The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mohammed, The Prophet of Islam, by H. E. E. Hayes

Title: Mohammed, The Prophet of Islam

Author: H. E. E. Hayes

Release Date: November 16, 2004 [eBook #14064]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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MOHAMMED

A popular essay on the life of the prophet of Islam.

H.E.E. HAYES

Price 3d. post free,
From "Hythe House"
Greenhithe, Kent.

1. EARLY LIFE.
2. THE "CALL" TO THE PROPHETIC OFFICE.
3. BIRTH OF THE ISLAMIC SOCIETY.
4. GROWTH AND PROGRESS.
5. WORLD CONQUEST.
6. MOHAMMED AND WOMEN.

PREFACE.

So-called Moslem missionaries are spreading through the Press such idealistic and false views of the religion and character of Mohammed, that we need to be on our guard against them.

Unbiased historians have stated that there is much that is deplorable in the life of the prophet of Islam. And it is certain that his teaching has increased the degradation of the nations that have come under its influence.

Much of the literature that is being circulated in England by the "Moslem missionaries," claims that Moslem women are better off, so far as property rights go, than their Christian sisters. However true this may be, it does not lift them out of the degradation of polygamy and concubinage, with a capricious system of divorce, which makes them the victims of the selfish baseness of their husbands and masters, which Mohammed himself sanctioned.

The following essay, it is hoped, will help to counteract the false ideas that are being scattered abroad, and lead those who read to study more deeply the problems and sorrows of millions of the Moslem subjects of our Gracious King.

The prayers of all Christians are asked on behalf of these millions, and for those who labour to preach the "unsearchable riches of Christ" amongst them.

H.E.E. HAYES.

GREENHITHE:

July, 1914.

INTRODUCTION.

Just as the character of Jesus is stamped upon the religion which originated in His Person, so is the character of Mohammed impressed upon the system which he, with marvellous ingenuity, founded. The practical influence of Islam upon individual lives produces results that reflect unmistakably the character of its founder, and a careful study of the tenets of the system in relation to its history enable the student to estimate the real worth of the man.

As the Apostle of God, Mohammed is the ideal of every true Moslem. His life is the standard by which the lives of his followers are tested, although he himself confesses that his life was not holy. In the Koran, and the earlier traditions, he is pictured as being in no way better than his fellows, and as weak and liable to error as the poorest of his contemporaries. Yet later tradition minimises his faults and weakness, and surrounds his person with a halo of glory that makes him appear sinless and almost divine. All the doubtful incidents of his life are either eliminated and ignored, or assiduously supported and defended by his pious, misguided followers.

It is a point in his favour that he never claimed infallibility for his actions or opinions; and his habit of attempting to cover or justify his glaring faults by suitable revelations, although indefensibly immoral, reveals the fact that he was conscious of his own shortcomings. When he was at the zenith of his power, "revelation" became merely an instrument of self glorification, licensing him in every whim and fancy, because it gave him, as the prophet of God, exemption from all law and order. His scheme was characteristically ingenious and immoral. Had he known of the divine effulgence with which he was afterwards encircled by his fanatical followers, he would, in all probability, have strongly discountenanced it. The incongruous sanctity with which his commonplace utterances and petty actions were invested would have caused fear lest it became derogatory to his creed of divine unity.

TRADITION.

As a source of information, the traditions are obviously unreliable, for they are coloured by the excessive zeal and irrational bias of men whose judgment was warped by irrepressible fanaticism. They attributed to their hero elements that are grotesquely impossible. His advent was in their estimation, so portentous that it was celebrated by events which, for the time, upset all natural law. And his whole life has been linked with miraculous happenings of a most ludicrous type. More reasonable men have exalted the prophet because they have convinced themselves that he was what he ought to have been. This may account for the pious confidence of some of the more intelligent, who, accepting tradition as historical, have exalted their hero to the ideal, and have received the imagined glory as real. This tendency to exalt their master is well illustrated by the maxim of Shafy—"In the exaltation of Mohammed it is lawful to exaggerate"—a maxim invaluable to men who were seeking to glorify the prophet, and the usefulness of which was fully appreciated by the legislators and doctors when they were called upon to cope with the new relations and exigencies that came into being after his death.