[38] Spiegel, op. cit. iii. 708.
[39] Exodus, xx. 3, 5.
[40] Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures on National Religions and Universal Religions, p. 119. Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. 49 sqq.
[41] Exodus, xv. 3.
[42] Koran, v. 73.
That Muhammedanism has in course of time become the most fanatical of existing religions is due to political rather than religious causes. For a thousand years the Christian and Muhammedan world were engaged in a deadly contest, in which the former came off victorious. Most nations confessing Islam have either lost their independence or are on the verge of losing it. The memory of past defeats and cruelties, the present state of subjection or national weakness, the fear of the future—are all factors which must be taken into account when we judge of Moslem fanaticism. In its younger days Islam was undoubtedly, not only in theory but in practice, less intolerant than its great rival, Christian subjects of Muhammedan rulers being on the whole treated with consideration.[43] Earlier travellers in Arabia also speak favourably of the tolerance of its inhabitants. Niebuhr was able to write:—“I never saw that the Arabs have any hatred for those of a different religion. They, however, regard them with much the same contempt with which Christians look upon the Jews in Europe…. The Mahometans in India appear to be even more tolerant than those of Arabia…. The Mussulmans in general do not persecute men of other religions, when they have nothing to fear from them, unless in the case of an intercourse of gallantry with a Mahometan woman.”[44] In China the Muhammedans live amicably with the infidel, regarding their Buddhist neighbours “with a kindly feeling which it would be hard to find in a mixed community of Catholics and Evangelicals.”[45] Muhammedanism looks upon the founder of Christianity with profound reverence, as one of the apostles of God, as the only man without sin. Christian writers, on the other hand, till the middle of the eighteenth century universally treated Muhammed as a false prophet and rank impostor. Luther called him “a devil, and a first-born child of Satan,” whilst Melanchthon was inclined to see in him both Gog and Magog.[46]
[43] See von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients, ii. 166 sq.
[44] Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia, ii. 192, 189 sq. Cf. d’Arvieux, Travels in Arabia the Desart, p. 123; Wallin, Notes taken during a Journey through Northern Arabia, p. 21.
[45] Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, p. 298 sq.
[46] [Deutsch,] ‘Islam,’ in Quarterly Review, cxxvii. 295 sq. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, pp. 67, 69. Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, p. 406.