The New World prophecy

By the eighteenth century the Moslem world had sunk to the lowest depth of its decrepitude. Nowhere were there any signs of healthy vigour, everywhere were stagnation and decay. Manners and morals were alike execrable. The last vestiges of Saracenic culture had vanished in a barbarous luxury of the few and an equally barbarous degradation of the multitude. Learning was virtually dead, the few universities which survived fallen into dreary decay and languishing in poverty and neglect. Government had become despotism tempered by anarchy and assassination.

Here and there a major despot like the Sultan of Turkey or the Indian "Great Mogul" maintained some semblance of state authority, albeit provincial pashas were for ever striving to erect independent governments based, like their masters', on tyranny and extortion. The pashas, in turn, strove ceaselessly against unruly local chiefs and swarms of brigands who infested the countryside. Beneath this sinister hierarchy groaned the people, robbed, bullied, and ground into the dust. Peasant and townsman had alike lost all incentive to labour or initiative, and both agriculture and trade had fallen to the lowest level compatible with bare survival.

As for religion, it was as decadent as everything else. The austere monotheism of Mohammed had become overlaid with a rank growth of superstition and puerile mysticism. The mosques stood unfrequented and ruinous, deserted by the ignorant multitude, which, decked out in amulets, charms, and rosaries, listened to squalid fakirs or ecstatic dervishes, and went on pilgrimages to the tombs of "holy men," worshipped as saints and "intercessors" with that Allah who had become too remote a being for the direct devotion of these benighted souls. As for the moral precepts of the Koran, they were ignored or defied. Wine-drinking and opium-eating were well-nigh universal, prostitution was rampant, and the most degrading vices flaunted naked and unashamed. Even the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, were sink-holes of iniquity, while the "Hajj," or pilgrimage ordained by the Prophet, had become a scandal through its abuses. In fine: the life had apparently gone out of Islam, leaving naught but a dry husk of soulless ritual and degrading superstition behind. Could Mohammed have returned to earth, he would unquestionably have anathematized his followers as apostates and idolaters.

Yet, in this darkest hour, a voice came crying out of the vast Arabian desert, the cradle of Islam, calling the faithful back to the true path. This puritan reformer, the famous Abd-el-Wahab, kindled a fire which presently spread to the remotest corners of the Moslem world, purging Islam of its sloth and reviving the fervour of olden days. The great Mohammedan Revival had begun.

Mahommed ibn Abd-el-Wahab was born about the year a.d. 1700 in the heart of the Arabian desert, the region known as the Nejd. The Nejd was the one clean spot in the decadent Moslem world. We have already seen how, with the transformation of the caliphate from a theocratic democracy to an Oriental despotism, the free-spirited Arabs had returned scornfully to their deserts. Here they had maintained their wild freedom. Neither caliph nor sultan dared venture far into those vast solitudes of burning sand and choking thirst, where the rash invader was lured to sudden death in a whirl of stabbing spears. The Arabs recognized no master, wandering at will with their flocks and camels, or settled here and there in green oases hidden in the desert's heart. And in the desert they retained their primitive political and religious virtues. The nomad Bedouin lived under the sway of patriarchal "sheiks"; the settled dwellers in the oases usually acknowledged the authority of some leading family. But these rulers possessed the slenderest authority, narrowly circumscribed by well-established custom and a jealous public opinion which they transgressed at their peril. The Turks, to be sure, had managed to acquire a precarious authority over the holy cities and the Red Sea littoral, but the Nejd, the vast interior, was free. And, in religion, as in politics, the desert Arabs kept the faith of their fathers. Scornfully rejecting the corruptions of decadent Islam, they held fast to the simple theology of primitive Islam, so congenial to their Arab natures.

Into this atmosphere of an older and better age, Abd-el-Wahab was born. Displaying from the first a studious and religious bent, he soon acquired a reputation for learning and sanctity. Making the Meccan pilgrimage while still a young man, he studied at Medina and travelled as far as Persia, returning ultimately to the Nejd. He returned burning with holy wrath at what he had seen, and determined to preach a puritan reformation. For years he wandered up and down Arabia, and at last he converted Mahommed, head of the great clan of Saud, the most powerful chieftain in all the Nejd. This gave Abd-el-Wahab both moral prestige and material strength, and he made the most of his opportunities. Gradually, the desert Arabs were welded into a politico-religious unity like that effected by the Prophet. Abd-el-Wahab was, in truth, a faithful counterpart of the first caliphs, Abu Bekr and Omar. When he died in 1787 his disciple, Saud, proved a worthy successor. The new Wahabi state was a close counterpart of the Meccan caliphate. Though possessing great military power, Saud always considered himself responsible to public opinion and never encroached upon the legitimate freedom of his subjects. Government, though stern, was able and just. The Wahabi judges were competent and honest. Robbery, became almost unknown, so well was the public peace maintained. Education was sedulously fostered. Every oasis had its school, while teachers were sent to the Bedouin tribes.

Having consolidated the Nejd, Saud was now ready to undertake the greater task of subduing and purifying the Moslem world. His first objective was of course the holy cities. This objective was attained in the opening years of the nineteenth century. Nothing could stand against the rush of the Wahabi hosts burning with fanatic hatred against the Turks, who were loathed both as apostate Moslems and as usurpers of that supremacy in Islam which all Arabs believed should rest in Arab hands. When Saud died in 1814 he was preparing to invade Syria. It looked for a moment as though the Wahabis were to sweep the East and puritanize all Islam at a blow.

But it was not to be. Unable to stem the Wahabi flood, the Sultan of Turkey called on his powerful vassal, the famous Mehemet Ali. This able Albanian adventurer had by that time made himself master of Egypt. Frankly recognizing the superiority of the West, he had called in numerous European officers who rapidly fashioned a formidable army, composed largely of hard-fighting Albanian highlanders, and disciplined and equipped after European models. Mehemet Ali gladly answered the Sultan's summons, and it soon became clear that even Wahabi fanaticism was no match for European muskets and artillery handled by seasoned veterans. In a short time the holy cities were recaptured and the Wahabis were driven back into the desert. The nascent Wahabi empire had vanished like a mirage. Wahabism's political r?le was ended.[5]

However, Wahabism's spiritual r?le had only just begun. The Nejd remained a focus of puritan zeal whence the new spirit radiated in all directions. Even in the holy cities Wahabism continued to set the religious tone, and the numberless "Hajjis," or pilgrims, who came annually from every part of the Moslem world returned to their homes zealous reformers. Soon the Wahabi leaven began to produce profound disturbances in the most distant quarters. For example, in northern India a Wahabi fanatic, Seyid Ahmed,[6] so roused the Punjabi Mohammedans that he actually built up a theocratic state, and only his chance death prevented a possible Wahabi conquest of northern India. This state was shattered by the Sikhs, about 1830, but when the English conquered the country they had infinite trouble with the smouldering embers of Wahabi feeling, which, in fact, lived on, contributed to the Indian mutiny, and permanently fanaticized Afghanistan and the wild tribes of the Indian North-West Frontier.[7] It was during these years that the famous Seyid Mahommed ben Sennussi came from his Algerian home to Mecca and there imbibed those Wahabi principles which led to the founding of the great Pan-Islamic fraternity that bears his name. Even the Babbist movement in Persia, far removed though it was doctrinally from Wahabi teaching, was indubitably a secondary reflex of the Wahabi urge.[8] In fact, within a generation, the strictly Wahabi movement had broadened into the larger development known as the Mohammedan Revival, and this in turn was developing numerous phases, chief among them being the movement usually termed Pan-Islamism. That movement, particularly on its political side, I shall treat in the next chapter. At present let us examine the other aspects of the Mohammedan Revival, with special reference to its religious and cultural phases.

The Wahabi movement was a strictly puritan reformation. Its aim was the reform of abuses, the abolition of superstitious practices, and a return to primitive Islam. All later accretions-the writings and interpretations of the medi?val theologians, ceremonial or mystical innovations, saint worship, in fact every sort of change, were condemned. The austere monotheism of Mohammed was preached in all its uncompromising simplicity, and the Koran, literally interpreted, was taken as the sole guide for human action. This doctrinal simplification was accompanied by a most rigid code of morals. The prayers, fastings, and other practices enjoined by Mohammed were scrupulously observed. The most austere manner of living was enforced. Silken clothing, rich food, wine, opium, tobacco, coffee, and all other indulgences were sternly proscribed. Even religious architecture was practically tabooed, the Wahabis pulling down the Prophet's tomb at Medina and demolishing the minarets of mosques as godless innovations. The Wahabis were thus, despite their moral earnestness, excessively narrow-minded, and it was very fortunate for Islam that they soon lost their political power and were compelled thenceforth to confine their efforts to moral teaching.

Many critics of Islam point to the Wahabi movement as a proof that Islam is essentially retrograde and innately incapable of evolutionary development. These criticisms, however, appear to be unwarranted. The initial stage of every religious reformation is an uncritical return to the primitive cult. To the religious reformer the only way of salvation is a denial of all subsequent innovations, regardless of their character. Our own Protestant Reformation began in just this way, and Humanists like Erasmus, repelled and disgusted by Protestantism's puritanical narrowness, could see no good in the movement, declaring that it menaced all true culture and merely replaced an infallible Pope by an infallible Bible.

As a matter of fact, the puritan beginnings of the Mohammedan Revival presently broadened along more constructive lines, some of these becoming tinged with undoubted liberalism. The Moslem reformers of the early nineteenth century had not dug very deeply into their religious past before they discovered-Motazelism. We have already reviewed the great struggle which had raged between reason and dogma in Islam's early days, in which dogma had triumphed so completely that the very memory of Motazelism had faded away. Now, however, those memories were revived, and the liberal-minded reformers were delighted to find such striking confirmation of their ideas, both in the writings of the Motazelite doctors and in the sacred texts themselves. The principle that reason and not blind prescription was to be the test opened the door to the possibility of all those reforms which they had most at heart. For example, the reformers found that in the traditional writings Mohammed was reported to have said: "I am no more than a man; when I order you anything respecting religion, receive it; when I order you about the affairs of the world, then I am nothing more than man." And, again, as though foreseeing the day when sweeping changes would be necessary. "Ye are in an age in which, if ye abandon one-tenth of that which is ordered, ye will be ruined. After this, a time will come when he who shall observe one-tenth of what is now ordered will be redeemed."[9]

Before discussing the ideas and efforts of the modern Moslem reformers, it might be well to examine the assertions made by numerous Western critics, that Islam is by its very nature incapable of reform and progressive adaptation to the expansion of human knowledge. Such is the contention not only of Christian polemicists,[10] but also of rationalists like Renan and European administrators of Moslem populations like Lord Cromer. Lord Cromer, in fact, pithily summarizes this critical attitude in his statement: "Islam cannot be reformed; that is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer; it is something else."[11]

Now these criticisms, coming as they do from close students of Islam often possessing intimate personal acquaintance with Moslems, deserve respectful consideration. And yet an historical survey of religions, and especially a survey of the thoughts and accomplishments of Moslem reformers during the past century, seem to refute these pessimistic charges.

In the first place, it should be remembered that Islam to-day stands just about where Christendom stood in the fifteenth century, at the beginning of the Reformation. There is the same supremacy of dogma over reason, the same blind adherence to prescription and authority, the same suspicion and hostility to freedom of thought or scientific knowledge. There is no doubt that a study of the Mohammedan sacred texts, particularly of the "sheriat" or canon law, together with a glance over Moslem history for the last thousand years, reveal an attitude on the whole quite incompatible with modern progress and civilization. But was not precisely the same thing true of Christendom at the beginning of the fifteenth century? Compare the sheriat with the Christian canon law. The spirit is the same. Take, for example, the sheriat's prohibition on the lending of money at interest; a prohibition which, if obeyed, renders impossible anything like business or industry in the modern sense. This is the example oftenest cited to prove Islam's innate incompatibility with modern civilization. But the Christian canon law equally forbade interest, and enforced that prohibition so strictly, that for centuries the Jews had a monopoly of business in Europe, while the first Christians who dared to lend money (the Lombards) were regarded almost as heretics, were universally hated, and were frequently persecuted. Again, take the matter of Moslem hostility to freedom of thought and scientific investigation. Can Islam show anything more revolting than that scene in Christian history when, less than three hundred years ago,[12] the great Galileo was haled before the Papal Inquisition and forced, under threat of torture, to recant the damnable heresy that the earth went round the sun?

As a matter of fact, Mohammed reverenced knowledge. His own words are eloquent testimony to that. Here are some of his sayings:

"Seek knowledge, even, if need be, on the borders of China."

"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave."

"One word of knowledge is of more value than the reciting of a hundred prayers."

"The ink of sages is more precious than the blood of martyrs."

"One word of wisdom, learned and communicated to a Moslem brother, outweighs the prayers of a whole year."

"Wise men are the successors of the Prophet."

"God has created nothing better than reason."

"In truth, a man may have prayed, fasted, given alms, made pilgrimage, and all other good works; nevertheless, he shall be rewarded only in the measure that he has used his common sense."

These citations (and there are others of the same tenor) prove that the modern Moslem reformers have good scriptural backing for their liberal attitude. Of course I do not imply that the reform movement in Islam, just because it is liberal and progressive, is thereby ipso facto assured of success. History reveals too many melancholy instances to the contrary. Indeed, we have already seen how, in Islam itself, the promising liberal movement of its early days passed utterly away. What history does show, however, is that when the times favour progress, religions are adapted to that progress by being reformed and liberalized. No human society once fairly on the march was ever turned back by a creed. Halted it may be, but if the progressive urge persists, the doctrinal barrier is either surmounted, undermined, flanked, or swept aside. Now there is no possibility that the Moslem world will henceforth lack progressive influences. It is in close contact with Western civilization, and is being increasingly permeated with Western ideas. Islam cannot break away and isolate itself if it would. Everything therefore portends its profound modification. Of course critics like Lord Cromer contend that this modified Islam will be Islam no longer. But why not? If the people continue to call themselves Mohammedans and continue to draw spiritual sustenance from the message of Mohammed, why should they be denied the name? Modern Christianity is certainly vastly different from medi?val Christianity, while among the various Christian churches there exist the widest doctrinal variations. Yet all who consider themselves Christians are considered Christians by all except bigots out of step with the times.

Let us now scrutinize the Moslem reformers, judging them, not by texts and chronicles, but by their words and deeds; since, as one of their number, an Algerian, very pertinently remarks, "men should be judged, not by the letter of their sacred books, but by what they actually do."[13]

Modern Moslem liberalism, as we have seen, received its first encouragement from the discovery of the old Motazelite literature of nearly a thousand years before. To be sure, Islam had never been quite destitute of liberal minds. Even in its darkest days a few voices had been raised against the prevailing obscurantism. For example, in the sixteenth century the celebrated El-Gharani had written: "It is not at all impossible that God may hold in reserve for men of the future perceptions that have not been vouchsafed to the men of the past. Divine munificence never ceases to pour benefits and enlightenment into the hearts of wise men of every age."[14] These isolated voices from Islam's Dark Time helped to encourage the modern reformers, and by the middle of the nineteenth century every Moslem land had its group of forward-looking men. At first their numbers were, of course, insignificant, and of course they drew down upon themselves the anathemas of the fanatic Mollahs[15] and the hatred of the ignorant multitude. The first country where the reformers made their influence definitely felt was in India. Here a group headed by the famous Sir Syed Ahmed Khan started an important liberal movement, founding associations, publishing books and newspapers, and establishing the well-known college of Aligarh. Sir Syed Ahmed is a good type of the early liberal reformers. Conservative in temperament and perfectly orthodox in his theology, he yet denounced the current decadence of Islam with truly Wahabi fervour. He also was frankly appreciative of Western ideas and eager to assimilate the many good things which the West had to offer. As he wrote in 1867: "We must study European scientific works, even though they are not written by Moslems and though we may find in them things contrary to the teachings of the Koran. We should imitate the Arabs of olden days, who did not fear to shake their faith by studying Pythagoras."[16]

This nucleus of Indian Moslem liberals rapidly grew in strength, producing able leaders like Moulvie Cheragh Ali and Syed Amir Ali, whose scholarly works in faultless English are known throughout the world.[17] These men called themselves "Neo-Motazelites" and boldly advocated reforms such as a thorough overhauling of the sheriat and a general modernization of Islam. Their view-point is well set forth by another of their leading figures, S. Khuda Bukhsh. "Nothing was more distant from the Prophet's thought," he writes, "than to fetter the mind or to lay down fixed, immutable, unchanging laws for his followers. The Quran is a book of guidance to the faithful, and not an obstacle in the path, of their social, moral, legal, and intellectual progress." He laments Islam's present backwardness, for he continues: "Modern Islam, with its hierarchy of priesthood, gross fanaticism, appalling ignorance, and superstitious practices is, indeed, a discredit to the Islam of the Prophet Mohammed." He concludes with the following liberal confession of faith: "Is Islam hostile to progress? I will emphatically answer this question in the negative. Islam, stripped of its theology, is a perfectly simple religion. Its cardinal principle is belief in one God and belief in Mohammed as his apostle. The rest is mere accretion, superfluity."[18]

Meanwhile, the liberals were making themselves felt in other parts of the Moslem world. In Turkey liberals actually headed the government during much of the generation between the Crimean War and the despotism of Abdul Hamid,[19] and Turkish liberal ministers like Reshid Pasha and Midhat Pasha made earnest though unavailing efforts to liberalize and modernize the Ottoman Empire. Even the dreadful Hamidian tyranny could not kill Turkish liberalism. It went underground or into exile, and in 1908 put through the revolution which deposed the tyrant and brought the "Young Turks" to power. In Egypt liberalism took firm root, represented by men like Sheikh Mohammed Abdou, Rector of El Azhar University and respected friend of Lord Cromer. Even outlying fragments of Islam like the Russian Tartars awoke to the new spirit and produced liberal-minded, forward-looking men.[20]

The liberal reformers, whom I have been describing, of course form the part of evolutionary progress in Islam. They are in the best sense of the word conservatives, receptive to healthy change, yet maintaining their hereditary poise. Sincerely religious men, they have faith in Islam as a living, moral force, and from it they continue to draw their spiritual sustenance.