Mohammedanism

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Mohammedanism (1916)
by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje
4103265Mohammedanism1916Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

MOHAMMEDANISM

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AMERICAN LECTURES ON THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

SERIES OF 1914–1915



MOHAMMEDANISM

Lectures on Its Origin, Its Religious and
Political Growth, and Its
Present State

BY
C. SNOUCK HURGRONJE

Formerly Professor of the Arabic Language in the University of
Leiden, Holland

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK

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Copyright, 1916, by G. P. Putnam's Sons

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must
not be reproduced in any form without permission.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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ANNOUNCEMENT

The American Lectures on the History of Religions are delivered under the auspices of the American Committee for Lectures on the History of Religions. This Committee was organized in 1892, for the purpose of instituting "popular courses in the History of Religions, somewhat after the style of the Hibbert Lectures in England, to be delivered by the best scholars of Europe and this country, in various cities, such as Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia."

The terms of association under which the Committee exists are as follows:

1.—The object of this Committee shall be to provide courses of lectures on the history of religions, to be delivered in various cities.

2.—The Committee shall be composed of delegates from the institutions agreeing to co-operate, with such additional members as may be chosen by these delegates.

3.—These delegates—one from each institution, with the additional members selected—shall constitute themselves a council under the name of the "American Committee for Lectures on the History of Religions."

4.—The Committee shall elect out of its number a Chairman, a Secretary, and a Treasurer.

5.—All matters of local detail shall be left to the co-operating institutions under whose auspices the lectures are to be delivered.

6.—A course of lectures on some religion, or phase of religion, from an historical point of view, or on a subject germane to the study of religions, shall be delivered annually, or at such intervals as may be found practicable, in the different cities represented by this Committee.

7.—The Committee (a) shall be charged with the selection of the lectures, (b) shall have charge of the funds, (c) shall assign the time for the lectures in each city, and perform such other functions as may be necessary.

8.—Polemical subjects, as well as polemics in the treatment of subjects, shall be positively excluded.

9.—The lectures shall be delivered in the various cities between the months of September and June.

10.—The copyright of the lectures shall be the property of the Committee.

11.—The compensation of the lecturer shall be fixed in each case by the Committee.

12.—The lecturer shall be paid in instalments after each course, until he shall have received half of the entire compensation. Of the remaining half, one half shall be paid to him upon delivery of the manuscript, properly prepared for the press, and the second half on the publication of the volume, less a deduction for corrections made by the author in the proofs.

The Committee as now constituted is as follows:

Prof. Crawford H. Toy, Chairman, 7 Lowell St., Cambridge, Mass.; Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, Treasurer, 227 W. 99th St., New York City; Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Secretary, 248 So. 23d St., Philadelphia, Pa.; President Francis Brown, Union Theological Seminary, New York City; Prof. Richard Gottheil, Columbia University, New York City; Prof. Harry Pratt Judson, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; Prof. Paul Haupt, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; Mr. Charles D. Atkins, Director, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; Prof. E. W. Hopkins, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; Prof. Edward Knox Mitchell, Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, Conn.; President F. K. Sanders, Washburn College, Topeka, Kan.; Prof. H. P. Smith, Meadville Theological Seminary, Meadville, Pa.; Prof. W. J. Hinke, Auburn Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y.; Prof. Kemper Fullerton, Oberlin Theological Seminary, Oberlin, Ohio.

The lecturers in the course of American Lectures on the History of Religions and the titles of their volumes are as follows:

1894–1895— Prof. T. W. Rhys-Davids, Ph.D.,—Buddhism.
1896–1897— Prof. Daniel G. Brinton, M.D., LL.D.—Religions of Primitive Peoples.
1897–1898— Rev. Prof. T. K. Cheyne, D.D.—Jewish Religious Life after the Exile.
1898–1899— Prof. Karl Budde, D.D.—Religion of Israel to the Exile.
1904–1905— Prof. George Steindorff, Ph.D.—The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians.
1905–1906— Prof. George W. Knox, D.D., LL.D.—The Development of Religion in Japan.
1906–1907— Prof. Maurice Bloomfield, Ph.D., LL.D.—The Religion of the Veda.
1907–1908— Prof. A. V. W. Jackson, Ph.D., LL.D.—The Religion of Persia.[1]
1909–1910— Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D.—Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria.
1910–1911— Prof. J. J. M. DeGrootThe Development of Religion in China.
1911–1912— Prof. Franz Cumont.[2]Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans.

The lecturer for 1914 was Professor C. Snouck Hurgronje. Born in Oosterhout, Holland, in 1857, he studied Theology and Oriental Languages at the University of Leiden and continued his studies at the University of Strassburg. In 1880 he published his first important work Het Mekkaansch Feest, having resolved to devote himself entirely to the study of Mohammedanism in its widest aspects. After a few years' activity as Lecturer on Mohammedan Law at the Seminary for Netherlands-India in Leiden, he spent eight months (1884–5) in Mecca and Jidda. In 1888, he became lecturer at the University of Leiden and in the same year was sent out as Professor to Batavia in Netherlands-India, where he spent the years 1889–1906. Upon his return he was appointed Professor of Arabic at the University of Leiden. Among his principal published works may be mentioned: Mekka, The Hague, 1888–9; De Beteekenis van den Islam voor zijne Belijders in Oost Indïe, Leiden, 1883; Mekkanische Sprichwörter, The Hague, 1886; De Atjehers, Leiden, 1903–4, England tr. London, 1906; Het Gajōland en zijne Bewoners, Batavia, 1903, and Nederland en de Islâm, Leiden, 1915.

The lectures to be found in the present volume were delivered before the following Institutions: Columbia University, Yale University, The University of Pennsylvania, Meadville Theological Seminary, The University of Chicago, The Lowell Institute, and the Johns Hopkins University.

The Committee owes a debt of deep gratitude to Mr. Charles R. Crane for having made possible the course of lectures for the year 1914.

Richard Gottheil
Crawford H. Toy
Committee on Publication.

April, 1916.

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CONTENTS

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This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1916, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse


  1. This course was not published by the Committee, but will form part of Prof. Jackson's volume on the Religion of Persia in the series of Handbooks on the History of Religions, edited by Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., and published by Messrs. Ginn & Company of Boston. Prof. Jastrow's volume is, therefore, the eighth in the series.
  2. Owing to special circumstances, Prof. Cumont's volume was published before that of Prof. DeGroot. It is, therefore, the ninth in the series and that of Prof. DeGroot the tenth.