Such tenets, publicly announced as a voice from heaven, were of course offensive to the ruling factions at Jerusalem. The people also that flocked to the preaching of the new Prophet were disappointed by his proclaiming to them a spiritual kingdom not the heritage of wealth, splendour, and glory, so distinctly promised to them by the seers of former generations. They were but poorly put off with a type or symbol. A reformer is rarely popular, and reform is a dangerous work among a people so hasty and headstrong as the Jews. But Christ’s teaching was not for the Jews only; he was preparing to spread abroad amongst mankind a knowledge of the One Supreme, when, falling a victim to priestly wiles, the Prophet of Nazareth suffered an ignominious death. But he had given an impetus to the progress of mankind by systematizing a religion of the highest moral loveliness, showing what an imperfect race can and may become; and by the labour of a devoted life he had instituted a college of successors who after him might preach the glad tidings to all the nations of the earth.
The Prophet of Nazareth had declared his mission to be for the purpose of establishing and confirming the Law of Moses. As it first appeared, Christianity was rather strong in the weakness around it than strong in its own strength. It was a system for anchorites and ascetics. The reformed faith abounded also in a matter usually consigned in the East to bards and mystics; namely, principles of almost superhuman beauty often couched in highly poetical language, principles not the creation of one mind, but the current coinage of philanthropy from time immemorial. Islam all over the East has left its principles as a heritage to poets, and right well have they performed their duty to mankind. From the literature of the Hindus and Persians, the Egyptians and the Arabs, it would be easy to collect a code of morality and a law of benevolence as pure and amiable as ever entered the heart of man. The whole practice of the Sufi consists in seeking the Divinity, not as the “popular prudential and mercenary devotee,” but from fervency of love to God and man. He “proclaims the invisible truth above the visible comfort”; his entire resignation can face the horrors of eternal death inflicted by divine Will; “he has something higher even than everlasting gain.”
Eventually, however, this almost supernatural morality, incorporated with a creed to the detriment of its practical tendency; this substitution of love for justice, of mercy for retribution, of forgiveness for punishment; this purely spiritual system, that first neglected all the most necessary material details of ablution, dietetics, and even formulæ and positions of prayer, could never endure in the sensuous and passionate populations of the East. From its further hold upon the instincts, the affections, and the prepossessions of the Jews, this reformation had neither extension nor continuance. The Ceremonial Law of Moses, adapted to an idle and unoccupied race in a temperate climate and a land of plenty with its operose and time-wasting system of prayer and purification, of festivals and processions, was it is true at first not abolished but confirmed. But a simple and far more catholic system was required for the wants of the universe. Amongst the inspired followers of the Founder of Christianity one was found capable of executing the task. With a daring hand Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, rent asunder the tie connecting Christianity with Judaism. His efforts were crowned with success. He offered to the great family of man a Church with a Deity at its head and a religion peculiarly of principles. He left the moral code of Christianity untouched in its loveliness. But he abolished the civil and criminal law of Moses. And he boldly did away with the long-cherished customs and the ordinances of food and diet which in olden times were used as the means of segregating the Israelites from the races around them. Circumcision was no longer necessary, although his divine Master had submitted to the rite; the distinction between beings pure and impure, one of the strongholds of Judaism, was broken down; and finally, as neophytes began to multiply, the Gentile was raised to the level of the Jew.
The last step taken by the stern Apostle suggests the possibility of his having determined to disconnect totally the reformed religion with Judæa. A Roman himself, and therefore well acquainted with that ruling race, and convinced of their physical and psychical superiority over the Asiatic family, he courted conveyance to Rome, and there energetically carried on the work of propagandism. He died a martyr; but not in vain was his blood shed. From the grain of faith implanted by him in the little dungeon below the Capitol sprang a goodly tree, under whose comfortable shade half the civilized world have found repose. In process of time the offshoots spread amongst the noble barbarians of the North, then beginning to occupy the stage of the world. Christianity, which in Judæa and confined to the East would have been the faith of a few hermits and visionaries, acquired in Europe a depth and fervency of popular belief which shortly overthrew all opposition. It is not wonderful that in this course of events the Christian distinguishes the finger of God!
When the master-minds had vanished from the scene, their successors in the East introduced other and less defensible changes. Christianity in the East was surrounded by the impurest of influences. Its latitude of belief and absence of ceremonial allowed it to be worked upon by the theurgic incarnations of the Buddhists, the demiurgic theories of the Eastern and Western Gnostics, the Triad of the Brahmans, the Dualism of the Persians, the Pharisaic doctrine of the first Son of the Supreme—Osiris in a new shape—together with the metaphysics of the Ebionites, the Speculatists, and other sects of Grecian or rather of Egyptian origin. From the Straits of Hercules to the coast of Coromandel, it was split up into a legion of heresies and schisms. Syria and Arabia seem to have been the grand central focus. The Church was distracted by the frowardness of her children, and the Religion of Love was dishonoured by malice and hate, persecution and bloodshed.
Still the reformed religion throve—and what tenets do not?—under the influence of a moderate persecution. When, however, under the rule of Constantine, the sun of prosperity poured its splendours full upon the favoured faith, an ascetic enthusiasm, gloomy ideas of seclusion, celibacy, and self-immolation, and a censure on wealth and industry pronounced by religious hallucination, in fact the poisonous portions of the Essene School, spread subtilely through the whole body of Christianity. Everywhere in the East these practices require to be suppressed, not to be encouraged. Where the face of Nature is gay and riant, to impressionize mankind gloom and horror in the World of Spirit are contrasted with the glory and the brilliancy of the scenes of sense. This is the stronghold of the Demonolatry and Witchcraft of the Fetissist, the abominable paganisms of the Hindu, the superstitious follies of the Guebre, and the terrible Sabaism of the ancient Mexican. All are perfectly suitable to the genius of the people, to the climate, and to the scenery around them.
Thus in Syria and Egypt Christianity became degraded. It sank into a species of idolatry. The acme of absurdity was attained by the Stylites, who conceived that mankind had no nobler end than to live and die upon the capital of a column. Thus nations were weakened. Self-mortification and religious penances soon degenerate a race, especially in hot climates, where a moderate indulgence in the comforts, the luxuries, and the pleasures of life strengthens the body and with it the mind of man. The founders of Christianity had neglected to insist upon daily prayer at stated times, and ceremonial cleanliness, which is next to godliness. They forgot those dietetic directions and prescriptions so necessary in the East, and allowed the use of inebrients, together with impure and unwholesome meats as pork and rabbit’s flesh. Man’s physique suffered from their improvidence. Thus, whilst Christianity increased in numbers and powers, some once populous and flourishing countries—Egypt for instance—declined, and fell to the lowest depths of degradation. It is the race of man that exalts the faith in proportion to man’s moral and material excellence. The faith fails, on the other hand, to raise a degraded race. The Armenians and Abyssinians have derived little from the specific virtues of Christianity. Inferior in mind and body to the Turks and Arabs, they have degenerated into a semi-idolatry at once ridiculous and contemptible. With respect to moral conduct, a modern traveller (Curzon, Armenia) has had the courage openly to state that in Turkey not one-tenth part of the crime exists which is annually committed in Christendom. Sectarians are fond of citing in favour of their Reformation the superiority of the Protestant over the Catholic cantons of Switzerland. They forget that the former belong to the hardy and industrious nations of the North, and that the latter are in climate and population indolent Southrons.
To return eastward. About the sixth century of its era the Christian world called loudly for reform. When things were at their worst, Muhammad first appeared upon the stage of life. It is here proposed to touch briefly upon the points wherein due measure of justice has not yet been dealt by philosophic and learned Europe to the merits and value of El Islam. The Western nations were so long taught to look upon the forcible propagandism of Muhammad as a creed personally hostile to them, they were so deeply offended by the intolerant Deism and Monotheism of the scheme, and finally so rancoured by their fierce wars and deadly collisions with the Muslim, that certain false views have long been, and still continue to be, part or rather essence of the subject. And though in this our modern day a wiser and more catholic spirit of inquiry and judgment has not been deterred from manifesting itself, still even in the writings of those who pride themselves most upon candour and freedom from prejudice not a little of the bad old leaven offends the taste. Men do not now, it is true, fear the imputation of “turning Turk”[216]—an expression since become common, and coupled by old writers (Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy) with “betraying father, prince, and country, forsaking religion, and abjuring God.” Nor does there survive in Europe the former rancorous hate for the founder and creed, for the apostles and followers of El Islam. Still, it is to be repeated the Saving Faith has not yet been allowed to assume its proper rank and position amongst the religions of the world. And the moderns rather busy themselves in philosophizing over and in detecting flaws and falsehood rather than in seeking out the truth, the merits, and the beauties of a religion which for thirteen centuries has been the light and “life guidance” of one-fifth of mankind (Carlyle, Hero Worship).
These four are briefly the most popular errors of the present day upon the subject of El Islam: