CHAPTER XVII MOHAMMEDANISM THE CALIPHATE. DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES The Caliphs-The Moslem Conquests-Situation of Jews and Christians-Moslem Law-Custom and Tradition-Development of Jurisprudence The Principle of Consensus-The Kharijite Schism-Early Controversies-The Mutazilites-Their Idea of God-Doctrine of the Created Koran-Rationalised Eschatology -Mediating Theology-Al-Ashari-Al-Bakilani. THE situation in which the death of Mohammed (632 A. D.) left his followers was exceedingly difficult. During his lifetime he had kept all authority in his own hands. Military commanders were appointed for a specific expedition with specific instructions, and when they had accomplished their task, they laid down their command and returned to the ranks of the believers. Even when his illness made it necessary to designate a leader for the public prayers in the mosque, the appointment was made only for the temporary occasion with no provision for a possible recurrence. All questions that arose in the community were settled by him, and if his own authority was not sufficient, a revelation was thrown into the balance. He had thus built up no organisation, no machinery of administration which might have gone on when the master mind which had designed and created it was withdrawn. He had made no provision for a successor, either by naming one or by determining the method in which one should be chosen. As prophet, it was clear to everybody that he could not have any successor was he not the last of the prophets? But the religious-political community which Islam had become required a head and a central and supreme author ity; this was indeed the indispensable condition of its continued existence. For a moment it seemed as if conflicting interests and ambitions might lead to intestine strife; but better counsels /prevailed, and Abu Bekr was recognised on all sides as the vicar of the Apostle of God ("caliph"). Abu Bekr was on every account the right man. His personal character, his intimate relation to Mohammed reaching back to the very beginning of Mohammed's career, his simple-minded faith in the Prophet and loyalty to his word and example, made it sure that the work of Mohammed would be carried on, his unfinished task completed, in his own spirit. The news of Mohammed's death was the signal for the falling away of all Arabia; Medina, Mecca, and Taif almost alone remained true. Medina itself was for the moment seriously threatened by the tribes from the north and the northeast; it had been almost stripped of its defenders to make up the army despatched under the command of Osama against Syria in accordance with plans which had been formed by Mohammed before his death. Yemen fel! away as a matter of course, and Yemama with all the regions beyond. It is an interesting evidence of the impression Mohammed had produced upon the Arabs that the leaders in this attempt to assert Arab liberty almost without exception either gave themselves out for prophets or had prophets at their elbows. The struggle which gave the armies of the caliphate most difficulty was in Yemama, where the prophet Maslama (nicknamed by the Moslems Moseilima), at the head of the tribe Abu Hanifa, was only subdued after great efforts. The turn of Yemen followed, and before the end of 633 all Arabia had been reconverted by the Moslem armies. The consolidation of Islam in Arabia, the fusion into one body animated by one spirit of men and tribes which had yesterday been engaged in fratricidal war, was accomplished by the aggressive wars which now began against the Roman and Persian Empires. These conquests fell in the caliphate of Omar, who in August, 634, succeeded Abu Bekr and was the real organiser of the empire. This is not the place to recite the history of these conquests; it must suffice to recall a few dates which indicate the successive stages in the expansion of Islam. Damascus fell into the hands of the Moslems in the late summer of 635, and in August of the following year was fought on the banks of the Yarmuk the battle which determined Heraclius to evacuate all Syria. On the other side, the battle of Kadisiya in 637 brought under Moslem dominion those parts of the Persian Empire which had been ancient Babylonia and Assyria. The struggle for the eastern provinces continued for some time longer. A decisive victory was won at Nehawend, in 642, and in a few years all Iran was reduced to subjection. In 640 Egypt fell into the hands of the Moslems without serious opposition. Thus when Omar died by the hand of an assassin, in 644, he was at the head of an empire which extended from Cyrene on the west to the frontiers of India on the east. Under his successor, Othman (644-'56), the movement of expansion slackened. The Moslem empire had indeed reached what might not improperly be regarded its natural limits. Othman was a weak ruler with an especial weakness for his kinsmen and the old aristocracy of Mecca. Mohammed himself and his immediate successors had, out of motives of policy, shown exceptional favours to these late-comers into the faith, but under Othman they got possession of all the best places, the command of armies, the governorships of the richest provinces. Many of these men, as everybody knew, had little religion in their hearts, though they fully appreciated the political possibilities of Iŝlam. The process of secularisation which was converting the empire of the faith into a monarchy quite after the pattern that prevailed among the unbelievers did not go unobserved nor without protest, and Othman found himself the mark of dangerous opposition from two sides on the one hand from the old believers, the representatives of the truly relig ious spirit of Islam, and on the other hand from rival aspirants to the caliphate. These and other discontented elements made common cause against the caliph. In 656 bands from Irak and Egypt assembled at Medina and, when the caliph refused to abdicate at their demand, besieged him in his own house, forced an entrance, and killed him. Ali, the first cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, succeeded in getting himself acclaimed caliph, and thereupon a period of civil wars began. Two rival candidates who raised the standard of insurrection in Irak were speedily disposed of; but a more formidable enemy arose in Moawiya, the governor of Syria, who made it his mission to avenge the murdered caliph on the heads of those who had instigated or connived at the crime and profited by it. Ali's supporters were made up of incompatible elements; when he yielded to the dictation of one party he alienated the other;1 he had, indeed, to put down a formidable revolt in his own army while the decisive struggle with Moawiya was still pending. Moawiya was much stronger in material resources and had a united following. Before the unequal conflict reached its inevitable issue, Ali was murdered (January, 661); in the summer of that year Moawiya entered Cufa and received the oath of allegiance as the "Chief of the Believers." In the course of a few years Moawiya made himself master of the whole Moslem world. He established the seat of government at Damascus, and his successors ruled there for nearly a century, until, in 750, the Omayyad caliphate of Damascus gave place (except in Spain) to the Abbasid caliphate of Bagdad. The Arab armies did not, as is still sometimes imagined, march up and down the world offering mankind the dilemma, "Islam or the sword!" The Koran enjoins the Moslems to force the heathen (Arabs) to embrace the religion of the one true God; it bids them war with others till they submit to the rule of Islam; but it expressly protects the adherents 1See below, p. 414. of the book-religions, Judaism and Christianity,1 in the exercise of their religion. The Moslem conquests were not, in fact, inspired by fanaticism, nor marked by sanguinary excesses, as wars go. The capitulation of Jerusalem to Omar in 636 stands out in strong contrast to the ruthless massacre of Jews and Moslems when the crusaders took the city in 1099 A. D. The protected populations had to pay a capitation tax, and taxes on the lands, which were left in their possession, the Moslems being at the beginning regarded as an army of occupation encamped on conquered territory, and not allowed to acquire real property. The early caliphs were not at all zealous for the conversion of tax-paying Christians or Zoroastrians into tax-supported Moslems; and when multitudes began to go over to the religion of their masters, the rulers were seriously embarrassed by a movement which upset their theory and curtailed their finances. The Moslems were compelled to take over the administrative machinery they found in operation in the conquered countries with its organised staff of secretaries and clerks. Thus, in Syria and Egypt the officials through whom the business of government was carried on were Christians, Greeks and Copts; in Irak, Persians. Some of these officials rose out of the bureaus to positions of confidence and responsibility; the father of John of Damascus, the greatest theologian of the Greek church, held a high station at the Omayyad court, and the son was educated for the same More than one of the caliphs entertained himself by listening to discussions between Moslems, Jews, and Christians, on the distinctive features of their respective religions and their relative merits; and the development of Mohammedan theology itself gives ample evidence of intellectual intercourse between Moslem and Christian thinkers. Fanaticism is, indeed, the last sin of which history can accuse the Omayyad caliphs, and if there were among the Abbasids some gloomy bigots, it is well to remember that they persecuted dissident Moslems with more zeal than 1 Zoroastrianism, also, was included in the category. |