Notes on Islam Part 8

You remember the well-known lines of Burns:

O wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us.

The gift which the poet prays for is vouchsafed to very few mortals.

Almost all of us have naturally, and often unconsciously, such a high opinion of ourselves that, even if we would, we could not see ourselves as others see us. The next best thing that we can do is, therefore, _to see others as we see ourselves_, to cherish the same regard for others as we instinctively cherish for ourselves. If (to take an extreme case for example) we cannot detest ourselves as others sometimes detest or hate us, we can at least try to love others as we love ourselves, "try to do unto others as we wish that others should do unto us". Thus the rule: "Love thy neighbour as thyself", is quite consistent with human nature and is the most comprehensive rule of conduct which has ever been laid down for the guidance of mankind. To my mind there is no better proof of the ident.i.ty in spirit of Christianity and Islam than the confirmation of Christ's command by Muhammad himself.

No-one will be a faithful Muslim until he loves his [Arabic: La yu'minu ahdak.u.m hatta neighbour as he loves himself. yuhibbu li ma yajib nafsahu]

For this reason, I believe that there is no difference between the two religions _if_ the metaphysical doctrines engrafted on both be eliminated. _True Islam is but true Christianity writ short._[88] Both recognize that the source of virtue is love,

For love is Heaven and Heaven is love.

APPENDIX.

_We are indebted to Mr. J.C. Molony for the following illuminating criticism which affords food for serious thought--Editor._

If we a.s.sume the existence of a G.o.d, interested in the governance of this world, it becomes impossible to deny that Muhammad was G.o.d's messenger, or, at least, G.o.d's prophet. It seems to me unlikely that a man could change the belief of nations by chance, incredible that he should do so were he an impostor. Muhammad was certainly honest; the persistence of the faith called after him leads me to consider him as inspired. Or, if "inspired" be objected to as a general religious term of very indefinite meaning, let us say that he saw into the heart and reality of life further and more clearly than any man has done since his day. How then comes the fact, noted by Amjad and Mahmood and admitted by you, that Islamic countries in the main have wretched governments, and are crumbling away before Christian Powers? I do not think that you have answered this question[89]. You have merely pointed out that Islam, if rightly understood, is an excellent religion.

The boys, I think, have stated their dilemma too sharply; the contrast is not entirely between Islam and Christianity. India is for all practical purposes a "Hindu" country, and the power of the old Indian Kingdoms has faded before Christian invaders. In that section of the world in which Christianity is the prevailing and accepted form of religious belief, the temporal might of those nations professing one great form of the Christian creed, the Roman Catholic, has undoubtedly waned in comparison with that of the nations professing what is generally called the Protestant faith. There are many varieties of non-Roman Catholic Christianity, but Protestantism is a label sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently well understood for our purposes. I speak without sectarian bitterness; I am not, I fear, a convinced adherent of any particular form of religious faith. I have met many good men, and have many friends, among Muhammadans, Hindus, and Roman Catholics. But I think that the objective truth of what I say, particularly in the Christian sphere, is indubitable. Compare for instance the decay of Spain with the grandeur of England, the feebleness of Austria with the strength and order (turned to ill uses though they may be) of Germany.[90] The question at once arises whether religion has anything to say to the matter. I think that it has.

Muhammadanism, Hinduism, and Catholicism (I omit the prefix Roman) have concerned themselves too much with Heaven and h.e.l.l, with the avoidance of future d.a.m.nation and the obtaining of future bliss. These religions have afforded some justification for the gibe that Auguste Comte levelled at Christianity; he said that it sprang from "a servile terror and an immense cupidity." Religion should be rather _a guide of life here_ than _a guide to a life to come_. Kant would have curtailed the beat.i.tude "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see G.o.d" into "blessed are the pure in heart". It is good to be good; it is not good to be good in the hope of some ultimate gain thereby.[91] The great Catholic Bishop of Pondicherry, Monseigneur Bonnand, wrote to one of his desponding priests: "Continue a missionary to the end, and you will a.s.suredly be saved". In my opinion he was wrong; I should think little of a missionary, whether Christian or Muhammadan, who endured the trials of a missionary life (and some of those old French priests did endure abundantly) solely in the hope of making a personal, albeit spiritual and eternal, profit at the end of it all.

Now, "Bishop Blougram", a character created by the poet Browning, though supposedly inspired by the personality of Cardinal Wiseman, says in his "_Apology_":

There's one great form of Christian faith I happened to be born in--which to teach Was given me as I grew up, on all hands As best and readiest means of living by.

The same, I fear, might now be said of Muhammadanism. But to my mind there is no fixity, no absolute truth in any form of religious dogma.

Religion is a thing that must grow with man's intelligence; it is not a box of spiritual truths packed once and for ever, and unpacked for the gaze of successive generations. It is not enough to believe in certain facts that happened long ago, or to obey certain injunctions given long ago in a particular country; we must apply the spirit of a religion to the circ.u.mstances in which we live. We shall never attain to final absolute truth, "the end is not yet, and the purposes of G.o.d to man are but half revealed" (Jowett).

Unfortunately when any religion has taken itself as final it has developed a priesthood, and that priesthood has been apt to lay down a code of fixed rules wherewith alone compliance is required. It is a fatally easy thing to live in conformity with any definite code of rules. Muhammad himself, I imagine, was a singularly liberal theologian. He laid down certain regulations for the conduct of life, excellent considering his place and time; the modern Muhammadan has accepted these as a maximum spiritual demand, ignoring the fact that they probably represented the minimum demands of common sense in Muhammad's time and country.

Muhammad directed that a Muhammadan should not drink alcohol. This is a maxim of excellent sense in Arabia; Haji Burton, who much appreciated good wine, has told us that in the Arabian deserts wine is positively distasteful as well as unwholesome. I have not the least desire that Muhammadans should drink wine. I merely say that there is no _merit_, other than that of common sense, in obeying this excellent instruction in countries wherein circ.u.mstances render it excellent. I do not believe that Muhammad would find the least fault with disregard of his maxim in countries where the climate makes the _moderate_ drinking of wine both pleasant and beneficial.

Muhammad inst.i.tuted the Ramzan fast, mainly, I am told, to harden his soldiers. But the Muhammadan of to-day finds a positive merit in fasting. There is none; else the jockey's profession comprises the most virtuous men in the world.

Muhammad permitted polygamy, and enjoined the practical seclusion of women. This, as Sir Syed Ahmad has pointed out, was the counsel of common sense in Arabia at the time of the Prophet. Apparently there were more women than men, and if a woman was not under the protection of some man, and was not under guard, she was very likely to come to harm. But I do not think that this counsel holds good for all time. Polygamy among Indian Muhammadans is dying out, but the general Muhammadan here still imprisons his womankind in the comfortable a.s.surance that he is thereby paving his own way to salvation. I do not see much hope for the physical and mental development of Muhammadans so long as one half of the people remains in seclusion and ignorance, in a habit of life necessarily unhealthy. If you observe that you thereby escape the evils that are published to the world in European divorce courts, I would answer that in the first place I doubt the completeness of your escape, (it is a matter on which I have heard much sardonic comment from Muslim friends), and that in the second place, even granting what you say, 80% of women free, educated, virtuous and healthy, is a far better result than 100% merely virtuous, and that by constraint.

Muhammad laid down that a man should pray five times a day. To my mind this was merely the Prophet's way of saying that man's whole life should be a prayer: the modern Muhammadan too often "repeats prayers" five times a day and is satisfied. He might as well repeat the multiplication table five times a day. "Words without thoughts to Heaven never go" said the king in _Hamlet_. I do not know if our friend D.B. prays ten times a day, or five times, or not at all, and (candidly) I do not care. All I know is that in his responsible position he would die rather than take a bribe, tell a lie, intrigue against his master. And I fancy that the Prophet, could he return to earth, would find this abundantly sufficient.

You mention a few other points of orthodoxy; the cut of one's hair, the length of one's trousers. Dr. Khaja Hussain told me that he once saw a Muhammadan Street aroused to frenzy and riot by the appearance of a true believer in Feringhi (or Kafir) boots. It is all of a piece. Muhammadans have concentrated their attention on these ready-made rules for getting to heaven; their prophet found no such easy road to bliss. I do not imagine that it would ever have occurred to his great soul to claim any particular merit in that he did not drink wine, in that he repeated prayers (he at least understood these prayers) five times a day, in that he did not let his wives roam the country a prey to any marauder of those wild times. After all any one can obey these regulations with very little trouble to himself; it is not quite so easy to adopt the spirit that guided Muhammad's life. Sir Afsur, I do not doubt, will tell you that it is an advisable thing for a soldier to drill smartly, to keep his arms and accoutrements clean, and that with a little trouble it is not difficult for a soldier to do all this. But he will tell you, I feel sure, that this is far from being all; the supreme duty of a soldier is to be brave in battle--an affair of much more difficulty. A soldier may be smart and clean, but if he fails in battle his smartness and cleanness are worth nothing--he is a bad soldier.

Muhammadanism has lost touch with life; it contents itself with the letter of the Prophet's teaching and shuts its eyes to, does not search for, the indwelling spirit. It is a small kernel rattling in a very big sh.e.l.l, as Charles Kingsley said in "Yeast" of the Church service at St.

Paul's in the fifties of the last century. _Religion has been divorced from life, and so the followers of Islam as nations have decayed._

It is the same with the other religions that I have mentioned. The old time Brahmin called himself such because he was educated, intelligent, sanitary in his habits, upright; he did not claim to be all this simply because he was the son of his father. The great obstacle to progress down here is the fact that people imagine it is sufficient to follow in a mechanical unintelligent way the letter, while totally disregarding the spirit, of some old and after all not very important rules. Ireland is said to have been an "Isle of Saints", I have my doubts on the subject, but suppose it so. It is now full of fine churches and religious establishments; no people in the world go to church with greater regularity, abstain more thoroughly from meat on Fridays, etc.

etc. But with the mechanical observances they are, I fear, too well satisfied. Drunkenness, idleness, utter disregard for truth, are rampant in Southern Ireland, and therefore Southern Ireland is what it is.

Formal devotion is no subst.i.tute whether in the daily battle of the world, or (I believe) in the ultimate judgment of G.o.d, for the proper ordering of one's every day actions.

If Muhammadans breathe the breath of life on the dry bones of their religion I see no reason why the temporal power of Islamic countries and the spiritual strength of the Muhammadan Church should not revive.

Something of the kind has happened in France. Zola cried out against "the nightmare of Catholicism"; antagonism to the Catholic Church had been growing up long before M. Combes started to "strafe" the religious establishments of the country. The orthodox imagined that France was losing all religion: Auguste Comte, an unbeliever, proclaimed that France was daily becoming more religious. Rene Bazin, a Catholic writer, implicitly admits that Comte was right. The people were sick of the dry, lifeless, formal rules that were offered to them; the priesthood have had this truth hammered into them, and they are quickening their formulae with life to fit the life of the people, not striving to dessicate the people's life to fit their formulae.

J.C.M.

As a _socio-political inst.i.tution_ Islam is, in the middle of its fourteenth century (1340 A.H.), in the same vicissitudes of development, as Christianity was in the middle of _its_ fourteenth century (1350 A.D.)--an inst.i.tution weakened by contending sects and rendered stagnant by rigid formalism. "It is a dispensation of providence", says Syed Ameer Ali, "that whenever a religion becomes reduced to formalism cross-currents set in to restore spiritual vitality." As in Christianity in its fourteenth century, so in Islam of our own times, the vitalising cross-currents have set in and we are now witnessing a Muslim Renaissance all over the world. Its pioneers in India were Sir Syed Ahmad, Mowlana Shibli, and the poet Hali. The Rt. Hon. Ameer Ali, Dr.

Iqbal and a host of others bear aloft the New Light. The Muslim Reformation is coming on as surely as the Christian Reformation came in the wake of Patristicism and Formalism. It need not necessarily mean Political Revolutions as in Europe.

A.H.

OUR PRAYER.

1.

All praise is due to Thee, O G.o.d!

None other than Thee we adore.

Thou art the Master of the Worlds, Thine aid alone do we implore.

2.

Thou art Compa.s.sion; lead Thou on To Thy right path our human race.

Thy Mercy floweth evermore, Do guide us to the path of Grace.

3.

Thou art the Lord of Judgment-day, For sure shall all be judged by Thee, O keep us off the path of Sin And Error's way. So mote it be!

_Abdur Rahim._

FOOTNOTES

[1] Translated by Mushtari Begum of Bejnor and published in the _Islamic Review_ April 1916.

[2] This was written in 1917.

[3] By the word "best" I mean "the most suitable for both the spiritual and material needs of man." I do not wish to cast any reflection on any other religion. See Note 7.