The origin of Islam, as I have described it, is in itself evidence of Islam’s moral and spiritual stability—of that part of her which has not deviated from, but clung to the spirit of her great Founder. But even allowing for denominational deviations, Islam in the mass is truly devout.
The two creeds represent two absolutely divergent sections of humanity. Unquestionably in a social, moral and religious sense, Islam is Islam, and Christendom, Christendom. To remedy this divergence, to bring the two sections together, enters into the impossible.
A natural arrangement such as this cannot be interfered with or altered. Defective as it is from a human aspect, it is all the same irremediable—a hiatus as wide apart as the suns in space, beyond the power of human effort to bring together. It is only possible for the rational gospel of humanism, the great religion of natural sympathy, to heal the breach. This it can only do by turning humanity into one great human family. This alone would sweep away the disturbing factors of creeds, denominations, and sects. But is such a thing possible? Scarcely! Certainly not so long as the egotism and egotheism of man is so predominant a force in human sociology, or so long as the present physical and mental environments of the two sections remain the same.
[ CHAPTER VIII ]
EUROPE’S DEBT TO ISLAM: ETHNIC SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
But apart from all these weighty considerations, the attitude of Europe towards Islam should be one of eternal gratitude, instead of base ingratitude and forgetfulness. Never to this day has Europe acknowledged in an honest and whole-hearted manner the great and everlasting debt she owes to Islamic culture and civilization. Only in a lukewarm and perfunctory way has she recognized that when, during the Dark Ages, her people were sunk in feudalism and ignorance, Moslem civilization under the Arabs reached a high standard of social and scientific splendour, that kept alive the flickering embers of European society from utter decadence.
Do not we, who now consider ourselves on the topmost pinnacle ever reached by culture and civilization, recognize that had it not been for the high culture, the civilization and intellectual as well as social splendour of the Arabs, and to the soundness of their school system, Europe would to this day have remained sunk in the darkness of ignorance? Have we forgotten that the Mohammedan maxim was that, “the real learning of a man is of more public importance than any particular religious opinions he may entertain”—that Moslem liberality was in striking contrast with the then intolerant state of Europe? Have we forgotten that the Khalifate arose in the most degenerate period of Rome and Persia, also that the greater part of Europe lay under the dark cloud of barbarism? Does the magnificent valour of the Arabs, inspired as it was by a theism as lofty as it was pure, not appeal to us? Does not the moderation and comparative toleration shown by them to the conquered, notwithstanding the fierce and burning ardour to regenerate mankind that impelled them onwards to conquest, also appeal to us? Does it not all the more appeal to us, when we contrast this with the bitterness of the attitude of the Christian sects towards one another? Especially when we consider that in Christendom as it was then constituted, extortion, tyranny and imperial centralization, combining with ecclesiastical despotism and persecution, had practically extinguished patriotism, by substituting in its place a schismatic and degenerate church.
Is it not obvious that in her outlook on Islam, Europe has overlooked her own Dark Ages—that awful period of intellectual oblivion which commenced with the decline of classical learning subsequent to the establishment of the barbarians in Europe in the fifth century, and continued down to the Renaissance, i.e. towards the end of the fourteenth century? Is it too not evident that she has lost all recollection of the torn and disturbed state of Christendom even in the middle of the fifteenth century when the Renaissance was in full swing, or had at least run half its course? How few Europeans there are who know the name of Æneas Sylvius—fewer still who can remember the striking and vivid picture he has drawn of the state of Europe in those days of dawning intelligence! Yet this prelate, afterward Pope Pius II, sums up the then European situation in a curious but concise and explicit document—a species of state paper dated 1454. Possessing as he did a personal knowledge of Europe, and being a man of great natural shrewdness and power of observation, Æneas Sylvius was of all men then living the best qualified to describe the state of affairs at this period. So that his observations are not only significant, but entitled to weight and consideration.
Discussing the prospects of the projected crusade, he praises warmly Philip of Burgundy for his readiness in the matter, then gives his reason for concluding that the Diet at Frankfort must be a failure. For there is no real unity in Christendom; neither Pope nor Cæsar is duly reverenced or believed in; they are but feigned names or painted effigies—each state has its own king: there is a prince to every house. Italy is disturbed, Genoa being at feud with Aragon; nay, worse, Venice has actually a treaty with the Turk. In Spain are many kings, all differing in power, government, aims and opinions. There is even war too there about Granada. France is still looking uneasily across the Channel at England, her old foe, and England watches France. The Germans are divided, without coherence; their cities quarrel with their princes; their princes fight among themselves. Luxemburg is a cause of dispute between the King of Bohemia and the Duke of Burgundy.
Is it possible that Europe is unmindful of, and has the ingratitude to ignore, the splendid services of the scientists and philosophers of Arabia? Are the names of Assamh, Abu Othman, Alberuni, Albeithar, Abu Ali Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the great physician and philosopher, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) of Cordova, the chief commentator on Aristotle, Ibn Bajja (Avempace) besides a host of others, but dead letters? Is the great work that they have done, and the fame they have left behind them in their books, to be consigned to the limbo of oblivion, by an ungrateful because antipathetic Europe? Does the work of Alhazen, author of optical treatises, who understood the weight of air, corrected the Greek misconception or theory of vision, and determined the function of the retina, count for nothing? Do we owe no tribute to a great thinker such as Ghazali, who in speaking of his attempts to detach himself from his youthful opinions says: “I said to myself, my aim is simply to know the truth of things, consequently it is indispensable for me to [ascertain what is knowledge”?] It cannot be that already we have lost sight of the amazing intellectual activity of the Moslem world, during the earlier part of the “Abbasid” period more especially? It cannot be that we have quite forgotten the irrecoverable loss that was inflicted on Arabian literature and on the world at large by the wanton destruction of thousands of books that was prompted by Christian bigotry and fanaticism? It cannot surely be said of Christian Europe that for centuries now she has done her best to hide her obligation to the Arabs? Yet most assuredly obligations such as these are far too sacred to lie much longer hidden! Let Europe—Christendom rather—confess and acknowledge her fault. Let her proclaim aloud to her own ignorant masses, and to the world at large, the ingratitude she has displayed, and the eternal debt she owes to the Islam she no longer despises. Open confession is good for the soul, and only a confession such as this can wipe off the black stain which has for so long besmirched her fair fame. Let Christendom once and for all recognize that the greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none—that acknowledging a fault is saying, only in other words, we are wiser to-day than we were yesterday. Only through magnanimity such as this can she claim redemption. For she must surely know that “injustice founded on religious rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetrated for ever.”
Let me endeavour to make my meaning somewhat clearer, by means of two simple illustrations—the one belonging to the eighteenth century, the other to the twentieth. “How many great men do you reckon?” Buffon was asked one day. “Five,” answered he at once; [“Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself.”]