From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

Whatever the weakness of Mohammedanism, it does not show itself in that sort of vices. His very pride makes the Mussulman scorn these meaner sins. His religion, as it lifts him up with self-esteem, produces an effect on his outward bearing. He has an air of independence which is unmistakable. I think I never saw a Mussulman that was afraid to look me in the face. He has none of the sneaking servility that we see in some races. This is a natural consequence of his creed, according to which God is so great that no man is great in his sight. Islam is at once a theocracy and a democracy. God is sole Lawgiver and King, before whom all men stand on the same level. Hence men of all nations and races fraternize together. In Constantinople blacks and whites, the men of Circassia and the men of Ethiopia, walk arm in arm, and stand on the level of absolute equality.

This democratic spirit is carried everywhere. There is no caste in Islam, not even in India, where it is at perpetual war with the castes of Hindooism. So as it spreads in the interior of Africa, it raises the native tribes to a degree of manliness and self-respect which they had not known before. It "levels up" the African race. Our missionaries in Liberia, who come in contact with certain Moslem tribes from the interior, such as the Mandingoes, will testify that they are greatly superior to those farther South, on the Gold Coast, the Ashantees and the people of Dahomey, who have filled the world with horror by their human sacrifices. All this disappears before the advance of Islam. It breaks in pieces the idols; it destroys devil worship and fetichism and witchcraft, and puts an end to human sacrifices. Thus it renders a service to humanity and civilization.

So far Islam is a pretty good religion—not so good indeed as Christianity, but better than any form of Paganism. It has many elements of truth, derived chiefly from Judaism. So far as Mohammed followed Moses—so far as the Koran followed the Old Testament—they uttered only the truth, and truth which was fundamental. The unity of God is the foundation of religion. It is not only a truth, but the greatest of truths, the first condition of any right religious worship. In declaring this, Mohammed only proclaimed to the Arabs what Moses had proclaimed to the Hebrews: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." But he repeated it with great vehemence and effect, wielding it as a battle-axe to break in pieces the idols of the heathen. And so far—as against idolatry—Islam has served a great purpose in history. But there its utility ends. It teaches indeed that there is but one God. But what a God is that which it presents to our worship! "This God is not our God." The Mohammedan idea of God is very different from the Christian idea of a Father in heaven. It is the idea of the Awful, the Invisible—grand indeed, yet cold and distant and far away, like the stars on the desert, or in the Arctic night, "wildly, spiritually bright," shining with a glittering splendor, but lofty and inaccessible, beyond the cries of human agony or despair. This view of God is so limited and partial as to produce the effect of positive error. In a just religious system there must be included the two ideas of God and man; and these in their proper relation to each other. Exclusive contemplation of either leads astray. When man fastens on the idea of one God, he plants himself on a rock. But he must not bow himself upon the rock, and clasp it so as to forget his own separate individuality, lest the mighty stone roll over upon him and crush him. This the Mussulman does. He dwells so on the idea of God, that his own existence is not only lost sight of, but annihilated. The mind, subdued in awe, is at length overpowered by what it beholds. Man is nothing in that awful presence, as his life is but a point in the Divine eternity.

It cannot be denied that the idea of God, and God alone, may produce some grand effects on human character. It inspires courage. If God be for us, who can be against us? That God is for him, the Mussulman never doubts; and this confidence inspires him in danger, and on the field of battle, so that he fights with desperation. But if the fortune of war be against him, who so well as the devout Mussulman knows how to suffer and to die? He murmurs not; but bows his head, saying "God is great," and submits to his fate. Thus his creed carried out to its logical consequence ends in fatalism. He believes so absolutely in God, that the decrees of the Almighty become a fixed fate, which the will of man is impotent to resist. All this comes from an imperfect idea of God. Here Islam is defective, just where Christianity is complete.

There is nothing in Mohammedanism that brings God down to earth, within the range of human sympathy or even of human conception. There is no incarnation, no Son of God coming to dwell among men, hungry and weary, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, suffering in the garden, and dying on the cross.

The Mussulman does not feel his need of such help. In his prayers there is no acknowledgment of sin, no feeling of penitence, no confession of unworthiness. He knows not how poor and weak he is, with a religion in which there is no Saviour and Redeemer, no Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, no Holy Spirit to help our infirmities, to strengthen our weaknesses.

So with Moslem morality; if we scan it closely, we find it wanting in many virtues. Some writers give the most elevated ideas of it. Says Chambers' Cyclopædia: "Aside from the domestic relations, the ethics of the Mohammedan religion are of the highest order. Pride, calumny, revenge, avarice, prodigality, and debauchery, are condemned throughout the Koran; while trust in God, submission to His will, patience, modesty, forbearance, love of peace, sincerity, frugality, benevolence, liberality, are everywhere insisted upon."

This is very high praise. But mark the exception: "Aside from the domestic relations." That exception takes out of the system a whole class of virtues, and puts a class of vices in their place. Here is the great crime of Islam against humanity—its treatment of woman. We will not charge against it more than belongs to it. The seclusion of woman is not a Mohammedan custom so much as an Oriental one, and one of a very ancient date. When Abraham sent a servant to find a wife for Isaac, and he returned bringing Rebekah, as the caravan drew near home, and Isaac went out to meditate at eventide, as soon as Rebekah saw him in the distance, she lighted off from her camel and "veiled herself." Polygamy too existed before Mohammed: it existed among the patriarchs. It is claimed that Mohammed repressed it, limiting a man to four wives, although he far exceeded the number himself. Gibbon, who never misses an opportunity of making a point against the Bible, says: "If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives." But this pretence of self-restraint is a mockery. It is notorious that Mohammed was a man of the grossest licentiousness; and the horrible and disgusting thing about it is that he grew more wicked as he grew older; and while trying to put restraint upon others put none upon himself. He punished licentiousness with a hundred stripes, and adultery with death, and yet he was a man of unbounded profligacy, and to make it worse, pleaded a Divine revelation to justify it!

This example of the prophet has had its influence on all the generations of his followers. It has trailed the slime of the serpent over them all. Any one who has been in a Mohammedan country must have felt that the position of woman is a degradation. One cannot see them gliding through the streets of Cairo or Constantinople, with their faces veiled as if it were a shame to look on them, and passing swiftly as if indeed it were a sin for them to be seen abroad, without a feeling of pity and indignation.

And in what a position are such women at home, if it can be called a home, where there is no family, no true domestic life! The wife of a Mohammedan—the mother of his children—is little better than a slave. She is never presented to his friends—indeed you could not offer a greater insult to a Turk than to ask after his wife! Of course there is no such thing as society where women are not allowed to appear. Such a society as that of London or Paris, composed of men eminent in government, in science and literature—a society refined and elevated by the presence of women of such education and manners and knowledge of the world as to be the fit companions of such men—could not possibly exist in Constantinople.