James Levi Barton
The phenomenal success of Mohammed as the founder of a new religion was due not wholly to his own ability, enthusiasm and courage, but was, in a large measure, owing to the surroundings into which he was born and the opportunities that those surroundings afforded. It is an example, by no means unique in history, of the power of environment in making a man and in the development and success of his mission.
At the birth of Mohammed, in the year 570 A.D., the civilized part of Western Asia was divided between two empires, both of them of enormous strength, namely, the Persian empire and the so-called Roman empire of Constantinople. They were rivals of each other and were in constant conflict. Arabia was in part between them and was sometimes subject to one and sometimes to the other, so far as the independent spirit of the Arab could he subject to any nation. The Roman Empire was by name and profession Christian, but as distance increased from the center, the character of the Christianity professed by its subjects was corrupted by conflicting heresies so that the essential character of the teachings of Jesus Christ was distorted almost beyond recognition. There was constant revolt against the established religion and control from Constantinople, and to this was added the unrest which the inhabitants of Arabia manifested under Roman political power. It is manifest that neither the religious nor the political power of Constantinople held firm band on the thought and life of the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. Their natural political attitude was that of rebellion, and their religious attitude that of heresy.
On the other hand, the religion of Persia had developed into a kind of dualism, represented by the spirit of light, Ormuzd, and the spirit of evil, Ahriman. The Sun was venerated as the symbol of the power of light, accompanied by a superstitious worship of fire and of the heavenly bodies; while the spirit of evil or darkness became almost personified as the force to be resisted.
The Arab, being subject first to one and then to the other
of these powerful neighbors, caught some fragments of the
religion represented by each. Zoroastrianism and Christianity
had their followers in Arabia, while there were many
colonies of Jews who had settled there before the time of
Christ and who, in a general way, represented the Jewish
faith; but the dominant creed of the inhabitants of Arabia
was a crude polytheism in which the Arabs were gradually
losing faith1.
They were coming to believe in one Supreme
Deity, but subordinate to Him as a host of inferior divine
personages who were looked upon as intercessors.
This barren development of early Semitic religion had its
center in the temple in the sacred city of Mecca. The holy
black stone, an aerolite from heaven, said by tradition to be a
relic of an earlier temple built by Abraham and Ishmael,
had sacred connections with Paradise. It was supposed to
have been given to Adam and to have been an object of veneration
to the day of Mohammed. In the city of Mecca was
also the holy spring, Zem Zem, which, according to tradition,
broke forth to save Hagar and Ishmael from perishing of
thirst, and to this the devout Arab came to worship the God
of Abraham.
Just before the rise of Mohammed there had developed a
dissatisfaction with the national religion among the more
reflective and discerning Of the inhabitants of Mecca and the
surrounding areas. One of the most ancient biographies of
Mohammed gives an account of four men who, without
revelation, perceived the error of idolatry. It is reported
that these four men refused to bow the knee before the image
of the Kaaba, and went out in search of the purer faith of
Abraham. Tradition reports that two of these four became
Christians;
the third embraced Islam, but later went to
Abyssinia and there became converted to Christianity; the
fourth renounced and condemned all the gross superstitions
of his countrymen, but remained in a sceptical condition of
mind to the time of his death.
In his Christianity and Islam2
W.R.W. Stephens sums up the situation in the following words:
Gross superstition and licentiousness prevailed, but a spirit of
discontent and scepticism was at work. There was no national unity.
Each tribe was a separate, independent atom.
The opportunity then was favorable for the action of sonic master
mind which should first of all weld the jarring elements of life
in Arabia itself into a compact body; then proceed to annex to it
the great neighboring Empire of Persia, already prostrate by its
rival; and finally to subdue the
weakened fringes of that very rival, the Roman Empire.
This was the work of Mahomet."
Until after the flight to Mecca [sic; the author certainly
meant to write "Medina" (web editor)], Mohammed endeavored to
propagate his new religion by persuasion rather than by force.
His was a quiet, persistent search for favorable soil in which
to sow the seed. After only eight years at Medina, when
success had crowned his armed campaigns, the prophet is
reported to have addressed a manifesto to the world inviting
all mankind to submit to Islam. Ambassadors were sent to
present these messages in person. Tradition declares that
this message was as follows, quoting from the one said to have
been sent to Emperor Heraclius:
This would indicate that Mohammed saw a vision of world
conquest for his new religion, and so began by asking certain
sovereigns to accept him as a prophet Of God, and inviting all
the world to the same privilege. From this time onward, the
sword played a large part in the dissemination of Islam.
While Mohammed set out to found a new religion, he also
established a new political order, different from anything that
then was or that had previously existed. Starting with the
idea that he wished only to convert his brethren to belief in
one God, he overthrew the government of both Medina and
Mecca, and, for the tribal rule by which the leading families
shared in the conduct of public affairs, he substituted a
theocratic monarchy centering in himself - the representative
of God on earth.
Missionaries with the sword multiplied their activities,
as success crowned their endeavors, to win neighboring tribes.
Biographers of saints report that vast numbers were converted
by the power of preaching the Gospel of Mohammed,
although it is difficult not to believe that, in many instances
at least, if reports are true, an army was waiting to strike in
case the preacher's eloquence and persuasiveness failed to
bring about the desired results. It is impossible to distinguish,
in the narrative of the many conquests of Islam
during the first century after the death of Mohammed, how
much was due to religious zeal and how much to greed and
political ambition.
Other methods have been employed by Mohammedans
for propagating their faith, such as the purchase or forcible
seizure of non-Moslem children in times of plague, famine,
war and massacre, or even in times of no special disturbance,
and rearing them in the Mohammedan faith. The Janissaries at
Constantinople are a case in point. The children of
Christians were taken regularly to replenish the ranks of this
special body-guard of successive Sultans of Turkey. Another
method employed to increase the number of Moslems was the
plurality of wives and the use of captive women of non-Moslem
races as concubines. These two methods of propagation
were conspicuously employed, and even to the present time
are in use by the Turks.
It must be borne in mind that there is no distinctive Moslem
race or people. While Mohammed was an Arab, as were
the early converts, no attempt was instituted to make Islam
an ethnic religion. Jews were among the early converts, and
as conquests increased, other races were added and intermarriage
followed, since Islam claimed to recognize no race or
class. To the present time, willing or enforced conversions
from among Christian and other people have produced a
mixture that bears the marks of a great variety of contributing
races. Probably today the Arabs present the purest Moslem
race, while Mohammedans in China are mostly Chinese.
Before the death of Mohammed the greater part of Arabia
had submitted and produced a political unity that had never
before been experienced in the Peninsula, creating from a great
number of disconnected and often hostile tribes the semblance
of a nation under one leader. With astonishing speed a
political organism emerged, subordinating the clan system to
the larger idea of religious unity. It is no wonder, in the face
of such success, that Mohammed began to see visions of world
conquest, or that his followers caught the idea and began to
act upon it.
One naturally asks the question whether the real of Mohammed
and his immediate successors was due more to religious enthusiasm,
or to love of conquest? This question will
probably never be satisfactorily answered, since undoubtedly
motives were hopelessly mixed. Large numbers of those who
comprised the victorious armies of the faithful had yielded
only under external pressure, succumbing in the hope of
worldly gain. Pride in new-found strength, with assurance
of booty, accompanied by a hitherto unexperienced conception
of a common religion, spurred on the armies and their
leaders to renewed activities and deeds of daring which led to
rapid conquest.
It is an interesting fact that Mohammedanism extended
itself in the first century East and West along the belt of
greatest heat. There seems to have been little effort to propagate
the new religion in regions north or south of 30 degrees of
latitude. Unlike all other religions, it may be called the
religion of the tropics, although there is nothing in its teachings
or practice that would seem to exclude it from temperate
and even from frigid zones. It has in European Turkey, in
much of Asiatic Turkey, and in Russia and Turkestan, held
its own considerably north of the limit named, as it has also
done in China, but still the fact remains that the great mass of
Mohammedans are found today, and have always been found,
in tropical countries. It should be noted in passing that the
people within the region named for the last five centuries have
contributed practically nothing to the development and
social, intellectual or commercial advancement of the human
race. Mr. Alleyne Ireland says of them:
These facts must be taken into consideration in all plans
and efforts made for the elevation and Christianization of
this people; this is a large part of the Moslem problem and
may suggest at least one of the reasons why previous endeavors
in this direction have been so meagre of tangible results.
Islam was born under a tropical sky and seems to shrink from
the rigor of colder zone.
It was manifestly the thought of Abu Bekr, the successor
of Mohammed, that a campaign of conquest was intended by
his chief and that the responsibility of carrying out
that intention rested upon him. An army was dispatched to Syria,
the first of a series of remarkable campaigns in which, under
his successors, Syria, Persia, and North Africa were conquered.
The ancient kingdom of Persia was overrun and some of the fairest
provinces of the Roman Empire were seized.
Dr. Zwemer notes three periods in the spread of Islam,
the first, from the death of Mohammed (632 A.D.) to 800
A.D.; the second, covering the Ottoman and Mongol period,
from 1280 to 1480 A.D., and the third from 1780 to the present
time. These may be called the Apostolic period of rapid
expansion, the Medieval period of centralization, and the
Modern period of mystical revival and of national decline.
During the first, or Apostolic period, the disciples with
irresistible zeal carried their faith and sway throughout
Arabia, across Syria, Egypt, Tunis, Tripoli, Algeria, Morocco,
and into Spain. At the same time Persia was brought under
the sway of the prophet, while preachers of Islam were making
converts in Canton and Western China and in parts of India.
It is impossible here to explain at length or to attempt a
description m detail of the tremendous energy and enthusiasm
of the armies of Islam, as they swept with fanatical energy
and zeal, North, East and West, conquering everything that
blocked their way and creating within a century after the
death of the prophet an empire greater in extent than that of
Rome at the height of its power.
It would be an interesting study to search for the secret
of the power of this new religion by which it was able to
accomplish such marvelous results. Many explanations are
given, such as, the corrupt divided state of Christianity,
depriving it of power of resistance; the disorganized condition
of non-Christian peoples and their dissatisfaction with their
religions; the fanatical zeal of the recent converts to Islam;
the ambition of the Caliphs to create and govern a great
Moslem theocracy; the use of the sword to win converts to
the new faith, and the license given to the conquerors to
gratify lust and to acquire booty. There is no doubt that
every one of these reasons, besides many others, contributed
to the rapid rise and extension of Islam throughout the
regions named, during the first period of conquest. At times
one or more of these conditions contributed in a conspicuous
manner, while in other places and under other conditions
different motives prevailed.
It is probably true that, in most if not in every instance of
conquest, the offer of Islam was made to the unbelievers.
If they accepted, they were expected to join the ranks of the
invaders. If they refused to embrace the religion of their
threatening foe, they might be put to the sword or compelled
to pay heavy tribute for the privilege of continuing to live.
Even to the present day, this custom of an annual tax to a
Mohammedan Government is in practice and is required of
all non-Moslem subjects that they may have the right to live.
It is called the life tax.
The entrance of Islam into China was less violent. There
is a tradition that Mohammed mentioned China as a place
from which knowledge could be obtained. It is know
however, that in the 6th century there was considerable
trade between China and Arabia, which was further extended
in the 7th century, then also reaching into Persia. In the
Chinese Annals of the province of Kwangtung, of which Caton
is the capital, bearing date 618-907, the following passage
occurs4:
China was reached not only by the merchants who follows
the sea routes of trade but also by Moslem diplomats who
came by way of Persia.
In 638 A.D. Africa was entered by Moslem preachers
and the propagation of Mohammedanism in that country
is still going on. In fact there is today no country in which
such conquests are being made as here. During the first
period the northern part of Africa wag conquered, and in 710
the Arabs crossed into Spain. In the modern period, Mohammedan
propagandists went west from Egypt and from
the Northeast as far as Chad, while slave dealers penetrated
from Zanzibar as far as the Great Lakes. The modern movements
into Africa are led by the slave dealer and the Arab
trader, and by the Senousi brotherhood, which began in 1843
and is called the Jesuit order of Islam. They are found in the
Libyan Oases, Fezzan, Tripoli, Algeria, Senegambia, the
Sudan and Somalia. They represent one of the strongest
modern advance movements among Moslems.
Within a hundred years after the death of Mohammed,
an adventurous Arab chief advanced into India as far as Sind,
and settled in the valley a the Indus. His successors were
dislodged but again an Afghan chief named Mahmud at the
very beginning of the 11th century began a series of raids
on India. He was a savage leader and one of his chief objects
was apparently the winning of the fabulous wealth of the
country. He was the first Moslem chief to obtain a permanent
footing in that country, and toward the close of the
12th century one of the generals of Muhammad, the successor
of Mahmud, took the city of Delhi, which was then the
seat of one of the strongest Hindu powers. The northern
provinces of India were overrun as far as Benares. After
Mahmud's death the Moslem empire thus begun fell in pieces
while the Indian provinces still remained Mohammedan.
Various dynasties succeeded and during the reign of the
Tujhlak Dynasty, Tamerlane crossed the Afghan borders and
captured and sacked Delhi. This was in 1399. In 1526 the
Moguls (another spelling for the Mongols) invaded India.
For more than two centuries they ruled over the greater part
of India.
The Medieval period embraces the rise of the Ottoman and
the Mogul Empires. This phase of Islam is of special interest
at this time. The early records of the Mongols have not
been preserved. The Mongol historian declares that they
sprang from a blue wolf. The first name widely known in
history is Jenghiz Khan, the eighth in descent from their
first king. This man was born on the banks of the Onon
river in 1162, and was placed upon the throne when thirteen
years of age. In 1206 at an assembly of the notables of his
kingdom he set himself at their head and shattered his only
remaining enemies upon the steppes of Mongolia. Spurred
on by this victory, he planned an invasion of the empire of
the Kin Tartars, who had wrested Northern China from the
Chinese Sung Dynasty. He met with Success in all his battles
in Mongolia and, breaking through the Great Wall of China,
he entered the province of Kansu. In 1213 he dispatched
three armies to overrun the empire. He was eminently
successful. The army of Jenghis knew no defeat. Its progress
in every direction was unchecked. When satiated with
blood and booty, it stayed its conquest and turned backwards.
Jenghiz Khan was one of the greatest conquerors the world
has ever seen. Starting as the chief of a petty Mongol tribe,
he saw his armies victorious from the China Sea to the banks
of the Dnieper. His empire rested upon no stable foundation,
and so it dwindled away under the hand of his immediate
degenerate successors, leaving nothing behind to indicate the
triumph of his personal victories.
As a result of the Mongol invasion of Persia and Southern
Russia, we have the Turks in Europe and Western Asia, since
it was the armies of Jenghiz that drove the Osmanli ancestor
from their home in Northern Asia and caused them to invade
Bithynia.
Timur, or Tamerlane, a direct descendant from Jenghiz
Khan; nearly two centuries later accomplished a notable
conquest until he had resubjugated the whole of Central and
Western Asia, from the Chinese Wall to the Mediterranean,
and from the Siberian Steppes to the mouth of the Ganges.
The series of Mogul Mohammedan Emperors who established
and maintained in India for several generations the Great
Mogul Empire sprang from the line of Jengiz Khan and
Tamerlane.
Space will not permit our tracing in detail the story of
the Mogul Emperors in India, which plays so conspicuous a
part in the development of Mohammedanism in that country.
We may add, however, that, until about 1200 A.D., Hindu
princes ruled in petty principalities, when the first
Mohammedan invasion into the northern provinces took
place. This was the beginning of Moslem rule, culminating
in the Great Mogul Empire, which was brought to the
zenith of its power by the Emperors Akbar, Jehangir, Shah
Jehan and Aurangzeb, and which declined and disappeared
under Muhammed Shah and Alamgir.
The story of the splendor and power of the Mogul Emperors
is of interest, both because of their Moslem faith, and because
of the large number of Mohammedans over whom they held
sway. These ancient empires have since been merged into a
more orderly government under the rule of England, but the
Moslem populations remain.
The Malay Archipelago was not entered until the 14th
century, when the northern coast of Sumatra was occupied.
Then Java became a Moslem mission field and soon was
sending missionaries to the Spice Islands. Even today,
Mohammedans and Christians are competing for the conquest of the
remaining pagan tribes in these Islands, which is also the case
in many parts of Africa.
Islam entered Burma from India through merchant
missionaries; this was also the case in Russia and in all
places where Mohammedanism is now advancing. Outside
of Turkey, the sword at the present time plays but little part
in the propagation of Islam. In Burma, the Malay Archipelago
and many parts of Africa, the increase m the number of
Mohammedans from conversion is alarmingly large.
The Ottoman Turks are descendants of many and extensive tribes
emanating from the tablelands and plains of Central and Western
Asia. These were pastoral, predacious,
nomadic and warlike. They had various names, such as
Turkomans, Kirghises, Usbecgs and Nogays, as well as many
others derived from the district occupied or from a conspicuous
chief. They were also known, and are often so designated
at the present time, as Tartan, while their ancestors appear
to have been known to the ancients as Scythians. It is
possible that these races had a certain ethnic unity and they
certainly made use of a speech that was widely understood
among them. Before the time of Mohammed these peoples
migrated from the barren tablelands of Mongolia and spread
over the steppes of Turkestan, and appeared upon the banks
of the Oxus. At a subsequent date they came into contact
with Mohammedans in Persia and gradually embraced
Islam, entering into the services of the Caliph of Bagdad.
They called themselves Turkomans. The Suljukians, who
settled in Khorasan, Persia, were the first Turks to become
conspicuous in history. They increased in number and power
until they ruled Persia, Armenia and Syria, the greater part of
Asia Minor with the country from the Oxus to beyond the
Jaxartes, reaching from the Mediterranean to the borders of
China.
The Suljukians surpassed all other Moslems of their age
in fierce intolerance, and thus it was that the crusades
were provoked, producing a unique event in the history of
the relations of Christianity to Islam.
About the middle of the 13th century, a tribe of Turks
not Suljukian, were driven by Mongol invaders from Khorasan
into Armenia in search of pasturage for their flocks. Out of
these came Ertogrul, who turned westward and sought settlement
in Asia Minor. He came into Phrygia and Bithynia
and there his son Othman, or Osman, was reared, who became
the founder of the Ottoman Empire.
Othman became head of his tribe and was a loyal subject
to the Sultan of Iconium, who did not interfere with his
freedom to prey upon his neighbors. In 1299 he began a
more independent career, which to his death in 1326 was
marked by gradual conquest. until, with his capital at Brousa
he ruled over Phrygia, Galatia and Bithynia.
Thus began the long line of Turkish Sultans whose sway
was gradually extended over all Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria,
Arabia, Egypt and Tripoli in Africa, and Thrace, Macedonia,
Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia,
Bulgaria, Roumania in Europe, until even the walls of Vienna
were besieged by the armies of the Ottoman Sultan seeking
to break through the barriers into the heart of Europe and to
carry Islam to the North Sea. Thus the rise and spread of
Mohammedanism in the Near East is briefly recorded. At
the height of its power all Europe stood aghast at the
threatened possibility of universal Moslem conquest. The Pope
of Rome is said to have declared that he feared the Sultan
of Turkey more than he feared the devil himself.
That part of the third division of our topic, dealing with the
Wahabi revival and Dervish movements, we will consider
under another heading. We will here but refer to the decline
in this period of Moslem national supremacy.
The decline of Mohammedanism as a political power in
the last century has been almost as rapid as its rise was under
Abu Bekr and his successors in the first period, and the
Ottomans, and the Mogul Emperor in the second period.
Much of the quick rise of different Modern leaders, eventuating
in the creation of an Empire, can be accounted for in part
by the peculiar conditions that seemed especially to favor the
rapid advance of an intrepid leader backed by a horde of
followers inspired by the belief that, through war, they were
rendering a service to God and that the booty thus secured
was theirs by divine right. To this is to be added the belief
that death in battle insured an immediate entrance into the
most entrancing joys of paradise. There is no doubt that
Islam was able to inspire, its votaries with a sense of unity
wholly lacking in its opponents.
On two notable historic occasions, unbelieving barbarians
have conquered the followers of Mohammed, the Suljuk Turks
in the 11th century, and the Mongols in the 13th, and in each
case the conquered, have forced their religion upon their
conquerors.
In addition to the so-called Moslem lands and countries
that contain large numbers of Mohammedans, like China and
Russia, there are scattered Moslem populations surrounded by
unbelievers. Among these are the Polish-speaking Moslems,
of Tartar origin, in Lithuania, who inhabit the districts of
Kovno, Vilna and Crodno; the Dutch speaking Moslems of
Cape Colony, and the Indian Coolies that have carried their
faith to the West Indies and to British and Dutch Guiana.
As we trace the decline of Moslem power, we note the
early dissensions in the territory invaded by Jenghiz Khan,
requiring a second victory by his descendant Tamerlane.
Nest we note the Mogul Emperors in India flashing across
history with all the brilliancy of a fabulously wealthy eastern
court, remaining for a brief period like a dream or vision of a
glorious past, and then disappearing, except for the broken
monuments of their former supremacy. The regions ruled
by this series of brilliant Moslem emperors passed under the
government of a Christian queen.
We turn then to the rule of the Saracens in Spain, who
aspired to invade northern Europe, but who were compelled
to withdraw to Africa, and Spain passed again under a Christian
government.
The Ottoman Empire that once held sway over the country
stretching from Persia and India to the Adriatic, including
vast areas in Europe and the entire southern littoral of the
Mediterranean, now possesses no territory upon the southern
shores of the Mediterranean and has but a slight hold upon
Europe. Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli and Egypt have
all passed from Moslem rule to government by Christian
powers. Persia, once proud of her position among the Mohammedan
nations, is now but a vassal of a Christian state.
The fact is almost startling, that, whereas, a few centuries
ago, Mohammedan kingdoms and empires were the most
powerful and dreaded governments upon the face of all the
earth, now not one remains with even a semblance of independent
power possessing the elements of continuity. Islam
as a national force in the world has ceased to be, and so the
dream of Mohammed of a mighty theocracy under the under the
of the Caliph of Islam has passed from earth without the
possibility of return.
It is a question worthy at least of speculation, if the loss of
political and national power has not tended to drive Moslems
back to the contemplation of things spiritual. As hopes of
conquest have been destroyed, devout Moslems have sought
spiritual victories over themselves and others, as is manifested
in some of the more modern mystical developments.
These are questions worthy of serious consideration.
1 Cf. S. Wellhausen Reste
arabische Heidentums 2te. Aus. Berlin 1907, or G.A. Barton,
A Sketch of Semitic Origins, Social and Religious,
New York, 1902, pp. 123-135.
2 New York 1877, pp. 13 and 14.
3 Ireland, The Far-Eastern
Tropics, Boston, 1905, p. 4.
4 Quoted by Arnold in
The Preaching of Islam, pp. 294-295.
Essays by James Levi Barton
The Christian Approach to Islam, by James L. Barton,
Pilgrim Press 1918, Chapter II (pages 16-31).
Answering Islam Home Page