Chapter 6

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.