The Bible and Islam/Sin and Salvation

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The Bible and Islam by Henry Preserved Smith Sin and Salvation

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SOME years ago it was the fashion to describe the Protestant Reformation as based upon two principles. One of these the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures as the rule of faith was called the formal principle, the other justification by faith was called the material principle. The present tendency is to dis miss this definition as having no particular value. But I have the impression that it conveys a distinct truth which is of wider application than is given it in this one division of Church History. Every re ligion at least every positive religion brings a doctrine to which it demands assent. The first ques tion which its preachers must answer is : how do you know the doctrine to be true ? But no religion suc ceeds without bringing more than a doctrine. Re ligion must satisfy the craving of the heart, as well as the curiosity of the intellect. The second question Avhich the Apostles of any religion must meet is : what good do you bring?

Now the answer to the first question must define the source of doctrine. In the Protestant Reforma tion this source was defined to be the Holy Script ures in their natural sense, independent of the tradi tion of the Church. The answer to the second question

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must define the salvation offered by the preacher. In the Reformation this was defined as justification by faith alone, that is, the grace of God imparted im mediately to the believer, not conditioned by the Church s ministration. Without pausing to inquire how far these two answers are correctly labelled, formal and material, let us notice that corresponding answers are given in Islam. Mohammed preached a doctrine, and was obliged to tell where he got it. This he did in his assertion of divine revelation to himself, at the same time justifying his claim by an appeal to the earlier prophets. He offered also an other boon salvation. He was obliged here also to define his position. This definition forms the sub ject of the present lecture.

I have already said that Mohammed offered salva tion. Salvation implies something from which one must be saved, and this something is, of course, sin. The doctrine of sin must be treated before we can understand the doctrine of salvation. Our starting- point is the nature of man. In this the position of the Koran is very simple : man consists of a material part, the body, and an immaterial part, the soul. This was taken over from Arabic heathenism, where the custom of offering sacrifices to the dead implies a continued existence of the soul after the death of the body. This separate existence of the soul however seems to have been conceived of as shadowy and un real much like the unsubstantial and unsatisfying state in which the Old Testament pictures the inhab itants of Sheol. It was because this conception failed to meet his idea of the future state, that Mo-

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hammed laid so much emphasis on the resurrection. His leading thought was the thought of the Judgment Day. But a judgment which should deal only with the unsubstantial incorporeal shades would be itself unsubstantial and shadowy. The thought of the Judg ment is necessarily accompanied by the thought of the Resurrection thus only does it become a reality. With the restored body, the whole man meets his Maker, and both parts of his nature are punished or rewarded for that for which both parts are respon sible.

This matter interests us here only so far as it throws light on the nature of man. At the beginning of his career, Mohammed found the doctrine of the resurrection necessary, because he had difficulty in conceiving the independent existence of the soul. It seems as if the doctrine helped him in this respect so that he was able partly to dispense with it in his later teaching. What I mean is, not that he ever gave up the resurrection or wavered in regard to it ; but that when he had accustomed himself to the doc trine of the resurrection, the soul itself had more con sistency, it began to stand more distinctly for the man. He never seems to have been troubled by the question where the soul resides during the interval between death and the resurrection. Tradition has indeed busied itself with this question, as we should expect. But the Koran has no intimation of a middle state, such as we should find had it been a matter of importance in the mind of Mohammed.

After the battles of Islam began, we find a distinct assurance that the souls of believers enter at once on

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the joys of paradise. This implies, of course, that the soul is capable of its full life apart from the body. The resurrection therefore would seem to be super fluous. The soul is the man and can dispense with the body, as it does in death and even in sleep.* Be cause the soul is the man it may be spoken of when the whole man is meant.

The souls which tremble in the day of judgment are the souls reclothed with their bodies, that is, the persons. When it is said that every soul shall taste of death, evidently every human being is meant. The soul being the active principle, is that which desires good or evil,t just as in Hebrew ; the word for soul is, in fact, the same in the two languages.

A close parallel with the Hebrew also is the Arabic connection of the soul and the heart. The heart is the seat of the soul not the affections only, but tho intellect as well. What may bo predicated of the soul may be predicated equally of the heart. Thus : tho soul believes, or tho man believes with the heart.:j: The heart is terrified ; it is tho seat of the intelli gence. God seals or covers the hearts so that men do not understand ; the hearts of believers find peace in remembering God. You will already have no ticed the great similarity between these affirmations

• In 6 i0 God is said to take the souls in the night (that is, in sleep)

with the same language with which the angels are said to take the souls at death, G n , of. also 39 13 . Those who have been slain in battle for the good cause cannot be called dead they are the truly living, though beyond our sight, 2 149 .

t Koran 53", 41 31 .

I 10 , 1G 10S .

50 M , 15 % G :r> , 13- 8 .

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and the language of the Old Testament. It is not probable, however, that there was direct dependence. The simple psychology was common to Hebrew and to Arabic thought before the rise of Islam.

The result which we have reached is important for our present inquiry in two ways. First, there is no trichotomy in man according to the Koran ; secondly, the seat of sin is not the body alone.

There is no clear indication of a trichotomy in man. It is indeed said that man s life or soul is derived from the spirit of God. God Himself says to the angels : " I am about to make man of clay, and when I have formed him and breathed into him of my spirit, then bow down to him."* In adopting this Biblical language, Mohammed was probably ignorant of the Christian speculation, which would see in it author ity for a third element of the human personality, dif ferent from body and soul. He speaks of the crea tion of animals in language similar to what was just quoted, where he says that Jesus made birds of clay and breathed into them so that they became alive.f Mohammed seems to conceive of the breathing as the method of introducing life into the creature. He no where speaks of the spirit of man. In this respect the Mohammedan theologians have gone beyond their master, and have learned from the Christians to distinguish between the spirit and the soul of man4 But this is foreign to the Koran, which knows but one immaterial part of man the soul, which has its seat in the heart.

• Koran 32 8 , cf. 15 M , 38". f^ 110 .

f My wisdom comes from Lane, Arabic Lexicon, p 2827.

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The doctrine that the soul is the man, precludes the idea that sin is the evil of the body or that the flesh is the seat of sin. This is not contradicted by the prominence given to the desires as a source of sin, for the desiyes pertain to the soul. Oriental speculation on this subject seems not to have reached Mohammed. If it reached him, it made no impres sion upon him. In fact, as we have had occasion to remark, he was no philosopher or speculative theo logian. The problem which confronted him was a practical problem. Before him, scattered individuals throughout the tribes the Ilanifs already alluded to had labored with it as a practical problem. They sought a peace of conscience which the rites of hea thenism could not give. Mohammed s interest was no other. In him as in them, the sense of sin was aroused experimentally. Hence came the long practice of prayer and ascetic exercises in the cave of Hira. When he found assurance, he found it in the sense of pardon. The fact of sin and ill desert was not thereby abolished ; it was rather established. The thought of the Day of Judgment took strong hold upon lum,just because he so strongly realized the fact of sin in himself. What he experienced in himself he observed in others. The call to preach, of which he was so vividly conscious, was based upon the con viction that his contemporaries were in sin and under the wrath, of God.

On the basis of his personal experience Mohammed believed in the universality of sin. He transferred his own experience to other men and classed them with himself. This we conclude from indirect in-

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timations rather than from express affirmations of the Koran. He nowhere asserts categorically the siufulness of the whole race. He had to do with a condition, not a theory. In a tradition he is report ed as saying : " There is not of the sons of Adam ex cept Mary and her Son, one born but is touched by the devil at the time of his birth ; and the child makes a loud noise from the touch." * The tradition is doubtless influenced by some theory of natural de pravity. But it does not affirm the transmission of sin from father to son the idea is rather that from the moment of birth every human being is assailed by Satan. The universality of actual transgression does not necessarily follow.

It is in fact rather remarkable that Mohammed should so fully adopt the Biblical account of the sin of Adam, and yet not connect with it the doctrine of the corruption of the race. Let me hasten to say that he does not show any closer adherence to the letter of the Bible in this than in the other Biblical narratives, in fact the departures are rather more no ticeable in this than in the others. His account is to the effect that Adam and his wife were created of clay and placed in the Garden of Paradise, which is in heaven. God commands the angels to bow down to Adam as His vicegerent. All obey except Iblis, who refuses on the ground that Adam is his inferior. Iblis is then expelled from the Garden because of his arrogance, but receives permission to act as the tempter of man. Adam and his wife are commanded not to eat of one tree in the Garden, and are warned

• Mishcat, I , p. 23.

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against the wiles of Satan. Nevertheless Satan in sinuates that the tree is forbidden to them because, if they eat, they will become angels or immortal. So they eat, and both tempter and tempted are cast down to earth to live in mutual enmity until the day of final doom. The story, which is given several times in the Koran, may be said to embody Mohammed s theory of the origin of sin. This was to him a very simple matter sin is disobedience to the commands of God. It came into being when the pride of Iblis revolted against a command of God. It was transmitted from Iblis to Adam by way of suggestion, and in him its essence was disobedience to the command of God. That Adam was originally endowed with holiness and lost it in his fall, is nowhere affirmed. No more is such a solidarity of the race affirmed or assumed as would make all mankind sin in Adam and fall with him in his first transgression.

Although we find no theory of an organic connection between the sin of Adam and the sinf ulness of the race, yet the story of the first man is not unmeaning. It is an example of the universal experience. All men are subject to temptation. This comes from their desires. We read of the wicked : "In their hearts is a disease, and God increases their disease " ; * and again : " Evil is that which their souls have put before them." t In this passage the soul seems put for the desires/ as we find it also in the old Testament. In the account given of Joseph the hero himself confesses that " the soul inclines to evil except my Lord have mercy." | Elsewhere Mohammed is warned against him who

• Koran 2 9 . f 5 ?3 . J 12 M .

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follows his inclination ; and virtue is said to consist in restraining the soul from its inclination.* These passages show that Mohammed was not far from the New Testament treatment of concupiscence as the root of sin. When desire conceives, it brings forth sin.

These desires are stimulated by the allurements of the world and the suggestions of Satan. In the great Day, men and jinn will be asked : " Did there not come to you Apostles from your own number, repeat ing to you My revelations and warning you of this day ? They will say : We testify against ourselves the life of the world beguiled us." f The result of the natural constitution of things is that men go astray. In this view of it, it is entirely correct to speak of the lost estate of man. But this is not due to the sin of Adam.

We have already noticed instances in which tradi tion shows a nearer approach to Christian theology than we find in the Koran. This is illustrated in the subject before us. Mohammed is said to have re lated a legend concerning Adam and to have added : " So Adam denied and his children have inherited this vice : and Adam forgot and ate of the tree, and his children have inherited forgetfuluess from him ; and Adam committed a fault and his children inher ited crimes from him." This goes beyond any thing in the Koran in its assertion of inherited de pravity, and we are compelled to suppose that it is colored by the views of the traditionist. We find also a story in the biographies which has obtained cur rency in most modern accounts of Mohammed to this

• Koran 18", 79 , f G i;;n . J Mishcat, I, p. 35.

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effect : When the Prophet was an infant (in another form of the story when he was twelve years old), two angels cut open his breast and took out his heart which they washed with snow and then restored to his bosom. The story in this form is undoubtedly meant to teach that the infant s heart was thus cleansed of hereditary depravity. But we are able to say that the story in this form is comparatively late. As first told, it was connected not with the Prophet s infancy but with the beginning of his ministry. In this form it meant only that when God called Mohammed, He cleansed him from the guilt of his former sins es pecially from the idolatry which he had practised in his earlier life. In this form we cannot find any ref erence to the doctrine of original sin.

The origin of sin is in the conflict between the nat ural desires of men and the command of God. " The truth [has come] from your Lord ; whoever will, let him believe, and whoever will, let him disbelieve." * Whether the light of nature is enough to induce obe dience we are not told. In practice the command of God comes through the prophets. The sin which is in the world is disobedience to these commands. Those who disobey, following the allurements of the world or of Satan, are lost. To realize how much this w r ord meant to Mohammed we must picture to ourselves the condition of the traveller in the desert. The pathless waste stretches out on every hand. The wells are few and hidden in the sand. The pitiless sun burns upon him from above and the heated soil scorches his feet from below. The scanty water-skins

• Koran 18- s .

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are soon exhausted. Unless some friendly hand point the way to water, the caravan must lie down and die. Such is the condition of man in the present world. He is a wanderer in a desert in hopeless perplexity unless he has a guide. In this sense all men are lost unless God intervenes for their rescue.

That this was Mohammed s view we cannot doubt. He had in his own heart an abiding sense of his need of guidance. The only real petition in his model prayer (the Fatiha) asks for guidance ; and he inter prets the petition for us in the words : " Our Lord, do not let our hearts wander, after Thou hast directed us ; give us grace from Thee Thou art the bountiful Giver." * And a further commentary is afforded by the traditions. Mohammed was asked what he was accustomed to say in his private devotions. He re plied : " I say : O God put my sins as far away from me as Thou hast put the East from the West ; O God, cleanse me from sin as the white garment is cleansed from its filth ; O God, wash away my sins with water and with snow and with hail." f I need hardly call your attention to the Scripture affirmation that God " has put our sins as far from us as the East is from the West," and to the language of Job concerning washing himself in snow water. The resemblance may be owing partly to the traditionist, but there is no reason to suppose that the sentiment is not genu inely Mohammed s.

The sense of sin thus revealed is found also in Mo hammed s companions. Abu Bekr asked Mohammed to teach him a prayer to be used in his private devo-

• Koran 3 fi . f Bochari, I., p. 167.

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tions. The form given was : " O, God, I have wronged my own soul with grievous sin, and none for gives sins but Thou ; forgive me with Thy forgive ness, and have compassion unto me verily Thou art the Forgiving, the Compassionate." * Abu Bekr was of an emotional nature, and we are not surprised to find such desires in hirn. But Omar, the man of iron will and cool head, was affected Avith the same con cern : " I heard the sobbing of Omar (says one of the Companions), when I was in the last row [in the mosque ] as ho recited : I show my grief and my sorrow to God alone, "f Others of the early Mos lems wept when prosperity came to them, fearing that they were receiving their recompense in this life. One of the Companions came to consult him, and the Prophet said : Are you come to ask what is goodness and what is badness ? On receiving an affirmative reply (says the narrator), he joined his fingers together and struck them upon my breast, that is, he made a sign toward my heart, and said : Ask the sentence from thine own heart. This he re peated three times and added: " Goodness is a thing from which the heart finds firmness and rest, and badness is a thing which throws thee into doubt, though men may approve." .| The sentence reminds us of Paul s treatment of conscience, but it is not quoted for that analogy. It is in place here, because it throws light upon the mind of Mohammed and his

• Bocliari, I., p. 187.

flbid., p. 1(52. Omar, wa, of course, in the front row of those praying.

J M-islicat) II., p. 4. For some striking examples of the dread of sin, see Kremer, Herrschendc Idem dcs Islam, p. 21.

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followers. We can scarcely interpret it otherwise than as indicating a sincere dread of sin and a sincere desire for righteousness.

We must conclude that the power of Mohammed s message consisted in its appeal to the conscience. Ifc threatened punishment which was felt to be deserved. It was therefore a message of salvation. And the vividness of the sense of ill desert was such as to paint a picture of impending doom, from which men would be glad to flee. This doom was conceived of either as a Day of the Lord that is, a great catas trophe such as had overtaken Sodom and destroyed Pharaoh or as the Day of final Judgment. As to the great catastrophe, it is possible, even prob able, that Mohammed s early preaching set a time for its coming more definitely than now appears. The present text of the Koran is rather guarded in its language : " Perhaps a portion of that which you desire to hasten is close upon you ; " " Men ask thee concerning the Hour. Say : The knowledge of it is with God alone, and how dost thou know whether it may not be near? " * In a few instances we find ap parently categorical statements that the Hour is near, and that its signs are already discernible. It is prob able that these were once more numerous. But the urgency of his opponents that Mohammed should fix a definite time for the punishment, taught him caution.

If there was some uncertainty as to God s inter vention in an overthrow of the Meccan state, there could be none as to the final Judgment. That was certain, and its decision would be irreversible. In

• Koran 27 7) , 33 i:; .

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that day repentance will no longer avail, and those who are confronted with the list of their sins will wish in vain for one hour of earthly life in which to accept the message of their prophet. They will be asked whether they had not had the opportunity to repent ; whether apostles had not come to warn them of their danger. They will be obliged to confess that they have brought their punishment on themselves. Salvation (this is the conclusion) is offered to men by the apostles of God. It was offered to Adam after his fall : " Adam received from his Lord words, and repented (He is the Indulgent, the Compassionate) We said : Go down hence, and Avheu there comes to you guidance from Me, whoever follows My guidance, no fear shall rest upon such nor shall they be grieved." * Adam thus received the words of grace directly from God, and with them a promise of future revelation to the race.

In what has been said thus far, you will discover the substantial agreement of Mohammed with Bibli cal doctrine. Aside from Paul, whose philosophical discussion has perhaps unduly colored later theology, the Biblical writers lay no emphasis upon the fall of man in Adam. At the same time they assume the prevalence of sin, and its practical universality. Their conviction is based upon the testimony of their own consciences. They feel, therefore, the need of salvation. This feeling is quickened by the preaching of the Prophets who proclaim a Day of Yahweh, a day of calamity upon the evil-doers. In the New Testament this Day of the Lord is com-

• Koran 2 ;6 .

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biued with the final Judgment. The time is evi dently thought to be near, though it is expressly declared that no man knows the day nor the hour. The emphasis of the message is laid upon the way of escape provided by God Himself. This way of es cape was apparently open to Adam and was indicated by a promise made to him for his descendants. In all these respects, Mohammed took strictly Biblical ground.

Looking more narrowly at the idea of salvation as set forth in Islam, we discover, first, that it is of God s free grace. He has provided in His ordinary administration of the world (that is, in nature) all that man could require at His hands. But this has proved insufficient. Man is ungrateful and inaccessible to such evidences. God therefore adds something more, in giving His revelation. Not that Mohammed draws a definite line marking off God s goodness in nature from His goodness in the scheme of salvation. He speaks of the grace of God in both. This word* means the state of mind which leads one to help or pardon the undeserving ; grace, mercy, or compas sion are our equivalents. This state of mind in God is shown by His ordinary providence. The rain is an expression of His grace, and the winds which bring the clouds are its precursors. The succession of day and night is adapted to the needs of man, and this is of His grace. When trouble comes upon men they pray to God, and He makes them taste His grace in that He sends them relief, f

• Rahma ; the root is found also in Hebrew,

t Koran 25 50 , 28 73 , 3(P.

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Salvation is another evidence and outworking of the same grace. The prophes of earlier times were saved from the destruction which overtook the un believers by a grace (or mercy) from God.* By the same grace those who are admitted to Paradise are- saved, and they recognize the fact.t The special proof of this mind on the part of God is the gift of revelation. The prophet Salih remonstrates with his people : " O, niy people ! Do you not see ? If I have received a plain sign from my Lord, and if there has come to me from Him a grace [that is, a revelation], who will defend me from Him if I rebel against him ? " { In a nearly related sense the prophet is himself said to be a grace from God. So the angel of the annunciation, speaking for God, says to Mary : " We have made him [Jesus] a sign to mankind, and a grace from Us. Mohammed also is addressed in the words : " We have sent thee as a grace to the universe." The same word is applied to the revelation when embodied in a book : " When Moses anger was appeased he took up the Tables in whose characters was a direction and a grace to those who fear their Lord. " II The " grace of God which bringeth salvation " is a Biblical phrase which well sums up the view of Mohammed as set forth in these passages.

But the grace of God does not limit itself to provid ing the revelation which guides men into life. It is also exerted efficaciously upon the hearts of men, moving them to obey the revelation. I know not how

• Koran 7 70 , II 61 . f 3 103 , 7 47 . J II" 6 .

19- 1 . || 12i"7, 7153.

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otherwise to interpret those passages which pray for direction, like the one already quoted " Lord, let not our hearts stray from the right path after Thou hast once directed us." The revelation was already there. What the speaker desired further was grace in the Christian sense, that is : a positive movement of God upon his heart. Again : " Were not the bounty of God and His grace upon you, not one of you would ever be pure ; bnt God purifies whom He will, and God is the one who hears and knows." * The Prophet is here exhorting his own followers and warning them against following the footsteps of Satan. He evi dently means that something more than the revela tion is the efficient cause of their purification. In one passage he classes himself with those just addressed : " Had not the bounty and the grace of thy Lord been upon thee, a party of them had purposed to lead thee astray [and succeeded]. But they shall lead astray only themselves, and shall not harm thee in any respect. God hath sent down upon thee the Book and the grace, and hath taught thee what thou didst not know, and the bounty of God toward thee was great." f It is evident on the face of the passage that some trap was prepared for Mohammed from which he escaped. He ascribed his escape to a special ex ercise of grace on the part of God.

This is the place to inquire for the doctrine of par ticular election. We must, however, be careful not to put more into words than the author intended. The general assertion that God chooses His instru ments does not imply an absolute decree extending

• Koran 24". f4" 3 .

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to the lot of all mankind. The question of such a de cree seems to have been brought home to Mohammed by the Jews. They insisted that they were an elect people, and the implication was obvious that God had rejected the other nations. Against this implication Mohammed asserted God s sovereign freedom. The election of Israel he acknowledged : " God chose for Himself Adam and Noah and the family of x^brahani and the family of Imran [the father of Mary] above all the world." * But he refused to acknowledge the validity of the inference drawn by the Jews. "If God had pleased, He had made them [that is, man kind] a single nation. But He lets whom He will partake of His grace, and the evil-doers have neither protector nor helper." t That is to say : true religion is not a matter of race ; all mankind might have been the favored recipients of revelation ; the preference of one part over another rests in the will of God ; He may and does admit others to His grace as well as the Jews. The verse, therefore, vindicates the free dom of God against a too narrow doctrine of election. | It reminds us that Paul reasons in a similar way The Jew claims that God has bound Himself to save

• Koran 3 :;n . f 42 6 .

J Against the maxim of the Jews to trust none but those of their own religion, Mohammed says : " Say : Verily the Guidance is God s Guidance, that any man may receive the like of what you have received, or may even surpass you in the sight of your Lord. Say : Verily the bounty is in the hand of God ; He bestows it upon whom He will, and God is liberal, wise. He distinguishes by His grace whom He will, and He is the possessor of enormous bounty " (3 liB f ). It must be clear that the opposition is between the narrow ness of Judaism, which recognizes no religion but its own, and the breadtli of a divine choice which is not confined within lines of race.

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those who are born under the Law ; Paul replies that Pie has mercy on whom He will have mercy. This is not an assertion of the absoluteness of the decree. It is a protest against the narrowness of those who limit the grace of God by the absoluteness of an elec tion once made.

Still, the protest assumes the actuality of the decree. The election is there, although no longer confined by lines of descent. God not only chooses the prophets as His distinguished instruments ; He chooses also the other believers : " Of their [that is, the Prophets ] fathers, and of their children, and of their brothers, have We chosen, and have led them on the straight path. This is the guidance of God by whom He guides whom He will of His servants ; but if they be come polytheists, what they have done will be of no account. These are they to whom We have given the Book and wisdom and prophecy ; and if they dis believe in it, We will appoint for it a people who do not disbelieve." The divine choice is here asserted, but it is not an absolute choice. Even those who are chosen may become polytheists, thus falling away. In one passage, however, we find that the will of the believer is dependent upon the divine will : " This, now, is a reminder ; whoever will let him choose the way to his Lord. But you will not will unless God will."t Some other passages bearing on this subject have already been quoted in the lecture on the Gov ernment of God. What we there discovered is con firmed here that Mohammed had no rigid theory on the subject.

• Koran C>" ff . t 7C- f .

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The general theory of predestination (as we saw) is an affirmation that the disbelief of man cannot really thwart the will of God. On the side of faith, this conviction is aided by the soul s consciousness of its own weakness. The awakened man finds within him self no ability to meet the commands of God. His judgment concerning his own will is, that it is averse to good and dead in sin. When he finds himself be lieving in God and appropriating His grace, he feels that this is not his own unaided act. The doctrine of grace is a judgment founded on this experience. Sav ing faith must be explained as the effect of grace. Mo hammed s view is seen in the following, addressed to believers : " God has made you love faith, and has made it attractive in your hearts, and has made in fidelity and vice and rebellion odious to you." * With this compare the following : " We sent Jesus, the son of Mary and gave Him the Gospel, and placed in fJte hearts of those who followed him compassion and grace ; " and again : " It is He who sent the Shekina into the hearts of the believers to increase them in faith after they had once believed." t The doctrine of election, as far as it is held, is a part of the doc trine of grace.

The same thing is true of the Scripture doctrine, where it is apparently asserted that faith is a gift from God, and where the believer is encouraged to work out his own salvation because it is God who is working in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. The revelation alone does not save men. This is evident from its different effects upon different men. To some

• Koran 49 7 and cf. 58- a . f 57 27 , 48 .

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it is a savor from death unto death, to others a savor from life unto life. No other, as I understand it, is the position of Mohammed. In one place he says directly that what has been revealed to him increases the disobedience and unbelief of some who hear.* In all these respects therefore the doctrine of Islam shows Biblical influence.

The next thing to be noted is that the mark of sal vation is faith. Up to this point we have discussed the divine provision. This consists not only in a rev elation of God s will, but also in efficient grace for those who are to be saved. The evidence that the grace has taken effect is that its subjects believe. Those who believe are saved and those who disbelieve are lost. These two classes appear on almost every page of the Koran. The fundamental importance of faith, however, is not so clearly marked in the earlier suras as in the later. At first Mohammed seems to have been under the influence of the Gospel descrip tion of the judgment where the saved and the lost are distinguished rather by their works than by their faith. They who have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick and the prisoners these are the ones who are welcomed to the place prepared for them. So in the earlier chapters of the Koran we find good works specified as the reason why some enter Paradise. They are the ones who have kept themselves pure, who have set the captives free, who have nourished the orphans, and the poor.t Faith appears, but it appears as one among many virtues. As time goes on, its fundamental importance seems to

• Koran 5". cf . 9 " f . 1 76 s , 87" f , 92 s .

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emerge more distinctly. The great obstacle which met the Prophet revealed itself as unbelief ; and con versely, the distinctive mark of those who accepted the new religion was seen to be faith. After the very earliest period of his ministry, therefore, ho adopted fully the declaration : " He that believeth shall bo saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned."

The Arabic word which Mohammed used to ex press the idea of faith is essentially the same word used both in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and in the Syriac translation of the New Testament. He used it to describe (historically) the state of mind of the prophets, his predecessors, and those who followed them. It is Abraham especially who is the example of faith: "Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian, yet he was pious, resigned, and not an idolater. The nearest of men to Abraham are those who follow him that is : the Prophet [Mohammed] and those ivlw believe." " Who is more excellent in the matter of religion than he who resigns himself to God, who does good works and follows the way of Abraham the pious, whom God took as His friend." * The thought is evidently borrowed from the New Testa ment. And our first definition of faith is taken from the behavior of Abraham he was not cm idolater. That is to say : Faith is acceptance of the proposition that there is no God but one. " Abraham said to his father : I am pure from the service which you ren der." f That Mohammed did not mean the mere in tellectual faith, however, is evident from other pas sages, such as the following: "The believers commit

• Koran 3 M f , 4 ". f 43- 5 .

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themselves to God; and why should we not commit ourselves to Him, when He has guided us on our ways ? " * Other passages which speak of the believ ers taking God as their protector imply that their faith is trust in Him.f

The man who believes in God must believe the messenger of God and his message. God and His Apostle are often joined together as the object of faith ; so are God and His revelation. Or, faith may be spoken of as belief in the Apostle or in the revelation, where belief in God is implied. As with us, belief in the Word necessarily includes belief in God. This faith is assent to the truth of the message. The most frequent charge against the unbelievers is that they accuse the revelation of falsehood. Exam ples are so numerous that I need not quote. ^

In other passages faith is defined as believing in God and the Last Day, or simply as believing in the life to come. Believers are once described as having

• Koran 14 llf . f 5 11 .

J It is perhaps an evidence of the affinity of Mohammed s doc trine with that current among Christians that he found the Christians the most ready to receive him : kt Thou wilt find the nearest in friend ship to the believers those who call themselves Christians. This is because they have priests and monks, and are not arrogant. When they hear what is revealed to the Prophet, thou wilt see their eyes overflow with tears on account of the truth which they recognize, while they say : Our Lord, we believe ! Enroll us among those who testify [to the truth]. And why should we not believe in God and in the truth which has come to us, and [why should we not] desire that our Lord may place us among the righteous ? " 5 86 f . We can hardly suppose the words to have been spoken without some basis in fact.

2 59

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assurance of the life to come, and once as believing in the unseen. The unbelief which opposed Moham med made its stand on this point more obstinately than on any other. That men should be restored to life with fully reconstructed bodies after once becom ing dust and mouldering bones, they would not believe, and, indeed, they ridiculed so absurd a proposition. The preacher had often to denounce the guilt of such unbelief. Conversely, faith in the future life is often mentioned in connection with faith in God and His Apostle : " Those who believe in the future life be lieve [also] in the Koran, and are watchful unto prayer."* And again : The believers, all of them, believe in God and His angels, and His Books and His Apostles without distinguishing between the Apostles and they say : Wo have heard and wo obey ! Grant us Thy forgiveness, O Lord ; unto Thee we tend." f Faith, then, is not a mere intel lectual assent to certain propositions ; it is a dispos ing of the will toward the Author of the revelation, with a desire to obey His commands.

We can readily understand now, why faith and good works are so often mentioned together. They who believe and do good ivorks is the most frequent phrase descriptive of the righteous. More elaborate descriptions are such as the following : " The good does not consist in turning your faces to the East or the West. But good is he who believes in God and the Last Day, and the angels and the Book and the Prophets ; and who for the love of Him gives his property to his kinsmen, and to the orphans, and the

• Koran (! : . 1 2 :s5 .

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poor, and the wayfarer, and the mendicant, and for freeing slaves ; and who observes prayer and who gives alms, and [good are] those who fulfil their en gagements when they have made them, and those who are patient in misfortunes and distresses and in the time of calamity. These are the righteous and these are they who fear God."* Such descriptions show that Mohammed had reflected on the connec tion of faith and works. Faith and the fear of God are also joined together, as are faith and repentance. All this convinces us that Mohammed desired to awaken the affection of the heart and draw it toward God. " Those only believe Our words f who, when they are reminded of them, fall prostrate and utter the praise of their Lord ; who do not exalt them selves ; whose bodies do not rest upon their beds, because they call upon their Lord in fear and in desire."

In practice, and when he had become ruler of a state, the Prophet recognized that the profession of the lips was all that he could require from men. In this he was doing what political leaders are obliged to do. But what has been said, shows that his ideal was very near the one set forth in the Bible. Where he says that the hearts of believers find rest in mak ing mention of God,^: we are reminded of the Biblical promises of peace to the believer. The tradition which declares that the intention makes the quality

• Koran 2 172 .

f Our signs, where signs is put for the verses of the Koran. The passage is 32 ::i f .

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of the action* is very near the Old Testament declar ation that " as a man thiuketh in his heart, so is he." Again, a tradition gives the following : " Mohammed said : None of you believes until he loves his brother as he loves himself." f New Testament influence is the more marked, that the Peshito has thy brother for thy neighbor in the second great commandment. And again : " None of you believes until I am dearer to him than his father and his child. "| We remember that Jesus also said : " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Once more : " Mohammed said : There is a piece of flesh in the body [of which it is true that] when it is right, the whole body is right, and when it is unsound the whole body is unsound. " Out of the heart arc the issues of life is the parallel declaration of the Gospel.

Islam is another name for faith ; or, where a dis tinction is made, Islam is the outward profession ; Iman (faith) is the inward state. Mohammed says of the Bedawin : " The Arabs say : We believe. Say to them : Nay you do not believe, you should say rather: We have accepted Islam, || for faith has not yet entered your hearts." He knew his Arabs and knew that the great part of them had made an external submission to his rule while their hearts w r ere unchanged. Still, as the submission may be the ex pression of sincerity, Islam is not infrequently used

• Bocliari, I., p. 2. flbid., p. 8. Cf. Matt. 22 9 (Peshito).

Jlhid., p. !). Cf. Matt. 10 37 . Ibid., p. 17.

|| Aslamna, we are resigned. The passage is 49".

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for faith : " When [Abraham s] Lord said to him : Be resigned ! he replied : I am resigned to the Lord of the universe." When Abraham went to offer his son, the son encouraged his father, promising to be patient "And when both had [thus] resigned them selves, he threw him upon his face but We called to him." * As submission to the will of God, Islam is a principle common to the three great religions. The Jews and Christians claim to have been resigned (Moslems) before the coming of Mohammed f It follows that Mohammed did not intend to make Islam the distinguishing principle of his religion. He identified his religion with Judaism and Chris tianity. In all three, faith was the principle in the heart, Islam the profession with the lips. In the New Testament also, " with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." \

But what is the salvation secured by those who believe ? Most prominently it is deliverance from punishment. As we have seen, the future state bulks largely in the preaching of Mohammed. He had no timidity in painting either the joys of the blessed or the torments of the doomed. The thought of the Judgment was the overmastering thought of his ear lier career, and the motive for his preaching. That he was here under Christian influence needs no demon stration. To modern taste his appeal to the fear of punishment is made too prominent. But it is doubt ful whether it would have seemed so to the Church of the Middle Age.

• Koran 2 125 , 37 los . t 28 52 f . \ Rom. 10 lfv .

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We should wrong Mohammed, however, if we sup posed his conception of salvation to be merely ex ternal. The happiness of the believer consists in obtaining the forgiveness of God, and this forgive ness is valued for itself not because it secures en trance to Paradise. The wrath of God rests on sin ners, but He forgives those who believe. So he has manifested His grace in the past. When David was reproved by a parable " then he discovered how We had tested him and, falling prostrate, he begged forgiveness of his Lord and repented ; and We for gave him his sin, and he had access to Us, and an excellent refuge." * Of true believers it is said : " These, when they have done wrong or harmed their souls, remember God and ask forgiveness for their sins (and who forgives sins except God ?) and do not persist in what they have done, when they know [its harm] ; their portion is forgiveness from their Lord, and Gardens in which flow perennial streams." \. Although the future reward is mentioned here, the forgiveness is evidently regarded as a good in itself. And we can scarcely doubt the spiritual emphasis of such a passage as the following : " If you love God follow me, and God will love you and forgive your sins God is loving and gracious." % It is related in a tradition that Mohammed was accustomed to pray for forgiveness seventy times a day ; and that he said : " There are three things possessing which a man finds the sweetness of faith : that Allah and His Prophet are dearer to him than anything besides them ; that he loves the man who is loved by none

• Koran 38 23 . f 3 15 ". J3- 9

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but God ; and that lie dreads returning to unbelief as he dreads being thrown into the fire." * The mo tive here urged is the sweetness of a complete faith considered by itself, and not looking for another reward.

But while we find some indications of a real spirit ual apprehension of religion, it must be confessed that the emphasis of Mohammed is placed largely upon externals. His imagination was unequal to the task of describing pure spiritual joys except under sensu ous images. Hence comes the wearisome repetitions in his picture of the rewards of heaven. In laying so much stress upon the rewards of piety, he fell short of the New Testament ideal. And this is ac counted for largely by his conception of revelation as a law. It is indeed a grace of God, that men are pointed to the right path. They do attain salvation by following the direction thus imparted. But in practice, this means that their salvation consists in the performance of ceremonies, whose only reason is that they are enjoined by God. A treatise of Mos lem theology which represents the established or thodoxy f says the foundations of Islam are five, to wit : (1) the confession that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is His Apostle, (2) the observance of prayer, (3) the giving of alms, (4) the observance of Eamadhan, and (5) the performance of the pilgrimage. Four parts of religion out of five therefore consist in external observances. This is no

• Bochari, I. , p. 9.

t Compendium Theol. Moham. apud Reland. DeRelig. Moham., p, 5.

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doubt an exaggerated statement, as compared with what Mohammed himself would have said. But he opened the way to such a conception by presenting his revelation as a legal system. Here is one of the points in which he failed to rise to the New Testa ment view, and in which his system more nearly re sembled the legalism into which the Jews fell by their one-sided emphasis of their Tora.

But while admitting that Islam did not rise to the height of the Gospel, we must remember that the Christianity of that day did not rise to the height of the Gospel either. The early Church saw in the New Testament a new Law of essentially the same nature with the old.* This being the conception which Mohammed received from the Christianity of his time we cannot wonder that he adopted it, espe cially as circumstances emphasized the need of a strict code. He had to do with men converted from heathenism. They were men little used to self-con trol. As a matter of state policy, he was obliged to provide them with specific rules of conduct, and to enforce obedience by supernatural sanctions. His rules were not as restrictive as those of Judaism, but the principle on which the system was based was really the same.

The result of placing the revelation in this position has been to make Islam the most conservative sys tem the world has ever seen. Mohammed was, as he himself claimed, the last of the prophets the seal of that long line of messengers. His revelation is there fore the final revelation, and being a law for all rela-

• Ilarnack, Doymeiiyeschichte. II., p. 140.

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tions of life, civil, social, and individual, these cannot change because it cannot change.* There is no power which can amend it, because it is a transcript from the heavenly tablet, and no one now has access to the original. The Pentateuch and the Gospel are indeed from the same exalted source. But in their present form these are open to suspicion as having possibly been corrupted by those who have them in charge. The authentic law is the Koran ; and faith in God means obedience to this law. Multitudes of earnest and conscientious men are making it the aim of their lives to conform to this law. They actu ally attain a high degree of virtue measured by the standard of the Middle Age ; and their conscientious fidelity to principle must command our respect, meas ure it by what standard we will. But their devotion to the light which came to their ancestors nearly thirteen hundred years ago, shuts their eyes to the light of the present time. All the wonderful progress of which we boast, is to them only apostasy from the truth of God. Hence arises the tragedy of the East a tragedy at which the civilized world stands aghast to-day, and the last act in which, it is to be feared, is not yet played.

This is not the place in which to discuss this sub ject at length. Our topic is sin and salvation, and we have discovered in this as in the other parts of

• The traditions rightly express the mind of Islam when they

make Mohammed say : u Verily the best word is the word of God ; and the best rule of conduct is that delivered by Mohammed, and the worst of all acts are those which are innovations . . . and every innovation is abandoning the right road." Mishcat, I., p. 44.

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Mohammed s doctrine a decisive Biblical influence. His system is that of the Old and New Testament, so far as he was able to adapt it to the people with whom he came in contact. To a considerable extent he apprehended the doctrine of salvation by faith. But he hampered his system by tying faith down to a code which, under the guise of an unchangeable reve lation, made the customs of his time a matter of per petual obligation.