The Bible gives women a place of great importance and service both in the Old and New Testaments. The temple had its women’s court, the synagogues and early churches had their respective places for women. Their importance and helpfulness both in the church at home and abroad are of inestimable value. But Mohammed confined them, wholesale, to the infernal regions. Ali Bey (1807) (a great authority on Mohammedanism, and a devout Mohammedan himself, whom the late Dr. Jessup quotes in his work above referred to), says: “As the prophet has not assigned any place for women in his Paradise, the Mohammedans give them no places in the mosques and have exempted them from the obligation of frequenting the public prayer.”
There is one more point of the Koran that might be contrasted with the teaching of the Bible, namely, that Mohammed fostered the arrogance and pride of his followers, without substantiating his claim:
“Ye are the best nation that has been raised up unto mankind.” Al Koran, Chap. 3:106.
The Bible gives us some passages like the above, but they are infinitely different in depth, height and breadth. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” I Peter 2:9. Christian religion requires “holiness, without which no man shall see God.” Heb. 12:14. “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” Matt. 5:8. Christ requires of His followers an inward, as well as an outward, conformity to the Character of God. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” is the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Mohammedanism requires of its devotees the following five things: A confession of faith that there is but one God and that Mohammed is his prophet, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. For salvation, repentance is the only means.
“Christianity recognizes the freedom of man, and magnifies the guilt and corruption of sin, but at the same time offers a way of reconciliation and redemption from sin, and its consequence through the atonement of a divine Saviour and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.
“Mohammedanism minimizes the freedom of man and the guilt of sin, makes little account of its corrupting influence in the soul, and offers no plan of redemption except that of repentance and good works.”[117]
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who reigned from 1876-1909, was considered by many to be a conscientious Mohammedan. Claiming also—as all the sultans from the time of Selim I—to be the lawful successor of the prophet and Defender of the faith. He was, therefore, both the head of the Mohammedan religion and also the ruler over the Mohammedan states. In the mind of a faithful successor of Mohammed, the prophet is the only ideal and his conduct the only guide to follow. To revive Mohammedanism then means the suppression of all other religions as well as the building up of all the Moslem institutions. These he continued to do until the time of his deposition.
Mohammed and his immediate successors offered to the conquered the choice of one of three things—Islam, slavery, or death. Some of the conquered accepted Islam, and thus ended their trouble on earth; others were put to death by the conquerors, who saved their victims from the misery of the world; those who neither accepted Islam nor were put to death were made semi-slaves. Both the Arabs and later the Turks needed some source of revenue which they derived from the subject nations, and also needed a class of skilled artisans and laborers. The Greeks and Armenians were very important for the maintenance of the Turkish empire, especially in its early years, and up to the middle of the last century. These nations, whether Armenians, Greeks, Jews or Syrians, however, were considered no more than prisoners of war, and were always liable to have the offer of Islam or death presented to them at any time as the caprice of the ruler may choose.
Again, the hatred and arrogance instilled into the minds of the devotees of the religion of Mohammed by the prophet and his imitators, fill every devout Mohammed with the desire, not so much to see the conversion of the world to Mohammedanism, as to wish and pray that Allah may destroy the infidels—non-Moslems—and give all their possessions to the Mohammedans. Hence, the official prayer of the Mohammedans which was used throughout Turkey and daily repeated in the Cairo Azhar University by the ten thousand Mohammedan students from all lands. It is translated from the Arabic:
“I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the regiem (the accursed). In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful! O Lord of all Creatures! O Allah! Destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of religion! O Allah! Make their children orphans, defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip; and give them, and their families, and their households, and their women, and their children and their relatives by marriage, and their brothers, and their friends, and their possessions, and their race, and their wealth, and their lands, as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all creatures.”[118]