The Future of Islam

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Nor must we suppose that any part of this dissatisfaction is attributable as yet to a decay of faith, such as we now witness among ourselves. Islam as yet shows hardly a taint of infidelity. The Mussulman of the present day, whatever his rank in life, believes with as absolute a faith as did the Christian of the period just referred to. With the exception of here and there a false convert or, as a very rare case, an Europeanized infidel of the modern type, there is no such thing as a Mohammedan sceptic, that is to say, a Moslem who does not believe in the divine mission of Mohammed. He may neglect every duty of his profession, be guilty of every crime, have broken every law—he may be the worst and the most depraved of men—or, on the other hand, he may have adopted the language and to a certain extent the tone of thought of Europe, and, a thing far more rare, he may be even a scoffer and blasphemer;—still I do not imagine that in his heart he any the less firmly believes that the Koran is the book of truth, or that at the day of judgment he shall be found with those who have escaped Jehannem through their professed acknowledgment of God and of His apostle.

I have heard strange stories in corroboration of this from persons whom I could not doubt, and about persons whom all the world knew. Thus, one who was with Fuad Pasha, the most European of Ottoman diplomatists, in his last days at Nice, assures me that his whole time was spent in a recitation of the Koran, learning it by heart. Another, who was called the Voltaire of Islam, performed his prayers and prostrations with scrupulous regularity whenever he found himself in private; and a third, equally notorious as a sceptic, died of religious mania. All, too, who have mingled much with Mussulmans, must have been struck with the profound resignation with which even thoughtless and irreligious men bear the ills of life, and the fortitude with which they usually meet their end—with the large proportion that they see of men who habitually pray and fast, and who on occasion, at great risk and sacrifice, make the pilgrimage, and with the general absence of profanity, and the fact that an avowal of religion is never proffered apologetically as with us, nor met in any society with derision. These things are, perhaps, not in themselves evidence of belief, for hypocrites have everywhere their reward, but the fact even of hypocrisy proves the general spirit to be one of avowed belief.

The truly devout are doubtless rare, but where we find them it is evident that their belief pervades their lives in as strict a sense as it does devout persons among ourselves. It would probably be difficult to point out in Europe men who in the world—I do not speak of ecclesiastics or persons in religious orders—lead more transparently religious lives than do the pious Moslems of the better class whom one may find in almost any oriental town, or men who more closely follow the ideal which their creed sets before them. To doubt the sincerity and even, in a certain sense, the sanctity of such persons, would be to doubt all religion. In any case it is notorious that the faith of Mecca is still the living belief of a vast number of the human race, the rule of their lives, and the explanation to them of their whole existence. There is no sign as yet that it has ceased to be a living faith.

Neither in considering its future is it easy for a candid English mind to escape the admission that, for all purposes of argument, the Mohammedan creed must be treated as no vain superstition but a true religion, true inasmuch as it is a form of the worship of that one true God in whom Europe, in spite of her modern reason, still believes. As such it is entitled to whatever credit we may give true religions of prolonged vitality; and while admitting the eternal truth of Christianity for ourselves, we may be tempted to believe that in the Arabian mind, if in no other, Islam too will prove eternal.

In its simplest form Islam was but an emphatic renewal of the immemorial creed of the Semites, and as long as a pure Semitic race is left in the world, the revelation of Mecca may be expected to remain a necessary link in their tradition. No modern arguments of science are ever likely to affect the belief of Arabia that God has at sundry times and in sundry places spoken to man by the mouth of his prophets; and among these prophets Mohammed will always be the most conspicuous because the most distinctly national. Also the law of Islam—I am not speaking merely of the Sheriat as we now see it—will always remain their law because it is the codification of their custom, and its political organization their political organization because it is founded on a practice coeval with their history.

Lastly, Semitic thought is a strong leaven which everywhere pervades the minds of nations, aliens though they be, who have once admitted it; and it will not easily be cast out. We have seen in Europe, even in England, a land never brought physically into contact with Arabia, how long Arabian thought, filtered as it was through France and Spain to our shores, has dominated our ideas. Chivalry, a notion purely Bedouin, is hardly yet extinct among us. Romance, the offspring of pre-Islamic Arabia, is still a common motive of our action, and our poets express it still, to the neglect of classic models, in the rhymed verse of Yemen. The mass of our people still pray to the God of Abraham, and turn eastwards towards that land which is Arabia's half-sister, the Holy Land of the Jews.

If then we, who are mere aliens, find it impossible to escape this subtle influence, what must it be for those races wholly or half Arabian who have for centuries been impregnated with Islam, the quintessence of Arabian thought? Who shall fix the term of its power, and say that it cannot renew itself and live? "Send forth," says a famous English writer, who was also a famous English statesman, "a great thought, as you have done before, from Mount Sinai, from the villages of Galilee, from the deserts of Arabia, and you may again remodel all men's institutions, change their principles of action, and breathe a new spirit into the scope of their existence."

But I must not lose myself in generalities or forget that it is for practical Englishmen that I am writing. To be precise, I see two ways in which it is probable that Islam will attempt to renew her spiritual life, and two distinct lines of thought which according to external circumstances she may be expected to follow—the first a violent and hardly a permanent one, the second the true solution of her destiny.

Among the popular beliefs of Islam—and it is one common to every sect, Shiite and Abadite, as well as Sunite—is this one, that in the latter days of the world, when the power of God's worshippers shall have grown weak and their faith corrupted, a leader shall arise who shall restore the fortunes of the true believers. He shall begin by purging the earth of injustice, fighting against oppressors wherever he shall find them, Mohammedan as well as Infidel, and he shall teach the people a perfect law which they shall have forgotten, and he shall reign over Islam in place of their Khalifeh, being called the Móhdy, or guide. To this some add that he will arise of a sudden in some distant corner of the earth, and that he will march towards Mecca, and that everywhere the blood of Moslems shall be shed like water, and that he shall enter Mecca when the streets shall run with blood. In support of this coming of the Móhdy many traditions exist which are held to be authentic by the Ulema. Thus it is related on the authority of Abdallah ibn Messaoud that he heard the Prophet say, "When there shall remain but one day of the days of the earth, God shall prolong that day, and shall send forth from my house a man bearing my name and the name of my father (Mohammed ibn Abdallah), and he shall purify the earth from injustice and fill it with that which is right." The same was heard also by Ali Ibn Abu Taleb, the Prophet's son-in-law, and by Hadhifat Ibn el Yaman, who relates that this prophecy was delivered by Mohammed one Friday at the Khotbah, or sermon, in Medina. Salman el Faris, another witness, declares that he afterwards approached the Prophet and stood before him and asked him, "From which of thy descendants, O Apostle of God, shall the Móhdy be?" And the Prophet answered, stretching his hand towards his grandson Huseyn, "From this child shall he come."

Besides this general belief, which, though not a positive dogma of their faith, is common to all Mussulmans, the Shiites, always prone to exaggerate and embellish, maintain that the Móhdy's duty is not limited to teaching, guiding, and purifying the law, but also that he shall revenge the blood unjustly shed of the Imams; and they cite in support of this a tradition of Ali ibn Abu Taleb, who thus addressed his son, Huseyn, the same who was afterwards martyred at Kerbela, "I swear to thee, O my son," he said, "I swear by my soul, and by my offspring, and by Kerbela, and by its temple, that the day shall come in which our beards shall be dyed with blood. And I swear that afterwards God shall raise up a man, the Móhdy, who shall stand in our place, the lord of mankind. He it is who shall avenge us, nay, he shall avenge thy blood also, O Huseyn. Therefore have patience. For the blood of one man he shall shed the blood of a thousand; and he will not spare them who have helped our enemies."