CHAPTER I. THE FOUR ORTHODOX IMAMS. A.D. 713-830. THE religion of Islam has often been praised for its freedom from a complicated and cumbersome ritual. Wherever, it is said, the true Believer finds himself, on land or on the sea, alone or in company, that spot becomes, at the appointed hour, a temple, whence he can address his prayers to God. Hence, it has been supposed that the Moslem passes through life with an immediate consciousness of the Divine Presence, peculiar to men of his creed. This consciousness has survived the vicissitudes of history and the darkening effects of intellectual scepticism. Amid revolution, disaster, and anarchy, it is supposed to burn on with a clear and steady light, illuminating the bosoms of the Faithful in every part of the world, and binding all their hearts together. Therefore it is that all Islam is animated by a single spirit; that all its pulses vibrate in unison, and all its swords are ready to leap from their scabbards in obedience to a single call. Like so much which has been written upon the creed of Muhammad, these notions are directly the reverse of the truth. The intellectual immobility of the Moslem world proceeds, not from an inner consciousness of the Divine Presence, but from the total want of it. According to the Moslem belief, the spirit of man is incapable of holding converse with the Spirit of God. Apart from the indications of His will contained in the Book and the Traditions, man neither knows nor can know anything about Him and His ways. All search, therefore, into the constitution of the universe or the mind of man, the Moslem condemns, at the outset, as certainly useless, and probably impious. And hence, also, there is no creed, the inner life of which has been so completely crushed under an inexorable weight of ritual. For that deep, impassable gulf which divides man from God, empties all religious acts of spiritual life and meaning, and reduces them to rites and ceremonies. They are laws to be obeyed. They do not imply that a way has been opened out between the visible and invisible world. Hence, also, there is not, nor ever has been, any "solidarity" in Islam. The resistless sovereignty of an inscrutable God has obliterated the notion of progress, and effectually prevented the idea of a national life from coming into existence. God is supreme; what He wills can only be known by what He brings to pass; and against His decrees, as manifested by the progress of events, it is idle to strive. Such is, and always has been, the political philosophy of the followers of Muhammad. To sketch the To sketch the process of education which has achieved this result, is the object of the present chapter. The Arab of Muhammad's day conceived of religion as altogether a ceremonial affair. He believed in a |