STUDIES IN 11 - AHOMMEDANISM.* This volume is "respectfully dedicated to Islam
in England, and to all seekers after Truth,"—words which may possibly puzzle some of our readers. For what is " Islam in England "? It is an attempt of a Liverpool solicitor of the name of Quilliam to propagate Mahommedanism in England. This gentleman was converted to Mahommedanism in Morocco, of all places in the world,—a country where Islam exhibits its essential characteristics in a form that would repel, one would think, all rational minds. Instead of repelling, Islam in Morocco attracted Mr. Quilliam to such a degree, that on his return to England in 1884, he set about preaching his new faith, with so much success that he has gathered round him a following of some fifty converts. Mr. Quilliam is evi- dently an enthusiast. He expects great success from his efforts. "From the Cape of Good Hope to Tangiers," he tells us, "from Cape Spartel to China, the Moslem heart is beating with anxiety at this development of Islam. Five times a day, from millions of true believers' lips, from the monarch on the throne down to the poorest ryot in India, rises the solemn supplication to Almighty God : Allah, most Merciful and Great, bless Thy work in England." But Mr. Pool need have no misgivings. Mr. Quilliam has as much chance of converting any considerable number of English people to Islam as he has of converting them to Thuggism. The English are a practical people, and little as the bulk of them may know about the real doctrines and history of Islam, they see that every country which has adopted that religion is smitten with premature decay.
But although Mr. Pool has, in our opinion, attributed an ex- aggerated importance to the quixotic vagaries of Mr. Quilliam, he has done good service in publishing this popular exposition of the doctrines and real character of Islam. So far as he errs at all, he errs on the side of too much leniency to Mahom- medanism. His account of the Moors in Spain, for example, has but little relation to historical facts. "The story of the Moors in Spain," he says, "is a romance from the beginning to the end; and it is a story that reflects great honour on Mahom- medans. Spain is the one country on the face of the earth in which Moslem rule has been really beneficial to the people of the land. The Moors made Spain prosperous ; they made her a great nation ; they made her the home in the Middle Ages of science, art, civilisation. And all this was done with- out injustice to the Christian inhabitants. Indeed, while Mahommedans held supreme sway in Spain, Christians, Jews, and Moslems lived together in amity, and combined their talents and energies to the one common end of exalting their country in the eyes of the whole world." This version of the Moorish domination in Spain is, to quote Mr. Pool's phrase in another sense, "a romance from beginning to end." It must in fairness be admitted that there is much on the surface of the story of the Moors in Spain which appeals pleasantly to one's imaginative sympathy. Their intellectual activity was remarkable; they covered the land with educa- tional institutions. Yet it must be added that the Arab literature of Spain has made no permanent addition to the intellectual possessions of mankind. The Moors were imitators and copyists rather than original thinkers. Averroes, the most eminent among them intellectually, holds no place in the development of philosophy ; and he was in no sense the pro- duct of Islam. He and the small band who co-operated with him were fiercely opposed and persecuted, and at last subdued, by the true representatives of Islam. The fact is, that the Moors found themselves in Spain in the midst of a Christian and Jewish population, of whom many among the educated classes apostatised to save their properties and privileges.
• Studies in Mahommedanism. By John J. Pool. London : Constable and Co. 1892, It is to these that the intellectual efflorescence of Moorish Spain is to be ascribed. The Moorish civilisation was, in fact, an exotic which withered precisely in the degree in which Islam was able to assert itself. It was a civilisation, as Prescott, who writes with a sympathetic bias in favour of the Moors, is obliged to confess, "altogether alien from the genius of Mahommedanism." "It served to conceal, though it could not correct, the vices which it possessed in common with all Mahommedan institutions." He is also right in saying that "a familiar intercourse with the Europeans served to mitigate in the Spanish Arabs" the virus which Was an essential part of their religion. This explains the fact that when they retired from Spain, and Islam was left to its own inherent resources, the Spanish Moors lapsed into the barbarism which is charac- teristic of every Mussulman State.
And even in Spain the blossom and fruitage of Moorish sway were too often nothing better than the skin and film which covered an ulcerous sore. If Mr. Pool will consult standard authorities—for example, Dozy's Histoire des Musul- mans d'Espagne—he will see that the absence of "injustice to the Christian inhabitants" with which he credits the Moors is a myth. The Mahommedan rulers put Jews and Mussulmans into the highest offices of the Church, and "in this way," says Dozy, "the Christians saw their dearest and moat sacred interests entrusted to heretics ; to libertines who took part in the orgies of Arab courtesans even during the solemnities of Church festivals ; to unbelievers who publicly denied a future life; to wretches who, not satisfied with selling themselves, sold their flocks into the bargain." During the first few years of their domination the Moors observed with tolerable loyalty their treaty engagements with the subject Christians. But as their power became established, they broke their engage- ments. They destroyed all the Christian churches in Cordova except the Cathedral, the possession of which was solemnly guaranteed afresh to the Christians. Nevertheless, it was turned a few years later into a mosque. "That happened in Spain," as Dozy says, "which has happened in all countries which the Arabs have conquered : their dominion, mild and humane at its commencement, degenerated into an intolerable despotism." Let us give one instance of the "justice to the Christians" with which Mr. Pool credits the Spanish Moors. In retaliation for a demonstration made by the Christians of Cordova against an oppressive Governor, thousands of them were slaughtered like sheep. Three hundred were impaled alive, with their heads downwards, in rows along the public promenade ; and the survivors, twenty-three thousand, exclu- sive of women and children, were ordered to quit Spain within a period of three days, on pain of crucifixion (Dozy, ii., 71-6). Facts like these ought to be remembered in connection with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain.
Mr. Pool's too favourable account of the Moorish regime in Spain is the only part of his book that is open to serious ques- tion. The rest of the volume is both readable and instruc- tive. He has evidently studied Islam with great care, and he states his own views with exemplary moderation. Indeed, in his anxiety to be fair to Islam, he is disposed sometimes, as we have seen, to be rather more than fair. He gives an interesting account of a visit which he paid last year to the Mahommedan Institute at Liverpool. He heard its President, Mr. Quilliam, preach a sermon against the doctrine of the Incarnation. Mr. Quilliam, "in strong language but weak logic, tried to demonstrate that Christ was not only not divine, but was a very poor specimen of a perfect man." The preacher's "chief points were that Jesus often made mistakes, was constantly losing his temper, was a disobedient son, and Was of a revengeful disposition, as witness the incident of the cursing of the barren fig-tree." We could understand such objections, shallow as they are, from a mere unbeliever. Urged by one who professes to believe in Mahommed as a pattern man, they are grotesque. It is manifest that Mr. Quilliam relied on the ignorance of his audience. Certainly Christianity has not much to fear, or Islam to hope, from the propagandism of such an advocate.
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