Part 3 (1/2)
It was only natural that the new masters adopted, with certain modifications, the administrative and fiscal systems of the conquered countries. For similar reasons Islam had to complete its spiritual store from the well-ordered wealth of that of its new adherents. Recent research shows most clearly, that Islam, in after times so sharply opposed to other religions and so strongly armed against foreign influence, in the first century borrowed freely and simply from the ”People of Scripture” whatever was not evidently in contradiction to the Qoran. This was to be expected; had not Mohammed from the very beginning referred to the ”people of the Book” as ”those who know”? When painful experience induced him afterwards to accuse them of corruption of their Scriptures, this att.i.tude necessitated a certain criticism but not rejection of their tradition.
The ritual, only provisionally regulated and continually liable to change according to prophetic inspiration in Mohammed's lifetime, required unalterable rules after his death. Recent studies[1] have shown in an astounding way, that the Jewish ritual, together with the religious rites of the Christians, strongly influenced the definite shape given to that of Islam, while indirect influence of the Parsi religion is at least probable.
[Footnote 1: The studies of Professors C.H. Becker, E. Mittwoch, and A.J. Wensinck, especially taken in connection with older ones of Ignaz Goldziher, have thrown much light upon this subject.]
So much for the rites of public wors.h.i.+p and the ritual purity they require.
The method of fasting seems to follow the Jewish model, whereas the period of obligatory fasting depends on the Christian usage.
Mohammed's fragmentary and unsystematic accounts of sacred history were freely drawn from Jewish and Christian sources and covered the whole period from the creation of the world until the first centuries of the Christian era. Of course, features shocking to the Moslim mind were dropped and the whole adapted to the monotonous conception of the Qoran. With ever greater boldness the story of Mohammed's own life was exalted to the sphere of the supernatural; here the Gospel served as example. Though Mohammed had repeatedly declared himself to be an ordinary man chosen by Allah as the organ of His revelation, and whose only miracle was the Qoran, posterity ascribed to him a whole series of wonders, evidently invented in emulation of the wonders of Christ. The reason for this seems to have been the idea that none of the older prophets, not even Jesus, of whom the Qoran tells the greatest wonders, could have worked a miracle without Mohammed, the Seal of the prophets, having rivalled or surpa.s.sed him in this respect.
Only Jesus was the Messiah; but this t.i.tle did not exceed in value different t.i.tles of other prophets, and Mohammed's special epithets were of a higher order. A relative sinlessness Mohammed shared with Jesus; the acceptance of this doctrine, contradictory to the original spirit of the Qoran, had moreover a dogmatic motive: it was considered indispensable to raise the text of the Qoran above all suspicion of corruption, which suspicion would not be excluded if the organ of the Revelation were fallible.
This period of naively adopting inst.i.tutions, doctrines, and traditions was soon followed by an awakening to the consciousness that Islam could not well absorb any more of such foreign elements without endangering its independent character. Then a sorting began; and the a.s.similation of the vast amount of borrowed matter, that had already become an integral part of Islam, was completed by submitting the whole to a peculiar treatment. It was carefully divested of all marks of origin and labelled _hadith_,[1]
so that henceforth it was regarded as emanations from the wisdom of the Arabian Prophet, for which his followers owed no thanks to foreigners.
[Footnote 1: _Hadith_, the Arabic word for record, story, has a.s.sumed the technical meaning of ”tradition” concerning the words and deeds of Mohammed. It is used as well in the sense of a single record of this sort as in that of the whole body of sacred traditions.]
At first, it was only at Medina that some pious people occupied themselves with registering, putting in order, and systematizing the spiritual property of Islam; afterwards similar circles were formed in other centres, such as Mecca, Kufa, Basra, Misr (Cairo), and elsewhere. At the outset the collection of divine sayings, the Qoran, was the only guide, the only source of decisive decrees, the only touchstone of what was true or false, allowed or forbidden. Reluctantly, but decidedly at last, it was conceded that the foundations laid by Mohammed for the life of his community were by no means all to be found in the Holy Book; rather, that Mohammed's revelations without his explanation and practice would have remained an enigma. It was understood now that the rules and laws of Islam were founded on G.o.d's word and on the Sunnah, _i.e._, the ”way” pointed out by the Prophet's word and example. Thus it had been from the moment that Allah had caused His light to s.h.i.+ne over Arabia, and thus it must remain, if human error was not to corrupt Islam.
At the moment when this conservative instinct began to a.s.sert itself among the spiritual leaders, so much foreign matter had already been incorporated into Islam, that the theory of the sufficiency of Qoran and Sunnah could not have been maintained without the labelling operation which we have alluded to. So it was a.s.sumed that as surely as Mohammed must have surpa.s.sed his predecessors in perfection and in wonders, so surely must all the principles and precepts necessary for his community have been formulated by him. Thus, by a gigantic web of fiction, he became after his death the organ of opinions, ideas, and interests, whose lawfulness was recognized by every influential section of the Faithful. All that could not be identified as part of the Prophet's Sunnah, received no recognition; on the other hand, all that was accepted had, somehow, to be incorporated into the Sunnah.
It became a fundamental dogma of Islam, that the Sunnah was the indispensable completion of the Qoran, and that both together formed the source of Mohammedan law and doctrine; so much so that every party a.s.sumed the name of ”People of the Sunnah” to express its pretension to orthodoxy.
The _contents_ of the Sunnah, however, was the subject of a great deal of controversy; so that it came to be considered necessary to make the Prophet p.r.o.nounce his authoritative judgment on this difference of opinion. He was said to have called it a proof of G.o.d's special mercy, that within reasonable limits difference of opinion was allowed in his community. Of that privilege Mohammedans have always amply availed themselves.
When the difference touched on political questions, especially on the succession of the Prophet in the government of the community, schism was the inevitable consequence. Thus arose the party strifes of the first century, which led to the establishment of the sects of the s.h.i.+'ites and the Kharijites, separate communities, severed from the great whole, that led their own lives, and therefore followed paths different from those of the majority in matters of doctrine and law as well as in politics. The sharpness of the political ant.i.thesis served to accentuate the importance of the other differences in such cases and to debar their acceptance as the legal consequence of the difference of opinion that G.o.d's mercy allowed.
That the political factor was indeed the great motive of separation, is clearly shown in our own day, now that one Mohammedan state after the other sees its political independence disappearing and efforts are being made from all sides to re-establish the unity of the Mohammedan world by stimulating the feeling of religious brotherhood. Among the most cultivated Moslims of different countries an earnest endeavour is gaining ground to admit s.h.i.+'ites, Kharijites, and others, formerly abused as heretics, into the great community, now threatened by common foes, and to regard their special tenets in the same way as the differences existing between the four law schools: Hanafites, Malikites, Shafi'ites and Hanbalites, which for centuries have been considered equally orthodox.
Although the differences that divide these schools at first caused great excitement and gave rise to violent discussions, the strong catholic instinct of Islam always knew how to prevent schism. Each new generation either found the golden mean between the extremes which had divided the preceding one, or it recognized the right of both opinions.
Though the dogmatic differences were not necessarily so dangerous to unity as were political ones, yet they were more apt to cause schism than discussions about the law. It was essential to put an end to dissension concerning the theological roots of the whole system of Islam. Mohammed had never expressed any truth in dogmatic form; all systematic thinking was foreign to his nature. It was again the non-Arabic Moslims, especially those of Christian origin, who suggested such doctrinal questions. At first they met with a vehement opposition that condemned all dogmatic discussion as a novelty of the Devil. In the long run, however, the contest of the conservatives against specially objectionable features of the dogmatists'
discussions forced them to borrow arms from the dogmatic a.r.s.enal. Hence a method with a peculiar terminology came in vogue, to which even the boldest imagination could not ascribe any connection with the Sunnah of Mohammed.
Yet some traditions ventured to put prophetic warnings on Mohammed's lips against dogmatic innovations that were sure to arise, and to make him p.r.o.nounce the names of a couple of future sects. But no one dared to make the Prophet preach an orthodox system of dogmatics resulting from the controversies of several centuries, all the terms of which were foreign to the Arabic speech of Mohammed's time.
Indeed, all the subjects which had given rise to dogmatic controversy in the Christian Church, except some too specifically Christian, were discussed by the _mutakallims_, the dogmatists of Islam. Free will or predestination; G.o.d omnipotent, or first of all just and holy; G.o.d's word created by Him, or sharing His eternity; G.o.d one in this sense, that His being admitted of no plurality of qualities, or possessed of qualities, which in all eternity are inherent in His being; in the world to come only bliss and doom, or also an intermediate state for the neutral. We might continue the enumeration and always show to the Christian church-historian or theologian old acquaintances in Moslim garb. That is why Maracci and Reland could understand Jews and Christians yielding to the temptation of joining Islam, and that also explains why Catholic and Protestant dogmatists could accuse each other of Crypto-mohammedanism.
Not until the beginning of the tenth century A.D. did the orthodox Mohammedan dogma begin to emerge from the clash of opinions into its definite shape. The Mu'tazilites had advocated man's free will; had given prominence to justice and holiness in their conception of G.o.d, had denied distinct qualities in G.o.d and the eternity of G.o.d's Word; had accepted a place for the neutral between Paradise and h.e.l.l; and for some time the favour of the powers in authority seemed to a.s.sure the victory of their system. Al-Ash'ari contradicted all these points, and his system has in the end been adopted by the great majority. The Mu'tazilite doctrines for a long time still enthralled many minds, but they ended by taking refuge in the political heresy of s.h.i.+'itism. In the most conservative circles, opponents to all speculation were never wanting; but they were obliged unconsciously to make large concessions to systematic thought; for in the Moslim world as elsewhere religious belief without dogma had become as impossible as breathing is without air.
Thus, in Islam, a whole system, which could not even pretend to draw its authority from the Sunnah, had come to be accepted. It was not difficult to justify this deviation from the orthodox abhorrence against novelties.
Islam has always looked at the world in a pessimistic way, a view expressed in numberless prophetic sayings. The world is bad and will become worse and worse. Religion and morality will have to wage an ever more hopeless war against unbelief, against heresy and unG.o.dly ways of living. While this is surely no reason for entering into any compromise with doctrines which depart but a hair's breadth from Qoran and Sunnah, it necessitates methods of defence against heresy as unknown in Mohammed's time as heresy itself.
”Necessity knows no law” is a principle fully accepted in Islam; and heresy is an enemy of the faith that can only be defeated with dialectic weapons.
So the religious truths preached by Mohammed have not been altered in any way; but under the stress of necessity they have been clad in modern armour, which has somewhat changed their aspect.
Moreover, Islam has a theory, which alone is sufficient to justify the whole later development of doctrine as well as of law. This theory, whose importance for the system can hardly be overestimated, and which, nevertheless, has until very recent times constantly been overlooked by Western students of Islam, finds its cla.s.sical expression in the following words, put into the mouth of Mohammed: ”My community will never agree in an error.” In terms more familiar to us, this means that the Mohammedan Church taken as a whole is infallible; that all the decisions on matters practical or theoretical, on which it is agreed, are binding upon its members.
Nowhere else is the catholic instinct of Islam more clearly expressed.
A faithful Mohammedan student, after having struggled through a handbook of law, may be vexed by a doubt as to whether these endless casuistic precepts have been rightly deduced from the Qoran and the Sacred Tradition. His doubt, however, will at once be silenced, if he bears in mind that Allah speaks more plainly to him by this infallible Agreement (_Ijma'_) of the Community than through Qoran and Tradition; nay, that the contents of both those sacred sources, without this perfect intermediary, would be to a great extent unintelligible to him. Even the differences between the schools of law may be based on this theory of the Ijma'; for, does not the infallible Agreement of the Community teach us that a certain diversity of opinion is a merciful gift of G.o.d? It was through the Agreement that dogmatic speculations as well as minute discussions about points of law became legitimate. The stamp of Ijma' was essential to every rule of faith and life, to all manners and customs.
All sorts of religious ideas and practices, which could not possibly be deduced from Mohammed's message, entered the Moslim world by the permission of Ijma'. Here we need think only of mysticism and of the cult of saints.