ALTHOUGH IT
would be vain to look in the Quran for a systematic exposition of Muslim
beliefs or ritual, yet there emerges from it, taken as a whole, a consistent
body of doctrine and of practical obligations. These have remained in all
ages the core and inspiration of the Muslim religious life, and as such will
be summarized in this chapter, leaving to subsequent chapters the later
refinements of Muslim theology and practice.
Rather surprisingly, the famous shahada or profession of
faith: la ilaha illa’llah muhammadun rasulu’llah, ‘There is but
one God, Mohammed is the Apostle of God’, is not found in this composite
form anywhere in the Quran, but its
two halves occur separately. What may be taken, however, as the outline of a
credo–and often is so taken by Muslims–is given in Sura iv, v. 135:
O ye who believe, believe in God and His Apostle and the Book which
He hath sent down to His Apostle and the Scripture which He hath sent down
formerly. Whosoever denieth God and His Angels and His Books and His
Apostles and the Last Day hath strayed far from the Truth.
(i) God. The Arabic word Allah is a shortened
form of al-ilah, ‘The god’. Both the concepts of a supreme God
and the Arabic term have been shown to be familiar to the Arabs in
Mohammed’s time. What Mohammed did was to give a new and fuller content to
the concept, to purify it from the elements of polytheism which still
clustered round it, and to substitute for acceptance of a vague and distant
figure belief in an intensely real, if transcendent, Being, Creator and
Sustainer of the universe, the all-knowing and all powerful Arbiter of good
and evil, and final Judge of all men.
To give even in outline all the teaching about God which is explicit
or implicit in the Quran would be impossible here. Much of it is expressed
in the form of epithets and adjectives, such as Hearer, Seer, Bestower,
Reckoner, Pardoner, Keeper, Guide, from which Muslims have put together the
ninety-nine ’most beautiful names’ of God. But occasionally there are
longer passages of exposition, the most impressive of which, in its
sustained eloquence, is the famous Throne-verse (Sura ii, v.
256):
God–there is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsistent.
Slumber seizeth Him not, neither sleep. To Him belongeth whatsoever is in
the Heavens and whatsoever is in the Earth. Who is there that shall
intercede with Him save by His Will? He knoweth what is present with men and
what shall befall them, and nought of His knowledge do they comprehend, save
what He willeth. His Throne is wide as the Heavens and the Earth, and the
keeping of them wearieth Him not. And He is the High, the Mighty One.
For Mohammed the essential element of true belief was an
uncompromising monotheism. At Mecca he rejected the pretension that the
goddesses worshipped by the Arabs were ’daughters of Allah’, as later on
he rejected the worship of Jesus and of Mary as ’lords’ and upbraided
the Jews for calling their religious teachers by the title of rabbi
(’my lord’). True belief demands ikhlas, the giving of one’s
whole and unmixed allegiance to God, and its opposite is shirk the
ascribing of partners to God and the worship of any creature. This is the
one unforgivable sin: ’Verily God forgiveth not the giving of partners to
Him; other than this will He forgive to whom He pleaseth, but whosoever
giveth a partner to God hath conceived a monstrous sin’ (iv, v.
51).
God exists from all
eternity to all eternity. He is the only reality: ’Call not on any other
god but Allah; there is no god but He. Everything shall perish except His
Face.
To Him belongeth the rule and to Him shall ye be brought back for
judgement’ (xxviii, v. 88). All else from the Seven Heavens downwards
comes into existence by His Will and at His creative Word ’Be! ’ He
alone gives life and death, His Decree is inescapable, and all things are
determined and disposed by His foreknowledge, pictorially expressed as
written on a ’Preserved Tablet’. Men are His Creatures,
’ibad (a plural of ’abd,
’slave’, already employed as a technical religious term by the Arab
Christians), and must submit their wills to His ways, however mysterious.
’Peradventure ye may dislike some thing, yet God setteth in it abundant
good’ (iv, v. 18). He ’misleads whom He will and guides whom He will’
(1xxiv, v. 34). Man must live
in constant fear and awe of Him, and always be on his guard against Him
(such is the idiomatic meaning of the term for ’fearing God’ which runs
through the Quran from cover to cover), yet he is bidden to adore Him, to
magnify and praise Him, and ever to commemorate His Name.
For alongside the terrible and majestic aspects of God as Creator,
Supreme Power, Judge, and Avenger, the Quran stresses also His bounty and
loving-kindness. He is not only ’the Compassionate One, the Merciful’,
but also the Protector, the Provider, the Pardoner, the Clement, ever ready
to turn to the repentant sinner. He is the Subtle, Who is ’closer
to man than his own neck-vein’ (1,v.15), ‘the First and the Last, the
Manifest and the Hidden’ (1vii, v.3). And finally the mystical indwelling
of God in His universe is suggested in the parable of the ’Light-verse’
(xxiv, v. 35):
God is the Light of the Heavens and of the Earth. The similitude of
His Light is as it were a niche wherein is a lamp, the lamp within a
glass, the glass as though it were a pearly star. It is lit from a blessed
Tree, an olive-tree neither of the East nor of the West, the oil whereof
were like to shine even though no fire were applied to it; Light upon Light;
God guideth to His Light whom He will.
(ii) Angels. In the imagery of the Quran the
angels are represented generally
as God’s messengers. They are, like men, His creatures and servants and
worship Him continually; they bear up His throne, descend with His Decrees
on the Night of Power, record men’s actions, receive their souls when they
die, and witness for or against them at the Last Judgement, and guard the
gates of Hell. At the battle of Badr they assisted the Muslims against the
vastly superior forces of the Meccans.
Although the term Archangels is not found in the Quran, the
idea seems to be implied in the mention of the Angel of Death, who is set in
authority over men (xxxii, v. II), and of Michael alongside Gabriel in one
verse (ii, v. 92). But it is above all Gabriel who is God’s chief
messenger; and it is certain that the early Muslims identified
Gabriel with that ’illustrious messenger, lord of power’ who
communicated the Quran to Mohammed (1xxxi, vv. 19–21), and
again with the ’Holy Spirit’ who announced the birth of Jesus to the
Virgin Mary and is said in three passages to have ’strengthened’ Jesus.
With the doctrine of angels goes also the doctrine of devils,
although the devils are represented as rebellious jinn rather than
fallen angels. The jinn are, like men, created, but of fire instead
of earth; there are believers and infidels amongst them, and the unbelievers
will be judged with men and condemned to Hell. The rebellious jinn
are called shaitans; they lead men astray, oppose the Prophets, and
try to overhear what is discussed in Heaven but are ’ driven off by
shooting stars. They teach men sorcery, and were made subject to Solomon,
for whom they lived and built.
The leader of these evil spirits is called ‘the Shaitan’ or
Iblis. His fall from a place among the angels was due to his refusal to
worship Adam on God’s command; for this he was accursed, but respited till
the Day of Resurrection and given authority over those of mankind who should
be seduced by him.
(iii) Books and Apostles. The doctrine of Apostles is,
as the shahada shows, next to the Unity of God the central doctrine
of the Quran. At all times and to all peoples, including the jinn,
God has sent messengers or prophets to preach the unity of God and to warn
men of the Judgement. Most, if not all, were rejected and persecuted by the
majority of their fellow-citizens, who were subsequently visited by a
terrible punishment. They were not workers of miracles, except when God
endowed them with special powers as ’signs’. Muslims are required to
believe in them all without distinction, although only a few are mentioned
by name, or their histories related, in the Quran. Several received special
endowments and rank above others, particularly Adam, Noah, the house of
Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. The last or ’Seal’ of the Prophets is
Mohammed, who is God’s Apostle to all mankind.
Altogether, twenty-eight Prophets are mentioned in the Quran. Of
these, four (if Luqman be included) are Arabian, eighteen are Old Testament
figures, three (Zechariah, John the Baptist, and Jesus) are of the New
Testament, and two are personages denoted by epithets
– one being Dhu’1-Qarnain, ’The two-horned’, commonly
identified with the hero of the Alexander-legend. The prophetic narratives
are almost all contained in Meccan passages, and in the case of the Biblical
figures they correspond, with many variations, to the Biblical narratives.
The story of Joseph occupies the whole of Sura xii, and Sura xviii contains
three independent stories those of the Seven Sleepers, of the meeting of
Moses with ’one of Our servants’ (identified by Muslim tradition with
the wandering saint al-Khidr), and of Dhu’1-Qarnain and the building of
the wall of Gog and Magog. In the story of Jesus, which is found both in a
Meccan and in a Medinian version, particular stress is laid on the Virgin
Birth, his miracles, and the denial of his divinity or claim to divinity.
The crucifixion is rejected as a Jewish fable, another in his semblance
having been crucified in his stead.
The doctrine preached by all the Prophets is essentially one and the
same, although in matters of detail there has been a gradual evolution in
their messages towards the final and perfect revelation. These stages are
represented also by the various ’books’ or scriptures granted to several
of the major Prophets. Several earlier scriptures are referred to
anonymously, but four are singled out by name. To Moses was given by Divine
inspiration the Tawrah,
the Jewish Torah,
corresponding to the Pentateuch; to David the
Zabur, identified with the Psalms by a verbal quotation of Psalm
xxxvii, V. 29 in Sura xxi, v. 105 to Jesus the
Injil, the Evangel or Gospel; and to Mohammed the
Qur’an or Recital. All these scriptures were written
revelations, and all alike are to be believed and accepted, since they all
confirm one another and the Quran in particular not only confirms earlier
scriptures, but, as the final revelation, clears up all uncertainties and is
the repository of perfect Truth.
Furthermore, it is declared that the coming of Mohammed
was foretold by Jesus under the name of Ahmad, and that his name is
specifically recorded in the Tawrah
and Injil as the
’Prophet of the Gentiles’ (an-nabi
al-ummi, interpreted by later orthodoxy as ’the unlettered
Prophet’). Nevertheless, the Jews (and perhaps, by implication, the
Christians also) seek to conceal the witness of their scriptures and are
guilty of misquoting and even of wilfully perverting them.
As for Mohammed himself, the Quran repeatedly disclaims on his behalf
anything that savours of the superhuman. He is but a mortal man,
commissioned with the sole duty of conveying God’s warning and message of
salvation. He has no knowledge beyond what is revealed to him, and has been
granted no miraculous powers. He is commanded to seek pardon for his faults
and to be patient under adversity. Yet he is a noble pattern to those who
hope in God, his decisions must be accepted in matters of faith and conduct,
belief in his revelation and obedience to him are necessary to salvation.
(iv) The Last Day. The place occupied by the Last Judgement in
the mind of Mohammed and the imagination of his immediate followers has been
indicated already in the previous chapter.
It is presented always as a cataclysmic event, coming suddenly at a
time known only to God. The Trumpet will be sounded, the heavens shall be
split asunder and the mountains ground to dust, the graves will open, and
men and jinn will be
called to account. Each man’s guardian angels will bear witness to his
record, his deeds will be weighed in the Balance, and his book will be
placed in his hand, the right hand of the blessed, the left hand of the
damned.
Then the blessed, the godfearing men and women, the humble and
charitable, the forgiving, those who have suffered and been persecuted for
God’s sake, those who have fought in the way of God, shall be summoned to
enter the Garden of Paradise, the Abode of Peace, the abiding mansion, where
they shall dwell for ever by flowing rivers, praising God, reclining on
silken couches, enjoying heavenly food and drink and the company of
dark-eyed. maidens and wives of perfect purity, and yet greater bliss which
no soul knoweth.
But the covetous, the unbelieving, the worshippers of gods other than
Allah, shall be cast into the Fire, to abide therein for ever, with no
release from its torments, fed with boiling water and the fruit of the
zaqqum, resembling the head of
shaitans and like molten brass in the belly. No description can
indeed convey the terror of the Quranic portrayal of Hell, backed up as it
is by the sombre asservation ’Verily I shall fill Hell with jinn and men altogether’, or the horror of the day
’when We shall say to Hell ”Art thou filled?” and Hell shall answer
”Are there yet more?” ’ (I, V. 29).
Yet
this presentation of the awful reckoning is lightened by repeated assurances
of the Divine Mercy and by hints of the power of intercession which God will
grant to those whom He pleases, save on behalf of the evildoers in Hell. In
no passage of the Quran, how- ever, is the power of intercession speci6cally
attributed to Mohammed, nor any suggestion that the profession of Islam in
itself is a sure passport to Paradise. Apart from martyrs for the Faith, the
only promise of Paradise is made to ’those who repent and believe and are
righteous in act’.
Islamic orthodoxy has, accordingly, always coupled faith with works,
and in particular with those ’acts of devotion’
(’ibadat) which are enjoined on Believers in the Quran.
(v) Prayer. The
observance of the ritual prayers (salah)
is repeatedly emphasized as one of the essential religious duties. Although
neither the ceremonies nor the five set times of prayer are precisely stated
in the Quran, it is certain that they were well established
before Mohammed’s death. Each consists of a fixed number of
’bowings’ (called rak'ah),
the ’bowing’ itself consisting of seven movements with their appropriate
recitations: (1) the recitation of the phrase
Allahu akbar, ’God is most Great’, with the hands open on
each side of the face; (2) the recitation of the
Fatihah or opening sura
of the Quran, followed by another passage or passages, while standing
upright; (3) bowing from the hips; (4) straightening up; (5) gliding to the
knees and a first prostration with face to the ground; (6) sitting back on
the haunches; ( 7) a second prostration. The second and later ’bowings’
begin with the second of these movements, and at the end of each pair of
’bowings’ and the conclusion of the whole prayer the worshipper recites
the shahada and the
ritual salutations.
The
set times are at daybreak (2 rak'ahs), noon ( 4 rak'ahs), mid- afternoon ( 4 rak'ahs), after sunset ( 3
rak'ahs), and in the early part of the night ( 4 rak'ahs).
At these times prayers should be said and the ritual observed by every
Believer wherever he may be; but by preference they should be performed
congregationally in a mosque (masjid,
’place of prostration’) under the leadership of an
imam, a man who, standing in front of the lines of worshippers,
sets the timing of each movement. It seems that at Medina women joined in
the congregational prayers, standing in rows behind the men. The
imam and the worshippers face towards the
qibla, the prescribed ’direction’, which was defined in an
early Medinian verse as the Sacred Mosque of Mecca. In times of sickness or
danger the ritual may be relaxed, but not otherwise. Additional or
’supererogatory’ prayers are frequently recommended, especially during
the night. The Quran also mentions the noon prayer on Friday, the principal
congregational prayer of the week, and enjoins the suspension of work during
it. In the same connexion mention is made of the call to prayer
(adhan). This replaced the use of bells or clappers, which
Mohammed abhorred; and the first muezzin
(mu’adhdhin, reciter o f the
adhan) was his Abyssinian slave Bilal. Minarets were as yet
unknown, and were first adopted, as it would seem, in Syria during the
Caliphate of the Umayyads.
Ablution before prayers is strictly enjoined, and the ritual is
defined in Sura v, v. 9: ‘When ye rise up to prayer, wash your faces and
your hands [and arms] to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet to
the ankles.’ This is the
’lesser ablution’ (wudhu).
The ’greater ablution’ (ghusl)
is a complete washing of the body after major pollutions. If no water is at
hand, hands and face may be wiped with fine clean sand. While personal
cleanliness is formally
demanded of worshippers, the Quran clearly indicates the symbolic meaning
which underlies the practice of ablution.
(vi) Alms. With
the observance of prayer the Quran regularly enjoins the giving of alms
(zakah), as the outward sign of piety and means of salvation. In
the earlier years the recommendation of alms- giving seems to have referred
rather to free-will offerings (sadaqat);
but a late passage (1viii, vv. 13 – 14) clearly distinguishes
sadaqat from zakah. This would imply that the latter
was already established as an obligatory contribution, presumably at the
rate (prescribed in the later law-books) of one-fortieth of the annual
revenue in money or kind. It
is to be exacted from all who,
whether voluntarily or under constraint, enter into the brotherhood of
Islam; but it is not a tax. Rather is it to be regarded as a loan made to
God, which He will repay many-fold. Free-will offerings are also a means of
expiating offences, and are to be given to relations, orphans, the needy,
and travellers (ii, v. 2 11).
The objects upon which the revenue from zakah is to be spent are
defined (in Sura, ix, v. 6o, though the term used here is sadaqat)
as: the poor, the needy, those employed in
its collection,
those who are to be conciliated, slaves and prisoners debtors, wayfarers,
and the ’Way of God’ (see section ix below).
(vii) Fasting was prescribed at Medina ’as it was prescribed
for those who were before you’ (ii, vv. 1 7 9 – 18 3 ). It is laid down
that the month of Ramadan, the ninth month of the lunar year, is to be
observed as a period of fasting, with complete abstinence from food and
drink during the hours of daylight. Those sick or on a journey at this time
are exempted, but must make compensation by fasting an equal number of days
later. In addition, fasting is included amongst the expiations for various
offences.
(viii) Pilgrimage (Hajj) to the Sacred Mosque at Mecca
was also definitely regulated at Medina. The traditional days in
Dhu’l-Hijja (the twelfth month) and the traditional ceremonies of going in
circuit round the Kaaba, running between the two small eminences of Safa and
Marwa in the vicinity, assembling on the ninth day of the month at the hill
of Arafat (some twelve miles east of Mecca), offering sacrifices of sheep
and camels at Mina on the way back to Mecca – all these were retained and
prescribed in the Quran. Other traditional usages, including the kissing of
the Black Stone set in one of the corners of the Kaaba, and the stoning of
the pillars representing the
Devil in the vicinity of Mina, though not mentioned explicitly, were
observed by Mohammed in his pilgrimages, and so were incorporated into the
Muslim rite.
As before praying the worshipper must be ritually clean, so also
before making the Pilgrimage the worshipper must be in a state of ritual
consecration (ihram). This involves firstly the shaving of the head
and the discarding of ordinary clothing before entering the territory of
Mecca, putting on instead two plain unsewn sheets, so as to leave the head
and face uncovered. Thereafter the pilgrim may not hunt, cut his hair or
nails, use perfume, cover his head (except in the case of women), or have
sexual relations, until after the sacrifice
at Mina, when he resumes his normal condition of life.
Although the Pilgrimage constitutes a religious obligation on every
Muslim, the obligation is explicitly limited by possession of the necessary
means and the physical possibility of getting to Mecca. With this exception,
the duties summed up in the four preceding paragraphs constitute the four
universally obligatory ‘acts of devotion
and together with the shahada
or profession of faith form the five ‘Pillars of the Faith’.
(ix) Jihad in the Way
of God. In addition to these obligations, however, the Quran further
enjoins Believers in many passages to ’strive in the Way of God’. The
duty is formulated in general terms in Sura ii, vv. 186 sqq., between the
regulations for the Fast and the Pilgrimage.
Fight in the Way of God against those who fight against you, but do
not commit aggression... Slay them wheresoever ye find them, and expel them
from whence they have expelled you, for sedition is more grievous than
slaying... Fight against them until sedition is no more and allegiance is
rendered to God alone; but if they make an end, then no aggression save
against the evildoers.
While the context suggests that these verses refer
primarily to Mohammed’s Meccan opponents, two later passages draw a
distinction between warfare
against the pagans on the one hand and against Jews and Christians on the
other.
Fight against those who believe not
in God nor in the Last Day, who prohibit not what God and His Apostle have
prohibited, and who refuse allegiance to the True Faith from among those who
have received the Book, until they humbly pay tribute out of hand (ix, v. 29).
As for those who are slain on the Way of God, they are not dead but
‘living in the presence of their Lord, their needs supplied, rejoicing in
the bounty which God hath given them’ (iii, vv. 163- 4).
(x) Besides these major issues of doctrine, ritual, and
obligation, the Quran contains also a large body of religious and ethical
teachings and of legal injunctions. Wine, swine’s flesh, gambling, and
usury, for example, are forbidden, along with a number of superstitious
usages of the pagan Arabs and the making of images or representations.
Dowries, divorce, the guardianship of orphans, and inheritance are regulated
in detail. Penalties are laid down for certain crimes, such as stealing,
homicide, and murder, as well as for a few minor offences. Slavery is
accepted as an institution, but certain limitations are placed on the rights
of owners over slaves and their good treatment is enjoined. Fraud, perjury,
and slander are repeatedly and severely condemned, and rules of social
behaviour are laid down in several passages. All these and other regulations
served as the foundation upon which the structure of the
Sharia’s, the Islamic Law, was erected by later generations, as
will be explained in Chapter 6.
In the light of this summary of Quranic religion, some conclusions
may be reached on the relation of Islam to Judaism and Christianity and the
disputed question of its originality. If by originality
is meant an entirely new system of ideas about God and humanity,
the relation between them, and the spiritual significance of the universe,
then Mohammed’s intuition was in no way original. But originality in such
a sense has neither place nor value in monotheistic religion. All religion
has developed by a gradual process of revaluation of existing ideas, as
religious thinkers and seers in later generations have reinterpreted
elements present in the thought of earlier generations, giving them fuller
significance or setting them in a fresh relation to the common structure of
religious thinking and experience.
So far from professing to bring a new revelation
Mohammed insisted that the Scripture given to him was but a restatement of
the faith delivered to the Prophets before him, confirming their Scriptures
and itself confirmed by them. Yet the originality of Islam is none the less
real, in that it represents a further step in the logical (if not
philosophical) evolution of monotheistic religion. Its monotheism, like that
of the Hebrew Prophets, is absolute and unconditioned,
but with this it combines the universalism of Christianity. On the
one hand, it rejects the nationalist taint from which Judaism as a religion
did not succeed in freeing itself; for Islam never identified itself with
the Arabs, although at times Arabs have identified themselves with it. On
the other hand, it is distinguished from Christianity, not so much (in spite
of all outward appearances) by its
repudiation of the trinitarian concept of the Unity of God, as by its
rejection of the soteriology of Christian doctrine and the relics of the old
nature cults which survived in the rites and practices of the Christian
Church. Here it was helped by its Arabian background, for the desert-man had
always scorned the fertility cults of the husbandmen. Their own astral cults
were too vague and unorganized to form an effective obstacle to the
penetration of monotheistic ideas, and the transition was eased for them by
the retention of the characteristic religious ceremony of the nomads, the
pilgrimage procession around the common sanctuary and the sacrificial feast
in its vicinity. Apart
from this one concession to traditional ritual, therefore, Islam set the
terms of a new experiment in human religion, an experiment in pure
monotheism, unsupported by any of the symbolism or other forms of appeal to
the emotions of the common man, which had remained embedded in the earlier
monotheistic religions.
In thus setting man as it were face to face with God,
without any mediating spiritual or personal elements, Islam necessarily
emphasized the contrast between them. In spite of the passages of mystical
intuition in the Quran, the dogmatic derived from it could not but start
from the postulate of the opposition between God and man, and (as a
necessary corollary) the equality of all men in their creaturely relation to
God. In this stark contrast lies the original tension of Islam. And however
the concrete and literalist minds of the desert-men may have conceived the
power and majesty of God, the pleasures of Paradise, and the terrors of
Hell, the effect of this tension in rousing religious minds to a sense of
responsibility is proved by the explosive and creative force which it
manifested century after century.
But the very existence and originality of such a tension set the
leaders of the Muslim Church a peculiarly difficult task in meeting the two
problems for which all religious systems must find an answer. One is the problem of its appeal to the reasoning mind, which
calls for the elaboration of its doctrines in terms acceptable to
philosophical thought – or, if this should prove too hard, at least to
rational thought. The other is its appeal to the hearts and wills of
ordinary men and women. It remained to be seen how far and how long a
religion which aspired to be universal could keep the mass of
its followers on so stern and exacting a plane of religious
obligation and experience.
‘Face’
is
the term which in the Quran corresponds to
persona or ‘being’.
It is a curious fact that circumcision, though generally regarded as
obligatory upon Muslims, is
not mentioned in the Quran.
The Sacred Months were the seventh, eleventh,
twelfth, and first months of the Arabian year, when by immemorial custom
no raiding or fighting was done.
