Mohammedanism / Lectures on Its Origin, Its Religious and Political Growth, and Its Present State

e call State were exercised by the same authority. Its political development

c state. Moreover, Allah expressly demanded of the Moslims that they should obey "the Messenger of God, and those amongst them who have authority."[1] We see by this expression that Mohammed shared his temporal authority with others. His co-rulers were not appointed, their number was nowhere defined, they were not a closed circle; they

1: Qoran

were followed, and, secondly, that the tax into which the duty of almsgiving had been converted was promptly paid, and that the portion of it intended for the central fund at Medina was duly delivered. After the great conquests, the governors of provinces of the Moslim Empire, who often exercised a despotic powe

fter Allah's mouthpiece had ceased to exist? It was not at all certain. The force of circumstances and the energy of some of Mohammed's counsellors soon led to the necessary decisions. A number of the notables of the community succeeded in forcing upon the hesitating or unwilling members the acceptance of the monarchy as a permanent in

ich the Qoran assigned the highest reward, were excited to the utmost. At a later period, it became necessary in the interests of order to temper the result of this excitement by traditions in which those of the Faithful who died in the exercise of a peaceful, honest profession were declared to be witnesses to the Faith as well as those who were slain in battle against the enemies of God,-traditions in which the real an

e stamp of legality to the results of a long political struggle. For at Mohammed's death the Medinese began fiercely contesting the claims of the Qoraishites; and during the reign of Al?, the fourth Khal?f, the Kharijites rebelled, demanding, as democratic rigorists, the free election of khal?fs without restriction to the tribe of Qoraish or to any other descent. Their standard of requirements contained only religious and moral qualities; and they claimed for the community the continual control of the chosen leader's behaviour a

Prophet responsible for it is to be found in the canonic collections. Later generations, however, rendered it harmless by exegesis; they maintained that in this text "commander" meant only subordinate chiefs, and

ial part in the direction of affairs. Al? and Fatima themselves asked to be placed in possession only of certain goods which had belonged to Mohammed, but which the first khal?fs would not allow to be regarded as his personal property; they maintained that the Prophet had had the disposal of them not as owner, but as head of the state.

ose, which maintained that Ali should have been the first Khal?f, and that his descendants should succeed him. The veneration felt for those descendants increased in the same proportion as that for the Prophet himself; and moreover, there were at all times malconten

basids and Turks from meddling with their affairs. Otherwise, they would have been obliged at any rate to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Great Lord of Constantinople. This was the case with the Sher?fs of Mecca, who ever since the twelfth century have regarded the sacred territory as their domain. Their principality arose out of the general political disturbance and the division of the Mohammedan empire into a number of kingdoms,

to subdue them or to make a compromise with them have had no lasting results. This is the principal obstacle against their being included in the orthodox community, although their admission is defended, even under present circumstances, by many non-political Moslim scholars. The Zaidites are the remn

ied by the three usurpers, Abu Bakr, Omar, and Othman, and who had exercised actual authority for a few years in constant strife with Kharijites and Omayyads. The efforts of his legitimate successors to assert their authority were constantly drowned in blood; until, at last, there were no more candidates for the dangerous office. This prosaic fact was converted by the adherents of the House of Mohammed into the romance, that the last imam of a line of seven according to some, and twelve according to others, had disappeared in a mysterious way, to return at the end of days as

am. All differences of doctrine were now sharpened and embittered by political passion, and the efforts of single enlightened princes or scholars to induce the various peoples to extend to each other, across the poli

ill maintain the revealed law as faithfully as the first four khal?fs did according to the idealized history, and who will succeed with God's help in making Islam victorious over the whole world. That the chiliastic kingdom of the Mahd? must in the end be destroyed by Anti-Christ, in

al deterioration, common to all human things. The prophecies concerning his appearance are sometimes of an equally supernatural kind as those of the Sh?ites, so that the period of his coming has passed more and more from the political sphere to which it originally belonged, into that of eschatology. Yet, naturally, it is easier for a popular leader to make himself regarded as the orthodox Mahd? than to play the part of the re

olitical government, upon which the canonists could exercise only an indirect influence. In other words since the accession of the Omayyad khal?fs, the actual authority rested in the hands of dynasties, and under the Abbasids government assumed even a despotic character. This relation between the governors and governed, originally alien to Islam, was not changed by the transference of the actual power into the hands of wez?rs and officers of the bodyguard; nor yet by the disintegration of the empire into a number of small despotisms, the investiture of which by the khal?f became a mere formality. Dynastic and political questions were settled in a comparatively small circle, by court intrigue, stratagems, and force; and the canonists, like the people, were bound to accept the results. Politically inclined in

called for their decision. The actual division between the rulers and the interpreters of the law caused an ever-increasing limitation of the authority of the qadh?s. The laws of marriage, family, and inheritance remained, however, their inalienable territory; and a number of other matters, in which too great a religious interest was involved to leave them to the caprice

epresented as unscrupulous beings, whose unreliable judgments were chiefly dictated by their greed. Such an opinion would not have acquired full force, if it had not been ascribed to Mohammed; in fact, the Prophet, according to a tradition, had said that out of three qad

students of sacred science are just as much "of our time" as the qadh?s. Even in the eleventh century the great theologian Ghazal? counted them all equal.[1] Not a few of them give their authoritative advice according to the wishes of the highest bidder or of him who has the greatest influence, hustle for income from pious institutions, and vie with each other in a revel of casuistic subtleties. But among those scholars there are and always have been so

will (on the Day of judgment) be gathered amongst the prophets, but the qadh?s amongst the temporal rulers." Gha

lar is morally obliged to the best of his knowledge to enlighten the enquirer. He ought to do this for the love of God; but he must live, and the enquirer is expected to give him a suitable present for his trouble. This again gives rise to the danger that he who offers most is attended to first; and that for the liberal rich man a dish is prepared from the casuistic store, as far as possible according to his taste. The temptation is by no means so great as that to which the qadh? is exposed; especially si

canonists and their strict disciples. In such cases it is better to be armed beforehand with an expert opinion than to be exposed to dangerous criticism which might find an echo in a wide circle. The official muft? must therefore be somewhat pliable, to say the least. Moreover, any private person has the right to put quest

nd, there is no keen interest felt in the Shar?'ah (Divine Law), then the temporal rulers can do pretty much what they like with these representatives of the canon law. Under the tyrannical sway of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, the Sheikh-ul-Islam was little more than a tool for him and his palace clique, and for their own reasons, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, who rule at Constantinople since 1908, made no change in this: each new ministry had its own Sheikh-ul-Islam, who had to be,

ulamas are less interfered with in their teaching, the muft?s in their recommendations, and the qadh?s in their judgments of questions of marriage and inheritance than in Turkey, where the life of Islam, as state religion, lies under official control. In indirectly governed "native states" the relation of Mohammedan "Church and State" may much more resemble that in Turkey, and this is sometimes to the advantage of the sovereign ruler. Under the di

n. The acceptance of this change was facilitated by the historical pessimism of Islam, which makes the mind prepared for every sort of decay, and by the true Moslim habit of resignation to painful experiences, not through fatalism, but through reverence for Allah's inscrutable will. At the same ti

himself had to suffer before Allah bestowed victory upon his arms; and they fervently join with the Friday preacher, when he pronounces the prayer, taken from the Qoran: "And lay not on us, O our Lord, that for which we have not strength, but blot out our sins and forgive us and have pity upon us. Thou art our Master; grant us then to conquer the unbelievers!" And the common people are willingly taught by the canonists and feed their hope of better days upon the inn

gs, have been glorified into saints, and are held up to all the following generations as examples to put them to shame. In the Omayyads the ancient aristocracy of Mecca came to the helm, and under them, the Mohammedan state was above all, as Wellhausen styled it, "the Arabian Empire." The best khal?fs of this house had the political wisdom to give the governors of the provinces sufficient independence to prevent schism, and to secure to themselves the authority in important matters. The reaction of the non-Arabian converts against the suppression of the

f the captains of their bodyguard, then of sultan-dynasties, whose forcibly acquired powers, were legalized by a formal investiture. In the same way the large provinces developed into independent kingdoms, whose rulers considered the nomination-diplomas from Bagdad in

lack of energy had not prevented the later Abbasids from trying to recover the lost power by the sword, or if amongst their rivals who could also boast of a popular tradition-e.g., the Omayyads, or still more the Alids-a political genius had succeeded in forming a powerful opposition. But the sultans who ruled the various states did not want to place all that they possessed in the balance on the chance of gaining the title of Khal?f. The Moslim world became accustomed to the idea that the honoured House of the Prophet's uncle Abbas existed for the purpose of lending an additional glory to Mohammedan prince

. The prestige of the Ottomans was as great as that of the Khalifate in its most palmy days had been; and they would not be withheld from the assumption of the title. There is a doubtful tale of the abdication of the Abbasids in their favour, but the question is of no importance. The Ottomans owed their Khalifate to their sword;

en without that, the leadership of the irresistible Ottomans was of more value to Islam than the chimerical authority of a powerless Qoraishite. In our own time, you can hear Qoraishite

, in India, and in Central Africa, whom either the Khalifate had always been obliged to leave to themselves, or who had become so estranged from it that, unless they felt the power of the Turkish arms, they preferred to remain as they were. Moreover, Islam had extended itself not only by political means, but also by trade and colonization into countries even the existence of which was hardly known in the political centres of Islam, e.g., into Central A

d under all circumstances; far from the centre this should be exercised, according to them, by the one who has been able to gain it and who knows how to hold it; and all the duties are laid upon him, which, in a normal condition, would be discharged by the Khal?f or his r

eoples placed under the direct government of European states a tendency prevails to be considered in some way or another subjects of the Sultan-Khal?f. Some scholars explain this phenomenon by the spiritual character which the dignity of Khal?f is supposed to have acquired under the later Abbasids, and retained since that time, until the Ottoman princes combined it again with the temporal dignity of sultan. According

it is nevertheless entirely untrue; unless by "spiritual authority" we are to understand the empty appearance of worldly authority. This app

, because they walked in worldly ways, they have constituted themselves independently beside and even above them; and the rulers have been obliged to conclude a silent contract with them, each party bind

ical power. Notwithstanding the destructive criticism of all Moslim princes and state officials by the canonists, it was only from them that

(in "Nieuwe Bijdragen tot de kennis van den Islam," in Bijdr. tot de Taal, Landen Volkenkunde van Nederl. Indi?, Volgr. 4, Deel vi, in an article, "De Islam," in De Gids, May, 1886

legists relaxed the prescription by concessions to "the force of necessity." Resignation was thus permitted, even recommended; but the submission to non-Musulmans was always to be regarded as temporary and abnormal. Although the partes infidelium have grown larger and larger, the eye must be kept fixed upon the centre, the Khalifate, where every

of the Khalifate with the Papacy, because they are aware that only in this form the Khalifate can be made acceptable to powers who have Mohammedan subjects. But for these su

nors that they enforced by violent measures seclusion and veiling of the women, abstinence from drinking, and that they punished by flogging the negligent with regard to fasting or attending public worship. The political decay of

nsidered as a virtue by every true Moslim, daily losing ground, and they are filled with consternation by observing in their own ranks the contamination of modernist ideas. The brilliant development of the system of Islam followed the establishment of its material power; so the rapid decline of that political power which we are witnessing makes the question urgent, whether Islam has a spiritual essence able to survive