§ 65. The Counter-Mission of the Mohammedans.188Abu Al’ Kasem Mohammed from Mecca made his appearance as a prophet inA.D.611, and founded a mixed religion of arid Monotheism and sensual Endæmonism drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Arabian paganism. His work first gained importance when driven from Mecca he fled to Medina (Hejira, 15th July,A.D.622). InA.D.630 he conquered Mecca, consecrated the old Heathen Kaaba as the chief temple of the new religion, Islam (hence Moslems), and composed the Coran, consisting of 114 suras, which had been collected by his father-in-law, Abu Bekr. At his death all Arabia had accepted his faith and his rule. As he made it the most sacred duty of his adherents to spread the new religion by the sword and had inspired them with a wild fanaticism, his successors snatched one province after another from the Roman empire and the Christian church. Within a few years,A.D.633-651, they conquered all Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Persia, then, inA.D.707, North Africa, and, inA.D.711, Spain. Farther, however, they could not go for the present. Twice they unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople,A.D.669-676, andA.D.717-718, and, inA.D.732, Charles Martel at Tours completely crushed all their hopes of extending further into the West. But the whole Asiatic church was already reduced by their oppressions to the most miserable condition, and three patriarchates, those of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, were forced to submit to their caprices. Amid manifold oppressions the Christians in those conquered lands were tolerated on the payment of a tax, but fear and an eye to worldly advantages led whole crowds of nominal Christians to profess Islam.
Abu Al’ Kasem Mohammed from Mecca made his appearance as a prophet inA.D.611, and founded a mixed religion of arid Monotheism and sensual Endæmonism drawn from Judaism, Christianity and Arabian paganism. His work first gained importance when driven from Mecca he fled to Medina (Hejira, 15th July,A.D.622). InA.D.630 he conquered Mecca, consecrated the old Heathen Kaaba as the chief temple of the new religion, Islam (hence Moslems), and composed the Coran, consisting of 114 suras, which had been collected by his father-in-law, Abu Bekr. At his death all Arabia had accepted his faith and his rule. As he made it the most sacred duty of his adherents to spread the new religion by the sword and had inspired them with a wild fanaticism, his successors snatched one province after another from the Roman empire and the Christian church. Within a few years,A.D.633-651, they conquered all Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Persia, then, inA.D.707, North Africa, and, inA.D.711, Spain. Farther, however, they could not go for the present. Twice they unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople,A.D.669-676, andA.D.717-718, and, inA.D.732, Charles Martel at Tours completely crushed all their hopes of extending further into the West. But the whole Asiatic church was already reduced by their oppressions to the most miserable condition, and three patriarchates, those of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, were forced to submit to their caprices. Amid manifold oppressions the Christians in those conquered lands were tolerated on the payment of a tax, but fear and an eye to worldly advantages led whole crowds of nominal Christians to profess Islam.
§ 65.1.The Fundamental Principle of Islamis an arid Monotheism. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are regarded as God-sent prophets. The miraculous birth of Jesus, by a virgin, is also accepted, and Mary is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses. The ascension of Christ is also received. Mohammed, the last and highest of all the prophets, of whom Moses and Christ prophesied, has restored to its original purity his doctrine, which had been corrupted by Jews and Christians. At the end of the days Christ will come again to conquer Antichrist and give universal sovereignty to Islam. Most conspicuous among the corruptions of the doctrine of Jesus is the dogma of the Trinity, which is without more ado pronounced Tritheism, and conceived of as including the mother of Jesus as the third person. So too the incarnation of God is regarded as a falsification. The doctrine of divine providence is strongly emphasized, but is contorted into the grossest fatalism. The Mussulman is in need of no atonement. Faith in the one God and His prophet Mohammed secure for him the divine favour, and his good works win for him the most abundant fulness of eternal blessedness, which consists in absolutely unrestricted sensual enjoyments. The constitution is theocratic; the prophet and his successors the Khalifs are God’s vicegerents on earth. Worship is restricted to prayers, fastings and washings. The Sunna or tradition of oral utterances of the prophet is acknowledged as a second principal source for Islam, alongside of the Coran. The opposition of the Shiites to the Sunnites is rooted in the non-recognition of the first three Khalifs and the prophet’s utterances only witnessed to by them. Mysticism was first fostered among the Ssufis. The Wechabites, who first appear in the 12th century, are the Puritans of Islam.§ 65.2.The Providential Place of Islam.—The service under Providence rendered by Mohammedanism which first attracts attention is the doom which it executed upon the debased church and state of the East. But it seems also to have had a positive task which must be sought mainly in its relation to heathenism. It regarded the abolition of idolatry as its principal task. Neither the prophet nor his successors gave any toleration to paganism. Islam converted a mass of savage races in Asia and Africa from the most senseless and immoral idolatries to the worship of the one God, and raised them to a certain stage of culture and morality to which they could never have risen of themselves. But also upon yet another side, though only in a passing way, it has served a providential purpose, in spurring on mediæval Christianity by its example of devotion to scientific pursuits. Syncretic, as its religious and intellectual life originally was, during its flourishing period fromA.D.750, under the brilliant dynasty of the Abassidean Khalifs at Bagdad in Asia, and fromA.D.756 (comp. §81) under the no less brilliant dynasty of the Ommaiadean Khalifs at Cordova in Spain, driven out by the Abassidæ from Damascus, it readily appropriated the elements of culture which the classical literature of the ancient Greeks afforded it (§42, 4), and with youthful enthusiasm its scholars for centuries on this foundation kept alive and advanced scientific studies—philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, natural science, medicine, geography, history—and by their appropriation of those researches the Latin Middle Ages reached to the height of their scientific culture (§ 103, 1). But also the reawakening of classical studies in the Byzantine Middle Ages (§68, 1), which is of still more importance for the West (§ 120, 1), is preeminently due to the impetus given by the scientific enthusiasm of the Moslems of Bagdad, who shamed the Greeks into the study of their own literature.With the overthrow of those two dynasties, the culture period of the Moslems closed suddenly and for ever, but not until it had accomplished its task for the Christian world.189
§ 65.1.The Fundamental Principle of Islamis an arid Monotheism. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are regarded as God-sent prophets. The miraculous birth of Jesus, by a virgin, is also accepted, and Mary is identified with Miriam the sister of Moses. The ascension of Christ is also received. Mohammed, the last and highest of all the prophets, of whom Moses and Christ prophesied, has restored to its original purity his doctrine, which had been corrupted by Jews and Christians. At the end of the days Christ will come again to conquer Antichrist and give universal sovereignty to Islam. Most conspicuous among the corruptions of the doctrine of Jesus is the dogma of the Trinity, which is without more ado pronounced Tritheism, and conceived of as including the mother of Jesus as the third person. So too the incarnation of God is regarded as a falsification. The doctrine of divine providence is strongly emphasized, but is contorted into the grossest fatalism. The Mussulman is in need of no atonement. Faith in the one God and His prophet Mohammed secure for him the divine favour, and his good works win for him the most abundant fulness of eternal blessedness, which consists in absolutely unrestricted sensual enjoyments. The constitution is theocratic; the prophet and his successors the Khalifs are God’s vicegerents on earth. Worship is restricted to prayers, fastings and washings. The Sunna or tradition of oral utterances of the prophet is acknowledged as a second principal source for Islam, alongside of the Coran. The opposition of the Shiites to the Sunnites is rooted in the non-recognition of the first three Khalifs and the prophet’s utterances only witnessed to by them. Mysticism was first fostered among the Ssufis. The Wechabites, who first appear in the 12th century, are the Puritans of Islam.
§ 65.2.The Providential Place of Islam.—The service under Providence rendered by Mohammedanism which first attracts attention is the doom which it executed upon the debased church and state of the East. But it seems also to have had a positive task which must be sought mainly in its relation to heathenism. It regarded the abolition of idolatry as its principal task. Neither the prophet nor his successors gave any toleration to paganism. Islam converted a mass of savage races in Asia and Africa from the most senseless and immoral idolatries to the worship of the one God, and raised them to a certain stage of culture and morality to which they could never have risen of themselves. But also upon yet another side, though only in a passing way, it has served a providential purpose, in spurring on mediæval Christianity by its example of devotion to scientific pursuits. Syncretic, as its religious and intellectual life originally was, during its flourishing period fromA.D.750, under the brilliant dynasty of the Abassidean Khalifs at Bagdad in Asia, and fromA.D.756 (comp. §81) under the no less brilliant dynasty of the Ommaiadean Khalifs at Cordova in Spain, driven out by the Abassidæ from Damascus, it readily appropriated the elements of culture which the classical literature of the ancient Greeks afforded it (§42, 4), and with youthful enthusiasm its scholars for centuries on this foundation kept alive and advanced scientific studies—philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, natural science, medicine, geography, history—and by their appropriation of those researches the Latin Middle Ages reached to the height of their scientific culture (§ 103, 1). But also the reawakening of classical studies in the Byzantine Middle Ages (§68, 1), which is of still more importance for the West (§ 120, 1), is preeminently due to the impetus given by the scientific enthusiasm of the Moslems of Bagdad, who shamed the Greeks into the study of their own literature.With the overthrow of those two dynasties, the culture period of the Moslems closed suddenly and for ever, but not until it had accomplished its task for the Christian world.189