From the southernmost part of Hindustan, Mohammedanism made its way to the Malayan peninsula; to Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Manillas, and the Celebes: Goram, one of the Spice Islands, is {289} its eastern boundary. In the interior of these islands it prevails less than on the shores. To these remote regions Islamism has been carried more by the commercial than the military enterprise of its votaries. What is its present condition there, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, accurately to ascertain. In Java it was the established religion; but, when the Dutch settled that island early in the seventeenth century, many of the natives were converted. Little respect is paid by the Javans of the present day either to their ancient paganism, or to Mohammedanism which took its place; though some of the forms of the latter are still in force, and its institutions are said to be gaining ground.
The reader of Mohammedan history will meet with the terms Sooffee and Wahabee, as designating certain divisions of the disciples of the religion of the Prophet. It will not, therefore, be inappropriate to close with a brief account of these respective sects.
Sooffee is a term originating in Persia, meaning enthusiasts or mystics, or persons distinguished by extraordinary sanctity. The object of the Sooffee is to attain a divine beatitude, which he describes as consisting in absorption into the essence of Deity. The soul, according to his doctrine, is an emanation from God, partaking of his nature; just {290} as the rays of light are emanations from the sun, and of the same nature with the source, from whence they are derived. The creature and the Creator are of one substance. No one can become a Sooffee without strictly conforming to the established religion, and practising every social virtue; and when, by this means, he has gained a habit of devotion, he may exchange what they style practical for spiritual worship, and abandon the observance of all religious forms and ceremonies. He at length becomes inspired, arrives at truth, drops his corporeal veil, and mixes again with that glorious essence from which he has been partially and for a time separated. The life of the Sooffees of Persia, though generally austere, is not rendered miserable, like that of the visionary devotees of Hinduism, by the practice of dreadful severities, their most celebrated teachers have been famed for knowledge and devotion. The Persians are a poetic people, and the very genius of Sooffeeism is poetry. Its raptures are the raptures of inspiration; its hopes are those of a highly sensitive and excited imagination; its writers in the sweetest strains celebrate the Divine love, which pervades all nature: everything, from the very highest to the lowest, seeking and tending towards union with Deity as its object of supreme desire. They inculcate forbearance, abstemiousness, and {291} universal benevolence. They are unqualified predestinarians. The emanating principle, or the soul, proceeding from God, can do nothing, they say, without his will, nor refuse to do anything which he instigates. Some of them, consequently, deny the existence of evil; and the doctrine of rewards and punishments is superseded by their idea of re-absorption into the Divine essence. The free opinions of this class of enthusiasts subvert the doctrines of Islamism, yet they pay an outward respect to them; they unsettle the existing belief, without providing an intelligible substitute; they admit the divine mission of the Prophet, but explain away the dogmas he uttered; and while they affect to yield him honour as a person raised up by God, to induce moral order in the world, they boast their own direct and familiar intercourse with Deity, and claim, on that account, unqualified obedience in all that relates to spiritual interests.
The similarity of Sooffeeism to the ancient Pythagorean and Platonic doctrines will occur to every one at all acquainted with the religion and philosophy of antiquity. It as closely resembles some of the distinguishing tenets of the Brahminical faith. In fact, it seems as if designed, in conjunction with the refined theology of ancient, and the sublime visions of modern idolaters, to teach us that, without Divine guidance, the loftiest human {292} conceptions on subjects connected with God and religion invariably err; the ignorant and the instructed are equally wrong; "the world by wisdom knows not God."
The Wahabees are a modern sect of Mohammedan reformers, whose efforts have considerably changed the aspect of the religion of the Prophet. Perhaps to them may be owing much of that rigid adherence to Mohammedan doctrine and practice which prevails in those parts where their influence has been felt. They are the followers of Abdol Wahab, who commenced his career in the region where, during the lifetime of the Prophet, Moseilama had threatened a considerable division among his followers. Wahab was an ambitious fanatic, who aimed, nevertheless, at reforming the national religion. He was aided by powerful princes of the province of Nejed; and, within a short time, the tenets he maintained spread throughout the peninsula. His fundamental principle, like that of Mohammed, was the unity of God. The Koran he regarded as divine, rejecting all the glosses which ignorance and infatuation had put upon it, and holding in utter contempt all the traditions and tales concerning its author, which the devout of every generation had eagerly received. The reverence, approaching to adoration, which the Arabs were wont to pay to the name of Mohammed, all visits to his tomb, and all {293} regard to the tombs and relics of Arab saints, he denounced; and the costly ornaments with which a mistaken piety had enriched these sacred spots, he thought might be appropriated to ordinary purposes. Wahab would not suffer the common oath of, by Mohammed, or by Ali, to be used among his followers, on the very rational ground that an oath is an appeal to a witness of our secret thoughts, and who can know these but God? The title of Lord, generally given to the Prophet by his followers, Wahab rejected as impious. He was commonly mentioned by this zealous reformer and his adherents by his simple name, without the addition of "our Lord, the Prophet of God." All who deviated in any degree from the plain sense of the Koran, either in belief or practice, were infidels in their esteem; upon whom, therefore, according to its directions, war might be made. Thus was the martial spirit of the early Saracens again called into exercise; and with the ardour that characterized the days of the immediate successors of the Prophet, they were prepared at once to assail the consciences and the property of men not exactly of their own faith.
At the call of their leader, they assembled first in the plain of Draaiya, some 400 miles east of Medina, armed and provided at their own expense for war. Bagdad and Mecca in vain attempted to {294} suppress them; the seraglio itself was filled with their formidable war-cry; the sultan trembled on his throne; and the caravans from Syria suspended their usual journeys. The imperial city suffered from their ravages in its usual supplies of coffee; and the terror of their name was widely spreading among devout Mohammedans of every country, for they had violated the shrines of saints, and levelled to the ground the chapels at Mecca, which devotion had consecrated to the memory of the Prophet and his family. At the commencement of the present century, however, Mecca was recovered from them by the Turkish arms, and the plague, with the smallpox, breaking out just at this time among the followers of Wahab, probably saved the mighty fabric of Islamism. These reverses did not quench, however, the ardour of the Wahabees. Their leader had been assassinated, but his son, already distinguished for his prudence and valour, succeeded him in the command. Medina fell beneath his power, and from thence to the Persian Gulf he seemed likely to reign lord paramount. In 1805 he was able to impose a heavy tax on the caravan of pilgrims from Damascus to the Holy City, and declared that thenceforth it should consist of pilgrims alone, without the pride and pomp of a religious procession. Soon afterward they again entered Mecca, and immediately threatened with destruction every {295} sacred relic; but they did not put their threats into execution. Various conflicts between them and the orthodox Mohammedans have since ensued, the general result of which has been to break the martial and fanatical spirit of the Wahabees, and to re-establish the power of the grand sultan in cities and districts where it had been placed in jeopardy. They are still, indeed, dreaded as plunderers, but no great national convulsion has resulted from their efforts.
Some writers regret the suppression of this once powerful sect of Mohammedans, believing that, if continued, they would have been instrumental in overthrowing the Moslem faith, and making way for a purer religion; but for ourselves, we see little occasion for these regrets. The Wahabees must not be supposed more favourable to a pure faith than are those by whom they have been overthrown. If they must be regarded as reformers, they only attempted to correct a few absurd and scandalous practices: the impious and abominable dogmas of the Koran they left untouched; or, if they touched them, it was only to enforce their observance with greater rigour. Their creed was even more sanguinary and intolerant than that of the ancient Mohammedans, and probably the continuance of their power would have been nothing more than the continuance of injustice, cruelty, and {296} persecution. We do not look for the overthrow of Mohammedanism by such means. One system of error may sometimes destroy another, but the pure faith, which blesses a miserable world by directing men in the path of safety, knowledge, and happiness, will extend only as the sacred volume is diffused, and as that holy influence from God accompanies it by which the understanding is illuminated and the heart renewed. Fanaticism is no auxiliary of the religion of the Bible; it neither prepares its way nor accelerates its progress. Violence and war are utterly rejected by this divine system, as alien from its spirit and character. "My kingdom," says its founder, "is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight; but now is my kingdom not from hence."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's History of the Moors of Spain, by M. Florian