THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF ISLAM.
THE paper entitled "A Cry from the Indian Mahom- medans " which is published in the current number of the Nineteentg Century, deserves a more detailed examination than the cursory reference which we made to it in noticing the Magazines for August, There is, indeed, very little in it which is not already well known to readers of Dr. Hunter's works ; but it derives importance from the fact that it is written by a sincere and well-educated Mahammedan, who is at the same time a loyal British subject. "No one," he says, " can attach greater im- portance to the permanence of British rule in India than myself, for I believe that upon it depend, for a /wig time to come, the well-being and progress of the country." But he warns us that British rule in India is exposed to a serious 'danger, from the discontent, leading to dis- affection, of the Mussulman population of our Indian Empire, —a discontent arising from their practical, though, of course, unintentional, exclusion from the public service. We believe that the danger is not so great as he imagines. In the first place, the Mussulman weight in India is greatly counterbalanced by the fact that the warrior classes, Sikhs, Rajpoots, and Mar- hattas are bigoted Hindoos. In the second place, the Indian Mussulmans are by no means the "homogeneous" population which the Syed Ameer All represents them to be, They are divided into two hostile sects, which hate each other more than either of them hates the Infidel ; and it has ,recentIy come to be suspected that the Sunites—that is, those who are in com- munion with the Sultan of Turkey—are the minority. But the danger, though exaggerated, is probably real ; and for this reason, as well as on the general grounds of justice, it is undoubtedly the duty of the Indian Government to inquire into the grievances of which the Indian Mussulmans complain, and to remedy them, as far as possible. We fear, however, that that is not very far, for we believe that the loss of status of Ma,hommedanism in India, as elsewhere, has its roots in causes which lie deeper than any of those suggested by the accomplished Mussulman who utters this pathetic " cry from the Indian Mahommedans." Meanwhile, let us hear what he has to say, "The Mahommedans," he tells us, "possess neither the wealth nor the education of the laindoos." "Every community under British rule has prospered except the Mahommedans, which stands alone as the marked and dis- appointing exception." In every walk of life the Mussulman finds himself jostled and passed by the supple and versatile Hindoo. Instead of monopolising, as he used to do, all honourable and lucrative posts in the Army, the Law, and the Civil Service, he sees these appropriated either by Englishmen, or by the race over which his fathers ruled not long ago. The Syed Ameer Ali shows by statistics that the proportion of Mussulman officials to Hindoos in every department of State is infinitesimal, and this even in districts where the Mussulmans form the majority of the population. How is this startling fact to be accounted for ? Amer Alt's explanation is that _we obtained the administration of Bengal from the Muesulrnan ..1;mPeror on the understanding that we would carry out the Mussulman system, but that we violated the compact. "For about half a century the Mussulmans were scrupulously main- tained in their positions, Suddenly, secretly, and insidiously, as the Mahommedans allege, the thunderbolt was forged which was th
o overwhelm with ruin their status, and power, and privileges." In other words, we abolished the Mussulman system of adminis- tration, Ion, and substituted the English system. The author quotes
Dr. Hunter r. in support of his view "that both parties to the con- tract understood " that the English "would endeavour to carry on the Government of the country in accordance with the Mussulman system." Dr. Hunter does say so ; but he exag- gerates unconsciously by using the word contract,—whereas the understanding was of the vaguest kind, and was certainly
not intended to cover a Mussulman ascendancy, And Dr. Hunter also says something else which Ameer Ali does not quote. " Our reply" to the charge of bad faith, says Dr. Hunter, "is that, when we came to look into the Mahomme- clan Administration of Bengal, we found it so one-sided, so corrupt, so absolutely shocking to every principle of humanity, that we should have been a disgrace to civilisation had we retained it. . . . . . The people were oppressed in order that the landholder might have his rent, and were plun- dered in order that the landholder's servants might become
rich. Complaint against wrong was useless The truth is that, under the Mahommedans, government was an engine for enriching the few, not for protecting the many. It never seems to have touched the hearts or moved the consciences of the rulers that a vast population of hus- bandmen was toiling, bare-backed in the heat of summer and in the rain of autumn, in order that a few families in each district might lead lives of luxurious ease." The administra- tion of justice was equally intolerable, From the multi to the jailer was one festering mass of corruption. "Mussulman jailers," says Dr. Hunter, 44 took bribes from or starved at
their discretion the whole prison population of Bengal" ; and the Mussulman jailers were merely imitating, at the bottom of the official hierarchy, the conduct of all grades of their superiors up to the top. This is an epitome of Mussulrnan rule in India, and every- where ; and it was impossible for any Government claiming to be civilised to continue such a system, after its incurable vices had been exposed. The truth is that Ishan is a militant theocracy, and when it ceases to conquer it necessarily begins to decay, though it does not cease to obtain converts, Progress is the law of all human polities, and a polity which refuses to reform must begin to die, as soon as it ceases to advance by physical force. But Ishim is believed by every Mussulman to be the last revelation of the Divine Will
to man, which is but another way of saying that Islam is absolutely and eternally irreformable and unchangeable. Herein lie both its strength and its weakness. Its strength is due to the consciousness of every Mussulman that he is a member of a vast theocratic, and at the same time democratic, brother- hood. It is theocratic, because it is believed to be a polity founded immediately by God himself, who is always its supreme chief. It is democratic, because its constituent members are all equal. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as a Mussulman State or a Mussulman nationality. The Mussulman of Kurdistan is the brother of the Mussulman of Bosnia ; the Mussulman of Crete is the brother of the Mussulman of Egypt. But the bond of brotherhood is not a common nation- ality or race—for in these they are as different and anti- pathetic as any races can possibly be—but a common faith. For the sake of convenience, we may talk of the Government of Turkey, the Government of Afghanistan, the Government of Morocco, just as we may talk of the Church of France, the Church of Austria, the Church of Spain. But just as there is, in reality, one Papal Church in the world, the local branches of which are bound in one polity by a common code of funda- mental and unchangeable dogmas, so there is only one Mussul- man Power in the world, and what we call Mussulman States are only branches of a cosmopolitan theocracy, and are all bound together by one common code of civil and religious rules and dogmas which arc essentially unchangeable. Mahone- medanism is thus a vast militant Papacy, which is bound in the fetters of an infallibility as dogmatic as that of Rome, and much more rigid. The infallibility of one Pope may, at all events, be qualified or explained away by the infallible decree of a successor. But Ishim has but one infallible Pontiff, and he has been dead for centuries. Mahommed never has had, and never can have, a successor. Khalifs are but his vicegerents, and forfeit their position and the obedience of the Faithful the moment they transgress, by overt act or active sanction, any violation of the Sacred Law which binds' the conscience of the whole Mussulman world. " Spiritual power in 'shim," says Ubicini, truly, "begins and ends with Mahommed." 'shim thus claims to be a universal empire, covering the whole sphere of human relations and duties, both civil and religious. And the right of citizenship in this world-wide polity is not based on birth, or race, or country—for it recognises no country but Dar-ul-Ishim (" the Home of Islam ")—but on a religious profession. Wherever Ishirn reigns, there the Moslem is at home and a citizen. Wherever Islam is not supreme he is a foreigner—a sojourner in Dar-ul- Harb (" the Home of the Enemy "). And the chronic relation of Dar-ul-Ishtin to Dar-ul-Haib is a relation of undying war,
till the inhabitants of Dar-ul-Harb are exterminated or made tributaries.
Here lies the secret of the power of Islam. It abolishes caste and all social and hereditary distinctions. Within the polity of Ishim all Moslems are equal ; but, in relation to the rest of mankind they are an aristocratic brotherhood. It is easy to understand the fascination of such a creed for the oppressed and down-trodden everywhere. And nowhere could this fascination have been so attractive as in India, where the teeming population was divided into castes, separated from each other by impassable gulfs. On all these castes the Moslem looked down with contempt. Being all outside the pale of Islam, they were all in his eyes equally degraded. The high- caste Brahmin and the low-caste Pariah were on a level out- side Islam, and became equal inside it, The high-caste Brahmin had thus, perhaps, no very great inducement to become a Moslem ; but the low-caste Ilindoo had the strongest inducements that can appeal to human nature. The ragged beggar of yesterday became, by the initiatory rite of Islam, the social equal of the Great Mogul, and socially entitled, if qualified on other grounds, to claim the hand of his daughter in marriage. No wonder the converts to Islam, in a world where the masses were degraded and oppressed, were numerous, even without the argument of the sword. All the same, however, Ishim bears within its bosom the germ of inevitable decay. This is, of course, obvious, whenever it rules over a non-Mussulman population. It cannot possibly govern that population justly. It cannot give it equality before the law. It cannot mix with it. It cannot assimilate it, or be itself assimilated. There is a wall of eternal separation between the two populations. A Mussulman Government ruling over a non-Mussulman population is thus always of necessity in the cruel dilemma described by Livy,—it " can neither endure its vices nor their remedies." It is obliged, by an unchangeable constitution, to refuse the simple necessaries of political life, and its choice lies between atrophy and a violent death. And even where the population is all Mussulman, Islam must decline, when it ceases to advance by the sword. It is bound for ever to remain at the level of enlightenment occupied by a Bedouin chief of the seventh century. Mahommed's ignorance and prejudices, and, we must add, his vices, are stereotyped for ever as the highest tide-mark which Moslem civilisation, depending on itself, can reach. It cannot accept Western education and civilisation, for their acceptance would be fatal, as every Moslem feels, to Islam. Language is the instrument of education, and the Moslem world, when seeking what we call learning, is religiously restricted to two sacred tongues, Arabic and Persian. Individual exceptions do not touch the general argument. Polygamy, also, and unlimited divorce and slavery are gangrenes which are an essential part of Ishim, and continuously corrupt each class as it rises to wealth and power. Freedom of thought and toleration, too, are absolutely forbidden by the Sacred Law, and an impassable barrier is thus interposed between Mahommedanism and modern civilisa- tion. Pathetic, therefore, as the "cry " of the Indian Mahom- medans is, and much as we may sympathise with them in their decadence, we fear that no cure is to be found in all the ,pharmacy of political science. No artificial aids of the kind • suggested by the Sped Ameer Ali can, at hest, do more than retard—they cannot arrest—the decay of a system which bears within its own constitution the seeds of steady social decline.
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