28 | THE APOLOGY OF AL KINDY. |
| (and subsequently depraved by Hajjāj),1 Ali, Obey ibn Kįb, and Ibn Masūd, had each their separate exemplars. Having been compiled, if not in part composed, by different hands, and thrown unsystematically together, the text is alleged to be in consequence full of contradictions, incoherencies, and senseless
passages. A great deal of this section was, no doubt, very similar to the kind of arguments held, though, of course, in less irreverential language, by the rationalistic Motįzelites of the day, and favoured by Al Māmūn. For we know that it was after a hot and prolonged discussion that the Coran was proclaimed by Al Māmūn to be created. It is therefore altogether in accord with the probabilities of the case that this particular phase of the argument should have been (as we actually find it) treated by our Author at great length and with a profusion of tradition possessing little authority, although popular in that day,a kind of rank mushroom growth springing out of Abbasside faction and forced by its success. The tables were soon turned on this free-thinking generation, who in their turn suffered severe persecution; and never before or afterwards did such an opportunity occur, as our Apologist enjoyed, under the very shadow of |
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ITS AGE AND AUTHORSHIP. | 29 |
| a Caliphs court, to argue out his case with his enemys weapons
ready to his hand. | Al Kindy makes a strong point of the hypocrisy of the
Jews and Bedouins who lived at the rise of Islam, their
superficial conversion, and the sordid and worldly motives by
which, when the great Apostacy followed immediately on the
Prophet's death, they were brought back to Islam, some by fear
and the sword, some tempted by power and wealth, others drawn
by the lusts and pleasures of this life. It was just the same, he
said, with the Jews and Magians of the present day. And to
make good his point he proceeds to quote from a speech of the
Caliph, made in one of the assemblies which he was in the habit
of holding. The passage is so remarkable, and so illustrative of
the character of Al Māmūn, that, at the risk of lengthening my
paper, I give it here in full: | And I doubt not but (the Lord bless thee, my Friend!) thou
rememberest that which passed at an assembly of the
Commander of the Faithful, to whom it had been
related in respect of one of his Courtiers that, though
outwardly a Moslem, he was at heart a reprobate
Magian: whereupon the Caliph delivered himself (as I have been
informed) in the following terms: | "By the Lord! I well know that one and another (and here the
Caliph named a whole company of his Councillors), though professing
Islam, are really free from the same; they do it to be seen of me ; while
their convictions, I am well aware, are just the opposite of that which
they profess. They belong to a class who embrace Islam, not from any
love of this our religion, but thinking thereby to gain |
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