History Of The Conflict Between Religion And Science Part 6

The view here presented of the primitive character of Mohammedanism has long been adopted by many competent authorities. Sir William Jones, following Locke, regards the main point in the divergence of Mohammedanism from Christianity to consist "in denying vehemently the character of our Savior as the Son, and his equality as G.o.d with the Father, of whose unity and attributes the Mohammedans entertain and express the most awful ideas." This opinion has been largely entertained in Italy. Dante regarded Mohammed only as the author of a schism, and saw in Islamism only an Arian sect. In England, Whately views it as a corruption of Christianity. It was an offshoot of Nestorianism, and not until it had overthrown Greek Christianity in many great battles, was spreading rapidly over Asia and Africa, and had become intoxicated with its wonderful successes, did it repudiate its primitive limited intentions, and a.s.sert itself to be founded on a separate and distinct revelation.

THE FIRST KHALIF. Mohammed's life had been almost entirely consumed in the conversion or conquest of his native country. Toward its close, however, he felt himself strong enough to threaten the invasion of Syria and Persia. He had made no provision for the perpetuation of his own dominion, and hence it was not without a struggle that a successor was appointed. At length Abubeker, the father of Ayesha, was selected. He was proclaimed the first khalif, or successor of the Prophet.

There is a very important difference between the spread of Mohammedanism and the spread of Christianity. The latter was never sufficiently strong to over throw and extirpate idolatry in the Roman Empire. As it advanced, there was an amalgamation, a union. The old forms of the one were vivified by the new spirit of the other, and that paganization to which reference has already been made was the result.

THE MOHAMMEDAN HEAVEN. But, in Arabia, Mohammed overthrew and absolutely annihilated the old idolatry. No trace of it is found in the doctrines preached by him and his successors. The black stone that had fallen from heaven--the meteorite of the Caaba--and its encircling idols, pa.s.sed totally out of view. The essential dogma of the new faith--"There is but one G.o.d"--spread without any adulteration. Military successes had, in a worldly sense made the religion of the Koran profitable; and, no matter what dogmas may be, when that is the case, there will be plenty of converts.

As to the popular doctrines of Mohammedanism, I shall here have nothing to say. The reader who is interested in that matter will find an account of them in a review of the Koran in the eleventh chapter of my "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe." It is enough now to remark that their heaven was arranged in seven stories, and was only a palace of Oriental carnal delight. It was filled with black-eyed concubines and servants. The form of G.o.d was, perhaps, more awful than that of paganized Christianity. Anthropomorphism will, however, never be obliterated from the ideas of the unintellectual. Their G.o.d, at the best, will never be any thing more than the gigantic shadow of a man--a vast phantom of humanity--like one of those Alpine spectres seen in the midst of the clouds by him who turns his back on the sun.

Abubeker had scarcely seated himself in the khalifate, when he put forth the following proclamation:

In the name of the most merciful G.o.d! Abubeker to the rest of the true believers, health and happiness. The mercy and blessing of G.o.d be upon you. I praise the most high G.o.d. I pray for his prophet Mohammed.

INVASION OF SYRIA. "This is to inform you that I intend to send the true believers into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels. And I would have you know that the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to G.o.d."

On the first encounter, Khaled, the Saracen general, hard pressed, lifted up his hands in the midst of his army and said: "O G.o.d! these vile wretches pray with idolatrous expressions and take to themselves another G.o.d besides thee, but we acknowledge thy unity and affirm that there is no other G.o.d but thee alone. Help us, we beseech thee, for the sake of thy prophet Mohammed, against these idolaters." On the part of the Saracens the conquest of Syria was conducted with ferocious piety.

The belief of the Syrian Christians aroused in their antagonists sentiments of horror and indignation. "I will cleave the skull of any blaspheming idolater who says that the Most Holy G.o.d, the Almighty and Eternal, has begotten a son." The Khalif Omar, who took Jerusalem, commences a letter to Heraclius, the Roman emperor: "In the name of the most merciful G.o.d! Praise be to G.o.d, the Lord of this and of the other world, who has neither female consort nor son." The Saracens nicknamed the Christians "a.s.sociators," because they joined Mary and Jesus as partners with the Almighty and Most Holy G.o.d.

It was not the intention of the khalif to command his army; that duty was devolved on Abou Obeidah nominally, on Khaled in reality. In a parting review the khalif enjoined on his troops justice, mercy, and the observance of fidelity in their engagements he commanded them to abstain from all frivolous conversation and from wine, and rigorously to observe the hours of prayer; to be kind to the common people among whom they pa.s.sed, but to show no mercy to their priests.

FALL OF BOZRAH. Eastward of the river Jordan is Bozrah, a strong town where Mohammed had first met his Nestorian Christian instructors. It was one of the Roman forts with which the country was dotted over. Before this place the Saracen army encamped. The garrison was strong, the ramparts were covered with holy crosses and consecrated banners. It might have made a long defense. But its governor, Roma.n.u.s, betrayed his trust, and stealthily opened its gates to the besiegers. His conduct shows to what a deplorable condition the population of Syria had come.

After the surrender, in a speech he made to the people he had betrayed, he said: "I renounce your society, both in this world and that to come.

And I deny him that was crucified, and whosoever worships him. And I choose G.o.d for my Lord, Islam for my faith, Mecca for my temple, the Moslems for my brethren, Mohammed for my prophet, who was sent to lead us in the right way, and to exalt the true religion in spite of those who join partners with G.o.d." Since the Persian invasion, Asia Minor, Syria, and even Palestine, were full of traitors and apostates, ready to join the Saracens. Roma.n.u.s was but one of many thousands who had fallen into disbelief through the victories of the Persians.

FALL OF DAMASCUS. From Bozrah it was only seventy miles northward to Damascus, the capital of Syria. Thither, without delay, the Saracen army marched. The city was at once summoned to take its option--conversion, tribute, or the sword. In his palace at Antioch, barely one hundred and fifty miles still farther north, the Emperor Heraclius received tidings of the alarming advance of his a.s.sailants. He at once dispatched an army of seventy thousand men. The Saracens were compelled to raise the siege. A battle took place in the plains of Aiznadin, the Roman army was overthrown and dispersed. Khaled reappeared before Damascus with his standard of the black eagle, and after a renewed investment of seventy days Damascus surrendered.

From the Arabian historians of these events we may gather that thus far the Saracen armies were little better than a fanatic mob. Many of the men fought naked. It was not unusual for a warrior to stand forth in front and challenge an antagonist to mortal duel. Nay, more, even the women engaged in the combats. Picturesque narratives have been handed down to us relating the gallant manner in which they acquitted themselves.

FALL OF JERUSALEM. From Damascus the Saracen army advanced northward, guided by the snow-clad peaks of Liba.n.u.s and the beautiful river Orontes. It captured on its way Baalbec, the capital of the Syrian valley, and Emesa, the chief city of the eastern plain. To resist its further progress, Heraclius collected an army of one hundred and forty thousand men. A battle took place at Yermuck; the right wing of the Saracens was broken, but the soldiers were driven back to the field by the fanatic expostulations of their women. The conflict ended in the complete overthrow of the Roman army. Forty thousand were taken prisoners, and a vast number killed. The whole country now lay open to the victors. The advance of their army had been east of the Jordan.

It was clear that, before Asia Minor could be touched, the strong and important cities of Palestine, which was now in their rear, must be secured. There was a difference of opinion among the generals in the field as to whether Caesarea or Jerusalem should be a.s.sailed first. The matter was referred to the khalif, who, rightly preferring the moral advantages of the capture of Jerusalem to the military advantages of the capture of Caesarea, ordered the Holy City to be taken, and that at any cost. Close siege was therefore laid to it. The inhabitants, remembering the atrocities inflicted by the Persians, and the indignities that had been offered to the Savior's sepulchre, prepared now for a vigorous defense. But, after an investment of four months, the Patriarch Sophronius appeared on the wall, asking terms of capitulation. There had been misunderstandings among the generals at the capture of Damascus, followed by a ma.s.sacre of the fleeing inhabitants. Sophronius, therefore, stipulated that the surrender of Jerusalem should take place in presence of the khalif himself Accordingly, Omar, the khalif, came from Medina for that purpose. He journeyed on a red camel, carrying a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leathern water-bottle. The Arab conqueror entered the Holy City riding by the side of the Christian patriarch and the transference of the capital of Christianity to the representative of Mohammedanism was effected without tumult or outrage. Having ordered that a mosque should be built on the site of the temple of Solomon, the khalif returned to the tomb of the Prophet at Medina.

Heraclius saw plainly that the disasters which were fast settling on Christianity were due to the dissensions of its conflicting sects; and hence, while he endeavored to defend the empire with his armies, he sedulously tried to compose those differences. With this view he pressed for acceptance the Monothelite doctrine of the nature of Christ. But it was now too late. Aleppo and Antioch were taken. Nothing could prevent the Saracens from overrunning Asia Minor. Heraclius himself had to seek safety in flight. Syria, which had been added by Pompey the Great, the rival of Caesar, to the provinces of Rome, seven hundred years previously--Syria, the birthplace of Christianity, the scene of its most sacred and precious souvenirs, the land from which Heraclius himself had once expelled the Persian intruder--was irretrievably lost. Apostates and traitors had wrought this calamity. We are told that, as the ship which bore him to Constantinople parted from the sh.o.r.e, Heraclius gazed intently on the receding hills, and in the bitterness of anguish exclaimed, "Farewell, Syria, forever farewell!"

It is needless to dwell on the remaining details of the Saracen conquest: how Tripoli and Tyre were betrayed; how Caesarea was captured; how with the trees of Liba.n.u.s and the sailors of Phoenicia a Saracen fleet was equipped, which drove the Roman navy into the h.e.l.lespont; how Cyprus, Rhodes, and the Cyclades, were ravaged, and the Colossus, which was counted as one of the wonders of the world, sold to a Jew, who loaded nine hundred camels with its bra.s.s; how the armies of the khalif advanced to the Black Sea, and even lay in front of Constantinople--all this was as nothing after the fall of Jerusalem.

OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS. The fall of Jerusalem! the loss of the metropolis of Christianity! In the ideas of that age the two antagonistic forms of faith had submitted themselves to the ordeal of the judgment of G.o.d. Victory had awarded the prize of battle, Jerusalem, to the Mohammedan; and, notwithstanding the temporary successes of the Crusaders, after much more than a thousand years in his hands it remains to this day. The Byzantine historians are not without excuse for the course they are condemned for taking: "They have wholly neglected the great topic of the ruin of the Eastern Church." And as for the Western Church, even the debased popes of the middle ages--the ages of the Crusades--could not see without indignation that they were compelled to rest the claims of Rome as the metropolis of Christendom on a false legendary story of a visit of St. Peter to that city; while the true metropolis, the grand, the sacred place of the birth, the life, the death of Christ himself, was in the hands of the infidels! It has not been the Byzantine historians alone who have tried to conceal this great catastrophe. The Christian writers of Europe on all manner of subjects, whether of history, religion, or science, have followed a similar course against their conquering antagonists. It has been their constant practice to hide what they could not depreciate, and depreciate what they could not hide.

INVASION OF EGYPT. I have not s.p.a.ce, nor indeed does it comport with the intention of this work, to relate, in such detail as I have given to the fall of Jerusalem, other conquests of the Saracens--conquests which eventually established a Mohammedan empire far exceeding in geographical extent that of Alexander, and even that of Rome. But, devoting a few words to this subject, it may be said that Magianism received a worse blow than that which had been inflicted on Christianity; The fate of Persia was settled at the battle of Cadesia. At the sack of Ctesiphon, the treasury, the royal arms, and an unlimited spoil, fell into the hands of the Saracens. Not without reason do they call the battle of Nehavend the "victory of victories." In one direction they advanced to the Caspian, in the other southward along the Tigris to Persepolis.

The Persian king fled for his life over the great Salt Desert, from the columns and statues of that city which had lain in ruins since the night of the riotous banquet of Alexander. One division of the Arabian army forced the Persian monarch over the Oxus. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated by the Turks. His son was driven into China, and became a captain in the Chinese emperor's guards. The country beyond the Oxus was reduced.

It paid a tribute of two million pieces of gold. While the emperor at Peking was demanding the friendship of the khalif at Medina, the standard of the Prophet was displayed on the banks of the Indus.

Among the generals who had greatly distinguished themselves in the Syrian wars was Amrou, destined to be the conqueror of Egypt; for the khalifs, not content with their victories on the North and East, now turned their eyes to the West, and prepared for the annexation of Africa. As in the former cases, so in this, sectarian treason a.s.sisted them. The Saracen army was hailed as the deliverer of the Jacobite Church; the Monophysite Christians of Egypt, that is, they who, in the language of the Athanasian Creed, confounded the substance of the Son, proclaimed, through their leader, Mokaukas, that they desired no communion with the Greeks, either in this world or the next, that they abjured forever the Byzantine tyrant and his synod of Chalcedon. They hastened to pay tribute to the khalif, to repair the roads and bridges, and to supply provisions and intelligence to the invading army.

FALL OF ALEXANDRIA. Memphis, one of the old Pharaonic capitals, soon fell, and Alexandria was invested. The open sea behind gave opportunity to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually. On his part, Omar, who was now khalif sent to the succor of the besieging army the veteran troops of Syria. There were many a.s.saults and many sallies. In one Amrou himself was taken prisoner by the besieged, but, through the dexterity of a slave, made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a loss of twenty-three thousand men, the Saracens captured the city. In his dispatch to the Khalif, Amrou enumerated the splendors of the great city of the West "its four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food, and forty thousand tributary Jews."

So fell the second great city of Christendom--the fate of Jerusalem had fallen on Alexandria, the city of Athanasius, and Arius, and Cyril; the city that had imposed Trinitarian ideas and Mariolatry on the Church.

In his palace at Constantinople Heraclius received the fatal tidings.

He was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed as if his reign was to be disgraced by the downfall of Christianity. He lived scarcely a month after the loss of the town.

But if Alexandria had been essential to Constantinople in the supply of orthodox faith, she was also essential in the supply of daily food.

Egypt was the granary of the Byzantines. For this reason two attempts were made by powerful fleets and armies for the recovery of the place, and twice had Amrou to renew his conquest. He saw with what facility these attacks could be made, the place being open to the sea; he saw that there was but one and that a fatal remedy. "By the living G.o.d, if this thing be repeated a third time I will make Alexandria as open to anybody as is the house of a prost.i.tute!" He was better than his word, for he forthwith dismantled its fortifications, and made it an untenable place.

FALL OF CARTHAGE. It was not the intention of the khalifs to limit their conquest to Egypt. Othman contemplated the annexation of the entire North-African coast. His general, Abdallah, set out from Memphis with forty thousand men, pa.s.sed through the desert of Barca, and besieged Tripoli. But, the plague breaking out in his army, he was compelled to retreat to Egypt.

All attempts were now suspended for more than twenty years. Then Akbah forced his way from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean. In front of the Canary Islands he rode his horse into the sea, exclaiming: "Great G.o.d!

if my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on to the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship any other G.o.ds than thee."

These Saracen expeditions had been through the interior of the country, for the Byzantine emperors, controlling for the time the Mediterranean, had retained possession of the cities on the coast. The Khalif Abdalmalek at length resolved on the reduction of Carthage, the most important of those cities, and indeed the capital of North Africa.

His general, Ha.s.san, carried it by escalade; but reenforcements from Constantinople, aided by some Sicilian and Gothic troops, compelled him to retreat. The relief was, however, only temporary. Ha.s.san, in the course of a few months renewed his attack. It proved successful, and he delivered Carthage to the flames.

Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage, three out of the five great Christian capitals, were lost. The fall of Constantinople was only a question of time. After its fall, Rome alone remained.

In the development of Christianity, Carthage had played no insignificant part. It had given to Europe its Latin form of faith, and some of its greatest theologians. It was the home of St. Augustine.

Never in the history of the world had there been so rapid and extensive a propagation of any religion as Mohammedanism. It was now dominating from the Altai Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, from the centre of Asia to the western verge of Africa.

CONQUEST OF SPAIN. The Khalif Alwalid next authorized the invasion of Europe, the conquest of Andalusia, or the Region of the Evening.

Musa, his general, found, as had so often been the case elsewhere, two effective allies sectarianism and treason--the Archbishop of Toledo and Count Julian the Gothic general. Under their lead, in the very crisis of the battle of Xeres, a large portion of the army went over to the invaders; the Spanish king was compelled to flee from the field, and in the pursuit he was drowned in the waters of the Guadalquivir.

With great rapidity Tarik, the lieutenant of Musa, pushed forward from the battle-field to Toledo, and thence northward. On the arrival of Musa the reduction of the Spanish peninsula was completed, and the wreck of the Gothic army driven beyond the Pyrenees into France. Considering the conquest of Spain as only the first step in his victories, he announced his intention of forcing his way into Italy, and preaching the unity of G.o.d in the Vatican. Thence he would march to Constantinople, and, having put all end to the Roman Empire and Christianity, would pa.s.s into Asia and lay his victorious sword on the footstool of the khalif at Damascus.

But this was not to be. Musa, envious of his lieutenant, Tarik, had treated him with great indignity. The friends of Tarik at the court of the khalif found means of retaliation. An envoy from Damascus arrested Musa in his camp; he was carried before his sovereign, disgraced by a public whipping, and died of a broken heart.

INVASION OF FRANCE. Under other leaders, however, the Saracen conquest of France was attempted. In a preliminary campaign the country from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire was secured. Then Abderahman, the Saracen commander, dividing his forces into two columns, with one on the east pa.s.sed the Rhone, and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army, attempting the relief of the place, was defeated with heavy loss.

His western column, equally successful, pa.s.sed the Dordogne, defeated another Christian army, inflicting on it such dreadful loss that, according to its own fugitives, "G.o.d alone could number the slain." All Central France was now overrun; the banks of the Loire were reached; the churches and monasteries were despoiled of their treasures; and the tutelar saints, who had worked so many miracles when there was no necessity, were found to want the requisite power when it was so greatly needed.

The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles Martel (A.D. 732). Between Tours and Poictiers, a great battle, which lasted seven days, was fought. Abderahman was killed, the Saracens retreated, and soon afterward were compelled to recross the Pyrenees.

The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the Mohammedan advance in Western Europe. Gibbon, in his narrative of these great events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire--a repet.i.tion of an equal s.p.a.ce would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland."

INSULT TO ROME. It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch of the military diffusion of Mohammedanism, the operations of the Saracens on the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and Sicily, their insult to Rome. It will be found, however, that their presence in Sicily and the south of Italy exerted a marked influence on the intellectual development of Europe.

Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the circ.u.mstances under which it took place (A.D. 846)? An insignificant Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared before the walls of the city. Too weak to force an entrance, it insulted and plundered the precincts, sacrilegiously violating the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Had the city itself been sacked, the moral effect could not have been greater. From the church of St. Peter its altar of silver was torn away and sent to Africa--St. Peter's altar, the very emblem of Roman Christianity!

Constantinople had already been besieged by the Saracens more than once; its fall was predestined, and only postponed. Rome had received the direst insult, the greatest loss that could be inflicted upon it; the venerable churches of Asia Minor had pa.s.sed out of existence; no Christian could set his foot in Jerusalem without permission; the Mosque of Omar stood on the site of the Temple of Solomon. Among the ruins of Alexandria the Mosque of Mercy marked the spot where a Saracen general, satiated with ma.s.sacre, had, in contemptuous compa.s.sion, spared the fugitive relics of the enemies of Mohammed; nothing remained of Carthage but her blackened ruins. The most powerful religious empire that the world had ever seen had suddenly come into existence. It stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chinese Wall, from the sh.o.r.es of the Caspian to those of the Indian Ocean, and yet, in one sense, it had not reached its culmination. The day was to come when it was to expel the successors of the Caesars from their capital, and hold the peninsula of Greece in subjection, to dispute with Christianity the empire of Europe in the very centre of that continent, and in Africa to extend its dogmas and faith across burning deserts and through pestilential forests from the Mediterranean to regions southward far beyond the equinoctial line.

DISSENSIONS OF THE ARABS. But, though Mohammedanism had not reached its culmination, the dominion of the khalifs had. Not the sword of Charles Martel, but the internal dissension of the vast Arabian Empire, was the salvation of Europe. Though the Ommiade Khalifs were popular in Syria, elsewhere they were looked upon as intruders or usurpers; the kindred of the apostle was considered to be the rightful representative of his faith. Three parties, distinguished by their colors, tore the khalifate asunder with their disputes, and disgraced it by their atrocities. The color of the Ommiades was white, that of the Fatimites green, that of the Aba.s.sides black; the last represented the party of Abbas, the uncle of Mohammed. The result of these discords was a tripart.i.te division of the Mohammedan Empire in the tenth century into the khalifates of Bagdad, of Cairoan, and of Cordova. Unity in Mohammedan political action was at an end, and Christendom found its safeguard, not in supernatural help, but in the quarrels of the rival potentates. To internal animosities foreign pressures were eventually added and Arabism, which had done so much for the intellectual advancement of the world, came to an end when the Turks and the Berbers attained to power.

The Saracens had become totally regardless of European opposition--they were wholly taken up with their domestic quarrels. Ockley says with truth, in his history: "The Saracens had scarce a deputy lieutenant or general that would not have thought it the greatest affront, and such as ought to stigmatize him with indelible disgrace, if he should have suffered himself to have been insulted by the united forces of all Europe. And if any one asks why the Greeks did not exert themselves more, in order to the extirpation of these insolent invaders, it is a sufficient answer to any person that is acquainted with the characters of those men to say that Amrou kept his residence at Alexandria, and Moawyah at Damascus."

As to their contempt, this instance may suffice: Nicephorus, the Roman emperor, had sent to the Khalif Haroun-al-Raschid a threatening letter, and this was the reply: "In the name of the most merciful G.o.d, Haroun-al-Raschid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman dog! I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my reply!" It was written in letters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia.

POLITICAL EFFECT OF POLYGAMY. A nation may recover the confiscation of its provinces, the confiscation of its wealth; it may survive the imposition of enormous war-fines; but it never can recover from that most frightful of all war-acts, the confiscation of its women. When Abou Obeidah sent to Omar news of his capture of Antioch, Omar gently upbraided him that he had not let the troops have the women. "If they want to marry in Syria, let them; and let them have as many female slaves as they have occasion for." It was the inst.i.tution of polygamy, based upon the confiscation of the women in the vanquished countries, that secured forever the Mohammedan rule. The children of these unions gloried in their descent from their conquering fathers. No better proof can be given of the efficacy of this policy than that which is furnished by North Africa. The irresistible effect of polygamy in consolidating the new order of things was very striking. In little more than a single generation, the Khalif was informed by his officers that the tribute must cease, for all the children born in that region were Mohammedans, and all spoke Arabic.

MOHAMMEDANISM. Mohammedanism, as left by its founder, was an anthropomorphic religion. Its G.o.d was only a gigantic man, its heaven a mansion of carnal pleasures. From these imperfect ideas its more intelligent cla.s.ses very soon freed themselves, subst.i.tuting for them others more philosophical, more correct. Eventually they attained to an accordance with those that have been p.r.o.nounced in our own times by the Vatican Council as orthodox. Thus Al-Gazzali says: "A knowledge of G.o.d cannot be obtained by means of the knowledge a man has of himself, or of his own soul. The attributes of G.o.d cannot be determined from the attributes of man. His sovereignty and government can neither be compared nor measured."