LOW POSITION OF ISLAM IN THE SCALE OF CIVILIZATION.
I pass on to consider why Mohammedan nations occupy so low a position, halting as almost Social and intellectual depression.every-where they do, in the march of social and intellectual development.
The reason is not far to find. Islam was meant for Arabia, not for the world; for the Arabs Islam intended for the Arabs.of the seventh century, not for the Arabs of all time; and being such, and nothing more, its claim of divine origin renders change or development impossible. It has within itself neither the germ of natural growth nor the lively spring of adaptation. Mohammed declared himself a prophet to the Arabs;[71] and however much in his later days he may have contemplated the reformation of other religions beyond the Peninsula, or the further spread of his own (which is doubtful), still the rites and ceremonies, the customs and the laws enjoined upon his people, were suitable (if suitable at all) for the Arabs of that day, and in many respects for them alone. Again, the code containing these injunctions, social and ceremonial, as well as doctrinal and didactic, is embodied with every particularity of detail, as part of the divine law, in the Koran; and so defying, as sacrilege, all human touch, it stands unalterable forever. From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed the Wants the faculty of adaptation.religion of Mohammed cannot emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves to the varying circumstances, the wants and developments, of mankind.
We may judge of the local and inflexible Local ceremonies: pilgrimage.character of the faith from one or two of its ceremonies. To perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount Arafat, with the slaying of victims at Mina, and the worship of the Kaaba, is an ordinance obligatory (with the condition only that they have the means) on all believers, who are bound to make the journey even from the furthest ends of the earth—an ordinance intelligible enough in a local worship, but unmeaning and impracticable when required of a world-wide religion. The same may be said of the fast of Ramzan. It is prescribed in the Fast of Ramzan.Koran to be observed by all with undeviating strictness during the whole day, from earliest dawn till sunset throughout the month, with specified exemptions for the sick and penalties for every occasion on which it is broken. The command, imposed thus with an iron rule on male and female, young and old, operates with excessive inequality in different seasons, lands, and climates. However suitable to countries near the equator, where the variations of day and night are immaterial, the fast becomes intolerable to those who are far removed either toward the north or the south; and still closer to the poles, where night merges into day and day into night, impracticable. Again, with the lunar year (itself an institution divinely imposed), the month of Ramzan travels in the third of a century from month to month over the whole cycle of a year. The fast was established at a time when Ramzan fell in winter, and the change of season was probably not foreseen by the Prophet. But the result is one which, under some conditions of time and place, involves the greatest hardship. For when the fast comes round to summer the trial in a sultry climate, like that of the burning Indian plains, of passing the whole day without a morsel of bread or a drop of water becomes to many the occasion of intense suffering. Such is the effect of the Arabian legislator's attempt at circumstantial legislation in matters of religious ceremonial.
Nearly the same is the case with all the religions Political and social depression owing to relations between the sexes.obligations of Islam, prayer, lustration, etc. But although the minuteness of detail with which these are enjoined tends toward that jejune and formal worship which we witness every-where in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in these observances themselves which (religion apart) should lower the social condition of Mohammedan populations and prevent their emerging from that normal state of semi-barbarism and uncivilized depression in which we find all Moslem peoples. For the cause of this we must look elsewhere; and it may be recognized, without doubt, in the relations established by the Koran between the sexes. Polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage, and the veil are at the root of Moslem decadence.
In respect of married life the condition Depression of the female sex.allotted by the Koran to woman is that of an inferior dependent creature, destined only for the service of her master, liable to be cast adrift without the assignment of a single reason or the notice of a single hour. While the husband possesses the power of a divorce—absolute, immediate, unquestioned—no privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced she can, indeed, claim her dower—her hire, as it is called in the too plain language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical husband. Authority to confine and to beat his wives is distinctly vested in his discretion.[72] "Thus restrained, secluded, degraded, the mere minister of enjoyment, liable at the caprice or passion of the moment to be turned adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of a wife was improved by the code of Mohammed."[73] Even if the privilege of divorce Divorce.and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self-respect, and in like degree to weaken the influence of the sex, impairing thus the ameliorating and civilizing power which she was meant to exercise upon mankind. And the evil has been stereotyped by the Koran for all time.
I must quote one Principal Fairbairn on home-life under Islam.more passage from Principal Fairbairn on the lowering influence of Moslem domestic life:
The God of Mohammed ... "spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood is to be sacred if manhood is to be honorable. Spoil the wife of sanctity and for the man the sanctities of life have perished. And so it has been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes; it has depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of man, then his state were hopeless; before him could only be retrogression, tyranny, and despair."[74]
Still worse is the Demoralizing influence of servile concubinage.influence of servile concubinage. The following is the evidence of a shrewd and able observer in the East:
All zenana life must be bad for men at all stages of their existence.... In youth it must be ruin to be petted and spoiled by a company of submissive slave-girls. In manhood it is no less an evil that when a man enters into private life his affections should be put up to auction among foolish, fond competitors full of mutual jealousies and slanders. We are not left entirely to conjecture as to the effect of female influence on home-life when it is exerted under these unenlightened and demoralizing conditions. That is plainly an element lying at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation.[75]