Part 8 (1/2)
III.
LOW POSITION OF ISLAM IN THE SCALE OF CIVILIZATION.
[Sidenote: Social and intellectual depression.]
I pa.s.s on to consider why Mohammedan nations occupy so low a position, halting as almost every-where they do, in the march of social and intellectual development.
[Sidenote: Islam intended for the Arabs.
Wants the faculty of adaptation.]
The reason is not far to find. Islam was meant for Arabia, not for the world; for the Arabs of the seventh century, not for the Arabs of all time; and being such, and nothing more, its claim of divine origin renders change or development impossible. It has within itself neither the germ of natural growth nor the lively spring of adaptation. Mohammed declared himself a prophet to the Arabs;[71] and however much in his later days he may have contemplated the reformation of other religions beyond the Peninsula, or the further spread of his own (which is doubtful), still the rites and ceremonies, the customs and the laws enjoined upon his people, were suitable (if suitable at all) for the Arabs of that day, and in many respects for them alone. Again, the code containing these injunctions, social and ceremonial, as well as doctrinal and didactic, is embodied with every particularity of detail, as part of the divine law, in the Koran; and so defying, as sacrilege, all human touch, it stands unalterable forever. From the stiff and rigid shroud in which it is thus swathed the religion of Mohammed cannot emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves to the varying circ.u.mstances, the wants and developments, of mankind.
[Sidenote: Local ceremonies: pilgrimage.
Fast of Ramzan.]
We may judge of the local and inflexible character of the faith from one or two of its ceremonies. To perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount Arafat, with the slaying of victims at Mina, and the wors.h.i.+p of the Kaaba, is an ordinance obligatory (with the condition only that they have the means) on all believers, who are bound to make the journey even from the furthest ends of the earth--an ordinance intelligible enough in a local wors.h.i.+p, but unmeaning and impracticable when required of a world-wide religion. The same may be said of the fast of Ramzan. It is prescribed in the Koran to be observed by all with undeviating strictness during the whole day, from earliest dawn till sunset throughout the month, with specified exemptions for the sick and penalties for every occasion on which it is broken. The command, imposed thus with an iron rule on male and female, young and old, operates with excessive inequality in different seasons, lands, and climates. However suitable to countries near the equator, where the variations of day and night are immaterial, the fast becomes intolerable to those who are far removed either toward the north or the south; and still closer to the poles, where night merges into day and day into night, impracticable.
Again, with the lunar year (itself an inst.i.tution divinely imposed), the month of Ramzan travels in the third of a century from month to month over the whole cycle of a year. The fast was established at a time when Ramzan fell in winter, and the change of season was probably not foreseen by the Prophet. But the result is one which, under some conditions of time and place, involves the greatest hards.h.i.+p. For when the fast comes round to summer the trial in a sultry climate, like that of the burning Indian plains, of pa.s.sing the whole day without a morsel of bread or a drop of water becomes to many the occasion of intense suffering. Such is the effect of the Arabian legislator's attempt at circ.u.mstantial legislation in matters of religious ceremonial.
[Sidenote: Political and social depression owing to relations between the s.e.xes.]
Nearly the same is the case with all the religions obligations of Islam, prayer, l.u.s.tration, etc. But although the minuteness of detail with which these are enjoined tends toward that jejune and formal wors.h.i.+p which we witness every-where in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in these observances themselves which (religion apart) should lower the social condition of Mohammedan populations and prevent their emerging from that normal state of semi-barbarism and uncivilized depression in which we find all Moslem peoples. For the cause of this we must look elsewhere; and it may be recognized, without doubt, in the relations established by the Koran between the s.e.xes. Polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage, and the veil are at the root of Moslem decadence.
[Sidenote: Depression of the female s.e.x.
Divorce.]
In respect of married life the condition allotted by the Koran to woman is that of an inferior dependent creature, destined only for the service of her master, liable to be cast adrift without the a.s.signment of a single reason or the notice of a single hour. While the husband possesses the power of a divorce--absolute, immediate, unquestioned--no privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced she can, indeed, claim her dower--her _hire_, as it is called in the too plain language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical husband. Authority to _confine_ and to _beat_ his wives is distinctly vested in his discretion.[72] ”Thus restrained, secluded, degraded, the mere minister of enjoyment, liable at the caprice or pa.s.sion of the moment to be turned adrift, it would be hard to say that the position of a wife was improved by the code of Mohammed.”[73] Even if the privilege of divorce and marital tyranny be not exercised, the knowledge of its existence as a potential right must tend to abate the self-respect, and in like degree to weaken the influence of the s.e.x, impairing thus the ameliorating and civilizing power which she was meant to exercise upon mankind. And the evil has been stereotyped by the Koran for all time.
[Sidenote: Princ.i.p.al Fairbairn on home-life under Islam.]
I must quote one more pa.s.sage from Princ.i.p.al Fairbairn on the lowering influence of Moslem domestic life:
The G.o.d of Mohammed ... ”spares the sins the Arab loves. A religion that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood is to be sacred if manhood is to be honorable. Spoil the wife of sanct.i.ty and for the man the sanct.i.ties of life have perished. And so it has been with Islam. It has reformed and lifted savage tribes; it has depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of man, then his state were hopeless; before him could only be retrogression, tyranny, and despair.”[74]
[Sidenote: Demoralizing influence of servile concubinage.]
Still worse is the influence of servile concubinage. The following is the evidence of a shrewd and able observer in the East:
All zenana life must be bad for men at all stages of their existence.... In youth it must be ruin to be petted and spoiled by a company of submissive slave-girls. In manhood it is no less an evil that when a man enters into private life his affections should be put up to auction among foolish, fond compet.i.tors full of mutual jealousies and slanders. We are not left entirely to conjecture as to the effect of female influence on home-life when it is exerted under these unenlightened and demoralizing conditions. That is plainly an element _lying at the root of all the most important features that differentiate progress from stagnation_.[75]
[Sidenote: Deteriorating influence of relations established between the s.e.xes.]
Such are the inst.i.tutions which gnaw at the root of Islam and prevent the growth of freedom and civilization. ”By these the unity of the household is fatally broken and the purity and virtue of the family tie weakened; the vigor of the dominant cla.s.ses is sapped; the body politic becomes weak and languid, excepting for intrigues, and the throne itself liable to fall a prey to a doubtful or contested succession”[76]--contested by the progeny of the various rivals crowded into the royal harem. From the palace downward polygamy and servile concubinage lower the moral tone, loosen the ties of domestic life, and hopelessly depress the people.
[Sidenote: The veil.]
Nor is the veil, albeit under the circ.u.mstances a necessary precaution, less detrimental, though in a different way, to the interests of Moslem society. This strange custom owes its origin to the Prophet's jealous temperament. It is forbidden in the Koran for women to appear unveiled before any member of the other s.e.x with the exception of certain near relatives of specified propinquity.[77] And this law, coupled with other restrictions of the kind, has led to the imposition of the _boorka_ or _purdah_ (the dress which conceals the person and the veil) and to the greater or less seclusion of the harem and zenana.
[Sidenote: Society vitiated by the withdrawal of the female s.e.x.
Mohammedan society, thus truncated, incapable of progress.
The defects of Mohammedan society.]
This ordinance and the practices flowing from it must survive, more or less, so long as the Koran remains the rule of faith. It may appear at first sight a mere negative evil, a social custom comparatively harmless; but in truth it has a more debilitating effect upon the Moslem race perhaps than any thing else, for by it _woman is totally withdrawn from her proper place in the social circle_. She may, indeed, in the comparatively laxer license of some lands be seen flitting along the streets or driving in her carriage; but even so it is like one belonging to another world, veiled, shrouded, and cut off from intercourse with those around her. Free only in the retirement of her own secluded apartments, she is altogether shut out from her legitimate sphere in the duties and enjoyments of life. But the blight on the s.e.x itself from this unnatural regulation, sad as it is, must be regarded as a minor evil. The mischief extends beyond her. The tone and framework of society as it came from the Maker's hands are altered, damaged, and deteriorated. From the veil there flows this double injury. The bright, refining, softening influence of woman is withdrawn from the outer world, and social life, wanting the gracious influences of the female s.e.x, becomes, as we see throughout Moslem lands, forced, hard, unnatural, and morose. Moreover, the Mohammedan nations, for all purposes of common elevation and for all efforts of philanthropy and liberty, are (as they live in public and beyond the inner recesses of their homes) but a truncated and imperfect exhibition of humanity. They are wanting in one of its const.i.tuent parts, the better half, the humanizing and the softening element. And it would be against the nature of things to suppose that the body, thus shorn and mutilated, can possess in itself the virtue and power of progress, reform, and elevation. The link connecting the family with social and public life is detached, and so neither is _en rapport_, as it should be, with the other. Reforms fail to find entrance into the family or to penetrate the domestic soil where alone they could take root, grow into the national mind, live, and be perpetuated. Under such conditions the seeds of civilization refuse to germinate. No real growth is possible in free and useful inst.i.tutions, nor any permanent and healthy force in those great movements which elsewhere tend to uplift the ma.s.ses and elevate mankind.
There may, it is true, be some advance, from time to time, in science and in material prosperity; but the social groundwork for the same is wanting, and the people surely relapse into the semi-barbarism forced upon them by an ordinance which is opposed to the best instincts of humanity. Sustained progress becomes impossible. Such is the outcome of an attempt to improve upon nature and banish woman, the help-meet of man, from the position a.s.signed by G.o.d to her in the world.
[Sidenote: Yet the veil necessary under existing circ.u.mstances.]
At the same time I am not prepared to say that in view of the laxity of the conjugal relations inherent in the inst.i.tutions of Islam some such social check as that of the veil (apart from the power to confine and castigate) is not needed for the repression of license and the maintenance of outward decency. There is too much reason to apprehend that free social intercourse might otherwise be dangerous to morality under the code of Mohammed, and with the example before men and women of the early worthies of Islam. So long as the sentiments and habits of the Moslem world remain as they are some remedial or preventive measure of the kind seems indispensable. But the peculiarity of the Mussulman polity, as we have seen, is such that the s.e.xual laws and inst.i.tutions which call for restrictions of the kind as founded on the Koran are incapable of change; they must co-exist with the faith itself, and last while it lasts. So long, then, as this polity prevails the depression of woman, as well as her exclusion from the social circle, must injure the health and vitality of the body politic, impair its purity and grace, paralyze vigor, r.e.t.a.r.d progress in the direction of freedom, philanthropy, and moral elevation, and generally perpetuate the normal state of Mohammedan peoples, as one of semi-barbarism.
To recapitulate, we have seen:
[Sidenote: Recapitulation.]