Islam under the khalifs of Baghdad

Preface

" Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad " is a continuation of the work I published in the spring of last year, entitled " Islam under the Arabs." It constitutes the second in a series of three, the last of which will be devoted to a history of " Islam in India." The series, as a whole, may be regarded as an attempt to discover the veritable character of Islam, by an investigation of its actual results in the countries dominated by its influence. I little thought, when I resolved to undertake this long and difficult task, that I should publish the results of my labours at a time when the character of Islam was the subject of such passionate debate as it is at present. In one way this may be of advantage to my book. It may have the effect of obtaining for it a greater degree of attention than it otherwise would. But from another and more important point of view, it is distinctly disadvantageous. For the moment, my subject — a question of historical fact — is almost certain to be decided by the impulses of mere sentiment ; and it is well nigh inevitable that by one party at least I should be denounced

IV PREFACE.

as illiberal, prejudiced, and partial. I would therefore ask my readers to understand that the conclusions set forth in this book — be they right or wrong — have been in no way influenced by the " Bulgarian massacres," or Russo-Turkish war. They were formed and committed to writing many years ago ; they are the result of a long residence in India, and of many years' study of Moslem history and literature.

But this question of the veritable character of Islam has been rendered needlessly obscure and difficult by another cause on which I should like to speak more at length. It has been mixed up with another question, which, in point of fact, has nothing to do with it. I mean the character of Muhammad.

The character of Muhammad is, of course, a problem of great interest and no small difficulty. It has been approached by different writers from different standpoints ; and different theories have, in consequence, been started to account for it. In all these theories there are, probably, certain elements of truth; and none, we may be certain, which are not defective and insufficient. But the inner character of the Prophet has nothing to do with the practical consequences of Islam ; and this for a very simple reason. Throughout the Moslem world his words and his acts constitute the standard of morality. The servant of Islam never thinks and never has thought of attempting to penetrate behind the recorded act or speech to the motive which might have inspired it.

PREFACE. V

In all the acts and speeches of the Prophet, the Faithful see but one and the same impelling spirit. Whatever Muhammad did, he did under Divine guidance. The Koran is not his composition, but the direct utterances of the Deity. The sayings of the Prophet handed down by tradition are not the sayings of a man, but Divine decrees recorded on " the Everlasting Table ' before man and the world were called into existence. And so also with the acts of Muhammad. Whatever were his motives, none can deny that he had • mauy wives, that he massacred the men of a Jewish tribe in cold blood, that he traded in slaves, that he had recourse to the secret dagger to rid himself of dangerous opponents. These acts, in the belief of the Moslem world, are in perfect harmony with the Prophetic character, and were wrought with the Divine sanction. In estimating the results of Islam, this belief, with the distorted morality resulting from it, is the important fact to bear in mind ; the motives which impelled Muhammad are indifferent.

In much that has been written on Islam, this distinction has been disregarded ; and writers who think highly of Muhammad appear to regard themselves as bound in logic and in honour to think highly of his religion also. But the broad fact which has to be accounted for, is the general decadence of the Muhammadan world. To whichever quarter we look — to Northern Africa, to Egypt, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, Persia, or the Khanates of Central Asia — the same spectacle of decay and increasing decrepitude confronts us. There is no soundness in it, but wounds

VI PKEFACE.

and bruises and putrefying sores ; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. It cannot be urged that Islam is not responsible for this state of things, on the ground that Islam is merely a religion, and not a system of government ; Islam is both. Neither can it be urged, in defence of Islam, that this or that country has enjoyed transient periods of greatness and prosperity, notwithstanding its dominating presence. The very fact that these periods have left no lasting memorials behind them, in the shape of improved laws or civic freedom, furnishes the strongest proof that reform and growth are utterly alien to the enduring spirit of Islam. We are, in consequence, compelled to inquire if it be not in the scheme of life propounded by Muhammad that we must look for the reason of this melancholy sterility.

What, then, was Muhammad's explanation of his own teaching ? It was briefly this — that the Archangel Gabriel came down from heaven, and revealed the Koran to him in the exact words in which he communicated it to his followers. He had nothing to do either with its composition, or the doctrines it contains. This assurance has been accepted by the Faithful in all ages. From this conception of the character of the Koran, it follows that the contents of the revelation are above the reach of human criticism. It is either in every part the voice of the Archangel, or none of it is. The proof of its Divine origin is the assurance of Muhammad to that effect, not the character of the revelation itself, when tested by the human reason and conscience.

PEBPAOE. Vli

Another characteristic of Islam is, that it professes to regulate the relations between man and man, as well as between man and God. It founds a society and a polity, as well as supplying the elements of a creed. This important fact has been passed over by most writers with a very inadequate sense of its farreaching significance. Because Muhammad taught the doctrine of the unity of God, it has been too hastily concluded that he was a great moral and social reformer as well. But there is no charm in the abstract doctrine of the unity of God to elevate humanity. The essential point is the character attributed to this one God. Christ conceived of God as Love ; He spoke of Him as building up a new society on the ruins of the old, of which love was to be the ruling principle, and sending forth His spirit into the hearts of men to guide them into all truth. Thus the regeneration of the moral life and the enlargement of the intellect were set forth as the primary objects of the one God. But Muhammad conceived of God as separated by an impassable gulf from the creatures He had made, and finding His ideal of human existence in the customs of the desert Arabs. To the end of time men were to venerate the black stone ; to the end of time they were to practise slavery and polygamy, and believe in the doctrine of Fatalism. The last revelation had come down from heaven. The last Prophet had appeared among men. The Koran was the only and all-sufficient guide, and no change in its precepts was possible without the guilt of disobedience to a divine ordinance.

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Islam, in fine, may be said to lay down these two propositions for the practical guidance of men: (1.) The idea of progress is impious, and should be eradicated from the mind. (2.) The knowledge of God is a fixed quantity revealed in a book ; the mind of man has no capacity to attain to it, more or less. The elements of truth in the teaching of Muhammad imparted their soul-subduing power to all that was false and puerile in it. If Muhammad had not set forth with such convincing power the unity and majesty of God, it is possible that his disciples might not have received with unquestioning credence his decrees upon lesser matters. As it was, they were incapable of discriminating. The man, and the book which had taught them to worship the one God, could not be mistaken when they bade them also venerate the black stone, and consecrated the practice of concubinage.

Thus, the true, the false, the sensual, and the superstitious have been allowed to exist together in the creed of Islam, the latter choking and destroying the former. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link ; and it is the veneration paid to a black stone, not that to the One God, which denotes the high-water mark of the moral and intellectual life of the Moslem world.

The prevailing impression of what Muhammad wrought in Arabia is, I fancy, something like this. He obliterated, as it were with a wet sponge, the pre- Islamite history of Arabia, by destroying the recollections of past feuds and welding the Arabs into a

PREFACE. IX

single nation. Nothing could well be more opposed to the truth. The Arabs, at that time, were divided into two great branches — the tribes of Yemen, and the tribes of Modhar. For centuries before the appearance of Muhammad, these tribes had been engaged in interminable wars. Islam did nothing to efface these distinctions, or mitigate the bitterness of old hatreds. And the idea of political progress having been denounced as impious, it was inevitable that when the tide of conquest was stayed, the fierce and restless energies of the Arabs should find a vent, in the recommencement of old quarrels. This, in point of fact, was what actually occurred. All that Islam, on this, its political side, had done for the Arabs was to furnish them with a wider theatre of conflict. The battles which, in former times, had been fought behind the barrier of the desert sands, were now fought in the heart of Asia. These incessant civil wars occasioned the fall of the House of Ommaya. They were of the tribes of Modhar ; the Persians sided with the tribes of Yemen against them, and drove them from power. The story of their ruin is told in my first volume.

All this time, however, the other cardinal doctrine of Islam — that the knowledge of the will of God is a fixed quantity — was working out its own peculiar results. Islamism, as I have already said, is both a religious creed and a social and political system. The assumption which underlies it is, that the whole life of man is subjected to rigid ordinances which can be discerned by the aid of revelation alone. Conse-

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quently, in order to frame laws for a Muliammadan state, the qualities required were not knowledge of men and experience of affairs, but a retentive memory, in order to master the subject-matter of revelation, and an accurate knowledge of "pure Arabic," in order to understand the precise meaning of it. The lawmakers of Islam were secluded men, who founded their claim to be received as legislators, on the ground that they scrupulously abstained from all participation in public affairs. The actual needs of men were unknown and disregarded by them; the letter of the Sacred Text was all in all.

This is the strange paradox which goes so far towards accounting for the unimproveableness of Moslem states. The practised politician, because he was a practised politician, was regarded as unfit to act as a legislator ; the recluse who knew nothing of the world, was for that very reason supposed to be the man best fitted to frame laws for its government.

The first part of the present volume, " The Church of Islam," devotes two chapters to an account of the building up of this inflexible theocracy ; the last two chapters give an account of the efforts made by a few of the Faithful to escape from the prison-house in which they had been walled up, and the results of the attempts. The Orientalist will perhaps object that the chapter entitled "The Men of the Path," is a very insufficient account of Moslem mysticism. I am aware that this is so. But my purpose, in the present volume, is merely to exhibit the general tendency of the movement ; its more detailed exposition I reserve

PEEFAOE. XI for " Islam in India." The fourth chapter, entitled " The Free-thinkers," and the whole of the second part, " The Supremacy of the Persians," tells the story of the curious struggle in the bosom of Islam, between the Rationalizing spirit and the spirit of Orthodoxy, terminating in the complete triumph of the latter.

The third part, as the title shows, traces " The Decline of the Khalifate," from its loss of temporal power under the tyranny of its fierce Turkish mercenaries, down to the destruction of Baghdad by Houlagou and his Mongols. Here, agaiD, a few words of explanation are due to the student of Oriental history, to explain the meagreness of historical detail which marks certain portions of this section. I have passed over with only a cursory reference, all that period of Moslem history which extends from the murder of the khalif al Mutawakhil, to the founding of the Seljuk Empire — a space of nearly two hundred years. Why is this so ? As originally written, this portion of my book contained twice as much matter as it now does. I had devoted two long chapters to a history of the acts of the Turkish mercenaries, and the reigns of the Bouide priuces. But, od consideration, I thought it best not to print them. The purpose of my book is to write a history of " Islam," not a history of the " khalifs of Baghdad." A right understanding of Islam is in no way assisted or enhanced by compelling the weary reader to wade through a dreary series of wars and revolutions which have no more significance for us than the quarrels of wild beasts in

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an antediluvian forest. Rather, it seems to me, its difficulty is greatly increased. The reader faints by the way, and gives up the attempt in despair. He prefers to remain in ignorance of "Islam" (which, after all, has, at no time, greatly inconvenienced him), if knowledge cannot be purchased except at so great a cost. The Crusades, also, are beyond the purpose of my book. These were fraught with consequences of immense importance to Europe ; but on "Islam," as a religion, they had no appreciable influence. The Crusaders came and went without modifying in the smallest particular, either the doctrine or the practice of the Moslem world.

For the full understanding of the chapter on " The Sect of the Assassins " I must refer my readers to the second part of " Islam under the Arabs." In that part, entitled, " The Fatimides," I have given a full account of the growth and development of the Shia doctrines, till they reached their culminating point in producing the sect of the " Assassins." Without some knowledge of this past history, the doctrine and practice of the "Assassins" are unintelligible.

As in my first volume, I have given my authorities at the end of the volume. But I take advantage of this opportunity to record how largely I am indebted to the learned and interesting works of Herr Yon Kremer — his " Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen," and his " Geschichte der Herrschenden Ideen des Islam s." I have also derived much valuable information from a smaller work by Heinrich Steiner, entitled, 'Die Mutaziliten." This work is remarkable

PREFACE. Xlll

for a very able and exhaustive dissertation on the doctrine of " Predestination," as set forth in the Koran ; and this dissertation has been my chief guide in what I have said on the same subject.

The first two chapters of this book appeared some time ago in the Contemporary Review, under the title of " Muhammadan Law : its growth and character." In rewriting them for the present volume, I have added many historical details and other matter which I thought inappropriate in a magazine article.

R. D. OSBORN.

5th November, 1877.

CHAPTER I. THE FOUR ORTHODOX IMAMS. a.d. 713—830

The religion of Islam has often been praised for its freedom from a complicated and cumbersome ritual. Wherever, it is said, the true Believer finds himself, on land or on the sea, alone or in company, that spot becomes, at the appointed hour, a temple, whence he can address his prayers to God. Hence, it has been supposed that the Moslem passes through life with an immediate consciousness of the Divine Presence, peculiar to men of his creed. This consciousness has survived the vicissitudes of history and the darkening effects of intellectual scepticism. Amid revolution, disaster, and anarchy, it is supposed to burn on with a clear and steady light, illuminating the bosoms of the Faithful in every part of the world, and binding all their hearts together. Therefore it is that all Islam is animated by a single spirit ; that all its pulses vibrate in unison, and all its swords are ready to leap from their scabbards in obedience to a single call. Like so much which has been written upon the creed of Muhammad, these notions are directly the reverse of the truth. The intellectual immobility of the Moslem world proceeds, not from an inner consciousness of the Divine Presence, but from the total want of it. According to the Moslem belief, the spirit of man is incapable of holding converse with the Spirit of God. Apart from the indications of His will contained in the Book and the Traditions, man neither knows nor can know anything about Him and His ways. All search, therefore, into the constitution of the universe or the mind of man, the Moslem condemns, at the outset, as certainly useless, and probably impious. And hence, also, there is no creed, the inner life of which has been so completely crushed under an inexorable weight of ritual. For that deep, impassable gulf which divides man from God, empties all religious acts of spiritual life and meaning, and reduces them to rites and ceremonies. They are laws to be obeyed. They do not imply that a way has been opened out between the visible and invisible world. Hence, also, there is not, nor ever has been, any " solidarity " in Islam. The resistless sovereignty of an inscrutable God has obliterated the notion of progress, and effectually prevented the idea of a national life from coming into existence. God is supreme ; what He wills can only be known by what He brings to pass ; and against His decrees, as manifested by the progress of events, it is idle to strive. Such is, and always has been, the political philosophy of the followers of Muhammad. To sketch the process of education which has achieved this result, is the object of the present chapter.

The Arab of Muhammad's day conceived of religion as altogether a ceremonial affair. He believed in a a.d. 71:5. RITUAL OF ISLAM. 5

God, and he believed that this deity had commanded him to perform every year the ceremonies of the Pilgrimage. But why had God done this ? What pleasure could a rational Being find in these absurd and meaningless rites ? What profit could they be to Him, or wherein lay their advantage to men ? Such inquiries never entered the mind of the Arab. It was the will of God ; and regarding the why and the wherefore, he never cared to speculate. The Prophet, a creature of his time if ever there was one, was as much a slave to this formalism as his countrymen about him. He no more than they felt the need of a logical connection between his speculative idea of God and the expressions of His character in the visible world. He never attempted to regard life as a whole, or to say to himself, If God be such an one as I have depicted Him, then this and that custom which prevails among men must be utterly hateful to Him. The Prophet knew of no life but the life of the desert Arab, and without further question he accepted that life as being modelled after the Divine wish. The Prophet knew of no religious life where the external rite was not deemed of greater importance than the inner state, and, in consequence, he gave that character to Islam also. Hence there are no moral gradations in the Koran. All precepts proceed from the will of God, and all are enforced with the same threatening emphasis. A failure of performance in the meanest trivialities of civil life involves the same tremendous penalties as apostasy or idolatry. In the Traditions, this moral confusion is even more startlingly apparent. These Traditions are a record of the answers and acts of the Prophet in response to the inquiries of his followers ; and those who have not studied them know nothing whatever of the true spirit of Islam.

They accumulated in this way. So long as Muhammad lived, the Faithful were in possession of a door communicating with the Throne of God. At this door they had but to knock, state their perplexities, and a response came to them from "The Lord of the Glorious Throne." As Muhammad taught, and the Faithful believed, that the least transgression of the divine commands brought down the same punishments as the greatest, it is not strange that they availed themselves of this privilege freely. The Prophet accepted his position, as an essential part of the prophetic office, and never doubted of his capacity to make known the will of God regarding any matter submitted to his judgment. Thus the religion of Islam was gradually provided with an exceedingly rigorous and complicated ritual.

But the point to be noted is the extreme stress laid upon the accurate observance of this ritual. The mind of the Believer literally counts for nothing. No ardour of faith, no purity of intention, can make up for a ceremonial defect. There was a right way and a wrong way of performing all religious acts whatsoever ; and the Arab could not conceive that aught was indifferent or optional. " I asked Ayesha," said al Harith, one of the early Moslems, *' did the Prophet read the Koran at night loud or low ? " She said, " Sometimes loud; at other times in a low tone of voice." "Allah a.d. 713. RITUAL OF ISLAM. 7

to Akbar ! " shouted the delighted inquirer. " Praise be to God ! who has made religion so spacious and unconfined ! "

That the amazement of al Harith, at the discovery of this " spacious and unconfined " freedom was by no means unnatural, will be apparent if I quote a few of the directions regarding Prayer : " When any one of you says his prayers, he must have something in front of him ; but if he cannot find anything for that purpose, he must put his walking-stick into the ground ; but if the ground be hard, then let him place it lengthways before him ; but if he has no staff, he must draw a line on the ground ; after which there will be no detriment in his prayers from anyone passing in front of it." This passing in front of a man is a terrible crime, and exceedingly detrimental to prayer, though it does not altogether nullify it. The Prophet empowered a Believer annoyed in this way to " draw his sword " upon the intruder, and "cut him down ;" and further declared that if " a passenger did but know the sin of passing before a person employed in prayer, he would find it better for him to sink into the earth." Equally important is the manner of performing the ablutions previous to prayer. When the Prophet performed these, "he took a handful of water, and raised it to the under part of his chin, and combed his beard with his hand, and said, ' In this way has my Lord ordered me.' " And on a certain occasion, when a party of his followers, performing their ablutions in a hurry, had omitted to wet the soles of their feet, the Prophet said, " Alas, on the soles of their feet, for they will be in hell fire ! "

For sin, according to Muhammad, was a material pollution adhering to the body, and, like dirt, capable of being washed away. He enjoined upon his followers, in making their ablutions, to be careful not to allow so much as a finger-nail to remain dry, for, said he, "That person who makes ablution thoroughly will extract the faults from his body, even to those that may be lurking under his finger-nails;" and on the Day of Resurrection will be known by "his bright hands and feet," the effects of his frequent and conscientious washings. Not less important was the position assumed while praying. " Resting on the arms while at prayer is pleasing to the people of hell ;" so also is " hurry in prostration like a cock pecking grain," and "spreading the arms like dogs and tigers." The safest plan in this, as in all other things, was exactly to imitate the Prophet. And this was accordingly done. The Prophet's gestures and attitudes during prayer were carefully noted down, and have been imitated by the Faithful ever since. The tradition rests on the authority of Ayesha, and is as follows : —

" The Prophet used to begin his prayers by repeating the Tacbir, and the reading of the Koran with these words : — ' Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds ! ' And when he made the inflexion of the body called Eekat, he did not raise his head, nor yet bend it very low, but kept it in a middle position between these two, with his neck and back in a line. And when he had raised his head after inflexion, he did not prostrate himself, till after having stood quite erect, and alter he had raised his head from one prostration, he did not make a stand without sitting up in the interval. And he used to lay bis left leg down, and his right leg he kept up ; and he

forbade resting both arms on the ground, and

finished his prayers with the salaam"

a.d. 713. VALUE OF PRAYERS. 9

Prayers also possessed varying degrees of merit; and these were precisely settled by the Prophet : —

" The prayers of a man in his own house are equal to the reward of one prayer ; but in a musjid, being near his house, equal to twenty-five prayers ; and if in the public musjid, equal to five hundred prayers ; and in Jerusalem, equal to fifty thousand ; and in my musjid, equal to fifty thousand ; and in the Kaaba, equal to one hundred thousand."*

The same formal and legal character runs through the whole body of the Traditions. They are a collection of statutes which are supposed to embrace the entire sphere of man's daily activity. The object they strive after is to preclude the need of any appeal to the unassisted reason of man. The khalifs who succeeded the Prophet possessed merely an administrative power. They were the trustees and executors of a system already complete. They had no power to initiate new legislation, or depart from the letter of what was written. But whatever might be the number of Traditions, it soon became apparent that they could not meet and solve the needs of the great Empire which was won by the Faithful immediately after the Prophet's death. Multitudes of questions came up for decision for which no precedent was to be found either

* It is related of al Muzani — a disciple of as Shafi, so eminent, that that Imam said of him, " He is the champion of my doctrine " — that " when he missed being present at public service in the Mosque, he repeated his prayers alone twenty- five times, in order to regain the merits attached to those which are said with the congregation ; in this he founded his opinion on the authority of the following declaration made by Muhammad : ' Prayers made with the congregation are five-and-twenty times better than prayers said by one of you when alone.' " — Ibn Khali, vol. i. p. 201.

in the Koran or the Traditions. What, under such circumstances, were the rulers and governors of the people to do ? They had recourse to " the method of analogical deduction." This practice was authorised by more than one Tradition. When, for example, the Prophet selected Muad ibn Jabal as Governor of Yemen, and was about to despatch him thither, he said to him, "0 Muad! after what manner will you judge?" He replied, " After the Book of God." " And should you find nothing there?" "After the rules of the Prophet of God." "And should you find nothing there ? " " Then, by deduction, after the best of my judgment." Thereupon the Prophet lifted up his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, "God be praised, who has given to His Prophet a messenger with whom he is