A Moslem seeker after God

by Samuel Marinus Zwemer

In air and anchored with a yard of string.”

...

“Two merchantmen decided they would battle,

To prove at last who sold the finest wares;

And while Mohammed shrieked his call to prayers,

The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.”

As in the nineteenth century for Christianity, so in the eleventh century for Islam, the struggle between science and orthodoxy waged fiercely. The rationalistic school of the Muʾtazilites still exercised great influence while the literalists and the blind followers of traditional Islam were often more distinguished for Pharisaism than piety.

We need only turn to the “Maqamat” of Al-Hamadhani to know what the sceptic of that day thought of the public religious services.

“So I slipped away from my companions,” says his hero, “taking advantage of the opportunity of joining in public prayers, and dreading, at the same time, the loss of the caravan I was leaving. But I sought aid against the difficulty of the desert through the blessing of prayer, and, therefore, I went to the front row and stood up. The Imam went up to the niche and recited the opening chapter of the Quran according to the intonation of Hamza, in regard to using ‘Madda’ and ‘Hamza,’ while I experienced disquieting grief at the thought of missing the caravan, and of separation from the mount. Then he followed up the Surat Al-Fatiha with Surat Al-Waqʾia while I suffered the fire of impatience and tasked myself severely. I was roasting and grilling on the live coal of rage. But, from what I knew of the savage fanaticism of the people of that place, if prayers were cut short of the final salutation, there was no alternative but silence and endurance, or speech and the grave! So I remained standing thus on the foot of necessity till the end of the chapter. I had now despaired of the caravan and given up all hope of the supplies and the mount. He next bent his back for the two prostrations with such humility and emotion, the like of which I had never seen before. Then he raised his hands and his head and said: ‘May God accept the praise of him who praises Him,’ and remained standing till I doubted not but that he had fallen asleep. Then he placed his right hand on the ground, put his forehead on the earth and pressed his face thereto. I raised my head to look for an opportunity to slip away, but I perceived no opening in the rows, so I re-addressed myself to prayer until he repeated the Takbir for the sitting posture. Then he stood up for the second prostration, recited the Suras of Al-Fatiha and Al-Qaria with an intonation which occupied the duration of the Last Day and well-nigh exhausted the spirits of the congregation. Now, when he had finished his two prostrations and proceeded to wag his jaws to pronounce the testimony to God’s unity, and to turn his face to the right and to the left for the final salutation, I said: ‘Now God has made escape easy, and deliverance is nigh’; but a man stood up and said: ‘Whosoever of you loves the companions of the Moslem community let him lend me his ears for a moment.’”—Such was the impression made by the formalities of orthodoxy!

Al-Ghazali found no help for his doubts among these scholastic theologians nor has any Moslem since his day. Professor Macdonald tells us why. “Grant the theologians their premises, and they could argue; deny them, and there was no common ground on which to meet. Their science had been founded by Al-Ashʾari to meet the Muʾtazilites; it had done that victoriously, but could do no more. They could hold the faith against heretics, expose their inconsistencies and weaknesses; but against the sceptic they could do nothing. It is true that they had attempted to go further back and meet the students of philosophy on their own ground, to deal with substances and attributes and first principles generally; but their efforts had been fruitless. They lacked the necessary knowledge of the subject, had no scientific basis, and were constrained eventually to fall back on authority.”[34]