Mr. George Sale, in his celebrated preliminary discourse to the translation of the Koran, writes, referring to the thirteenth year of Mohammad's mission:—
"Hitherto Mohammed had propagated his religion by fair means, so that the whole success of his enterprise, before his flight to Medina, must be attributed to persuasion only, and not to compulsion. For before this second oath of fealty or inauguration at al Akaba, he had no permission to use any force at all; and in several places of the Korân, which he pretended were revealed during his stay at Mecca, he declares his business was only to preach and admonish; that he had no authority to compel any person to embrace his religion; and that whether people believed or not, was none of his concern, but belonged solely to God. And he was so far from allowing his followers to use force, that he exhorted them to bear patiently those injuries which were offered them on account of their faith; and when persecuted himself chose rather to quit the place of his birth and retire to Medina, than to make any resistance. But this great passiveness and moderation seems entirely owing to his want of power and the great superiority of his oppressors for the first twelve years of his mission; for no sooner was he enabled by the assistance of those of Medina to make head against his enemies, than he gave out, that God had allowed him and his followers to defend themselves against the infidels; and at length, as his forces increased, he pretended to have the divine leave even to attack them, and to destroy idolatry, and set up the true faith by the sword; finding by experience that his designs would otherwise proceed very slowly, if they were not utterly overthrown, and knowing on the other hand that innovators, when they depend solely on their own strength, and can compel, seldom run any risk; from whence, the politician observes, it follows, that all the armed prophets have succeeded, and the unarmed ones have failed. Moses, Cyrus, Theseus and Romulus would not have been able to establish the observance of their institutions for any length of time had they not been armed. The first passage of the Korân, which gave Mohammed the permission of defending himself by arms, is said to have been that in the twenty-second chapter: after which a great number to the same purpose were revealed.
"That Mohammed had a right to take up arms for his own defence against his unjust persecutors, may perhaps be allowed; but whether he ought afterwards to have made use of that means for the establishing of his religion, is a question which I will not here determine. How far the secular power may or ought to interpose in affairs of this nature, mankind are not agreed. The method of converting by the sword gives no very favourable idea of the faith which is so propagated, and is disallowed by every body in those of another religion, though the same persons are willing to admit of it for the advancement of their own; supposing that though a false religion ought not to be established by authority, yet a true one may; and accordingly force is as constantly employed in these cases by those who have the power in their hands as it is constantly complained of by those who suffer the violence."[313]
I do not agree with these words of Mr. George Sale regarding Mohammad, "and at length, as his forces increased, he pretended to have the divine leave even to attack them, and to destroy idolatry, and set up the true faith by the sword;" he never attacked the Koreish or others except in his own defence. The destruction of idolatry was the chief mission of Mohammad, and that even was not resorted to by force of arms. There were neither compulsory conversions nor his history points to any extirpation of the idolaters at the point of sword from their native countries, as the chief objects of his mission. The persecutions and civil discord were to be removed or put a stop to, and force was used to repel force, but nothing more. Conversion by the sword was not enforced on any proselyte by Mohammad.
120. Major Osborn quoted.
Major Osborn has drawn a very dark picture of what he calls "The Doctrine of Jehad," in his Islam under the Arabs.[314] The defensive wars of Mohammad are explained by him as "means of livelihood congenial to the Arab mind, and carrying with it no stain of disgrace or immorality. This was robbery. Why should not the faithful eke out their scanty means by adopting this lucrative and honourable profession, which was open to everyone who had a sword and knew how to use it?... Surely, to despoil these infidels and employ their property to feed the hungry and clothe the naked among the people of God, would be a work well pleasing in His sight.... And thus was the first advance made in the conversion of the religion of Islam with the religion of the sword" (pages 46-47). After this the Major writes again: "The ninth Sura is that which contains the Prophet's proclamation of war against the votaries of all creeds other than that of Islam" (page 52). Then he quotes several verses, some of them half sentences, violently distorted, from the eighth and ninth Suras, in a consecutive form, without giving the numbers. These are Sura IX, 20, 34, 35, 82, 121; Sura VIII, 67; Sura IX, 36, 5, 29, 19; Sura XLVII, 4; Sura IX, 5; and Sura VIII, 42. Lastly, the learned Major concludes by saying,—"Such was the character of the Sacred War enjoined upon the Faithful. It is Muhammad's greatest achievement and his worst. When subjected himself to the pains of persecution he had learned to perceive how powerless were torments applied to the body to work a change of conviction in the mind. 'Let there be no violence in religion' had then been one of the maxims he had laid down. 'Unto every one of you,' he had said in former days, speaking of Jews and Christians, 'have we given a law, and an open path; and if God had pleased He had surely made you one people; but He hath thought fit to give you different laws, that he might try you in that which He hath given you respectively. Therefore, strive to excel each other in good works; unto God shall ye all return, and then will He declare unto you that concerning which ye have disagreed.' But the intoxication of success had long ago stilled the voice of his better self. The aged Prophet standing on the brink of the grave, and leaving as his last legacy a mandate of universal war, irresistibly recalls, by force of contrast, the parting words to his disciples of another religious teacher that they should go forth and preach a gospel of peace to all nations. Nor less striking in their contrast is the response to either mandate;—the Arab, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, spreading his creed amid the glare of burning cities, and the shrieks of violated homes, and the Apostles of Christ working in the moral darkness of the Roman world with the gentle but irresistible power of light, laying anew the foundations of society, and cleansing at their source the polluted springs of domestic and national life."
121. Major Osborn refuted.
The learned author quoted above has either misunderstood the character of the wars of the Prophet of Islam, or has grossly misrepresented it. He errs in two points: First, he makes the wars as wars of conquest, compulsion, and aggression, whereas they were all undertaken in the defence of the civil and religious rights of the early Moslems, who were, as I have said before, persecuted, harassed, and tormented at Mecca for their religion, and after a long period of persecution with occasional fresh and vigorous measures, were condemned to severer and harder sufferings, were expelled from their homes, leaving their dear relations, and religious brethren to endure the calamities of the persecution, and while taking refuge at Medina were attacked upon by superior numbers, several of the surrounding tribes of Arabs and Jews joining the aggressive Koreish, making ruinous inroads and threatening the Moslems with still greater and heavier miseries. From this statement it will appear that these wars were neither of conquest nor of compulsory conversion. The second great mistake under which Major Osborn seems to labour is that he takes the injunctions of war against the Meccans or other aggressors as a general obligation to wage war against all unbelievers in the Moslem faith. In fact, these injunctions were only against those aggressors who had actually committed great encroachments on the rights and liberties of the early Moslems, and had inflicted very disastrous injuries on them. These injunctions had and have nothing to do with the future guidance of the Moslem world.
122. The IXth Sura of the Koran.
It is a great misrepresentation on the part of Major Osborn to assert that "the ninth Sura is that which contains the Prophet's proclamation of war against the votaries of all creeds other than that of Islam." No statement could be farther from truth than this of his. The ninth Sura, or, more correctly, the beginning or opening verses of it, contain the Prophet's proclamation of war against those of the Meccan idolaters, who, in violation of the treaty of Hodeibia, had attacked the Moslems.—(Sura IX, 4, 8, 10, 12 & 13, vide pages 23-25.) They were allowed four months' time (IX, 2, 5) to make terms. They submitted, and Mecca was taken by compromise, in consequence of which the threatened war was never waged. Those who had not broken their treaties were especially mentioned, with whom the proclamation or the period allowed for peace had no connection.—(Vide Sura IX, 4, 7, quoted above, pages 23-24.) Thus it is quite clear that the proclamation of war was only against the violators and aggressors, and not against the votaries of all creeds other than that of Islam. I have further discussed the ninth Sura in para. 40 of this work. The other verses of this Sura refer to the expedition of Tabúk, which was purely defensive in its nature as has been described in para. 33 of this book. (See also para. 42.)