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HIBBERT LECTURES 1913
[pic] THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF MOHAMMEDANISM
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|September 9, 2003 | THE HIBBERT LECTURES
SECOND SERIES THE
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
OF MOHAMMEDANISM LECTURES
DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
MAY AND JUNE 1913 BY D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, D. LITT.
FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE AND LAUDIAN PROFESSOR OF ARABIC IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1914 PREFACE THE following lectures were delivered in the months of May and June 1913,
in the University of London, at the request of the HIBBERT TRUSTEES, to
whom the writer wishes at the outset to express his cordial thanks, both
for selecting the subject of Mohammedanism and committing the treatment of
it to him. Professor Goldziher in his Lectures on Islam 1 has provided
guidance for all who wish to handle this theme; the topic chosen by the
present writer might be called "the supplementing of the Koran," i.e. the
process whereby the ex tempore, or indeed ex momento, utterances thrown
together in that volume were worked into a fabric which has marvellously
resisted the ravages of time.
The materials employed for these lectures are to a small extent
unpublished MSS.,1 but in the main recently published works of early
Islamic authors. Of three among the most eminent of these the writer is
simultaneously publishing for the first time
1 Vorlesungen über den Islam, Heidelberg, 1910.
2 The chief of these are the works of Muhasibi, employed in Lecture
V.; the Mawakif of Niffari, from which select translations are given in
Lecture V1.; and the monograph of Ibn 'Asakir on Abu'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari,
which has been used for Lecture VII.
v vi EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF MOHAMMEDANISM authentic and copious biographies from a MS. in his possession, through the
liberality of the GIBB TRUSTEES.1 The works of one of them, the jurist
Shafi'i, were printed by Cairene scholars in the years 1903-1907; the light
which they throw on the history of Islamic jurisprudence is brilliant.
Their publication was immediately preceded by that of the works ascribed to
Shafi'i's teacher Malik, himself the founder of a law-school; and these,
too, are of the greatest utility. This year has seen the completion of a
Corpus Juris on a still vaster scale belonging to the school of Abu
Hanifah, but compiled three centuries after his time; this, though highly
instructive, is no substitute for the work of the founder. The biography of
Shafi'i certainly helps the appreciation and possibly the understanding of
his treatises.
Of the other two authors, Jahiz and Tabari, the works have been issued
partly by Eastern, partly by Western scholars. Each of these is a mine of
information, and, like Shafi'i, takes us into the atmosphere wherein Islam
developed.
In Lecture IV., which deals with the condition of the "protected
communities," considerable use has been made of later authorities;
elsewhere the writer has usually endeavoured to keep within the third, with
occasional extension into the fourth, Islamic century. M. Massignon's
interesting edition of a work by Hallaj enables us to follow Sufism into a
period near its rise; the account of this
1 Yakut's Dictionary of Learned Men, vol. vi. PREFACE vii subject given in Lecture V. is mainly based on the Kut al-Kulub of Abu
Talib al-Mekki, of the middle fourth century of Islam, published some
twenty years ago. Lecture VII. contains material drawn from the Ibanah,
ascribed to Abu'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari, of which the genuineness seems to be
attested by Ibn 'Asakir; it was printed some ten years ago in Hyderabad.
Another text printed in the same place, the Dala'il al-Nubuwwah of Abu
Nu'aim, has furnished material for Lecture VIII.
Throughout, an acquaintance with the elements of the subject, such as
can be obtained from the writer's manuals,1 has been assumed in the reader;
in order, however, to render the Lectures intelligible by themselves, all
allusions which could occasion any difficulty have been explained in the
Index.
The writer terminates this Preface with a tribute of gratitude to
those Mohammedan scholars in Egypt and India who during the last few years
have put into our hands so many texts of the highest importance for the
study of Arabic antiquity; and another to the audiences who deemed these
lectures worthy of their attention.
OXFORD, December 1913.
1 Mohammedanism, in the "Home University Library," and Mohammed and
the Rise of Islam in the series "Heroes of the Nations." |CONTENTS |
|LECTURE | |PAGE |
|I. |THE KORAN AS THE BASIS OF ISLAM |1 |
|II. |THE SAME CONTINUED |36 |
|III. |THE LEGAL SUPPLEMENT |65 |
|IV. |THE STATUS OF THE TOLERATED CULTS |99 |
|V. |THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOHAMMEDAN ETHICS |135 |
|VI. |ASCETICISM LEADING TO PANTHEISM |167 |
|VII. |THE PHILOSOPHICAL SUPPLEMENT |201 |
|VIII. |THE HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT |230 |
| |INDEX |259 | ix THE
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
OF MOHAMMEDANISM LECTURE I THE KORAN AS THE BASIS OF ISLAM IT is a noteworthy fact about the Mohammedan system that since the
Migration it has demanded no qualifications for admission to its
brotherhood. To those who are outside its pale it in theory offers no
facilities whatever for the study of its nature; a man must enroll himself
as a member first, and then only may he learn what his obligations are. The
Koran may not be sold to Unbelievers; soldiers are advised not to take it
with them into hostile territory for fear the Unbeliever should get hold of
it; and many a copy bears upon it a warning to Unbelievers not to touch.
Pious grammarians have refused to teach grammar to Jews or Christians,
because the rules were apt to be illustrated by quotations from the sacred
volume. The Unbeliever is by one of the codes 1 forbidden to enter a
mosque; and even when 1 Malik. See Baidawi i. 10, 12.
1 2 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF MOHAMMEDANISM permission is granted him to do so, he is an unwelcome guest. The crowning
ceremony of Islam, the Pilgrimage, may be witnessed by no Unbeliever; the
penalty for intrusion is death.
It follows that such periods of instruction and probation as are
enjoined by some other systems upon neophytes are unknown to Islam; and
indeed there is no occasion for them. Their purpose is to test the
neophyte's sincerity in the first place, and his moral worthiness in the
second. Against insincerity the system is sufficiently armed by the
principle that whosoever abandons Islam forfeits his life; there is then
little danger of men joining for some dishonest purpose and quitting the
community when that purpose has been served. A Moslem who is in peril of
his life may indeed simulate perversion, and no difficulty is made about
readmitting the repentant pervert; but where Islam can be safely professed
the pervert cannot legally hope to be spared. And it follows from this
principle that martyrdom in Islam means something very different from what
it means to the Christian. The Christian martyr is the man who dies
professing his faith, but not resisting; the Moslem martyr is one who dies
for his faith on the battle-field; more often in endeavouring to force it
upon others than defending his own exercise thereof. For his sacred book
expressly permits him to refrain from confessing where confession will
result in death or torment.
On the other hand, the maxim that Islam cancels all that was before it
renders moral qualification THE KORAN AS THE BASIS OF ISLAM 3 unnecessary. Only after the man has joined the community do his acts begin
to count. Whatever he may have done before joining may bear some analogy to
the keeping or to the breaking of a commandment; but it is not the same
thing. Unbelievers on the Day of Judgment are to be asked two questions
only: why they associated other beings with the Almighty, and if Apostles
were sent them why they repudiated them. The only thing that is incumbent
upon them, the only duty wherewith God has charged them, is to study the
evidence of Islam; or let us rather say, to accept Islam, since they have
no access to the evidences. They may by