Mohammed (569-632 A.D.) did not pretend to introduce a new religion; his professed object was merely to restore the primitive and only true faith, such as it had been in the days of the patriarchs; the fundamental idea of which was the unity of God. He made the revelations of the Old and New Testaments the basis of his preaching. He maintained the authority of the books of Moses, admitted the divine mission of Jesus, and he enrolled himself in the catalogue of inspired teachers. This doctrine was proclaimed in the memorable words, which for so many centuries constituted the war-cry of the Saracens,—There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. Mohammed preached no dogmas substantially new, but he adorned, amplified, and adapted to the ideas, prejudices, and inclinations of the Orientals, doctrines which were as old as the race. He enjoined the ablutions suited to the manners and necessities of hot climates. He ordained five daily prayers, that man might learn habitually to elevate his thoughts above the outward world. He instituted the festival of the Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, and commanded that every man should bestow in alms the hundredth part of his possessions; observances which, for the most part, already existed in the established customs of the country.
The Koran (Reading), the sacred book of the Mohammedans, is, according to their belief, the revelation of God to their prophet Mohammed. It contains not only their religious belief, but their civil, military, and political code. It is divided into 114 chapters, and 1,666 verses. It is written in rhythmical prose, and its materials are borrowed from the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the legends of the Talmud, and the traditions and fables of the Arabian and Persian mythologies. Confusion of ideas, obscurity, and contradictions destroy the unity and even the interest of this work. The chapters are preposterously distributed, not according to their date or connection, but according to their length, beginning with the longest, and ending with the shortest; and thus the work becomes often the more unintelligible by its singular arrangement. But notwithstanding this, there is scarcely a volume in the Arabic language which contains passages breathing more sublime poetry, or more enchanting eloquence; and the Koran is so far important in the history of Arabian letters, that when the scattered leaves were collected by Abubeker, the successor of Mohammed (635 A.D.) and afterwards revised, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira, they fixed at once the classic language of the Arabs, and became their standard in style as well as in religion.
This work and its commentaries are held in the highest reverence by the Mohammedans. It is the principal book taught in their schools; they never touch it without kissing it, and carrying it to the forehead, in token of their reverence; oaths before the courts are taken upon it; it is learned by heart, and repeated every forty days; many believers copy it several times in their lives, and often possess one or more copies ornamented with gold and precious stones.
The Koran treats of death, resurrection, the judgment, paradise, and the place of torment, in a style calculated powerfully to affect the imagination of the believer. The joys of paradise, promised to all who fall in the cause of religion, are those most captivating to an Arabian fancy. When Al Sirat, or the Bridge of Judgment, which is as slender as the thread of a famished spider, and as sharp as the edge of a sword, shall be passed by the believer, he will be welcomed into the gardens of delight by black-eyed Houris, beautiful nymphs, not made of common clay, but of pure essence and odors, free from all blemish, and subject to no decay of virtue or of beauty, and who await their destined lovers in rosy bowers, or in pavilions formed of a single hollow pearl. The soil of paradise is composed of musk and saffron, sprinkled with pearls and hyacinths. The walls of its mansions are of gold and silver; the fruits, which bend spontaneously to him who would gather them, are of a flavor and delicacy unknown to mortals. Numerous rivers flow through this blissful abode; some of wine, others of milk, honey, and water, the pebbly beds of which are rubies and emeralds, and their banks of musk, camphor, and saffron. In paradise the enjoyment of the believers, which is subject neither to satiety nor diminution, will be greater than the human understanding can compass. The meanest among them will have eighty thousand servants, and seventy-two wives. Wine, though forbidden on earth, will there be freely allowed, and will not hurt or inebriate. The ravishing songs of the angels and of the Houris will render all the groves vocal with harmony, such as mortal ear never heard. At whatever age they may have died, at their resurrection all will be in the prime of manly and eternal vigor. It would be a journey of a thousand years for a true Mohammedan to travel through paradise, and behold all the wives, servants, gardens, robes, jewels, horses, camels, and other things, which belong exclusively to him.
The hell of Mohammed is as full of terror as his heaven is of delight. The wicked, who fall into the gulf of torture from the bridge of Al Sirat, will suffer alternately from cold and heat; when they are thirsty, boiling water will be given them to drink; and they will be shod with shoes of fire. The dark mansions of the Christians, Jews, Sabeans, Magians, and idolaters are sunk below each other with increasing horrors, in the order of their names. The seventh or lowest hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites of every religion. Into this dismal receptacle the unhappy sufferer will be dragged by seventy thousand halters, each pulled by seventy thousand angels, and exposed to the scourge of demons, whose pastime is cruelty and pain.
It is a portion of the faith inculcated in the Koran, that both angels and demons exist, having pure and subtle bodies, created of fire, and free from human appetites and desires. The four principal angels are Gabriel, the angel of revelation; Michael, the friend and protector of the Jews; Azrael, the angel of death; and Izrafel, whose office it will be to sound the trumpet at the last day. Every man has two guardian angels to attend him and record his actions, good and evil. The doctrine of the angels, demons, and jins or genii, the Arabians probably derived from the Hebrews. The demons are fallen angels, the prince of whom is Eblis; he was at first one of the angels nearest to God's presence, and was called Azazel. He was cast out of heaven, according to the Koran, for refusing to pay homage to Adam at the time of the creation. The genii are intermediate creatures, neither wholly spiritual nor wholly earthly, some of whom are good and entitled to salvation, and others infidels and devoted to eternal torture. Among them are several ranks and degrees, as the Peris, or fairies, beautiful female spirits, who seek to do good upon the earth, and the Deev, or giants, who frequently make war upon the Peris, take them captive, and shut them up in cages. The genii, both good and bad, have the power of making themselves invisible at pleasure. Besides the mountain o£ Kaf, which is their chief place of resort, they dwell in ruined cities, uninhabited houses, at the bottom of wells, in woods, pools of water, and among the rocks and sandhills of the desert. Shooting stars are still believed by the people of the East to be arrows shot by the angels against the genii, who transgress these limits and approach too near the forbidden regions of bliss. Many of the genii delight in mischief; they surprise and mislead travelers, raise whirlwinds, and dry up springs in the desert. The Ghoul lives on the flesh of men and women, whom he decoys to his haunts in wild and barren places, in order to kill and devour them, and when he cannot thus obtain food, he enters the graveyards and feeds upon the bodies of the dead.
The fairy mythology of the Arabians was introduced into Europe in the eleventh century by the Troubadours and writers of the romances of chivalry, and through them it became an important element in the literature of Europe. It constituted the machinery of the Fabliaux of the Trouvères, and of the romantic epics of Boccaccio, Ariosto, Tasso, Spenser, Shakspeare, and others.
The three leading Mohammedan sects are the Sunnees, the Sheahs, and the Wahabees. The Sunnees acknowledge the authority of the first Caliphs, from whom most of the traditions were derived. The Sheahs assert the divine right of Ali to succeed to the prophet; consequently they consider the first Caliphs, and all their successors, as usurpers. The Wahabees are a sect of religious reformers, who took their name from Abd al Wahab (1700- 1750), the Luther of the Mohammedans. They became a formidable power in Arabia, but they were finally overcome by Ibrahim Pacha in 1816.
4. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARABIAN LITERATURE.—The literature of the Arabians has, properly speaking, but one period; although from remote antiquity poetry was with them a favorite occupation, and long before the time of Mohammed the roving tribes of the desert had their annual conventions, where they defended their honor and celebrated their heroic deeds. As early as the fifth century A.D., at the fair of Ochadh, thirty days every year were employed not only in the exchange of merchandise, but in the nobler display of rival talents. A place was set apart for the competitions of the bards, whose highest ambition was to conquer in this literary arena, and the victorious compositions were inscribed in golden letters upon Egyptian paper, and suspended upon the doors of the Caaba, the ancient national sanctuary of Mecca. Seven of the most famous of these ancient poets have been celebrated by Oriental writers under the title of the Arabian Pleiades, and their songs, still preserved, are full of passion, manly pride, and intensity of imagination and feeling. These and similar effusions constituted the entire literature of Arabia, and were the only archives of the nation previous to the age of Mohammed.
The peninsula of Arabia, hitherto restricted to its natural boundaries, and peopled by wandering tribes, had occupied but a subordinate place in the history of the world. But the success of Mohammed and the preaching of the Koran were followed by the union of the tribes who, inspired by the feelings of national pride and religious fervor, in less than a century made the Arabian power, tongue, and religion predominant over a third part of Asia, almost one half of Africa, and a part of Spain; and, from the ninth to the sixteenth century, the literature of the Arabians far surpassed that of any contemporary nation.