NOTES
ON
MUHAMMADANISM.
I.—MUHAMMAD.
The earliest biographers of the Arabian Prophet, whose works are extant in Arabic, are Ibn-Isháq (A.H. 151), Ibn-Hishám (A.H. 218), Wáqidi (A.H. 207), and Tabari (A.H. 310). Ismail Abulfida, Prince of Hamah, in Syria (A.H. 733), compiled a Life of Muhammad in Arabic, which was translated by John Gagnier, Professor of Arabic at Oxford (A.D. 1723), and into English by the Rev. W. Murray, Episcopal clergyman at Duffus, in Scotland.[1] Dr. Sprenger of Calcutta commenced a Life of Muhammad in English, and printed the first part of it at Allahabad (A.D. 1851); but it was never completed. The learned author afterwards published his work in German in 1869.[2] The only Life of Muhammad in English, which has any pretension to original research, is that by Sir William Muir of the Bengal Civil Service.[3]
Muhammad (lit. the praised one), son of Abdul Muttalib, by his wife Amina, was born at Mecca, August 29th, A.D. 570. He assumed the prophetic office at the age of forty, fled from Mecca at the age of fifty-four, and died at Medinah, June 9th, A.D. 632, aged sixty-two.
The Hijrat, or Hegira (the flight from Mecca), which is the Muhammadan era, dates from July 16th, A.D. 622.
The character of Muhammad is an historic problem, and many have been the conjectures as to his motives and designs. Was he an impostor, a fanatic, or an honest man—"a very prophet of God?" And the problem might have for ever remained unsolved had not the Prophet himself appealed to the Old and New Testament in proof of his mission. This is the crucial test, established by the Prophet himself. He claims to be weighed in the balance with the Divine Jesus. Having done so, we find him wanting.
Objection has often been made to the manner in which Christian divines have attacked the private character of Muhammad. Why reject the prophetic mission of Muhammad on account of his private vices, when you receive as inspired the sayings of a Balaam, a David, or a Solomon? We do not, as a rule, attack the character of Muhammad in dealing with Islám; it rouses opposition, and is an offensive line of argument. Still, in forming an estimate of his prophetical pretensions, we contend that the character of Muhammad is an important item in our bill of indictment. We readily admit that bad men have sometimes been, like Balaam and others, the divinely appointed organs of inspiration; but in the case of Muhammad his professed inspiration sanctioned and encouraged his own vices. That which ought to have been the fountain of purity was, in fact, the cover of the Prophet's depravity.[4] But how different it is in the case of the true prophet David, where, in the words of inspiration, he lays bare to public gaze the enormity of his own crimes. The deep contrition of his inmost soul is manifest in every line—"I acknowledge my+transgression and my sin is ever before me: against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight."
The best defenders of the Arabian Prophet[5] are obliged to admit that the matter of Zeinab, the wife of Zeid, and again, of Mary, the Coptic slave, are "an indelible stain" upon his memory; that "he is once or twice untrue to the kind and forgiving disposition of his best nature; that he is once or twice unrelenting in the punishment of his personal enemies; and that he is guilty even more than once of conniving at the assassination of inveterate opponents;" but they give no satisfactory explanation or apology for all this being done under the supposed sanction of God in the Qurán.
In forming an estimate of Muhammad's prophetical pretensions, it must be remembered that he did not claim to be the founder of a new religion, but merely of a new covenant. He is the last and greatest of all God's prophets. He is sent to convert the world to the one true religion which God had before revealed to the five great lawgivers—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus! The creed of Muhammad, therefore, claims to supersede that of the Lord Jesus. And it is here that we take our stand. We give Muhammad credit as a warrior, as a legislator, as a poet, as a man of uncommon genius, raising himself amidst great opposition to a pinnacle of renown; we admit that he is, without doubt, one of the greatest heros the world has ever seen; but when we consider his claims to supersede the mission of the Divine Jesus, we strip him of his borrowed plumes, and reduce him to the condition of an impostor![6] For whilst he has adopted and avowed his belief in the sacred books of the Jew and the Christian, and has given them all the stamp and currency which his authority and influence could impart, he has attempted to rob Christianity of every distinctive truth which it possesses—its Divine Saviour, its Heavenly Comforter, its pure code of social morals, its spirit of love and truth—and has written his own refutation and condemnation with his own hand, by professing to confirm the divine oracles which sap the very foundations of his prophetical pretensions. We follow the would-be prophet in his self-asserted mission from the cave of Híra to the closing scene, when he dies in the midst of the lamentations of his harem, and the contentions of his friends—the visions of Gabriel, the period of mental depression, the contemplated suicide, the assumption of the prophetic office, his struggles with Meccan unbelief, his flight to Medina, his triumphant entry into Mecca—and whilst we wonder at the genius of the hero, we pause at every stage and inquire, "Is this the Apostle of God whose mission is to claim universal dominion to the suppression not merely of idolatry, but of Christianity itself?" Then it is that the divine and holy character of Jesus rises to our view, and the inquiring mind sickens at the thought of the beloved, the pure, the lowly Jesus giving place to that of the ambitious, the sensual, the time-serving hero of Arabia. In the study of Islam the character of Muhammad needs an apology or a defence at every stage; but in the contemplation of the Christian system, whilst we everywhere read of Jesus, and see the reflection of His image in everything we read, the heart revels in the contemplation, the inner pulsations of our spiritual life bound within us at the study of a character so divine, so pure.
We are not insensible to the beauties of the Qurán as a literary production, although they have, without doubt, been overrated; but as we admire its conceptions of the Divine nature its deep and fervent trust in the power of God, its frequent deep moral earnestness, and its sententious wisdom, we would gladly rid ourselves of our recollections of the Prophet, his licentious harem, his sanguinary battle-fields, his ambitious schemes; whilst as we peruse the Christian scriptures we find the grand central charm in the divine character of its founder. It is the divine character of Jesus which gives fragrance to His words; it is the divine form of Jesus which shines through all He says or does; it is the divine life of Jesus which is the great central point in Gospel history. How then, we ask, can the creed of Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, supersede and abrogate that of Jesus, the Son of God? It is a remarkable coincidence that whilst the founder of Islam died feeling that he had but imperfectly fulfilled his mission,[7] the founder of Christianity died in the full consciousness that His work was done—"It is finished." It was in professing to produce a revelation which should supersede that of Jesus that Muhammad set the seal to his own refutation.
- ↑ Mr. Murray's translation was published at Elgin (without date). It is exceedingly scarce, the British Museum not possessing a copy.
- ↑ Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad. A. Sprenger. 6 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1869.
- ↑ Life of Mahomet. 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1858–61. New Edition. 1 vol. 8vo. London, 1877.
- ↑ Vide Qurán, chap. xxxiii. 37, and chap. lxvi. 1.
- ↑ Vide Muhammad and Muhammadism, by Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, M.A., an Assistant Master of Harrow School.
- ↑ "There are modern biographers of the Prophet who would have us believe that he was not conscious of falsehood when making these assertions. He was under a hallucination, of course, but he believed what he said. This is to me incredible. The legends of the Koran are derived chiefly from Talmudic sources; Muhammad must have learned them from some Jew resident in or near Mekka. To work them up in the form of rhymed Suras, to put his own peculiar doctrines in the mouths of Jewish patriarchs, the Virgin Mary, and the infant Jesus (who talks like a good Moslem from his birth), must have required time, thought, and labour. It is not possible that the man who had done all this could have forgotten all about it, and believed that these legends had been brought to him ready prepared by an angelic visitor. Muhammad was guilty of falsehood under circumstances where he deemed the end justified the means. . . . . He was brought face to face with the question which every spiritual reformer has to consider, against which so many noble spirits have gone to ruin,—will not the end justify the means?"—"Islam under the Arabs," by Major Durie Osborn, p. 21.
- ↑ Wagqidi relates that Muhammad shortly before his death called for a "shoulder blade" upon which to write another chapter of the Qurán, which should prevent them going astray for ever.