There are more than two hundred million people who call themselves after the name of Mohammed, would not relinquish that name at any price, and cannot imagine a greater blessing for the remainder of humanity than to be incorporated into their communion. Their ideal is no less than that the whole earth should join in the faith that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is Allah's last and most perfect messenger, who brought the latest and final revelation of Allah to humanity in Allah's own words. This alone is enough to claim our special interest for the Prophet, who in the seventh century stirred all Arabia into agitation and whose followers soon after his death founded an empire extending from Morocco to China.
Even those who—to my mind, not without gross exaggeration—would seek the explanation of the mighty stream of humanity poured out by the Arabian peninsula since 630 over Western and Middle Asia, Northern Africa, and Southern Europe principally in geographic and economic causes, do not ignore the fact that it was Mohammed who opened the sluice gates. It would indeed be difficult to maintain that without his preaching the Arabs of the seventh century would have been induced by circumstances to swallow up the empire of the Sasanids and to rob the Byzantine Empire of some of its richest provinces. However great a weight one may give to political and economic factors, it was religion, Islâm, which in a certain sense united the hitherto hopelessly divided Arabs, Islâm which enabled them to found an enormous international community; it was Islâm which bound the speedily converted nations together even after the shattering of its political power, and which still binds them today when only a miserable remnant of that power remains.
The aggressive manner in which young Islâm immediately put itself in opposition to the rest of the world had the natural consequence of awakening an interest which was far from being of a friendly nature. Moreover men were still very far from such a striving towards universal peace as would have induced a patient study of the means of bringing the different peoples into close spiritual relationship, and therefore from an endeavour to understand the spiritual life of races different to their own. The Christianity of that time was itself by no means averse to the forcible extension of its faith, and in the community of Mohammedans which systematically attempted to reduce the world to its authority by force of arms, it saw only an enemy whose annihilation was, to its regret, beyond its power. Such an enemy it could no more observe impartially than one modern nation can another upon which it considers it necessary to make war. Everything maintained or invented to the disadvantage of Islâm was greedily absorbed by Europe; the picture which our forefathers in the Middle Ages formed of Mohammed's religion appears to us a malignant caricature. The rare theologians[1] who, before attacking the false faith, tried to form a clear notion of it, were not listened to, and their merits have only become appreciated in our own time. A vigorous combating of the prevalent fictions concerning Islâm would have exposed a scholar to a similar treatment to that which, fifteen years ago, fell to the lot of any Englishman who maintained the cause of the Boers; he would have been as much of an outcast as a modern inhabitant of Mecca who tried to convince his compatriots of the virtues of European policy and social order.
[Footnote 1: See for instance the reference to the exposition of the
Paderborn bishop Olivers (1227) in the Paderborn review Theologie und
Glaube, Jahrg. iv., p. 535, etc. (Islâm, iv., p. 186); also some of the
accounts mentioned in Güterbock, Der Islâm im Lichte der byzantinischen
Polemik, etc.]
Two and a half centuries ago, a prominent Orientalist,[2] who wrote an exposition of Mohammed's teaching, felt himself obliged to give an elaborate justification of his undertaking in his "Dedicatio." He appeals to one or two celebrated predecessors and to learned colleagues, who have expressly instigated him to this work. Amongst other things he quotes a letter from the Leiden professor, L'Empereur, in which he conjures Breitinger by the bowels of Jesus Christ ("per viscera Jesu Christi") to give the young man every opportunity to complete his study of the religion of Mohammed, "which so far has only been treated in a senseless way." As a fruit of this study L'Empereur thinks it necessary to mention in the first place the better understanding of the (Christian) Holy Scriptures by the extension of our knowledge of Oriental manners and customs. Besides such promotion of Christian exegesis and apologetics and the improvement of the works on general history, Hottinger himself contemplated a double purpose in his Historia Orientalis. The Roman Catholics often vilified Protestantism by comparing the Reformed doctrine to that of Mohammedanism; this reproach of Crypto-mohammedanism Hottinger wished "talionis lege" to fling back at the Catholics; and he devotes a whole chapter (Cap. 6) of his book to the demonstration that Bellarminius' proofs of the truth of the Church doctrine might have been copied from the Moslim dogma. In the second place, conforming to the spirit of the times, he wished, just as Bibliander had done in his refutation of the Qorân, to combine the combat against Mohammedan unbelief with that against the Turkish Empire ("in oppugnationem Mahometanae perfidiae et Turcici regni").
[Footnote 2: J.H. Hottinger, Historia Orientalis, Zürich, 1651 (2d. edition 1660).]
The Turks were feared by the Europe of that time, and the significance of their religion for their worldly power was well known; thus the political side of the question gave Hottinger's work a special claim to consideration. Yet, in spite of all this, Hottinger feared that his labour would be regarded as useless, or even wicked. Especially when he is obliged to say anything favourable of Mohammed and his followers, he thinks it necessary to protect himself against misconstruction by the addition of some selected terms of abuse. When mentioning Mohammed's name, he says: "at the mention of whom the mind shudders" ("ad cujus profecto mentionem inhorrescere nobis debet animus"). The learned Abbé Maracci, who in 1698 produced a Latin translation of the Qorân accompanied by an elaborate refutation, was no less than Hottinger imbued with the necessity of shuddering at every mention of the "false" Prophet, and Dr. Prideaux, whose Vie de Mahomet appeared in the same year in Amsterdam, abused and shuddered with them, and held up his biography of Mohammed as a mirror to "unbelievers, atheists, deists, and libertines."
It was a Dutch scholar, H. Reland, the Utrecht professor of theology, who in the beginning of the eighteenth century frankly and warmly recommended the application of historical justice even towards the Mohammedan religion; in his short Latin sketch of Islâm[1] he allowed the Mohammedan authorities to speak for themselves. In his "Dedicatio" to his brother and in his extensive preface he explains his then new method. Is it to be supposed, he asks, that a religion as ridiculous as the Islâm described by Christian authors should have found millions of devotees? Let the Moslims themselves describe their own religion for us; just as the Jewish and Christian religions are falsely represented by the heathen and Protestantism by Catholics, so every religion is misrepresented by its antagonists. "We are mortals, subject to error; especially where religious matters are concerned, we often allow ourselves to be grossly misled by passion." Although it may cause evil-minded readers to doubt the writer's orthodoxy he continues to maintain that truth can only be served by combating her opponents in an honourable way.
[Footnote 1: H. Relandi de religione Mohammedica libri duo, Utrecht, 1704 (2d ed. 1717).]
"No religion," says Reland, "has been more calumniated than Islâm," although the Abbé Maracci himself could give no better explanation of the turning of many Jews and Christians to this religion than the fact that it contains many elements of natural truth, evidently borrowed from the Christian religion, "which seem to be in accordance with the law and the light of nature" ("quae naturae legi ac lumini consentanea videntur"). "More will be gained for Christianity by friendly intercourse with Mohammedans than by slander; above all Christians who live in the East must not, as is too often the case, give cause to one Turk to say to another who suspects him of lying or deceit: 'Do you take me for a Christian?' ("putasne me Christianum esse"). In truth, the Mohammedans often put us to shame by their virtues; and a better knowledge of Islâm can only help to make our irrational pride give place to gratitude to God for the undeserved mercy which He bestowed upon us in Christianity." Reland has no illusions that his scientific justice will find acceptance in a wide circle "as he becomes daily more and more convinced that the world wishes to be deceived and is governed by prejudice" ("qui quotidie magis magisque experior mundum decipi velle et praeconceptis opinionibus regi").
It was not long before the scale was turned in the opposite direction, and Islâm was made by some people the object of panegyrics as devoid of scientific foundation as the former calumnies. In 1730 appeared in London the incomplete posthumous work of Count de Boulainvilliers, Vie de Mahomet, in which, amongst other things, he says of the Arabian Prophet that "all that he has said concerning the essential religious dogmas is true, but he has not said all that is true, and it is only therein that his religion differs from ours." De Boulainvilliers tells us with particular satisfaction that Mohammed, who respected the devotion of hermits and monks, proceeded with the utmost severity against the official clergy, condemning its members either to death or to the abjuration of their faith. This Vie de Mahomet was as a matter of fact an anti-clerical romance, the material of which was supplied by a superficial knowledge of Islâm drawn from secondary sources. That a work with such a tendency was sure to arouse interest at that time, is shown by a letter from the publisher, Coderc, to Professor Gagnier at Oxford, in which he writes: "He [de Boulainvilliers] mixes up his history with many political reflections, which by their newness and boldness are sure to be well received" ("Il mêle son Histoire de plusieurs réflexions politiques, et qui par leur hardiesse ne manqueront pas d'être très bien reçues").
Jean Gagnier however considered these bold novelties very dangerous and endeavoured to combat them in another Vie de Mahomet, which appeared from his hand in 1748 at Amsterdam. He strives after a "juste milieu" between the too violent partisanship of Maracci and Prideaux and the ridiculous acclamations of de Boulainvilliers. Yet this does not prevent him in his preface from calling Mohammed the greatest villain of mankind and the most mortal enemy of God ("le plus scélérat de tous les hommes et le plus mortel ennemi de Dieu"). His desire to make his contemporaries proof against the poison of de Boulainvilliers' dangerous book gains the mastery over the pure love of truth for which Reland had so bravely striven.
Although Sale in his "Preliminary Discourse" to his translation of the Qorân endeavours to contribute to a fair estimation of Mohammed and his work, of which his motto borrowed from Augustine, "There is no false doctrine that does not contain some truth" ("nulla falsa doctrina est quae non aliquid veri permisceat"), is proof, still the prejudicial view remained for a considerable time the prevalent one. Mohammed was branded as imposteur even in circles where Christian fanaticism was out of the question. Voltaire did not write his tragedy Mahomet ou le fanatisme as a historical study; he was aware that his fiction was in many respects at variance with history. In writing his work he was, as he himself expresses it, inspired by "l'amour du genre humain et l'horreur du fanatisme." He wanted to put before the public an armed Tartufe and thought he might lay the part upon Mohammed, for, says he, "is not the man, who makes war against his own country and dares to do it in the name of God, capable of any ill?" The dislike that Voltaire had conceived for the Qorân from a superficial acquaintance with it, "ce livre inintelligible qui fait frémir le sens commun à chaque page," probably increased his unfavourable opinion, but the principal motive of his choice of a representative must have been that the general public still regarded Mohammed as the incarnation of fanaticism and priestcraft.
Almost a century lies between Gagnier's biography of Mohammed and that of the Heidelberg professor Weil (Mohammed der Prophet, sein Leben and seine Lehre, Stuttgart, 1843); and yet Weil did well to call Gagnier his last independent predecessor. Weil's great merit is, that he is the first in his field who instituted an extensive historico-critical investigation without any preconceived opinion. His final opinion of Mohammed is, with the necessary reservations: "In so far as he brought the most beautiful teachings of the Old and the New Testament to a people which was not illuminated by one ray of faith, he may be regarded, even by those who are not Mohammedans, as a messenger of God." Four years later Caussin de Perceval in his Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes, written quite independently of Weil, expresses the same idea in these words: "It would be an injustice to Mohammed to consider him as no more than a clever impostor, an ambitious man of genius; he was in the first place a man convinced of his vocation to deliver his nation from error and to regenerate it."
About twenty years later the biography of Mohammed made an enormous advance through the works of Muir, Sprenger, and Nôldeke. On the ground of much wider and at the same time deeper study of the sources than had been possible for Weil and Caussin de Perceval, each of these three scholars gave in his own way an account of the origin of Islâm. Nôldeke was much sharper and more cautious in his historical criticism than Muir or Sprenger. While the biographies written by these two men have now only historical value, Nôldeke's History of the Qorân is still an indispensable instrument of study more than half a century after its first appearance.
Numbers of more or less successful efforts to make Mohammed's life understood by the nineteenth century intellect have followed these without much permanent gain. Mohammed, who was represented to the public in turn as deceiver, as a genius mislead by the Devil, as epileptic, as hysteric, and as prophet, was obliged later on even to submit to playing on the one hand the part of socialist and, on the other hand, that of a defender of capitalism. These points of view were principally characteristic of the temperament of the scholars who held them; they did not really advance our understanding of the events that took place at Mecca and Medina between 610 and 632 A.D., that prologue to a perplexing historical drama.
The principal source from which all biographers started and to which they always returned, was the Qorân, the collection of words of Allah spoken by Mohammed in those twenty-two years. Hardly anyone, amongst the "faithful" and the "unfaithful," doubts the generally authentic character of its contents except the Parisian professor Casanova.[1] He tried to prove a little while ago that Mohammed's revelations originally contained the announcement that the HOUR, the final catastrophe, the Last judgment would come during his life. When his death had therefore falsified this prophecy, according to Casanova, the leaders of the young community found themselves obliged to submit the revelations preserved in writing or memory to a thorough revision, to add some which announced the mortality even of the last prophet, and, finally to console the disappointed faithful with the hope of Mohammed's return before the end of the world. This doctrine of the return, mentioned neither in the Qorân nor in the eschatological tradition of later times, according to Casanova was afterwards changed again into the expectation of the Mahdî, the last of Mohammed's deputies, "a Guided of God," who shall be descended from Mohammed, bear his name, resemble him in appearance, and who shall fill the world once more before its end with justice, as it is now filled with injustice and tyranny.
[Footnote 1: Paul Casanova, Mohammed et la fin du monde, Paris, 1911. His hypotheses are founded upon Weil's doubts of the authenticity of a few verses of the Qorân (iii., 138; xxxix., 31, etc.), which doubts were sufficiently refuted half a century ago by Nôldeke in his Geschichte des Qorâns, 1st edition, p. 197, etc.]
In our sceptical times there is very little that is above criticism, and one day or other we may expect to hear that Mohammed never existed. The arguments for this can hardly be weaker than those of Casanova against the authenticity of the Qorân. Here we may acknowledge the great power of what has been believed in all times, in all places, by all the members of the community ("quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est"). For, after the death of Mohammed there immediately arose a division which none of the leading personalities were able to escape, and the opponents spared each other no possible kind of insult, scorn, or calumny. The enemies of the first leaders of the community could have wished for no more powerful weapon for their attack than a well-founded accusation of falsifying the word of God. Yet this accusation was never brought against the first collectors of the scattered revelations; the only reproach that was made against them in connexion with this labour being that verses in which the Holy Family (Ali and Fatimah) were mentioned with honour, and which, therefore, would have served to support the claims of the Alids to the succession of Mohammed, were suppressed by them. This was maintained by the Shi'ites, who are unsurpassed in Islâm as falsifiers of history; and the passages which, according to them, are omitted from the official Qorân would involve precisely on account of their reference to the succession, the mortality of Mohammed.
All sects and parties have the same text of the Qorân. This may have its errors and defects, but intentional alterations or mutilations of real importance are not to blame for this.