[12] Ibid.
[13] Von Kremer, Culturgeschichtliche Streifzüge (my translation p. 47) Comp. Qur´an XXI, 105 with Ps. XXX VII 29; 1-5 with Ps. XXVII. The New Testament. Comp. VII, 48 with Luke XVI. 24; XLVI, 19 with Luke XVI. 25. Then again verse 35 corresponds almost word for word with Mishna Sanh IV. 5; also II. 183 with Mishna Ber. 1.2. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, p. 31.
III.
Mr. Ameer Ali explains Islam as “striving after righteousness,” but Prof. Hirschfeld, in his luminous Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qur´an, very correctly points out that Mr. Ameer Ali’s definition only reflects the theoretical and moral side of the question—limited to the initial stage of Islam.[14]
The term Islam, as time went by, included the whole of the theoretical and practical constitution of the faith and as such it is interpreted by Al-Ghazzali in his Ihya-ul-ulum (p. 104, vol. I.) Islam, says he, is an expression for submission and unquestioning obedience, abandonment of insubordination, defiance and opposition. And it is in this light, indeed, that the prophet himself regarded Islam. “The Bedwins say: ‘we believe,’ Speak! you shall not ‘believe’ (only) but say we practice Islam (Aslamna).” (XLIX. 14) In Surah III. 17 (Cf. V. 79) Islam is identified with din (Cf. LXI. 7-9) and the relation between the two synonyms, says Prof. Hirschfeld, is broadly discussed by Al-Shahrastani (Milal, pp. 25 to 27) and is stated to embrace the five duties, viz.:—Of testifying to the unity of God and the Divine inspiration of Mohamed, the duties of reciting prayers, giving alms, fasting in the Ramadhan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. The fundamental basis of Islam is the unity of God; stern, unbending monotheism and this doctrine of the unity of God is proclaimed in the Qur´an, in season and out of season and ever and anon with augmented emphasis. To associate gods with God is the most unpardonable sin and the prophet’s extensive vocabulary of vituperation is never exhausted in attacking those who associate gods with God. In Surah VI (verses 74-79) we have one of the most charming passages testifying to the unity of God:—
And remember when Abraham said to his father, Azar, thou takest those images as God? verily I see that thou and thy people are in manifest error.
And so did we show Abraham the domain of the heavens and of the earth that he might be one of those who are established in knowledge. And when the night overshadowed him he beheld a star “This, said he, is My Lord” but when it set, he cried, “I love not gods which set.” And when he beheld the moon uprising “This,” said he, “is my Lord” but when it set, he said, “surely, if My Lord guide me not I shall be of those who go astray.”
And when he beheld the Sun uprise, he said, “This is my Lord,” “this is the greatest” but when it set, he said “O my people I share not with you the guilt of joining gods with God.”
I verily turn my face to him who hath created the Heavens and the earth following the right religion and I am not one of those who add gods to God.
Not a whit has Gibbon[15] exaggerated the truth when he wrote “the creed of Mohamed is free from suspicion or ambiguity and the Qur´an is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever is born must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish.” And, again, says the historian of the Roman Empire, “these sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, are firmly held by his disciples and defined with metaphysical precision by the interpreters of the Qur´an. A philosophic atheist might subscribe the popular creed of Mohamedans: a creed too sublime perhaps for our present faculties.”
The unity of God, therefore, is the central faith of Islam and connected with it, by natural process as it were, is the belief that man is responsible to the creator for his actions and deeds. This belief, the Pre-Islamic Arab never knew or conceived, and the prophet Mohamed, by inculcating this belief, not only laid the foundation of a spiritual life among his countrymen, but laid the foundation of a well-organized society; soon destined to grow into a magnificent empire. The sphere of duty and obligation, charity and sympathy, confined hitherto merely to tribesmen, was widened and extended and the narrow tribal tie was lost in the larger brotherhood of faith. At this distance of time, it is perhaps difficult for us to fully realize the influence of this teaching, but to it alone must we ascribe the dethronement of those ideals of Arabian Paganism which the author of the Muhammedanische Studien has so graphically described, comparing and contrasting them with the higher ideals substituted by Islam.[16] The religion of the prophet, like the wand of a magician, completely and utterly changed the life of the Arabs. It hushed their tribal disputes into silence, it destroyed their insularity, it set up a purer and a more refined standard of domestic life, it opened before them fresh vistas of spiritual happiness and temporal success.
Next to the unity of God, Islam enjoins five daily prayers upon its followers. It is curious that the Qur´an lays down no rule as to the manner in which the prayer should be offered. Apparently, as Mr. Ameer Ali[17] points out, the practice of the prophet has associated certain rights and ceremonies to the due observance of prayers. In the Mohamedan prayer we observe the Jewish practice of standing erect, the Christian of prostration and a third of inclination.[18] Originally the prophet instituted three daily prayers.[19] Their extension to five was an innovation of the late Meccan period; the details of the purity legislation appear to have still later. “Yet the theory,” says Prof. Margoliouth, “that God should be approached only by persons in a state of purity was known in South Arabia before Mohamed’s time, whence it is probable that his earliest converts were instructed therein.”