Mahomet - Founder of Islam | Page 2

akin to theirs in its
denunciatory fury, its prostration before the might and majesty of a
single God. The evolution of the tribal deity from the local
wonderworker, whose shrine enclosed his image, to the impersonal and
distant but awful power who held the earth beneath his sway, was
Mahomet's contribution to the mental development of his country, and
the achievement within those confines was wonderful. But to the sum
of the world's thought he gave little. His central tenet had already
gained its votaries in other lands, and, moreover, their form of belief in
one God was such that further development of thought was still
possible to them. The philosophy of Islam blocks the way of evolution
for itself, because its system leaves no room for such pregnant ideas as
divine incarnation, divine immanence, the fatherhood of God. It has
been content to formulate one article of faith: "There is no God but
God," the corollary as to Mahomet's divine appointment to the office of
Prophet being merely an affirmation of loyalty to the particular mode
of faith he imposed. Therefore the part taken by Islam in the reading of
the world's mystery ceased with the acceptance of that previously
conceived central tenet.
In the sphere of ideas, indeed, Mahomet gave his people nothing
original, for his power did not lie in intellect, but in action. His mind
had not passed the stage that has just exchanged many fetishes for one
spiritual God, still to be propitiated, not alone by sacrifices, but by
prayers, ceremonies, and praise. In the world of action lay the strength
of Islam and the genius of its founder; it is therefore in the impress it
made upon events and not in its theology and philosophy that its secret
is to be found. But besides the acceptance of one God as Lord, Islam
forced upon its devotees a still more potent idea, whose influence is felt
both in the spheres of thought and action.
As an outcome of its political and military needs Mahomet created and
established its unassailable belief in fatality--not the fatalism of cause
and effect, bearing within itself the essence of a reason too vast for
humanity to comprehend, but the fatalism of an omnipotent and
capricious power inherent in the Mahomedan conception of God. With
this mighty and irresponsible being nothing can prevail. Before every
event the result of it is irrevocably decreed. Mankind can alter no tiniest

detail of his destined lot. The idea corresponds with Mahomet's vision
of God--an awful, incomprehensible deity, who dwells perpetually in
the terrors of earth, not in its gentleness and compassion. The doctrine
of fatalism proved Islam's greatest asset during its first hard years of
struggle, for it gave to its battlefields the glory of God's surveillance:
"Death is a favour to a Muslim." But with prosperity and conquest
came inaction; then fatalism, out of the weakening of endurance,
created the pessimism of Islam's later years. Being philosophically
uncreative, it descended into the sloth of those who believe, without
exercise of reason or will, in the uselessness of effort.
Before Islam decayed into inertia it had experienced a fierce and
flaming life. The impulse bestowed upon it by its founder operated
chiefly in the religious world, and indirectly in the realm of political
and military power. How far the religion of Islam is indebted to
Mahomet's knowledge of the Jewish and Christian systems becomes
clear upon a study of the Kuran and the Muslim institutions. That
Mahomet was familiar with Jewish Scriptures and tradition is beyond
doubt.
The middle portion of the Kuran is filled to the point of weariness with
reiterations of Jewish legend and hero-myths. It is evident that
Mahomet took the God of the Jews to be his own deity, combining in
his conception also the traditional connection of Jehovah and His
Chosen People with the ancient faith and ceremonies of Mecca, purged
of their idolatries. From the Jews he took his belief in the might and
terror of the Lord and the admonitory character of his mission. From
them also he took the separatist nature of his creed. The Jewish teachers
postulated a religion distinct from every other belief, self-sufficient,
owning no interpreter save the Law and the Scriptures. Mahomet
conceived himself also as the sole vehicle during his lifetime and after
his death for the commands of the Most High. He aimed at the
superseding of Rabbinical power, and hoped to win the Jews into
recognition of himself as successor to their own teachers and prophets.
But his claims were met by an unyielding reliance upon the completed
Law. If the Jewish religion had rejected a Redeemer from among its
own people, it was impossible that it should accept a leader from an
alien and despised race. Mahomet, finding coalition