TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

THE various religions current in the world tend more or less to satisfy the insatiable craving of man for superhuman revelations, promising direction in this world and beatitude in the next. Not the least of these religions is Islâm, whose professors are counted by millions in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The life of Muhammad, although described by several, it may be said numerous, European authors, will never cease to be interesting; unfortunately, however, no attempts have been made by them to represent the founder of Islâm in the light in which the adherents of that religion look upon him. This point has generally been over­looked, and a life of the prophet, from the Moslem point of view, has to this day remained a desideratum. The partial and inimical view taken by some European authors is not calculated to promote either good feeling or a better acquaintance with the character of Muhammad; it must, however, be admitted that even Christian missionaries, who are generally biased against him, sometimes give utterance to sentiments which will not displease Moslems. Thus, for instance, the Rev. J. P. Hughes, missionary to the Afghans, says*: ‘We give Muhammad credit as a warrior, as a legislator, as a poet, as a man of uncommon genius, raising himself amidst great opposition to a pinnacle of renown; we admit that he is, without doubt, one of the greatest heroes the world has ever seen!’ This is the bright side of Mr. Hughes’s picture, but it will be best to withhold its foil, because it would serve no good purpose, and only stir up ill feeling.

Muhammad was honoured by the Moslems,* and is now; but there were two prominent periods in his checkered career; one in which he was disbelieved, and the other in which he was venerated and powerful. The former period is alluded to by himself as follows: ‘And the unbelievers say: This [Qurân] is no other than a forgery which he hath contrived, and other people have assisted him therein: but they utter an unjust thing and a falsehood. They also say: [These are] fables of the ancients which he hath caused to be written down; and they are dictated unto him morning and evening.’* And: ‘We also know that they say: Verily a [certain] man teacheth him [to com­pose the Qurân]. The tongue [of the person] unto whom they incline is a foreign [tongue]; but this [wherein the Qurân is written] is the perspicuous Arabic tongue.’* Ebn Esahâq observes* that the prophet often conversed with a Christian slave of the Bani-al-Hadhrama whose name was Jabru, and that the people said: ‘By Allah! nobody but Jabru teaches Muhammad a great deal of what he is pro­mulging,’ and that on this account the above verse was revealed. Passages from the Qurân may be adduced to show that Muhammad was by the Arabs, who afterwards became his devoted followers, at first considered to be not only a poet,* possessed with a devil,* but a sorcerer,* and even a madman.*

As the power of Muhammad increased, opposition diminished; the more so as a general fermentation and craving for a revolution in the idolatry of Arabia, which was effete, had begun to manifest itself, and the gods were losing the honours enjoyed by them when Muhammad appeared as a reformer, and responded to the signs of the times by promulgating monotheism. The fabric of poly­theism in Arabia, unsupported by a powerful sacerdotal class, or a hoary literature with doctrines firmly settled, and permeating the whole life of the people, as in ancient Assyria, Egypt, China or India, easily crumbled to pieces under the incessant blows of the word and the sword of Muhammad. He was the embodiment of a noble idea—of the impulse to emancipate the Arabs from the thraldom of idolatry; he lived for it only; he struggled for it until it became a practical and a triumphant fact, the basis on which conquests were made and empires founded. Grand exploits cannot be achieved in white kid gloves, and severity became often necessary to check opposition, which, if it had been allowed to go on, might have endangered not only the plans and aims, but the very life of the prophet, who had patiently and dexterously overcome ridicule, scepticism and insults. Resistance could no longer be endured after he had attained power, and ‘O’mar’s sword was readily unsheathed to punish such sceptical temerity, and Muhammad himself frequently visited it in the early part of his Madinah career with assassination, and on the conquest of Mekkah with open execution.’* The dreadful punishment to which Muhammad subjected a number of the Baghila tribe by gradually cutting off their limbs is alluded to even in the Qurân, as follows: ‘But the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His apostle, and study to act corruptly in the earth [shall be] that they shall be slain, or crucified, or have their hands and feet cut off on opposite [sides] and banished the land.’* On another occasion Muhammad ordered the tongue of A’bbâs Bin Merdâs to be cut out for lampooning him in verses.* These are indeed cruelties, according to the opinions prevalent in our times of modern civilization, but we possess no accurate knowledge of the causes which had provoked them, and which, perhaps, made them more excusable than we are disposed to allow. These blemishes disappear when the great results of the leading doctrines of Islâm are taken into consideration, which have answered to the deepest religious wants of the Arabs, and satisfied them more fully than, not only the polytheism, but also the corrupt Christianity which those doctrines displaced.

It is a mistaken opinion that Islâm has no vitality or power of expansion, and although some Europeans may entertain it, Lord Lytton, a former Viceroy of India, did not. He believed not only in the past, but augured well also for the future of Islâm. In his reply to the address presented to him on the 8th January, 1877, when he laid the foundation-stone of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental college at Aligurh, he said, among other things: ‘I con­gratulate you on the vigour with which you are putting your shoulders to the wheel. Only give to this institution the means of adequately satisfying the requirements of the modern system of education, and you will thereby have given it also a just and recognised claim to such assistance as it may from time to time be in the power of Government to extend to voluntary efforts on behalf of such education. This I promise you, and I promise it the more willingly, because the whole tone of your address assures me that my promise, instead of inducing you to relax the efforts you are now making, will encourage your perseverance in the prosecution and extension of them. You have observed in the course of that address, that by the Muhammadan race its religion is regarded “not merely as a matter of abstract belief, but also as the ultimate guide in the most secular concerns of life.” Gentlemen, I conceive this to be the true spirit of all sincere religious belief; for the guidance of human conduct in relation to all the duties of life is the professed object of every religion, whatever the name, and whatever the form of it. But, I am sure, you will be the last to admit that anything in the creed of Islâm is incompatible with the highest forms of intellectual culture. The greatest and most enduring conquests of the Muhammadan races have all been achieved in the fields of science, literature and art. Not only have they given to a great portion of this continent an architecture which is still the wonder and admiration of the world, but, in an age when the Christian societies of Europe had barely emerged out of intellectual darkness and social barbarism, they covered the whole Iberian peninsula with schools of medicine, of mathematics and philosophy far in advance of all contemporary science; and to this day the popula­tions of Spain and Portugal are for their very sustenance mainly dependent on the past labours of Moorish engineers. But Providence has not confided to any single race a per­manent initiative in the direction of human thought, or the development of social life. The modern culture of the West is now in a position to repay the great debt owed by it to the early wisdom of the East. It is to the activity of Western ideas, and the application of Western science, that we must look for the social and political progress of the Indian Empire; and it is in the absorption of these ideas, and the mastery of that science, that I exhort the Muham­madans of India to seek and find new fields of conquest, and fresh opportunities for the achievements of a noble ambition.’ Since the time of Lord Lytton Muhammadan education has made considerable progress in India.

The manner in which the first chapter of the Qurân was revealed to the prophet must have shocked his whole nature, because, if we are to believe the following state­ment, he was so disheartened after he had received the revelation that he intended to commit suicide. Ebn Esahâq, in Tabari, p. 91, has, from Wahb Bin Qaisân, a client of the Zobair family, a statement that this Wahb said: ‘A’bdullah Bin Zobair requested O’baid* Bin O’mair Bin Qotâda to narrate to him the beginning of the revela­tion. He complied with the wish, and I with others listened to his narrative, which was as follows:’

‘The prophet was accustomed every year to spend some time at Hira in holy exercises. This is one of the localities in which the Qoraish were accustomed to perform the Tahannoth, which means to sanctify one’s self. Abu Ttâleb says: “I swear by Thawr, and by Him who has put Mount Thabir into its place, and by one who ascends to and again descends from Mount Hira for sanctification.”’

‘The prophet annually spent a month there, and fed the poor who came to him. When he returned after the expira­tion of a month, he went seven times round the Ka’bah ere he returned home. When the month approached in which Allah had determined to manifest His miracles to him, i.e., the Ramazân of the year in which he obtained his mission, he went, according to custom, with his family to Hira. During the night in which Allah glorified him and took pity on mankind, Jebrâil came to him.’ Muhammad narrates the rest in the following words: ‘He came to me while I slept, and brought a cloth of brocade, in which was a book, and said: Read! I replied: I do not read. Then he pressed me till I believed I was undone. At last he let me go, and said again: Read! I replied: I do not read. He again pressed me till I believed I was undone. He let go his hold, and said: Read! I answered: What shall I read? I gave this reply merely to escape, for fear he would again treat me as before. He said: Read! In the name of thy Lord, who hath created [all things]; who hath created man of congealed blood. Read by the most beneficent Lord, who taught the use of the pen, who teacheth man that which he knoweth not, etc.* Then he finished and left me. I awoke from sleep, and felt as if a book [a covenant] had been written in my heart. I hated nothing more in the whole creation than poets and men possessed of Jinns. I could not bear the sight of them. Therefore I said to Khodaijah: He of whom such a thing would not have been believed is either a poet or governed by a Jinn. He meant his own self. Tell it by no means to the Qoraish. I am going to the top of a mountain to leap down from it. I shall commit suicide to find rest; to carry out this intention* I went as far as the middle of the moun­tain, but then I heard a voice from heaven which called: O Muhammad, thou art the ambassador of Allah, and I am Jebrâil! I turned my eyes heavenwards, and per­ceived Jebrâil in human form. His feet were on the horizon, and he called out: O Muhammad, thou art the ambassador of Allah, and I am Jebrâil! I stopped and looked at him. This kept me back from my intention—I went neither forward nor backward. Then I looked round the whole horizon, and wherever I looked I saw him always in the same form. I remained standing quietly, without going forward or backward, till Khodaijah sent people to search for me. They went as far as Mekkah, and returned to Hira, and I was standing all the time there. At last the angel disappeared, and I returned to my family. I sat down on the lap of Khodaijah and hugged her. She said: O Ab-ul-Qâsim, where hast thou been? I have sent out men to look for thee, and they have been in Mekkah but have not found thee. I said to her: He of whom it would not be believed is a poet, or possessed by Jinns. She said: Allah is my protection, O Ab-ul-Qâsim. Allah will never allow such a thing to happen to thee, for thou speakest the truth, observest fidelity, hast good morals, and livest well with thy relatives. What makest thee think so? Hast thou per­haps seen something? I answered: Yes! I narrated to her what I had seen. She said: Be glad, my beloved husband; be of good cheer. He in whose hand the life of Khodaijah is, is witness that thou wilt be the prophet of this nation. Then she got up, dressed herself, and went to her cousin Waraqah. This Waraqah had become a convert to Christianity, had read the Bible, and had listened to Jews and Christians. She related to him what her husband had seen and heard, and Waraqah exclaimed: Qoddus! Qoddus! [holy! holy!] if that be true what thou tellest me, then the greatest Nâmûs* has come to him, which had come to Mûsa [Moses], and he will be a prophet of this nation. Announce to him this, and tell him to be steadfast. Khodaijah returned to the prophet, and repeated what Waraqah had said. This partly appeased his excitement. When the time which he was wont to spend in Hira had expired, he returned to Mekkah and walked round the Ka’bah according to his custom, when he met Waraqah. At his request he informed him of what he had heard and seen, and Waraqah said: I swear by Him in whose hand the life of Waraqah is, that Allah has elevated thee to be the prophet of this nation, and the greatest Nâmûs has come to thee—the Nâmûs which had formerly come to Mûsa. They will call thee a liar, they will persecute thee, they will expel thee, and they will fight against thee. Would that I were able to live until that day, I would aid thee. Then he kissed him on the forehead. The prophet went home, and the assertion of Waraqah was a great consolation, and diminished his anxiety.*

There was a time when Muhammad seriously thought of coming to a compromise with his antagonists the idolaters, and to retain some of their gods, as will appear from the following verses of the fifty-third chapter of the Qurân, as it is alleged to have been originally revealed:

1. [I swear] By the Pleiades as they are setting;

2. Your countryman has neither strayed, nor is he con­fused.

3. And he speaks not according to his whims:

4. What he speaks is no other than a revelation which is being revealed to him:

5. Hereof he who is fitted out with great power has informed him.

18. He has already seen the greatest miracle of his Lord.

19. Do you see Lât and O’zza,

20. And Manah, the third other [goddess]?

21. These are exalted Gharâniq,*

22. And indeed their intercession may be expected.

56. What favour of thy Lord wilt thou yet doubt of? [i.e., Why doubtest thou that Allah in His bounty has appointed tutelary deities as His intercessors?]

57. This one [i.e., Muhammad] is an admonisher as the previous admonishers were.

58. What is approaching [i.e., the judgment day] has approached; besides Allah there is nothing which might retard it.

59. Are ye astonished at this news?

60. And do you laugh instead of weep?

61. And do you joke?

62. Now fall down on your faces before Allah, and worship Him!

The arrangement of these verses is fully supported by the following text, which, moreover, occurs in the original in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1850, No. 2.* Ebn Esahâq, in Tabari, p. 140, from Yazid Bin Ziâd Madani, from Muhammad Bin Ka’b Qorazi, who died A.H. 120 (A.D. 738), says:

‘When the prophet saw that his people turned away from him, he was so pained that he turned away from the revelation which he brought them from Allah. He enter­tained a wish that Allah might send him a revelation which would effect a reconciliation between him and his people. As he loved his people, and wished to gain them over, he was anxious that his position towards them should be less painful. Whilst he was animated by such thoughts, wishes and hopes, Allah revealed to him the chapter [LIII.]: “By the Pleiades as they are setting; your country­man has neither gone astray, nor is he confused.” And when he came to the words, “Do you see Lât and O’zza and Manah, the third deity,” the devil placed words on his tongue corresponding to what he had con­sidered and wished within himself: “These exalted Gharâniq, indeed their intercession may be expected.” When the Qoraish heard this they were glad, and pleased that he had so honourably mentioned their gods, and they listened to him. The Moslems accepted the revelation which their prophet had promulged to them without suspecting that he had erred, and when he came to the [last] verse of the chapter, in which it is said “Prostrate yourselves,” and when he had completed the chapter, he threw himself on the ground, and the orthodox followed his example, in order thereby to express that they believed in the revelation he had just announced, and that they fol­lowed him. Also the pagans among the Qoraish, as well as others who were present, prostrated themselves, because he had mentioned their gods in this [honourable] manner. There was neither a believer nor a heathen in the temple but prostrated himself, except Walid Bin Moghira. As he was an old man, he took up a handful of dust and bowed his forehead to it. The people went home, and the Qoraish rejoiced that he had mentioned their gods, and said: “Muhammad has mentioned our gods in the most honourable manner; in what he recited, he said they were the exalted Gharâniq, and that their intercession is profitable.” It became known to the emigrants in Abyssinia that the Mekkans had prostrated themselves, and it was also said that they had been converted. Some of them left Abyssinia, and others remained. Meanwhile, Jebrâil came to the prophet, and said to him: “What hast thou done, Muhammad? Thou hast recited something to the people which I have not brought thee from Allah.” The prophet was much distressed at this event, and feared that Allah would punish him. Then Allah sent him a revela­tion* in which He is very merciful, facilitates the matter, and consoles him with the assurance that there was no prophet before him to whom, when he entertained similar wishes, the devil had not suggested similar words in conformity with his wish. Allah abrogated the verses inspired by the devil, and confirmed the genuine ones. In this manner He liberated him from his sorrow and fear. Instead of the words “These exalted Gharâniq, indeed their intercession may be expected,” Allah placed the words: “How? Shall you have sons and Allah daughters? This would be an unequal arrangement. How many angels are there in heaven, and their intercession neverthe­less avails nothing, except when Allah permits it.” Whereby He means to say: How can the intercession of your idols be accepted? When the Qoraish heard that Allah had abrogated the words of the devil, they said: “Muhammad has repented of having given his opinion concerning the position of our gods with Allah. He has changed his mind, and has put other words in their places.” The two words which the devil had suggested were in the mouths of all the pagans; they made the evils still worse, and increased the persecutions to which his adherents were exposed. The orthodox, who had left Abyssinia, came as far as the environs of Mekkah, on the mere rumour that the Qoraish had prostrated themselves with Muhammad. But when they had there learnt how the matter stood, they ventured only secretly, and under the protection of a friend, into the town, etc.’

Ebn Esahâq, the earliest biographer of the prophet,* gives no detailed accounts of any of his miracles, but later authors record numbers of them, and the heading of the last article of the present work is: ‘Some of the miracles and [the fulfilment of some] prayers of his lordship.’ The attribution of miracles to the prophet is not warranted by the Qurân, as all must be fully aware who have studied it. In that book, however, the advent of Muhammad, under the name of Ahmed,* is stated to have been predicted by the Lord Jesus, and the Moslems have an authority on this point which they amplify. Thus Ebn Esahâq wrote: ‘I am informed that the description of the prophet of Allah— u. w. b., etc.—which I’sa, the son of Mariam, had received from Allah and has revealed to the evangelists, was promulged by the apostle Yohannisu when he composed the gospel for them in the times of I’sa concerning the prophet of Allah—u. w. b., etc.—that he [I’sa] said: “Who hates me, verily hates the Lord; and had I not worked miracles in their presence, which no one worked before me, no guilt would be upon them. But henceforth they exult, and think they honour me and also the Lord. But it is necessary that the word be fulfilled, which is in the Nâmûs [the law], that they have hated me gratuitously, i.e., in vain, because verily the Manhamannâ is coming; it is he whom Allah will send to you from the Lord, and this is the spirit of righteousness which issues from the Lord, and he will bear testimony concerning me, and you also, because ye were formerly with me, that ye may not doubt.” But the Manhamannâ is the Syriac for Muhammad, and Baraqlitos the Greek.’*

The word ‘Paraclete’ occurs in John xvi. 7, and is appealed to by Moslem controversialists as denoting their prophet, who is said to be alluded to also in Isaiah xxi. 6, 7, where the rider on the ass is explained to be Jesus, and on the camel Muhammad,* and the passage stands according to their interpretation as follows: ‘Arise, O watchman, and look what is to be seen. I said: I behold two of them riding; the one rides on an ass, the other on a camel;’ but translations in European languages of that Hebrew passage are somewhat different. Arab Christians, of course, deny that the Moslem prophet is meant in these verses, but they believe that he is designated by the name of ‘foolish shepherd’ in Zechariah xi. 15, 16.

It is easy to point out verses in the Qurân in which our Scriptures are alluded to as necessary to be followed.* Christians are enjoined to observe the law and the gospel,* and their food is allowed to Moslems, who may also con­tract marriages with Christians.* From the following verse it appears that Muhammadans ought to be friends with Christians; there are, however, also others of a con­trary purport: ‘Dispute not against those who have received the Scriptures [i.e., Christians] unless in the mildest way, except against the wicked among them, and say, We believe in the revelation which hath been sent down unto you; our God and your God is one, and unto Him we are resigned.’* From the above passages it is evident that those Muhammadans of India who, ‘whilst they will eat food cooked by idolatrous Hindus, refuse to touch that cooked by either native or European Christians,’* are acting contrary to the precepts of the Qurân in these, as well as in various other matters, such as not to allow Christians to draw water from their public wells, etc.

The Qurân is, perhaps, the only book in the world which has, during more than a thousand years, been so carefully guarded that no changes whatever could creep into it,* although the order of the chapters is at present not that in which they were gradually revealed during the space of twenty-three years; it has been discussed by Suyuti in his I’tqân as well as by other writers; but Rodwell has published his translation of the Qurân according to that original chronological order. As the catechisms of the Christian, so also those of the Muhammadan sects embody in a brief, comprehensive way the tenets they profess to believe; hence the following extract from a catechism published in Constantinople will be of some interest:

‘I believe in the books which have been delivered from heaven to the prophets. In this manner was the Qurân given to Muhammad, the Pentateuch to Moses, the Psalter to David, and the Gospel to Jesus. I believe in the prophets and the miracles which they have performed. Adam was the first prophet, and Muhammad was the last. I believe that for the space of fifty thousand years the righteous shall repose under the shadow of the terrestrial paradise; and the wicked shall be exposed naked to the burning rays of the sun. I believe in the bridge Sirat, which passes over the bottomless pit of hell. It is as fine as a hair, and as sharp as a sabre. All must pass over it, and the wicked shall be thrown off. I believe in the water-pools of paradise. Each of the prophets has in paradise a basin for his own use; the water is whiter than milk, and sweeter than honey. On the ridges of the pools are vessels to drink out of, and they are bordered with stars. I believe in heaven and hell. The inhabitants of the former know no want, and the Huris who attend them are never afflicted with sickness. The floor of paradise is musk, the stones are silver, and the cement gold. The damned are, on the contrary, tormented with fire, and by various and poisonous animals.’

E. REHATSEK.