Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE

CHRISTIAN REVIEW.

No. CXII. APRIL, 1863.

THE MOHAMMEDAN SYSTEM IN ITS RELIGIOUS ASPECTS AND TENDENCY.

[BY REV. G. W. SAMSON, D. D., PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIAN COLLEGE, D. C.]

IN the Christian Review for October, 1854, an article appeared upon "The Moral Character and Influence of Mohammedanism,”* and in that of October, 1862, there is presented by another pen, "The Metaphysical Tendencies of the Mohammedan Mind." The present paper may be a fitting supplement to those two articles.

The impression made by vital Christianity upon intelligent Mohammedans, in quite recent days, as exhibited in the reports of Protestant Missionaries in Asia and Africa, is

*It should be borne in mind, as explanatory of the different modes of spelling the name of the Arabian prophet, that the Arabic language, like the Hebrew, has no vowels. In different portions of the vast region and many peoples who have received the Koran, the vowel pronunciations are very different; and still more different are those supplied by European writers. The first syllable is always and every where made a half or very short vowel, and the second is an a sound, more or less sharp.

Vol. xxviii.-11.

calculated to awaken a deep interest in the study of a system of religious faith that so readily meets and so highly appreciates the religion of Christ, which for twelve centuries has battled against its haughty and corrupt semblance. This fact, so interesting not only in the survey of modern Christian benevolence, but also of the progress of religious truth among all nations, may perhaps be in a measure elucidated, if not accounted for, by a cursory glance at the relig ious history of the professed prophet himself, who gained such a sway over millions of the best Asiatic minds; by a brief survey of the contents of the volumes of his professed revelations making up the Koran; by a concise digest of his doctrines as they specially relate to the Christian system; and finally by a passing reference to the theories in philosophy, morals, and civil polity, which truly able minds in India, Persia, and Arabia have engrafted upon the Mohammedan faith.

Among those who have treated on the Life of Mohammed, Bush and Irving are best known in this country. The work of the former appeared many years ago in the Family Library series published by the Harpers; that of the latter was published among the very last of its lamented author's works, about ten years since. Neither of these professes to be an analytical or philosophical treatise; that of Bush is a compilation from former authorities, attempting merely a connection in narratives; while that of Irving is made up of material gathered by him to a considerable degree from Moorish legends found in the South of Spain, the Memoir, as a whole, having this great fault, that Oriental fable is so intertwined in the web of true history, that no one but a scholar can separate the true from the fictitious. The Book of Mohammed, the Koran, is generally accessible to English readers through the translation of Sale, an English gentleman who lived a century and a half ago. This translation is in perspicuous English. His long preliminary discourse, and his ample foot-notes presenting the opinions of Mohammedan commentators, show him to have been a comprehensive student; while the manifest effort to present the unvarnished truth of the system of Mo

hammed, and to bring out its just relation to Christianity, make the Christian reader feel that he must have been a useful member, in his early day, of the British "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," and that he must also be a safe and instructive guide to the modern Christian scholar. The most thorough, though brief, analysis of the religious system of Mohammed is probably that of Hugo Grotius, who hav ing spent all the vigorous years of his manhood, from twentyone, in studying the moral and religious authorities received in the world, in order that he might digest therefrom his work which became the gem of the science of International Law, crowned his great life by devoting the ripe fruit of his old age to the religious duty of analyzing and comparing the different religious beliefs that have prevailed among mankind. This great work, given to the world two centuries ago, is still left unsuperseded by all subsequent labors in the department of the Defence of the Christian Faith; and his clear insight into the spirit of the Mohammedan system, though somewhat modified by the results of modern Christian enterprise, is still invaluable to the student in that department of history. The most instructive specimen of the results of philosophic investigation in minds reared under Mohammedan trammels, accessible to English readers, is perhaps "The Akhlak e' Jalaly ed Din,” a system of metaphysical and moral philosophy, by a Persian dervish, written some four or five centuries ago; a work translated by an English scholar into English and reviewed in the Christian Review, as above noticed, about eight years since. The facts as to the workings of the Mohammedan mind, meeting as it now does the genuine spirit of Christianity, both in the letters of the New Testament and in the lives of its true followers, may be gathered from the constantly appearing statements of American Missionaries now laboring in portions of Asia and Africa, where Mohammedans are met.

About the year 583 after our era, when professed vicars of Jesus Christ had for about eighty years been recognized as temporal sovereigns at Rome, and when for two centuries Christian sovereigns had been seated on the throne of the

Greco-Roman Empire of the East at Constantinople, an Arab boy of twelve years came to Jerusalem. His visit, when looked back upon in later times, was one naturally calculated to recall the contrast presented by a similar visit 571 years previous, by another boy of twelve years. The former was the child of wealthy parents; and he came upon a lordly camel over the Eastern Desert, accompanying from curiosity a caravan trading to Jerusalem and the seaports of Syria. The latter was the son of an humble carpenter, and he came either on foot or upon an humble donkey to pay his early religious vows with his pious mother. The former traced with pride his lineage from Abraham through the renowned chieftain, Ishmael, "The-heard-of-God," whose descendants had always been a warlike and boastful race; while the other was from the same great ancestor, through the plain shepherd Isaac, "The-laughed-at," whose descendants had been always a by-word and a his singamong the nations of Western Asia. The former had shown natural gifts which gave promise of great intellectual superiority, and his intelligent and earnest spirit awoke the interest and called forth the prophecies of devout Christian teachers. The latter had not learned letters, yet his questions and answers astonished the doctors of the Mosaic Law, and aroused wonderful presages and hopes in the breasts of those that heard him. The one was Jesus, the true teacher come from God, who came to bear witness to the truth, and whose voice every man coming into the world and loving the truth, obeys. The other was Mohammed, the false prophet, whose hold on the minds of his own countrymen and on other people of Western Asia, has been the pride of military glory and national pomp; to last as long as these have in other men and nations held sway. The one was the Sun of Righteousness, arising with healing in his beams, and shining with a steady and perfect, though sometimes clouded, light. The other was like the crescent chosen as his emblem, dependent and only reflecting the central luminary's light; sickly often in its rays; never constant enough to be a guide; having its time to wax indeed, but also its time to wane.

The boy Mohammed had heard of the religion of Christ in

his own land of Arabia. It is interesting to observe, that the chosen apostle, raised up to carry the gospel to the most cultured branches of the European or Caucasian family of mankind, and who before the philosophers of Athens and at the Court of the Cæsars, was the divine instrument in commending its doctrines to theoretical Greeks and practical RomansPaul, the great apostle to the Gentiles--devoted the first three. years of his young missionary ardor to the Arabians, whose chief northern city was then Damascus. Whether Providence ordered it because this branch of the Semitic family was to prove a leading one in intellectual advancement, or because the natural reaction of his entire transformation in all his old views made the converted Saul turn as a first love to the people who from the day when Ishmael mocked Isaac had been the most alienated from the Jewish people and from any religious advances coming from that family, it was for some reason the appointment of Divine Providence, that Ishmael should, among the other Gentile nations, first by the mouth of this great apostle, hear of the riches of Christ. What impression this labor of Saul of Tarsus, and the visits of other Christian preachers of that day, made, we are without the means of knowing. Certain it is that before the days of Constantine, through the faithful Missionary labors of the Armenians on their borders, who were among the first, as an entire people, to be converted to Christianity; and yet more through the Nestorians living in their own mountains, Christianity had gained numerous adherents, in both Persia and Arabia, where now Mohammedanism has its chief seat. We learn, farther, from Eusebius and other early church historians, that the efforts of Constantine to extend the spread of the adopted religion of the Roman Empire into those two countries on the borders of its Eastern dependencies, awakened suspicion and led to opposition and a temporary reaction in the legitimate influence of Christian truth. After that period, and some time before Mohammed's birth, the bitter controversies which rent the Christian church, had spread even into the seclusion of Arabia itself, and with however much zeal a formal and polemic Christianity was adhered to and advocated by many

« PreviousContinue »