Islam Her Moral And Spiritual Value Part 1

Islam Her Moral And Spiritual Value.

by Arthur Glyn Leonard.

FOREWORD

I am glad to introduce this book with an expression of the pleasure and interest with which I have read Major Leonard's admirable psychological study of a subject, the importance of which it is hardly possible to overrate.

Unfortunately it has been too common hitherto to regard Islam as an antagonistic force to Christendom; to depreciate its Founder and to discount its Ideals. As the author justly observes, it is hardly possible for a student really anxious to acquaint himself with the inner spirit of another Faith, to gain an insight into its true character until he has divested himself of ancient prejudices that narrow his perspective and prevent his taking a broad view of the aims and aspirations of the great men who from time to time have tried to uplift humanity.

Major Leonard has dealt with his subject in this broad spirit; he has approached it with sympathy born of intimate acquaintance with races and peoples who profess the Faith of Islam. His is eminently a philosophical study of its Founder, of its true moral and spiritual utility, and of the great impetus it gave to the progress of the world.

In the eight chapters that const.i.tute this book he has discussed the entire range of questions affecting the personality of Mohammed and the tendency of his religion. In his treatment he shows himself a philosophical rationalist animated with a reverence for the Arabian Teacher--the evident outcome of a true appreciation of the mainspring of his actions.

In the first chapter the author has applied himself to expose the absurdity and hollowness of the Pan-Islamic "bogey." That the growing _rapprochement_ between Moslem communities, hitherto divided by sectarian feuds, should be viewed with disfavour by Europe as indicating a danger to its predominance and selfish ambitions is intelligible. But that it should be regarded as a deliberate challenge to, or intended as a hostile demonstration against Christendom, is a mere chimera. Major Leonard proves conclusively that the Pan-Islamic movement is no modern political movement; but that morally and spiritually Islam, in its very essence, is Pan-Islamic; in other words, a creed that recognizes in practice the brotherhood of man to a degree unknown in any other religion, and admits in its commonwealth no difference of race, colour or rank.

Moslems, laymen and scholars, will probably not agree with some of Major Leonard's remarks in his outline of the Prophet's character and temperament; but they must all acknowledge his sincerity. He describes Mohammed as a great and true man--great not only as a teacher, but as a patriot and statesman; a material as well as a spiritual builder, who constructed a nation and an enduring Faith, which holds, to a greater degree than most others, the hearts of millions of human beings; a man true to himself and his people, but above all to his G.o.d.

The author has gone to the Koran itself for the animating purpose of Mohammed's strenuous and n.o.ble life. He believes that the national good to be obtained only by the recognition of the conception of a G.o.d who is both "national and universal" was the dominant idea that impelled and inspired the Prophet of Arabia. In his appreciation of Mohammed's teachings, Major Leonard has grasped the real spirit of Islam; and both as regards his moral and spiritual precepts, as also the enunciations respecting the duties of every-day life, the author has given the Arabian Prophet his due. He dwells on Mohammed's affection and sympathy for the weak, the afflicted and suffering, with the orphan and the stricken; on his humanity to the dumb creatures of G.o.d; on the duties of parents to children, and of children to parents; on his burning denunciations of the terrible crime of female infanticide.

In the eighth and last chapter Major Leonard speaks of the debt Europe owes to Islam, and endeavours to show that the religion of Mohammed, far from being antagonistic to human development, has materially helped in the progress of the world. It is part of Major Leonard's thesis that Christianity and Islam belong to "different spheres of influence"; in other words, whilst Christianity is suited to certain races, Islam is peculiarly suited to others. Races and peoples adapt their religions to their own respective advancement, and the same religion varies among different communities according to the stage of their development. The Christianity of the barbarous South American Gaucho is not the same as that of the cultured Englishman, nor is the Islam of the cultivated Moslem identical with that professed by ignorant followers of the Faith.

But it would be hard to say that philosophical Christianity exactly answers the needs of the lower strata of Christendom to whom the positive directions of a simple practical faith might appeal with greater force. Might not Islam, with its emphatic prohibition of drink, the primary cause of all the vice and crime in Europe, prove a far greater civilizing agency in the slums of European cities, and do far more good in reclaiming the debased, than a religion which does not possess that positive character and is only adapted for idealistic minds?

Whatever view a rationalist may hold on this point, I feel that Major Leonard has laid the world of literature under a debt for his admirable monograph on a peculiarly interesting subject.

AMEER ALI.

CHAPTER I

THE SO-CALLED MOSLEM MENACE!

For some time past, but more especially during the last year or two, it has become quite the fas.h.i.+on in Europe to rail at and to suspect the good faith and motives of the Moslem world. If we are to believe the European Press, Europe is in deadly danger. The "_Yellow Peril_" of a few years ago has, by means of the juggling of modern journalism, cleverly transformed itself into the "_Moslem Menace_." According to this trenchant successor of the ancient oracle, there is unrest and seething turmoil everywhere. In Egypt, a national confederation; in Morocco, a crisis; in the heart of Africa, the Senussi movement; in Turkey and Arabia, secret a.s.sociations and agitation; in Persia even, disaffection but co-operation. In one word, Europe--Christian, civilized and unoffending Europe--is confronted with a Pan-Islamic confederation, that is co-operating to achieve the unity and the nationalization of all Islam, with the express object of ultimately turning upon Christendom, and rending her into a thousand tattered fragments.

That there has been no revival of "the chronic conspiracy" within our Indian Empire, is, however, easily explained. This, which purposed to be a religious agitation among Indian Moslems, was an expression more familiar twenty-five years ago and was attributed to the influence of Wahabite oratory. It is, of course, possible that the present agitation and unrest among the Hindus generally, but the Bengalis in particular, has for the time being at all events diverted the attention of the outside world in other directions. But it is also more or less generally taken for granted that the Moslem population of India has sunk into a state of political lethargy, which if it does not betoken loyalty, obviously demonstrates a dumb and pa.s.sive revolutionary torpor that is tantamount to it.

That agitation and unrest exist throughout the Moslem world would be nothing either new or unusual. In a human sense, Islam is identical with Christendom. She too has her social functions, her political parties, a.s.sociations, confederations and societies. She has her religious sects and denominations. As with us, so with Islam, there are affinities, and antipathies, emulations and jealousies, compet.i.tions and rivalries, likes and dislikes, envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness. The interest of self predominates before all else. In kind there is certainly no difference, in degree it is possible that Europe may be a step or two higher. But this is not the point that I would here emphasize. To fall back on the time-honoured maxim, immortalized by Shakespeare, comparisons of this kind are incompatible if not odious.

Besides, recrimination is as futile as it is injudicious and undignified.

It is not of moral discrepancies on either side that I would speak. Nor have I any wish to rake up the low-lying sediment, or to disturb the still waters which are running deep in the great ocean of Moslem life.

Under the conditions that prevail, it is a.s.suredly best to let sleeping dogs lie. Left alone they are much less troublesome. There is always the possibility that they may oversleep themselves and fall into a dormant and inactive state. In this way the still waters of sedition and agitation soon find their own level--the embers of revolt may at times flare up, but they soon flicker out.

It is of the moral and spiritual utility, with the soul of Islam, that I am now about to deal. For Islam, believe me, has a soul--a sincere and earnest soul, a great and profound soul--that is worth knowing. It is in this soul that the whole kernel and essence of Islam lies. A thorough knowledge and a clear comprehension of this great spirit will alone enable the statesmen and thinkers of Europe to understand the complex problems of so-called Pan-Islamism. To obtain this grasp, however, certain qualifications are absolutely essential. It is necessary--e.g., to approach the subject from a rational and reasonable standpoint--to detach the mind from all preconceived dogmas and opinions; to lay aside all prejudices, racial, religious, social and otherwise, and all bigotries and intolerance; to be confined to no one creed, sect or denomination of any kind, sort or description, but the one great world of Humanity that, in the eyes of Nature, is of one soul and body. This may be a large, or as cousin Jonathan would call it, a tall, order. It bulks big and sounds ponderous. In face of what human nature is, it appears impracticable. But even in human nature there are exceptions and possibilities. An aspect such as this, then, though improbable, is certainly possible, if exceptional. Let us presume at least that in this instance it is so. It is, at all events, on these broad lines that the following pages have been written. It is the true spirit of human sympathy and fellows.h.i.+p that has moved me--the sympathy and fellows.h.i.+p that would draw together, or at least nearer to each other, the worlds of Christendom and Islam.

The better to achieve my object, I have consulted no works on either Mohammed or Islam, but have gone straight to the source or fountain head--to Mohammed himself, the Koran, and to Moslems of various nationalities with whom I have been brought into close and personal touch during a wide and a varied experience. It is here in the man and his work that the true soul of Islam is to be found. Just as in its founders and foundations lies the heart and essence of Christianity, it is in and out of the merits as well as demerits of Mohammed's work, that we shall form the true estimate of Islamic utility. By their fruits ye shall know them. Men do not gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles. Mohammed most certainly did not. As he sowed, so he has reaped! So he is still reaping. The Koran was the immediate consequence of his concentration and communion with Nature and Nature's G.o.d: Islam the natural result. In other words, Islam is the devotion of Moslems to Mohammed and the Koran--his work, plus their patient resignation and entire submission to G.o.d, His will and His service! The man of fixed and unchanging purpose has a supreme contempt for obstacles. But when, as in Mohammed's case, that purpose is the glorification of G.o.d, he has at hand a lever that can move the world. In this peculiar sense the great Prophet of Arabia was self-contained. He had everything within himself: that everything centred in G.o.d and Arabian unity. He sought only what he needed. This was to unify G.o.d and his country. How he succeeded is a matter of history.

D'Aubigne in his history of the Reformation, speaking of Luther, says: "Men, when designed by G.o.d to influence their contemporaries, are first seized and drawn along by the peculiar tendencies of their age."

Undoubtedly this, in a great measure, is so. It is quite evident that Mohammed was influenced in this way. Yet it is also obvious that he was not so much seized by the peculiar tendencies of his age (for in many ways he was far in advance of it), as that he was obsessed and dominated by the energy or spirit of G.o.d, and utilized these special features with the design of disseminating this overmastering G.o.d possession to others.

"There are but three sorts of persons," Pascal used to say: "those who serve G.o.d, having found Him; those who employ themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who live without seeking Him or having found Him. The first are reasonable and happy; the last are mad and miserable; the intermediate are miserable and reasonable."

If ever man on this earth found G.o.d, if ever man devoted his life to G.o.d's service with a good and a great motive, it is certain that the Prophet of Arabia was that man. That on the whole and in the truest sense of the word he was reasonable, is best seen in the result which his labour achieved. That he was happy, is quite another matter. Real as is our existence, happiness at best is but an ephemeral phase of it. Yet there is much truth in the a.s.sertion, that gaiety seeks the crowd, while happiness loves silence and solitude as Mohammed himself did. In any case, if the satisfaction which ensues as the consequence of duty done, and well done, is happiness; if the consciousness that he has done his best in all sincerity and conscientiousness, gives happiness to the ego, then it is possible to a.s.sume that in bequeathing the grand heritage of Islam to posterity, Mohammed must have gone to his final rest in a state of supreme happiness.

Self-belief--"that thing given to man by his Creator," as Carlyle calls it--was, as I shall show, a salient feature in Mohammed's character.

More than half a Bedawin (or what was practically the same thing, pa.s.sing a great part of his life in deserts), this was only natural. But he did not allow this self-consciousness to degenerate, either into vanity or egotism. It neither spoilt nor conquered him. He knew his own weakness--none better--therefore relied all the more on the power of G.o.d. It was this outside influence which reacted on him so powerfully from within. It was this judicious blend or amalgam of two seemingly different thought-currents, which were in reality only a bifurcation of the same current, that gave him all his strength. It was this unique combination of an apparent dualism (through intense mental concentration) in one divine Monism that gave Mohammed victory over every obstacle. It was this compressed one-ness--the most sublime triumph of individual concentration in the world's history--that carried Islam into the uttermost parts of the earth. It was this centralization of moral or religious gravity that swelled the belief of one man--a modest camel-driving trader only--into the perfervid belief of hundreds of millions. "For given a sincere man, you have given a thing worth attending to. Since sincerity, what is it but a divorce from earth and earthly feelings?"

One thing more. To thoroughly comprehend the spirit of Mohammed or the soul of Islam, the student himself must be thoroughly in earnest and sincere. He must in addition possess that moral, mental and intellectual sympathy which gives the ego an insight into human subtleties as well as simplicities. He must take Mohammed and Islam as he finds them--in the same intensely sincere spirit that const.i.tuted the one and inculcated the other. He must at the outset recognize that Mohammed was no mere spiritual pedlar, no vulgar time-serving vagrant, but one of the most profoundly sincere and earnest spirits of any age or epoch. A man not only great, but one of the greatest--i.e. truest--men that Humanity has ever produced. Great, i.e. not simply as a prophet, but as a patriot and a statesman: a material as well as a spiritual builder who constructed a great nation, a greater empire, and more even than all these, a still greater Faith. True, moreover, because he was true to himself, to his people, and above all to his G.o.d. Recognizing this, he will thus acknowledge that Islam is a profound and true cult, which strives to uplift its votaries from the depths of human darkness upwards into the higher realm of Light and Truth. It is in this deep sense of earnestness, and in this tense but even-minded spirit of equity, that I have endeavoured to make my study both rational and psychological: in other words, reasonable and true to the spirit. Naturally, therefore, I have avoided those narrow and devilish pitfalls of racial, creedal and colour prejudices--that awful curse of Humanity, that insuperable barrier to the cult of Humanitarianism--which leads to the deadly cancer of _Misconception_. Finally--making due allowance for s.p.a.ce limitations--I have endeavoured to the best of my ability to get to the root of all that is good and great in the immortal work of this leader of men who was so good and so great in every sense. In this way only is it possible to get at the truth. Shallow, superficial and paradoxical inquiries are mere empty vanities as utterly useless, from a human standpoint, as those which are bia.s.sed and one-sided. To reach the depths, to touch the bottom, to get to the root of any true man's motives, sincerity and thoroughness are as essential as intellectual ac.u.men and profundity.

In this short study my one idea all through has been to delineate Mohammed as he was and Islam as she is. For this reason I have neither painted them with my own colouring, nor introduced into their natural complexion any outside flesh tints. In plain English, I have not placed upon their beliefs and principles a construction that, being ethnically foreign to the entire sociological system upon which they are based, would have been a fundamental error, at complete variance with them.

CHAPTER II

AN OUTLINE OF MOHAMMED'S TEMPERAMENT AND CHARACTERISTICS

One of the first thoughts that a very careful perusal of the Koran brings home to me, is the intense humanity of Mohammed and his work. The more one studies the various motives that led to his so-called revelations, the more one is struck by the strong a.s.sociations that connect these divine messages and ordinances with the actions and movements that were going on all round him, as well as in his own mind--owing in a great measure to his own preaching.

In estimating the moral value of either Christianity or Islam, it is necessary to take into consideration, also to make allowance for, the times in which their founders lived. To attempt to judge one or other of them from the scientific standpoint of modern culture and civilization would be not only uneven but impossible. To gauge the standard of their mental and moral attainments, the student must investigate their work, and compare, then contrast, it with the general intellectual level of their own age. When this has been done, he should try and, if possible, realize what effect the advent and the doctrines advocated by them (in the one case some 1,900 years, and in the other 1,300 years ago) would now produce. In this way only is it feasible to arrive at a true and legitimate conclusion. But in doing so, the inquirer must divest, certainly dissociate himself, from all existing ideas on the subject, and deal with it as it is, and not what he thinks it ought to be.

The more one studies the Koran, the more obvious does it become that Mohammed had a powerfully receptive mind, and a specially retentive memory. Notwithstanding that he was illiterate, unable even to read and write, it is clear that he was well versed in all the tenets and traditions of his own people and of the Jews; and that in addition he had made himself acquainted with some of the doctrines and dogmas of the Christian Gospels. It is above all certain that for a great number of years Mohammed concentrated his mind thereon with the force and intensity of a sincere and ardent nature. But first and foremost the one great idea of the being, unity and providence of G.o.d predominated all his thoughts. Acting on a temperament that was highly emotional, and perceptibly neurotic or melancholic, the revelations embodied in the Koran were the natural result of so long and continuous a concentration. Still it is equally obvious that combining with this emotionalism and neurasthenia was a strong vein of commercialism and common sense, also marked political and administrative ability. It is further evident that in Mohammed's character there commingled a very curious and conflicting number of elements and tendencies. Dominating all of these, however, was an intense zeal, an insatiable ambition, an overpowering individuality and egotism, and an inflexible doggedness and determination to attain his own ends. To convert, that is, the weakness and disintegration of the various tribes that composed the Arab nation into the union of one consolidated whole, with himself and family at its head, as a human representation of the unity and supremacy of the one and only G.o.d. This latter, as we know, was in no way original. It is clear all throughout that he had profited from his knowledge of Jewish tradition and experience, and that he based his theory on the dogmas of Moses and Abraham. He had long since realized that it was the wors.h.i.+p of their own tribal and communal G.o.ds by the members of the various Arab tribes and communities that accentuated the differences and divisions between them. He determined, therefore, as the Jewish leaders long before him had attempted, to consolidate and weld them into a single nation, through the wors.h.i.+p of the one supreme and indivisible G.o.d. It was on and through this divine indivisibility that he decided to base and construct the unity and nationalization of the people.

Unquestionably Mohammed's movement was as much political as it was religious, as much material as it was spiritual. But being of a profoundly reflective, at the same time of a practical, turn of mind, he chose religion as the only possible and thoroughly reliable means of achieving his great and n.o.ble ends; not only possible and thorough, however, but the most potential. Mohammed, in fact, judged the capacity and characteristics of his countrymen to a nicety. Unconsciously--for legislation to him was a natural heritage--he followed the example of the most famous legislators, and inst.i.tuted such laws as at the time were the best that the people were capable of receiving. Tactful and diplomatic to a degree, it was policy on his part to retain a certain number of the old beliefs and customs in order to satisfy the people. He knew, none better, the fierce and turbulent temper of his countrymen, and how it was most politic to deal with them. In making this concession he showed his political wisdom, if not a certain breadth and greatness of statecraft. After all it was, from an independent standpoint, but a small concession as compared to the prize that he got in return for it.

It was a compromise in other words. Yet this and his own evidence in the Koran is important as showing that Mohammed was not so much in a strict sense the originator of a new creed as he was a reformer and the renovator of an old one. It was the impress of his great personality, distinguished as this was by the intense sincerity and earnestness of his nature, that has left its mark on human history.

Mohammed was a thinker and a worker not only for his own, but for all time. He recognized that man was equally a political and religious product of G.o.d's creation. He understood that as a counterpoise to man's materialism and to the destructive in his nature, is that indefinable essence which we call the spiritual and the constructive. The more one looks into and understands the Koran, the more obvious is it that Mohammed concentrated all the active and vigorous energies of his vivid and powerful imagination, also his virile mentality, on the accomplishment of his great design. For design it certainly was. The wish undoubtedly was father to the thought. Not, however, in an invidious sense, but in the firm conviction that design and not accident or chance is one of the controlling principles of G.o.d and His creation, and that, consistent with this principle, he, Mohammed, had been chosen as the divine agent. Personal ambition and aggrandizement never for a moment entered his head, or formed part of it. The national good, to be attained only by a national or universal G.o.d--the one and only G.o.d of the universe--was the one great ambition that inspired and impelled him.

Because although every one for himself and G.o.d for us all is presumably a natural law, Mohammed managed to evade it. But in evading it, he was not revolutionary. On the contrary, in this way he rose one step upward above the lower human level towards that higher humanity which approaches the divine.

This design, as I have just said, originated from the doctrine of divine unity attributed to Moses and Abraham. Indeed, as one reads the Koran carefully and steadily through from beginning to end, it is manifested in every surah--almost, in fact, on every page. The whole work, in fact, is saturated with the one idea, inspired by the one thought. Everywhere there is evidence of the final object in view, the unconquerable will, the inflexible resolve, the fixed purpose, the indomitable perseverance, the unyielding persistency, the infinite and interminable patience, the calm endurance, the irresistible courage, and the grim tenacity of the ego. So much so is this evident, that when I compare this determinism with the neurotic element in Mohammed's character, I am obliged to admit that the balance remains with the former. Yet--and this I think is the strangest feature about this strange but commanding personality--there is no getting away from the fact that he was much under the influence of the latter.

It is, of course, possible that Mohammed was what in Arabia is called a "Saudawi," or person of melancholy temperament--what nowadays would be called a hypochondriacal dyspeptic. Melancholia is a complaint that the Arabs are subject to, students, philosophers and literary men more especially. A distaste for society, a longing for solitude, an unsettled habit of mind, and a neglect of worldly affairs are always attributed to it. It is very probably--to some extent at least--as Burton suggests, the effect of overworking the brain in a hot, dry atmosphere; also due in some measure to the highly nervous and bilious temperament const.i.tutional to the Arabs: a temperament that in Mohammed's case was aggravated by excessive emotionalism.

It is clear that once Mohammed got hold of, or was obsessed by, the idea that he was G.o.d's chosen messenger, and that his sayings were inspired by G.o.d (a very old and primitive belief remember): or rather as soon as ever Khadija and others of his household were imbued with the idea, then he never relaxed his hold of it for a moment. The confidence of those about him, his faithful spouse more especially, gave him confidence in himself. Confidence engendered conviction, and conviction led to the Koran and the ultimate triumph of his cause. That he was sincere in all this, there is not the slightest doubt, but in taking the measure of his sincerity we must be guided entirely by the fact that he was essentially a man who had long before made up his mind to bring about the unity of his country. Indeed the whole history of Khadija's a.s.sociation with the matter shows this. To be a prophet in his own country or household, a man must inspire respect, or the still greater feeling of veneration. No man, unless he is earnest and devout, could possibly impress the members of his family. They are bound to find him out. This applies all the more forcibly to an eastern household in which polygamy prevails, and that is made up of so many opposing elements and conflicting interests, the atmosphere of which is only too often one necessarily of envies, jealousies, rivalries, suspicions, intrigues, and even conspiracies. If Mohammed had been insincere, if instead of convictions, his belief had been a mere profession or a sham; if it had not been one of austere, rigid practice and self-denial, then those about him would neither have been impressed, nor would they have espoused his cause as warmly and valiantly as they did. Not only were they impressed, however, but convinced, and it was their convictions that strengthened and confirmed his own faith. But once he had gained their confidence, his mission was a.s.sured. There was no doubt whatever then in his own mind that he was G.o.d's chosen apostle, to whom G.o.d had revealed His word--the words of truth and life. From this out, his own vigour, his own extraordinary individuality and inflexibility carried him through from beginning to end. Once others believed in and relied on him, his own latent self-reliance grew into a living and active factor that carried all before it. But as he looked at it, all his strength was from G.o.d. G.o.d was at his elbow and in his heart, therefore he could not fail. Nothing, in fact, shows better than this aspect of the matter how very wise and all-knowing (his constant refrain about G.o.d in the Koran) Mohammed himself was. How tactful and diplomatic, but above all, how deep his knowledge of human nature. Had Khadija and his household not believed in him, it is safe to a.s.sume that then there would have been no Prophet and no Islam. As Novalis says: "My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it." So it was with Mohammed. So it is with us all. So Carlyle pithily observes: "A false man found a religion? Why a false man cannot build a brick house!" I have already shown that Mohammed was not false. But neither did he found a religion. Apart from the fact that he was a reality, and as true as any of the world's great prophets, Mohammed was unable to perform the impossible. Religion as a natural product was beyond his comprehension and potentialities. Islam like Christianity was a creed--a human or artificial development--the healthy and vigorous offspring of a n.o.ble and sublime, yet in no sense original conception. But there was no demerit in this want of originality. Because as Carlyle says: "The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity": and with regard to Mohammed, this has been more than once acknowledged.

Launched upon the world of Arabia in no false and unreal spirit, but with the spirit of grim sincerity and earnestness, Islam has proved its stability spiritually and materially, the present result of which speaks for itself. It is enough to say that a creed whose followers now number over 250,000,000, or some 15 per cent. of the human race (an under- rather than an over-estimate), could have sprung from a healthy and vigorous seed only--a seed that has been nourished and kept alive by the vital spark of human sympathies, hopes and aspirations.

What appears to me as so remarkable and so significant, so truly characteristic of the man, is the way in which he never lets go his grip of the central idea and purpose, but follows it up step by step. And as he follows, he makes every point that he can, seizes every opportunity, takes every advantage of every ordinary event and occurrence that is going on around him, makes the best of every reverse, turns even his set-backs and reverses into moral victories; and accepts it all as inevitable with the calmness of a philosophy that emanated from his own wondrous egoism and that inexhaustible fund of patience and reserve of courage which so distinguishes his character. In this respect alone Mohammed truly was a remarkable man--a man infinitely above, not only his surroundings, but his age. With Mohammed, not only was the great fact of his own existence great to him, but in almost every page of the Koran it is obvious that G.o.d's omnipresence and omnipotence had made a profound and lasting impression on him. Everywhere and in everything--in natural objects more especially--he saw and felt the hand and the power of G.o.d. And to him it was a power so overwhelmingly terrific and transcendent in all its aspects, that it defied description and demonstrated the insignificance and impotence of man. In more senses than one he was a pantheist. To him, either G.o.d was Nature and Nature G.o.d, or G.o.d was in Nature and Nature was in G.o.d. At bottom of him the old primitive belief was there, but in unity and concentration he saw strength. In his mind there was no room, no place, for lesser deities.

The power and the splendour of the one creative G.o.d--who lived and moved and had His being throughout the universe, overshadowed, or, rather, had absorbed, them all. In the grim silence of the desert, in the vastness of the heavens, in the great infinity of s.p.a.ce, in the scintillation of the stars, in every fibre of his own consciousness, G.o.d was with him. To Mohammed G.o.d was not a personal being but the G.o.d and Maker of the universe and all mankind. With him the entire theme and volume of his stream of thought was G.o.d and his religion. Coming from the core and centre of him as it did, even through the long vista of thirteen centuries, one can picture this overmastering element in every line of his stern-set and yet gentle face: a face reflective and speaking, that not only had a history stamped upon every feature, but a great, a strenuous, and a commanding history. _In vino veritas_ is as true to-day as when first it was uttered. So too the saw, that "masters.h.i.+p like wine unmasks the man." But Mohammed needed no unmasking. G.o.d and the truth--the truth about G.o.d as it dominated him--was the rich, strong wine which coursed through every vein and fibre of his mental organism, stimulating and spurring him onwards to a sustained and continuous effort that ended only in death. A sincere and earnest man, a natural, therefore a deeply religious man, to him G.o.d was also a Dayyan (one of the ninety-nine epithets of G.o.d), i.e. "A weigher of good and evil"; One who computed and settled accounts; the holder of the even balance and scales of justice, the Judge and Arbiter of all mankind.

But apart from these functions, the power and sublimity of the Supreme Being, as he saw it expressed in the silent grandeur of the desert, the death-like stillness of the sandy sea, the frowning ruggedness and majesty of the mountains, the immense universality of Nature, was always before his eyes and in all his thoughts. Full of this feeling, of the awe and veneration innate in man and co-existent with the eternal ages, he bursts out in the second surah: "G.o.d! there is no G.o.d but He; the living, the self-subsisting: neither slumber nor sleep seizeth Him; to Him _belongeth_ whatsoever is in heaven, and on earth. Who is he that can intercede with Him, but through His good pleasure? He knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come unto them, and they shall not comprehend anything of His knowledge, but so far as He pleaseth. His throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is no burden unto Him. He is the high and mighty."