ISLAM

HER MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUE

A Rational and Psychological Study


By
MAJOR ARTHUR GLYN LEONARD

LATE 2ND BATT. EAST LANCASHIRE REGIMENT

Author of “The Camel, Its Uses and Management,” “How we made
Rhodesia,” “The Lower Niger and its Tribes”

With a Foreword by
SYED AMEER ALI, M.A., C.I.E.

Author of “The Spirit of Islam,” “Life and Teachings of Mohammed,”
“Mohammedan Law,” “Personal Law of the
Mohammedans,” etc.

LONDON
LUZAC & CO
46, GREAT RUSSELL STREET
1909

FOREWORD

I am glad to introduce this book with an expression of the pleasure and interest with which I have read Major Leonard’s admirable psychological study of a subject, the importance of which it is hardly possible to overrate.

Unfortunately it has been too common hitherto to regard Islam as an antagonistic force to Christendom; to depreciate its Founder and to discount its Ideals. As the author justly observes, it is hardly possible for a student really anxious to acquaint himself with the inner spirit of another Faith, to gain an insight into its true character until he has divested himself of ancient prejudices that narrow his perspective and prevent his taking a broad view of the aims and aspirations of the great men who from time to time have tried to uplift humanity.

Major Leonard has dealt with his subject in this broad spirit; he has approached it with sympathy born of intimate acquaintance with races and peoples who profess the Faith of Islam. His is eminently a philosophical study of its Founder, of its true moral and spiritual utility, and of the great impetus it gave to the progress of the world.

In the eight chapters that constitute this book he has discussed the entire range of questions affecting the personality of Mohammed and the tendency of his religion. In his treatment he shows himself a philosophical rationalist animated with a reverence for the Arabian Teacher—the evident outcome of a true appreciation of the mainspring of his actions.

In the first chapter the author has applied himself to expose the absurdity and hollowness of the Pan-Islamic “bogey.” That the growing rapprochement between Moslem communities, hitherto divided by sectarian feuds, should be viewed with disfavour by Europe as indicating a danger to its predominance and selfish ambitions is intelligible. But that it should be regarded as a deliberate challenge to, or intended as a hostile demonstration against Christendom, is a mere chimera. Major Leonard proves conclusively that the Pan-Islamic movement is no modern political movement; but that morally and spiritually Islam, in its very essence, is Pan-Islamic; in other words, a creed that recognizes in practice the brotherhood of man to a degree unknown in any other religion, and admits in its commonwealth no difference of race, colour or rank.

Moslems, laymen and scholars, will probably not agree with some of Major Leonard’s remarks in his outline of the Prophet’s character and temperament; but they must all acknowledge his sincerity. He describes Mohammed as a great and true man—great not only as a teacher, but as a patriot and statesman; a material as well as a spiritual builder, who constructed a nation and an enduring Faith, which holds, to a greater degree than most others, the hearts of millions of human beings; a man true to himself and his people, but above all to his God.

The author has gone to the Koran itself for the animating purpose of Mohammed’s strenuous and noble life. He believes that the national good to be obtained only by the recognition of the conception of a God who is both “national and universal” was the dominant idea that impelled and inspired the Prophet of Arabia. In his appreciation of Mohammed’s teachings, Major Leonard has grasped the real spirit of Islam; and both as regards his moral and spiritual precepts, as also the enunciations respecting the duties of every-day life, the author has given the Arabian Prophet his due. He dwells on Mohammed’s affection and sympathy for the weak, the afflicted and suffering, with the orphan and the stricken; on his humanity to the dumb creatures of God; on the duties of parents to children, and of children to parents; on his burning denunciations of the terrible crime of female infanticide.

In the eighth and last chapter Major Leonard speaks of the debt Europe owes to Islam, and endeavours to show that the religion of Mohammed, far from being antagonistic to human development, has materially helped in the progress of the world. It is part of Major Leonard’s thesis that Christianity and Islam belong to “different spheres of influence”; in other words, whilst Christianity is suited to certain races, Islam is peculiarly suited to others. Races and peoples adapt their religions to their own respective advancement, and the same religion varies among different communities according to the stage of their development. The Christianity of the barbarous South American Gaucho is not the same as that of the cultured Englishman, nor is the Islam of the cultivated Moslem identical with that professed by ignorant followers of the Faith. But it would be hard to say that philosophical Christianity exactly answers the needs of the lower strata of Christendom to whom the positive directions of a simple practical faith might appeal with greater force. Might not Islam, with its emphatic prohibition of drink, the primary cause of all the vice and crime in Europe, prove a far greater civilizing agency in the slums of European cities, and do far more good in reclaiming the debased, than a religion which does not possess that positive character and is only adapted for idealistic minds?

Whatever view a rationalist may hold on this point, I feel that Major Leonard has laid the world of literature under a debt for his admirable monograph on a peculiarly interesting subject.

AMEER ALI.

CONTENTS