ANNOUNCEMENT. (continued 2)

Of course only "true" mysticism is justified by Ijmâ' and confirmed by the evidence of Qorân and Sunnah; but, about the bounds between "true" and "false" or heretical mysticism, there exists in a large measure the well-known diversity of opinion allowed by God's grace. The ethical mysticism of al-Ghazâlî is generally recognized as orthodox; and the possibility of attaining to a higher spiritual sphere by means of methodic asceticism and contemplation is doubted by few. The following opinion has come to prevail in wide circles: the Law offers the bread of life to all the faithful, the dogmatics are the arsenal from which the weapons must be taken to defend the treasures of religion against unbelief and heresy, but mysticism shows the earthly pilgrim the way to Heaven.

It was a much lower need that assured the cult of saints a place in the doctrine and practice of Islâm. As strange as is Mohammed's transformation from an ordinary son of man, which he wanted to be, into the incarnation of Divine Light, as the later biographers represent him, it is still more astounding that the intercession of saints should have become indispensable to the community of Mohammed, who, according to Tradition, cursed the Jews and Christians because they worshipped the shrines of their prophets. Almost every Moslim village has its patron saint; every country has its national saints; every province of human life has its own human rulers, who are intermediate between the Creator and common mortals. In no other particular has Islâm more fully accommodated itself to the religions it supplanted. The popular practice, which is in many cases hardly to be distinguished from polytheism, was, to a great extent, favoured by the theory of the intercession of the pious dead, of whose friendly assistance people might assure themselves by doing good deeds in their names and to their eternal advantage.

The ordinary Moslim visitor of the graves of saints does not trouble himself with this ingenious compromise between the severe monotheism of his prophet and the polytheism of his ancestors. He is firmly convinced, that the best way to obtain the satisfaction of his desire after earthly or heavenly goods is to give the saint whose special care these are what he likes best; and he confidently leaves it to the venerated one to settle the matter with Allah, who is far too high above the ordinary mortal to allow of direct contact.

In support even of this startling deviation from the original, traditions have been devised. Moreover, the veneration of human beings was favoured by some forms of mysticism; for, like many saints, many mystics had their eccentricities, and it was much to the advantage of mystic theologians if the vulgar could be persuaded to accept their aberrations from normal rules of life as peculiarities of holy men. But Ijmâ' did more even than tradition and mysticism to make the veneration of legions of saints possible in the temples of the very men who were obliged by their ritual law to say to Allah several time daily: "Thee only do we worship and to Thee alone do we cry for help."

In the tenth century of our era Islâm's process of accommodation was finished in all its essentials. From this time forward, if circumstances were favourable, it could continue the execution of its world conquering plans without being compelled to assimilate any more foreign elements. Against each spiritual asset that another universal religion could boast, it could now put forward something of a similar nature, but which still showed characteristics of its own, and the superiority of which it could sustain by arguments perfectly satisfactory to its followers. From that time on, Islâm strove to distinguish itself ever more sharply from its most important rivals. There was no absolute stagnation, the evolution was not entirely stopped; but it moved at a much quieter pace, and its direction was governed by internal motives, not by influences from outside. Moslim catholicism had attained its full growth.

We cannot within the small compass of these lectures consider the excrescences of the normal Islâm, the Shî'itic ultras, who venerated certain descendants of Mohammed as infallible rulers of the world, Ishma'ilites, Qarmatians, Assassins; nor the modern bastards of Islâm, such as the Sheikhites, the Bâbî's, the Behâ'îs—who have found some adherents in America—and other sects, which indeed sprang up on Moslim soil, but deliberately turned to non-Mohammedan sources for their inspirations. We must draw attention, however, to protests raised by certain minorities against some of the ideas and practices which had been definitely adopted by the majority.

In the midst of Mohammedan Catholicism there always lived and moved more or less freely "protestant" elements. The comparison may even be continued, with certain qualifications, and we may speak also of a conservative and of a liberal protestantism in Islâm. The conservative Protestantism is represented by the Hanbalitic school and kindred spirits, who most emphatically preached that the Agreement (Ijmâ') of every period should be based on that of the "pious ancestors." They therefore tested every dogma and practice by the words and deeds of the Prophet, his contemporaries, and the leaders of the Community in the first decades after Mohammed's death. In their eyes the Church of later days had degenerated; and they declined to consider the agreement of its doctors as justifying the penetration into Islâm of ideas and usages of foreign origin. The cult of saints was rejected by them as altogether contradictory to the Qorân and the genuine tradition. These protestants of Islâm may be compared to those of Christianity also in this respect, that they accepted the results of the evolution and assimilation of the first three centuries of Islâm, but rejected later additions as abuse and corruption. When on the verge of our nineteenth century, they tried, as true Moslims, to force by material means their religious conceptions on others, they were combated as heretics by the authorities of catholic Islâm. Central and Western Arabia formed the battlefield on which these zealots, called Wahhâbites after their leader, were defeated by Mohammed Ali, the first Khedive, and his Egyptian army. Since they have given up their efforts at violent reconstitution of what they consider to be the original Islâm, they are left alone, and their ideas have found adherents far outside Arabia, e.g., in British India and in Northern and Central Africa.

In still quite another way many Moslims who found their freedom of thought or action impeded by the prevailing law and doctrine, have returned to the origin of their religion. Too much attached to the traditions of their faith, deliberately to disregard these impediments, they tried to find in the Qorân and Tradition arguments in favour of what was dictated to them by Reason; and they found those arguments as easily as former generations had found the bases on which to erect their casuistry, their dogma, and their mysticism. This implied an interpretation of the oldest sources independent from the catholic development of Islâm, and in contradiction with the general opinion of the canonists, according to whom, since the fourth or fifth century of the Hijrah, no one is qualified for such free research. A certain degree of independence of mind, together with a strong attachment to their spiritual past, has given rise in the Moslim world to this sort of liberal protestantism, which in our age has many adherents among the Mohammedans who have come in contact with modern civilization.

That the partisans of all these different conceptions could remain together as the children of one spiritual family, is largely owing to the elastic character of Ijmâ', the importance of which is to some extent acknowledged by catholics and protestants, by moderns and conservatives. It has never been contested that the community, whose agreement was the test of truth, should not consist of the faithful masses, but of the expert elect. In a Christian church we should have spoken of the clergy, with a further definition of the organs through which it was to express itself synod, council, or Pope. Islâm has no clergy, as we have seen; the qualification of a man to have his own opinion depends entirely upon the scope of his knowledge or rather of his erudition. There is no lack of standards, fixed by Mohammedan authorities, in which the requirements for a scholar to qualify him for Ijmâ' are detailed. The principal criterion is the knowledge of the canon law; quite what we should expect from the history of the evolution of Islâm. But, of course, dogmatists and mystics had also their own "agreements" on the questions concerning them, and through the compromise between Law, Dogma, and Mysticism, there could not fail to come into existence a kind of mixed Ijmâ'. Moreover, the standards and definitions could have only a certain theoretical value, as there never has existed a body that could speak in the name of all. The decisions of Ijmâ' were therefore to be ascertained only in a vague and general way. The speakers were individuals whose own authority depended on Ijmâ', whereas Ijmâ' should have been their collective decision. Thus it was possible for innumerable shades of Catholicism and protestantism to live under one roof; with a good deal of friction, it is true, but without definite breach or schism, no one sect being able to eject another from the community.

Moslim political authorities are bound not only to extend the domain of Islâm, but also to keep the community in the right path in its life and doctrine. This task they have always conceived in accordance with their political interests; Islâm has had its religious persecutions but tolerance was very usual, and even official favouring of heresy not quite exceptional with Moslim rulers. Regular maintenance of religious discipline existed nowhere. Thus in the bond of political obedience elements which might otherwise have been scattered were held together. The political decay of Islâm in our a day has done away with what had been left of official power to settle religious differences and any organization of spiritual authority never existed. Hence it is only natural that the diversity of opinion allowed by the grace of Allah now shows itself on a greater scale than ever before.

III

THE POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ISLÂM

In the first period of Islâm, the functions of what we call Church and what we call State were exercised by the same authority. Its political development is therefore of great importance for the understanding of its religious growth.

The Prophet, when he spoke in the name of God, was the lawgiver of his community, and it was rightly understood by the later Faithful that his indispensable explanations of God's word had also legislative power. From the time of the Hijrah the nature of the case made him the ruler, the judge, and the military commander of his theocratic state. Moreover, Allah expressly demanded of the Moslims that they should obey "the Messenger of God, and those amongst them who have authority."[1] We see by this expression that Mohammed shared his temporal authority with others. His co-rulers were not appointed, their number was nowhere defined, they were not a closed circle; they were the notables of the tribes or other groups who had arrayed themselves under Mohammed's authority, and a few who had gained influence by their personality. In their councils Mohammed's word had no decisive power, except when he spoke in the name of Allah; and we know how careful he was to give oracles only in cases of extreme need.

[Footnote 1: Qorân, iv., 62.]

In the last years of Mohammed's life his authority became extended over a large part of Arabia; but he did very little in the way of centralization of government. He sent 'âmils, i.e., agents, to the conquered tribes or villages, who had to see that, in the first place, the most important regulations of the Qorân were followed, and, secondly, that the tax into which the duty of almsgiving had been converted was promptly paid, and that the portion of it intended for the central fund at Medina was duly delivered. After the great conquests, the governors of provinces of the Moslim Empire, who often exercised a despotic power, were called by the same title of 'âmils. The agents of Mohammed, however, did not possess such unlimited authority. It was only gradually that the Arabs learned the value of good discipline and submission to a strong guidance, and adopted the forms of orderly government as they found them in the conquered lands.

Through the death of Mohammed everything became uncertain. The combination under one leadership of such a heterogeneous mass as that of his Arabs would have been unthinkable a few years before. It became quite natural, though, as soon as the Prophet's mouth was recognized as the organ of Allah's voice. Must this monarchy be continued after Allah's mouthpiece had ceased to exist? It was not at all certain. The force of circumstances and the energy of some of Mohammed's counsellors soon led to the necessary decisions. A number of the notables of the community succeeded in forcing upon the hesitating or unwilling members the acceptance of the monarchy as a permanent institution. There must be a khalîf, a deputy of the Prophet in all his functions (except that of messenger of God), who would be ruler and judge and leader of public worship, but above all amîr al-mu'minîn, "Commander of the Faithful," in the struggle both against the apostate Arabs and against the hostile tribes on the northern border.

But for the military success of the first khalifs Islâm would never have become a universal religion. Every exertion was made to keep the troops of the Faithful complete. The leaders followed only Mohammed's example when they represented fighting for Allah's cause as the most enviable occupation. The duty of military service was constantly impressed upon the Moslims; the lust of booty and the desire for martyrdom, to which the Qorân assigned the highest reward, were excited to the utmost. At a later period, it became necessary in the interests of order to temper the result of this excitement by traditions in which those of the Faithful who died in the exercise of a peaceful, honest profession were declared to be witnesses to the Faith as well as those who were slain in battle against the enemies of God,—traditions in which the real and greater holy war was described as the struggle against evil passions. The necessity of such a mitigating reaction, the spirit in which the chapters on holy war of Mohammedan lawbooks are conceived, and the galvanizing power which down to our own day is contained in a call to arms in the name of Allah, all this shows that in the beginning of Islâm the love of battle had been instigated at the expense of everything else.

The institution of the Khalifate had hardly been agreed upon when the question of who should occupy it became the subject of violent dissension. The first four khalîfs, whose reigns occupied the first thirty years after Mohammed's death, were Qoraishites, tribesmen of the Prophet, and moreover men who had been his intimate friends. The sacred tradition relates a saying of Mohammed: "The imâms are from Qoraish," intended to confine the Khalifate to men from that tribe. History, however, shows that this edict was forged to give the stamp of legality to the results of a long political struggle. For at Mohammed's death the Medinese began fiercely contesting the claims of the Qoraishites; and during the reign of Alî, the fourth Khalîf, the Khârijites rebelled, demanding, as democratic rigorists, the free election of khalîfs without restriction to the tribe of Qoraish or to any other descent. Their standard of requirements contained only religious and moral qualities; and they claimed for the community the continual control of the chosen leader's behaviour and the right of deposing him as soon as they found him failing in the fulfilment of his duties. Their anarchistic revolutions, which during more than a century occasionally gave much trouble to the Khalifate, caused Islâm to accentuate the aristocratic character of its monarchy. They were overcome and reduced to a sect, the survivors of which still exist in South-Eastern Arabia, in Zanzibar, and in Northern Africa; however, the actual life of these communities resembles that of their spiritual forefathers to a very remote degree.

Another democratic doctrine, still more radical than that of the Khârijites, makes even non-Arabs eligible for the Khalifate. It must have had a considerable number of adherents, for the tradition which makes the Prophet responsible for it is to be found in the canonic collections. Later generations, however, rendered it harmless by exegesis; they maintained that in this text "commander" meant only subordinate chiefs, and not "the Commander of the Faithful." It became a dogma in the orthodox Mohammedan world, respected up to the sixteenth century, that only members of the tribe of Qoraish could take the place of the Messenger of God.

The chance of success was greater for the legitimists than for the democratic party. The former wished to make the Khalifate the privilege of Alî, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, and his descendants. At first the community did not take much notice of that "House of Mohammed"; and it did not occur to any one to give them a special part in the direction of affairs. Alî and Fâtima themselves asked to be placed in possession only of certain goods which had belonged to Mohammed, but which the first khalîfs would not allow to be regarded as his personal property; they maintained that the Prophet had had the disposal of them not as owner, but as head of the state. This narrow greed and absence of political insight seemed to be hereditary in the descendants of Ali and Fâtima; for there was no lack of superstitious reverence for them in later times, and if one of them had possessed something of the political talent of the best Omayyads and Abbasids he would certainly have been able to supplant them.

After the third Khalîf, Othmân, had been murdered by his political opponents, Ali became his successor; but he was more remote than any of his predecessors from enjoying general sympathy. At that time the Shî'ah, the "Party" of the House of the Prophet, gradually arose, which maintained that Ali should have been the first Khalîf, and that his descendants should succeed him. The veneration felt for those descendants increased in the same proportion as that for the Prophet himself; and moreover, there were at all times malcontents, whose advantage would be in joining any revolution against the existing government. Yet the Alids never succeeded in accomplishing anything against the dynasties of the Omayyads, the Abbasids, and the Ottomans, except in a few cases of transitory importance only.

The Fatimite dynasty, of rather doubtful descent, which ruled a part of Northern Africa and Egypt in the tenth century A.D., was completely suppressed after some two and a half centuries. The Sherîfs who have ruled Morocco for more than 950 years were not chiefs of a party that considered the legality of their leadership a dogma; they owe their local Khalifate far more to the out-of-the-way position of their country which prevented Abbasids and Turks from meddling with their affairs. Otherwise, they would have been obliged at any rate to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Great Lord of Constantinople. This was the case with the Sherîfs of Mecca, who ever since the twelfth century have regarded the sacred territory as their domain. Their principality arose out of the general political disturbance and the division of the Mohammedan empire into a number of kingdoms, whose mutual strife prevented them from undertaking military operations in the desert. These Sherîfs raised no claim to the Khalifate; and the Shî'itic tendencies they displayed in the Middle Ages had no political significance, although they had intimate relations with the Zaidites of Southern Arabia. As first Egypt and afterwards Turkey made their protectorate over the holy cities more effective, the princes of Mecca became orthodox.

The Zaidites, who settled in Yemen from the ninth century on, are really Shî'ites, although of the most moderate kind. Without striving after expansion outside Arabia, they firmly refuse to give up their own Khalifate and to acknowledge the sovereignty of any non-Alid ruler; the efforts of the Turks to subdue them or to make a compromise with them have had no lasting results. This is the principal obstacle against their being included in the orthodox community, although their admission is defended, even under present circumstances, by many non-political Moslim scholars. The Zaidites are the remnant of the original Arabian Shî'ah, which for centuries has counted adherents in all parts of the Moslim world, and some of whose tenets have penetrated Mohammedan orthodoxy. The almost general veneration of the sayyids and sherîfs, as the descendants of Mohammed are entitled, is due to this influence.

The Shî'ah outside Arabia, whose adherents used to be persecuted by the official authorities, not without good cause, became the receptacle of all the revolutionary and heterodox ideas maintained by the converted peoples. Alongside of the visible political history of Islâm of the first centuries, these circles built up their evolution of the unseen community, the only true one, guided by the Holy Family, and the reality was to them a continuous denial of the postulates of religion. Their first imâm or successor of the Prophet was Alî, whose divine right had been unjustly denied by the three usurpers, Abu Bakr, Omar, and Othmân, and who had exercised actual authority for a few years in constant strife with Khârijites and Omayyads. The efforts of his legitimate successors to assert their authority were constantly drowned in blood; until, at last, there were no more candidates for the dangerous office. This prosaic fact was converted by the adherents of the House of Mohammed into the romance, that the last imâm of a line of seven according to some, and twelve according to others, had disappeared in a mysterious way, to return at the end of days as Mahdî, the Guided One, who should restore the political order which had been disturbed ever since Mohammed's death. Until his reappearance there is nothing left for the community to do but to await his advent, under the guidance of their secular rulers (e.g., the shâhs of Persia) and enlightened by their authoritative scholars (mujtahids), who explain faith and law to them from the tradition of the Sacred Family. The great majority of Mohammedans, as they do not accept this legitimist theory, are counted by the Shî'ah outside Arabia as unclean heretics, if not as unbelievers.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century this Shî'ah found its political centre in Persia, and opposed itself fanatically to the Sultan of Turkey, who at about the same time came to stand at the head of orthodox Islâm. All differences of doctrine were now sharpened and embittered by political passion, and the efforts of single enlightened princes or scholars to induce the various peoples to extend to each other, across the political barriers, the hand of brotherhood in the principles of faith, all failed. It is only in the last few years that the general political distress of Islâm has inclined the estranged relatives towards reconciliation.

Besides the veneration of the Alids, orthodox Islâm has adopted another Shîitic element, the expectation of the Mahdî, which we have just mentioned. Most Sunnites expect that at the end of the world there will come from the House of Mohammed a successor to him, guided by Allah, who will maintain the revealed law as faithfully as the first four khalîfs did according to the idealized history, and who will succeed with God's help in making Islâm victorious over the whole world. That the chiliastic kingdom of the Mahdî must in the end be destroyed by Anti-Christ, in order that Jesus may be able once more to re-establish the holy order before the Resurrection, was a necessary consequence of the amalgamation of the political expectations formed under Shî'itic influence, with eschatological conceptions formerly borrowed by Islâm from Christianity.

The orthodox Mahdî differs from that of the Shî'ah in many ways. He is not an imâm returning after centuries of disappearance, but a descendant of Mohammed, coming into the world in the ordinary way to fulfill the ideal of the Khalifate. He does not re-establish the legitimate line of successors of the Prophet; but he renews the glorious tradition of the Khalifate, which after the first thirty years was dragged into the general deterioration, common to all human things. The prophecies concerning his appearance are sometimes of an equally supernatural kind as those of the Shîites, so that the period of his coming has passed more and more from the political sphere to which it originally belonged, into that of eschatology. Yet, naturally, it is easier for a popular leader to make himself regarded as the orthodox Mahdî than to play the part of the returned imâm. Mohammedan rulers have had more trouble than they cared for with candidates for the dignity of the Mahdî; and it is not surprising that in official Turkish circles there is a tendency to simplify the Messianic expectation by giving the fullest weight to this traditional saying of Mohammed "There is no mahdî but Jesus," seeing that Jesus must come from the clouds, whereas other mahdîs may arise from human society.

In the orthodox expectation of the Mahdi the Moslim theory has most sharply expressed its condemnation of the later political history of Islâm. In the course of the first century after the Hijrah the Qorân scholars (gârîs) arose; and these in turn were succeeded by the men of tradition (ahl al-hadîth) and by the canonists (faqîhs) of later times. These learned men (ulamâ') would not endure any interference with their right to state with authority what Islâm demanded of its leaders. They laid claim to an interpretative authority concerning the divine law, which bordered upon supreme legislative power; their agreement (Ijmâ') was that of the infallible community. But just as beside this legislative agreement, a dogmatic and a mystic agreement grew up, in the same way there was a separate Ijmâ' regarding the political government, upon which the canonists could exercise only an indirect influence. In other words since the accession of the Omayyad khalîfs, the actual authority rested in the hands of dynasties, and under the Abbasids government assumed even a despotic character. This relation between the governors and governed, originally alien to Islâm, was not changed by the transference of the actual power into the hands of wezîrs and officers of the bodyguard; nor yet by the disintegration of the empire into a number of small despotisms, the investiture of which by the khalîf became a mere formality. Dynastic and political questions were settled in a comparatively small circle, by court intrigue, stratagems, and force; and the canonists, like the people, were bound to accept the results. Politically inclined interpreters of the law might try to justify their compulsory assent to the facts by theories about the Ijmâ' of the notables residing in the capital, who took the urgent decisions about the succession, which decisions were subsequently confirmed by general homage to the new prince; but they had no illusions about the real influence of the community upon the choice of its leader. The most independent scholars made no attempt to disguise the fact that the course which political affairs had taken was the clearest proof of the moral degeneration which had set in, and they pronounced an equally bold and merciless criticism upon the government in all its departments. It became a matter of course that a pious scholar must keep himself free from all intercourse with state officials, on pain of losing his reputation.

The bridge across the gulf that separated the spiritual from the temporal authorities was formed by those state officials who, for the practice of their office, needed a knowledge of the divine law, especially the qâdhîs. It was originally the duty of these judges to decide all legal differences between Mohammedans, or men of other creeds under Mohammedan protection, who called for their decision. The actual division between the rulers and the interpreters of the law caused an ever-increasing limitation of the authority of the qâdhîs. The laws of marriage, family, and inheritance remained, however, their inalienable territory; and a number of other matters, in which too great a religious interest was involved to leave them to the caprice of the governors or to the customary law outside Islâm, were usually included. But as the qâdhîs were appointed by the governors, they were obliged in the exercise of their office to give due consideration to the wishes of their constituents; and moreover they were often tainted by what was regarded in Mohammedan countries as inseparable from government employment: bribery.

On this account, the canonists, although it was from their ranks that the officials of the qâdhî court were to be drawn, considered no words too strong to express their contempt for the office of qâdhî. In handbooks of the Law of all times, the qâdhîs "of our time" are represented as unscrupulous beings, whose unreliable judgments were chiefly dictated by their greed. Such an opinion would not have acquired full force, if it had not been ascribed to Mohammed; in fact, the Prophet, according to a tradition, had said that out of three qâdhîs two are destined to Hell. Anecdotes of famous scholars who could not be prevailed upon by imprisonment or castigation to accept the office of qâdhîs are innumerable. Those who succumbed to the temptation forfeited the respect of the circle to which they had belonged.

I once witnessed a case of this kind, and the former friends of the qâdhî did not spare him their bitter reproaches. He remarked that the judge, whose duty it was to maintain the divine law, verily held a noble office. They refuted this by saying that this defence was admissible only for earlier and better times, but not for "the qâdhîs of our time." To which he cuttingly replied "And ye, are ye canonists of the better, the ancient time?" In truth, the students of sacred science are just as much "of our time" as the qâdhîs. Even in the eleventh century the great theologian Ghazâlî counted them all equal.[1] Not a few of them give their authoritative advice according to the wishes of the highest bidder or of him who has the greatest influence, hustle for income from pious institutions, and vie with each other in a revel of casuistic subtleties. But among those scholars there are and always have been some who, in poverty and simplicity, devote their life to the study of Allah's law with the sole object of pleasing him; among the qâdhîs such are not easily to be found. Amongst the other state officials the title of qâdhî may count as a spiritual one, and the public may to a certain extent share this reverence; but in the eyes of the pious and of the canonists such glory is only reflected from the clerical robe, in which the worldling disguises himself.

[Footnote 1: Ghazâlî, Ihya, book i., ch. 6, quotes the words of a pious scholar of the olden time: "The 'ulamâ' will (on the Day of judgment) be gathered amongst the prophets, but the qâdhîs amongst the temporal rulers." Ghazâli adds "alike with these qâdhîs are all those canonists who make use of their learning for worldly purposes."]

To the muftî criticism is somewhat more favourable than to the qâdhî. A muftî is not necessarily an official; every canonist who, at the request of a layman, expounds to him the meaning of the law on any particular point and gives a fatwa, acts as a muftî. Be the question in reference to the behaviour of the individual towards God or towards man, with regard to his position in a matter of litigation, in criticism of a state regulation or of a sentence of a judge, or out of pure love of knowledge, the scholar is morally obliged to the best of his knowledge to enlighten the enquirer. He ought to do this for the love of God; but he must live, and the enquirer is expected to give him a suitable present for his trouble. This again gives rise to the danger that he who offers most is attended to first; and that for the liberal rich man a dish is prepared from the casuistic store, as far as possible according to his taste. The temptation is by no means so great as that to which the qâdhî is exposed; especially since the office of judge has become an article of commerce, so that the very first step towards the possession of it is in the direction of Hell. Moreover in "these degenerate times"—which have existed for about ten centuries—the acceptance of an appointment to the function of qâdhî is not regarded as a duty, while a competent scholar may only refuse to give a fatwa under exceptional circumstances. Still, an unusually strong character is needed by the muftî, if he is not to fall into the snares of the world.

Besides qâdhîs who settle legal disputes of a certain kind according to the revealed law, the state requires its own advisers who can explain that law, i.e., official muftîs. Firstly, the government itself may be involved in a litigation; moreover in some government regulations it may be necessary to avoid giving offence to canonists and their strict disciples. In such cases it is better to be armed beforehand with an expert opinion than to be exposed to dangerous criticism which might find an echo in a wide circle. The official muftî must therefore be somewhat pliable, to say the least. Moreover, any private person has the right to put questions to the state muftî; and the qâdhî court is bound to take his answers into account in its decisions. In this way the muftîs have absorbed a part of the duties of the qâdhîs, and so their office is dragged along in the degradation that the unofficial canonists denounce unweariedly in their writings and in their teaching.

The way in which the most important muftî places are filled and above all the position which the head-muftî of the Turkish Empire, the Sheikh-ul-Islâm, holds at any particular period, may well serve as a touchstone of the influence of the canonists on public life. If this is great, then even the most powerful sultan has only the possibility of choice between a few great scholars, put forward or at all events not disapproved of by their own guild, strengthened by public opinion. If, on the other hand, there is no keen interest felt in the Sharî'ah (Divine Law), then the temporal rulers can do pretty much what they like with these representatives of the canon law. Under the tyrannical sway of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, the Sheikh-ul-Islâm was little more than a tool for him and his palace clique, and for their own reasons, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, who rule at Constantinople since 1908, made no change in this: each new ministry had its own Sheikh-ul-Islâm, who had to be, above everything, a faithful upholder of the constitutional theory held by the Committee. The time is past when the Sultan and the Porte, in framing even the most pressing reform, must first anxiously assure themselves of the position that the hojas, tolbas, softas, the theologians in a word, would take towards it, and of the influence that the Sheikh-ul-Islâm could use in opposition to their plans. The political authority makes its deference to the canonists dependent upon their strict obedience.

This important change is a natural consequence of the modernization of Mohammedan political life, a movement through which the expounders of a law which has endeavoured to remain stationary since the year 1000 must necessarily get into straits. This explains also why the religious life of Mohammedans is in some respects freer in countries under non-Mohammedan authority, than under a Mohammedan government. Under English, Dutch, or French rule the 'ulamâs are less interfered with in their teaching, the muftîs in their recommendations, and the qâdhîs in their judgments of questions of marriage and inheritance than in Turkey, where the life of Islâm, as state religion, lies under official control. In indirectly governed "native states" the relation of Mohammedan "Church and State" may much more resemble that in Turkey, and this is sometimes to the advantage of the sovereign ruler. Under the direct government of a modern state, the Mohammedan group is treated as a religious community, whose particular life has just the same claim to independence as that of other denominations. The only justifiable limitation is that the program of the forcible reduction of the world to Mohammedan authority be kept within the scholastic walls as a point of eschatology, and not considered as a body of prescriptions, the execution of which must be prepared.

The extensive political program of Islâm, developed during the first centuries of astounding expansion, has yet not prevented millions of Mohammedans from resigning themselves to reversed conditions in which at the present time many more Mohammedans live under foreign authority than under their own. The acceptance of this change was facilitated by the historical pessimism of Islâm, which makes the mind prepared for every sort of decay, and by the true Moslim habit of resignation to painful experiences, not through fatalism, but through reverence for Allah's inscrutable will. At the same time, it would be a gross mistake to imagine that the idea of universal conquest may be considered as obliterated. This is the case with the intellectuals and with many practical commercial or industrial men; but the canonists and the vulgar still live in the illusion of the days of Islâm's greatness.

The legists continue to ground their appreciation of every actual political condition on the law of the holy war, which war ought never to be allowed to cease entirely until all mankind is reduced to the authority of Islâm—the heathen by conversion, the adherents of acknowledged Scripture by submission. Even if they admit the improbability of this at present, they are comforted and encouraged by the recollection of the lengthy period of humiliation that the Prophet himself had to suffer before Allah bestowed victory upon his arms; and they fervently join with the Friday preacher, when he pronounces the prayer, taken from the Qorân: "And lay not on us, O our Lord, that for which we have not strength, but blot out our sins and forgive us and have pity upon us. Thou art our Master; grant us then to conquer the unbelievers!" And the common people are willingly taught by the canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the innumerable legends of the olden time and the equally innumerable apocalyptic prophecies about the future. The political blows that fall upon Islâm make less impression upon their simple minds than the senseless stories about the power of the Sultan of Stambul, that would instantly be revealed if he were not surrounded by treacherous servants, and the fantastic tidings of the miracles that Allah works in the Holy Cities of Arabia which are inaccessible to the unfaithful.

The conception of the Khalifate still exercises a fascinating influence, regarded in the light of a central point of union against the unfaithful. Apart from the 'âmils, Mohammed's agents amongst the Arabian tribes, the Khalifate was the only political institution which arose out of the necessity of the Moslim community, without foreign influence. It rescued Islâm from threatening destruction, and it led the Faithful to conquest. No wonder that in historic legend the first four occupiers of that leadership, who, from Medina, accomplished such great things, have been glorified into saints, and are held up to all the following generations as examples to put them to shame. In the Omayyads the ancient aristocracy of Mecca came to the helm, and under them, the Mohammedan state was above all, as Wellhausen styled it, "the Arabian Empire." The best khalîfs of this house had the political wisdom to give the governors of the provinces sufficient independence to prevent schism, and to secure to themselves the authority in important matters. The reaction of the non-Arabian converts against the suppression of their own culture by the Arabian conquerors found support in the opposition parties, above all with the Shî'ah. The Abbasids, cleverer politicians than the notoriously unskillful Alids, made use of the Alid propaganda to secure the booty to themselves at the right moment. The means which served the Alids for the establishment only of an invisible dynasty of princes who died as martyrs, enabled the descendants of Mohammed's uncle Abbas to overthrow the Omayyads, and to found their own Khalifate at Bagdad, shining with the brilliance of an Eastern despotism.

When it is said that the Abbasid Khalifate maintained itself from 750 till the Mongol storm in the middle of the thirteenth century, that only refers to external appearance. After a brief success, the actual power of these khalîfs was transferred to the hands, first, of the captains of their bodyguard, then of sultan-dynasties, whose forcibly acquired powers, were legalized by a formal investiture. In the same way the large provinces developed into independent kingdoms, whose rulers considered the nomination-diplomas from Bagdad in the light of mere ornaments. Compared to this irreparable disintegration of the empire, temporary schisms such as the Omayyad Khalifate in Spain, the Fatimid Khalifate in Egypt, and here and there an independent organization of the Khârijites were of little significance.

It seems strange that the Moslim peoples, although the theory of Islâm never attributed an hereditary character to the Khalifate, attached so high a value to the Abbasid name, that they continued unanimously to acknowledge the Khalifate of Bagdad for centuries during which it possessed no influence. But the idea of hereditary rulers was deeply rooted in most of the peoples converted to Islâm, and the glorious period of the first Abbasids so strongly impressed itself on the mind of the vulgar, that the appearance of continuation was easily taken for reality. Its voidness would sooner have been realized, if lack of energy had not prevented the later Abbasids from trying to recover the lost power by the sword, or if amongst their rivals who could also boast of a popular tradition—e.g., the Omayyads, or still more the Alids—a political genius had succeeded in forming a powerful opposition. But the sultans who ruled the various states did not want to place all that they possessed in the balance on the chance of gaining the title of Khalîf. The Moslim world became accustomed to the idea that the honoured House of the Prophet's uncle Abbas existed for the purpose of lending an additional glory to Mohammedan princes by a diploma. Even after the destruction of Bagdad by the Mongols in 1258, from which only a few Abbasids escaped alive, Indian princes continued to value visits or deeds of appointment granted them by some begging descendant of the "Glorious House." The sultans of Egypt secured this luxury permanently for themselves by taking a branch of the family under their protection, who gave the glamour of their approval to every new result of the never-ending quarrels of succession, until in the beginning of the sixteenth century Egypt, together with so many other lands, was swallowed up by the Turkish conqueror.

These new rulers, who added the Byzantine Empire to Islâm, who with Egypt brought Southern and Western Arabia with the Holy Cities also under their authority, and caused all the neighbouring princes, Moslim and Christian alike, to tremble on their thrones, thought it was time to abolish the senseless survival of the Abbasid glory. The prestige of the Ottomans was as great as that of the Khalifate in its most palmy days had been; and they would not be withheld from the assumption of the title. There is a doubtful tale of the abdication of the Abbasids in their favour, but the question is of no importance. The Ottomans owed their Khalifate to their sword; and this was the only argument used by such canonists as thought it worth their while to bring such an incontestable fact into reconciliation with the law. This was not strictly necessary, as they had been accustomed for eight centuries to acquiesce in all sorts of unlawful acts which history demonstrated to be the will of Allah.

The sense of the tradition that established descent from the tribe of Qoraish as necessary for the highest dignity in the community was capable of being weakened by explanation; and, even without that, the leadership of the irresistible Ottomans was of more value to Islâm than the chimerical authority of a powerless Qoraishite. In our own time, you can hear Qoraishites, and even Alids, warmly defend the claims of the Turkish sultans to the Khalifate, as they regard these as the only Moslim princes capable of championing the threatened rights of Islâm.

Even the sultans of Stambul could not think of restoring the authority of the Khalîf over the whole Mohammedan world. This was prevented not only by the schismatic kingdoms, khalifates, or imâmates like Shî'itic Persia, which was consolidated just in the sixteenth century, by the unceasing opposition of the Imâms of Yemen, and Khârijite principalities at the extremities of the Mohammedan world. Besides these, there were numerous princes in Central Asia, in India, and in Central Africa, whom either the Khalifate had always been obliged to leave to themselves, or who had become so estranged from it that, unless they felt the power of the Turkish arms, they preferred to remain as they were. Moreover, Islâm had extended itself not only by political means, but also by trade and colonization into countries even the existence of which was hardly known in the political centres of Islâm, e.g., into Central Africa or the Far East of Asia. Without thinking of rivalling the Abbasids or their successors, some of the princes of such remote kingdoms, e.g., the sherîfs of Morocco, assumed the title of Commander of the Faithful, bestowed upon them by their flatterers. Today, there are petty princes in East India under Dutch sovereignty who decorate themselves with the title of Khalîf, without suspecting that they are thereby guilty of a sort of arrogant blasphemy.

Such exaggeration is not supported by the canonists; but these have devised a theory, which gives a foundation to the authority of Mohammedan princes, who never had a real or fictitious connection with a real or fictitious Khalifate. Authority there must be, everywhere and under all circumstances; far from the centre this should be exercised, according to them, by the one who has been able to gain it and who knows how to hold it; and all the duties are laid upon him, which, in a normal condition, would be discharged by the Khalîf or his representative. For this kind of authority the legists have even invented a special name: "shaukah," which means actual influence, the authority which has spontaneously arisen in default of a chief who in one form or another can be considered as a mandatary of the Khalifate.

Now, it is significant that many of those Mohammedan governors, who owe their existence to wild growth in this way, seek, especially in our day, for connection with the Khalifate, or, at least, wish to be regarded as naturally connected with the centre. The same is true of such whose former independence or adhesion to the Turkish Empire has been replaced by the sovereignty of a Western state. Even amongst the Moslim peoples placed under the direct government of European states a tendency prevails to be considered in some way or another subjects of the Sultan-Khalîf. Some scholars explain this phenomenon by the spiritual character which the dignity of Khalîf is supposed to have acquired under the later Abbasids, and retained since that time, until the Ottoman princes combined it again with the temporal dignity of sultan. According to this view the later Abbasids were a sort of popes of Islâm; while the temporal authority, in the central districts as well as in the subordinate kingdoms, was in the hands of various sultans. The sultans of Constantinople govern, then, under this name, as much territory as the political vicissitudes allow them to govern—i.e., the Turkish Empire; as khalîfs, they are the spiritual heads of the whole of Sunnite Islâm.

Though this view, through the ignorance of European statesmen and diplomatists, may have found acceptance even by some of the great powers, it is nevertheless entirely untrue; unless by "spiritual authority" we are to understand the empty appearance of worldly authority. This appearance was all that the later Abbasids retained after the loss of their temporal power; spiritual authority of any kind they never possessed.

The spiritual authority in catholic Islâm reposes in the legists, who in this respect are called in a tradition the "heirs of the prophets." Since they could no longer regard the khalîfs as their leaders, because they walked in worldly ways, they have constituted themselves independently beside and even above them; and the rulers have been obliged to conclude a silent contract with them, each party binding itself to remain within its own limits.[1] If this contract be observed, the legists not only are ready to acknowledge the bad rulers of the world, but even to preach loyalty towards them to the laity.

The most supremely popular part of the ideal of Islâm, the reduction of the whole world to Moslim authority, can only be attempted by a political power. Notwithstanding the destructive criticism of all Moslim princes and state officials by the canonists, it was only from them that they could expect measures to uphold and extend the power of Islâm; and on this account they continually cherished the ideal of the Khalifate.

[Footnote 1: That the Khalifate is in no way to be compared with the Papacy, that Islâm has never regarded the Khalif as its spiritual head, I have repeatedly explained since 1882 (in "Nieuwe Bijdragen tot de kennis van den Islam," in Bijdr. tot de Taal, Landen Volkenkunde van Nederl. Indië, Volgr. 4, Deel vi, in an article, "De Islam," in De Gids, May, 1886, in Questions Diplomatiques et Coloniales, 5me année, No. 106, etc.). I am pleased to find the same views expressed by Prof. M. Hartmann in Die Welt des Islams, Bd. i., pp. 147-8.]

In the first centuries it was the duty of Mohammedans who had become isolated, and who had for instance been conquered by "unbelievers," to do "hijrah," i.e., emigration for Allah's sake, as the converted Arabs had done in Mohammed's time by emigrating to Medina to strengthen the ranks of the Faithful. This soon became impracticable, so that the legists relaxed the prescription by concessions to "the force of necessity." Resignation was thus permitted, even recommended; but the submission to non-Musulmans was always to be regarded as temporary and abnormal. Although the partes infidelium have grown larger and larger, the eye must be kept fixed upon the centre, the Khalifate, where every movement towards improvement must begin. A Western state that admits any authority of a khalîf over its Mohammedan subjects, thus acknowledges, not the authority of a pope of the Moslim Church, but in simple ignorance is feeding political programs, which, however vain, always have the power of stirring Mohammedan masses to confusion and excitement.

Of late years Mohammedan statesmen in their intercourse with their Western colleagues are glad to take the latter's point of view; and, in discussion, accept the comparison of the Khalifate with the Papacy, because they are aware that only in this form the Khalifate can be made acceptable to powers who have Mohammedan subjects. But for these subjects the Khalif is then their true prince, who is temporarily hindered in the exercise of his government, but whose right is acknowledged even by their unbelieving masters.

In yet another respect the canonists need the aid of the temporal rulers. An alert police is counted by them amongst the indispensable means of securing purity of doctrine and life. They count it to the credit of princes and governors that they enforced by violent measures seclusion and veiling of the women, abstinence from drinking, and that they punished by flogging the negligent with regard to fasting or attending public worship. The political decay of Islâm, the increasing number of Mohammedans under foreign rule, appears to them, therefore, doubly dangerous, as they have little faith in the proof of Islam's spiritual goods against life in a freedom which to them means license.

They find that every political change, in these terrible times, is to the prejudice of Islâm, one Moslim people after another losing its independent existence; and they regard it as equally dangerous that Moslim princes are induced to accommodate their policy and government to new international ideas of individual freedom, which threaten the very life of Islâm. They see the antagonism to all foreign ideas, formerly considered as a virtue by every true Moslim, daily losing ground, and they are filled with consternation by observing in their own ranks the contamination of modernist ideas. The brilliant development of the system of Islâm followed the establishment of its material power; so the rapid decline of that political power which we are witnessing makes the question urgent, whether Islâm has a spiritual essence able to survive the fall of such a material support. It is certainly not the canonists who will detect the kernel; "verily we are God's and verily to Him do we return," they cry in helpless amazement, and their consolation is in the old prayer: "And lay not on us, O our Lord, that for which we have no strength, but blot out our sins and forgive us and have mercy upon us. Thou art our Master; grant us then to conquer the Unbelievers!"

IV

ISLÂM AND MODERN THOUGHT

One of the most powerful factors of religious life in its higher forms is the need of man to find in this world of changing things an imperishable essence, to separate the eternal from the temporal and then to attach himself to the former. Where the possibility of this operation is despaired of, there may arise a pessimism, which finds no path of liberation from the painful vicissitudes of life other than the annihilation of individuality. A firm belief in a sphere of life freed from the category of time, together with the conviction that the poetic images of that superior world current among mankind are images and nothing else, is likely to give rise to definitions of the Absolute by purely negative attributes and to mental efforts having for their object the absorption of individual existence in the indescribable infinite. Generally speaking, a high development of intellectual life, especially an intimate acquaintance with different religious systems, is not favourable to the continuance of elaborate conceptions of things eternal; it will rather increase the tendency to deprive the idea of the Transcendent of all colour and definiteness.

The naïve ideas concerning the other world in the clear-cut form outlined for them by previous generations are most likely to remain unchanged in a religious community where intellectual intercourse is chiefly limited to that between members of the community. There the belief is fostered that things most appreciated and cherished in this fading world by mankind will have an enduring existence in a world to come, and that the best of the changing phenomena of life are eternal and will continue free from that change, which is the principal cause of human misery. Material death will be followed by awakening to a purer life, the idealized continuation of life on earth, and for this reason already during this life the faithful will find their delight in those things which they know to be everlasting.

The less faith is submitted to the control of intellect, the more numerous the objects will be to which durable value is attributed. This is true for different individuals as well as for one religious community as compared to another. There are Christians attached only to the spirit of the Gospel, Mohammedans attached only to the spirit of the Qorân. Others give a place in their world of imperishable things to a particular translation of the Bible in its old-fashioned orthography or to a written Qorân in preference to a printed one. Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Islâm have marked with the stamp of eternity codes of law, whose influence has worked as an impediment to the life of the adherents of those religions and to the free intercourse of other people with them as well. So the Roman Catholic and many Protestant Churches have in their organizations and in their dogmatic systems eternalized institutions and ideas whose unchangeableness has come to retard spiritual progress.

Among all conservative factors of human life religion must necessarily be the most conservative, were it only because its aim is precisely to store up and keep under its guardianship the treasures destined for eternity to which we have alluded. Now, every new period in the history of civilization obliges a religious community to undertake a general revision of the contents of its treasury. It is unavoidable that the guardians on such occasions should be in a certain measure disappointed, for they find that some of, the goods under their care have given way to the wasting influence of time, whilst others are in a state which gives rise to serious doubt as to their right of being classified with lasting treasures. In reality the loss is only an apparent one; far from impoverishing the community, it enhances the solidity of its possessions. What remains after the sifting process may be less imposing to the inexperienced mind; gradually the consideration gains ground that what has been rejected was nothing but useless rubbish which had been wrongly valued.

Sometimes it may happen that the general movement of spiritual progress goes almost too fast, so that one revision of the stores of religion is immediately followed by another. Then dissension is likely to arise among the adherents of a religion; some of them come to the conclusion that there must be an end of sifting and think it better to lock up the treasuries once for all and to stop the dangerous enquiries; whereas others begin to entertain doubt concerning the value even of such goods as do not yet show any trace of decay.

The treasuries of Islâm are excessively full of rubbish that has become entirely useless; and for nine or ten centuries they have not been submitted to a revision deserving that name. If we wish to understand the whole or any important part of the system of Islâm, we must always begin by transporting ourselves into the third or fourth century of the Hijrah, and we must constantly bear in mind that from the Medina period downwards Islâm has always been considered by its adherents as bound to regulate all the details of their life by means of prescriptions emanating directly or indirectly from God, and therefore incapable of being reformed. At the time when these prescriptions acquired their definite form, Islâm ruled an important portion of the world; it considered the conquest of the rest as being only a question of time; and, therefore, felt itself quite independent in the development of its law. There was little reason indeed for the Moslim canonists to take into serious account the interests of men not subject to Mohammedan authority or to care for the opinion of devotees of other religions. Islâm might act, and did almost act, as if it were the only power in the world; it did so in the way of a grand seigneur, showing a great amount of generosity towards its subjugated enemies. The adherents of other religions were or would become subjects of the Commander of the Faithful; those subjects were given a full claim on Mohammedan protection and justice; while the independent unbelievers were in general to be treated as enemies until in submission. Their spiritual life deserved not even so much attention as that of Islâm received from Abbé Maracci or Doctor Prideaux. The false doctrines of other peoples were of no interest whatever in themselves; and, since there was no fear of Mohammedans being tainted by them, polemics against the abrogated religions were more of a pastime than an indispensable part of theology. The Mohammedan community being in a sense Allah's army, with the conquest of the world as its object, apostasy deserved the punishment of death in no lesser degree than desertion in the holy war, nay more so; for the latter might be the effect of cowardice, whereas the former was an act of inexcusable treachery.

In the attitude of Islâm towards other religions there is hardly one feature that has not its counterpart in the practice of Christian states during the Middle Ages. The great difference is that the Mohammedan community erected this medieval custom into a system unalterable like all prescriptions based on its infallible "Agreement" (Ijmâ'). Here lay the great difficulty when the nineteenth and twentieth centuries placed the Moslim world face to face with a civilization that had sprung up outside its borders and without its collaboration, that was from a spiritual point of view by far its superior and at the same time possessed of sufficient material power to thrust the Mohammedans aside wherever they seemed to be an impediment in its way. A long series of the most painful experiences, meaning as many encroachments upon the political independence of Mohammedan territories, ended by teaching Islâm that it had definitely to change its lines of conduct. The times were gone when relations with the non-Musulman world quite different from those foreseen by the mediaeval theory might be considered as exceptions to the rule, as temporary concessions to transitory necessities. In ever wider circles a thorough revision of the system came to be considered as a requirement of the time. The fact that the number of Mohammedans subject to foreign rule increased enormously, and by far surpassed those of the citizens of independent Mohammedan states, made the problem almost as interesting to Western nations as to the Mohammedans themselves. Both parties are almost equally concerned in the question, whether a way will be found to associate the Moslim world to modern civilization, without obliging it to empty its spiritual treasury altogether. Nobody can in earnest advocate the idea of leaving the solution of the problem to rude force. The Moslim of yore, going through the world with the Qorân in one hand, the sword in the other, giving unbelievers the choice between conversion or death, is a creation of legendary fancy. We can but hope that modern civilization will not be so fanatical against Moslims, as the latter were unjustly said to have been during the period of their power. If the modern world were only to offer the Mohammedans the choice between giving up at once the traditions of their ancestors or being treated as barbarians, there would be sure to ensue a struggle as bloody as has ever been witnessed in the world. It is worth while indeed to examine the system of Islâm from this special point of view, and to try to find the terms on which a durable modus vivendi might be established between Islâm and modern thought.

The purely dogmatic part is not of great importance. Some of us may admire the tenets of the Mohammedan doctrine, others may as heartily despise them; to the participation of Mohammedans in the civilized life of our days they are as innoxious as any other mediaeval dogmatic system that counts its millions of adherents among ourselves. The details of Mohammedan dogmatics have long ceased to interest other circles than those of professional theologians; the chief points arouse no discussion and the deviations in popular superstition as well as in philosophical thought which in practice meet with toleration are almost unlimited. The Mohammedan Hell claims the souls of all heterodox people, it is true; but this does not prevent benevolent intercourse in this world, and more enlightened Moslims are inclined to enlarge their definition of the word "faithful" so as to include their non-Mohammedan friends. The faith in a Mahdî, who will come to regenerate the world, is apt to give rise to revolutionary movements led by skilful demagogues pretending to act as the "Guided One," or, at least, to prepare the way for his coming. Most of the European powers having Mohammedan subjects have had their disagreeable experiences in this respect. But Moslim chiefs of states have their obvious good reasons for not liking such movements either; and even the majority of ordinary Moslims look upon candidates for Mahdi-ship with suspicion. A contented prosperous population offers such candidates little chance of success.

The ritual laws of Islâm are a heavy burden to those who strictly observe them; a man who has to perform worship five times a day in a state of ritual purity and during a whole month in a year has to abstain from food and drink and other enjoyments from daybreak until sunset, is at a disadvantage when he has to enter into competition with non-Musulmans for getting work of any kind. But since most of the Moslims have become subjects of foreign powers and religious police has been practically abolished in Mohammedan states, there is no external compulsion. The ever smaller minority of strict practisers make use of a right which nobody can contest.

Drinking wine or other intoxicating drinks, taking interest on money, gambling—including even insurance contracts according to the stricter interpretation—are things which a Moslim may abstain from without hindering non-Mohammedans; or which in our days he may do, notwithstanding the prohibition of divine law, even without losing his good name.

Those who want to accentuate the antithesis between Islâm and modern civilization point rightly to the personal law; here is indeed a great stumbling-block. The allowance of polygamy up to a maximum of four wives is represented by Mohammedan authors as a progress if compared with the irregularity of pagan Arabia and even with the acknowledgment of unlimited polygamy during certain periods of Biblical history. The following subtle argument is to be found in some schoolbooks on Mohammedan law: The law of Moses was exceedingly benevolent to males by permitting them to have an unlimited number of wives; then came the law of Jesus, extreme on the other side by prescribing monogamy; at last Mohammed restored the equilibrium by conceding one wife to each of the four humours which make up the male's constitution. This theory, which leaves the question what the woman is to do with three of her four humours undecided, will hardly find fervent advocates among the present canonists. At the same time, very few of them would venture to pronounce their preference for monogamy in a general way, polygamy forming a part of the law that is to prevail, according to the infallible Agreement of the Community, until the Day of Resurrection.

On the other side polygamy, although allowed, is far from being recommended by the majority of theologians. Many of them even dissuade men capable of mastering their passion from marriage in general, and censure a man who takes two wives if he can live honestly with one. In some Mohammedan countries social circumstances enforce practical monogamy. The whole question lies in the education of women; when this has been raised to a higher level, polygamy will necessarily come to an end. It is therefore most satisfactory that among male Mohammedans the persuasion of the necessity of a solid education for girls is daily gaining ground. This year (1913), a young Egyptian took his doctor's degree at the Paris University by sustaining a dissertation on the position of women in the Moslim world, in which he told his co-religionists the full truth concerning this rather delicate subject[1]. If social evolution takes the right course, the practice of polygamy will be abolished; and the maintenance of its lawfulness in canonical works will mainly be a survival of a bygone phase of development.

[Footnote 1: Mansour Fahmy, La condition de la femme dans la tradition et l'évolution de l'Islamisme, Paris, Félix Alcan, 1913. The sometimes imprudent form in which the young reformer enounced his ideas caused him to be very badly treated by his compatriots at his return from Europe.]

The facility with which a man can divorce his wife at his pleasure, contrasted with her rights against him, is a still more serious impediment to the development of family life than the institution of polygamy; more serious, also, than veiling and seclusion of women. Where the general opinion is favourable to the improvement of the position of women in society, there is always found a way to secure it to them without conflicting with the divine law; but a radical reform will remain most difficult so long as that law which allows the man to repudiate his wife without any reason, whereas it delivers the woman almost unarmed into the power of her husband, is considered to be one of the permanent treasures of Islâm.

It is a pity indeed that thus far women vigorously striving for liberation from those mediaeval institutions are rare exceptions in Mohammedan countries. Were Mohammedan women capable of the violent tactics of suffragettes, they would rather try to blow up the houses of feminists than those of the patrons of the old régime. The ordinary Mohammedan woman looks upon the endeavour of her husband to induce her to partake freely in public life as a want of consideration; it makes on her about the same impression as that which a respectable woman in our society would receive from her husband encouraging her to visit places generally frequented by people of bad reputation. It is the girls' school that will awaken those sleeping ones and so, slowly and gradually, prepare a better future, when the Moslim woman will be the worthy companion of her husband and the intelligent educator of her children. This will be due, then, neither to the Prophet's Sunnah nor to the infallible Agreement of the Community of the first centuries of Islâm, but to the irresistible power of the evolution of human society, which is merciless to laws even of divine origin and transfers them, when their time is come, from the treasury of everlasting goods to a museum of antiquities.

Slavery, and in its consequence free intercourse of a man with his own female slaves without any limitation as to their number, has also been incorporated into the sacred law, and therefore has been placed on the wrong side of the border that is to divide eternal things from temporal ones. This should not be called a mediaeval institution; the most civilized nations not having given it up before the middle of the nineteenth century. The law of Islâm regulated the position of slaves with much equity, and there is a great body of testimony from people who have spent a part of their lives among Mohammedan nations which does justice to the benevolent treatment which bondmen generally receive from their masters there. Besides that, we are bound to state that in many Western countries or countries under Western domination whole groups of the population live under circumstances with which those of Mohammedan slavery may be compared to advantage.

The only legal cause of slavery in Islâm is prisonership of war or birth from slave parents. The captivity of enemies of Islâm has not at all necessarily the effect of enslaving them; for the competent authorities may dispose of them in any other way, also in the way prescribed by modern international law or custom. In proportion to the realization of the political ideal of Islâm the number of its enemies must diminish and the possibilities of enslaving men must consequently decrease. Setting slaves free is one of the most meritorious pious works, and, at the same time, the regular atonement for certain transgressions of the sacred law. So, according to Mohammedan principles, slavery is an institution destined to disappear. When, in the last century, Mohammedan princes signed international treaties for the suppression of slavery, from their point of view this was a premature anticipation of a future political and social development—a step which they felt obliged to take out of consideration for the great powers. In Arabia, every effort of the Turkish Government to put such international agreements into execution has thus far given rise to popular sedition against the Ottoman authority. Therefore, the promulgation of decrees of abolition was stopped; and slavery continued to exist. The import of slaves from Africa has, in fact, considerably diminished; but I am not quite sure of the proportional increase of the liberty which the natives of that continent enjoy at home.

Slavery as well as polygamy is in a certain sense to Mohammedans a sacred institution, being incorporated in their Holy Law; but the practice of neither of the two institutions is indispensable to the integrity of Islâm.

All those antiquated institutions, if considered from the point of view of modern international intercourse, are only a trifle in comparison with the legal prescriptions of Islâm concerning the attitude of the Mohammedan community against the parts of the world not yet subject to its authority, "the Abode of War" as they are technically called. It is a principal duty of the Khalif, or of the chiefs considered as his substitutes in different countries, to avail themselves of every opportunity to extend by force the dominion of Allah and His Messenger. With unsubdued unbelievers peace is not allowed; a truce for a period not exceeding ten years may be concluded if the interest of Islâm requires it.

The chapters of the Mohammedan law on holy war and on the conditions on which the submission of the adherents of tolerated religions is to be accepted seem to be a foolish pretension if we consider them by the light of the actual division of political power in the world. But here, too, to understand is better than to ridicule. In the centuries in which the system of Islâm acquired its maturity, such an aspiration after universal dominion was not at all ridiculous; and many Christian states of the time were far from reaching the Mohammedan standard of tolerance against heterodox creeds. The delicate point is this, that the petrification or at least the process of stiffening that has attacked the whole spiritual life of Islâm since about 1000 A.D. makes its accommodation to the requirements of modern intercourse a most difficult problem.

But it is not only the Mohammedan community that needed misfortune and humiliation before it was able to appreciate liberty of conscience; or that took a long time to digest those painful lessons of history. There are still Christian Churches which accept religious liberty only in circumstances that make supreme authority unattainable to them; and which, elsewhere, would not disdain the use of material means to subdue spirits to what they consider the absolute truth.

To judge such things with equity, we must remember that every man possessed of a firm conviction of any kind is more or less a missionary; and the belief in the possibility of winning souls by violence has many adherents everywhere. One of my friends among the young-Turkish state officials, who wished to persuade me of the perfect religious tolerance of Turkey of today, concluded his argument by the following reflection: "Formerly men used to behead each other for difference of opinion about the Hereafter. Nowadays, praise be to Allah, we are permitted to believe what we like; but people continue to kill each other for political or social dissension. That is most pitiful indeed; for the weapons in use being more terrible and more costly than before, mankind lacks the peace necessary to enjoy the liberty of conscience it has acquired."

The truthful irony of these words need not prevent us from considering the independence of spiritual life and the liberation of its development from material compulsion as one of the greatest blessings of our civilization. We feel urged by missionary zeal of the better kind to make the Mohammedan world partake in its enjoyment. In the Turkish Empire, in Egypt, in many Mohammedan countries under Western control, the progressive elements of Moslim society spontaneously meet us half-way. But behind them are the millions who firmly adhere to the old superstition and are supported by the canonists, those faithful guardians of what the infallible Community declared almost one thousand years ago to be the doctrine and rule of life for all centuries to come. Will it ever prove possible to move in one direction a body composed of such different elements, or will this body be torn in pieces when the movement has become irresistible?

We have more than once pointed to the catholic character of orthodox Islâm. In fact, the diversity of spiritual tendencies is not less in the Moslim world than within the sphere of Christian influence; but in Islâm, apart from the political schisms of the first centuries, that diversity has not given rise to anything like the division of Christianity into sects. There is a prophetic saying, related by Tradition, which later generations have generally misunderstood to mean that the Mohammedan community would be split into seventy-three different sects. Moslim heresiologists have been induced by this prediction to fill up their lists of seventy-three numbers with all sorts of names, many of which represent nothing but individual opinions of more or less famous scholars on subordinate points of doctrine or law. Almost ninety-five per cent. of all Mohammedans are indeed bound together by a spiritual unity that may be compared with that of the Roman Catholic Church, within whose walls there is also room for religious and intellectual life of very different origin and tendency. In the sense of broadness, Islâm has this advantage, that there is no generally recognized palpable authority able to stop now and then the progress of modernism or similar deviations from the trodden path with an imperative "Halt!" There is no lack indeed of mutual accusation of heresy; but this remains without serious consequences because of the absence of a high ecclesiastical council competent to decide once for all. The political authorities, who might be induced by fanatical theologians to settle disputes by violent inquisitorial means, have been prevented for a long time from such interference by more pressing affairs.

A knowledge alone of the orthodox system of Islâm, however complete, would give us an even more inadequate idea of the actual world of catholic Islâm than the notion we should acquire of the spiritual currents moving the Roman Catholic world by merely studying the dogma and the canonical law of the Church of Rome.

Nevertheless, the unity of Islamic thought is by no means a word void of sense. The ideas of Mohammedan philosophers, borrowed for a great part from Neoplatonism, the pantheism and the emanation theory of Mohammedan mystics are certainly still further distant from the simplicity of Qorânic religion than the orthodox dogmatics; but all those conceptions alike show indubitable marks of having grown up on Mohammedan soil. In the works even of those mystics who efface the limits between things human and divine, who put Judaism, Christianity, and Paganism on the same line with the revelation of Mohammed, and who are therefore duly anathematized by the whole orthodox world, almost every page testifies to the relation of the ideas enounced with Mohammedan civilization. Most of the treatises on science, arts, or law written by Egyptian students for their doctor's degree at European universities make no exception to this rule; the manner in which these authors conceive the problems and strive for their solution is, in a certain sense, in the broadest sense of course, Mohammedan. Thus, if we speak of Mohammedan thought, civilization, spirit, we have to bear in mind the great importance of the system which, almost unchanged, has been delivered for about one thousand years by one generation of doctors of Islâm to the other, although it has become ever more unfit to meet the needs of the Community, on whose infallible Agreement it rests. But, at the same time, we ought to consider that beside the agreement of canonists, of dogmatists, and of mystics, there are a dozen more agreements, social, political, popular, philosophical, and so on, and that however great may be the influence of the doctors, who pretend to monopolize infallibility for the opinions on which they agree, the real Agreement of Islâm is the least common measure of all the agreements of the groups which make up the Community.

It would require a large volume to review the principal currents of thought pervading the Moslim world in our day; but a general notion may be acquired by a rapid glance at two centres, geographically not far distant from each other, but situated at the opposite poles of spiritual life: Mecca and Cairo.

In Mecca yearly two or three hundred thousand Moslims from all parts of the world come together to celebrate the hajj, that curious set of ceremonies of pagan Arabian origin which Mohammed has incorporated into his religion, a durable survival that in Islâm makes an impression as singular as that of jumping processions in Christianity. Mohammed never could have foreseen that the consequence of his concession to deeply rooted Arabic custom would be that in future centuries Chinese, Malays, Indians, Tatars, Turks, Egyptians, Berbers, and negroes would meet on this barren desert soil and carry home profound impressions of the international significance of Islâm. Still more important is the fact that from all those countries young people settle here for years to devote themselves to the study of the sacred science. From the second to the tenth month of the Mohammedan lunar year, the Haram, i.e., the mosque, which is an open place with the Ka'bah in its midst and surrounded by large roofed galleries, has free room enough between the hours of public service to allow of a dozen or more circles of students sitting down around their professors to listen to as many lectures on different subjects, generally delivered in a very loud voice. Arabic grammar and style, prosody, logic, and other preparatory branches, the sacred trivium; canonic law, dogmatics, and mysticism, and, for the more advanced, exegesis of Qorân and Tradition and some other branches of supererogation, are taught here in the mediaeval way from mediaeval text-books or from more modern compilations reproducing their contents and completing them more or less by treating modern questions according to the same methods.

It is now almost thirty years since I lived the life of a Meccan student during one university year, after having become familiar with the matter taught by the professors of the temple of Mecca, the Haram, by privately studying it, so that I could freely use all my time in observing the mentality of people learning those things not for curiosity, but in order to acquire the only true direction for their life in this world and the salvation of their souls in the world to come. For a modern man there could hardly be a better opportunity imagined for getting a true vision of the Middle Ages than is offered to the Orientalist by a few months' stay in the Holy City of Islâm. In countries like China, Tibet, or India there are spheres of spiritual life which present to us still more interesting material for comparative study of religions than that of Mecca, because they are so much more distant from our own; but, just on that account, the Western student would not be able to adapt his mind to their mental atmospheres as he may do in Mecca. No one would think for one moment of considering Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism as specially akin to Christianity, whereas Islâm has been treated by some historians of the Christian Church as belonging to the heretical offspring of the Christian religion. In fact, if we are able to abstract ourselves for a moment from all dogmatic prejudice and to become a Meccan with the Meccans, one of the "neighbours of Allah," as they call themselves, we feel in their temple, the Haram, as if we were conversing with our ancestors of five or six centuries ago. Here scholasticism with a rabbinical tint forms the great attraction to the minds of thousands of intellectually highly gifted men of all ages.

The most important lectures are delivered during the forenoon and in the evening. A walk, at one of those hours, through the square and under the colonnades of the mosque, with ears opened to all sides, will enable you to get a general idea of the objects of mental exercise of this international assembly. Here you may find a sheikh of pure Arab descent explaining to his audience, composed of white Syrians or Circassians, of brown and yellow Abyssinians and Egyptians, of negroes, Chinese, and Malays, the probable and improbable legal consequences of marriage contracts, not excepting those between men and genii; there a negro scholar is explaining the ontological evidence of the existence of a Creator and the logical necessity of His having twenty qualities, inseparable from, but not identical with, His essence; in the midst of another circle a learned muftî of indeterminably mixed extraction demonstrates to his pupils from the standard work of al-Ghazâlí the absolute vanity of law and doctrine to those whose hearts are not purified from every attachment to the world. Most of the branches of Mohammedan learning are represented within the walls of this temple by more or less famous scholars; and still there are a great number of private lectures delivered at home by professors who do not like to be disturbed by the unavoidable noise in the mosque, which during the whole day serves as a meeting place for friends or business men, as an exercise hall for Qorân reciters, and even as a passage for people going from one part of the town to the other.

In order to complete your mediaeval dream with a scene from daily life, you have only to leave the mosque by the Bâb Dereybah, one of its twenty-two gates, where you may see human merchandise exhibited for sale by the slave-brokers, and then to have a glance, outside the wall, at a camel caravan, bringing firewood and vegetables into the town, led by Beduins whose outward appearance has as little changed as their minds since the day when Mohammed began here to preach the Word of Allah.

To the greater part of the world represented by this international exhibition of Islâm, as a modern Musulman writer calls it, our modern world, with all its problems, its emotions, its learning and science, hardly exists. On the other hand, the average modern man does not understand much more of the mental life of the two hundred millions to whom the barren Mecca has become the great centre. In former days, other centres were much more important, although Mecca has always been the goal of pilgrimage and the cherished abode of many learned men. Many capitals of Islâm offered the students an easier life and better accommodations for their studies; while in Mecca four months of the year are devoted to the foreign guests of Allah, by attending to whose various needs all Meccans gain their livelihood. For centuries Cairo has stood unrivalled as a seat of Mohammedan learning of every kind; and even now the Uaram of Mecca is not to be compared to the Azhar-mosque as regards the number and the fame of its professors and the variety of branches cultivated.

In the last half-century, however, the ancient repute of the Egyptian metropolis has suffered a good deal from the enormous increase of European influence in the land of the Pharaohs; the effects of which have made themselves felt even in the Azhar. Modern programs and methods of instruction have been adopted; and, what is still worse, modernism itself, favoured by the late Muftî Muhammed Abduh, has made its entrance into the sacred lecture-halls, which until a few years ago seemed inaccessible to the slightest deviation from the decrees of the Infallible Agreement of the Community. Strenuous efforts have been made by eminent scholars to liberate Islâm from the chains of the authority of the past ages on the basis of independent interpretation of the Qorân; not in the way of the Wahhâbî reformers, who tried a century before to restore the institutions of Mohammed's time in their original purity, but on the contrary with the object of adapting Islâm by all means in their power to the requirements of modern life.

Official protection of the bold innovators prevented their conservative opponents from casting them out of the Azhar, but the assent to their doctrines was more enthusiastic outside its walls than inside. The ever more numerous adherents of modern thought in Egypt do not generally proceed from the ranks of the Azhar students, nor do they generally care very much in their later life for reforming the methods prevailing there, although they may be inclined to applaud the efforts of the modernists. To the intellectuals of the higher classes the Azhar has ceased to offer great attraction; if it were not for the important funds (wagf) for the benefit of professors and students, the numbers of both classes would have diminished much more than is already the case, and the faithful cultivators of mediaeval Mohammedan science would prefer to live in Mecca, free from Western influence and control. Even as it is, the predilection of foreign students of law and theology is turning more and more towards Mecca.

As one of the numerous interesting specimens of the mental development effected in Egypt in the last years, I may mention a book that appeared in Cairo two years ago[1], containing a description of the present Khedive's pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, performed two years before. The author evidently possesses a good deal of the scholastic learning to be gathered in the Azhar and no European erudition in the stricter sense of the word. In an introductory chapter he gives a summary of the geography and history of the Arabian peninsula, describes the Hijâz in a more detailed manner, and in his very elaborate account of the journey, on which he accompanied his princely master, the topography of the holy cities, the peculiarities of their inhabitants and of the foreign visitors, the political institutions, and the social conditions are treated almost as fully and accurately as we could desire from the hand of the most accomplished European scholar. The work is illustrated by good maps and plans and by a great number of excellent photographs expressly taken for this purpose by the Khedive's order. The author intersperses his account with many witty remarks as well as serious reflections on religious and political topics, thus making it very readable to those of us who are familiar with the Arabic language. He adorns his description of the holy places and of the pilgrimage-rites with the unctuous phrases used in handbooks for the hajji, and he does not disturb the mind of the pious reader by any historical criticism of the traditions connected with the House of Allah, the Black Stone, and the other sanctuaries, but he loses no opportunity to show his dislike of all superstition; sometimes, as if to prevent Western readers from indulging in mockery, he compares Meccan rites or customs with superstitious practices current amongst Jews or Christians of today.

[Footnote 1: Ar-rihlah al-Hijaziyyah, by Muhammed Labib al-Batanunf, 2d edition, Cairo, 1329 Hijrah.]

This book, at whose contents many a Meccan scholar of the old style will shake his head and exclaim: "We seek refuge near Allah from Satan, the cursed!" has been adopted by the Egyptian Department of Public Instruction as a reading-book for the schools.

What surprised me more than anything else was the author's quoting as his predecessors in the description of Mecca and Medina, Burckhardt, Burton, and myself, and his sending me, although personally unacquainted with him, a presentation copy with a flattering dedication. This author and his book would have been impossible in the Moslim world not more than thirty years ago. In Egypt such a man is nowadays already considered as one of those more conservative moderns, who prefer the rationalistic explanation of the Azhar lore to putting it aside altogether. Within the Azhar, his book is sure to meet with hearty approval from the followers of Muhammed Abduh, but not less hearty disapproval from the opponents of modernism who make up the majority of the professors as well as of the students.

In these very last years a new progress of modern thought has manifested itself in Cairo in the foundation, under the auspices of Fu'âd Pasha, an uncle of the present Khedive, of the Egyptian University. Cairo has had for a long time its schools of medicine and law, which could be turned easily into university faculties; therefore, the founders of the university thought it urgent to establish a faculty of arts, and, if this proved a success, to add a faculty of science. In the meantime, gifted young men were granted subsidies to learn at European universities what they needed to know to be the professors of a coming generation, and, for the present, Christian as well as Mohammedan natives of Egypt and European scholars living in the country were appointed as lecturers; professors being borrowed from the universities of Europe to deliver lectures in Arabic on different subjects chosen more or less at random before an audience little prepared to digest the lessons offered to them.

The rather hasty start and the lack of a well-defined scheme have made the Egyptian University a subject of severe criticism. Nevertheless, its foundation is an unmistakable expression of the desire of intellectual Egypt to translate modern thought into its own language, to adapt modern higher instruction to its own needs. This same aim is pursued in a perhaps more efficacious manner by the hundreds of Egyptian students of law, science, and medicine at French, English, and some other European universities. The Turks could not freely follow such examples before the revolution of 1908; but they have shown since that time that their abstention was not voluntary. England, France, Holland, and other countries governing Mohammedan populations are all endeavouring to find the right way to incorporate their Mohammedan subjects into their own civilization. Fully recognizing that it was the material covetousness of past generations that submitted those nations to their rule, the so-called colonial powers consider it their duty now to secure for them in international intercourse the place which their natural talent enables them to occupy. The question whether it is better simply to leave the Moslims to Islâm as it was for centuries is no longer an object of serious discussion, the reforming process being at work everywhere—in some parts with surprising rapidity. We can only try to prognosticate the solution which the near future reserves for the problem, how the Moslim world is to be associated with modern thought.

In this problem the whole civilized world and the whole world of Islâm are concerned. The ethnic difference between Indians, North-Africans, Malays, etc., may necessitate a difference of method in detail; the Islâm problem lies at the basis of the question for all of them. On the other hand, the future development of Islâm does not only interest countries with Mohammedan dominions, it claims as well the attention of all the nations partaking in the international exchange of material and spiritual goods. This would be more generally recognized if some knowledge of Islâm were more widely spread amongst ourselves; if it were better realized that Islâm is next akin to Christianity.