true impression — as an undue 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 179 
 
 infringement of religious liberty. He evidently- 
 felt that he would not like to think that any indi- 
 vidual ecclesiastic considered that he had any 
 particular right to keep an eye upon him ; nor did 
 he seem to feel in the slightest that there was 
 need for him, in his spiritual life, of any such 
 relationship; that he could draw any advantage 
 from it ; that, in short, such a thing could be any 
 good at all. I fear that I withdrew from that 
 conference rather upset. I could not feel that I 
 had succeeded in commending the Christian sys- 
 tem of church membership, discipline and worship 
 to this particular Muslim, and I confess that, 
 from one point of view, there is a certain grandeur 
 in such a feeling of spiritual freedom. There 
 are the prayers five times a day, and the Muslim 
 meets these times wherever he may be. If there 
 is a mosque where he can go to join the worship- 
 pers, he does so; If there is not, he prays by 
 himself. So much then, on the point that the 
 mosque does not represent any centre for common 
 religious life. 
 
 But the masses of the people — the religious- 
 minded people — must have some sentiment and 
 feeling for religious community and some way 
 
l80 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of fraternizing and expressing it. That Is sup- 
 plied to them by the darwish fraternities and 
 their monasteries, the houses where take place the 
 acts of worship which I put before you in my last 
 lecture. This holds of the masses of the people. 
 They do not mind the extreme emotionalism 
 which characterizes these gatherings. There is 
 nothing antipathetic to them in that ; but it is per- 
 fectly true that there is a growing element in 
 Islam to which — for better or for w^orse — such 
 emotional exhibitions are becoming repellent. I 
 came across that element again and again. I 
 found that I had to pick with care the Muslim 
 from whom I might ask information on matters 
 connected with the darwishes. He might take it 
 ill ; he might think that I could not possibly be in 
 sympathy with those exhibitions, and that there- 
 fore I could be asking about them only in order 
 to ridicule them. An extreme sensitiveness is 
 developing in the Muslim mind on that side. 
 
 For example, I have spoken already of the 
 Shaykh al-Bekri, a descendant of Abu Bekr the 
 first Khalifa of the Prophet, w^ho lives in Cairo 
 and is the legal and accepted head of all the dar- 
 wish fraternities in Egypt. They must all, so 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE l8l 
 
 long as they are in Egypt, regard themselves as 
 under his rule, his ultimate jurisdiction. This 
 Shaykh al-Bekri is a very curious product — I 
 think I can properly use that word. He was in 
 France for a long time; his education, to a con- 
 siderable extent, has been French. He is soaked 
 in French philosophical ideas, and he is now back 
 in Egypt and finds himself by heredity put into 
 this quite anomalous position for a pupil of the 
 Encyclopedic. Lord Cromer remarks, in his book 
 on modern Egypt,^ that when he first knew the 
 Shaykh al-Bekri, that young man asked if he 
 could give him any books on the philosophical 
 principles lying behind the French revolution. 
 Imagine, then, a man of that type at the head of 
 all the darwish fraternities and supposed to be in 
 charge, more or less, of those exhibitions of re- 
 ligious emotion which I put before you in my last 
 lecture. Perhaps it is fortunate that he did not 
 and does not take anything very seriously, even 
 the principles of the French revolution or the 
 methods of the darwishes. But he, evidently, at 
 one time did feel that he had to draw the line at 
 some point or other and so, in a moment of un- 
 
 ^ Modern Egypt, ii, 177. 
 
l82 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 wonted energy, he got some of his assistants to 
 compile a text-book for the use of the shaykhs in 
 charge of the darwish fraternities. They were 
 to use it as a manual of theology for the instruc- 
 tion of their disciples. He gave me a copy of 
 that manual of theology. I have not read it with 
 any great care, but I have run through it; and it 
 is very interesting in one respect. It does not 
 really deal at all with the emotional religious life. 
 In reading it, you would never imagine that it 
 was intended for the guidance of darwishes. 
 You could never guess that it stood in connection 
 with expressions of religious emotion. It is evi- 
 dent that his ideal, so far as he had energy to 
 have one, was to smooth out all those things, to 
 bring the darwish fraternities down to what I 
 suppose he would call "sane religion." I am 
 tolerably sure that he will never reduce them to 
 that plane, and I am quite sure, if he ever did 
 succeed in doing it, he would take the real, the 
 essential religious life out of Islam. 
 
 But this attitude of his and of his like, for he 
 does not stand alone, is, you must remember, a 
 purely modern one. The old theologians and 
 scholars of Islam had no such feeling of being 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 183 
 
 half ashamed of religious emotion. Their atti- 
 tude towards it was that it was either of God or 
 of the devil. They either denounced it as a 
 thing utterly false and to be abhorred and rejected 
 and said that any one who had anything to do 
 with it was to be cast forth ; or else they accepted 
 this manifestation as one of the means of worship 
 that God had appointed for men in this world. 
 
 You will remember, perhaps, that Wellhausen, 
 in dealing with the character of Samuel, lays 
 great stress upon this ; that it would be quite im- 
 possible for Samuel, the true prophet, the clear- 
 sighted leader, to have anything at all to do with 
 such a procession of very minor prophets that 
 Saul met coming down the hill and to which he 
 joined himself; that there must be some historical 
 confusion in that medley, that he could not have 
 been those two things — a great theologian and 
 religious leader, and also a darwish. 
 
 Now, as a matter of fact, we find exactly that 
 combination appearing everywhere in Islam. The 
 greatest theologian of all, a man whose books I 
 have to read constantly in my work on Islam, a 
 man in whose books I have found the true key to 
 Islam, a man who stands among the theologians 
 
184 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of the world in the same rank, without doubt or 
 scruple, as Augustine and Aquinas — that man 
 had part in all the ecstacies and emotional exhibi- 
 tions of the darwishes. That man passed eleven 
 years of his life as a wandering ascetic darwish, 
 learning in pain, solitude and hunger what the 
 faith of God was. He stands out as a sign that 
 there is no impossibility at all in the great theolo- 
 gian knowing also what lies in the emotional 
 •religious life. ' 
 
 From that one example you will realize that 
 this scrupulosity in the educated element of Islam 
 at the present time is modern and modern only. 
 So far, even yet, it covers only a certain limited 
 section of the Muslim world. 
 
 But now let me pass to the question of this 
 mysticism as it shows itself historically in Islam. 
 How did it arise? Like almost everything else 
 in Islam the seeds were already in the mind of 
 Muhammad. It is to me one of the most out- 
 standing features of the greatness of Muhammad 
 that Islam should have so developed the ideas that 
 he cast into it. It has developed them sometimes 
 very strangely and in a way that he himself 
 would not have recognized, but you can, in look- 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 185 
 
 ing back to the Qur'an, see there in "the mind of 
 Muhammad" the possible beginning of almost all 
 of them. 
 
 Now, it is commonly supposed that the con- 
 ception of the Person of God held by Muhammad 
 was of a peculiarly materialistic, external char- 
 acter; that Allah for him was withdrawn far 
 from all his creation; was ruling it as though at 
 arm's length. From him, of course, came all; 
 but he was not in that all. That idea cah be 
 justified by very many passages in the Qur'an. 
 There is no question about its existence there; 
 but there are also other passages which show that 
 Muhammad was a true mystic, was afloat upon 
 that shoreless sea, without guide, without ballast. 
 Phrases come in here and there that stand in 
 flat contradiction to the conception of the sepa- 
 rateness of Allah. 
 
 For example, he is never tired of coming back 
 upon this — that Allah is the one, the only reality. 
 Now, think of the questions which follow at once. 
 Is he the only thing real? What is he, then, in 
 relation to the world? What is the world in 
 relation to him? What is his place in or with the 
 world? 
 
l86 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Again, there is a phrase which, evidently, had 
 caught the imagination of Muhammad and to 
 which he returns again and again. It is that of 
 "the Face of Allah." He uses it quite differently 
 from the other anthropomorphisms in the Qur'an. 
 Whence immediately he got the phrase I do not 
 know; it comes ultimately, without doubt, from 
 "the countenance of Yahwe" in the Old Testa- 
 ment and means, of course, the self, the essence 
 of Allah. But it is clear that Muhammad used 
 it with a feeling that there was something more 
 behind it and involved in it, and later Islam has 
 taken it and developed it and found, in truth, all 
 the mysteries of the emotional life in it, given in- 
 directly with it. Thus Muhammad uses it : Men 
 act "out of desire for the Face of Allah" (Qur. 
 ii, 274; xiii, 22; xcii, 20) or else they simply 
 "desire the Face of Allah" (Qur. vi, 52; xviii, 
 27; XXX, 2)7, 38) ; they act "for the sake of the 
 Face of Allah" (Qur. Ixxvii, 9). Then here are 
 the great texts to which all the mystics of Islam 
 always come back : "Allah's are the East and the 
 West; wherever ye turn, there is the Face of 
 Allah" (Qur. ii, 109). And again, "Everything 
 goes to destruction — is going to destruction — 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 187 
 
 except His Face" (Qur. xxviii, 88). Then again, 
 "Whoever is upon the earth is fleeting — vanish- 
 ing — and the Face of thy Lord abideth" (Qur. 
 Iv, 26). 
 
 You can see, then, that something more lies in 
 these phrases than the essence of Allah. Muham- 
 mad was, in truth, no theologian. Contradictions 
 come right and left in the Qur'an which show 
 that. No one has succeeded yet in building up 
 a system of Qur'anic theology, nor will it ever 
 be possible. Muhammad was simply a God-in- 
 toxicated poet. The feeling of Allah over- 
 whelmed him, and that feeling he sought to 
 express in all those different phrases. Single 
 aspects only of a truth came to him, and to each 
 aspect he gave, for the time, the weight of the 
 whole rounded truth. 
 
 But there is another side to Muhammad's 
 mysticism. As I have already pointed out, an 
 idea dominant in him is the ascetic. The fear of 
 the Fire was ever present with him, and the 
 knowledge that God would bring all into judg- 
 ment and that that judgment would be a very 
 terrible ordeal. Therefore he, and Islam after 
 him, have sought by ascetic exercises to remove 
 
l88 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the veil from their eyes, that they might see clearly 
 the will of Allah, the faith which he has made 
 incumbent upon mankind; that they might not 
 be blinded by the vain shows of this world; that 
 they might be able to go on seeking Allah, noth- 
 ing but Allah, simply His Face. 
 
 But for that insight is needed, and such insight 
 can be gained on the part of the ascetic only by 
 those exercises which take away the world from 
 the soul and heart of man. 
 
 But again, though Muhammad had a very 
 exalted conception of his own office, yet, strange 
 as it may seem, he did not limit divine inspi- 
 ration to himself or to the prophets who had pre- 
 ceded him, in the long line of whom he was the 
 last. He freely admitted a certain minor inspi- 
 ration belonging to the saints of Allah, the friends 
 of Allah, in the Arabic phrase, to whom Allah 
 shows him.self and his truth. Still more, every 
 human being, at some time or other, comes in 
 contact with the unseen world, and is taught 
 directly by God in dreams. "Dreaming," said 
 Muhammad in a tradition, *'is one six-and-fortieth 
 part of prophecy." Now, whether that exact 
 proportion holds or not — the tradition itself as- 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 1 89 
 
 sumes different arithmetical forms — there is no 
 question that Muhammad himself believed that 
 the divine world was reached in dreams, and that 
 truth and guidance were given in dreams. He, 
 therefore, did not keep the leading of Allah to 
 himself and say to his followers, **'Only with me 
 and my words and my book is guidance to be 
 found." He admitted freely that some form or 
 other, in differing degrees, of minor inspiration 
 was open to all men. 
 
 Again, there are certain phrases occurring in 
 the Qur'an which express this same idea of an 
 intercourse with God coming to the believer di- 
 rectly, without intermediaries. It is said, for 
 instance, (Qur. xiii, 28) that "remembering" 
 God rests the heart. Later Islam has interpreted 
 that "remembering" as a taking part in sucH 
 devotional exercises of the darwishes as I have 
 described to you. The word zikr (dhikr) means 
 remembering, and the basal text for such devo- 
 tional services is Qur. xxxiii, 41. But I have no 
 question that for Muhammad the meaning was 
 that any one who gave himself to the thought of 
 God would receive from God rest, calm and 
 strength. "Our hearts are restless until we rest 
 
igO ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 In Thee," were the words, you see, both of Augus- 
 tine and of Muhammad. 
 
 Again, in the Qur'an (xviii, 64) Muhammad 
 refers to a knowledge that comes from Allah 
 himself (min ladunna, ''from Us Ourselves"). 
 The expression has crystallized in later mystical 
 language, but as it stands in the Qur'an it means 
 simply knowledge from Allah that comes directly 
 by religious intuition, as opposed to knowledge 
 that comes by human teaching, or by tradition, 
 or through any thinking out by reason. 
 
 In these ways, then, it is plain that in the mind 
 of Muhammad himself the mystical conception 
 was alive, and it has been very easy for Islam to 
 develop on the mystical path that I have already 
 put before you. 
 
 But that later development was affected very 
 strangely from the outside. First, there came to 
 bear upon it the influence of the Christian mystics. 
 This seems to have worked peculiarly through 
 an extreme development of the monophysite 
 heresy. That heresy assigns one nature to Christ, 
 and in certain forms practically means that a 
 particular man was taken and made divine as a 
 whole, in his whole nature which was one, and 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE IQI 
 
 therefore holds out to mankind the possibihty that 
 all may be taken and made divine similarly. That 
 conception undoubtedly worked upon the early 
 Muslim mystics ; they felt that it was possible to ^ 
 reach a semi-divinity within ourselves. 
 
 Again, another influence which worked upon 
 them was that of the Neoplatonic philosophy, or 
 rather theology. It affected them indirectly 
 through the Christian mystics and directly 
 through Plotinus. The essential idea of It is that 
 from God, the center, the one source, there are 
 emissions of force; that these emissions pour out 
 and gradually weaken as they pass down through 
 the worlds to material things, but bring the 
 divinity also with them, and that then, in the 
 world of material things, the soul of man, so 
 passed on, is trying to find its way back to God, 
 the one, the origin of all. That conception 
 worked also upon the Muslim mystic. Essen- 
 tially it is the feeling concerning the soul that it 
 is something projected from God and therefore 
 something that naturally yearns back to God. 
 
 And also, thirdly, at an earlier date than we 
 would perhaps expect, there came to bear the in- 
 fluence of Buddhism. The ascetic Buddhist con- 
 
192 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ception appears side by side with the asceticism 
 of the Christian hermits. There are, for example, 
 certain of the early saints of Islam, the stories of 
 whose lives make it plain that the influence of 
 the legend of the life of the Buddha must have 
 been working In them. Of course, as that influ- 
 ence gradually worked its way through to the 
 West, it became very much attenuated. It is to 
 be found mostly, in the earlier days, among the 
 Eastern saints ; but it is certainly there. It is one 
 of the influences that acted as a favorable soil to 
 hold the conceptions of Muhammad himself. 
 
 Then there follow two developments. The 
 one of them may be called ascetic ; the other was 
 speculative and theological. The one drift or 
 tendency limited itself very narrowly to the culti- 
 vation of the ascetic life; to the removal of the 
 screen of the body that the mind — in Semitic 
 phrase, the heart — might see clearly; and also to 
 a peculiar reliance upon God alone. It resulted, 
 and has continued to result, in spite of everything, 
 in a depreciation of the formal religious services 
 of Islam as opposed to free, individual devotion. 
 Those who joined themselves to this drift had 
 the feeling that there is not any particular time for 
 
 —'<? 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 193 
 
 prayer; that prayer should be exercised always; 
 that the heart should always be in the attitude 
 of prayer; and, finally, that the five canon- 
 ically ordained prayers are not in place, are even 
 useless for him who has reached the free position. 
 Of course, Islam very speedily passed beyond this 
 cruder nonconformity; but the result was that 
 there were left, side by side with the regular 
 prayer services in the mosque and otherwise, 
 those free, individual services of the darwish 
 fraternities. It was as though of the Methodist 
 movement only the class-meetings had survived, 
 while the Methodists themselves had been reas- 
 similated to the National Church. 
 
 The other, the speculative development, went 
 very much farther. In its extreme form it prac- 
 tically became that pantheism which recognizes 
 God as the All; in which all individuality is lost 
 in the unity of God; in which no personality can 
 survive. Personality is merely a speedily passing 
 show upon the mirror of this world. 
 
 Development in both those directions went 
 on for long, an unorganized individual strug- 
 gling, unrecognized by the Muslim Church as 
 a whole. Some theologians rejected it; some 
 13 
 
/ 
 
 194 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 accepted it; all more or less criticised it. The 
 mystical life, for a time at least, was upon its 
 trial in Islam. It was producing all the differ- 
 ent forms and varying degrees of pantheism ; all 
 that lies in the conception of a God immanent 
 in the world. 
 
 At last there appeared the great constructive 
 theologian to whom I have already referred. 
 al-Ghazzali. He died in mi A. D. (A. H. 505), 
 I and it was his great work to reduce to an ortho- 
 dox possibility those mystical conceptions, and to 
 find a resting place for that possibility in the 
 Church of Islam. Certain elements in those 
 ideas undoubtedly could not form part of ortho- 
 dox Muslim theology. 
 
 But when he came to his w^ork in that Church, 
 he found that it was laid upon him to revive its 
 religious life again. Scholastic theology had 
 done its work only too well. It had built up a 
 complete system, and that system had tended to 
 press all the life out of the religion of the people. 
 
 To that system, then, of scholastic theology, 
 al-Ghazzali added the conception of the inner, or 
 spiritual, light, now admitted in the body of the 
 Church. He fixed how far this must be received, 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 195 
 
 how much of such emotional hfe was absolutely 
 necessary. His doctrine may be put thus : 'There 
 is," he said, "a certain spiritual something (his 
 expression is very vagiie) in man by which he is 
 different from all the rest of creation. All other 
 created things are simply the external acts of 
 Allah. But in man it is plain that there is 
 something more. Hjow else does man know 
 God? How can the individual feel God, unless 
 there is some kinship, some connection there?" 
 So he laid it down that man differed from the 
 other creatures in that God had breathed into him 
 of His spirit; but he is very careful indeed to 
 avoid any definition of what is meant by the term 
 "spirit." Fortunately, in the Qur'an (xvii, 87) 
 Muhammad is directed to reply to his questioners 
 who asked him about the spirit, "The spirit Is the 
 affair of thy Lord; not of thee." On this text 
 al-Ghazzall was able to fall back. We must not 
 ask what this spirit is; we cannot undei stand 
 what it is ; we cannot really grasp how there is in 
 man something of God. Man is not divine; yet 
 this fact stands fast. 
 
 Thus we read in the Qur'an (xv, 29; 
 xxxviii, 'J2) that God breathed into man of His 
 
196 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 spirit, and in a tradition we hear that God created 
 man in His own image. Now it is absurd, says 
 al-Ghazzali, to beheve that that can possibly 
 mean that God has an image, an external appear- 
 ance corresponding to that of man. Image, in 
 this case, must mean nature, likeness. Man, 
 then, out of all creation has been created in this 
 likeness, with a nature corresponding to God's. 
 In man, then, there is a something by wdiich he 
 can know God. The heart of man is his instru- 
 ment for that knowledge. 
 
 To illustrate this al-Ghazzall compares the 
 heart to a great many different things, among 
 them to a mirror that has to be polished, that is 
 to be freed from the stains of sin or of the world ; 
 or has to have a curtain taken away from it; or 
 has to be turned in a different direction. He, 
 with all Muslim mystics, is fond of the metaphor 
 of the mirror in such cases. But what he means 
 is this : There is this peculiar instrument in man, 
 which he calls the heart but which we call the 
 mind, and which stands in relation to the physical 
 heart ; but is not it. By that instrument man can 
 know directly God and the nature of God. 
 
 Further, what is to be said of the life, practice, 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 197 
 
 discipline of man during this process of learning 
 to know God? Here the division between the 
 dogmatic theology of the scholastics and this, the 
 mystical theology, becomes very plain. The dog- 
 matic theology of the scholastics was worked out 
 on the basis of authority and reason. There 
 were such and such things laid down in the 
 Qur'an and in the traditions; these could be 
 examined by man and built up by reasoning into 
 a definite, hard and fast system. Part of that 
 system I have put before you, and it, as a whole, 
 al-Ghazzali seems to have accepted. He would 
 say, ''We cannot help ourselves ; that is what was 
 given to us; what our fathers have taught us. 
 We, of course, may interpret it in different 
 ways." He, it is evident, at many points dis- 
 approved of it. He was prepared to accept 
 every word of the Qur'an and every word of 
 provably sound tradition ; but he must have liberty 
 to explain and combine these as he pleased. He, 
 especially, did not think that the current scho-y- 
 lastic system would hold water on the side of 
 reasoning; yet he was quite prepared to lay down 
 that system in his books. To criticise and recon- 
 struct it would be very hard, and would only 
 
198 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 shake the faith of the masses; and, besides, it 
 was only the skeleton, or shell, whichever you 
 prefer, of religion. 
 
 But what of religion itself? For the basis of 
 religion, al-Ghazzali went back to the experience 
 of the individual man. First of all he cut away 
 any hope of reaching reality by reasoning. That, 
 his negative position, I have put before you al- 
 ready. But when he had done that, he went 
 back at once and said, "In the mind of man it- 
 self there is the witness of God. If man will fol- 
 low the path, he will attain unto the truth. For 
 the foundation of the mystical theology, then, 
 man must study himself; and as he follows the 
 path, he will find certain psychological states 
 appearing, one after another; some of them will 
 be more permanent than others ; but none will be 
 absolutely permanent ; rather, they will flit across 
 this mirror of his mind by which he knows God. 
 These states he must study; he must try to lead 
 them steadily upwards, that he himself may be- 
 come purer. If he succeeds, they will become 
 continuously more Intense and lasting until, it 
 may be, if the stories are true that are told of 
 the most eminent of the saints, he will be able 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 199 
 
 to enter, even in this life, into the utmost, the 
 absolute felicity of the direct vision of God." 
 Such are the means and such is the foundation. 
 Thus alone can religion be known. 
 
 ' But even by these means al-Ghazzali and the 
 mystics of Islam could not free themselves en- 
 tirely from the handicap of that theological sys- 
 tem w^hich I have put in part before you. In 
 one of his treatises, for instance, he deals with 
 the question of the love of God, the love of man 
 for God and of God for man. That there is such 
 love is for him fundamental. It is part of the 
 knowledge that comes through the heart of man, 
 revealed in these changing states, the psycho- 
 logical ladder of dead selves up which man must 
 climb into the very presence of God. But what 
 does it mean? Can man love God? It is evi- 
 dent that many Muslim theologians had answered 
 at once, ''No, he cannot. Man and God are of 
 different natures. There can be no love where 
 there is difference, or — in the curious scholastic 
 language — where there is a difference of genus. 
 The most that it can mean is perseverance in 
 obedience to Allah. That is all that the love of 
 man for Allah can be." In reply, al-Ghazzali 
 
200 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 admits this difficulty; but he adds at once that 
 there is not this absolute difference between man 
 and God; and, coming back to the facts, he asks 
 why it is that Muhammad in the Qur'an speaks 
 again and again of Allah loving man, while the 
 saints have spoken again and again of the saints 
 loving God. And the Church of Islam has fol- 
 lowed al-Ghazzali, and says that the love of man 
 for God is possible and reasonable and real. 
 
 But when we pass to the other side, the love 
 emanating from God manward, there the problem 
 becomes really difficult. Al-Ghazzall and a few, 
 indeed, of the more orthodox mystics could not 
 separate themselves from the idea that God must 
 be above all change; for change is suffering. 
 "When there is love," said al-Ghazzali, ''there 
 must be in the lover a sense of Incompleteness; 
 a recognition that the beloved is needed for com- 
 plete realization of the self." That for al-Ghaz- 
 zali, you see, is the essential in love. But that, 
 of course, is impossible in the case of God; He 
 is complete; He is perfect; man can do nothing 
 in any way to assist Him to supply His need, for 
 He has no need. What, then, does the love of 
 God for man mean ? I am afraid that here there 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 201 
 
 comes a very weak and impotent conclusion to 
 the great vision. "The love of God means that 
 He removes the veil from the heart of man; that 
 God wills and has willed, from all eternity, that 
 man should know Him, and that God causes 
 man to know Him. There is no reaching out on 
 the part of God. He only affects man so that 
 man turns and goes out to Him ; there can be no 
 change in God; no development in Him; no sup- 
 plying of a lack in Himself. He only affects 
 man so that man comes to God." 
 
 However, when al-Ghazzali had worked out 
 this conception that there is an element in man 
 derived from God, in what way did he save the 
 personality and peculiar separateness of God? 
 He said quite frankly that the one distinguishing 
 thing in which God was separate from man, in 
 which man could never come to be one with God, 
 was that God exists through Himself only. He 
 is the only being that exists through himself. 
 All others have a dependent existence through 
 something else. And this is the real meaning of 
 the phrase in the Qur'an about the Face of Allah. 
 The word "face" is somewhat ambiguous. It 
 can mean "aspect" and also "direction," and the 
 
202 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 mystical developers of those texts chose to play 
 upon these different meanings. Everything has 
 an aspect to itself and has also an aspect to Allah. 
 In respect to its aspect to itself, it is really non- 
 existent. It is existent only in respect of its 
 aspect to Allah, and the aspect of Allah is the 
 only thing that survives; all else is fugitive — 
 vanishing. That is to say, things exist only as 
 they look towards Allah. 
 
 But now, I must hasten to close this subject. 
 Let me do so with a very brief consideration of 
 the development of the organizations of dar- 
 wishes, those bearers of the tradition of the mys- 
 tical conception. From a very early date in 
 Islam, certainly from the second Muslim century, 
 it came to be common for teachers and guides in 
 the religious life to gather around them circles 
 of personal disciples. Accompanied by these, 
 they wandered through the country, supported 
 by the alms of the faithful, and taught theology, 
 practical and mystical. For centuries, and this 
 is the curious point, these organizations fell to 
 pieces at once with the death of the leader. They 
 were not self-subsisting corporations; they were 
 only assemblages of disciples round a teacher. 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 203 
 
 The teacher gone, they separated. Not until 
 about fifty years, I think, after the death of 
 al-GhazzalT was the situation passed. Then we 
 find one of these schools turning into a self-per- 
 petuating corporation, taking the name of its 
 founder and continuing to teach the rule of life, 
 the monastic discipline and the exercises that he 
 had taught. It is plain to my mind that such 
 continuous corporations could not have come into 
 existence until some time after the death of 
 al-Ghazzali, because most certainly, if they had 
 been in existence in his time, there would now be 
 a fraternity of Ghazzalite darwishes. In his last 
 years he had gathered round him such a school 
 of immediate disciples. He taught them; they 
 lived with him. But after his death, evidently, 
 they broke away; divided; vanished. All the 
 fraternities, I have no question, date from some 
 teacher that lived after his day. 
 
 But if you enquire of a darwish now as to the 
 founder of his fraternity — who he was, he will 
 almost certainly give you the name of some com- 
 panion of Muhammad or of one of the great early 
 theologians of the first centuries. In each of these 
 bodies there has grown up a curious tradition! 
 
204 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 carrying them farther back than their real his- 
 torical origin and saying that the particular 
 religious formulae and the particular religious 
 observances that distinguish them, were appointed 
 for them by so and so in the very first generations 
 of Islam, when their fraternity was first instituted. 
 This founder worked out the Path — such is the 
 word they use — which they were to follow. But 
 that, as I have indicated, is quite unhistorical. 
 
 To another manifestation of this mystical life 
 I can give only a very few minutes. It is what 
 I might call the Hierarchy of Saints. Besides 
 this great body of believers, organized In visible 
 form in the darwish fraternities, the devout Mus- 
 lim believes — Has not Allah said In his Book 
 (x, 63), "Ho, the Friends of Allah! there Is no 
 fear upon them nor do they grieve" ? — that there 
 is also a great invisible organization of saints, a 
 kind of spiritual board of administration, which, 
 under Allah, is managing the afifairs of the world. 
 That board has a head who is called the Qutb, the 
 Axis. He is supposed to be always the greatest 
 saint of his time and he lives generally invisible. 
 There are certain places In the Muslim world 
 that he peculiarly haunts, and these places are 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 205 
 
 visited by those who would pray to him or ask 
 his intercession. At one time of the day he is 
 beheved, for example, to be on the roof of the 
 Ka'ba at Mecca, and I imagine that every Mus- 
 lim of the lower class in Cairo is quite certain 
 that at another time of the day he is seated be- 
 hind the eastern leaf of the Bab az-Zuwela, one 
 of the three surviving gates of the old City of 
 Cairo. You practically never can pass that gate 
 without seeing some one leaning up against it, 
 evidently engaged in petition to this greatest of 
 all living saints who, he supposes, may possibly 
 be there at the time. 
 
 Down from this invisible, absolute Outb there 
 stretches a w^idening hierarchy. He has four 
 assistants who can, on occasion, take his place. 
 If he dies, one of them will be chosen by Allah as 
 his successor. Under this, again, there is an- 
 other class of twelve, and so the great hierarchy 
 goes downward, widening and widening, until it 
 embraces all the saints, the Friends of Allah, who 
 are alive. 
 
 In this system and in the help to be derived 
 from these men all the masses of Islam believe 
 with perfect fixity. But there are other similar 
 
206 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 helpers and guides. There is, first, the most 
 picturesque figure of all in the mythology of 
 Islam, that saint who is called al-Khadir — the 
 name is commonly interpreted as meaning the 
 Green One, who is supposed to have drunk of the 
 water of immortality and now to be wandering 
 through the earth, carrying out the commands of 
 God. In this he is different from the other saints 
 of the hierarchy. He will live until the last day 
 comes, then will be reduced to his dust and raised 
 again with the rest of mankind. 
 
 So the pious Muslim when he finds himself in 
 difficulty, on his travels especially, will invoke the 
 help of al-Khadir, and very many are the stories 
 told of how he has appeared under such condi- 
 tions and guided the fainting traveler back to 
 the road and to safety. 
 
 It is very hard to say what part truth or mis- 
 take, and what part hallucination have played in 
 such things. But the narratives of how the help 
 has come are very many indeed. My friend in 
 Cairo who had passed from Islam to Christianity 
 told me that he in his Muslim days had once had 
 a vision of al-Khadir. He viewed the thing 
 rather differently now and thought that it was a 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 207 
 
 case of expectation, suggestion, over-fasting and 
 then hallucination ; but I think that still there was 
 present in his mind a little question, a little wonder 
 as to the possibilities which might lie behind 
 those things. It was to me a strong testimony 
 to the reality of such visions and experiences 
 on the part of the darwishes and others that 
 this man was very eager and desirous to discuss 
 with me the modern theories of hallucination 
 and suggestion in producing them. He did not. 
 feel that he could put them down as simply non- 
 existent, but that he had to explain them in some 
 way as realities. 
 
 And besides this hierarchy and al-Khadir, who 
 must be classed rather with the angels, there is 
 also the multitude of dead saints. The Muslim 
 saint, you remember, is not dead in our sense ; he 
 is there still within his tomb which has become 
 his house, and his case differs from that of the 
 ordinary Muslim in that he can leave his tomb. 
 He can go away and journey and come back 
 again. One Muslim theologian of the sixteenth 
 century counted it as one of the peculiar graces 
 that Allah had granted to him that when he came 
 to the tomb he had always, by a kind of inspired 
 
208 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 insight, been able to know whether the saint was 
 at home or not. Such is the complete reality of 
 those things for Muslims. But do not imagine 
 that they belong only to the sixteenth century; 
 they exist at the present day. If you are wander- 
 ing about in Cairo and come to a curious bend or 
 break in the line of the street, you will find, built 
 somewhere into the corner, a dome covering the 
 tomb of a saint. He had elected to be buried 
 there. Nor are the houses in the neighborhood 
 handicapped in the least by that holy and perma- 
 nent tenant. It is supposed to be a great privi- 
 leee to have a house beside which stands the 
 tomb of a saint; he will take care of you; he is 
 there and a saint is always a good neighbor. In 
 this, as you will perceive, is the difference be- 
 tween the layout of the streets of a Muslim town 
 and that of the streets of Boston; these have been 
 laid out by the saints. They put down their 
 tombs, here and there, and when they are once 
 down they are immovable; the street must go 
 round them; must find some other way. All 
 over Cairo you will find these curious turnings 
 and jags in the streets where some saint had 
 elected to be buried. When I was in Cairo the 
 
THE MYSTICAL LIFE 209 
 
 authorities of the Roman Cathohc cathedral, then 
 building, were having much trouble with a saint 
 found buried within its precincts. Early Chris- 
 tianity would quickly have discovered for him a 
 legend and a date in the calendar, but a solution 
 of such broad Catholicism is no longer possible. 
 
 These, then, are the more mysterious, the more 
 invisible sides of the mystical life in Islam — the 
 hierarchy of living saints; the guardianship of 
 al-Khadir, the undying saint, wandering through 
 the lands of Allah and doing the will of Allah ; 
 and the presence everywhere, at every turn, of 
 the deceased but still very active saint. The life 
 of the devout Muslim is hedged around every- 
 where by the Unseen. 
 
 14 
 
LECTURE VII 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF ISLAM TO THE SCRIPTURES 
 AND TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST 
 
 If it were ever to fall to you to converse with 
 Muslims upon the matter of their feeling towards 
 the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures, towards 
 the Books as they would call them, you would at 
 once find yourselves entangled in the most varied 
 and discordant judgments.^ Some would be 
 polite; some would not; some would regard you 
 and say to you, "You are People of the Book," 
 meaning by that, inspired Scripture; "you have 
 the guidance; it is the one spirit." Others, I am 
 afraid, would indicate in one way or another that 
 you were of those upon whom was the wrath 
 of God or something similar, and that your books 
 were forgeries. Between those two extremes 
 
 ^ The subject of the present lecture has been so little 
 studied that Goldziher's monograph in the Zeitschrift of the 
 German Oriental Society (vol. xxxii, pp. 341-387), although 
 now more than thirty years old, still stands practically 
 alone. I am much indebted to it, as also, but in less degree, 
 to Schreiner's paper in the same Zeitschrift (vol. xlii, 
 pp. 591-675). 
 
 210 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 211 
 
 you would find that the matter hes at the present 
 time. 
 
 I am bound to say, however, that In general 
 you would find the Muslims exceedingly courte- 
 ous in dealing with this question. They would 
 not go to the point of telling you that the wrath 
 of God was upon you, unless for some distinct 
 reason. Generally, they would escape from the 
 issue by some polite commonplaces about thej 
 People of the Book. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is possible for the Mus- 
 lim, without doing any injury to his conscience, 
 to adopt the most varied positions with regard to 
 the Scriptures of the Jews and Christians, and 
 that possibility, like almost everything else in 
 Islam, dates back to Muhammad himself, and 
 to the development which immediately followed 
 him and was conditioned by him. 
 
 On this question, then, as practically on all 
 questions connected with Islam, we must go back 
 and ask what Muhammad himself thought about 
 it. Now, through what I have already put be- 
 fore you with regard to Muhammad's person- 
 ality, you will have understood how absolute was 
 his belief that God was wont to speak to him 
 
212 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 from time to time and that God had sent him as 
 a messenger to mankind. For any understanding 
 at all of Islam, and if the character of Muham- 
 mad himself is to become in the least intelligible 
 to us, we must take that as a fundamental position. 
 Otherwise we shall be involved In a hopeless 
 psychological problem. So, In this instance, only 
 by taking such a position towards Muhammad 
 and realizing that such was his attitude, can we 
 understand how he felt towards the Scriptures of 
 the older faiths. Muhammad, then, was certain 
 — knew as absolutely as any man could know — 
 that he was a messenger from God sent to man- 
 kind, a guide appointed by God for mankind. 
 
 But what, further, was the situation round him 
 as seen by him? That situation, unfortunately, 
 we can learn only from the Qur'an itself. If 
 we attempt to gain any Idea of it from the tradi- 
 tions that have been handed down to us of what 
 Muhammad said and did, we shall find that these 
 cannot be trusted. We shall find that the real 
 use of these traditions is to picture for us the 
 later controversies rather than to give us the 
 mind of Muhammad himself. 
 
 And in the Qur'an, what do we find? We 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTtPRES 2I3 
 
 find that for Muhammad, looking out on the 
 world, there was one great division amongst 
 mankind. He divides them into those whom 
 he calls "the People of the Book" — meaning by 
 that, as we have seen, the People of Scripture, 
 whether one book or several — and into others 
 whom he calls at one time "the straying people," 
 at another time, "the rebellious people" — the 
 people, that is to say, who had not a guidance 
 from Allah, or the people who had risen against 
 that guidance, and were rebellious against Allah. 
 
 Further, what was his idea about those books 
 of Scripture? He uses the phrase, "the People 
 of the Book," which could mean also "of the 
 Books." Whence were those books? Or he 
 speaks of those people as "the people that are 
 rightly guided," were rightly guided once, 
 though now they have gone astray. What did 
 this guidance mean? Who had been their 
 guides ? 
 
 But when we begin to look Into this problem 
 of what Muhammad understood behind those 
 mysterious "books" and by this "guidance," we 
 are at once convinced that he had really very 
 little knowledge in any definite form. It is one 
 
214 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of the most outstanding peculiarities of Muham- 
 mad's mind that he could not, apparently, get 
 any clear idea of a story on hearing it, and far 
 less could he rehearse a story in distinct, histor- 
 ical form after he had once heard it. The way 
 that such things came to him seems to have been 
 very much like this : He got a scrap of history ; 
 he got an allusion; he got a telling phrase; he 
 got a hint of a character. He carried that away, 
 and then with that as a centre and with his broad 
 idea of the story — generally a very inaccurate 
 idea — as material, he built up for himself again 
 what he had heard. 
 
 Or it may have been some scrap of the Scrip- 
 tures which he had heard once or twice ; some bit 
 which he had picked up from hearing the Psalms 
 read; something he had heard at a Christian 
 service of worship, a phrase, perhaps, from the 
 chanting of the Magnificat; there were many 
 fragments of that kind of which the words had 
 caught his memory. It was only a very short 
 phrase that he could hold in that memory of his; 
 so he would, then, piece and mend it into what 
 seemed right to him in the nature of the case. 
 Thus, he felt sure, it must have run. That was 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 215 
 
 practically all that he had on which to go when 
 he tried to reconstruct this hypothetical history 
 of "the People of the Book," on the one hand 
 and of the unbelievers, the strayers, the rebellious, 
 on the other hand. 
 
 Let me, now, take a special case of this quoting 
 by Muhammad ; it will illustrate the curious diffi- 
 culty of the problem that we have. In the 
 Qur'an (vi, 156) Muhammad says that he is 
 "written" in the former sacred books, evidently 
 meaning that there is a prophecy or description 
 of him in the Scriptures of the Christians and 
 of the Jews. But in one passage (Qur. Ixi, 6) 
 he is more precise and makes Jesus say, "I give 
 you tidings of a Messenger who shall come after 
 me, whose name shall be Ahmad." That is a 
 perfectly clear statement, and the allusion, up 
 to a certain point, is clear also. It is clear that 
 here we have an allusion — picked up in what way 
 and in what blind form we cannot tell — to the 
 promise of the Comforter (John's Gospel, xiv, 
 16, 26; XV, 26; xvi, 7). But why does he name 
 that Messenger to come, Ahmad? That was 
 not Muhammad's name. Apart from this pas- 
 sage there is no tradition that that was ever his 
 
2l6 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 name. It is true that his original, heathen name 
 is unknown, but it was not Ahmad. Muslims, 
 certainly, have applied that name to him, but only 
 because of this passage. Is it in any way pos- 
 sible — this has been the conjecture — that in some 
 Arabic translation of the Gospels, by a curious 
 accident perhaps complicated by mis-hearing on 
 the part of Muhammad himself, the word Ahmad, 
 "the greatly praised," or the "greatly praising," 
 could have been used for Paraclete? Some 
 have even suggested that in the Greek text of 
 John, TTcptKXvTos may have been read instead of 
 TrapoLKXrjTO': ; Trc/aiKXvTos might be translated Ahmad. 
 We cannot tell; there the case stands. This is 
 the one, definite, clear statement that Muhammad 
 himself made, referring to a prophecy of him- 
 self in the former sacred books. But you see, 
 even in itself, how vague, how grasped out of 
 the clouds in a sense, it is. 
 
 The case being thus, Muhammad was practi- 
 cally cast back upon himself and his own ideas 
 to work out a philosophy of the history of revela- 
 tion, and that he did with great thoroughness. 
 There, before him, were the Jews ; there were the 
 Christians; there was a people whom he called 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 21/ 
 
 the Sabians — we are in doubt as to whom he 
 meant by these — and there were the Maglans. 
 He reckons in the Magians as a "People of 
 Scripture," in one passage only (Qur. xxii, 17), 
 and by them he apparently means the Zoroas- 
 trians; so, at least, the Muslims have understood 
 the passage. In other places (Qur. liii, 37-38; 
 Ixxxviii, 19) he speaks of the Leaves of Abra- 
 ham. These are certain rolls or leaves, believed 
 now to be lost but supposed to be the ultimate 
 basis of the religious faith of the Sabians and 
 Magians. In the case of the Jews and the 
 Christians, he speaks of the Law, of the Psalms 
 and of the Gospel. These were the record, all 
 that was left in written form, of the revelations 
 made to the world by a series of prophets who 
 had come in succession, one after another, but 
 sometimes with long gaps between, from the 
 beginning of creation down to Muhammad's own 
 time. God had never left Himself without a 
 witness; either the witness of the personal guid- 
 ance of one of those prophets, or the witness 
 of the book which he had left behind him. Later 
 Islam built up an elaborate doctrine of two kinds 
 of prophets — those who brought a book and those 
 
2l8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 who did not — and reckoned their numbers, and, 
 so far as it could, their names. Muhammad had 
 only told stories about individuals. Later Islam 
 developed a doctrine of saints with a minor 
 inspiration variously defined. With this Muham- 
 mad would, undoubtedly, have been in full accord. 
 And what had been sent by means of those 
 prophets and messengers? It had been the one 
 only true, unchangeable, undevelopable, inflexible 
 faith. It had been Islam. At the beginning of 
 creation, when Allah created Adam he appointed 
 him his representative upon earth, communicated 
 to him the faith of Islam, told him what was 
 its law, what were its rites and ceremonies — the 
 outward manifestations of that faith, and gave 
 him command to teach these to mankind. After 
 his death mankind lapsed and fell away from the 
 truth. Then another prophet came who was 
 commissioned by Allah to restore that primeval 
 faith. After his death mankind lapsed again; 
 then another prophet was sent, and so down 
 through the long generations you have the con- 
 tinual bringing back and restoration of the one, 
 unchangeable faith. It is a scheme of the 
 philosophy or the history of revelation that would 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 219 
 
 bring joy to the heart of the most absolute tradi- 
 tionaHst. I do not imagine that any other great 
 formative religious mind ever constructed so 
 absolutely unchangeable, unreformable a faith as 
 this. But still, that was the conception which 
 Muhammad held. And what of his part in it? 
 He was simply the last of the prophets; the 
 renewer of the one primeval faith in this age of 
 darkness; the restorer of the truth to mankind. 
 Yet with this difference; never before had a 
 prophet been sent to the Meccans; it was now 
 come to be their turn ; they were to have the great 
 privilege of being the People of Allah; of being 
 the kindred of the Prophet of Allah. 
 
 Now, with such a view as this — worked out, 
 as you will notice, in the most absolute fashion, 
 reminding one more than anything else of the 
 scheme of history that lies behind the Book of 
 Judges, where we have a string of Judges, each 
 bringing back the rebellious Israel to the Lord, 
 with the rebellious Israel thereafter breaking 
 away again and being brought back by another 
 Judge to the Lord — what, then, having such a 
 view as this, must have been his feeling about 
 the People of Scripture? These Jews, these 
 
220 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Christians, whom he met, possessed, ex hypothesi, 
 the sacred books that were left to them by Moses ; 
 left to them by Jesus; left to them by David. 
 Those sacred books must contain exactly the same 
 things which he believed that Allah had revealed 
 to him. In those sacred books must lie that same 
 law of Islam; those same practices and rites; 
 that same faith. He had only to turn to the 
 Jews and Christians, tell them what he was, tell 
 them what had been revealed to him, and they 
 would say at once, 'This is a prophet from 
 God." Further, he had heard enough about 
 prophecies in those Scriptures — each prophet fore- 
 telling the coming of his successor — to feel sure 
 that such books must contain prophecies describ- 
 ing him himself. The Jews and the Christians 
 must certainly admit that he was the prophet 
 foretold. 
 
 But, unfortunately, he found that they would 
 not; that they did not recognize him; that they 
 said, "That is not the true faith ; nor do we find 
 in our sacred books any prophecy at all, any 
 description at all of such a one as you are. We 
 see no reason whatever to think that we should 
 leave our ancient positions, the ways in which 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 221 
 
 our fathers walked, and come and follow you." 
 What, then, did Muhammad say? He came 
 to the conclusion that they, personally, were 
 exhibiting the most consummate hypocrisy. And, 
 with regard to their books, what he said was, 
 ^'Do not listen to the Jews and the Christians as 
 to what they say of the faith; they 'twist their 
 tongues in it' " — that was his phrase (Qur. iii, 72; 
 iv, 48). That phrase makes it clear that he 
 believed that they misrepresented what actually 
 was in their sacred books. In their books was 
 Islam and the prophecy of the coming of 
 Muhammad, but they concealed these things and 
 perverted the truth. And it is further plain 
 that Muhammad reached this conclusion from 
 a feeling of the necessity of the case. He did 
 not go back to the books themselves; he could 
 not; they were not accessible to him. It was 
 the overwhelming sense of the reality of his mis- 
 sion which drove him to this. 
 
 But what was his final position, seeing that he 
 had been received in this way by the holders of 
 the old faiths? It was simply, *Tet them alone; 
 they will not hear; they have hardened their 
 hearts; it Is impossible to do any more with 
 
222 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 them; let them go." And to the Muslims he 
 said, "You have no more need of them nor of 
 their books; do not listen to them; do not hear 
 what they have to say; there is no need of it. 
 If they read to you what is written in their 
 books, it is really the same as what I have told 
 you; and if they do not read what is written in 
 their books, then it is lies. You have the truth in 
 what I have brought ; hold by that ; it is sure and 
 safe for this world and for the world to come." 
 This was, of course, a perfectly sufficient 
 position during Muhammad's lifetime. So long 
 as they had this infallible prophet to guide them 
 and to tell them the truth, they need not go 
 further. The problem was over for the time 
 being. But when he died, they had no longer that 
 absolutely infalHble guide. When they wanted 
 to hear what had been the story about this or 
 that person in past generations ; when they wanted 
 to know what was the exact bearing and force 
 of this or that theological truth; they could not 
 go to him any longer. They were driven back 
 to the Qur'an; they were driven back to the 
 memory of what he had said ; but they began also 
 to fall back upon those same despised Jewish 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 22^, 
 
 and Christian Scriptures. And here came the 
 nemesis, sprung partly from Muhammad's wild 
 statements, partly from the attitude of mind 
 which he had fostered in his followers. The 
 Muslims, in consequence, had and have a certain 
 bias or standing presupposition with regard to 
 those Scriptures, and, however the Scriptures 
 come to their knowledge, that has always made 
 itself felt. Now, there are four ways in which 
 the Scriptures have come to Islam. They have 
 come through proselytes ; they have come through 
 controversy; they have come — this to a slight 
 extent — through the studies of their own histo- 
 rians; and they have come — perhaps to a still 
 slighter extent — through the direct reading of 
 the books themselves. Let me take up those four 
 sources one by one; but remember, as I go over 
 them, that they all, for the Muslim mind, became 
 inextricably mixed up together; that a Muslim 
 has, behind his feeling about the Scriptures of 
 the Jews and the Christians, simply a great, con- 
 fused jumble of discordant ideas derived in all 
 these different ways; he has never applied criti- 
 cism to that jumble; he has never tried to think 
 the thing out; he may tell you one thing at one 
 
 \\ 
 
224 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 time and another thing at another time, just as 
 he may pull out from that jumble now one thing 
 and now another. 
 
 First, then, with regard to proselytes. There 
 especially was the nemesis felt. The Arabs had 
 a curious, childlike trust in writing, In books. 
 People who could read books, they thought, must 
 know everything. But they knew that the Jews 
 and Christians with whom they were In contact 
 had books and could read them. In consequence 
 they got Into the way of appealing to the Jews 
 and Christians, asking them about the histories 
 of the past kings and generations ; about the long 
 gone by times of the world with its prophets and 
 sages; and those whom they asked told them 
 very strange things Indeed. You must remember 
 that they were mostly proselytes, Jews and Chris- 
 tians who had embraced Islam and who had a 
 very definite feeling as to what it was safe and 
 desirable for them to say. They were well aware 
 of the general position held by the Muslims with 
 regard to Islam and its truth and Its place In the 
 eternal scheme; anything that they told those 
 Muslims must square with that. But, on another 
 side, they discovered that the more marvelous 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 225 
 
 were the tales that they told, provided they 
 squared with that fundamental necessity, the 
 better these tales would be received. Under that 
 spirit and pressure, the tremendous growth of 
 legend that immediately appeared is simply 
 indescribable. 
 
 For instance, at a very early date, we find 
 stories which confuse the books of the Law (the 
 Pentateuch) with the Tables of the Law (the 
 Ten Commandments) and which describe how 
 many thousands of the books of the Law there 
 were, and how many camels it took to carry them. 
 And, again, we are told, from information com- 
 ing from those Jewish proselytes, that the Law 
 consisted of one thousand parts, and that to carry 
 it would take seventy camels, and that only 
 four — Moses, Joshua, Ezra and Jesus — had ever 
 read it through completely. And with this there 
 went a calmness of assertion which must strike 
 us with admiration. One would say, *T have 
 read in the Torah," and then he would go on to 
 give something very much like the above. 
 Another said, — and this I will give you liter- 
 ally — "I found in the Gospel that the keys of the 
 treasury of Qarun [Qarun is the Biblical Korah; 
 15 
 
226 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 evidently also Croesus who has suffered an orien- 
 tal change] were a load for sixty mules; no 
 key was larger than a finger, and each served for 
 a separate treasury." Curiously enough, the 
 only part of the Scriptures that seems to be given 
 in a form in the least degree rational is the 
 Wisdom Literature. From the Wisdom Litera- 
 ture a certain number of tolerably recognizable 
 quotations have come down to us over the lips of 
 those proselytes. 
 
 But, further, it was not only those proselytes 
 who behaved in this way. The Arabs have always 
 loved to hear stories. The Arabian NigJits, for 
 that matter, is only one book in a very large 
 class, and as the earliest Muslims were Arabs, 
 on the one hand, and loved to hear stories, but 
 were Muslims, on the other hand, and were very 
 pious, naturally the stories they loved to hear 
 most were pious stories about the past prophets. 
 
 Therefore a class of storv-tellers arose who 
 devoted themselves to developing and perfecting, 
 in a sense, the materials that had been handed 
 over by the proselytes. Of course, the more 
 sober element in the Muslim Church protested 
 against that; there w^as bitter war between the 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 227 
 
 professional traditionalists and the professional 
 story-tellers; neither could stand the other. 
 
 There is a story told of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and 
 Yahya ibn Mu'In, two of the greatest tradition- 
 alists, probably better known by sight in Baghdad 
 than the Caliph himself, and thorough scholars, 
 that they were one day In the mosque and saw 
 one of these story-tellers sitting with his back 
 against a pillar and a circle round him. He was 
 telling them a long tale of how, whenever any 
 one pronounces the words La ildha illa-lldh, Allah 
 creates out of every word a bird with a beak of 
 gold and wings of diamonds, and, what was 
 worse, kept saying at every turn, "I heard these 
 things direct from Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Yahya 
 ibn Mu'in themselves." At last Yahya could 
 not stand it any longer and walked up to him and 
 said, "Oh brother, I have heard you saying this 
 thing, that thing and the other thing, and you 
 say that you derived them from Ahmad ibn 
 Hanbal and Yahya ibn Mu'in. Now, I am 
 Yahya and this is Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and we 
 have never heard them In our lives before." 
 Thereupon the story-teller looked upon him with 
 a very severe and majestic countenance and said, 
 
228 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 *'Oh thou, thy name may be Yahya ibn Mu'in 
 and the name of this man may be Ahmad ibn 
 Hanbal. Are ye the only men of these names 
 among the people of Muhammad? I have tradi- 
 tions from seventeen men who are so called." 
 Against competition of such courage and popu- 
 larity the traditionalists with a conscience could 
 do almost nothing, and, In consequence, the 
 misinformation of the proselytes was a hundred- 
 fold further bedevilled with the stories of those 
 religious novelists. 
 
 And the results of their labours abide to this 
 day. They have Infected the whole devotional 
 literature of Islam and furnish the staple religious 
 reading of the masses at present. Thus the 
 earliest source is also the most persistent. 
 
 For example, if we turn to al-Ghazzali, to whom 
 I have referred again and again and who died 
 in nil A. D. (A. H. 505), we find him saying 
 very gravely, "Moses says in the Law, *Rend your 
 hearts and not your garments'." Evidently it 
 never occurred to him to verify his words; and as 
 for the stories here is one from al-Ghazzali 
 himself almost as good as the story of the treas- 
 ury of Qarun : — There was In the time of Moses 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 229 
 
 a certain negro saint, Barkh by name. When 
 rain failed the children of Israel for seven years, 
 Allah told Moses to entreat Barkh to pray for 
 it. He did so in a prayer full of familiarity and 
 daring, and rain came at once. To Moses Allah 
 explained, "I always hear what Barkh says; he 
 makes me laugh three times a day." 
 
 But the demoralization that followed went 
 farther. Take, for instance, the great theologian, 
 ar-Razi, who died in 1209 A. D. (A. H. 606), 
 a man in the rank only after al-Ghazzali himself. 
 In his commentary on the Qur'an, he tells us 
 very gravely in one place, that he knows and 
 can repeat the Law and Gospel both by heart, 
 and then, throughout his commentary, he gives 
 us the most mysterious and wonderful things 
 as being contained in that Law and in that 
 'Gospel. Now, what can such a phenomenon 
 mean? Had the whole moral sense, all feeling 
 for fact, been rotted away by lightness of belief? 
 This man was a great theologian and yet he could 
 play fast and loose in this fashion. 
 
 Much later in the history of Islam other 
 proselytes made other contributions to Muslim 
 knowledge of the Scriptures. Upon these con- 
 
230 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 tributions I can only touch. While much more 
 trustworthy in point of fact, they were intensely 
 hostile in spirit. Their contributors were pros- 
 elytes who passed over directly from Europe 
 into Islam, and who carried with them the doubts 
 and scepticism of the European renaissance. The 
 best known and probably the most picturesque 
 figure among them is a certain Frater Anselmo de 
 Turmeda, a Franciscan friar, one of the founders 
 and one of the most popular writers of the Catalan 
 national literature, a man whose books, pointed 
 with savage almost Swiftian satire, are still read 
 in Spain. ^ He went over to Tunis early in the 
 fifteenth century, became a Muslim there and 
 wrote a book against Christianity and in criticism 
 of the Gospels which shows what was the atti- 
 tude towards Christianity in what one might 
 call the educated, sceptical circles of his time. 
 Another must have been the unknown author of 
 the Gospel of Barnabas. Their books furnished 
 most of the arguments still used by Muslim 
 controversialists, who have taken them, just as 
 they took the earlier stories, with entire faith. 
 
 *The best reference for him is Menendez y Pelayo, 
 Origenes de la Novela, Vol. I, pp. cv-cx. 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 23 1 
 
 From all these instances it is plain that Mus- 
 lims in general did not, or could not, verify ^" 
 their references. And, secondly, we know that 
 they were afraid to do so. They were prepared 
 to accept those scraps and arguments which were 
 given to them by proselytes to their own faith, 
 but they themselves feared to risk their faith 
 by reading those Scriptures. As medieval Chris- 
 tendom believed that any one reading Hebrew 
 would become a Jew, so the Muslims would not 
 take any chances which might be involved in 
 meddling with Law or Gospel. 
 
 The second element was the knowledge that 
 came through controversy. For its beginnings 
 we must go back to the early times of Islam. 
 When we take the writings of John of Damascus, 
 the great Father of the Greek Church and the 
 final formulator of its theology, who died some- 
 where after 754 A. D., we find that the Muslims 
 did not then ascribe any miracles to Muhammad 
 and did not allege that there were any prophecies 
 of Muhammad in the sacred books of Christen- 
 dom. But as we go on, starting from that point 
 of departure, it is clear that there was an 
 immediate growth through controversy and 
 
232 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 especially through the necessity of meeting such 
 claims on the part of Christians. On the one 
 hand, it was a growth of what you might call 
 the legend of Muhammad, and, on the other hand, 
 it was a change of attitude towards the former 
 sacred books. Muslims began, from that time 
 on, to assert that miracles had been performed 
 by Muhammad. It is true that he had never, 
 himself, claimed that power. Again and again 
 he had said, '^I cannot work miracles. The old 
 prophets came working miracles. Did the peo- 
 ple believe in them any more on that account? 
 I come with only this Book, given to me by 
 Allah, which is ample evidence in itself. It 
 should be enough." But it was not enough for 
 later Islam. They soon discovered for him 
 miracles in abundance, constructed, mostly, in 
 imitation of the miracles of the Gospels. And 
 they also changed their attitude towards the 
 former sacred books. *'You tell us that there are 
 no prophecies," said they, ''of Muhammad in 
 these books. Then there must be something 
 wrong with the books." They did not say any 
 longer, as Muhammad had done, "The readers of 
 the books deceive us when they read." They 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 233 
 
 carried their accusation to the books themselves. 
 
 But as to what was wrong, they varied and 
 divided into different schools. Some held that 
 there were only omissions in the books; that the 
 prophecies concerning Muhammad had been cut 
 out. Others held that the books were actually 
 corrupted. But this was a hard thing for the 
 Muslims to believe. Was it conceivable that a 
 sacred book sent down by Allah could ever suffer 
 such a thing as that? For a great many it was 
 inconceivable. 'There can," they said, *'only be 
 omissions in them; perhaps there may also be 
 additions; but no corruptions." You see, then, 
 how many different attitudes of mind were, and 
 are, possible amongst the Muslims towards those 
 books. Some would hold, "The books are com- 
 pletely corrupted ; have nothing to do with them." 
 Others would hold, 'There are only some omis- 
 sions," and others, ''only omissions and addi- 
 tions." All these different attitudes are mirrored 
 for us in traditions which gave us supposed state- 
 ments of Muhammad himself. Each thus can 
 claim to have the Prophet behind it. 
 
 But gradually Muslims began to find, even in 
 those books themselves, as they read them or 
 
234 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 had them read to them, actual prophecies of 
 Muhammad. This once begun, the hunt for such 
 texts became an absorbing interest and went on 
 until over fifty distinct prophecies had been 
 found by Muslim theologians between the Old 
 and the New Testaments. Of course, a great 
 many of these are simply the result of corruption 
 of the text. Others are very curious bits of 
 exegesis, and still others are due to unblushing 
 insertion of names and references, probably 
 mostly by proselytes, and show how little fear 
 they had that these statements would ever be 
 verified. 
 
 I select now a few to put before you, which 
 were found satisfactory by al-Beruni ^ himself, 
 who was, I think, quite certainly the clearest 
 scientific mind alive in his day (about A. D. 
 looo). These are no phantasies of theologians 
 but accepted scientific facts of their time. 
 
 The first of them is in Deut. i8, i8, where 
 we read, 'T will raise them up a prophet from 
 among their brethren, like unto thee; and will 
 put my words in his mouth and he shall speak 
 unto them all that I shall command him." No-?^. 
 
 ^ Chronology, trans, by Sachau, pp. 22 f. 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 235 
 
 the method by which this was brought to bear 
 upon Muhammad is interesting. You will notice 
 that it says, "a prophet from among their 
 brethren." Evidently this was not to be from 
 among the children of Israel, because it could 
 not be "from among their brethren" in that case. 
 "Brethren" leaves only two possibilities, Ishmael 
 and Esau. As for Esau, the only prophet of the 
 line of Esau is Job, and Job had flourished before 
 Muhammad himself. We are then left with the 
 other possibility that this prophet must be from 
 the sons of Ishmael, and there had been no man 
 raised up, claiming to be a prophet, of the sons 
 of Ishmael except Muhammad. 
 
 Again, in Deut. 33, 2, "The Lord came forth 
 from Sinai and rose up from Seir unto them; 
 he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he 
 came with ten thousand of saints." Notice the 
 sequence : From Sinai ; from Seir ; from Mount 
 Paran. But it says, "The Lord came," and that 
 is unthinkable. God does not come from one 
 place to another. This must mean that certain 
 manifestations, certain messengers, from him 
 cclne from those three places. Now, who were 
 txi messengers, those manifestations of the Lord? 
 
V 
 
 236 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 From Sinai, it is plain that the revelation of the 
 Law to Moses is meant; Sa'ir is a mountain 
 near Nazareth where the Gospel was revealed 
 to Jesus (now Nebi SaSn just north of Naz- 
 areth) ; and every one knows about the mountain 
 called Faran in the neighborhood of Mecca where 
 Muhammad used to worship. There you have 
 the three great revelations, and Muhammad's 
 was the last. 
 
 Again, in Isaiah, 21, d-y, it reads, "For thus 
 hath the Lord said unto me, *Go, set a watchman, 
 let him declare what he seeth. And whenever he 
 seeth a troop with horsemen by pairs, a troop of 
 asses and a troop of camels, then let him hearken 
 diligently with much heed'." So the Hebrew; 
 but the Muslims took it otherwise and read, "a 
 rider on an ass and a rider on a camel," para- 
 phrasing and condensing the rest of the passage 
 — a possible rendering. But who was this rider 
 upon the ass; and who was this rider upon the 
 camel? There can be no question; the rider 
 upon the ass was Jesus ; the rider upon the camel 
 was Aluhammad. 
 
 Such were the prophecies which al-Bert^^^ 
 thought were sound evidence. They will remi "^ 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 23/ 
 
 you a good deal of our own old-fashioned, literal 
 Messianic prophecies. They are of essentially the 
 same type, except that the latter are a fossilizing 
 of a spiritual and historical fact, while I hardly 
 think that any one will feel that there is such a 
 reality behind these Muslim crudities of exegesis. 
 
 I will not take the time to give the other forty 
 odd Muhammadan prophecies which I have met. 
 They would show up much as do these, which will 
 give you the generally accepted basis for the 
 claim that Muhammad Is foretold In the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 Then, thirdly, there came the knowledge of 
 the Scriptures that was gained by historians, 
 using scientific methods. Knowledge of that 
 kind came into Islam within only a very limited 
 period. From the latter part of the eighth to 
 the latter part of the ninth century was the 
 golden time of Muslim civilization. At that 
 time the Muslim world, being under certain con- 
 ditions of temporary stimulus and personal guid- 
 ance, was really anxious to learn and to know 
 things as they are. After that time the gates 
 closed, and they simply held, in a confused, 
 undigested fashion, so much as they had got. 
 
238 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 During that time the historians with whom we 
 meet show a real desire to get at the facts of 
 the case In regard to the sacred books. But 
 they were always pursued by the older stories 
 that had come in through the proselytes — those 
 strange, fabulous tales — and even the greatest and 
 soberest historians felt compelled to put the two 
 things down — the attempt at fact and the attempt 
 at edifying amusement — one beside the other, 
 and to leave it at that. Perhaps they thought 
 that their readers would know what to choose 
 and that truth would prevail. Islam has chosen 
 edifying amusement every time. The result, 
 then, of this element being added was simply to 
 twice confound the chaos that already existed. 
 But with the fourth element there came a 
 change. In the course of the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries some Muslim theologians began 
 to work out the problem for themselves and to 
 refer for themselves to the sacred books. The 
 greatest of these was Ibn Hazm who died in A. D. 
 1064 (A. H. 456). He was of what is called 
 the Zahirlte school, the literalizing school. He 
 believed in interpreting the Qur'an according to 
 the letter, exactly as it stood, and he went to 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 239 
 
 work at the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures 
 and interpreted them in the same way. The 
 Quran he accepted and interpreted as the ipsis- 
 sima verba Dei, but towards our Scriptures his 
 attitude was as nearly as could be that of Paine 
 and Ingersoll. He had no historical imagination 
 at all — very few Muslims have, although they have 
 an indefinite amount of mythologizing fancy — 
 but he had very great analytical ability and an 
 especial keenness for chronological difficulties. 
 Although he could not see how such stories could 
 possibly be told of the holy patriarchs as were 
 told in Genesis, yet he could see very well how, 
 according to the chronology, Methuselah must 
 have died in the ark and many things of the 
 like kind. So in parts he finds the Scriptures 
 full of obscenites, in parts of ridiculous anthro- 
 pomorphisms, in parts of geographical and 
 historical impossibilities. Some of the writers — 
 he is speaking at this point of the Song of 
 Solomon — did not seem even to know them- 
 selves what they wanted to say; the changes of 
 gender in the Song had puzzled him as they have 
 many. You will understand how^ the saying 
 got abroad even among the Muslims, *'The sword 
 
240 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 of al-H'ajjaj and the tongue of Ibn Hazm." 
 To what conclusion, then, was he driven by 
 this ? By no possibihty, he held, could God have 
 set down in these sacred books — lying and 
 accursed, he calls them — anything that could 
 even have been corrupted into such a form. They 
 were clear forgeries from beginning to end. 
 But he was met by a difficulty. It is stated 
 explicitly in the Qur'an that Muhammad is 
 ''written" in the books of the Jews and the 
 Christians. And he knew perfectly well that the 
 books which the Jews and the Christians had 
 possessed in the time of Muhammad were still 
 the same books that they had in his time. How, 
 then, as to those prophecies of Muhammad of 
 which the Qur'an speaks and which he found 
 himself in those books? Whence were they, if 
 the books were forgeries? He was driven to a 
 rather strange explanation. The original books 
 had been withdrawn, taken back to heaven, and 
 these books w^re of human composition. But, 
 by miracle, God had caused the prophecies of 
 Muhammad to survive in them. Just as God 
 could give power to a rebellious people to kill 
 one prophet and not to kill another, so He had 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 24I 
 
 given power to the Jews and Christians to change 
 part of their books, but not to change other parts. 
 This was his only way out, and, with an unlimited 
 command of miracle, it was a simple solution. 
 
 We can now return to the present day attitude, 
 or rather attitudes, of Muslims on these ques- 
 tions. At the beginning of this lecture I said 
 that you would find them varied. You have now 
 seen how varied they may be. You will pos- 
 sibly find some one who will be prepared to take 
 up the position of Muhammad himself and to 
 admit that these are really the sacred books, 
 fairly and fully the sacred books revealed to 
 Moses, to David and to Jesus. And you will 
 find almost certainly that the men who will do 
 that, especially if they are sincere, are mystics. 
 The mystic in Islam has come back to the feeling 
 of the one spirit lying behind all literature, 
 finding expression in all books ; the feeling that all 
 scripture is given by inspiration. You will also 
 find others who will be content to say, 'These are 
 the Scriptures ; but we know, of course, that they 
 have been corrupted," or, *'We know, of course, 
 that there are serious omissions in them," or, "We 
 
 know, of course, that there have been additions/' 
 16 
 
 / 
 
24.2 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 And you may find others, when the controversy 
 waxes hot, who will say, "These are not the 
 books at all; God has removed the sacred books 
 from your hands and these are the books of 
 ungodly men." 
 
 With regard to our Gospels you will find that 
 one definite and quite intelligible attitude has 
 appeared. Muslims will say to you, *Those four 
 books which you show to us cannot be that 
 Gospel, that Injil, which was revealed to Jesus. 
 Your books do not resemble In the slightest the 
 form of the Qur'an. They are no Word of 
 Allah addressed to Jesus directly, to be trans- 
 mitted by him to mankind; they are only stories 
 about the life of Jesus, about what he said and 
 did, and what a great many other people said and 
 did. Those four books which you show us and 
 which you say are the Gospel, are, at the very 
 best, only equivalent to our traditions of the life 
 of the Prophet, the story of the sayings and 
 doings of Muhammad. These can never repre- 
 sent the Gospel itself, the divine Word sent down 
 to Jesus." That, you will find, is their funda- 
 mental position on the Gospels, and they will 
 probably be disposed to go even farther and say, 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 243 
 
 "These are the equivalent, perhaps, of the tradi-. 
 tions of Muhammad, but they do not rest on 
 anything hke the firm, historical basis on which 
 our traditions rest." 
 
 We can now take up the question which rises 
 naturally from the consideration which I have 
 just put before you, the question of the Muslim 
 doctrine of the person of Christ and of their gen- 
 eral attitude towards him. What has preceded 
 must evidently produce and invoke a certain 
 attitude. 
 
 In the first place, then, Christ was simply one 
 of that line of prophets of which I have spoken; 
 one of those sent to bring back erring men to the 
 true faith; and the faith which he preached, the 
 law, usages, ritual which he laid down and 
 observed, must have been the same as that 
 preached, laid down and observed by Muhammad 
 himself. 
 
 But, secondly, what distinguishes this Jesus 
 from the other prophets — and it is remarkable how 
 much there is that so separates him — what gives 
 him a different position from the others in that 
 goodly fellowship? Muhammad evidently re- 
 garded him as standing quite apart from all other 
 
244 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 human beings. He was born of Mary but con- 
 ceived without father directly from God through 
 his messenger, the angel Gabriel. With his birth 
 his activity began, and in the cradle he spoke 
 words of wisdom. The miracles which he 
 wrought were of a more varied and wonderful 
 kind than those of any of the other prophets, 
 and for him, especially, was reserved the miracle 
 of raising the dead. This is the general con- 
 sensus of Muslim opinion although some theo- 
 logians have protested against it. When a 
 Muslim religious writer has any peculiarly wise, 
 telling, pious saying, joined to a story probably, 
 to ascribe to a prophet of the past generations, 
 the chances are that he will ascribe it to Jesus. 
 That seems to be the association of mind with 
 them. He was distinguished, also, from amongst 
 the other prophets by purity. In Islam there is 
 no conception that he ever sinned. I think that 
 can fairly be said. So at the Last Day when he 
 excuses himself from attempting to intercede 
 with Allah, it is not, as in the case of the other 
 prophets, because of sin on his part but because 
 his followers have worshipped him.^ Therefore 
 
 ^See al-Ghazzali's Durra al-fakhira (ed. Gauthier 187S), 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 245 
 
 he is ashamed. Later Islam has striven to assert 
 the same thing of Muhammad but both Qur'an 
 and tradition are in the way. Islam admits that 
 Jesus knew no sin. 
 
 Further, the Qur'an calls him the spirit of 
 Allah — but spirit for Muhammad meant an angel 
 — the Word of Allah and a Word from Allah. 
 Such a half-spiritual being is he, separate from 
 mankind in birth, life and death; such a mark has 
 been left by the Gospel story of his birth, of 
 his miracles and parables and of his stainless 
 life. 
 
 He was not killed. That to Muhammad's mind 
 was an impossible thought. He did not die 
 upon the cross. God first caused him to die by 
 his own touch; raised him to life again; and 
 then, living in the body, took him to Heaven. 
 From thence he will descend when the Last Day 
 draws nigh and will rule for the last forty-five 
 years before that Day, during the Muslim mil- 
 lennium. But, on the other hand, he will not 
 
 pp. 50 ff. and 63 f. of the trans. I take no account here of 
 the late and quite artificial although now generally held 
 doctrine that all prophets are guarded by Allah from sin. 
 It is evolved from a theory and is in the teeth of the teach- 
 ing of the greatest Muslim theologians. 
 
246 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 be the Judge on the Last Day, as I have seen 
 asserted in some Western books. There is no 
 Idea of that kind in any Arabic writing. To 
 Allah alone belongs the rule on that Day. Nor 
 is he even technically the greatest of the prophets ; 
 that rank is reserved for Muhammad. So much 
 for the distinctions which separate him from all 
 other prophets. 
 
 As to the differences between Christendom and 
 Islam, you will remember how I described the 
 doctrine which has grown up in Islam that 
 Muhammad Is the greatest of all created beings, 
 created long before the worlds; that for his 
 sake the world was made. You will remember 
 also the way in which the doctrine of the nature 
 of the Qur'an was developed; that there was a 
 Word with God by which he made all things, and 
 that of that Word, the Qur'an as we have it is 
 but the visible, earthly form. That being so, 
 it is manifestly impossible for the person of 
 Jesus to pass beyond that of a semi-angelic per- 
 sonality; he cannot even be regarded as the first 
 of created beings. The essential difficulty and 
 difference for Muhammad lay not in the earthly, 
 human Jesus, but in the heavenly element — the 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 247 
 
 Spirit from Allah, the Word of Allah; it was 
 a creature, an 'ahd, ''a slave," in Muslim language. 
 What were, let me ask finally and very shortly, 
 the objections for Muhammad, in the Christian 
 doctrine? One of them lay, I think, in the word, 
 ''begottrnx" If by any chance it had been pos- 
 sible in the Creed to have expressed the fact that 
 Jesus was not made but proceeded from the Father 
 in any other way, by any other word, than that, 
 it would have made the matter indefinitely easier 
 for Muhammad. That word, that idea, with all 
 that for him it connoted, he could not get over. 
 And the idea was still further sexualized by the 
 doctrine of the Trinity which had reached him. 
 It was one sufficiently outre, for the Trinity, for 
 him, consisted of the Father, the Mother and the 
 Son. This explains, also, how the Holy Spirit 
 had become a simple angel. For a long time we 
 have been able only to guess from our knowledge 
 of the early Christian sects at what may have 
 been the source of Muhammad's Trinity. But 
 within only the last few years the matter has been 
 cleared up and in the most astonishing fashion. 
 We have learned that in the Syrian Desert, not 
 very far over beyond the Dead Sea, there are 
 
248 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Still tribes who call themselves Christians and 
 who worship that form of Trinity. It is a 
 remarkable survival of what must have been a 
 very far out-lying Christian heresy. At any rate, 
 we know now that Muhammad was not respon- 
 sible for it.^ 
 
 Lastly, he could not endure the Christian 
 acceptance of the death upon the cross. That a 
 prophet should be killed by those to whom he was 
 sent he may have regarded as possible; but that 
 a prophet should suffer in such a way was an 
 unthinkable thing for him. His vehemence on 
 this point is such as to suggest that he is polem- 
 izing on behalf of the sect to which his Christian 
 teacher belonged. The teacher must have been 
 of one of the early sects which held that Jesus 
 was spirited away from the Jews, and that another 
 was changed into his likeness and suffered in his 
 place. Such, certainly, was Muhammad's posi- 
 tion (Qur. iv, 155-156), but the Qur'an makes 
 no statement as to who the real sufferer was. 
 The Muslim expansions vary on the same point; 
 evidently there was no fixed tradition in Islam. 
 One story says that it was one of the leaders of 
 
 *Musil, Arabia Petraea, Vol. Ill, p. 91. • 
 
ISLAM AND THE SCRIPTURES 249 
 
 the Jews; another, in dramatic justice, that it was 
 Pilate himself; another that it was one of the 
 soldiers sent to capture Jesus; yet another, and 
 perhaps the commonest, that it was Judas. But 
 if the conception of such self-sacrifice was impos- 
 sible for Muhammad, it was not absolutely 
 impossible for the Church of Muhammad after 
 him. Let me close with a last story of this 
 substitution. I have read in an Arabic book of 
 the lives of the Prophets that Jesus just before 
 the end, said to his followers, ''Whoever has my 
 likeness put upon him will be slain." Then arose 
 a man from the people and said, "I, Lord !" And 
 the likeness of Jesus was put upon him, and he 
 was slain and crucified in his stead. The later 
 Muslim Church thus rose higher in some of its 
 members than had Muhammad himself. 
 
LECTURE VIII 
 
 THE MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 
 
 We have now grown accustomed to hearing 
 Buddhism, Islam and Christianity spoken of as 
 the three missionary religions, it being meant 
 thereby that these three, through their very 
 nature, are impelled to go out and by persuasion 
 and exhortation draw outsiders within their 
 respective folds; that they are not limited by 
 race, country or caste; but contain within them- 
 selves, consciously or unconsciously, a world 
 destiny. 
 
 This classification is attractive and covers, 
 undoubtedly, a large element of truth. But other 
 religions have been missionary in their time — even 
 the Jews once compassed sea and land to make 
 one proselyte — and these three have not always 
 been missionary, and, when they have, their con- 
 verts have never been affected in the same way. 
 Buddhism, to all appearance, makes the least 
 change between those whom it takes in and their 
 
 fellows who stay without ; it does not affect either 
 
 250 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 25 1 
 
 the national or the social feeling. Christianity 
 too often produces a pseudo-superior caste, 
 parasitically attached to European and American 
 Christendom. Islam always creates a state 
 within a state. Again, Buddhism has had, appar- 
 ently, long periods of exhaustion or repose in 
 which the spreading instinct seems to have died 
 down. In the history of the Christian Church 
 one of the saddest chapters has been the apathy 
 of its oriental branches — once the Nestorian wave 
 of conquest was stayed — towards the peoples 
 lying around them. As for Islam, its missionary 
 ideals, methods and results form the subject of 
 the present lecture. 
 
 We have, therefore, before us now what is a 
 matter of history and what should be treated in 
 historical order. But that necessary dulness 
 may, perhaps, be lightened a little if we look 
 first for a moment on the Islam of the present day 
 as it confronts and ponders the non-Muslim 
 world. For, undoubtedly, its attitude just now 
 is far more conscious than it ever was before. 
 It is no longer developing and advancing or 
 slumbering and mouldering, at any rate follow- 
 ing its nature in happy unconsciousness; but its 
 
252 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 back is at the wall, and it looks upon an order 
 of things, hostile now not only militantly but, 
 what is far more deadly, economically. This 
 situation Islam has realized and is realizing more 
 and more widely with every year that passes. It 
 is not only the young men in the cities who are 
 facing a new future. In the villages and even in 
 the recesses of the desert itself the consciousness 
 is awakening that all is not well with the People 
 of Muhammad. They all know how Arabi Pasha 
 was crushed at Tell el-Kebir, how the Fulani 
 Emirates went down and how, in these last days, 
 the Mahdi and his rule have been swept from the 
 Sudan. It has gone ill with militant Islam, and 
 when Islam is not militant, it dreams away its 
 life in slow decay. The pressure, too, and the 
 drive of the modern world have at last come 
 home to them. They are learning that Europe 
 will use and exhaust them to the last drop of 
 blood if they do not learn to use themselves. On 
 Asia the great European fear now lies more 
 blackly than ever since the time of Alexander 
 and his successors. And always before when 
 Islam yielded ground — in Spain, in Sicily, in 
 Hungary, in the Balkans — it was conquered terri- 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 253 
 
 tory, and no native soil that it gave up. Or, if 
 it yielded, it took it again, as the Latin kingdom 
 of Jerusalem rose and fell. But now the war 
 of manufacture and commerce, with their swift, 
 stern blows of economic necessity, has struck to 
 the very center of the Faith, and many Muslims 
 see that, if they would save themselves, an educa- 
 tion and training alien and antagonistic to Islam 
 must be whole-heartedly accepted and used. 
 Thus the Muslim peoples are slowly and uneasily 
 becoming aware that the Faith which was their 
 pride and strength — nay, the very essence of their 
 being — is their handicap, and they do not yet see 
 how to transform it. Militant and dominant 
 Islam is gone. Can Islam be anything else? 
 
 It may be said roughly, but with fair adequacy, 
 that Muslims are facing this crisis in three dif- 
 ferent ways. First, there is a tendency to flee 
 in despair before the advance of Christendom 
 and to take refuge in deserts supposedly inacces- 
 sible, or at least unattractive, to the men of the 
 new order of things. As mountains have ever 
 been the last abodes of liberty, so for Islam the 
 recesses of the desert. Thus the Senusites have 
 gradually withdrawn deeper and deeper into the 
 
254 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Sahara and seem anxious only to avoid all con- 
 tact with the non-Muslim world. 
 
 But, secondly, there are many who have adopted 
 no such counsel of despair, who have faith in 
 the future of Islam and who remain face to 
 face with the enemy and still keep up the long 
 fight. These militant spirits will have nothing 
 to do with the new civilization, but also will not 
 fly before It. If active warfare were possible, 
 they would embrace it and die in the last ditch. 
 As it is, they are praisers of the times past ; they 
 study the old books and write new ones of the 
 old kind. Of them, largely, are the 'Ulama of 
 Egypt. Many of them were in sympathy with the 
 Mahdi of the Sudan ; many still are in communi- 
 cation with the Senusite chiefs; they have for a 
 time succeeded in preserving the medieval char- 
 acter of the Azhar University. Round them, if 
 the chance were but to come, the masses of the 
 Muslim population would rally, and among them 
 a section of the Egyptian Nationalist party is to 
 be found. 
 
 The rest of the Nationalists fall into the third 
 division, which consists of those Muslims who 
 are prepared to assimilate the civilization of 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 255 
 
 Christendom, prepared to make the attempt, at 
 least, to bring the MusHm peoples within the 
 circle of modern life. But it is plain that in 
 this division there must be two elements. One 
 element is ready to go to all lengths to modern- 
 ize Islam. For it the modernizing is the point; 
 not any retaining of Islam. Many of those who 
 think in this w^ay must recognize that the modern 
 world and Islam are incompatible. Among 
 these, plainly, is the Young Turk Committee. 
 They are going steadily forward with their trans- 
 formation of the Turkish Empire and in so doing 
 are respecting Muslim ideas as far as possible, 
 even making some attempt at showing that the 
 good Muslim should be a constitutionalist and 
 should regard his Christian fellow subject as on 
 the same level with himself. But when Islam 
 stands in the way of the Young Turk program, 
 it is Islam that must yield. Sharply contrasted 
 with this element is another, best illustrated by 
 the Egyptian Nationalists. It, too. Is progres- 
 sive; but always with the proviso that Islam be 
 preserved. It will have nothing to do with a 
 progress in which any of the essence of Islam 
 evaporates. Many, doubtless, of this party 
 
256 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 believe that this program is possible. But as the 
 situation works itself out, there cannot be much 
 question that they will be driven either into 
 the party of militant conservatism or into the 
 party whose will is to modernize, let come to 
 Islam what may. And the division will fall 
 according to their attitude towards their non- 
 Muslim fellow citizens. 
 
 But you may perhaps ask, What has this to 
 do with missions? It has everything to do with 
 missions, if you look at missions broadly enough. 
 What, humanly, are missions but an attempt to 
 assimilate the ideas and ideals of all the peoples 
 of the earth to those of the missionary, to unify 
 the earth? And this great unifying is going 
 on, swiftly and steadily. The only question is 
 round what ideal it shall center. For us, can we 
 make it the Christian faith; for Muslims can 
 they save Islam in the great levelling. Or are 
 the wheels of progress to crush out all ideals, 
 and is the future civilization of the world to be 
 woven of philosophic doubt, of common-sense 
 attitudes and of material luxury? There is a 
 curious side-development of Islam which looks 
 in that direction, and which sees in the narrowed, 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 25/ 
 
 utilitarian aims, in the acceptance of the lower 
 facts of life, in the easy ideals which characterize 
 that religion, the promise that its will be the 
 future in the common-sense world to come, and 
 holds that, even as the world is, Islam must be 
 the religion of all sensible men. 
 
 Here, as you see, I am dealing with ideas, for 
 ideas in the end rule. Islam may be adding its 
 millions in India and Africa ; but these will weigh 
 little in the process of the centuries. Where, 
 rather, are the germinant ideas, where the plans 
 of life and thought which hold the future? No 
 one, looking at essential Islam, can believe that 
 they are there. The great curves of progress 
 touch but seldom its surfaces. 
 
 But let me turn from Islam facing that puzzling 
 future, and look at it in the light of history, as 
 it spread, conquered, absorbed. For the missions 
 of Islam were all the means by which outside 
 peoples and individuals were brought into its 
 fold. 
 
 Again we must begin with Muhammad and 
 
 ask the question, In what sense, in what ways, 
 
 was he a missionary? We have seen how far 
 
 he could be called a prophet, and what was his 
 
 17 
 
258 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 kinship with the different types of prophets which 
 were found among the Hebrews. And it was 
 in virtue of his prophetship, or his claim to 
 prophetship, that he was a missionary, and his 
 characteristics as a missionary were determined 
 by his character as a prophet. He came forward 
 as a Messenger of Allah to men, as the Represen- 
 tative of Allah with men. It was not the con- 
 tent of his teaching that was the principal thing; 
 it was the fact that he was there to teach. From 
 this point of view his position was: Accept me 
 and obey me ; not, Hear the word of Allah which 
 he has spoken to me. The result of his mission 
 was to provide an autocratic chief, acting as 
 representative of Allah in a theocratic state. 
 
 This, you will observe, is a personality and a 
 method very different from those of the Hebrew 
 prophets, denouncing wickedness, exhorting to 
 righteousness and teaching the true nature and 
 will of Jehovah ; but remaining themselves scrupu- 
 lously in the background and leaving to the 
 proper authorities the carrying out of that will. 
 And here, exactly, the door was opened wide 
 to personal ambition and aggrandizement. The 
 Hebrew prophets had kept apart the prophetic 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 259 
 
 and the executive offices; it had not been for 
 the advantage of reHgion in Israel when by any- 
 chance they had joined. But Muhammad was 
 a religious politician, and grasped eage^rly at 
 secular power to enforce and carry out his theo- 
 logical ideas. There have been many of his kind 
 since, and they have not helped either religion 
 or government. 
 
 This was the side of Muhammad's claim which 
 led to his first rejection by the Meccans and to 
 their long war against him In his little state at 
 Medina. They saw very clearly that his success 
 would make him a king over them and destroy 
 their genuinely Arab aristocratic rule. They 
 thought also that it would lead to the doing 
 away of the worship and ritual of the Ka'ba at 
 Mecca and to the wealth which they drew there- 
 from. The latter result should logically have 
 followed, only in Muhammad's later life the 
 politician overcame the theologian, and he had 
 the skill to attach to his iconoclastic puritanism 
 almost the whole ritual of Mecca. 
 
 But his headship of both church and state stood 
 fast. He could say most absolutely, Uetat c'esf 
 moi, and it is due to him that church and state 
 
260 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ill Islam are still one and the same, indivisible. 
 Yet, from this political cleverness, it would not, I 
 think, be fair to conclude that he was with definite 
 consciousness setting aside his ideals and follow- 
 ing his ambitions. He had an entire belief in 
 himself, and his ideals centered round himself. 
 How the streams of deception and self-deception 
 crossed and tangled in his brain we cannot 
 determine. The fixed and certain thing is that 
 his prophetship had such affinities, and that his 
 preaching was a proclaiming of himself. 
 
 So he fulfilled what he regarded as his mission 
 to the Arabs. The content of his preaching I have 
 already put before you. Here our interest Is 
 the relationship of that preaching to the preacher. 
 With this resolves itself, too, the whole question 
 of force in Islam, of Muhammad's use of the 
 sword, as it is commonly put, and of how he 
 gained the sword which he used. At first he 
 could use no sword as he had none ; he could only 
 preach himself as prophet and messenger of Allah 
 to the Arabs. But the consciousness of Arab 
 national unity swelled and rose In his day. He 
 headed it, moulded it, directed it, and the sword 
 was in his hand. 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 261 
 
 This is significantly shown by the rapid growth 
 of his adherents and by the ways in which they 
 joined themselves to him after his open appear- 
 ance as a political leader and ruler at Medina. 
 Many, doubtless, came as before, attracted as 
 individuals, by the Faith which he preached and 
 by his personality; but it was not long before 
 the tribes came in to him as tribes, recognizing 
 that in so doing they were joining the great 
 Arab confederacy and becoming part of the Arab 
 nation which was in the throes of birth. It is 
 true that they had been Arabs before, but before 
 that, again, they had been tribesmen of their 
 several tribes, at most, parts of an ever-shifting 
 conglomerate of groups split and rent by inter- 
 tribal feud and conflict. Now they were begin- 
 ning, under the hammering of Byzantium and 
 Persia, to feel themselves Arabs against the 
 world, and it was only by the genius of Muham- 
 mad who furnished them with a crystallizing 
 point that they passed from that to being Mus- 
 lims against the world. Without Muhammad 
 this national movement would probably have 
 amounted to little ; the rope of desert sand would 
 quickly have again fallen apart. Even with him 
 
262 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 and his influence Arabia as a nation did not 
 long exist. At his death the tribes scattered to 
 their tents; were won back with mighty efforts 
 by his immediate successors; were for a short 
 time the conquering sword wielded by Islam — 
 that new thing, half faith, half nation, which 
 had arisen and which was directed from Medina, 
 the seat of a half monkish empire — and then 
 finally broke asunder, to be a nation never again. 
 And as thus in its infant days with the Arabs, 
 so later, Islam knew how to form and use the 
 Turks as a sword, to form and use the Sudanese 
 as a sword. Islam remained ; the peoples which 
 it flung on the world changed and passed. But 
 what is Islam? As well ask what Christen- 
 dom is. It is an idea; first in the brain of 
 Muhammad; passed on to his Church; existent 
 and fostered there; having for a time its being 
 in that little group of theologian-statesmen who 
 immediately succeeded Muhammad at Medina; 
 thereafter diffused in the body of believers. 
 
 But to return. This new, short-lived Arab 
 nation was Muhammad's personal weapon. He 
 called himself emphatically and peculiarly the 
 prophet of the Arabs. The former prophets had 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 263 
 
 been sent, each to a people as their own. Now 
 the turn of the Arabs was at last come, and 
 he was with them. And remember that for him 
 the prophetic ideal was Moses and not Amos or 
 Hosea. It was his to tell them the will of Allah ; 
 but it was his also to use them against the 
 unbelieving world as the sword of Allah. He 
 was a prophet, not only inward, to his own people, 
 but outward also, from his own people to the 
 world. And so we find him in the seventh year 
 after his migration to Medina sending letters 
 to all the kings and governors of whom he had 
 knowledge — to Byzantium, to Persia, to Egypt, 
 to Abyssinia — calling upon them to submit them- 
 selves and to accept the prophet whom Allah 
 had sent. With these letters Arabia and its 
 prophet claimed as a right the obedience of the 
 world, and their rejection was an ample basis 
 for war. The prophet had appeared, had made 
 his public claim, had been rejected; upon the 
 rejectors lay their own blood. Arabia was ready 
 to overflow its bounds; it was to do so as the 
 sword of Islam. 
 
 In the last years much ink has been spilt 
 discussing the question whether or not the Qur'an 
 
264 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 justifies unprovoked war by a Muslim state upon 
 a state which is not MusHm. The question is 
 purely academic, and I do not desire to enter upon 
 it here. For Muhammad it did not exist, and 
 nothing bearing upon it appears in the Qur'an. 
 It arose later when Muslim states found them- 
 selves compelled by situations of fact to live on 
 terms of treaty, or at least understanding, with 
 states which were not Muslim. Of such a con- 
 tingency Muhammad never dreamt. He was 
 there as the prophet of Allah. A part of the world 
 had, so far, accepted him; a part had not yet. 
 It was his right to demand the obedience of all 
 and to proceed against them if they rejected him. 
 At the time of his death he was so proceeding. 
 That is the historic fact, and that was his way 
 of acting as a missionary. 
 
 But with the death of Muhammad in the year 
 eleven of the Hijra a change entered into this, 
 as into all the aspects of Muslim development. 
 The prophet was no longer there to guide the 
 enforcement of his own claims and to dictate 
 the treatment of those who obstinately opposed 
 the truth, whether as individuals or as states. 
 So his successors had to develop a theory on the 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 265 
 
 subject and to work out, in practice, a set of 
 regulations. And first, and for long, it was the 
 relation to individual non-Muslims which had to 
 be regulated. The great automatic wave of con- 
 quest — in part, as we have seen, the half-conscious 
 overflow of the surplus population of Arabia and 
 in part the avenging advance of the armies of 
 Allah and his prophet — had to go on until the 
 world was subdued to the new faith. There was, 
 therefore, a state of war with all non-Muslim 
 countries. But within the conquered countries 
 individual non-Muslims were bound to be left, 
 and that, too, in great numbers. To a state the 
 alternative offered at that time was of the Qur'an 
 or the sword — join the Muslim confederacy or 
 fight. But to an individual the alternative was 
 the Qur'an or tribute — become a Muslim citizen 
 or, by payment of certain taxes, become a pro- 
 tected resident non-citizen. Those who thus 
 saved their religion and their lives had no rights 
 per se as citizens ; they had only a certain protec- 
 tion guaranteed to them by treaty ; their property 
 and lives were assured on the payment of certain 
 taxes. But the names given to these taxes were 
 sufficiently suggestive of their status. There was 
 
266 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 a poll-tax called jizya, which means "ransom," 
 and a property tax called kharaj, which meant 
 the revenue which a master drew from the labour 
 of a slave. The non-Muslims thus ransomed 
 their lives and paid to the Muslim treasury, as 
 slaves did to their masters, a certain proportion 
 of their property and labour. 
 
 This system was a very simple development 
 from the situation as I have already sketched 
 it. The Arab Muslims were limited in numbers 
 and so had to be retained as an army to fight in 
 the Path of Allah. They must not be allowed 
 to acquire estates and to settle in the conquered 
 lands. The original inhabitants, therefore, had 
 to retain their landed property, but under con- 
 dition of paying large taxes to the state, which, 
 in its turn, supported the Muslim army. That 
 army, when outside of Arabia, was thus to be 
 a military, non-landed, non-productive caste sup- 
 ported by the non-Muslim population. Within 
 Arabia no non-Muslim might live. It was the 
 country of the people whom Allah had honoured 
 by sending from their midst the latest and great- 
 est of the prophets. Further, when a non-Muslim 
 embraced Islam, he no longer paid the poll-tax. 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 2()y 
 
 his land was taken and distributed among his 
 former fellows, who had to cultivate it and pay 
 the tax on it, and he himself, as a member now 
 of the dominant caste, was supported from the 
 Muslim treasury. It is significant for the weight 
 of the land-tax, that so many abandoned their 
 property and embraced Islam as to lead, in time, 
 to the breakdown of this system. What survived 
 of it was that only Muslims could be citizens 
 and have full civil rights, while non-Muslims, 
 not being citizens, were under a certain protection 
 for which they were taxed in different ways. 
 The various non-Muslim ecclesiastical organi- 
 zations were also, because of this fact of non-citi- 
 zenship, given autonomy among themselves, and 
 jurisdiction over their own people. The head of 
 each such organization — Patriarch, Bishop, Chief 
 Rabbi, etc., was the means of communication 
 between the community and the Muslim state. 
 There gradually grew up, also, a variety of 
 ordinances limiting the liberty of action of non- 
 Muslims as to public appearance and action, dress, 
 worship, ecclesiastical buildings, etc. Similar 
 regulations held throughout medieval Europe 
 with regard to Jews, and the present (1910) 
 
\ 
 
 268 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 conflict between the Spanish government and the 
 Vatican is over a Hke denial of the right to public 
 exercise of religion. In Islam the rigour with 
 which these ordinances were enforced varied 
 greatly from time to time. No Muslim govern- 
 ment has ever long been able to carry on its 
 affairs without the assistance of Christian or 
 Jewish officials, and these have sometimes risen to 
 the highest positions under the state. Naturally, 
 then, oppressive regulations upon their fellow 
 believers would not be enforced. These would 
 show themselves prominently In public, exhibit 
 wealth and pride, and arouse the wrath of the 
 Muslim mob. Then there would be riots, perse- 
 cutions, bloodshed and wholesale conversions to 
 Islam, or sharp suppression by the government, 
 according to the strength of the government of 
 the time. Thus ruled at one time by the need 
 of Christians to carry on the government and at 
 another time by the jealousy of the mob, the regu- 
 lations used to swing to and fro between sharp 
 enforcement and harmless desuetude. 
 
 But with all this friction and while the formal 
 situation between Muslims and non-Muslims 
 stood thus, it must not be supposed that there 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 269 
 
 were no missionary efforts in the exact sense to 
 spread the faith of Islam. It is true that, Hke 
 medieval Europe, Islam has never had mission- 
 aries who were missionaries only. But it is 
 probably true also that the masses of Islam have 
 more generally, both geographically and as to 
 periods of time, been incHned towards missionary 
 work, towards the spread of their faith by one 
 means or another. This goes with the other 
 probable fact that religion, of one kind or another, 
 and the zeal for religion, manifested in one way 
 or another, have always, or generally, bulked 
 more largely as elements in the life of the Muslim 
 peoples than in that in Christendom. Of course, 
 there have been dead periods in Islam when the 
 feeling ruled that the matter was in the hands of 
 Allah and should be left to him, and there have 
 been dead districts where the intellectual energy 
 of a whole country died down for a time. In 
 Christendom, too, there have been periods and 
 centres of fervent religious activity when religion 
 was accepted by practically the mass of the people 
 as the one thing worth while in life. But, 
 broadly, the situation holds, I think, as I have 
 stated it, and the impulse in Islam to spread and 
 
2/0 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 propagate itself has manifested itself through 
 direct movements of the people and not through 
 the efforts of a class especially set apart thereto. 
 Naturally we find this outstandingly on the 
 part of theologians and men professionally in 
 religion. Wandering saints, ascetics and dar- 
 wishes would probably come nearest to our 
 professional missionaries. But even with them 
 it was not the object of their lives but simply 
 a by-product of their religious energy. In Mus- 
 lim religious biography we meet again and again 
 with stories of how fervent a preacher of Islam 
 the subject of the biography had been and of 
 how thousands had been converted by him, of 
 Christians or Jews, as the case might be. These 
 tales are sometimes rather suggestive of mob- 
 violence, as when we read that ten to twenty 
 thousand were converted on the occasion of the 
 funeral of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a great canonist 
 who died in A. H. 241 (A. D. 855), or when 
 we find that such conversions en masse followed 
 the fall by violence of some Christian or Jewish 
 vizier. But besides these, we find in Islam 
 merchants, tradesmen, travellers, all sorts and 
 conditions, taking a hand — direct and some- 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 2^1 
 
 times heavy — in the spread of their faith. 
 Of controversy, too, there are many traces 
 and remains. I have already referred to the 
 influence on Muslim theology exercised by John 
 of Damascus, the great Father of the Greek 
 Church. That influence was probably, to a con- 
 siderable extent, through controversy, as we find 
 one of his tractates arranged as a manual for that 
 purpose. It falls into sections beginning, "When 
 the Saracen says such and such to you, you must 
 answer so and so." Evidently at that time 
 Muslims entered into argument with Christians. 
 Again, at the court of al-Ma'mun, the *Abbasid 
 Khalifa who died in A. H. 218 (A. D. 833), 
 and who was a rationalistic Muslim believing 
 firmly in himself and in his own pontifical 
 right to rule the Faith, there took place a very 
 interesting written controversy between two 
 of his courtiers, one, who was of the family 
 of the Prophet, and another, al-Klndi by name, 
 who was a learned Christian. The invita- 
 tion by the former to embrace Islam directed to 
 al-Kindi may not have come down to us complete, 
 as the book, having been early put under Muslim 
 ban, has reached us only in Christian copies; but 
 
272 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 that of al-Kindi is certainly complete and is a 
 very remarkable document, especially significant 
 for the freedom of utterance permitted by 
 al-Ma'mun. After his time no Christian could 
 express himself so bitingly in public, and it is 
 probable that al-Ma'mun, for himself, had an 
 indifferent attitude towards all religions, though 
 as head of Islam he meant to see to it that those 
 of his subjects who were Muslims should hold a 
 faith adapted more or less to his own ideas. 
 
 But when we look broadly at the attitude of 
 Muslims in general towards Christians in general, 
 we are confronted by at least three questions. 
 What, we must ask, did Muslims know about 
 Christians ? What amount of knowledge of Chris- 
 tendom outside and of the Christians amongst 
 them had really reached them? Second, what 
 did they think about them? How did they 
 represent to themselves those unknown external 
 powers and those strange semi-foreign person- 
 alities in their midst? And, third, how did they 
 feel towards them? What were their attitudes 
 and the impulses working upon them in those 
 relationships? Again, we might classify our 
 problems in another way, and ask what the 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 273 
 
 knowledge, Ideas, attitudes of Muslim rulers, of 
 the Muslim state, qua state, were; what those of 
 Muslim theologians and learned men generally, 
 and what those of the Muslim masses. It is 
 plain that the question which here confronts us 
 is very complex and has many sides. All that 
 I can do now is to illumine some of these in 
 order that the great tangle may become more 
 vivid and real, and that some of its essential 
 aspects may be brought out. 
 
 The knowledge, ideas and attitudes of the theo- 
 logians have already been made tolerably plain in 
 the last lecture. To the picture of confusion 
 and ignorance which is there given, I will add 
 only one detail which goes far to explain the 
 whole. The Muslim is warned in a tradition 
 from the Prophet, which all, I believe, accept as 
 genuine, not to be on terms of intimate friendship 
 with any unbeliever. This has been received 
 by religious Muslims as meaning that, while 
 non-Muslims are to be treated with courtesy, 
 intercourse, even, with them should not be 
 cultivated, friendship with them cannot exist. 
 Ash-Sha*ranT, a Cairene mystic of the sixteenth 
 century and, otherwise, a very keen, pure and 
 18 
 
274 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 broad-minded man, in one of his booKS in which 
 he recites the duties which the Prophet has laid 
 upon all believers, reckons the observance of this 
 tradition among them. In present day Egypt, 
 also, I have known it cited in warning by one 
 Muslim to another. The remembrance of the 
 existence of this tradition used to follow me in 
 my relations with Muslims in the East and 
 affected, to an extent which was perhaps unwar- 
 ranted, my sense of the reality of the intimacies 
 which I seemed to have gained. But you will 
 easily see how impossible, with such a point of 
 departure, all real sympathy and understanding 
 must be. The man who is occupied, in any way, 
 in holding others at arm's length, can gain 
 no real knowledge of them. Nor can the man 
 who always looks down on others from a height 
 of superiority, as do the theologians of Islam 
 and indeed all Muslims. On both these points It 
 is for our missionaries to take admonition. 
 
 The attitude of the Muslim state as a state 
 must also be tolerably clear. On one side it 
 inherited the tradition that Islam was a conquer- 
 ing force, the object of which was to subdue the 
 world to the true faith of Allah; only when that 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 275 
 
 was accomplished could there be peace. Signifi- 
 cantly, in this connection, canon law divides the 
 v^hole v^orld into tv^o, Dar al-Islam, "Abode of 
 Islam," and Dar al harb, "Abode of War"— 
 where Islam was not there was war. And this 
 attitude of mind, it must always be remembered, 
 belongs permanently to a MusHm state; it is 
 fundamental to Islam. But on another side, 
 Muslim states, ever since the first century or two 
 of free, unthinking conquest, have been com- 
 pelled to live on some terms or other with 
 Christian states. And they could not very well 
 say to these Christian states, "We are, you must 
 understand, strictly at war with one another; we 
 are deadly enemies and must be until we have 
 utterly subdued you ; we do not recognize you in 
 any way as independent states and princes; you 
 are simply rebels to Allah and to us; but on 
 account of trade and the peaceful side of life 
 generally, we are compelled to have understand- 
 ings if not treaties with one another. Therefore 
 we . . ." Yet that is really what diplomacy down 
 to the eighteenth century between Muslims and 
 Christians meant; what it means to this day 
 for very many Muslims. Here is an example of 
 
276 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 a detail. When the rulers of Morocco in the 
 eighteenth century had of necessity to enter into 
 intercourse by letter with the French government, 
 they dropped the use of all titles for themselves 
 to avoid having to give titles to the French king. 
 It v^as simply Muhammad ibn Abdallah to Louis 
 XVI. This was after an attempt to soothe their 
 conscience by giving as a title instead of malik 
 or sultan, the word tdghiya which means a 
 "usurper" or the ''head of a rebellious sect." ^ 
 
 More recently other subterfuges have been dis- 
 covered. The canon lawyers, urged by necessity, 
 have ruled that a country in which the peculiar 
 usages of Islam are protected and its injunctions, 
 even in part, followed, must be reckoned as an 
 Abode of Islam. This covers all Europe except, 
 perhaps, Spain ; there the ashes are still hot. But 
 this, at least for the masses of the people, is 
 strictly a temporary subterfuge. Lift the neces- 
 sity — as at present in the Central Arabian states — 
 and the old claim would reappear ; that is, except 
 for those who were farsighted enough to see its 
 permanent impossibility. 
 
 And the same change has come to the Muslim 
 
 ^De Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, III, pp. 332 ff. 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 277 
 
 States in their attitude towards the Christians 
 within their borders. From being a class toler- 
 ated and protected in a fashion, because it was 
 impossible to convert them all or kill them all, 
 Christian subjects of Muslim powers have come, 
 through pressure and protection from without, 
 to have an existence in some respects preferable 
 to that of the Muslims themselves. The mysteri- 
 ous charm protecting the European has come, 
 in part, to cover the Christian native, though 
 always there hangs upon the horizon the black 
 cloud of possible massacre. The Muslim mob 
 is ever there, and occasionally there appears a 
 Muslim ruler, like *Abd al-Hamid, who nourishes 
 great schemes of a united and dominant Islam. 
 But, finally, all that I have just said is apart 
 from the experiment at present being tried in 
 the new Turkey. There the Young Turk party 
 is attempting to modernize Islam without destroy- 
 ing it. They may succeed in the modernizing, 
 but it will be Islam no longer. Nor, probably, 
 will the Young Turks be greatly distressed at 
 the loss. They are thinking of Turkey and 
 not of Islam. The Egyptian nationalists, on 
 the other hand, are thinking more of Islam 
 
278 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 than of Egypt. And therein is their weakness. 
 So much for Muslim states as states. What 
 of the educated ruHng classes generally? How 
 have they felt towards Christians? That has 
 depended enormously upon the Christians whom 
 they met. The cultured, educated Muslim meet- 
 ing the average native Christian could hardly 
 be favourably impressed. He would see there, if 
 he looked at all, the virtues and vices, strength 
 and weakness of a subject race. Christianity, 
 to make an impression, would need to be Chris- 
 tianity from without. But, until the last half- 
 century, the Christianity that came to Islam did 
 not come In very peaceful and attractive forms. 
 It is a curious fact that the intercourse between 
 Islam and Christendom in the medieval period 
 was more intimate and close than it has ever 
 been since. There was intercourse then, to and 
 fro, almost as much as now, and the peoples on 
 both sides were far closer to one another in 
 ideas and fundamental civilization. Certainly 
 Chaucer's Wife of Bath may have pilgrimaged 
 three times to Jerusalem and had no more to 
 do with the people there than a Cook's tourist does 
 now. But Chaucer's Knight could hardly have 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 2/9 
 
 been a free lance in Morocco and Asia Minor 
 without making his own impression on his 
 Saracen comrades, and the "old captive" who, 
 in his latter days, wrote Aucassin et Nicolete 
 and brought back from Tunis to Europe his 
 recollections of the public story-teller, with his 
 rabab and intercalated scraps of chanted verse, 
 the artistic form of the ''Cante-fable," must 
 have given his fellows among the Paynims some 
 strange ideas of Christian ways. 
 
 Fortunately we have in the autobiography of 
 Usama ibn Munqidh, a Muslim gentleman who 
 died in A. D. 1188, a year after the capture of 
 Jerusalem, a record of how the Christians there 
 impressed him. Those who had been longest 
 in the country he liked best; they had become 
 more civilized, that is had taken on oriental 
 manners. He got on especially well with the 
 Templars; they even gave him a corner of their 
 church in which he could say his Muslim prayers. 
 In general he gives the impression that very 
 little separated them from the Muslims and thus 
 throws a good deal of light upon the accusations 
 against them, under which their order finally 
 perished. But his especial wonder, as it is the 
 
280 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 wonder still of every Muslim, was the easy inter- 
 course between the sexes and the lack of jealousy 
 on the part of the men. His attitude of mind 
 seems to have been much like that of Jaques in 
 As you like it, ^^Here comes a pair of very 
 strange beasts." Of serious religious converse, 
 I do not remember any trace. But that, if his 
 conversations were mostly with the Templars, 
 need not surprise us. His contemporary, Saladin, 
 knew Christendom only under shield and had the 
 old attitudes. There is an interesting passage 
 in the biography of him by his close companion 
 and friend, Baha ad-Din, which tells how he 
 stood once, looking out over the Syrian sea and 
 described, as though talking to himself, his hope, 
 when the crusaders were finally driven out, of 
 taking ship and subduing them in their own 
 lands. That such should have been his thoughts 
 was natural enough. The latter part of his life 
 had been spent fighting in the Path of Allah; 
 he was an amateur theologian, too, in a way, and 
 that would effectually close his mind to new 
 ideas; we have no record, I think, that he ever 
 met any Christian who could have commended 
 Christianity to him. 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 281 
 
 As for the masses of the MusHm people, of all 
 times down to this day, their mind on this 
 subject is easily reached. Take the degree of 
 knowledge of Islam in medieval Europe and its 
 feelings and attitudes towards Muslims, all as 
 reflected in popular romances, prose and metrical, 
 and you have exactly that of Islam with regard 
 to Christendom. We learn, too, the same thing 
 directly, if we take the trouble to read a few of 
 the innumerable popular romances in Arabic deal- 
 ing with the defense and spread of the Faith. 
 Some of them have found their way even into 
 the Arabian Nights and have thus become gener- 
 ally accessible. Many of these tell stories of the 
 crusades; but from the other side. Others tell 
 of love between Muslim and Christian and of 
 triumphant flight to the lands of Islam. Others, 
 again, of conversions to the true faith, wrought 
 through divine revelation and miracle. Prac- 
 tically all the motifs of our popular medieval 
 literature occur also in Arabic. Of course there 
 are differences of treatment. One Is a markedly 
 greater inclination towards theological discussion. 
 The audience that can be amused by a solemn 
 recitation of the Qur'an is still more amused 
 
282 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 when the Mushm champion pierces his adversary 
 with logic before over-throwing him with the 
 lance. One tale, copied and printed again and 
 again and spread from Spain to Persia, is nothing 
 but a recital by a slave-girl of her theological, 
 legal and quasi-scientific knowledge, in which 
 she overcomes all the scholars and sages brought 
 against her. For another difference, I do not 
 know anywhere in Arabic a scene of the brutality 
 of that in the metrical romance where Richard 
 Lion-Heart has cooked and served before him the 
 head of a Saracen and eats part of it. The mar- 
 vels, too, in the Muslim stories are more numerous 
 and luxuriant. And the circle of ideas portrayed 
 is that of the crowds in present day Cairo, 
 Damascus and Stamboul. There these tales are 
 still heard with eagerness and zest. 
 
 But given this interest in the artistic portrayal 
 of scenes in the spread of the Faith by conquest 
 or by persuasion, what characteristics do we find 
 in Muslims when actually engaged in these 
 things? How do they meet the reality when 
 thus rejoicing in the romance? Again, medieval 
 Europe is our clue. As there and then so now 
 for the oriental reality and romance are still one. 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 283 
 
 These stories which he dehghts to hear are for 
 him reaHstic and historical. He can imagine 
 himself at any time being caught up in the action 
 of one of them; they might, so far as he knows, 
 have befallen his next door neighbor or a man 
 in the next lane. The theological discussions 
 are his. Even the incidents might be his. The 
 zeal and hope and trust are his. If it came to 
 him to go out and wander in heathen and half- 
 heathen lands, what happens in these tales he 
 feels sure might happen to him. 
 
 And they do go out and thus wander. As 
 I have already said, the nearest approach that 
 Islam has produced to the professional missionary 
 is the wandering darwish-saint. The border- 
 lands of Islam are full of them. It is they 
 through whose labours Africa has so nearly 
 become a Muslim continent. Into the recesses 
 of Asia they have gone with their teaching. 
 Theirs is the religious romance and the reality 
 as well of the spread of Islam. And these men 
 have the status of saints. They are wonder- 
 workers; at the least, Allah hears and answers 
 their prayers. But when we call them saints, 
 we must not think of men occupied with nothing 
 
284 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 else but things of the other world, for whom this 
 world does not exist. There are many such 
 saints in Islam ; but not of those are the mission- 
 ary saints whose names are written in the history 
 of its spread. These were statesmen-saints, who 
 went out into the border-lands, drew round them 
 little circles of devoted disciples by their preach- 
 ing and then, when strong enough, founded states 
 to be nuclei of further Muslim conquest. In this 
 way the history of Muhammad has reproduced 
 Itself again and again among his followers. 
 
 The truth is that there lies in the essence of 
 Islam a necessity to dominate and an inability 
 to distinguish Church and State. It is not only 
 the Muslim missionary who founds a state; 
 the same fate regularly befalls in Islam the suc- 
 cessful religious reformer. It is as if Luther had 
 added another to the innumerable German princi- 
 palities, or Calvin had become actually as well 
 as virtually the head of Geneva. And in such 
 a saint-founded state in Islam, there follow 
 for non-Muslims, always and most intelligibly, 
 religious pressure and civil disabilities. These 
 are saved, as in earlier times, only by economic 
 necessities. If however they embrace Islam, 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 285 
 
 they enter the MusHm brotherhood and become 
 full citizens. 
 
 But given the case where Islam penetrates 
 where the founding of a Muslim state is impos- 
 sible, how does it meet this limitation upon its 
 natural development? The situation of Islam 
 in China illustrates this difficulty. There it has 
 penetrated into the midst of the Chinese family- 
 state, a state which has a strong feeling of loose 
 but absolute unity; has spread there, and now 
 exists with many million adherents. The con- 
 sequence is that there Muslims form, so far as 
 they can, a state within the state. They are 
 recognized by the other Chinese as a great 
 national danger. Again and again they have 
 risen in revolt and have been crushed. How 
 they will be affected by the opening of China 
 and by the Pan-Islamic movement is still to be 
 seen. It is certain that they cannot assimilate 
 themselves to and join heartily in the general 
 development of China. In India there was at 
 one time similar unrest. The Wahhabite move- 
 ment spread there and was checked with the 
 greatest difficulty. How much of it still lies 
 beneath the surface is unknown. The policy of 
 
286 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the British government has been to give the freest 
 liberty to all institutions of Islam in any way 
 possible. And I have little question that Spain 
 would have had a like problem If the Moors 
 had not been expelled. Their expulsion was an 
 economic misfortune but a political necessity. 
 In contact, as they were, with the Muslim powers 
 across the Straits, they could not, in the long run, 
 have submitted to Christian rule. Only when 
 China was absolutely closed to the world were 
 the Chinese Muslims In any measure quiet. 
 
 In all this, how, for better or for worse, does 
 Christianity contrast? There is at least one 
 outstanding point. Christianity, too, has gone 
 out to uncivilized and semi-civilized races, and 
 wherever it has gone, the race carrying It has 
 come to rule. But this Is, apparently, more a 
 matter of race than of religion. The status of 
 oriental Christians and their acceptance of that 
 status contrast sharply with the attitude of Mus- 
 lims who must dominate. Conversely, Europeans 
 cannot be subject to non-Europeans, but orientals 
 can. In Christianity, then, per se, this necessity of 
 dominating does not enter. But in the combina- 
 tion of the necessarily dominant European race 
 
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY OF MUSLIMS 287 
 
 with Christianity lies the greatest problem of 
 the Christian missionary. He himself has very 
 seldom been a conqueror or a founder of a state 
 or a ruler — the Jesuits in Paraguay and the 
 Americans in Hawaii were outstanding exceptions 
 — but his European fellows and companions have 
 been all these things. In consequence, while 
 Christian governments do not exercise religious 
 pressure, but treat all faiths on the same level, 
 a native Christian is still a native, with a gulf 
 between himself and a Christian of the dominant 
 race. In the modern world, at least, Christianity 
 has never been able by its weight and breadth 
 to obliterate the distinctions of race. To have 
 done that with success is the glory and the 
 danger of Islam. 
 
LECTURE IX 
 
 MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 
 
 Let me introduce you to this aspect of Islam 
 by bringing together a number of my own experi- 
 ences in Cairo and elsewhere. These experiences 
 were of all kinds and will illustrate how the past 
 is still the present in Muslim lands, even while 
 the future is knocking at the door. 
 
 At Cairo I had an interview with the Head of 
 the Azhar University, still the principal intellect- 
 ual center of the Islam of the old type. He was 
 so good as to enquire about my Arabic studies, and 
 especially whether I had read formal logic. I 
 was fortunately able, with a good conscience, 
 to say that I had read some logic in Arabic and 
 to name the book, whereat he was rather surprised 
 and greatly pleased. But his question was sig- 
 nificant for all Muslim higher education. It 
 stops at the tools. It trains the memory and the 
 power of reasoning — always in formal methods — 
 and then gives to neither any adequate material 
 
 on which to work. The memory is burdened 
 
 288 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 289 
 
 with a verbatim knowledge of the Qur'an and 
 some outlines of theology and law, and the reason 
 is exhausted in elaborate argumentations there- 
 from deduced. 
 
 On the same occasion I was taken into the 
 mosque of Abu Dawud, which is across the street 
 from the Azhar mosque and is used as an annex 
 to it. There some classes were going on, and 
 one of them was quite largely attended by pupils 
 of all ages from little boys to bearded men. It 
 had a black-board, too, beside which the shaykh, 
 an old man with a kindly, interested face, sat 
 on a high chair. He was evidently an excellent 
 teacher, for his whole class was following with 
 lively attention while he worked out for them on 
 the board the complicated processes of simple 
 addition. The mystery of carrying over the tens 
 was his subject of the moment, and it was fine 
 to watch the verve and life with which he lifted 
 his class along. But why, you may well ask, 
 should a university be teaching simple addition?' 
 The answer is that the teaching of even simple 
 addition is a modern reform. At one time 
 Muslim universities did not teach even that. 
 They neglected all mathematical and physical 
 19 
 
290 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 science as outside of their province and to be 
 given over to the crafts and trades as a part of 
 their technical training. Of course, there were, 
 from time to time, partial exceptions, but the 
 broad position of Muslim universities stood thus. 
 The most for which they needed arithmetic was 
 to reckon out the calendar and the hours for 
 prayer, and in these calculations they soon came 
 to follow purely mechanical and traditional 
 methods. The few mathematicians, astronomers 
 and scientists of Islam, then, were independent 
 scholars, at most extra-mural teachers. 
 
 But the independent teacher has always had a 
 place in Islam. Muslim education and instruc- 
 tion began with them, and they have retained 
 their rights. Once, in the mosque of al-Mu'ayyad, 
 I came upon a scene which carried me back to 
 the earliest days of Islam. An old man was 
 seated in the great colonnade with his back to a 
 pillar. Round him was a little circle of half 
 a dozen students, each with book in hand, to 
 whom he was reading and explaining a text. 
 The lesson closed and they rose up, one by one, 
 picked up their shoes and went away. But first 
 they each kissed the hand of their old teacher. 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 29I 
 
 and he was left sitting at his pillar and reading. 
 So had the founders of Muslim science sat, before 
 colleges or universities were dreamt of, when 
 each scholar taught for himself, and his disciples 
 went forth with his personal certificate and 
 boasted of the learning of their master. 
 
 I have already spoken of the primary position 
 which the learning by heart of the Qur'an holds 
 in Muslim education. If your ears are quick to 
 catch the rhythm and chant of the sacred text, 
 you will hear it wherever students are to be found. 
 In S. Sophia, under the great dome, I heard 
 a Turkish student being trained In the precise 
 nuance of pronunciation of the Arabic, for him 
 a foreign tongue. And at al-Bira, in Palestine, 
 about ten miles north from Jerusalem, at a village 
 school held In an old oven, out of which the 
 scholars swarmed like rabbits, I learned how it 
 was possible In Semitic for the same verbal root 
 to mean "to cry out" and *'to read." The dux 
 of the school was put up to read to me from the 
 Qur'an. At once his lips became the bell of a 
 trumpet; his face was as bronze and his mouth 
 and throat were as brass, and with the hoarse, 
 metallic falsetto of a phonograph he rendered 
 
292 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 his piece. He had his book before him; but it 
 was evident that he was reciting from memory 
 with the precise tones and inflections into which 
 he had been mechanically drilled. It would be 
 hard to over-estimate the proportion of time and 
 labor given to this accomplishment. 
 
 It is a pretty custom in the Muhammadan East 
 to combine public fountains and primary schools. 
 You will find fountains without schools; but 
 rarely a school without a fountain. Every tourist 
 in Cairo will remember the exquisite little kuttab, 
 as the primary school is called in Egypt, of 
 *Abd ar-Rahman on the Nahhasln. On the street 
 level is the fountain-room, gay with blue and 
 green faience tiles and bronze gratings, and above 
 is the school-room with open arches on three 
 sides, giving a magnificently distracting view 
 down the ever-changing thoroughfare, and from 
 which through school hours comes steadily the 
 drone of childish voices. One afternoon I climbed 
 the stone spiral-stair which leads to the school- 
 room, and an attendant showed me the copy-books 
 of the pupils. Again the unchanging East 
 revealed itself. These boys and girls were copying 
 admonitions on manners and minor morals and 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 293 
 
 especially on the respect with which they ought 
 to behave towards their fathers, all exactly as I 
 had read again and again in medieval Arabic 
 text-books on ethics and the training of the 
 young. Nay, the chain went farther back and 
 there were sentences which might have dropped 
 from the Book of Proverbs. If Islam has wasted 
 much time in mechanical use of the memory, it 
 has known also the value for conduct and habit 
 of steady drill and admonition.^ 
 
 I said "boys and girls" above, for a certain 
 number of girls attend the kiittahs, though the 
 proportion of them is small. One of the prettiest 
 scenes I saw in Cairo was a little mob of boys 
 and girls, many-coloured and chattering, rushing 
 out of the Azhar, and jumping into their shoes 
 as they passed the sacred threshold. School was 
 just over, for in the Azhar, as in some American 
 universities, you can begin at the oriental equiv- 
 alent to the kindergarten and go on, in the same 
 institution, until you graduate as a learned theo- 
 logian. But mixed education In Islam does not 
 go beyond the kuttdb. In the older times the 
 
 * I venture to refer in this connection to my lecture on 
 The moral education of the young among Muslims, printed 
 in the International Journal of Ethics, XV, pp. 286 ff. 
 
294 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 higher education of girls was carried on privately, 
 and the same still holds in the untouched Muslim 
 world. Even under the English control in Egypt, 
 the school education of girls has not proceeded 
 beyond the secondary stage. Yet it must not 
 be thought that there have not been in Islam and 
 are not now women-scholars and even professors. 
 We find traces of them in literature, and one young 
 Syrian, whom I met in Egypt, told me that his 
 mother had received such a scholarly education. 
 In that case, and I think that the explanation 
 will hold of the others generally, her father had 
 been a learned shaykh and had taught her all that 
 he knew. Islam has had many families of 
 scholars with the golden line of learning running 
 on from one generation to another. So when it 
 came to a single daughter, she would heir the 
 tradition. 
 
 But there Is another side to education in 
 the East, for us a picturesque side, although 
 picturesque with ignorance and corruption. The 
 kuttabs may be said to be the basis of the educa- 
 tional system, yet the teachers in them are a 
 byword everywhere for sloth, immorality, greed 
 and ignorance. The scholar Islam has always 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 295 
 
 respected ; but upon the schoolmaster it has always 
 looked down, as feeble of wits and low of conduct. 
 If he were not so, the Muslim asks, why is he 
 a schoolmaster, and how could he be otherwise, 
 consorting always with boys? The idea that a 
 scholar might profitably give his life to school 
 education has never, so far as my knowledge 
 goes, existed in Islam. University education and 
 the training in the darwish fraternities are, of 
 course, on another footing. In these genuine 
 devotion to an ideal of service and discipleship to 
 a master have always existed and still exist. 
 
 Here is a story to illustrate the other side — 
 the picturesque but unhealthy kuttdb and the fiqt, 
 or schoolmaster, who makes it so. It was told 
 me by a former Egyptian Minister of Education. 
 He was the best that Egypt has ever seen, and 
 he knew the necessity in the East of immediate 
 control. So he would wander round, like Harun 
 ar-Rashid, to see things for himself, and paid 
 unexpected visits to his subordinates. On one 
 such visit to a kuttab, he was puzzled by the multi- 
 tude of strips of paper with sentences on them, 
 dangling from the ceiling. The fiql was not com- 
 municative as to what they were for; so he was 
 
296 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 admonished to clear them away and keep his place 
 in better order. But what they could be doing 
 there was the problem. A woman whom the 
 Minister met on the stairs, going up to the kuttdb, 
 explained. She was coming for a charm, and 
 the fiql would sell her one of those strips that 
 suited her case. They bore sentences from the 
 Holy Book, and hanging there, blown about by 
 the breath of the innocent boys reciting the Holy 
 Book, they acquired double virtue. They were, 
 therefore, of sovereign efficacy, whether carried 
 as amulets, or washed off into water which was 
 then to be drunk. The Hqi, in this case, wished 
 to compromise on undertaking not to put up any 
 new charms as his stock diminished, and urged 
 that it would be impious to destroy those already 
 there with the texts written upon them. He had 
 eventually to be dismissed. 
 
 No doubt he was a very much astonished man 
 at being treated with such irreligious rigour. 
 But in this case you will observe the magical value 
 of the written word and the atmosphere in which 
 the masses of Muslim youth must have grown 
 up. I have no reason to suppose that he would 
 have been in any way exceptionable among the 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 29/ 
 
 iiqts of a generation ago. The times were chang- 
 ing and he was not changing with them. Let me 
 now turn from these episodes, characteristic as 
 they are, to a more systematic consideration of 
 the whole question. 
 
 There seems to have been no science of educa- 
 tion, in the modern sense, amongst Muslims; at 
 least, I can find no department of Arabic literature 
 dealing specifically with pedagogy. The nearest 
 approach to such a science is to be found in books 
 on ethical and religious training, which are con- 
 nected, though remotely, with the Greek treatises 
 on ethics. These, however, tell mostly what a 
 boy should be taught and only very occasionally 
 how he may best be taught. It is true that valu- 
 able remarks on this subject occur here and there, 
 and that some exceptional men gave attention 
 to it. With the systems of one or two of them 
 I shall deal later. They made no impression 
 on the general Muslim mind. Nor is this to 
 be wondered at. Muslim practice was to repeat 
 aloud until the thing was learned, learned, that 
 is, by heart. They had observed, too, that no 
 special thought was called for, only continued 
 repetition. And, as a stimulus to the repetition. 
 
298 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the Prophet had wisely remarked, "Verily the 
 green rod is one of the trees of Paradise." Mus- 
 lim theory, on the other hand, was that while the 
 repetition was going on, Allah coordinately pro- 
 duced knowledge in the heart. The two were 
 separate things ; but mysteriously co-related. Let 
 me illustrate this from the usage of the Arabic 
 language itself. There are two verbs in Arabic 
 meaning *'to know," 'alinm and 'arafa, 'Alima 
 means simply "to know" ; you find the knowledge 
 in your mind, and that is all there is about it. 
 Of course, you know, too, that Allah put it there. 
 But 'arafa means to observe a thing and therefore 
 to know it. It is the German kennen, and the 
 things which you thus know are ma'arif, Kennf- 
 nisse. Now the whole educational vocabulary 
 of Arabic is derived from the root 'alima and is 
 related to this instinctive God-given knowledge. 
 With this dependence on the direct working of 
 Allah systems of pedagogy could hardly co-exist. 
 It is the exact opposite of our theories of taking 
 notice and paying attention. 
 
 We may, for convenience and clarity, divide 
 education in Islam under three heads : primary 
 education; technical education; theological educa- 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 299 
 
 tion. The immense majority of Muslims would 
 not have recognized technical education as per- 
 taining to our subject, and, also, would have held 
 that all education was and must be theological. 
 But taking this division, which will, I think, 
 justify itself in the sequel, the system of primary 
 education is already to some extent before you. 
 There seems to have been no control of £qts by 
 the state. A man might set up as one on a very 
 slender store of knowledge. He had only to put 
 on a large turban, open a school and trust to his 
 luck. But a large proportion of the primary 
 schools were, like the public fountains to which 
 they were attached, supported by funds in waqf, 
 or mortmain. In that case the schoolmaster would 
 be appointed by some board of trustees. The 
 education In these kuttdbs centred and centres 
 round the Qur'an. After a boy has learned the 
 alphabet he is taught to read from the Qur'an, 
 and the immense bulk of his work thereafter is 
 to learn the Qur'an by heart. It is rarely, of 
 course, that he reaches the end of that book; but 
 to be a hdfis, a "holder" of the Qur'an in its 
 entirety. Is the goal set before the Muslim boy, 
 and on that everything else must wait. Inciden- 
 
3CX) ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 tally, along with the Qur'an, he may learn some 
 plain writing ; he will have some religious instruc- 
 tion and get by heart some prayers. But writing 
 and, still more, arithmetic, are regarded as belong- 
 ing to business and to be learned in business 
 rather than at school. All the above, of course, 
 belongs to unreformed Islam. Primary schools in 
 Egypt and elsewhere are in a very confused state 
 of transition. 
 
 Theological education and university education 
 may be regarded, for our present case, as inter- 
 changeable terms. All Muslim science revolved 
 round theology and what could not be brought 
 into such dependence was gradually rejected. It 
 began with the stating, developing and defense 
 of the faith. The first scholars and teachers 
 were theologians, and all their interests connected 
 with the youthful growth of their theological 
 system. Their jurisprudence was a system of 
 church law — canon law in the precise sense — 
 and as the state was essentially theocratic its 
 theory was inextricably intertwined with theology. 
 In all aspects of life the theological motive 
 dominated; every path of thought led back to 
 Allah. Then the Greek civilization broke in 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 3OI 
 
 through the two doorways of Syriac and Persian 
 upon this church-state. For a time, an impression 
 seemed to be made. Al-Ma'mun (reg. A. H. 
 198-218 = A. D. 813-833) founded at Baghdad 
 an academy of science, and the Fatimids long 
 after (A. H. 396 = A. D. 1005), following their 
 bent, founded at Cairo a Dar al-hikma, or Abode 
 of Wisdom. But it was all of no avail. The 
 Muslim mind had received its bias, and its 
 university was to be a school of theology. 
 
 In the development of this education three 
 stages may roughly be traced. From the earliest 
 times instruction was given by the learned in 
 mosques. This instruction was on a private 
 basis, and the mosque was used for convenience. 
 It was the common meeting-place and was free 
 to all for any lawful purpose. The pupils paid 
 their teachers and received certificates from them 
 individually for the courses which they had 
 attended. The subjects, from the first, were the 
 reading and interpreting of the Qur'an, the pass- 
 ing on and the explanation of the traditions 
 from Muhammad and of the whole corpus of 
 canon law. Later were gradually added scho- 
 lastic theology, grammar, lexicography, prosody 
 
302 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 and rhetoric of Arabic, including a great deal 
 of what we would call belles lettres, logic and 
 such elements of mathematics and astronomy as 
 were needed for calendar calculations. 
 
 A second stage was reached when these teachers 
 were subsidized and organized by the state into 
 teaching corporations. Private individuals, also, 
 endowed similar corporations, and mosques were 
 assigned to them or built for their use, according 
 to the earlier custom of the individual teachers. 
 These were then called madrasas. How early 
 this change took place is quite uncertain. 
 
 The final development, which we find first at 
 Naisabur in Khurasan, in A. H. 459 (=A. D. 
 1066), was the equipment of these corporations 
 with funds for the support of the students. So 
 al-Ghazzali himself tells us that he and his brother 
 became students at a madrasa when their own 
 money was all gone. They thus got food for 
 their need. 
 
 But though the individual teachers had been 
 thus gathered Into continuous corporations, their 
 personalities were in no way merged in these 
 organizations. Nothing of the nature of our 
 general graduation or degree appeared ; the thing 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 303 
 
 sought by the student was still the certificate 
 of the individual teacher. And this had a further 
 development, resembling, but far broader than, 
 the wanderings of German students from one 
 university to another. Whenever a teacher of 
 mark appeared, students would flock from the 
 remotest Muslim countries to learn from him and 
 get his certificate. This was fostered, too, by the 
 desire of Muslim students to gather together as 
 many traditions handed down from the Prophet 
 as possible, and these from the best and most 
 immediate authorities. Almost incredible stories 
 are told of the journeys made and the collections 
 of traditions formed under the influence of this 
 ambition. And along with the traditions, the 
 teacher gave the student formal written permis- 
 sion to pass them on to others. By this means 
 the student was enabled to take a place in the long 
 chain of traditionalists through whose ears and 
 lips the sayings and doings of the Prophet had 
 gone ; he obtained a humble part in what was, in a 
 sense, an apostolic succession. In the Azhar at 
 the present day general examinations have taken 
 the place of the professor's personal certificate in 
 all subjects except those traditions. There the 
 
304 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 unbroken past has maintained itself, and the 
 student still receives the professor's permission 
 to be a bearer of tradition. 
 
 We are now left with all the arts and sciences 
 which cannot be made ancillary to theology. 
 These we may group, for convenience, under the, 
 for us, familiar term of "technical education." 
 It is true that the Muslim, on his side, would 
 have refused to regard them as education at all, 
 and that we, on our side, must perilously stretch 
 the word "technical" if it Is to cover our present 
 subject. But the idea of technical education lies, 
 undoubtedly, in the centre, and from it all the 
 arts and sciences now to be considered can be 
 reached. Philosophy may, perhaps, to us seem 
 to lie farthest apart of all; but even philosophy 
 is thought of by the Muslim as the special pur- 
 suit of a class of men called philosophers, and 
 not as the science of the sciences, the ultimate 
 theory of all being. The philosophers them- 
 selves may have had that view; Islam has never 
 yielded it to them. And the teaching, even, of 
 the theorizings of the philosophers, was never a 
 university subject. When a Muslim studied it, 
 he did so individually and secretly with what 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 305 
 
 books he could find. Hostile descriptions of 
 philosophy and attacks upon it were, of course, 
 a normal part of scholastic theology as regularly 
 taught. 
 
 We have already seen how far mathematics 
 and astronomy were admitted to the sacred circle. 
 Further pursuit of them — after the early 'Abbasid 
 period of culture had passed — was due to Individ- 
 ual eccentricity. The other physical sciences fell 
 naturally into the training of the physician. 
 That must have been affected by the great hos- 
 pitals at Baghdad and elsewhere, the last heirs 
 of the Persian school of medicine at Gondeshapur ; 
 the pursuit of science under the Fatimids and the 
 Assassins was so apart from the main orthodox 
 current that no reckoning need be taken of it. 
 But in general, the physician was trained by the 
 physician, and the traditions of medicine tended 
 to linger among Jews and Christians more than 
 among Muslims. 
 
 Again, the arts as opposed to the crafts did not 
 exist in Islam; the same words, san'a and sina'a, 
 stood for both art and craft. There were no fine 
 arts In our sense. The artist, rather, was an 
 artisan, and the artisan was often an artist. 
 20 
 
306 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Calligraphy, illuminating-, miniature-painting were 
 the work of craftsmen; to painting on the 
 grand scale w t have only a handful of allusions ; 
 at best it was decorative. It is as though the 
 artists of the Renaissance had done nothing but 
 adorn manuscripts or walls on a day's wage. 
 Sculpture did not exist; but carving took its 
 place and was a craft like painting. But the 
 artisan in Islam was also an artist, in so far that 
 he designed for himself as he went along. Of 
 these artisan-artists we find little or no individual 
 mention. Save when some outstanding work has 
 to be mentioned, they vanish into the anonymity 
 of the guild. There are no biographical diction- 
 aries of calligraphers, painters, carvers — artists in 
 general — while of poets there are very many. 
 At the most their individual mention will come 
 in books dealing with the history of the craft. 
 
 Architecture, too, was in the hands of the 
 builders, and there is no distinction possible in 
 Arabic between architect and master-builder. In 
 this respect, even medieval Europe had made a 
 further development with its architect-monks. 
 At the highest, the architect-builder was a mathe- 
 matician and an engineer; his only touch with 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 3O7 
 
 pure theory was through mathematics. And 
 down to the Turkish period it may be said 
 broadly that these architect-builders were not 
 Muslims. There was never any such thing as 
 Arab architecture, and when we speak of Muslim 
 architecture, all that can be meant under that 
 phrase is the architecture developed for Muslim 
 purposes in Muslim countries by non-Muslim 
 builders on Byzantine, Roman or Persian models. 
 The vehicles by which this knowledge was 
 preserved, developed and taught were the trade 
 guilds, which were and are highly organized 
 in the East. These had a fixed apprentice system, 
 and the master workman was called the mii'aUim 
 or "teacher." It is curious evidence of the pre- 
 dominance of Christians in these organizations, 
 that mii'allim came also to be an ordinary word 
 for a Christian. He was a teacher, whatever 
 else he might be. In the guild his instruction 
 was genuine and thorough. By it the secrets 
 of the craft were passed down and also tales 
 of its foundation, like those of free-masonry, 
 and of its first workmen. If any one wished, 
 then, to acquire a craft or art, whether as amateur 
 or as professional, his only way was to put him- 
 
 f 
 
308 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 self under one of these masters. The primary 
 schools, for example, might possibly teach writing 
 in a certain rude, elementary way — the scholar's 
 or the business man's hand. To learn an elegant 
 hand it was necessary to go to a calligrapher. 
 Similarly, the ordinary operations of commercial 
 arithmetic could be learned from a professional 
 weigher in a bazaar.^ 
 
 Whatever knowledge, then, could not easily be 
 passed on by one of these three channels tended 
 to vanish. The instruction in the primary schools, 
 under the public contempt of the schoolmaster, 
 would naturally become worse and worse. That 
 afforded by the guilds and by professional men 
 generally would equally naturally crystallize into 
 trade secrets, revivified only from time to time by 
 the genius of some learner. The universities 
 would afford the only continuous protection to 
 culture and humane learning. But they were 
 primarily theological schools, and every subject 
 taught in them had to justify its existence by a 
 theological test and to pay a theological tribute. 
 
 It was natural, then, that these unattached, free, 
 
 ^ On trade-guilds in present-day Damascus, see a pa- 
 per by EHa Qudsi in the Proceedings of the Sixth Con- 
 gress of Orientalists, ii., pp. 1-34. 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 3O9 
 
 useless — as it would seem — speculations, which 
 are the food of the true intellectual life, should 
 gradually be rejected, should dwindle, peak and 
 pine. Then as now, when the subjects taught 
 in a university have to justify their existence 
 at the bar of usefulness, it is ill with the future 
 of that university, and with the civilization which 
 it represents.^ 
 
 But while these were the paths on which Islam 
 moved and the ends which it reached, we must 
 not think that no Muslim ever saw the problem 
 of teaching more clearly or worked out more 
 efficient plans of education. We find traces, from 
 time to time, of such insurgents, and conspicuous 
 among them is Ibn Khaldun, the Moorish histor- 
 ian or, rather, philosopher on history, who died 
 in A. H. 808 (A. D. 1405). In his Prolegomena 
 he devotes to education a number of sections full 
 of good sense, but which had no effect whatever 
 on the practice of the Muhammadan peoples. 
 Their usefulness for us is that they, while show- 
 ing Ibn Khaldun's clear insight, show us also 
 
 ^ I have dealt at greater length with the utilitarianism 
 of Islam, religious and secular, in my Religious Attitude 
 atid Life of Islam, pp. 119, ff. It had vast consequences. 
 
310 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 many elements in the situation which he was 
 combatting. 
 
 Thus one is directed against the prevalent 
 multiplication of minor treatises and commen- 
 taries and "methods" of different kinds which the 
 student was required to read and learn before 
 he could fairly reach the subject itself. He gives 
 two illustrations of this. One is the Malikite 
 school of canon law, that chiefly followed in 
 North Africa. The student could spend his 
 whole life in reading treatise after treatise on 
 this, commentary and super-commentary, and at 
 the end have no more than he would have got 
 from a single sound manual. They were all 
 everlastingly reiterating in different words the 
 same points. The other is Arabic philology, 
 which no one, in Ibn Khaldun's opinion, could 
 ever control in its entirety, certainly no one since 
 the time of the early masters and founders of the 
 science. He had heard of a certain contemporary 
 grammarian in Egypt, Ibn Hisham, who had 
 the reputation of having mastered it all ; but who 
 could follow him! And Arabic philology was 
 a strictly ancillary science, a mere tool for the 
 study of others. There can be no question that 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 3II 
 
 Ibn Khaldun has here laid his finger on one of the 
 great weaknesses, not only of Muslim pedagogy, 
 but of the whole Muslim civilization. The rage 
 of commentary writing and the willingness to 
 write commentaries that were simple compila- 
 tions or re-hashings of the old, — ''chewed by 
 blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er" — had sapped 
 originality and independence out of the Muslim 
 mind. They became afraid of the new and sought 
 always to shelter themselves under the words of 
 some departed master. Much of the responsibility^ 
 for this attitude of mind must be laid to the 
 doctrine of the imitation of the Prophet. The 
 principle of unquestioning discipleship wiped out 
 all free initiative. 
 
 The next section deals with the reverse evil, 
 yet one sprung from the same root of dependence 
 on the wisdom of the past. Highly abbreviated 
 text-books were much in use, as is the case to 
 this day ; every Azhar student has his little bundle 
 of mutun, as they are now called. The first task 
 of a student when he approached a new subject 
 was to learn such an abstract by heart; after that 
 he might go on to discover what it meant. Ibn 
 Khaldiin had many objections to this. For the 
 
312 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 sake of conciseness obscure words were used. 
 The student's command of Arabic was injured 
 by the compressed style. Having to learn it all 
 by heart at once, he had no gradual introduction 
 to the difficulties of the subject. He was over- 
 whelmed by a mob of unexplained and novel 
 ideas. Ibn Khaldun was emphatically of the 
 school of pedagogy which lays stress on under- 
 standing rather than memorizing. 
 
 So he has his own method. Teaching should 
 be gradual, step by step in the exact sense. A 
 subject should, for the majority of students, be 
 gone over thrice, though some minds, undoubt- 
 edly, could take it faster. First, as a prelimin- 
 ary training, a general outline of the subject 
 should be presented. Secondly, the whole should 
 be gone over again, and its particular elements, 
 difficulties and contradictions explained. And, 
 thirdly, it should be again revised, leaving no 
 word nor detail untouched. But many teachers 
 overwhelm their untrained pupils with all the 
 details at once, thinking it a good training. They 
 do not know what training really is. Taught 
 in that way the pupil becomes perplexed ; he thinks 
 the difficulty is In the subject, so he gives it up 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION" 3I3 
 
 and turns lazy. Really, it is only bad teaching. 
 Further, the student should not be disturbed in 
 the use of his text-books. Not until he has 
 learned one thoroughly should he be given 
 another. Further, when a subject has been begun 
 it should be pursued steadily and without inter- 
 ruption until it is finished. Two subjects should 
 not be studied at once. 
 
 Such are Ibn Khaldian's ideas on teaching. 
 To them he adds here a discussion of the value 
 of logic and of the use of words which cuts to 
 the very heart of the Muslim decadence. 
 
 He begins by telling his reader that he is going 
 to give him an Invaluable bit of advice, a treasure 
 for all time, which will lead him to brilliant suc- 
 cess in his studies. Practically, It is this. Do 
 not make use of formal logic ; use rather, directly, 
 the intelligence which Allah has given you. 
 Regard the problem before you and turn to Allah 
 for help, and he will Illumine your mind. It is 
 of the nature of the mind of man, especially 
 when thus directed in faith to Allah, to go 
 straight to the truth of a matter. And, second, 
 always go back from words, whether spoken or 
 written, to the ideas, and the things which they 
 
314 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 represent. Deal with the reahties and not with 
 their symbols. For what is logic? It is simply 
 a description of the workings of the mind. It 
 is a science rather than an art, although it can 
 occasionally be used as an art to clarify the opera- 
 tions of thought. Great thinkers have always 
 dispensed with it and have made use of the 
 intuitions which Allah gave them. And what are 
 words? They are really veils which conceal 
 thought in clothing it. The student must pass 
 beyond them. But alas for Islam ! Few have 
 been the Muslims who have taken Ibn Khaldun's 
 advice. 
 
 In his next section Ibn Khaldiin evidently 
 thought he was further developing this same 
 idea, while, in reality, he was a prey to one of 
 the deadliest superstitions of Islam. All sciences, 
 he says, fall into one or other of two classes. 
 They are either sought for their own sakes or 
 they are sought only as tools, as means of access 
 to the sciences which are valuable for themselves. 
 The student must beware lest he forget this dis- 
 tinction, and spend too much time over what is 
 only a means to an end. Good examples of such 
 ancillary sciences are logic and Arabic philology. 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 315 
 
 This, especially as fortified by these two examples, 
 seems to be admirably good sense. But behind 
 it lies the whole utilitarian position. Elsewhere 
 Ibn Khaldun expounds what are those sciences 
 which are to be sought for their own sakes. They 
 are those useful either for life In this world or 
 in order to gain the world to come. Yet he him- 
 self, to judge from his books, was as interested 
 as Browning's Grammarian in unprofitable things. 
 He next throws a flood of light upon the use 
 in his day of the Qur'an in schools. It was 
 universally admitted to be the basis and character- 
 istic sign of Muslim education. Upon it all else 
 was built. Thus the Faith was firmly planted 
 in the heart in its impressionable time. But the 
 different Muslim countries had different ways 
 of combining the Qur'an with the other elements 
 In education. The people of western North 
 Africa (al-Maghrib) taught Qur'an and nothing 
 else. They might fill in with questions of dif- 
 ference in exegesis, but they taught with It no 
 traditions or canon law or poetry or philosophy. 
 In consequence, they knew the Qur'an and the 
 Qur'an only; but they knew it better than any 
 other Muslim people. The people of Spain, on 
 
3l6 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 the other hand, and by Spain (al-Andalus) he 
 can mean only the Kingdom of Granada, made 
 their education broadly literary. The basis cer- 
 tainly was the Qur'an, but they did not stop there. 
 They mixed with it the learning of poetry by 
 heart, the art of letter writing, the rules of 
 Arabic grammar and writing a good hand. In 
 consequence their boys had received a primary 
 education fitting them for the study of any 
 science for which they could find a teacher. 
 Many later sciences had not, apparently, found 
 their way into Spain. As for the people of 
 Tunis, it was mostly the study of tradition which 
 they added to that of the Qur'an. They paid 
 great attention also to the readings of the Qur'an 
 and to handwriting. On the eastern peoples of 
 Islam (al-Mashriq) Ibn Khaldun had no certain 
 Information. Their principal care, he understood, 
 was given to the Qur'an and science, meaning 
 evidently theological science. Writing with them 
 was an art and to be learned from a calligrapher. 
 The primary schools paid no attention to it, and 
 the tablets from which boys learned to read were 
 written in an ordinary plain hand. 
 
 These different systems of education had grave 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 317 
 
 consequences for command of language. Those 
 who Hmited education to the Our'an, Hke the 
 peoples of western North Africa and Tunis had 
 no richness or fluency of expression. The only 
 type of language they really knew was the sacred 
 dialect of the Qur'an, and Muslims are not 
 permitted to imitate that. On this point the 
 Tunisians were rather better off, as their studies 
 had not been so purely Qur'anic. But the people 
 of Spain, because of their literary training, had 
 a peculiarly happy command of the Arabic 
 tongue. They might be deficient in the theolog- 
 ical sciences, but in helles lettres they were pre- 
 eminent. Their system of primary education was 
 ideally the best. Based upon it, a certain Qadi 
 Abu Bakr ibn al-'Arabi (d. A. D. II48=A. H. 
 543) had devised a scheme of education. First, 
 the boy should be trained in the knowledge of 
 Arabic philology and poetry; the pressure of 
 the corruption of the language called for that. 
 Then he should be drilled in arithmetic. Then 
 he should learn the Qur'an, which would be easy 
 for him with such an introduction. After that 
 would come the different branches of theological 
 education, the fimdamentals of the Faith, canon 
 
3l8 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 law, the art of argument, tradition, etc. This 
 scheme Ibn Khaldiin thought excellent; but cus- 
 tom, he saw, would be too much for it, and, 
 besides, there was something to be said for the 
 early learning of the Qur'an. It was a great 
 thing to have the Qur'an with its moral precepts 
 and religious positions thoroughly implanted in 
 the memory in early youth. The boy was then 
 under governors and could be compelled to learn 
 it. But if it were left for a later stage of 
 education when maturity was approaching with 
 all its temptations, had we any certainty that 
 he would ever learn it at all? Ibn Khaldun 
 feared that we had not, and we, in our day and 
 with our experience of the Bible in colleges, must, 
 I think, agree with him. 
 
 His last positions are that over strictness and 
 severity are hurtful to character and attainments, 
 and that the common practice of more mature 
 students of journeying from one madrasa to 
 another for the sake of meeting personally as 
 many teachers as possible was to be approved. 
 What is learned by such conference, face to face, 
 makes a far deeper impression than study from 
 books. Having many teachers, too, enables the 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 3I9 
 
 student to discern what is essential and what is 
 formal. Each teacher has his own method; but 
 by hearing one teacher after another the methods 
 are eliminated while the knowledge remains. 
 
 Ibn Khaldiin marked high water in Muslim 
 pedagogy, as almost everywhere in the broad 
 range of Muslim science. But Islam did not hear 
 him; only In these last years of awakening has 
 it begun to listen to him. Of that awakening 
 it is not my purpose to speak here at any length. 
 The mission schools and colleges have worked 
 therein as valiant pioneers, and they are begin- 
 ning now to see of the fruit of their toil in the 
 new government schools which are gradually 
 and of necessity supplanting them. With these 
 government schools now lies the problem of the 
 future, and it is for them to retain and develop 
 the new life from which they have sprung. 
 The inherent and racial tendencies and dangers, 
 against which they will constantly have to fight, 
 are plain from what I have already said. Let me 
 instance two only, of w^iich I had personal 
 experience In Egypt. The oriental school-boy 
 must learn to play games and to play without 
 cheating and without jealousy or bad feeling. 
 
320 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 On this, for its influence on the development of 
 character, the EngHsh control in Egypt is rightly 
 laying stress. But English masters there told 
 me that while the foot-ball teams of their schools 
 were quite equal to those of the English schools, 
 they had not yet succeeded in bringing them 
 to honourable play; they would cheat if they got 
 the chance. And one Egyptian school-boy told 
 me that he preferred to exercise in the gym- 
 nasium; playing games gave him bad feelings 
 towards his comrades. 
 
 Another necessity will be to teach in a language 
 that the pupil can understand and to cease to 
 veil education in a literary dialect which not one 
 per cent of the people can follow. This holds 
 especially of Arabic speaking countries where 
 the difference between the Arabic spoken by all 
 and the Arabic of literature is as great as that 
 between modern and classical Greek. Thus in 
 Egypt the hopeless attempt is being made to 
 screw all education up to this pseudo-classical 
 standard. How hopeless is this attempt a single 
 instance will show. One day in Cairo I was 
 shown most courteously by the Principal of what 
 is called the Cadis College over his institution. 
 
MUSLIM IDEAS ON EDUCATION 321 
 
 This is a professional school for the training of 
 Qadis and legal officials generally on the native 
 side, and it is hoped that its influence may in 
 time lead to a reform of the Azhar from within. 
 The Principal first described to me the curriculum 
 of the college and told me that the language used 
 throughout was literary Arabic. Nothing else 
 was allowed in the class-rooms, and they expected 
 in a year to be able to enforce the use of it 
 among the students outside of the class-rooms. 
 Then I was taken to hear parts of the lectures. 
 One, on canon law, especially interested me. The 
 lecturer knew his subject and was making it plain 
 to his class. But suddenly there dropped from 
 his lips a phrase of the purest colloquial. Mush 
 kidaf said he, "Isn't that so?" He would have 
 written, Laisa kadhalikf, or something similar, 
 but in speech, the language of the street was still 
 too strong for him. And so it will always be. 
 Dead languages can never be evoked to living 
 use, however strong our spells or firm our purpose. 
 They will only walk as ghosts among us and 
 blast and thwart our labours. 
 
 Hear, then, the last word on Muslim education. \ 
 It must learn to bring forth character, and it \ 
 
 21 
 
322 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 must clothe itself in a speech understood of the 
 people. In the past it has never taken thought 
 for the people. It has trained the scholar and let 
 the masses go. With a stiff intellectual snob- 
 bishness it has never seen that the abiding victories 
 of science are won in the primary school. And 
 so, even now, it clings to a scholastic language 
 which bars the gates of literature to ninety per 
 cent of the people. That bar it must learn to 
 lift. 
 
LECTURE X 
 
 THE INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE— POPULAR 
 LITERATURE— A MISSIONARY'S READING 
 
 When we use such a phrase as **the inner side 
 of Hfe" and apply it to the MusHm world, we are 
 liable to commit the fundamental error of starting 
 with a false idea, of taking hold of what, at the 
 best, is a very tangled skein at the wrong end of 
 the thread. Let me take a moment, then, with this 
 phrase, that we may start clear of confusions 
 and prepossessions. In the first place, there is, 
 in our sense of the word, no inner side to Muslim 
 life. When we use that phrase, I think that 
 our idea is mostly that there are some things which 
 are public, known, expected; things about which 
 people in general may and do talk freely; 
 and that, besides, there are in life other things, 
 aspects and subjects about which people do not 
 generally talk freely. 
 
 But for Muslims, among themselves, the phrase, 
 taken in that sense, has no meaning, because that 
 distinction, for Islam, does not exist. All the 
 
 323 
 
324 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 sides of life, for the unreconstructed Muslim, 
 are equally discussable, may be talked out. There 
 are no forbidden subjects for conversation; such 
 as the subjects which with us can be handled only 
 scientifically, if at all. 
 
 Again, the distinction here is not that other 
 possibility with us of the domestic side of life 
 as opposed to the public side. The distinction 
 is a very real one in Islam, although their 
 divisions fall somewhat differently from ours. 
 f The domestic side of Muslim life is shut to us; 
 but it Is shut to other Muslims also, if not of 
 the same family. But what I mean by that 
 phrase is rather the side of Muslim life which 
 it is difficult for us to reach; that is on the 
 inside so far as we are concerned; to which we 
 cannot get with ease; although for the Muslim, 
 it is just as open, just as regular, public, dis- 
 cussable as any other side. The Muslims will 
 enter upon those things among Muslims, his fel- 
 lows, yet he will not do it with us. At least, 
 he will shrink from it with us, because he has 
 the idea that these are subjects which we — so he 
 would say — do not really understand; we do not 
 appreciate all that is involved in them; do not 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 325 
 
 see them on all their sides as he does; and — if 
 he is to be perfectly candid — we by some absurd 
 convention do not speak of them with the same 
 freedom as he does himself. As a matter of fact, 
 he knows that there are subjects on which our 
 ideas are different, and, therefore, like a child, 
 or like a very wise person, he would rather not 
 speak of them before us. If he ever comes to 
 think that we share his opinions on such things, 
 the difficulty vanishes at once, and the investigator 
 will, if anything, be embarrassed by the directness 
 of- speech and the openness of discussion on which 
 he will be launched. 
 
 Of such aspects, such inward things, inacces- 
 sible to us, one of the most important is the life 
 in general of women and children. Examine, for 
 example, Lane's monumental work on the manners 
 and customs of the modern Egyptians; you find 
 there almost nothing really dealing with the 
 woman side of Muslim life or with the child 
 side of Muslim life. Yet that book stands in 
 the first rank as a study of a people. This means 
 simply that Lane, when he wrote it, had not yet, 
 through the accidents of his situation, reached 
 those things. The difficulty in this case is com- 
 
326 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 plex. Partly it is what I have stated above; 
 partly it is that Muslims do not think those 
 things worth noticing or speaking of, certainly 
 not worth studying; partly it is that they simply 
 do not see. By familiarity their eyes are holden. 
 And above, and embracing all these, the woman's 
 world and the man's world in the East are two 
 separate things, each with its stream of tradition, 
 usages and even language. The better the East 
 is known, the more this difference appears. 
 
 But when you pass beyond the barrier — by 
 whatever means it may be, through friendship or 
 marriage or otherwise — you discover that there 
 is, on the other side, an enormous amount to be 
 learned that is of high human interest and value; 
 the most startlingly curious parallels to life else- 
 where appear, and they are just on that side of 
 life; and yet it is an exceedingly hard thing for 
 the outside world to reach them because of the 
 limitations that are imposed upon social inter- 
 course in Islam. Let me touch upon some of 
 these. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the things that 
 have been discovered of late in Islam is the 
 existence there of popular, folk-lore tales — 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 327 
 
 Mdrchen, that is; we have no exact word in 
 English — that are precisely the same as those 
 current in Europe and, in fact, throughout the 
 world. We had long imagined that the stories 
 that the Muslims had were all of the Arabian 
 Nights type; but we have learned that there is 
 this other side of their story-world, and that in it 
 is precisely the kind of stories that you meet with 
 in Grimm's or Hans Andersen's Mdrchen. And 
 not only is the kind the same; the stories are the 
 same. 
 
 For example, in Cairo I discovered a very 
 curious bit of that kind. You remember the 
 story that appears in German and elsewhere ^ 
 about the other children of Eve. The story, in 
 outline, is that one time the Lord came upon 
 Eve when she was washing and putting her chil- 
 dren to rights, and she had a very great many 
 children — somewhere in the hundreds. She had 
 got the faces of only half of them washed; only 
 half of them were presentable ; and so she hurried 
 the rest of them aside, down into a cave, and 
 showed only those whose faces were clean. The 
 
 * No. 180 in Grimm's Kinder und Haus-Mdrchen; see, 
 too, Grimm's notes and also Dahnhardt, Natursagen, Vol. 
 I, pp. 246 ff. 
 
328 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Lord said to her, "It was very wrong of you, 
 Eve, to do that when I was coming. I know 
 what you have done. Because of this your race 
 will be in two separate parts. Those children will 
 stay there; they will live and continue beneath 
 the earth; the rest will live above the earth. 
 From this time forth, you will have two races of 
 descendents." And so there are still two races — 
 we, the children who had the happiness to get 
 our faces washed in time, and the other race — 
 our sisters, our brothers — who still live and have 
 their being down underneath the earth, and who 
 know that they are akin to us, although we know 
 nothing about them. 
 
 That is the tale which you meet in European 
 folk-lore. What astonished me was to find 
 exactly the same story in Cairo, although there 
 it is told only amongst women and children. 
 I have never read it in Arabic; I do not believe 
 it is in writing or in print in Arabic. It is some- 
 thing that passes from mothers to their children 
 and only in that way. 
 
 Again, in the Island of R5da which lies in the 
 Nile opposite to Old Masr and is the only one 
 of the Nile islands that was there in old times. 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 329 
 
 there stands a very large and old lotus tree. It 
 is gnarled, bent, twisted, grown in all directions 
 into a tangle of branches and is simply covered 
 with little scraps of coloured cloth and with little 
 flags. It looks, in fact, like a very disreputable 
 wash hung out to dry. If you ask any one what 
 that tree is, he will, if a man, first of all look 
 embarrassed. He does not like to talk about it; 
 but if you ask again, he will say, ''Oh, that is 
 the Lady Mandura." Notice, it is the tree that 
 Is the lady. It is not that some saint has been 
 buried there, or anything of that kind; it is the 
 tree itself. You have a fragment of tree-worship, 
 of the oldest, the most primitive superstition, 
 and still surviving in vigorous life. The details 
 of use connected with this tree a man will hardly 
 tell you, or, if he does, he will do it in a very 
 shame-faced way. But if you get the right 
 source — a child by preference — you will learn that 
 when a child is very sick, its mother will bring 
 it to this tree, tie a bright coloured rag on the 
 tree, and the child will put its hand on the tree. 
 Others say that the old bandage from a hurt must 
 be tied to the tree and two leaves from the tree 
 must be bound into the new bandage which takes 
 
330 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 its place. The child is then taken away again 
 and will surely get better. The Lady Mandura 
 will take care of that. But within a year it must 
 come back and pay its thanks to her, or else very 
 soon she will send a scorpion to sting it. The 
 Lady Mandura will take care of that also. Such 
 is another scrap from the woman's world that 
 you can pick up, if you only know how.^ 
 
 Again another example; and this one is a 
 great deal more astonishing. Within only a com- 
 paratively short period of years — quite easily 
 within thirty years, I should say — we have come 
 to know that practically all through the Muslim 
 world there is spread an observance exactly like 
 the Black Mass in Christendom. That is to say, 
 it is a profane parody of a sacred service. Among 
 the older travellers you will find no reference to 
 this. Lane apparently knew nothing of it, nor 
 did even Burton, in spite of his curious knowledge 
 of the most out of the way and disrespectable 
 
 *0n sacred trees in the Semitic world cf. S. I. Curtiss, 
 Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, pp. 90 ff. and Gold- 
 ziher's Muhammedanische Studien, II, 349 ff. For further 
 details on this particular tree, see Madame Ruchdi Pacha's 
 Harems et Musulmanes d'Egypte, pp. 331 ff., an admirable 
 study of Egyptian life which should be read carefully. 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 33I 
 
 sides of Islam. What it travesties is the darwish 
 zikr. I described to you at some length the 
 method of holding a zikr; how by reciting in 
 rapid cadence and with physical movements and 
 breathings, such religious phrases as the confes- 
 sion of faith, doxologies, pious ejaculations, dar- 
 wishes work themselves up into a steady religious 
 frenzy, or else cast themselves into a hypnotic 
 coma. 
 
 Now, practically throughout all Islam there is 
 a kind of parody of this, in which the beings 
 whose intervention is sought are what we would 
 broadly call devils. Yet when we speak of Mus- 
 lim devils, we must always remember their non- 
 descript character and that they are continually 
 confused with the jinn, and so come to be on a 
 dividing line between fairies, brownies, kobolds 
 and true theological devils. Devil-worship, then, 
 in Islam and in Christendom are two quite dif- 
 ferent things. In Islam there is no precise feeling 
 of rejection of Aljah and of blasphemy against 
 his name. It is, rather, akin to the old Arab 
 ^'taking refuge with the jinn" (Qur. Ixxii, 6), 
 denounced, it is true, by Muhammad as a minor 
 polytheism, but compatible with acceptance and 
 
^^2 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 worship of Allah. Perhaps it might be described 
 most exactly as a kind of perverted saint-worship. 
 But its form is certainly a parody of the j^ikr, 
 though with curious additions of bloody sacrifice, 
 due to its African Voodoo origin. I do not mean 
 by this to suggest that it is descended from the 
 old Arab "taking refuge with the jinn." It was 
 certainly introduced by negroes, and it is carried 
 on under the direction and personal control of 
 negro women. Yet it has spread all over the 
 Muslim world. You meet It throughout North 
 Africa, In Arabia and in Turkey itself. 
 
 This observance and ritual is called Zdr, an 
 Abyssinian word, used in Arabia for the names 
 of the spirits whose aid is Invoked. The word 
 is very broad and obscure In its application, being, 
 as I have said, of foreign origin and introduced 
 with the thing Itself by African female slaves. 
 Thirty years ago nothing was known of it in 
 Europe, and it is only within a comparatively 
 short time that we have really come to any precise 
 knowledge upon it. Of course, the reason Is 
 intelligible enough. This kind of devil-worship is 
 carried on by women only. Men are never sup- 
 posed to see it, and only by the rare chance and 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 333 
 
 possibility of an intelligent woman taking part 
 in it could the knowledge of it come to us in the 
 West. In this case the fullest description of it 
 which I know is in the book of Madame Ruchdi 
 Pacha to which I have already referred and to 
 which I must again refer for details. But it, 
 in short, is strictly a combination, on one side, 
 of Voodoo worship, with its hysterics, posses- 
 sions, incensings, incantations and bloody sacri- 
 fices — all for the benefit and to amuse and turn 
 aside the anger of a world of disease-causing 
 spirits — and, on another side, of certain forms 
 and phrases of more strictly Muslim religion 
 and superstition. It has its regular professional 
 practitioners whose destructive influence on family 
 unity and health is much that of "Christian" and 
 "Mental Science" operators with us. While in 
 Cairo, I picked up by accident a tiny pamphlet 
 of some eighty odd pages, dealing with the Zdr on 
 this side. The greater part of it — it is in Arabic 
 of course — is devoted to a little story of family 
 life very simply told, describing the disruption 
 of the family and finally the death of the mother 
 through her blind devotion to a Kudiya, as the 
 shaykha or priestess of Zar is called. Then fol- 
 
334 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 lows a collection of incantations and prayers used 
 in the Zdrs. But the story is the main thing 
 and shows us a side of Muslim life that is 
 especially hard for us to reach, yet one with 
 which the woman missionary should, of all people, 
 be familiar.^ 
 
 Another side, kindred but still distinct, is that 
 which you might vaguely describe as superstitions. 
 It is easier to reach Muslim superstitions than 
 it is to reach the woman or the child side of life; 
 but still it is not very easy even at that. 
 
 For example, it has been well known for a 
 great many years — I believe that, in this case, 
 it was Lane who first dealt with the matter in 
 his book — that in Egypt there is a class of magi- 
 cians who profess to be able to discover the truth 
 as to past events, to tell what is happening at 
 a distance, and to foretell the future, by the use 
 of what is called the ink-mirror or the magic 
 mirror. For this a boy about eight or nine years 
 old is needed. The magician takes the boy's 
 right hand, draws in ink upon the palm of it a 
 
 * Further references for the Zar are the Zeifschrift of 
 the German Oriental Society, XLIV, 480 and 701 and 
 XLV, 343; also Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, II, 124 ff. 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 335 
 
 magic square of a very simple character — usually 
 a square of nine divisions — and in the middle 
 of it puts a globule of ink. The boy has, then, 
 to gaze intently into it, while the magician keeps 
 muttering Qur'anic passages and incantations and 
 burns incense of different kinds. He then asks 
 the boy if he sees anything. The boy almost 
 always does see something and is thereupon put 
 through a series of fixed questionings — does he 
 see this and does he see that ? — until the boy sees 
 pictures easily in the ink-globule and gradually 
 comes to objectify in such pictures any ideas which 
 may pass into his brain. The boy is led, that is, 
 through the practice of a stereotyped string of 
 questions until the thoughts in the minds of those 
 in the company pass into his mind and are objecti- 
 fied in the mirror of the drop of ink. 
 
 Now we know as a matter of fact that telepathy 
 or thought-transference is as well proven as any- 
 thing, non-physical, can be, and also that the 
 thought transferred may be objectified in a picture 
 by the person to whom the thought is passed. In 
 consequence, then. If any one in that circle round 
 the boy knows the thing which the boy has to see, 
 the idea will be transferred to the boy's mind 
 
^2^ ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 and he will see it as a picture, whatever it is to 
 be, figure, face, event; whatever is called for he 
 will see in that little drop of ink. 
 
 Such a scene Lane described very many years 
 ago; such methods the magicians of Cairo used 
 in his time. When I was in Cairo I made many 
 attempts to find a magician; but I had absolutely 
 no success and for a very curious reason. In 
 Lane's time the method was a secret, the property 
 of individuals who passed down traditionally the 
 knowledge of how to carry it out. It had been 
 discovered, I suppose, by some peculiar accident 
 and had, then, fallen into the hands of profes- 
 sional magicians. But since Lane's time a great 
 many books upon magic have been printed in 
 Cairo, and the full descriptions of how to carry 
 out these operations have appeared in those books ; 
 consequently, the professional magician's chances 
 are gone, and he himself has almost entirely 
 vanished. 
 
 For example, the head of the training college 
 for teachers in Cairo, an Englishman, told me 
 that one of his students had described to him 
 how, when he was a boy in a village in the 
 country, the governor of that district used him 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 2>2>7 
 
 for this purpose when anybody's cow had been 
 stolen or when anything at all had gone amissing. 
 It was a perfectly normal and regular way of 
 identifying thieves. 
 
 Later, in Jerusalem, I heard of a more recent 
 case. Something was stolen from the house of 
 an Englishman there, and there was a great deal 
 of trouble made over it. The things were valu- 
 able, and the owner was not content to let the 
 matter rest in the easy oriental fashion. At last 
 the governor of Jerusalem, a very high Turkish 
 official, was stirred to action, went to the house, 
 got hold of a boy, and put him through this 
 process to find out who the thief could be. But 
 the people of the house had a perfectly fixed idea 
 as to who the thief was, and, sure enough, it was 
 that face which appeared in the mirror. Very 
 shortly afterwards, however, it was discovered 
 that it was quite impossible that that man could 
 have been the thief. Scientifically, of course, it 
 was only the fact that he was thoroughly believed 
 to be the thief that made his form appear; the 
 concerted thoughts of the crowd surrounding the 
 boy passed into his brain and showed themselves 
 to him In a picture. 
 
338 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 I give these as illustrations of how deeply this 
 idea is rooted in the Muslim mind, and also of 
 the difficulty, for us, of getting at it. When in 
 Cairo I brought together quite a little library of 
 books on magic, and if I had looked at these as 
 carefully as I ought to have done, I would have 
 found in more than one the name and address of a 
 professional magician. But, though I asked right 
 and left, and tried to find one by all the means 
 in my power — wishing to get in touch with the 
 living practice, as well as the literary tradition 
 of the subject — I could never hear of any. It 
 is only since I have been back here in Hartford 
 that I have found these references that, on the 
 spot, might have been so useful. 
 
 Besides this there are certain other methods 
 of discovering the future, about which the Mus- 
 lims are willing to talk. One of my teachers in 
 Cairo, for example, evidently himself believed 
 quite firmly in a process by which you take the 
 numerical values of letters, add them up, put 
 them through dififerent arithmetical combinations 
 and get some result or other, and he rather liked 
 to show me how this was done. He would say 
 at the same time of course, "None knoweth the 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 339 
 
 truth save Allah," and shrug his shoulders. But 
 it was plain that, for him, there was something 
 in it. Of others I heard, men of high rank and 
 supposed education, who spent their odds and ends 
 of time making such computations. On one of 
 these, a Pasha, I was taken to call but unfortu- 
 nately missed him, and before I could call again, 
 he died. "He knows all about it now," was the 
 philosophical remark of our common friend. 
 Such methods and ideas, then, you meet every- 
 where; but beyond a certain simple stage it is 
 hard to pass. The high magic is another thing 
 from amateurism. 
 
 Here is another illustration of the silence which 
 generally lies over such things. I presume that 
 eighty-five per cent at least of the native popula- 
 tion of Cairo believes quite fixedly in the jinn, 
 the genii of our Arabian Nights. Yet it is a 
 very hard thing to get them to talk about these 
 jinn. Only accidentally, almost inadvertently, 
 can you learn what their ideas really are. For 
 example, M. Maspero, the curator of the great 
 museum at Cairo, told me how by long, patient 
 handling he had brought some of his native, 
 employees to talk freely with him on such matters 
 
340 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 and, especially, to tell their folk-tales before him. 
 But once, unfortunately, a European lady in his 
 company laughed and the spell was broken from 
 that time on. The fear of ridicule immediately 
 appeared, confidence was destroyed, and he got 
 no more Mdrchen from them. 
 
 But on another occasion, in the most casual 
 way, one of their beliefs suddenly showed itself. 
 In connection with the museum there was a small 
 steam engine, and in time it had to be replaced 
 by another. The same engineer was put in charge 
 of the new engine that had been in charge of the 
 first. But he was not satisfied with his success 
 In dealing with it. In his own words, ''1 cannot 
 get on with this new efrtt" — one of the Arabic 
 words for spirit, ghost, devil — "I cannot learn his 
 ways and he does not seem to like me." And 
 he went on to explain, "I have put Into the furnace 
 a package of the very best cigarettes ; but I do not 
 seem to be able to get on good terms with him." 
 It was perfectly plain that he had no question in 
 his mind that the motive power of this engine 
 was a spirit of some kind whom these Westerners 
 by their spells had imprisoned within it and 
 whose duty it was to do the work. His business, 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 34I 
 
 on the other hand, was to make himself agreeable 
 to this spirit in order to get the best work out 
 of him ; and he had not succeeded. 
 
 Again, in this same Egyptian museum there 
 is about the largest collection of ghosts that exists 
 anywhere in this world, and not one of the native 
 staff will ever enter after nightfall on any account 
 whatever. It is supposed to be haunted by the 
 spirits of all the old Egyptian statues, figures, 
 mummies, that have been brought In and put there. 
 In part they are the spirits of the Egyptians whose 
 mummies are there, and In part they are jinn who 
 have taken up their abode in the statues. As for 
 M. Maspero himself, he is a very powerful magi- 
 cian, powerful enough to control them, and he 
 keeps them shut tightly in the statues and mummy 
 cases all day. But when night falls, it is a dif- 
 ferent thing entirely, and, if by any chance, on 
 account of visitors or anything of the kind, the 
 museum is to be entered at night, those who enter 
 are sure to see and hear mysterious things, and 
 nothing can convince the natives that these sights 
 and sounds are not produced by the jinn, scurry- 
 ing back Into their shelters. 
 
 To the endless subject of talismans I can make 
 
342 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 no more than an allusion. All in the East carry 
 them, from donkey-boys — and their donkeys — to 
 theologians, and they vary in complexity from 
 a dirty, rolled up scrap of paper with some sacred 
 names or Qur'an verses scrawled on it, to elabor- 
 ately engraved gems. From Damascus I brought 
 back a little oval silver plate, intended to be car- 
 ried hanging around the neck but, of course, con- 
 cealed under the clothes. On one side is a magic 
 square made up of certain sacred but unintelligible 
 letters which stand at the head of some chapters 
 of the Qur'an, and on the other are the names 
 of the Seven Sleepers and their dog, so written as 
 to weave together into a seal of Solomon. The 
 magic square, I may add, in forms of greater or 
 less complexity plays a part in all Muslim magic. 
 But I do not remember ever to have met with a 
 magic cube, and in handling the magic square 
 errors of calculation are of constant occurrence. 
 It seems certain that It was derived bv the Mus- 
 lims from some more arithmetical people. By 
 that its mystery and importance is only the more 
 increased. 
 
 It is needless to say that this side of the East 
 could be developed at great length; but the point 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 343 
 
 which I wish to make is that while to a certain 
 extent it is comparatively easy to learn about such 
 matters, there 'is a limit beyond which, from the 
 fear they have that you may laugh at them and 
 will not understand them, you cannot pass. This 
 is the only explanation, the only excuse that I 
 can find for the general ignorance of the West- 
 erner, resident in the East, upon these things. 
 When I went up from Egypt to Jerusalem, 
 I had become interested in such investigations, 
 and I tried to discover by enquiry whether in 
 Syria there was as much magic as in Egypt, 
 and whether the ideas upon it were of the same 
 kind there. For a long time I could learn 
 nothing. One missionary after another who had 
 been years in the country would tell me, **No, 
 we never hear of anything of the kind here; 
 Egypt is the only place where they have such 
 ideas; in Syria there Is no magic." But, shortly 
 after I had been told this most positively by one 
 missionary, on going down the street In Jerusalem 
 which Is absurdly called "the street of David," 
 I saw a man sitting with his back against the wall 
 and his little bit of cloth spread out, a patch of 
 sand upon It, waiting for people to come to whom 
 
344 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 he could divine and foretell the future. This 
 method of divination by making little strokes and 
 dots in sand and with them building up figures 
 each of which has then its own meaning, is one 
 of the commonest, and ranges in complexity from 
 a simple yes or no by odds and evens to elaborate 
 astrological calculations. Again, shortly there- 
 after, through another and a better informant, I 
 heard the tale that I have already told you about 
 how the governor of Jerusalem tried by the magic 
 mirror to discover a thief. I had been told 
 before, again and again, that no such thing had 
 ever been heard of in Palestine. The moral Is 
 that which I tried to emphasize in my first 
 lecture, that you must believe nothing until 
 you have tested it at the mouths of many 
 and multifarious witnesses. Above all, go and 
 see for yourself. 
 
 Another side of Muslim life which Is very 
 hard to reach is what you might call that of 
 religious feeling. I do not mean dogma; it is 
 not by any means difficult to get them to talk 
 theology in the strict sense. Nor do I mean rites 
 and religious usages. But the thing that is dif- 
 ficult to reach is what the Muslim feels in his 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 345 
 
 religious exercises. What does he, personally, 
 "get out of them? 
 
 The dominant feeling connected with the five 
 daily prayers is probably that of a prescribed 
 religious duty being duly performed. The theo- 
 logians themselves are a good deal puzzled as to 
 the meaning of their details. Indeed, one of 
 them, and one of the greatest, takes up an abso- 
 lutely agnostic position and teaches that in these 
 details are certain secrets which we cannot know 
 but which are a medicine for the soul, like the 
 medicines for the body which physicians prescribe 
 and which the patient must take blindly. The 
 religious performances left, then, are the sikrs 
 of darwishes and those cantatas of the birth 
 of the Prophet, etc., rendered by professional musi- 
 cians on occasions of rejoicing such as a marriage. 
 As for the cantatas, I suspect that the effect upon 
 the audience Is mostly esthetic. Their subjects 
 are religious only because everything In Islam is 
 struck with religion in a sense and to a degree. 
 
 The 2ikrs, which are more to our present pur- 
 pose, I have already attempted to analyze. I 
 repeat here my final conclusion that their attraction 
 lies greatly in the pleasure of the dreamy semi- 
 
34^ ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 hypnotic state and in the possibiHty of auto- 
 hypnosis which they contain. As for general 
 reHgious walk and conversation, the freque^nt 
 ejaculation of Allah! may not necessarily mean 
 anything more than the Dame! of the French, 
 or our Good Lord! but, broadly, there can be no 
 \ question that the Muslim lives in more constant 
 consciousness of the unseen world than we do; 
 a very thin shell, as I have elsewhere put it,^ 
 separates him from that world. This may not 
 mean much for what we would call true religion 
 and undefiled; it may run to nothing but an 
 absolute lack of feeling for natural law and an 
 inclination towards the crassest superstition. But 
 it may also mean a continuous walk with God, 
 even though with ideas of the will of God which 
 are strangely perplexed and wrong. It is never 
 easy to sound the depths of that most intimate 
 religious feeling, and I have to confess that I 
 am still, to this day, uncertain as to the way 
 and the degree in which the religious feeling is 
 moved in those people. We must always remem- 
 ber that we ourselves are exceedingly chary of 
 
 ^The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, pp. 8ff. ; the 
 whole book bears upon this question. 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 34/ 
 
 showing, at least to the unbeHever, this innermost 
 side of all. I found that amongst darwishes 
 such contact was most possible. They were more 
 ready to talk about their emotional religious life. 
 But, in general, it need hardly be said, any inves- 
 tigator will need here to move with the greatest 
 tact and sympathy. 
 
 Another side on which it is easy to go a certain 
 distance but very difficult to reach the real root 
 of the matter is the feeling of Muslims about 
 saints. It became perfectly clear to me when 
 I was on the spot — had been clear, I might say, 
 before I went to the East through my reading in 
 Muslim hagiology — that there must be an enor- 
 mous amount of hypnotism and telepathy con- 
 nected with the miracles of the saints and with 
 the strange things that happen to them. That 
 prepared me to believe that there was a basis of 
 truth in these marvels, but did not teach me how 
 to learn the views and attitudes of the people 
 themselves. These views might be very different 
 from those of learned hagiologists. And there 
 was on the threshold one especial difficulty. Mus- 
 lims — in fact all Orientals — have made up their 
 minds very thoroughly that we Westerners are 
 
348 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 SO entirely godless and so given over to material 
 things that we have no mind for the things of 
 the unseen world. We have not the aptitude 
 nor even the inclination to understand such 
 things, and therefore they will not talk about 
 them to us. 
 
 It was only by my very great fortune that I 
 became acquainted with a thoroughly trustworthy 
 convert to Christianity from Islam — I have 
 already spoken of him in a former lecture — who 
 had been a darwish and had passed through 
 some very remarkable experiences of his own. 
 Through him I was able to get into first hand 
 touch with this strange world. He, now being 
 a Christian, was prepared to tell me what had 
 been his experiences as a darwish, and to develop 
 for me the whole subject. In fact, I think he 
 rather liked to enter upon it because it was a diffi- 
 cult one for him himself. He had been a Muslim ; 
 he had had strange spiritual experiences then; 
 now he had become a Christian. What did this 
 mean for the faith of Islam? Did It mean that 
 there was truth in Islam? Did it mean that its 
 saints, those darwishes who had reached saint- 
 hood, were true saints? How was he to regard 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 349 
 
 those experiences which, for him, were evidently 
 fixed facts? Of them he had no question. So 
 he was rather glad, as it seemed to me, to talk 
 them over with me, because I was able to bring 
 out to him the fact that such things as these 
 appeared everywhere in the world and belonged 
 to all religions and were not essentially part of 
 any one religion alone; that they might happen 
 to any one whose mind was turned in such a 
 direction under similar conditions. 
 
 Another side of Muslim life that is hard to reach 
 is a real understanding of their feeling towards 
 history as opposed to mere stories. What, in a 
 word, is their sense of historical fact ? Of course, 
 it is well known that what the dragoman of the 
 East tells you is not to be believed; but I dis- 
 covered that, with discretion, one could get a 
 great deal out of a donkey-boy. He is not so 
 sophisticated. He does not in general make up 
 things for your especial edification. The chances 
 are that he will talk out just what he thinks. 
 And so I found that I never really got behind the 
 mind of the average Muslim with regard to the 
 distinction, or rather the relation, between stories 
 and history until, in riding over the Mukattam 
 
350 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 hills and in visiting mosques, I got my donkey-boy 
 to tell me who built this mosque and who was 
 buried in that, etc., upon which he told me the 
 most extraordinary things. In part it was 
 history, the names, at least, were derived from 
 history; but directly it was derived from popular 
 romances, the historical novels of the people. 
 I knew and had read them as romances, mostly 
 of crusading times, but for my donkey-boy and 
 for the masses of Cairo the two are inextricably 
 mixed, or rather, these romances are for them 
 sober narrations of fact. "History" and "story" 
 are not yet separated, and every tale is told as 
 a thing which has happened. So far has the 
 Semitic mind always been from the la-TopCt] of 
 Herodotus ! Only in this way, then, and by this 
 means did I at last get a clear view of how the 
 masses of Islam take history, and how it is that 
 it is so easy in Islam for history to become mixed 
 with legend. 
 
 But here the printing press is relieving us of 
 the necessity of trusting the ideas and veracity of 
 the donkey-boy. In Cairo there is being printed 
 a great store of little booklets containing exactly 
 those same things — stories, histories, legends, 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 35 1 
 
 popular poems, very many of them cast in the 
 colloquial dialect and evidently intended to be 
 read by the people and not by the student. By 
 reading these you do get a little way back into 
 corners of the Muslim mind and life otherwise 
 pretty nearly inaccessible, for the Muslim is very 
 fond of stories. Thus, I shall not forget how, 
 in the great mosque of al-Mu'ayyad, one of the 
 holiest places in Cairo, I came upon a boy, a col- 
 lege boy I afterwards discovered, a student at 
 the Azhar, diligently occupied in reading the 
 Arabian Nights, or, rather, one of the stories 
 of the Nights in a separate little pamphlet. I 
 went up to him and asked with some severity 
 of countenance, "Is that the Holy Qur'an you 
 are reading?" Whereupon his companions rolled 
 over in laughter. It was evidently a joke of the 
 finest that an unbeliever should catch a believer 
 occupied in that way in the mosque. 
 
 Then, last, there is a side of the Muslim mind 
 which is not so difficult to reach as to handle, 
 but with which I must deal. It is too important 
 to be left out. The best rubric under which to 
 bring it, although it is a poor description, is to 
 call it the erotic. But here, as -ever in the East, 
 
352 
 
 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 we must distinguish. There is a calmness, a 
 matter-of-factness, a directness about oriental 
 eroticism which separates it entirely from that 
 of at least modern Europe. The innuendo of the 
 French pornographic novel is lacking, while there 
 is present an exactitude and breadth of description 
 and narrative that no European writer has ever 
 attempted. This has to itself a department of 
 literature in Arabic, one recognized in the native 
 bibliographies. But on one side, these books 
 should never be confused with the books in 
 European literature which booksellers call ''curi- 
 ous," and, on another, they are only a special- 
 ization or localization of what is scattered through 
 all Arabic literature. It is to be found in books 
 of law, theology and of the religious life; it 
 appears in historians, biographers and geog- 
 raphers; it is especially prominent in books on 
 magic and medicine; and is present In varying 
 degrees in all forms of higher literature, from 
 treatises on esthetics and bellettristic essays to 
 farcical stories. It is thus an element In the East 
 with which every student of the East must reckon. 
 If he studies his subject carefully, he cannot 
 escape it, nor should he seek to minimize or disre- 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 353 
 
 gard it. It is an essential part of the picture 
 before him and cannot safely be left out, as can 
 the similar element in Europe. 
 
 But, as I have said, this phase of Eastern life 
 and literature has also found expression in a 
 special class of books. These might be described 
 roughly as a compound of our books on domestic 
 medicine — particularly their more domestic por- 
 tions, books on cosmetics and the like, self and 
 sex books even to the moralizings, essays in praise 
 and blame of women, the smuttier jests of old- 
 fashioned journalism and the more outrageous 
 parts of the Arabian Nights. Mix these together, 
 raise the essential characteristic to the n*^' power 
 and you have this class of Muslim literature. Of 
 course, the proportion of the elements varies in 
 each. In one, the bellettristic and esthetic treat- 
 ment may predominate; in another, the medical; 
 one may furnish stories frankly labelled as aphro- 
 disiac; another's expressed intention may be to 
 warn against sexual perversions. But, all in all, 
 these books and this tendency must be reckoned 
 with, and I make no apology for this reference to 
 them here. The missionary who does not, to some 
 extent, know them does not know his people. 
 23 
 
354 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 But the Muslim himself will not speak to you 
 of these things. He knows perfectly well that 
 we do not speak of them; he knows that they 
 lie outside of the possibilities with us; but with 
 him they lie entirely within the possibilities. 
 They are a normal part of literature, received, 
 accepted by all. So that, then, is the difficulty. 
 I have no shadow of doubt myself that for any 
 one who would know the Muslim mind it Is 
 absolutely necessary that he should know some- 
 thing of such books as these ; otherwise one large 
 portion of that mind will be mysterious and 
 inaccessible to him. He will not know how to 
 understand his people as they are. And he will 
 meet references which he cannot turn because he 
 does not see clearly their point. 
 
 Yet he cannot discuss these things with the 
 Muslims; that for him would be very much out 
 of place. He should certainly do nothing to 
 hinder the coming of the time when such con- 
 versation will be as impossible in the East as 
 with us. And that there is such a difference 
 the East already very well knows. Even the 
 Egyptian felldhin, although in time of inundation 
 they will work together naked in the fields, men 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 355 
 
 and women, side by side, are plainly perturbed 
 when they are observed at this by a European. 
 They know it is not our way. But the missionary 
 must know their ways and their ideas and he 
 can easily know them now because of the spread 
 of printing. All the things which were once 
 for missionary and student so hard of access are 
 now, for better or for worse, within reach of 
 any. When Lane, for example, in the thirties 
 of last century was in Cairo, all he could do was 
 to talk with such of his friends as were willing 
 to talk with him upon the things on which he 
 desired information and pick up manuscripts here 
 and there. But manuscripts are expensive and 
 difficult to find. A man who limits his reading 
 to them will not be able to cover the whole 
 range of interest. Also, there is the difficulty 
 of getting your friends to talk about things with 
 you. Thus Lane himself tells us that his only 
 method, on more difficult points of religion and 
 usage, was to take one of the laxer of his Muslim 
 friends, a man who evidently had not the same 
 objection as the rest to discussing these matters 
 with him, and to get from this man a certain 
 knowledge of the subject. He would, then, casu- 
 
 
 
356 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 ally enter into conversation with others, upon 
 that subject, and show that he knew something 
 about it. So they would slip into conversation 
 upon it, and he would learn more and more. 
 With a man who knew nothing of the subject 
 they would not begin upon it; but, apparently, 
 they thought, '*If he knows so much already, we 
 may as well make no further difficulties." Or 
 they may have thought nothing at all about it; 
 but talked with him as with one of themselves. 
 
 Now all that difficulty has practically gone by. 
 On all these subjects which I have been putting 
 before you in this lecture — those inner subjects, 
 difficult of access — there are great numbers of 
 printed books which any one can read and so fol- 
 low the currents of popular life and thought. 
 Very many of them, too, are printed in colloquial 
 Arabic and not In the literary Arabic of the edu- 
 cated, for they are the reading of the masses of 
 the people. And the reading of the masses is 
 precisely what the missionary should read. 
 
 Having mentioned this colloquial Arabic, permit 
 me to diverge a moment and say that, for me, 
 the great hope of the Arabic speaking races lies 
 in the rise of an Arabic literature written in the 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 2>S7 
 
 language really spoken by these peoples. At pres- 
 ent their older literature is as remote for them 
 as Latin to an Italian or Spaniard. And of such 
 a neo-Arabic literature a beginning has been 
 made, although so far it is mostly limited to 
 stories, jests and satirical verses. More serious 
 subjects still array themselves in the language 
 of the schools. Yet the beginning has been made, 
 and all that is needed now is the appearance of a 
 man of genius, a Dante or a Chaucer, who will 
 follow up that beginning and write books of 
 weight and genius in this colloquial dialect. 
 When he comes, with him will come the new 
 Arabic literature — a renaissance as tremendous as 
 that of Europe. 
 
 With all these books it is, then, for the mis- 
 sionary to follow the example of Lane. He must 
 read them carefully and learn the beginnings from 
 them. Then the people will fall in with him 
 and go on and talk further with him, and he will 
 be able by such means to work into the inner 
 recesses of their minds. 
 
 And so, finally, my last word in this course 
 of lectures must be the word with which I began. 
 What is needed by the missionary, needed by 
 
358 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 any one who wishes to understand this people 
 and to afifect them, is sympathy, knowledge, intel- 
 ligence; courtesy, too, at every point. And let 
 me say, though I have no desire to bring railing 
 accusations and while I am not thinking now 
 of one race more than another, yet I have seen in 
 Cairo and in Syria cases of what to me was quite 
 unintelligible discourtesy towards the natives by 
 different nationalities and vocations — by officials 
 and by missionaries, teachers and merchants, by 
 French, by English, by Americans, by Germans. 
 Sympathy, then, the being able to enter into their 
 ideas; knowledge, the having soaked himself in 
 those ideas; intelligence and courtesy to adapt 
 himself to them and to their ways — these are 
 among the first essentials for the missionary. 
 And these it is certain that he cannot possibly 
 have, unless he is genuinely in love with the people 
 of his field; likes them and theirs; is in many 
 respects one of them. If he finds them beginning 
 to rasp upon him, he may know either that he is 
 not the man for them, or, if the rasping is a new 
 thing, that there is something wrong with his 
 nerves, and that he ought to rest until he feels 
 himself at peace again with his flock. I have 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 359 
 
 read books, for that matter, by missionaries 
 describing their fields, which were nothing but 
 a long exhibition of nerves. The paradox, in 
 truth, of the missionary's life is that he must 
 have a liking for his people and their queerest 
 little ways even while he is trying to change them. 
 In the case of one of the most successful mis- 
 sionaries to the Orient that I have known, I have 
 heard a considerable part of his success ascribed 
 to the mere fact that he was somewhat slow ; he 
 did not hurry; he was prepared to wait; he did 
 not talk fast; he did not move fast; he had the 
 oriental movements. He was in physical sym- 
 pathy with his people, and this, though a special 
 and somewhat concrete and instinctive case of the 
 courtesy and intelligence that are always neces- 
 sary, is still a very suggestive one. Above all, 
 the missionary must not think of his people that 
 their ideas, their ways — any of these things I 
 have been putting before you tonight — are signs 
 of childishness or are ridiculous. He must sweep 
 out of his vocabulary such words as "childish'* 
 and "ridiculous" ; must, instead, think of their 
 characteristics as interesting, and of the people 
 as, at most, childlike. 
 
360 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 How, to illustrate, would we handle a child 
 who had the ideas of a child about fairies or 
 about Santa Claus, or who was somewhat weak- 
 kneed on the subject of fact. We certainly would 
 not talk to him about ridiculousness or childish- 
 ness or use abusive forms of speech. We would 
 take him as he was ; make the best of him ; and 
 try to guide him, using those ideas of his as we 
 might, and being sure that they would fade, as 
 they must, into the light of too common day. 
 
 That is essentially the problem of the missionary 
 in dealing with the Muslim peoples. All these 
 things are simply parts of that strange, childlike 
 attitude towards life which you find in them, and 
 they have to be handled with the same delicacy, 
 with the same sympathy, which you would use 
 with a child. The missionary must, then, have 
 that sympathy, knowledge, intelligence, of which 
 I have spoken, and, besides these, faith, hope and 
 charity — faith that something is coming, must 
 come, faith in his people and in its possibilities; 
 hope, not to be cast down though the way is long 
 and slow, and he cannot see far ahead; and an 
 infinite charity for and with them in all senses of 
 the word ; love, forbearance and sympathy. 
 
INNER SIDE OF MUSLIM LIFE 361 
 
 And especially at the present time there is need 
 of that attitude towards the Muslim East, and 
 that not only on the part of missionaries or of 
 those who are resident there; but on the part of 
 us all. In Turkey a great experiment is going 
 on. The reform of Turkey is being attempted 
 from within ; it is not to be a thing imposed from 
 without, as in Egypt or India or Algeria, but one 
 actually working out upon the people from within. 
 That is a tremendous experiment and a thing to be 
 helped in every way. But we may be sure that 
 that experiment will be very slow; that the way 
 before it is very hard; that only a small section 
 of the Turkish population is really in thorough 
 sympathy with it; and that the section which is 
 will have to work hard, bitterly, fearfully, to be 
 able to bring this experiment to a successful issue. 
 It is for us, then, to have sympathy with them; 
 to have knowledge of the situation; to show 
 intelligence towards them ; it is for us to have faith 
 in them ; and to bear with them if the full fruition 
 is long in coming. It will be long; every one 
 who knows the situation sees that it will be long; 
 but we must have patience. We must not think 
 that they can hurry things; that they can turn 
 
362 ASPECTS OF ISLAM 
 
 Turkey at once into a modern state. We mu§t 
 not be surprised if the same things that happened 
 in the past sometimes happen again; we must 
 have patience. We must give them a chance to 
 show what they can do — that is the last word, 
 must be the last word of any one who speaks 
 upon Islam and its possibilities. There is a long 
 road lying ahead before anything Is to be 
 reached that will be worth reaching, but I believe 
 that that road has now been entered. 
 
INDEX 
 
 'Abbasid period of culture, 305. 
 
 *Abd, 247. 
 
 'Abd al-HamId, 277. 
 
 "Abode of Islam," 276. 
 
 Abu Bekr, 180. 
 
 Abu Bekr ibn al-'Arabi, 317. 
 
 Abyssinia, 263. 
 
 Abyssinian Christianity, 54. 
 
 "Acceptance" of Ash'arites, 139. 
 
 Adam, 98, 218. 
 
 Addition, class in, 289. 
 
 Africa, 283. 
 
 Agnosticism in Islam, 147 f. 
 
 "Agreement" in Islam, 112 f. 
 
 Ahmad, as name of Muhammad, 
 
 215 f. 
 
 Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 227 i., 270. 
 
 Ahmadites, 49. 
 
 Albanians, 153. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 252. 
 
 Algeria, 155. 
 
 'All, deifying of, g6. 
 
 'A lima, 298. 
 
 Allah, 70, 71, 97, 121, 125; and 
 the world, 43, 185; the only 
 abiding, 44; the only reality, 
 45. 75. 185, how different 
 cognates of the name struck 
 a Muslim, 55; "Difference" 
 of, 131, 133, 142, 199, 201; 
 existence of, 126; submission 
 1j, 72; Allah and not-Allah, 
 75; primal covenant of, with 
 man, 98; Most Beautiful 
 Names of, 116, 119, 127, 181; 
 doctrine of Person of, 123 ff. ; 
 "Priority" of, 127; "Contin- 
 uance" of, 130; settles Him- 
 self upon His throne, 132; 
 the Most Merciful of those 
 that show mercy, 133; His 
 
 The Arabic article (a/, etc.) 
 at the beginning of any of these 
 
 self-subsistence, 134; unity of, 
 
 135-142. 
 "Allah I" 346. 
 
 "Allah! Allah! Allah!" 116. 
 "Allah's are the East and the 
 
 West," 75, 186. 
 Americans in Hawaii, 287. 
 Amir al-Hajj, 35. 
 Amos, 67, 263; Book of, 77. 
 Ananikian, Mr., of Hartford 
 
 Seminary, 156. 
 -Andalus, 316. 
 Angels in Islam, 70. 
 Anselmo di Turmeda, 230. 
 Anthropomorphists in Islam, 131. 
 Anthropomorphisms in Qur'an 
 
 1 86. 
 
 Antinomianism, 153. 
 
 Apprentice system, 307. 
 
 Aquinas, 120, 139, 184. 
 
 Arab national unity, 260. 
 
 Arabi Pasha, 252. 
 
 Arabia, 332; law of, 57; of 
 Muhammad's time, 56; popu- 
 lation of, 57; in religious un- 
 rest, 58. 
 
 Arabian Nights, 23, 36, 44, 64, 
 226, 281, 327, 339, 351 f. 
 
 Arabic, importance of classical, 
 8; poetry, 116, 317; philology, 
 310, 314, 317; philosophy, 314; 
 of literature, 320; spoken, 
 320; renaissance of, 357. 
 
 'Arafa, 298. 
 
 Architecture, no Arab, 306 f. 
 
 Aristotle, 128, 142 f., 144. 
 
 Arithmetic, 290 f., 308, 317. 
 
 Artisan, 306. 
 
 Artist an artisan, 305. 
 
 Arts and crafts, 305. 
 
 is omitted when it would occur 
 entries; in its place a - is inserted. 
 
 363 
 
3^4 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ascension Day, 2T, Muslim doc- 
 trine of, 26. 
 
 Ascetic exercises in Islam, 184, 
 187. 
 
 -Ash'ari, 140. 
 
 Ash'arites, 139. 
 
 Asia, 283, European peril to, 
 252. 
 
 Asia Minor, 279. 
 
 "Aspect" of things towards 
 Allah, 202. 
 
 Assassins, 305. 
 
 Atomic philosophy in Islam, 144; 
 system of atoms for time, 138. 
 
 Aucassin et Nicolette, 279. 
 
 Augustine, 120, 184, 190. 
 
 Auto-hypnosis of darwishes, 163, 
 
 346- 
 
 Autonomy of non-Muslim organ- 
 izations, 267. 
 
 -Azhar University, 36, 168, 254, 
 289, 293, 303, 3"» 321, 351; 
 head of, 288. 
 
 B 
 
 Bab az-Zuwela, 205. 
 
 Baghdad, 227, 301. 
 
 Bagpipes in Cairo, 48. 
 
 Baha ad-Din, his biography of 
 
 Saladin, 280. 
 Balkans, 252. 
 Barkh, 229. 
 
 "Begotten not made," 247. 
 Bektashites, 152, 154, 155. 
 Belles lettres, 302, 317. 
 Benediction of the Christian 
 
 Church, 69. 
 -Beruni, 234, 236. 
 Bible, difference and influence 
 
 of, 15; importance of, 13; 
 
 in Islam, 210. 
 Biographical dictionaries, 306. 
 -Bira in Palestine, 291. 
 Birth of the Prophet, 117. 
 Birthday of the Prophet, 166. 
 Black Mass, 330. 
 
 Breathing to produce emotional 
 
 religious effects, 162. 
 Browning, 73; his "Abt Vogler," 
 
 40; his "Grammarian," 315. 
 Buddhism, 191, 250 f. 
 Buddhist prayer wheel, 89. 
 -Bukhari's Sahlh, 65. 
 Burhamites, 49. 
 Burton, Sir Richard, 330. 
 Byzantium, 57, 261, 263. 
 
 Cadis College, 320. 
 
 Cairene, typical representative 
 
 of, 38. 
 
 Cairo, 27, 32, 34, 35, 42, f., 47, 
 92, 152, 155, 159, 166, 168, 
 173, 180, 205 f-. 282, 288, 
 292 f., 301, 320, 327, 328, 
 333, 336, 338 f., 350 f., 355. 
 358; City of, 205. 
 
 Calligrapher, 308, 316. 
 
 Calligraphy, 306. 
 
 Calvin, 120, 284. 
 
 Canon law, 300 f. 
 
 Cantatas of the birth of the 
 Prophet, 345. 
 
 Cante-fable, 279. 
 
 Carmel and priests of Baal, 91. 
 
 Carving, 306. 
 
 Catalan national literature, 230. 
 
 Causation in Islam, 148. 
 
 Cave in Muqattam Hills, 152. 
 
 Caves, rock-hewn, 63. 
 
 Central Arabian States, 276. 
 
 Certificate, personal, of professor, 
 
 291, 303. 
 
 Character in education, 321. 
 
 Charms in a kuttab, 295. 
 
 Chaucer, 357; his "Knight," 278; 
 his "Wife of Bath," 278. 
 
 Chesterton, Mr. G. K., 139- 
 
 Children of Israel, 229. 
 
 China, 285, 286. 
 
 Christ, 26; "back to Christ!", 
 no; one nature of, 190; doc- 
 trine of, in Islam, 243. 
 
INDEX 
 
 365 
 
 Christian hermits, influence of, 
 on Muhammad, 62; asceticism 
 of, 192; liturgies, 69; ambass- 
 ador in Kerbela legend, 94; 
 mystics, 190. 
 
 Christians, 71, 117, 216, 220, 
 224, 250, 251, 30s, 307; as 
 subjects of Muslims, status of, 
 
 211. 
 Church militant, none in Islam, 
 
 44; triumphant, 44; Church of 
 
 the Holy Sepulchre, 174. 
 "Circle," impossibility of the, 
 
 128. 
 Class-meetings, Methodist, i93- 
 Clubs and associations, future 
 
 of, 13- 
 Colloquial Arabic, 351, 356 f. 
 Comforter, promise of the, 215. 
 Commentaries, abuse of, 310 f. 
 Common-sense Islam, 256. 
 Comparative historical methods 
 
 and origins of Islam, 54. 
 Congress of Orientalists at 
 
 Algiers, 40. 
 Conspiracy of misinformation, 7, 
 
 30. 
 
 Constantinople, 155 f. 
 
 Controversy, use and abuse of, 
 13; danger in, 18; of Muslims 
 and Christians, 231. 
 
 Conventions, Muslim attitude to 
 European, 324. 
 
 Conversation, frankness of Ori- 
 ental, 354- 
 
 Countenance of Yahwe, 186. 
 
 Covering of the Ka'ba, exhibi- 
 tion of, 166. 
 
 Crafts and trades, 290. 
 
 Creation, beginning of, 218. 
 
 Criticism of Islam by Muslims, 
 
 47 f- 
 Crcesus, 22^. 
 Cromer, Lord, 37; Modern Egypt 
 
 of, 181. 
 Crucifixion, the, not accepted by 
 
 Muslims, 26, 24s, 248. 
 
 "Cry out" and "read," in Sem- 
 itic, 291. 
 
 Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Relig- 
 ion To-day, 330. 
 
 D 
 
 Dahnhardt, Natursagen, 326. 
 
 Damascus, 282, 308. 
 
 Dante, 357. 
 
 Ddr al-barb, 275. 
 
 Dar al-hikma, 301. 
 
 Ddr al-Isldm, 275. 
 
 Darwishes, 22, 46, 49, 50, 91. 
 93» 116, 345. 347. 348; of 
 working classes, 51. 
 
 Darwish fraternities, 144 ff., 
 295; can Christians enter? 
 154; as Church organizations, 
 176; development of, 202; 
 mythical founders of, 203; the 
 Path of, 204. 
 
 Darwish monastery, 27; monas- 
 teries, ruins of, 158. 
 
 Darwish Mustafa, 43. 
 
 Darwish, professional, 158, 167. 
 
 Darwishing, too much, 173. 
 
 David, 220, 241. 
 
 Day of "Am I not?" 98. 
 
 Day of Doom, 71. 
 
 Day of Judgment for Muham- 
 mad, 63. 
 
 Dead Sea, 247. 
 
 De Sacy, Chrestomathie arabe, 
 276. 
 
 Deuteronomy, Book of, (xviii, 
 18), 234; (xxxiii, 2), 235. 
 
 Devils, 70; devil-worship, 331. 
 
 Diplomacy between Muslims and 
 Christians, 275. 
 
 Divergencies, local, in Islam, 
 
 157. 
 Doctrine of the saved in Islam, 
 
 71. 
 Dominican Order, 158. 
 Donkey-boy, use of, 38, 349- 
 Dreaming in Islam, 188. 
 Drums of darwishes, 49, 163. 
 
z(>^ 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ecclesiastes, Book of, 59, 61. 
 
 Education in Islam, 288 ff. 
 
 Efrxt in an engine, 340. 
 
 Egypt, 4, 43, 49. 52, 152 f., 
 160, 180, 263, 274, 278, 294 
 f., 310, 319 f-, 534, 340, 343. 
 
 Egyptian nationalists, 254 f., 
 
 217- 
 Elia Qudsi, 308. 
 Emerson, R. W., 60. 
 Emotional religiosity, 49. 
 Encyclopedic, 181. 
 "Endless chain," impossibility of 
 
 the, 128. 
 Engine, efrlt in the, 340. 
 Engineer, 306. 
 Enneads of Plotinus, 142. 
 Erotic literature, 351. 
 Esau, 235. 
 
 Ethics in Islam, 297. 
 Europeans, careless statements 
 
 of orientalized, 31, 37. 
 Eve, other children of, 326. 
 "Everything goes to destruction," 
 
 186. 
 "Existence," What is?, 125 
 Ezra, 225. 
 
 Face of Allah, 186, 188, 201; 
 
 face of thy Lord, 187. 
 Fall, the, in Islam, 61; Pauline 
 
 doctrine of, 62. 
 Faran, 236. 
 
 Farthest Lote Tree, the, 76. 
 Fast, the, 72. 
 Fatiha, the, 25, 70, 83, 161; 
 
 translation and use of, 25. 
 Fatimids, the, 301, 305. 
 Fellahln, Egyptian, 354. 
 Fiqls. 295-299. 
 
 Fire, the, 102; fear of, 187. 
 First Cause, the, 130. 
 Folk-tales, 326, 340. 
 Fountains, public, 292. 
 Franciscans, 150, 158, 230. 
 
 Free-masonry, 307. 
 Friday sermon, 31, 118. 
 Fulani Emirates, 252. 
 
 Gabriel, Angel, 108, 244. 
 -Gamaliya, district in Cairo, 92. 
 Genesis, Book of, 61, 239. 
 Geneva, 284. 
 -Ghazzair, 36, 139, 194, 196-201, 
 
 203, 228 f., 302. 
 Ghazzalite darwishes, no order 
 
 of, 203. 
 Girls, education of, in Islam, 
 
 293 i- 
 
 God is all, 193; exists through 
 Himself only, 201; never with- 
 out a witness, 217. 
 
 Golden Legend, 23. 
 
 Golden period in Islam, 237. 
 
 Goldziher, Ignaz, 210. 
 
 Gondeshapur, 305. 
 
 Gospel, the, 217, 242; the Gos- 
 pels, no; of Barnabas, 230. 
 
 Government schools, 319. 
 
 Grammar, study of, 301. 
 
 Granada, 316. 
 
 Greek Church, Logos doctrine 
 in, 105; theology of, 124. 
 
 Grimm's Kinder und Haus- 
 Mdrchen, 326. 
 
 H 
 
 Hafis, 299. 
 •Hajjaj, 240. 
 Hajj caravan, 35. 
 Hallucination and suggestion in 
 
 case of darwishes, 207. 
 Hamilton, Sir William, 148. 
 -Hamzawiya district in Cairo, 
 
 92. 
 Hanbalites, 46. 
 -Haqq, 75. 
 
 Harun ar-Rashid, 295. 
 Hawaii, American missionaries 
 
 in, 287. 
 Heart of man, the, 196, 201. 
 
INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 Hebrews, migration of, 58. 
 
 Herodotus, 350. 
 
 Hierarchy of saints in Islam, 
 
 204. 
 High Church Islam, 96. 
 Historical methods of Muslims, 
 
 52. 
 History, v. stories, 349. 
 Holy Spirit, the, 247. 
 Hosea, 67, 263. 
 Hospitality of darwishes, 153. 
 Hospitals at Baghdad, 305. 
 "Ho, the friends of Allah!" 
 
 204. 
 Hungary, 252. 
 -Husayn, 91, 92, 94. 
 Hypnotic or hypnoidal states of 
 
 darwishes, 164, 173, 331, 346. 
 Hypnotism in the East, 174, 347. 
 
 Ibn Hazm, 238, 240. 
 
 Ibn Hisham, 310. 
 
 Ibn Khaldun, 309-319. 
 
 Ibn Taymiya, 46. 
 
 Idealism, how expressed in Ara- 
 bic, 42. 
 
 Ihya of al-Ghazzali, 36. 
 
 Illuminating, 306. 
 
 Impassibility of Allah, 200. 
 
 Impossible, the, 121. 
 
 Independent teachers in Islam, 
 290. 
 
 India, 257, 285. 
 
 Ingersoll, R. G., 239. 
 
 Injil, 242. 
 
 Ink-mirror, 334. 
 
 Inner Light, the, 146, 149, 194. 
 
 Inner side of Muslim life, 
 
 323 ff- 
 Inspiration, doctrine of, 14; 
 
 minor, of Saints of Allah, 188. 
 Isaiah, 67; (xl, 6), 65; (xxi, 
 
 6-7), 236. 
 Ishmael, 235. 
 Islam as a religion, 12; future 
 
 of, 12; in the broad, 19; 
 meaning of, 20, 262; and 
 Christianity, absolute difference 
 between, 45; High Church 
 Islam, 96; theological eclec- 
 ticism of, 97; line of future 
 escape for, iii; primeval, 218; 
 confronting the non-Muslim 
 world, 251; economic danger 
 for, 252; decay of militant, 
 252; modernizing of, 255; 
 common-sense, 256; spread of, 
 in history, 257; utilitarian, 
 257; "the religion of all sen- 
 sible men," 257; Islam and 
 non-Muslims, 265; must dom- 
 inate, 284; unable to distin- 
 guish church and state, 284; 
 in China, 285. 
 
 Isnad, 53. 
 
 Israel, 259. 
 
 Jaques in "As you like it," 280. 
 
 Jerusalem, 26, 174, 279, 291, 
 337. 343; Latin kingdom of, 
 253. 
 
 Jesus, loi, 106, 215, 220, 225, 
 236, 241 f., 246-248; imitation 
 of, 103; different from other 
 prophets, 243 ; miraculous birth 
 of, 244; miracles of, 244; 
 position for Muslims of, 244; 
 sinlessness of, 244; wisdom of, 
 244; ascension of, 245; cruci- 
 fixion of, 245; not killed by 
 men, 245; Spirit of Allah, 
 24s; Word of Allah, 245. 
 
 Jesuit priest, 14. 
 
 Jesuits in Paraguay, 287. 
 
 Jews, 71, 216, 220, 224, 250, 
 305; in medieval Europe, 267. 
 
 Jewish tribes of Arabia, 55. 
 
 Jinn, 36, 64-66, 70, 331, 339, 
 
 341. 
 Jizya, 266. 
 
 Job, 235. 
 
368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 John of Damascus, 124, 231; on 
 
 controversy, 271. 
 John's Gospel, (xiv, 16, 26), 
 
 (xv, 26), (xvi, 7), 215. 
 Joshua, 225. 
 
 Journeys of students, 303, 318. 
 Judas, 249. 
 
 Judges, Book of, 219. 
 Judgments of God, Muhammad's 
 
 view of, 63. 
 Jurisprudence, 300. 
 
 K 
 
 Ka'ba, the, 34, 47, 205, 259. 
 
 Kaiir, 34. 
 
 Kant, 125. 
 
 Kareno, 99. 
 
 Kerbela, 91, 94. 
 
 -Khadir, 206 f., 209. 
 
 Khalwati fraternity of dar- 
 
 wishes, 168. 
 Kliaraj, 266. 
 Khatlb, sword of, 31. 
 Khedive, the, 35, 37. 
 -Kindi, Epistle of, 271 f. 
 "King of Day of Doom," 70. 
 Kiszva, 34, 37, 48. 
 Knowledge from Allah Himself, 
 
 190. 
 Korah, 225. 
 Kudiya, 333. 
 Kuttab, 293, 295 f., 299; of 'Abd 
 
 ar-Rahman, 292. 
 
 Lady Mandura, 329 f. 
 La ilaha illa-llah, 161, 227. 
 Lane, E. W., 330, 336, 355, 357; 
 Modern Egyptians of, 96, 171, 
 
 325, 334- 
 
 Last Day, the, 245 f. ; doctrine 
 of, 70. 
 
 Latin Church, 124. 
 
 "Law, the," 217, 228, 236. 
 
 Lay membership in darwish fra- 
 ternities, 159. 
 
 Laysa min ad-din, 50. 
 
 Leaves of Abraham, 217. 
 
 Leibnitz, 144. 
 
 Letters, divination by, 338. 
 
 Lexicography, study of, 301. 
 
 Liberty, religious, in Islam, 179. 
 
 "Light of Light," 69, 100. 
 
 Light of Muhammad, 98, loi. 
 
 "Light of the world," 69. 
 
 Logic, 302, 313, 314; logic- 
 machine, 123; study of, 288. 
 
 Logos, doctrine of, 106 f. 
 
 "Lord of the Worlds," 36. 
 
 Lotus tree in Roda, 329. 
 
 Louis XVI, 276. 
 
 Love of God (subject and ob- 
 ject), 199, 200. 
 
 Lucretius, 144. 
 
 Lull, Ramon, 122 f. 
 
 Luther, 284. 
 
 M 
 
 Maalesh, 38. 
 Madrasa, 34, 302, 318. 
 -Maghrib, 315. 
 
 Magians, 71; a "People of Script- 
 ure," 217. 
 Magic, 339, 343; books on, 336, 
 
 338. 
 Magic mirror, 334, 344; magic 
 
 square, 335, 342. 
 Magician, 334-336, 341. 
 Magnificat, the, 214. 
 Mahdl of the Sudan, 252, 254. 
 Mahmal, 34. 
 
 Malik (use of, as title), 276. 
 Malikite canon law, 310. 
 -Ma'mun, 271 f., 301. 
 Man in God's image, 196; spirit 
 
 of God in, 195. 
 Mansel, H. L., 148. 
 Marclien, 327, 340. 
 Marriage festival, cantata at, 
 
 118. 
 Marti, Ramon, 139. 
 -Mashriq, 316. 
 Maspero, Sir Gaston, 339, 341. 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 Masses of Islam, their attitude 
 
 to Christians, 281. 
 Master-builder, 306. 
 Mathematics, 307; and astron- 
 omy, 302, 305; status of, in 
 
 Islam, 289. 
 Mawlawite darwishes, 153. 
 Mawlawite monastery, 152. 
 Mecca, 34 f., 47, 152, 167, 205, 
 
 236; ritual of, in Islam, 259. 
 Meccans, 81, 219, 259. 
 Medieval Europe, the clue to 
 
 Islam, 282. 
 Medieval intercourse between 
 
 Europe and Asia, 278. 
 -Medina, dT, 80, 259, 261 f. ; of 
 
 Cairo, 92. 
 Menendez y Pelayo's Origenes 
 
 de la Novela, 123, 230. 
 Messenger, a, to come, 215. 
 Methuselah, 239. 
 Millennium, 245. 
 Miniature painting, 306. 
 Min ladimnd, 190. 
 Miracles (Gospel) imitated in 
 
 Islam, 232; of saints, 170, 
 
 347 f- 
 
 Mirghanite darwishes, 135. 
 
 Mirror, metaphor of the, 196. 
 
 Missionaries, 151, 274, 343, 3Si> 
 353. 355-359; training of, i 
 ff. ; attitude and character of, 
 2; work, essentials of, 10; 
 problems of education of, 11; 
 methods of, 13; theological 
 training of, 14; attitude of, to 
 Muslim saints, 29; danger 
 for, 39; reading of, 323 ff. ; 
 first essential for, 357; profes- 
 sional Muslim missionaries, 
 283; greatest problem of Chris- 
 tian missionaries, 287, 360; 
 Women missionaries, 4, 334. 
 
 Missionary activity of Muslims, 
 250 ff., 269. 
 
 Missionary religions, three great, 
 250. 
 
 24 
 
 Mission fields, different situa- 
 tions in, 19. 
 Mission schools and colleges, 11, 
 
 319. 
 
 Missions, what are they? 256. 
 
 Modern Egypt by Lord Cromer, 
 181. 
 
 Monophysite heresy, 190. 
 
 Moors, expulsion of, from Spain, 
 286. 
 
 Moralizing of Semites, 102. 
 
 Morocco, 276, 279. 
 
 Moses, 220, 225, 228 f., 236, 241, 
 263. 
 
 Mosque, Imam of, 177; place of, 
 in Islam, 177; teaching in, 
 301; of the Ascension, 26; 
 of Ibn Tiilun, 42; of the 
 Hasanen, 47 f., 92, 95; of Abu 
 Dawud, 289; of -Mu'ayyad, 
 290, 351. 
 
 Mount of Olives, 26. 
 
 Mount Paran, 235. 
 
 Mu'allim, 307. 
 
 Muhammad, 108, 116, 124, 188, 
 200, 203, 210, 236, 246, 248, 
 249; legend of, 12, 232; col- 
 loquial language of, 40; per- 
 son and life of, 46 ff. ; the 
 historical, 51; a trance-medium, 
 55, 64, 72; clue to, 56; chron- 
 ology of, 59; a pathological 
 case, 60, 63, 72, 75; his feel- 
 ing for the poor and helpless, 
 60, 71; early life of, 60; his 
 sense of evil in the world, 60, 
 62; and the jinn, 64; his use 
 of phrases picked up at Chris- 
 tiaei services, 65, 214; his 
 relation to the Old Testament 
 prophets, 65, 73; "investigates" 
 Jewish boy's phenomena, 67; 
 doctrines held by, 69; not an 
 impostor, 72; sword of, how 
 gained, 73; not a general, 73; 
 often unpolitic, 73; his fall and 
 last ten years, 74; attached 
 
370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 men to himself, 74; a judge 
 of character, 74; in Medina, 
 74; not a theologian, 75, 187; 
 his mind concrete, 75; a dual- 
 ist and yet a monist, 75; a 
 mystic, ^(>, 184; trance utter- 
 ances of, TT, 79; how revela- 
 tion came to, 78; consciously 
 forging, 79; formally a sooth- 
 sayer, 81; his vision of the 
 Heavenly Book, 82; took no 
 care to preserve the Qur'an, 
 82; his meaning for Muslims 
 now, 90, 97; doctrine on per- 
 son of, 96; descendants of, 
 96; the worlds created for, 97; 
 a prophet before creation of 
 Adam, 98; glorified ancestry 
 of, 99; influences on doctrine 
 of the person of, 99; a Light 
 from Allah, 100; sinlessness of, 
 100; are his parents saved? 
 100, loi; imitation of, 103, 
 311; "Back to M.!," 109; his 
 conception of Allah, 185; an 
 ascetic, 187; a God-intoxicated 
 poet, 187; his belief in his own 
 mission, 211; and Jews and 
 Christians, 213; no story-teller, 
 214; "written in the Script- 
 ures," 215, 240; the Prophet 
 of the Meccans, 219; last of 
 the Prophets, 219; and the 
 Scriptures, 221; and mir- 
 acles, 231; did not claim 
 miracles, 232; created before 
 the worlds, 246; as a mission- 
 ary, 257; his personal claim, 
 258; a religious politician, 259; 
 head of Church and State, 
 259; as a preacher, 260; the 
 Prophet of Arabia, 263. 
 
 Muharram, procession and cer- 
 emony, 91 f. 
 
 Mummies, 341. 
 
 Muqattam Hills, 152, 349. 
 
 Museum at Cairo, 339-341. 
 
 "Mush kidaf" 321. 
 
 Musil, Arabia Petrcea, 248. 
 
 Muslim, mission field, peculiar 
 characteristics of, 2; peoples 
 democratic, 5; their respect 
 for learning, 5; controversy, 
 handbook of, 16; contempt 
 for Western logic, 120; mys- 
 tics, early, 191; army, how 
 supported, 266; rulers and. 
 Christians, 274; architecture, 
 307; pedagogy, 319. 
 
 Muslims, different classes of, 
 115; relation of to mosques, 
 178; and friendship with 
 Christians, 273; treaties with 
 Christians, 275; and native 
 Christians, 278; self-conscious 
 with Westerners, 354. 
 
 Mtitun, 311. 
 
 Mystical theology, 197 f. 
 
 Mysticism in Islam, 112, 145; 
 metaphysical, 6; ascetic, 192; 
 speculative, 192. 
 
 Mystics, Muslim, and doctrine 
 of Scripture, 241 ; all thinking 
 and devout Muslims are, 113, 
 
 lis. 
 
 N 
 
 Nablus, 33; College at, 34. 
 
 -Nahhasin, 292. 
 
 Naisabur, 302. 
 
 Native Christian, still a native, 
 
 287. 
 Nature, idea of, in Islam, 139. 
 Nazareth, 236. 
 Nebi Sa'in, 236. 
 Necessary, the, 121. 
 Neo-Platonism, 99, 142 f., 191. 
 Nestorian wave of conquest, 251. 
 New Testament, the, 69, 117. 
 Night Journey, the, 76. 
 North Africa, 310, 332. 
 
 o 
 
 Officials, Christian, in Islam, 
 268. 
 
INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 "Old captive, the," 279. 
 
 Old Masr, 328. 
 
 Old Testament, the, 61, 66, 69, 
 88, 95, 186; Muhammad's re- 
 lation to prophets of, 65, 
 
 Oratio, 107. 
 
 Ordinances against non-Muslims, 
 267. 
 
 Oriental Christians, status of, 
 286. 
 
 Oriental's feeling of religious 
 superiority, 39, 347. 
 
 Original sin, no doctrine of, in 
 Islam, 61. 
 
 Originator of the world, 127. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 239. 
 
 Palestine, 344. 
 
 Palmer's translation of the Qur'- 
 
 an, 88. 
 Pan-Islamism, 285. 
 Pantheism, 143, 153, 193 f. 
 Paraclete, the, 216. 
 Paradox of the missionary's life, 
 
 359- 
 Parents of Muhammad, their 
 
 fate, 10 1. 
 Pascal, 139. 
 
 Passion Play at Kerbela, 92. 
 "Peace, the," in Islam, 69. 
 Pedagogy in Islam, 297 f., 312, 
 
 319- 
 Pen, the, 108. 
 Pentateuch, the, 225. 
 People of the Book, 210 f., 213, 
 
 215, 219. 
 Persia, 57, 261, 263, 282. 
 Persian Islam, 92. 
 Philosophy in Islam, 304. 
 Phonograph voice, 291. 
 Physician, training of, 305. 
 Pilate, 249. 
 Pilgrimage, 72. 
 Plato, 42, 143 f. 
 Playing games, for Orientals, 
 
 319. 
 
 Plotinus, 191. 
 
 Poetry in Muslim education, 317. 
 
 Pons asinorum, 120. 
 
 Popular literature, 323 ff. 
 
 Possible, the, 121. 
 
 Prayerfulness, duty of constant, 
 
 193. 
 Prayer meeting, 166, 172. 
 Prayer-niche, verses in a, 43. 
 Prayers, five legal daily, 71, 118, 
 
 193. 345- 
 Preserved Tablet, the, 108. 
 Primary education in Islam, 299; 
 
 schools, 232, 292, 299, 308, 
 
 322. 
 Printing press, value of the, 350, 
 
 355 f- 
 Procession of the "Holy Carpet," 
 
 47. 
 
 Prophetism in the Old Testa- 
 ment, 54. 
 
 Prophets of the Old Testament, 
 65. 67, 73, 258; to the Arabs, 
 66; soothsaying, 67; two kinds 
 of, 217. 
 
 Proselytes, early to Islam, 223, 
 224. 
 
 Prosody in Muslim education, 
 301. 
 
 Proverbs, Book of, 102, 293. 
 
 Psalms, the, 214, 217. 
 
 Qadirite darwishes, 49, 153. 
 
 Qadirite monastery, 151. 
 
 Qadis, 321. 
 
 Qarun, 225, 228. 
 
 Qasr al-'aini hospital, 152. 
 
 Quakers, 146. 
 
 Qualities of Allah, 125. 
 
 Qur'an, 25, 27, 36, 41, 54, 65, 
 69, 76, 106, 113, 116, 119, 133, 
 197, 200, 212, 222, 225, 229, 
 238-240, 242, 246, 263 f., 289, 
 299, 315-318, 342, 351; Chapter 
 of the Cow, 17; origin of, 40; 
 form of, 77; earlier and later 
 
372 
 
 INDEX 
 
 parts, 78; its rhyme, 79; lead- 
 ing articles in, 80; the direct 
 words of Allah, 80; use of 
 parts of in prayer, 82; col- 
 lected after the death of Mu- 
 hammad, 82; in chronological 
 chaos, 83; how arranged, 83; 
 cause of collection of, 83; 
 Meccan and Medinan chapters 
 of, 84; Muslim critical work 
 on, 85; the mind of Muham- 
 mad, 85, 185; Arabic literature 
 on, 86; no trustworthy trans- 
 lation of, 87; difficult to under- 
 stand, 87; to what extent 
 understood by Muslims, 88; 
 recitation of, 89, 281; present 
 Muslim feeling for, 90; un- 
 created, 105; nature of, 105; 
 phrasing of, 108; utterance 
 of, 109; "Back to the Q.!," 
 iii; reading aloud of, 117; 
 "the mind of Muhammad," 
 185; contradictions in, 187; 
 in Muslim education, 291, 296, 
 313 ff. ; texts as charms, 296. 
 Qur'an, (ii, 109), 75, 186; (ii, 
 274), 186; (iii, 72), 221; (iv, 
 48), 221; (iv, iss, 156), 248; 
 (vi, 52), 186; (vi. 156), 215; 
 (vii, 52), 132; (vii, 150), 134; 
 (x, 3), 132; (x, 63), 204; 
 (xii, 64, 92), 134; (xiii, 2), 
 132; (xiii, 22), 186; (xiii, 28), 
 189; (xv, 29), 195; (xvii, 87), 
 69» 195; (xviii, 27), 186; 
 (xviii, 64), 190; (xx, 2), 132; 
 (xxi, 83), 134; (xxii, 17), 
 217; (xxiv, 35), 69; (xxv, 
 60), 132; (xxviii, 88), 187; 
 (xxx, 37, 38), 186; (xxxii, 3), 
 132; (xxxiii, 41), 189; (xxxviii, 
 72), 19s; (xliii, 12), 132; 
 (xlviii, I, 2), 100; (liii, 37, 
 38), 217; (Iv, 26), 187; (Ivii, 
 4), 132; (Ixi, 6), 215; (Ixxii, 
 6), 331 (Ixxvii, 9), 186; 
 
 (Ixxxviii, 19), 217; (xcii, 20), 
 186; (xcvi), 65. 
 Qutb or Axis, 204 f. 
 
 R 
 
 RabbunS, Muslim use of, 22. 
 
 Ratio, 107. 
 
 -Razi, 229; his commentary on 
 the Qur'an, 229. 
 
 Reading of the masses, 356. 
 
 Reason and Allah, 107; reason in 
 Islam, 146; use of, to destroy 
 philosophy, 149. 
 
 Reasoning of Muslims concrete, 
 122. 
 
 Religion of Arabs of Muham- 
 mad's day, 70; three-fold basis 
 of religion, 145. 
 
 Religious experience in Islam, 
 149; r. intuition, 190; r. novel- 
 ists in Islam, 228; r. feeling, 
 344. 346. 
 
 "Remembering" God, 189. 
 
 Renaissance (European), 230, 
 306; in Arabia, 56. 
 
 "Rend your hearts," 228. 
 
 Revelation, 127; history of, in 
 Islam, 66; history of, for ' y 
 Muhammad, 215. 
 
 Revivals, 165. 
 
 Rhetoric in education, 302. 
 
 Rice's Crusaders of the Twen- 
 tieth Century, 16. 
 
 Richard Lion-Heart, 282. 
 
 Rifa'ite darwishes, 49. 
 
 Roda, Island of, 328. 
 
 Rodwell's translation of the 
 Qur'an, 88. 
 
 Romances in Arabic, popular, 
 281, 350. 
 
 Rosary of Islam, 115. 
 
 Ruchdi Pasha, Madame, Harems 
 et Musulmanes d'Egypte, 330, 
 
 333- 
 Rulers, Muslim, and Christians, 
 
 273, 274. 
 
INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Sabians, 217. 
 
 Sachau, Eduard, 234. 
 
 Sacred books of Jews and Chris- 
 tians, 66. 
 
 Sa'dite darwishes, 49. 
 
 Sahara, 254. 
 
 Saints, Muslim, 23 ff., 347 f. ; 
 Christians and Muslim saints, 
 28; have vision of Allah, 198; 
 the friends of Allah, 205; 
 quasi-life in their tombs, 207; 
 tombs of, in Cairo, 208; in- 
 spiration of, 188, 218; states- 
 men-saints, 284; worship of, 
 perverted, 332; as mission- 
 aries, 270. 
 
 Saint Louis, 35. 
 
 Saint Patrick's Day, 95. 
 
 Sa'ir (mountain near Nazareth), 
 236. 
 
 Saladin, as an amateur theolog- 
 ian, 280. 
 
 Sale's translation of the Qur'an, 
 88. 
 
 Samuel, 183. 
 
 San'a, 305. 
 
 Sand-divination, 343. 
 
 S. Sophia, 291. 
 
 Saul, among the prophets, 90 
 f., 183. 
 
 Sayyidnd Husen, "Our Lord 
 Husen," 95. 
 
 Scholastic theology of Islam, 
 119 fF., 197; effect of, in 
 Islam, 194; in education, 301, 
 
 305- 
 
 Schreiner, Martin, 210. 
 
 Scriptures, Jewish and Christian, 
 in Islam, 210 ff., 223; were 
 they corrupted? 223; Muslim 
 historians and Scriptures, 237; 
 present day Muslim attitude 
 to, 241. 
 
 Seal of Solomon, 342. 
 
 Seir, 235. 
 
 Semites, a moralizing race, 102. 
 
 Semitic prophetism, 67. 
 Senusite darwishes, 253; chiefs 
 
 of, 254. 
 Seven Sleepers, 342. 
 Shajarat ad-Durr, 35. 
 -Sha'rani, 27^', tomb of, 28. 
 Shaykh al-Bekri, 155, 160, 180 f. 
 Shaykh of darwishes, 160, 171. 
 Shi'ite, 91 f., 95, 98. 
 Sicily, 252. 
 Sina'a, 305. 
 Sinai, 235 f. 
 
 Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 334. 
 Society for Psychical Research, 
 
 68. 
 Song of Solomon, 239. 
 Soothsayers in Arabia, 64, 67; 
 
 form of utterance of, 81. 
 South Arabia, 54. 
 Spain, 230, 252, 268, 276, 282, 
 
 286, 315-317. 
 Speech a quality of Allah, 106 f. 
 Spirit from Allah, the, 247. 
 "Spirit, the, is the affair of thy 
 
 Lord," 195. 
 Stamboul, 282. 
 
 Statesmen-saints in Islam, 284. 
 States, psychological, in man, 
 
 198. 
 Stories, 349. 
 Story-tellers, religious, in Islam, 
 
 226. 
 Sudanese Muslims, 262. 
 Sufiism, 42, 14s ff. 
 Sultan (use as title), 276. 
 Sunnite, 95 f. 
 Superstitions, 334. 
 Sword, the, in Islam, 260. 
 Sympathy, necessity of, 2, 18, 
 
 21-23, 30, 72. 
 Syria, 343. 358. 
 Syrian Desert, 247. 
 
 Tables of the law, 225. 
 Taghiya (use as title), 276. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Talismans, 341. 
 Taxes of non-Muslims, 265. 
 Teachers in primary schools, 294. 
 Teaching corporations in Islam, 
 
 302. 
 Technical education, 304. 
 Telepathic gifts of darwishes, 
 
 170. 
 Telepathy, 335, 347. 
 Tell el-Kebir, 252. 
 Templars, 279, 
 Tertiaries, 158 f. 
 Text-books, highly abbreviated, 
 
 311- 
 
 Text-book for darwish frater- 
 nities, 182. 
 
 Theological education in Islam, 
 300, 317; schools, 308. 
 
 Theology of individual experi- 
 ence, 198. 
 
 "Theology of Aristotle," 143. 
 
 "There is no God at all save 
 Allah!" 70. 
 
 Thought-transference, 335. 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord," in the 
 Qur'an, 81. 
 
 Tomb of a saint, inscription on, 
 25; at Tiberias, 29; visiting 
 their tombs, 24. 
 
 Tombs of Aramean and Nabatean 
 trading colonies, 63. 
 
 Torah, 225. 
 
 Trade-guilds, 307 f. 
 
 Tradition in Islam, 54, 146. 
 
 Traditionalists, in Islam, 227. 
 
 Traditions, 116, 301; forged, 52. 
 
 Training of the young, 292. 
 
 Trance-mediums, tendency to 
 cheat, 74; parallels of Muham- 
 mad with, 55. 
 
 Tree-worship, 329. 
 Tribes come to Muhammad, 261. 
 Tribute of non-Muslims, 265. 
 Trinity, the, 136; doctrine of, 
 
 sexualized, 247. 
 Tunis, 279, 316 f. 
 
 Turkey, 153, 2Tt, 332; reform 
 
 in, 361. 
 Turkish period in architecture, 
 
 307. 
 Turks, 153, 262. 
 "Twist their tongues in it," 221. 
 
 U 
 
 'Ulama of Egypt, 254. 
 *Umar ibn al-Farid, tomb of, 2T, 
 Uncreated Word, the, 99. 
 Unity of Allah, the, 135-142; in 
 
 his acts, 136; internal, 136, 
 
 141; external, 140; in his 
 
 essence, 140. 
 Universities, Muslim, 289 f., 308. 
 University education in Islam, 
 
 295. 300. 
 Unprovoked war, is it allowable? 
 
 264. 
 "Upon thee be peace and the 
 
 mercy and blessing of God!" 
 
 69. 
 Usama ibn Munqidh, 279. 
 Utilitarianism of Islam, 309, 315. 
 
 Vatican, the, 268. 
 
 Veil, the, in Islam, 104; veil on 
 
 the heart, 201. 
 Vernacular, education in the, 
 
 320. 
 Vincent of Lerins, 113. 
 Visage of Allah, 75. 
 Vision of God, 199. 
 VoUers, Karl, 40 f. 
 Voodoo, 332 f. 
 
 W 
 
 Wahhabites, 47, 285. 
 Waqf, 299. 
 
 Western North Africa, 315, 317. 
 Wellhausen on Samuel, 183. 
 "Which proceedeth from the 
 Father," 69. 
 
INDEX 
 
 375 
 
 "Whoever is upon the earth is 
 fleeting," 187. 
 
 Will of Allah, 108, 142, 144, 188, 
 
 Wisdom literature in Islam, 226. 
 
 "Without enquiring how and 
 without comparison," 133. 
 
 Wives of Muhammad, 105. 
 
 Women, supposed Muslim atti- 
 tude towards, 17; in Islam, 
 104; scholars in Islam, 294; 
 world of women and children, 
 
 325- 
 Word, divine, of Allah, 109, 
 
 III, 242, 246 f. 
 Word of God, 99, 106; doctrine 
 
 of the, 105. 
 World, the, fleeting, 75; of 
 
 bodies and accidents, 126; 
 
 originated, 127; a perpetual 
 
 miracle, 137. 
 
 Writing, 300. 
 
 Yahya ibn Mu'in, 227 f. 
 Young men and darwish frater- 
 nities, 167. 
 Young Turk Committee, 255, 277. 
 
 Zahirite school, 238. 
 
 Zakat, 71. 
 
 Zar, 4, 332 f. 
 
 Zikrs of darwishes, 160, 166, 
 167, 331 f., 334 f; public, 166; 
 religious and moral effects of, 
 168; are Christian Zikrs pos- 
 sible? 169; bad effects of, 172; 
 Zikr (dhikr) means "remem- 
 bering,"' 189. 
 
 Zoroastrians, 217. 
 
^161.M132 
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