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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926)",
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    "title": "MAHOMMEDANISM",
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    "verified_text": "of all the great faiths that have been accepted by large masses of the human race, islam is one of the most historical. for the details of the life of the founder the reader is referred to the article manometr. the faith he preached is islam, 7.e., resignation, submission to an almighty will. it teaches abstinence from drink, personal clean- liness, and abhorrence of evil, and, above all, the value of human life. the world is a well-ordered creation, regulated and guided by a supreme intelligence overshadowing the universe, since ‘“‘ everything is pledged to its own time.” yet the human will is free to work for its own salvation. the sympathy of mahomet was universal, and he invoked the mercy of the creator “ on all living beings.’? he pronounced the saving of one human life to be tantamount to the saving of humanity. his social conception was essentially constructive, not disin- tegrating. in his most exalted mood the teacher never over- looked the sanctity of family life. to him the service of humanity was the highest act of devotion. his call to the faithful was not to forsake those to whom they owed a duty; but in the perform- ance of that duty to earn merit and reward. monasticism was disapproved of as contrary to nature. children were a trust from god, to be brought up in tenderness and affection; parents were to be respected and loved. the circle of duty embraced in its fold “ kindred and neighbours, and the lowly and poor.” the koran.—the koran has, on mistaken analogy, been some- times called the mahommedan bible. the old testament is a record of ancient israelite traditions which have, in one form or another, become the common property of the three semitic faiths that now rule over the consciences of masses of mankind. all these traditions have passed through numbers of hands and bear evident traces of revision and editing. the synoptic gos- pels, which form the outstanding feature of the new testament, were not compiled, at least in the shape in which they have come down, until long after the events they purport to record. the koran, as a human document, stands on a totally different footing. as such it is sui generis. it is a record of the outpour- ings of one single human heart to whom the soul of the uni- verse had spoken, and it has escaped revision. it prescribes re- ligious duties in precise terms. since men owe gratitude to the creator for his manifold blessings, he should be glorified daily at stated times, so that there may be no neglect in the perform- ance of his worship. five times a day devotions are offered to the lord of creation. man must approach him in purity of heart and body; and the practice of the prophet has consecrated the mode of physical lustration and the cleansing of the heart. abstinence was also made a part of the religious law. every able-bodied man or woman is required to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset for one lunar month. the only ex- ceptions to this rule are students and soldiers engaged in defence of their religion or country, and invalids male and female. char- ity was incorporated as a part of religion and every person pos- sessed of a sufficiency was required to give a certain part of his income for the support of the indigent. social regulations.—the status of women was raised beyond any known in contemporaneous history. far from degrading women, the legislation of mahomet raised her in the social scale. “* paradise,” it was declared, “ is at the feet of the mother.”’ in 768 his last sermon the prophet enjoined his followers thus:—‘‘ ye people, ye have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. treat your wives with kindness and love. verily you have taken them on the security of god.” the unrestrained polygamy of pagan times was drastically cut down; and the number of wives was limited to four and sub- jected to a condition which rendered it impossible under civilised conditions to practice polygamy without infraction of the rule. owing to this condition in fairly-advanced moslem communities polygamy has been much reduced. human chattelhood was forbidden; bondage was permitted only in the case of prisoners taken in “ lawful ”’ warfare in defence of religion; stringent rules were prescribed for the treatment of the unfortunate beings held in bondage; the child was not to be separated from its parents; no husband from his wife or one relative from another; and if a bondswoman bore a child to her master, she became at once a free woman and the child took the status of legitimate issue. the enfranchisement of people held in bond was an act of supreme merit with the lord. moslems were enjoined to “‘ feed their slaves as they feed themselves, and clothe them with the stuff they wear.” the sects or is_tam islam, like christianity, has been rent by schismatic strife and sectarian bitterness. the bulk of the moslem population belong to the sunni persuasion. shiahs are found chiefly in persia, but also in india. the sunnis and the shiahs differ greatly in their religious conceptions and doctrinal practices, and the difference extends from doctrines into the region of law, e.g., the shiah law of succession does not recognise agnacy, and daughters’ children are not excluded by an uncle’s son. again, while the sunni is enjoined to offer the prescribed prayers “‘ con- gregationally ”’ in a mosque, the shiah may offer his orisons indi- vidually in the privacy of his house. the principal divisions of the sunni sect are mainly legal, according as the interpretations of the hanafitc, the shafite, the maliki or the hanbalite school are followed. among the shiahs, also, great jurists flourished who, deriving their inspira- tion from the medinite school, were liberal in their conceptions. wakhabitsm.—conformity was maintained in the sunni com- munity until the middle of the 18th century, when there arose a man in central arabia, named ‘abdul wahhab, who revived the khariji cult in all its pristine calvinistic bigotry. he welded the arab tribes into a composite force and established his author- ity from the shores of the persian gulf to the red sea. the wahhabis, as his followers have ever since been called, captured mecca and medina, from which they were driven out by the forces of ibrahim pasha, the son of mehemed ali, the founder of the present dynasty which rules over egypt. ibn sa‘ud, the present chief of the wahhabis of nejd, emu- lated the achicvements of his forbears by capturing again the holy cities from the hands of king husain. in 1912 he had begun the formation of the new organisation of the wahhabis under the name of ikhwan or “ brethren,’”’ and established colonies of them in various parts of arabia, with the design that the settlers should sink their tribal rivalries in a communal religious life. senusts.—a religious movement closely connected with wah- habiism was that of the senusis, but though its teachings were practically identical, its organisation followed the usual lines of religious orders in the mahommedan world. founded in 1837, this order has achieved an immense expansion not only over the whole of north africa from egypt to morocco and far to the south, but also in mesopotamia and the malay archipelago. the order has been zealous in proselytising and has made many converts to islam. its activities were for a number of years a source of anxiety to the french as they appeared to be directed against the extension of european influence in africa, and it took up arms against the italians after the occupation of tripoli in to11, but in recent years has entered into friendly relations with them. shiahism.—shiahism had no such auxiliary as sunnism pos- sessed in the form of organised political power to prevent its mahommedanism being rent with heresies, and consequently it has been distracted by constant schisms. some owed their origin to dynastic rivalry; others to survivals of earlier cults in western asia. imamits.—the followers of the twelve imams of the house of the prophet (ahl-ul-bait) are commonly called imamis. ismail, the founder of the safavid dynasty, made this branch of shiah- ism the state religion of persia, which character it has retained ever since. the shiahs in india are also chiefly imamis. lzaidis.—the zaidis are the followers of zaid, a grandson of husain, the martyr of kerbala. they differ from the general body of the shiahs regarding the title of abu bakr, omar and othman to the caliphate, and agree with the sunnis on this point. the zaicis are still found in the yemen and north west africa. the zaidi imam, yahya, has recently consolidated his authority in northern yemen and is reported to be a ruler of great capacity. ismailts—the ismailis derive their name from ismail, the eldest son of the imam ja'‘far as-sadik, who pre-deceased his father. they hold that on the death of the imam the religious headship devolved on ismail's son mohammed, whom they call al-maktum (the “unrevealed ’ imam), and not on his uncle ja‘far’s second son, musa al-kazim, as believed by other shi- ahs. al-maktum was, according to the ismailis, succeeded by ja’far al-musaddak whose son, mohammed al-ulabib, was the last of the “ unrevealed ”’ imams. the ismailis achieved political importance with the foundation of the fatimid dynasty in north africa in 909 and after the conquest of egypt in 969 the fatimids ruled over north africa and egypt for two centuries. in the realm of thought one of the most remarkable manifestations of ismaili speculation is found in the treatises of the ikhwan us-safa (the brethren of purity), a society of rationalists towards the close of the roth century; they taught that individual souls are part of the world soul, to which they return after the death of the body. through various stages of emanation the whole uni- verse procecds {rom god, and the re-union of the soul with god is effected through the reversal of this process and the purifica- tion of the soul from all grosser elements by asceticism, spiritual exercises and philosophy. assassins and druses.—two sects more permanent and more highly organised, the assassins and the druses, still survive as offshoots of the ismail movement. the assassins in rogo estab- lished themselves in the fortress of alamut, in the north of persia, and later in a number of other strongholds in that country and in syria, and thence carried on an active propaganda, and their devoted followers did not hesitate at the risk of their own lives to use the dagger to remove political opponents. their political independence was brought to an end by the mongols, who de- stroyed most of their castles in the 13th century; but this sect still survives in a very altered form under the headship of h.h. the aga khan, whose followers in india number more than 127,000, in addition to adherents scattered throughout syria, persia, central asia and east africa, his followers in india are known as khojas and a jarge number of them are descended from hindu converts and still adhere, in most important particulars, to the hindu rules of succession. a still more heterodox offshoot of the ismaili sect is the commu- nity of the druses, living !n the lebanon and the anti-lebanon and in the mountains of hauran. they hold that god becomes incarnate in man in every age, and that hakim, the sixth caliph of the fatimid dynasty in egypt (996-1020), was the last in- carnation of god; they believe that hakim did not die and that he is only absent from human sight and will one day manifest himself again. babis and bahais.—another outgrowth from shiahism was the babi, followed by the bahai movement, but in their latitudi- narianism they have so far diverged from any orthodox form of islam, that it is very doubtful whether they can properly be reckoned among mahommedan movements. the bahais have carried on an active propaganda in america and in certain parts of europe, and have drifted further and further from the islamic source from which they originally sprang. the ahmadiyya sect.—in the year 1879 the founder of a new religious movement, named mirza ghulam ahmad, began to maine preach in the village of qadian in the province of the punjab, india. he claimed to be not only the promised mahdi but also the promised messiah—personages gencrally held to be distinct in ordinary mahommedan theology. another modification he in- troduced into islamic doctrine had reference to the death of jesus; the commonly-accepted belief maintains that jesus was taken by god alive into heaven, while a phantom was crucified in his place; in oppositon to this he declared that jesus was actu- ally crucified, but was taken down from the cross while still alive by his disciples, was healed of his wounds and afterwards made his way into kashmir, where he finally died, his tomb being still in existence in the city of srinagar. having thus removed the ground for any expectation of the second coming of jesus from heaven to earth, he explained that he himself was the messi- ah, not as being an incarnation of jesus (for he rejected the doc- trine of transmigration), but as having come in the likeness of jesus—being jesus for this generation just as john the baptist was elijah, because he came in the spirit and power of elijah. in proof that he had come in the spirit and power of jesus, mirza ghulam ahmad adduced the likeness of his own char- acter and personality to that of jesus, his gentleness of spirit, the peaceful character of his teaching, his miracles and the ap- propriateness of his teaching to the need of the age. in har- mony with this pacific claim, he expounded the doctrine of jihad (usually interpreted as meaning war against unbelievers) as a striving after righteousness. mirza ghulam ahmad died in 1908, and a few years after his death his followers split into two parties, one having its headquarters in qadian, and the other in lahore. both these sections of the community succeeded in en- listing the services of devoted, self-sacrificing men, who-are unceasingly active as propagandists, controversialists and pam- phleteers. they control an extensive missionary activity, not only in india, west africa, mauritius and java (where their efforts are mainly directed towards persuading their co-religion- ists to join the ahmadiyya sect), but also in berlin, chicago and london. their missionaries have devoted special efforts to win- ning european converts and have achieved a considerable meas- ure of success. in their literature they give such a presentation of islam as they consider calculated to attract persons who have received an education on modern lines, and thus not only attract non-moslems and rebut the attacks made on islam by christian controversialists, but win back to the faith moslems who have come under agnostic or rationalist influences. modern literature.—indeed it has been characteristic of much of the theological literature of the mahommedan world for the last few decades, to adopt an apologetic tone and to shake off those special features which have exposed it to hostile criticism; thus polygamy, slavery and intolerance are declared to receive no sanction from the koran, as rightly interpreted; in islam the reconciliation of religion and science is effected, and the demands of the modern spirit of enlightenment are satisfied. of such modernist literature there has been a considerable output, espe- cially in egypt and india; it naturally appeals most to those readers who have come under european influences, and excites considerable opposition among more conservative orthodox circles, who remain loyal to the traditional schools of thought (as enumerated above) and resent the rejection of traditional, mediaeval theology by the modern thinkers. the older sects continue to flourish, and the new thought has not yet attempted to organise itself on sectarian lines and has thus remained largely a matter of individual opinion. this lack of sectarian development is possibly in great meas- ure due to the absorbing attraction that political problems dur- ing recent years have exercised upon the mahommedan world. anxiety as to the fate of turkey after the armistice, the with- drawal of the holy cities from the control of the caliph and the occupation of jerusalem by unbelievers, the separation of the sultanate from the caliphate (in 1922) and the abolition of the caliphate altogether (in 1924) were circumstances that profound- ly stirred the minds of pious moslems all the world over and did. not create an atmosphere favourable to the calm consideration of purely dogmatic problems. moreover in many mahommedan 769 countries some form of nationalism obscured the larger vision of a united islamic world; in turkey it took the extreme form of pan-turanianism, or pan-turkism, which aimed at the union of all sections of the turkish race in one vast confederacy and sought to purge the national life from all foreign admixture, in language, literature and political institutions; in india national- ist feeling prompted the hindu-moslem entente and gave birth to the oft-repeated sentiment, ‘‘ i am an indian first, and a mos- lem afterwards’’; among the mahommedan populations of russia the formation of soviet socialist republics has evoked nationalistic movements which have temporarily thrust purely religious interests into the background; bolshevik propaganda has also met with a response among the mahommedans of java. but islam is so closely bound up with every aspect of the life of a mahommedan people that even a purely nationalist political movement may react strongly on the religious life. this has been notably the case in turkey, where the government, besides abolishing the caliphate, has confiscated the religious endow- ments and suppressed the religious orders; polygamy has practi- cally been made illegal; the date of ramadan has been fixed in accordance with astronomical science instead of being made dependent on reports that the moon has been seen (as has been the immemorial custom in the islamic world); and the discontinu- ance of the wearing of the veil by women and the adoption of hats by men, are typical of a changed attitude towards the es- tablished usages of mahommedan society. the breach with the past has been nowhere so violent as in turkey, but throughout the whole mahommedan world there are indications of a changed attitude towards religious questions. the old orthodoxy still holds the allegiance of the masses, as well as many of the edu- cated, but others, especially those whose education has brought them under european influences, are seeking a re-statement of their religion, more in harmony with their general outlook upon life. to those that seek a solution in the realisation of some nation- alist ideal, there remains little save a sentimental attachment to islam, while they deprive it of any control over jaw and social organisation; the reformers, on the other hand, claim for the precepts of islam control over all the relations of human life, but seek to restore it to its primitive simplicity, believing that thus it can be brought into harmony with modern thought and modern conditions. brairiocrapny.—ameer ali, the spirit of islam (1922); the dictionary of islam (1913); t. w. arnold, the preaching of islam (1913); ‘muhammedanism,” encyclopaedia of religton and ethics (1922); r. a. nicholson, mystics of islam (1914). (a. a.)",
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