rule, of Bagdad under the régime of the Abbaside Kalifs, and of the Empire of the Moguls? I remember them all; but they are all irrelevant. Let us glance at the facts, and let us begin with Spain. I assert, then, that the civilization of Moorish Spain is but very partially due to the Moors, and is due to them at all precisely in the degree in which they emancipated themselves from the fetters of Islam. I shall give reasons for that assertion presently. Meanwhile, those who hold the contrary opinion are bound to account for the following facts. When the Moors invaded Spain they were utterly uncivilized; when they left Spain they lapsed quickly into their original barbarism, and there they have remained ever since. How is this to be reconciled with the burst of splendour which illumined the rule of the Moors in Spain? Was there any magic virtue in the soil or climate of Granada which could thus transfigure the genius and character of an alien race? The present Minister for Foreign Affairs in France has acutely remarked on the "singular fact that Arabia itself has never been the theatre of that new glory" which irradiated Arab rule in Spain and Sicily. And he gives the explanation of the fact when he adds that "Arabia seems satisfied to be the inviolable asylum of the Mussulman faith. Mecca and Medina continue to be holy cities, and to this day the unbelievers are under the ban of exclusion from that sacred soil."* In other words, the Arab's capacity for improvement is in an inverse ratio to his proximity to the heart of Islam. In Spain the virus circulated through his system at a distance from its source, and mingled with a variety of counteracting influences which served to keep it in check. It is in the capital of a country that we naturally look for the development and concentration of the intellectual capacity of its people. The capital of Islam is Mecca, and the condition of Mecca is the measure of the highest degree of civilization which Islam, left to its own resources, is capable of reaching. Prescott writes of the Moors of Spain with a certain degree of sympathetic admiration; yet even he is obliged to admit that in so far as they had imbibed the spirit of European civilization, they were acting in a manner "altogether alien from the genius of Mahomedanism." The Moorish civilization withered in proportion as Islam was able to assert itself, and could not be transplanted to a soil which was purely Mussulman.t It"shed," as Prescott says, ray of glory over the closing days of the Arabian Empire in Spain, and served to conceal, though it could not correct, the vices which it possessed in common with all Mohamedan institutions." a First, a The Moorish civilization in Spain is due to three causes. large number of Spanish Christians professed Mohamedanism to escape "Mahomet et le Coran." Par J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, p. 225. Compare the expulsion of the Moors from Spain with that of the Huguenots from France. The former left every vestige of civilization behind them; the latter carried their civilization with them, and it readily took root in the congenial soil of other Christian lands. "Ferdinand and Isabella," vol. i. pp. 295-6, * persecution and, in many cases, death. "The ambassador of James II. of Aragon," says Prescott, "in 1311, represented to the Sovereign Pontiff, Clement V., that of the 200,000 souls which then composed the population of Granada, there were not more than 500 of pure Moorish descent." Prescott considers this estimate "extravagant;" but the renegades unquestionably formed the majority of the Mussulman population, and in their ranks were some of the most cultivated men in Spain. Secondly, there was a large colony of highly-cultivated Jews in Spain, and the Moors employed them extensively in the work of education and administration. Thirdly, many of the Moorish princes and nobility carried their religion very loosely, intermarried with Christians, and abandoned some of the cherished institutions of Islam. Their women-and this was in itself a long stride forward in civilization -abandoned the veil, cultivated letters, mingled freely with the other sex, and presided, like Christian ladies, at jousts and tournaments. In these ways the invaders, who were in a minority of the population of the conquered territory, were elevated by contact with a civilization which they did not bring, but found. It was brains fed by Christian and Jewish ideas, and disciplined by Christian and Jewish influences, which reared the fair fabric of Moorish civilization in Spain. The only philosopher of note which the Moorish domination produced was Avercës, and he became eminent by breaking loose from the Koran and the Sunnat. He was accordingly disgraced, forbidden as a heretic to attend the mosques, and finally banished. He died in exile, and Islam has as much right to claim him for its offspring as the Inquisition has to claim Galileo. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries contact with Christian and Persian civilization impelled a number of bold and aspiring spirits at the chief centres of Mussulman rule to try to break the bonds of their inflexible creed, and a transient gleam of glory was thus cast on the essentially barbarous system of the Arabian Prophet. But it was soon seen that for Islam to be reformed was in truth to perish. Orthodoxy accordingly took the alarm, declared a fierce war against the Moslem rationalists, and prevailed. The disgrace of Averoës was followed up in Spain by a peremptory prohibition of Greek literature and philosophy, and valuable libraries were ruthlessly committed to the flames. From the close of the twelfth century to the fall of Granada in 1492 the Moslem world may be searched in vain for a single work of a Mussulman author which is of perennial value to mankind. And even the value of the Aristotelian commentaries of Averoës himself, the most eminent of Mussulman authors, is not rated very highly by competent authorities.† The toleration, too, of the Spanish Moors is just as mythical as that of the Turks. "The Arabs," says a writer who will not be accused of undue prejudice in favour of Christianity, "though they conquered * See Dozy, "Hist. des Musulmans d'Espagne," vol. ii. p. 53. Spain [they only conquered part of it], were too weak in numbers to hold that country otherwise than by politic concessions to the opinions and customs of the people."* And these concessions were arbitrarily withdrawn whenever it was considered safe to break a treaty. In a demonstration by the Christian renegades of Cordova against an unpopular governor thousands of them were slaughtered like sheep. Three hundred were impaled with their heads downwards in rows along the banks of the river; and the survivors-twenty-three thousand in all— exclusive of women and children, were bidden to quit Spain within a period of three days on pain of crucifixion. And this decree was rigorously carried out; a fact-and a far from solitary one-which ought to be taken into account when judgment is passed on the final expulsion of the Moors from Spain. And what is true of Cordova and Granada is equally true of Bagdad and Delhi. "There never was any Arabian science, strictly speaking. In the first place, all the philosophy and science of the Mohamedans was Greek, Jewish, and Persian. It really designates a reaction against Islamism, which arose in the distant parts of the Empire-in Samarcand, Bokhara, Morocco, and Cordova. The Arabian language having become the language of the Empire, this philosophy is written in that language. But the ideas are not Arabian ; the spirit is not Arabian." "The translation of the works of Aristotle, as indeed of all the Greek authors, was made by Syrian and Chaldean Christians, and especially by the historians who, as physicians, were in high favour with the liberal Kalifs of the Abbaside dynasty. In some cases the translation into Arabic was made from Syriac versions, for in the time of the Emperor Justinian many Greek works had been translated into the latter language." § In Hindustan, as in Spain, the Mussulmans were in such a woful minority that they were compelled to make concessions which were antagonistic to the spirit and letter of Islam. Akbar, the most illustrious of their rulers, was enlightened and tolerant; but then he was an avowed sceptic as to the tenets of Islam. So long as the Mussulmans of India "confined themselves to making known their wants and providing money to meet the estimates, there was no want of skilful artificers to build mosques, mansions, and mortuary monuments, such as have never been surpassed. But when they cashiered the indigenous workmen and took in hand to build for themselves they produced works which are only remarked for their vulgarity."|| In short, what Amari says of Mussulman rule in Sicily is true of Mussulman rule all the world over, and especially in conquered foreign "Hist. of Phil.," by G. H. Lewes, vol. i. p. 36. + Dozy, i p. 58; Fleury, "Hist. Eccles.," x. livre 49. Hist. of Phil.," by G. H. Lewes, vol. ii. p. 34. § Sell's "Faith of Islam," p. 181-2, a learned and valuable work. Cf. Osborn's "Islam under the Arabs," pp. 93-4. Keene's "Turks in India," p. 10. He quotes Fergusson's "Indian Architecture," p. 602, in corroboration of this severe judgment. lands:-"The constituent elements of society (i corpuscoli sociali) were not held together by love of country or obedience to authority; but everybody did what was right in his own eyes. The Arabic régime was, in fact, born with the germ of premature death, resulting from the character of the conquerors, their imperfect assimilation with the conquered people, the immutability of their laws, the necessity and at the same time the impotence of their despotism, the foreign mercenaries on whom they were obliged to rely, their confused municipal democracy, their system of levying tributes of blood, and their general anarchy under the garb of an absolute religious and political unity." Apart from its attitude towards subject races, Mohamedanism carries in its bosom three incurable vices which, being of the essence of the system, bar for ever all possibility of reform. These are, the degradation of woman and the institution of slavery; the imprisonment of the human intellect within the narrow circle of knowledge possessed by an able but uncultivated Bedouin of the sixth century; the inevitable penalty of death for forsaking Islam. These "three radical evils," says Sir W. Muir, who is profoundly versed in the literature of Islam, and acquired in the East an intimate knowledge of its practical working, "flow from the faith in all ages and in every country, and must continue to flow so long as the Koran is the standard of belief”—that is, so long as Mohamedanism lasts. The result is to sap "the roots of public morals, poison domestic life, and disorganize society. Freedom of thought and private judgment are crushed and annihilated. The sword still is, and must remain, the inevitable penalty for the renunciation of Islam. Toleration is unknown. . . . . No system could have been devised with more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which it has sway from the light of truth. . . . . The sword of Mohamed and the Koran are the most stubborn enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth which the world has yet known."+ Thousands of devout Mussulman students go out every year from the theological schools of Cairo, Stamboul, Central Asia, and India to preach throughout the realm of Islam that all these laws and regulations have been given direct from God, as the last and unchanging expression of His will. Reform is, therefore, not impossible merely; the very suggestion of such a thing is impious in the eyes of every sincere Moslem. Does not this show the supreme absurdity of urging the reform of Turkish Administration at the same time that we insist on maintaining Mussulman rule? It is as if a doctor should try to cure a dipsomaniac, by insisting on leaving him in uncontrolled possession of the key of the cellar. In fact, it is much more absurd; for the dipsomaniac, after all, does not believe that it is the immutable will of God that he should practise habitual intoxication. But the Mussulman does believe that "Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia," vol. i. p. 546. his politico-religious system has been divinely granted, and is therefore perfect and irreformable. "When the Koran and Mecca shall have disappeared from Arabia," says a very friendly critic, Mr. Giffard Palgrave, "then, and then only, can we expect to see the Arab assume that place in the ranks of civilization from which Mohamed and his book have, more than any other cause, long held him back." I am here, however, concerned only with such reforms as would place the Christian subjects of the Sultan on a footing of equal rights with the Mussulmans. Now that is a reform which no independent Mussulman Power has ever granted, and which no Mussulman Power ever can grant voluntarily, without apostasy. The body politic of Islam, let me again remind the reader, excludes from its constitution the very idea of national life. It is a cosmopolitan Religious Congregation in as true a sense as the Order of Jesuits, and equality of rights with the members of the fraternity is only possible through initiation into the Order. To relax that rule is, in reality, to dissolve the Order, and be guilty of apostasy. To ask the Sultan to do anything of the kind is the same kind of absurdity as it would be to ask the Pope to admit unbaptized Mussulmans to all Christian privileges, not excepting the Episcopate. Islam rejects our distinction between the temporal and spiritual functions of Government. The same man may be to-day Sheik-ul-Islam; the week after, Grand Vizier; and the following week, Commander-in-Chief. In fine, the European Cabinets have hitherto been acting on the erroneous idea that in the Ottoman Empire they were dealing with a secular Government susceptible of reform. What they have really been dealing with is a military theocracy, absolute in its principles of government, exclusive in its civil rights, and bound to remain unchangeable, or to perish. What then is to be done? What hope is there of the possibility of reforms in Armenia, for example, which is the next field of operation for the European Concert? The only possible hope is in the withdrawal of Armenia from the direct rule of the Sultan. Place Armenia on the footing of the Lebanon. Appoint a Christian, or, at least, a nonMussulman Governor, and make him practically independent of the caprice of the Sultan and the intrigues of the Palace and the Porte. There will then be no difficulty in introducing reforms in all branches of the administration. On making this suggestion, some months ago, in conversation with the able and gallant officer who has held the post of British Consul at Erzeroum for the last three years, he objected that a large proportion of the population of Armenia were Mussulmans. "But what does that matter?" I replied. "You are familiar with Mussulman rule and administration. Now tell me this: Is it not the fact that a Christian Governor can distribute equal justice to Christians and Mussulmans alike? And is it not likewise the fact that a Mussulman Governor cannot do so, and that the more upright a Mussulman he is, so much the worse must he be as a Governor. A bad Mussulman |