Part 26

When the Christian ambassadors of the Hijr territory came to see the Prophet at Al-Madinah, he offered them half of his Mosque so that they might say their prayers therein. He rose to his feet one day, as a funeral procession went by, and when he was told that it was only a Jew's burial, he replied: 'Is it not a soul?' He also said: 'He who ill-treateth a Jew or a Christian will find me his accuser on the Day of Judgment. With ungodliness an empire may last; but never with injustice.'

Notwithstanding all legends, never, beyond the Hijaz, which means the sacred territory and its vicinity, did Moslems use force to obtain conversions. The Spanish Christians were never molested on account of their belief during the eight centuries of Mussulman domination. Many of them, indeed, occupied the highest posts at the Court of the Caliphs of Cordova. On the other hand, these same Christians, as soon as they became conquerors, immediately exterminated all Moslems without exception. The Jews, who had lived in peace under Arab rule, were treated in the same way.

In his _Voyage Religieux en Orient_, the Abbé Michon pays homage to truth by this exclamation: 'It is a sad thing for Christian nations that religious tolerance, the great law of charity between the peoples, should have been taught by Mussulmans.' (Quoted by Comte de Castries, in his book on Islam.)

What about the Armenian massacres? will be alleged against us. Our answer is that every time they have not been provoked by rebellions and conspiracies, they are condemned by all true Moslems just in the same way as the massacre of all the Moslems in Spain is condemned nowadays by true Christians.

But the Armenian massacres were never the outcome of religious causes, for never have the disciples of Mohammad thought of imitating the followers of Torquemada by forcing the Armenians to choose between conversion and death at the stake. Besides, Moslems do not lean towards proselytism. Strictly speaking, they have no missionaries, and if their religion, at the present day, is the one that causes the most conversions in Africa and Asia, it is, as A. Burdo justly remarks: 'by a kind of moral endosmose.' (_Les Arabes dans l'Afrique Centrale._)

A good example, free from any proselytizing attempts, produces in religious souls a much more powerful impression than the importunities of cathechists. Despite his hostility to Islam and his partiality, the "savant" Dozy is obliged to acknowledge that In Spain, formerly: 'it is a positive fact that many Christians became converted to Islam out of conviction.'

The rule of conduct of a Mussulman towards the followers of other religions is fixed by these words of the Qur'an: "_To you your religions; and to me my religion._" (CIX, 6.)

How can a Mussulman be intolerant, when he venerates alike the Prophets honoured by Jew and Christian? For him, Moses, who spoke with Allah; and Jesus, inspired by Allah, deserve the same veneration as Mohammad, the friend of Allah. "_We make no distinction between any of His Apostles._" (THE QUR'AN, II, 285.)

Never does any Mussulman dare to utter the slightest insult towards Jesus; never would he allow any to be uttered in his presence, even coming from the lips of people of Christian origin who consider Jesus to be responsible for sacerdotal errors. To insult Jesus would be to insult the Qur'an which orders Him to be revered. We were privileged once to witness the uncommon sight of a Mussulman condemned by a Christian judge for having struck a Jew who, in the presence of this disciple of Mohammad, had made outrageous remarks on the birth of Jesus.

Let us now compare the respectful attitude of the Moslems as far as Jesus is concerned, with the manner in which Europeans behave when Mohammad's name is mentioned. In the Middle Ages, monks and troubadours represented him to be either some monstrous idol, or an incorrigible drunkard, fallen on a dung-heap and devoured by hogs. Hence, they pointed out, the repugnance of his disciples for swine-flesh. We should never be done if we tried to quote all that in former times sprung from the fertile imagination of Mohammad's enemies.

The first Orientalists were no kinder. In the eighteenth century, Gagnier, a most learned man, after blaming the Abbé Maracci and Doctor Prideaux for their impassioned insults, speaks in his turn of Mohammad as 'the most villanous of all men; the most deadly of Allah's enemies; the idiotic Prophet,' etc., whilst claiming to speak in guarded terms!

The companions of the Prophet have likewise not been spared from the earliest times. So that the barbarity with which Cardinal Ximenes burnt the marvellous libraries of the Moslems of Spain should be forgotten, many calumniators invented the famous legend of the conflagration of the libraries of Alexandria, by order of the Caliph Umar, thus fully showing the slanderers' great disdain for chronology. These collections of books had not been in existence for several centuries when Islam was revealed to the world. The first library, that of Bruchium, containing four hundred thousand volumes, was destroyed by fire during the war of Cæsar against the Alexandrians; and the second, that of Serapeum, comprising two hundred thousand volumes, bequeathed by Antony, was completely pillaged in the reign of Theodosius.

These ridiculous legends are dying out gradually at the present day; and yet we prefer their candid fanaticism to the malicious calumny with which certain writers, still impregnated with medieval passionate partiality, try from behind a screen of Oriental science, to belittle one of the men who do the most honour, not only to history, but to the history of humanity.

After having adopted the modern civilisation of Christians, may not the Moslems conclude by adopting their religion as well? To answer this question, we need only quote the opinion of an author who, although a fervent Christian, acknowledges facts most loyally. In the course of a remarkable study of Islam, he writes:

"Islam is the only religion which has no recreants--It is very difficult, if not impossible, to form an exact idea of the spiritual state of a Moslem evangelized by a Christian. We can only imagine something very near it, by trying to realise in our minds the feelings of an enlightened Christian whom an idolater might be trying to convert to his gross, superstitious cult." (_L'Islam_, by Comte Henry de Castries.)

Islam, in spite of its irreducibleness, offers Christians many proofs of its feelings of veneration towards Jesus. Therefore, whence comes the hatred with which the followers of Christ pursue Mohammad even in our present century of tolerance--not to say religious indifference?

Is it because of its Asiatic origin? Was not Christianism essentially Asiatic, before Saint Paul had stripped it of Jewish trappings? Jesus declared: 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' (ST. MATTHEW, XV, 24.) Is it because of its doctrine? The doctrine of Islam is almost the same as that of certain Protestant sects. Is it because of the remembrance of the Crusades? Despite the years that are past, this remembrance has still disastrous influence over many ignorant minds, but if that was all, it would not suffice to explain away the ostracism shown in Europe to Islam.

We must seek therefore some other cause, and we find it furnished by the example of the only religion really reviled and persecuted in the same way.

There exists a Protestant sect, the Mormons. After prodigies of will-power, labour and intelligence, they have transformed one of the saddest regions, a mere salt desert, into a thriving country. Europe and America ought to have applauded this work of civilisation, unanimously and enthusiastically. Far from so doing, every sect of Christianity forgot their own disagreements and united themselves against the Mormons with the same feeling of reprobation.

Of what crime were they guilty? They practised polygamy like the Moslems. Such is the true explanation of the mystery: Islam is warned that it will never be granted recognition unless it renounces polygamy.

We shall not risk trying to defend a custom thus violently condemned, but content ourselves with making a few observations. As a matter of fact, polygamy is universal and will last out the world, despite all present or future legislation. This is denied by none. The only question is to know if it is preferable to let it be avowed and limited, or let it flourish hypocritically and boundlessly.

All travellers, Gérard de Nerval and Lady Morgan to wit, have noted that among polygamous Moslems, polygamy is generally less widespread than among so-called monogamous Christians. What can be more natural? For Catholics and Protestants, does not polygamy possess the allurement of forbidden fruit?

By troubling about polygamy, shall we not be set down as old-fashioned? Without taking other things into consideration, the needs of modern life render it impraticable in large cities. It will have died out before long, among civilised Moslems. If the principle survives, it will only be applied in the desert depths where it is an imperious necessity.

Will morality improve by the disappearance of polygamy? That remains doubtful. Prostitution, so rare in most Mussulman lands, will extend its ravages. A plague, now totally unknown, will break out: that of the celibacy of women, which causes desolation in monogamous countries--where, above all, following great wars, it attains disastrous proportions.

In a study on the future of the French colonies, Charles Dumas, writing about the Moslems, states: 'No race can gain freedom when it condemns the half of itself (i.e. its women) to eternal bondage.'

Is it true that Mussulman women are reduced to such a lamentable situation? It is certain that in the eyes of European women enjoying untrammelled freedom, the wearing of a veil and semi-claustration as well, to which the women of Islam are subjected, must seem to be tokens of the most unbearable slavery. But if these ladies of Europe heard the reflexions of these same Mussulman women, objects of monogamists' wives' heartfelt commiseration, they would be surprised to learn that they, in their turn, are not envied, but charitably pitied. Besides, the wearing of the veil and claustration are in no wise religious obligations. The Verses of the Qur'an (XXXIII, 53, 55) by which these questions are supported, are solely aimed at the Prophet's wives and not at those of all Believers, as might be deduced from the inexact translation of verse 55, by Kasimirski.

These practices, put in force many years after Mohammad's death, are therefore fiercely attacked by numerous champions of the feminine cause. Among them, we note Qasim Bey Amin, with his book: "Tahriru'l-Mirat" ("Woman's Emancipation"); and Es Zahawi, the poet of Bagdad, who wrote a celebrated letter on the veil, and says: 'Woman is the remedy of youth, the beauty of nature and the splendour of life. Without women, man is a sterile syllogism--he does not conclude!' And then, relying on this verse: "_And it is for the women to act as the husbands act towards them with all fairness._" (THE QUR'AN, II, 228), he claims complete female freedom.

We will conclude by quoting the words of one of the fair sex, al-Sitti Malika who, with the consent of her father, Hifni Bey Nasif, formerly professor at the University of Al Azhar, published a Qasida, terminating with this verse: 'To unveil, if one is chaste, is no harm; and if one is not chaste, veils in excess offer no protection.'

At the same times as European queens of fashion have tried to acclimatise the Turkish veil in the West, perhaps at some future period, near or distant, the custom of wearing the veil may die out in the East. In that case, the flower of Mussulman beauty will have been stripped of its graceful calyx. Will not the woman of the East regret the mysterious charm she owed to her filmy mask? Will she be compensated by the advantages accruing to her in consequence of budding forth in the strong light of civilisation? The example of the great misery reigning among her sisters of the West, struggling for life in opposition to men, may perhaps frighten the woman of the East when, with dazzled eyes, scarcely awakened from harem dreams, she plunges into the vortex of modern existence. The question is too delicate. We dare not come to a conclusion. After all, the interest and possibility of such reforms vary too completely, from one country to another, so that no general rule can be fixed.

But if we hesitate about passing judgment on the reforms we have just set forth, we acknowledge unreservedly, to make amends, that the education of woman is an imperious necessity for the future of Islam.

Education has nothing to do with the above-mentioned customs. It is in agreement with all the principles of the religion, and during the period of Islamic splendour, was lavished on Mussulman femininity whose culture was superior to that of European women in those days.

In the East, education has never disappeared as completely as in some regions of the Maghrib. During a certain number of years, many Mussulman women passed their leisure harem hours in educating themselves, and their new intellectual birth began to be generalised. From education alone the evolution of manners and customs will proceed wherever it will be necessary in the sense and proportions creating the least amount of trouble in the bosom of families.

[Sidenote: CONCLUSION]

The knots relating to polygamy and the emancipation of woman (the only questions that give a shadow of right to inimical critics of Islam) once cut, Islam will appear to be what it really is: a religion essentially in conformity with the most modern needs and ideas, so much so that an Englishman, Oswald Wirth, was able to write: 'I discovered, one fine day, that I was a Mussulman, without knowing it, like Monsieur Jourdain with his prose.' In like fashion, Goethe, after having studied the principles of the Qur'an, declared: 'If that is Islam, do we not all live in Islam?'

Very soon, no one will venture to give credence to the childish legends perpetuated since the Crusades, and Islam will at last claim to take its place in the van of modern civilisation....

We were writing the concluding lines when suddenly the most formidable conflict ever know in history broke out in Europe, and thousands of Moslem soldiers, descendants of the warriors of Poitiers, immediately invaded the whole of France.

This time, they came not as conquerors, but as friends; as brothers-in-arms, summoned by the Allies to take part in this gigantic struggle on which depends the fate of civilisation. Their traditional heroism has been admired by all. The French soil is riddled by thousands of their graves, thereby they have implanted Islam for ever in the heart of Europe, in the most glorious way; and a strong contingent of the Prophet's disciples is now in European territory.

After such services rendered, it will be churlish to refuse them the freedom of the city, so to speak, that we have already claimed on their behalf. We go further and ask if it is admissible to think that their example, dealing the last blow at the imputations of the past, may give some Europeans food for fresh reflexion?

Undeceived by the failure of integral rationalism, many anxious minds seek new paths. "The modern system of intuition, towards which they hurry, following Bergson, its celebrated defender, represents decided reaction against rationalism, or to be more exact, against the powerlessness of rationalism....

"In the hearts of men hungering after faith, this eminent thinker has caused the aspirations they seem to have lost definitively to be born anew. He allows them to hope for the survival of the soul; he tells them that this world is not a great mass of machinery driven by blind forces and that intelligence is not the only formula of our senses....

"In affirming all this, the illustrious philosopher is perhaps confining himself to the task of reviving ancient illusions; but he has awakened them so that we may hear; and at a moment when they may serve to prepare the elements of a new religion, needed by many men." (_La Vie des Vérités_, by Dr. Gustave Le Bon.)

Such a movement is irresistible, especially after the sanguinary ordeals we have undergone. We are therefore about to witness the efforts of new and old religions, trying to monopolize these manifestations and turn them to account. Rationalism, however, although defeated, has nevertheless been fruitful, and it will oppose an insuperable barrier to the dogmas that run counter to reason much too violently.

On the other hand, must not mystic, pathetic and poetical aspirations be reckoned with? Are they not the essential final causes of all religions? To sum up, are not the most needful conditions of a modern religion those of advanced Protestantism: "Unitarism," clothed in a glorious cloak of poetry?

Islam, freed from all the dross which it accumulated in its course, has precisely these conditions, and already small communities of European converts to Islam have been founded in England and America. One of them, having Mr. Quilliam at his head, exists for several years past at Liverpool, and is remarkable for the fact that the majority of its proselytes belong to the weaker sex.

The conversion of Lord Headley, an English peer, followed by that of other well-known leading Londoners, created a great sensation. The Mussulman commonwealth, founded by this eminent man, publishes a monthly magazine, "The Islamic Review," from which we take the following significant passage:

"Why have Englishmen and other Europeans become Mussulmans? In the first place, because they sought for some simple, logical, essentially practical creed; (for we English flatter ourselves that we are the most practical people under the sun) a creed fitting in with the conditions, customs, and occupations of every people; a divine, true creed, where the Creator and Man are face to face, without any intermediary." (Sheldrake.)

That is what practical minds have found in Islam which, having no sacrements or worship of saints, needs no priest and could, at a pinch, do without a temple. As Allah's presence fills the universe, is not the whole of the earth one immense Mosque?

Moreover, several modern desists, generally finding it difficult to express the aspiration of their souls, will find in the pure deism of true Islam, the most admirable ritual movements and words of prayer that an artistic mind could dream of. In short, for more than one, 'Islam realises the maximum of altruism with a minimum of metaphysics.' (Christian Cherfils.)

Other isolated conversions have taken place in France and in different countries of Europe, Africa and Asia. Perhaps, in this way, we may witness the realisation of this "Hadis" of the Prophet: 'Assuredly Allah will make this religion (Islam) all-powerful by means of men who were strangers thereto!' of the principal characteristic of Islam is that it is wonderfully fitted to all races of creation. Among his first disciples, Mohammad counted not only Arabs of the most different tribes, but also Persians, such as Salman al-Farsi; Christians, such as Waraqa; Abyssinians, such as Bilal; Jews, such as Mukhayriq, Abdullah ibn Sallam, etc. As it is said in the Qur'an: "_We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large._" (XXXIV, 27.)

Even during Mohammad's life, and in the very beginning, his doctrine asserted its stamp of universality. If suitable to all races, it is equally suitable to all intellects and to all degrees of civilisation. Of supreme simplicity, as in Mu'tazilitcism; desperately esoteric, as in Sufiism, bringing guidance and consolation to the European "savant"--leaving thought absolutely free and untrammelled--as well as to the negro of the Soudan, thereby delivered from the superstition of his fetishism. It exalts the soul of a practical English merchant, for whom 'time is money,' quite as much as that of a mystical philosopher; of a contemplative Oriental; or of a man of the West loving art and poetry. It will even allure a modern medical man, by the logic of its repeated ablutions and the rhythm of its bowing and prostration, just as salutary for physical well-being as for the health of the soul itself.

It is therefore not too foolhardy to think that when the fearful storm has passed and the respect due to all nationalities, as well as to all religions, shall have been enforced, Islam will be able to look upon a future brimming with real hope.

Thanks to the great share it has taken in the events causing the upheaval of European civilisation, it has entered therein and will appear at last in its true light. The different nations will vie with each other in seeking to be allied to it, for they will have put its value to the test and have recognised the inexhaustible resources it possesses.

The disciples of the Prophet, awakened from their momentary lethargy, will take their brilliant place in the world.

--"Insha'llah!"--If Allah be willing!

_This book was finished at Bou-Sâada, on the Twenty-seventh day of the month of Ramadhan; in the Year 1334 of the Hegira--the 28th of July, A.D. 1916._

_O Allah! be indulgent towards its authors; excuse the extravagant audacity that urged them on in their hope of doing good, to affront such a vast subject, despite the scantiness of their knowledge._

_O Thou, the Omniscient! pardon them the errors which, through ignorance, they may have committed in such a sublime history as that of Thy Messenger, Our Lord Mohammad, the Seal of the Prophets._

_May Allah pour out for him His Blessings and His Favours!_ _Likewise on his Relatives,_ _And on his Companions!_ _Amin._

Étienne DINET.

Sliman ben IBRAHIM.

THE BOOK WAS FINISHED IN THE YEAR 1335 OF THE HEGIRA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fearing to enlarge this work too much, we prefer to publish the notes, which we deem necessary for its justification, under the title: "L'Orient vu de l'Occident," (The East Seen from the West), forming a pamphlet to be issued later on.

Nevertheless, we give as follows a list of those works which we have specially consulted.

WORKS IN ARABIC

"Al-Qur'an wa huwa'l-Huda wa'l-Furqan."--"Tafsir Anwaru't Tanzil wa Asraru't Tawil," by Al-Baydawi, (Commonly referred to as "The Commentary of Al-Baydawi.")--"Tafsiru'l Qur'ani'l Karim," by the Shaykh Mohammad Abduh. ("The Commentary of the Shaykh Mohammad Abduh.")--"Siratu'n-Rasul," by Ibn Hisham. (Ibn Hisham's "Life of the Prophet.")--"Kitabu't Tabaqat," by Ibn Sad. (The "Tabaqat" of Ibn Sad.)--"Insanu'l-'Uyun fi sirati'l-Amiri'l-Mamun," by Ali ibn Burhanu'd-Dini'l-Halabi.--"Nuru'l yaqin fi sirati Sayyidi'l-Marsulin," by Mohammad Al-Khudri.--"Kitabu's-Sahih," by Al-Bukhari. (The "Sahih" of Al-Bukhari.)--"Rihlat," by Abi'l Husayn ibn Jubayr. (The "Travels of Ibn Jubayr.")--"Ar-Rihlatu'l Hijaziyya," by Mohammad Al-Batanuni.--"Al-Bourdate," by the Shaykh Al-Busiri. (The "Burda," or "Mantle Poem of Al-Busiri.")--"Ummu'l Qura," by Al-Kawakibi.

ISLAMIC WORKS, IN ENGLISH

"The spirit of Islam", by Ameer Ali Syied.--"Islamic Review," edited by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, B.A., L.L.B.

WORKS IN FRENCH, OR TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH