Victorian Images of Islam 9781463222567

Citation preview

Victorian Images of Islam

Gorgias Islamic Studies

5

Gorgias Islamic Studies spans a wide range of subject areas, seeking to understand Islam as a complete cultural and religious unity. This series draws together political, socio-cultural, textual, and historical approaches from across disciplines. Containing monographs, edited collections of essays, and primary source texts in translation, this series seeks to present a comprehensive, critical, and constructive picture of this centuries- and continent-spanning religion.

Victorian Images of Islam

Clinton Bennett

1 gorgias press 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

1

ISBN 978-1-60724-673-2 Reprinted from the 1992 edition.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

vii

Preface

ix

1 Introduction: Images in the Making

I

2 Charles Forster 1787-1871

19

3 John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

46

4 Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

74

5 Sir William Muir 1819-1905

103

6 William St Clair Tisdall 1859-1928

128

7 John Drew Bate 1836-1923

150

8 Conclusion: Dare to Know

175

Appendix The Taylor Controversy: A Critique of Nineteenth-Century Mission

181

Selected Bibliography

192

Index

201

V

To the memory of The Revd Lewis Bevan Jones MA, BD 1880-1960 Baptist pioneer in Christian-Muslim relations

Foreword

In a variety of different ways the encounter between Christianity and Islam, between the Muslim world and Christendom, has acquired increasing significance in recent years. When the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (csic) was established in the Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham, in 1976, its purpose was regarded as rather esoteric outside very limited circles. The rising Muslim consciousness of parts of the immigrant and ethnic minority communities in western Europe; the threatening mutual demonization of Islam and the West, especially following the collapse of communism; the identification ofreligion,ethnicity and nationality appearing throughout—all of these have in recent years contributed to bringing the Centre's raison d'être into the limelight. The purpose of this series of books is to explore all aspects of the encounter between Islam and Christianity in areas ofrelevanceto the current world. Thus, the subjects covered may be historical or current, theological, social or political. They may deal with global or particular regional themes. While some volumes may be of interest to readers in only one discipline or area, all will interestreaderswho are in any way concerned with the encounter between Muslims and Christians. While the views of the authors are theirs alone, and neither the Centre or its individual staff members necessarily share their views, we consider that the series has an important contribution to make in an encounter of historic significance. This first volume in the series introduces a little-known dimension of the nineteenth century debate about the nature of Islam and Christian attitudes toward Muslims. The generally unsympathetic and sometimes outright hostile views of such imperial administrators as Sir William Muir were paralleled by quieter and in many ways more interesting vii

Victorian Images of Islam

views of other scholars. This book shows that the Victorian image of Islam was not as monolithic as is often supposed, and that there are pioneers to be found for a more positive Christian approach to Islam even at the height of British Victorian self-confidence. The Centre is grateful to the Adam Schall von Bell Shifting, based in Köln, Germany, for its financial support towards the preparation of this volume for the press and for its encouragement in starting the series. JORGEN S. NIELSEN

Director, csic

Abbreviations BFBS BMS CLS CMI CMS DNB JRAS LMS MRAS RTS SPCK USPG

British and Foreign Bible Society Baptist Missionary Society Christian Literature Society Church Missionary Intelligencer Church Missionary Society Dictionary of National Biography Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society London Missionary Society Member of the Royal Asiatic Society Religious Truth Society Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

viii

Victorian Images of Islam

views of other scholars. This book shows that the Victorian image of Islam was not as monolithic as is often supposed, and that there are pioneers to be found for a more positive Christian approach to Islam even at the height of British Victorian self-confidence. The Centre is grateful to the Adam Schall von Bell Shifting, based in Köln, Germany, for its financial support towards the preparation of this volume for the press and for its encouragement in starting the series. JORGEN S. NIELSEN

Director, csic

Abbreviations BFBS BMS CLS CMI CMS DNB JRAS LMS MRAS RTS SPCK USPG

British and Foreign Bible Society Baptist Missionary Society Christian Literature Society Church Missionary Intelligencer Church Missionary Society Dictionary of National Biography Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society London Missionary Society Member of the Royal Asiatic Society Religious Truth Society Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

viii

Preface

This book is concerned with British attitudes towards Islam during the last century and traces the genesis and development of two contrasting approaches to Islam, evidenced in the work of six Christian writers. It was not until the nineteenth century, as a result of colonial expansion, that Western Christians came into sustained contact with Muslims. As a result, our attitudes towards Islam are more influenced by nineteenth-century attitudes than by earlier Christian thinking, though consciously or unconsciously we are also influenced by centuries of Christian misinformation about Islam How the Christian European's image of the Muslim developed as the antithesis to everything Europeans regarded themselves to be has been well told by Norman Daniel in Islam and the West, he describes a process by which the 'other' became the opposite of our own self-image: we are honest, therefore the 'other' is dishonest; our religion is true, therefore theirs is false. Most of us, though, are unaware of medieval writings about Islam, yet undeniably the popular view of Islam is negative. Characteristically, Islam is seen as violent, intolerant, oppressive and obscurantist. Recent events surrounding Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and, even more recently, the call by Saddam Hussein for Muslims to regard the 1991 Gulf War as a holy war has seen the resurrection of many of these negative images. Nevertheless, our present-day attitude towards Islam was fundamentally shaped not by these contemporary events but by our awareness of nineteenth-century attitudes, especially of missionary writing. Such words as these by Sarah Stock are still sung in our churches: Let the song go round the earth... Lands where Islam's sway Daddy broods o'er home and hearth, Cast their bonds away. ix

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

The next line's reference to 'Afric's shore' conjures up pictures of missionaries carrying both civilization and the gospel to poor, benighted 'heathens'. Criticism of nineteenth-century mission has made us painfully aware of its mistakes, arrogance and follies, of how everything that was strange and alien was belittled as 'belonging to the infancy of the human race'. We have been made aware by Edward Said and others of the relationship between mission and colonialism, so that, 'in every quarter of the globe we [the British] have planted the seeds of freedom, civilization and Christianity. Thus "Empire" and "Christianity", two quite different concepts, came together' (Cracknell, p. 23). The dynamic and implications overlap between Christian mission and the rhetoric of Western imperialism; the notion of the 'white man's burden', used to legitimize colonial domination and even cultural homicide, is a concern that will surface several times in this book. The nineteenth century also saw the birth of a new eagerness to study other cultures and religions, if only to learn how best to subvert them. The phenomenon of the 'missionary scholar' developed side-by-side with that of the scholar-administrator, whose hobby was Indian ornithology, dialects or fauna. I began my research fascinated by this aspect of our missionary and colonial past and chose to concentrate, initially, on the life and work of an outstanding nineteenth-century scholar, Sir William Muir, in whom the missionary, scholarly and colonial worlds came together. Muir's attitude towards Islam, his principal subject of study, was negative, yet his mastery of original sources still commands respect and his influence on others can hardly be overstated. Later writers, by accepting Muir's 'facts' while rejecting his 'interpretations' used his work to support very different conclusionsregardingIslam. As I continued to investigate nineteenth-century scholarly interest in Islam, I discovered that some writers approached Islam quite differently. Indeed, an alternative tradition developed, which saw Islam as a sisterfaith to Christianity, regretted past misrepresentation and set out to discover that which was common with Christianity. This tradition, which believed that God's hand rested on Islam as well as on Christianity, also tried not to judge Islam exclusively by Christian criteria. Subsequently, I chose three writers (including Muir) whose woik represents a 'confrontational approach' to Islam and three whose work represents a 'conciliatory approach' and compared and contrasted their work. As these writers were mutually aware of the others' opinions, a debate developed between them which suggests that last century saw more creative thinking about Islam than we usually assume, that theology of X

Preface

religions was of more popular concern than we tend to think and that not everyone accepted without question the attitude of 'ineffable superiority' towards everything non-European. Nor did the too comfortable and convenient alliance between Christian mission and everything Western pass without criticism. Indeed, some writers saw the fact that Muslims and Christians were fellow subjects of Queen Victoria as itself an incentive to improve relations and understanding. Miii^s 'Victorian' pedigree was impeccable: it was Muir, for instance, who suggested 'Kaisar-i-Hind' as the Indian form of the queen's title as 'Empress of India' and who assisted her in her Urdu studies while a guest at Balmoral. It was this Victorian connection that suggested the title for this book, since the Empire on which the sun never set, its ethics, ethos and politics, is well summed up by the word 'Victorian'. Victoria lived from 1819 until 1901 and reigned from 1837. During that period, Britain's power reached its zenith and the Queen-Empress, known for her conscientious hard work and strict morality, stamped her name indelibly on the face of world histoiy. Although this book does not restrict its subject to the actual years of Victoria's reign, Victorian Images of Islam is an appropriate title because the seeds of Victorian attitudes predated her accesssion and their influence continued long after her death. In India, for example, the culture, attitudes and ethos of British officials continued to be described as Victorian until the end of British rule. Philip C. Almond wrote in his book subtitled Muhammad and the Victorians that 'little attention has thus far been paid to Victorian attitudes to non-Christian religions'. I hope that this book, like Almond's shorter but valuable contribution, will help 'to fill a lacuna in studies about Victorian images of Muhammad and Islam'. The introduction places the two schools of Victorian thought within the broader history of Christian-Muslim encounter. Later chapters examine the life and work of the six principal writers. One was described as 'the most originating of Victorian theologians', another had two of his books published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office and a third has recently been called 'the mid-Victorian period's most influential defender of the Prophet' (Almond, p. 19). I have devoted considerable space to biography in order to locate each writer within his specific intellectual, social and ecclesiological context. My conclusion suggests that our theological premises rather than our experience of encounter with Islam are likely to determine our estimate of Islam, since we bring these premises to bear on our actual experience of encountering the reality of Islam. »

Victorian ¡maga ofIslam

Acknowledgements I wish to express my gratitude to Dr David Kerr, Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut. Dr Kerr supervised my doctoral research, from which this book evolved, from 1985 until 1988 while Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations. I am also grateful to the Revd Dr Christian W. Troll, SJ, Senior Lecturer at the Centre and Recognized Lecturer in the University of Birmingham Department of Theology, for supervising my research during the last academic year. Both scholars guided, encouraged and stimulated my work, which could not have been completed without their advice and friendly criticism. Many libraries provided help and assistance, but I especially wish to thank the Revd Keith Skirrow, Archivist at the Baptist Missionary Society, for help in locating materials related to chapter sevea For financial assistance I am indebted to the Scholarship Committee of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and to the Joseph Scott Trust Ministers Fund, without whose assistance this research would haveremainedunfinished. I am grateful to the Rt Revd Jim Thompson, Bishop of Stepney and Moderator of the Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths of the British Council of Churches from 1983 to 1989, for allowing me to pursue my research alongside my duties as Executive Secretary of that Committee (since September 1990 within the newly created Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland). I am, as well, appreciative of committee members and staff colleagues for their encouragement. I am also grateful to my two thesis examiners, Professor C.E. Bosworth of Manchester University and Dr Sigvard von Sicard of Birmingham University, for their constructive criticism and useful comments. My thanks also go to my former secretaries, Mrs Myra Macphereon and Mrs Christianah Odejayi. Both were patient, long suffering and indispensable. For proofreading and encouragement, I thank my friend and colleague Ultan Russel, formerly General Secretary of the Birmingham Council of Christian Churches, now with the Churchs' Community Work Alliance. Finally, a special greeting of peace and love to all my Muslim friends, without whom my practice of interfaith dialogue would remain academic.

xii

1

Introduction

This book traces the development of two contrasting Victorian approaches to Islam in the work of six Christian writers. They and the nineteenth century must be located within the broader context of developing Christian attitudes to Islam throughout the preceding centuries, of which, to a lesser or greater degree, these writers were aware. This necessarily brief introductory chapter, therefore, places the six writers in historical perspective, but it cannot adequately explore all the people, ideas and theories which belong to the long and complex story of Christian-Muslim relations. The authorities cited provide more detailed accounts. The following summary of general trends and positions surveys the twelve centuries chronologically, but especially seeks to identify certain approaches that reoccur in at least three contexts: ChristianMuslim relations within the Arab world, Byzantine-Muslim relations and the Western Church and Islam.

The Christian Movement at the Time of Muhammad In the seventh century of the Christian or Common Era, when Islam became a factor in world history, the Christian Church was not a monolithic organizatioa In Western Europe, the Bishop of Rome was beginning to emerge as a powerful political as well as spiritual authority. After 410 CE, the papacy was the only effective authority in the West, although de jure the Byzantine Emperor, who claimed the title of Caesar, still ruled. The papacy's temporal power was strengthened by the coronation of Charlemagne (whose grandfather, Charles Mattel, had turned back Muslim armies at the Pyrenees) as Holy Roman Emperor in 800 CE. This symbolized the severance of the Roman Empire, which l

Victorian Images ofIslam

became two empires. The papacy thereafter became allied with the West. Consequently, relations with the Byzantine Emperor and his Patriarch, known since about 5% CE as the Ecumenical Patriarch, a title which the papacy rejected, were also effectively severed. In the Eastern Empire, neither the Emperor nor the Patriarch enjoyed universal recognitioa From 300 CE the Armenians, from 451 CE the Copts of Egypt and the Jacobites of Syria and from 484 CE the Nestorians of Persia were no longer in communion with Constantinople. Relations between Muslims and Christians of these traditions (usually called Oriental Orthodox) were cordial, as reflected in early Islamic sources which, for example, record that Waraqah, a Christian, encouraged Muhammad after Gabriel first appeared to him at Mount Hira. The monks of Bostra, Bahira and Nestor affirmed Muhammad's prophethood. Bahira recognized the seal of the Prophets on the shoulders of the young Muhammad. The Negus of Ethiopia welcomed the emigrants and protected them from the Meccan envoys. Several Christian tribes obtained peace treaties with Muhammad while the Christians of Najran were even allowed to pray in the Mosque. Islam demanded that Christians pay tribute, but in return guaranteed freedom of worship. The Nestorians, under Muslim rule from 6S1 CE, actually prospered. Five provinces of the Church of the East were established beyond the borders of the Caliphate, and Nestorian scholars played a full part in the formation of Arab culture. In Egypt, too, the Copts found that their Muslim overlords interfered less in their internal affairs than the Byzantine Emperor, and it has been argued that during the first four centuries after the Hijrah, Christian-Muslim relations were most cordial. There is, for example, evidence that the Caliph regarded the Nestorian Catholicos Mar Timothy as head of the whole Christian community within the Muslim Empire and himself as co-leader with others. Interchange, such as the debate between Caliph al-Mahdi (775-85 CE) and Catholicos Mar Timothy (780-823 CE), took place against a background of tolerance. Even allowing for political expediency, the Catholicos's apology for Muhammad was fuller than most. His reference to Muhammad as 'walking in the path of the prophets' is one of several ways in which early Christians attempted to make sense of Muhammad's career, in this case as a type of Old Testament Prophet. While there were negative aspects of living as a political minority within the Muslim Empire (Christians were taxed more heavily, could not bear arms, were sometimes compelled to wear such distinctive dress as a yellow cummerbund and were not always allowed to build new 2

Introduction: Images in the Making

churches or to worship ostentatiously), these did not prevent many Christians from holding high positions as physicians and secretaries. Christians moved within Ummayid and Abbasid society with ease; some of the repressive measures against them may have been in response to Christians abusing their privileges. Regarding themselves superior, they sometimes used their positions to mode Islam. There was, according to Jacobite historian Bar-Hebraeus (1226-86 CE), primate of the East and a convert from Judaism, 'a community of interests between Muslim and Christian intellectuals'. Muslim polemicists tried to understand what Christians taught and believed. In his Kitab al-Makalat (a history of religions), Abu Isa Muhammad B. Haran Warrak (d. 909 CE) examined the main branches of Christianity and a host of minor sects as well. Ahmad Ibn Hayat even surmised whether God might not sometimes manifest himself in a book, sometimes in a person and thus identified the basic theological impasse between the two faiths. The early period may have been characterized more by a combination of enmity and mutual respect than by either attitude singly.

The Muslim World and the Byzantine Empire Emperor Heraclius (610-41 CE) held back the initial Muslim advance towards the Byzantine Empire, but the provinces of Syria, Palestine and Egypt were subsequently lost Until Constantinople fell in 14S3 CE, the Byzantine Emperors regarded Islam as a powerful foe to be respected and feared. Consequently, relations between Byzantium and the Caliphate were less cordial, suggesting that the different attitudes towards Islam of Christians within and outside the Arab world were at least partially determined by social and political as well as by theological factors: Byzantine Christians who lived within the Arab world did not fare badly. It was John of Damascus (67S-749 CE), a servant of the Caliph before ordination, who did much to stimulate Arab interest in Aristotle and dialectics, while pioneering the subsequent Greek tradition of informed interest in Islam. He knew both Islam and the Quran well. His De Haeresibus, in which he described Muslims as 'Ishmaelites' and 'Hagarites' is an early example of what may be called the 'heresy approach' to Islam. Examining Islam as a heresy alongside the Monophysites and the Nestorians, John attempted to find a place for Islam as a deviation from the Christian Church. Significantly, he principally wrote to inform Christians rather than to convert Muslims. 3

Victorian Images ofIslam

The Western Church and Islam Western Christianity generally speaking remained not only ignorant of Islam but uninterested in distinguishing it from the large number of enemies which threatened Christendom from every direction. Just as no effort was made to study the religion of the Norsemen, Slavs or Magyars, so no effort was made to study the religion of the Arabs. Some Church historians using the biblical approach did attempt to locate the Saracens within the scheme of God's providence. The Venerable Bede (673-735 CE), for example, traced references to the Saracens, whom he took to be descendants of Ishmael, in the Old Testament and argued that just as Ishmael had been 'outside the covenant, so were they'. As a result of the Crusades, Latin sees were created within the Arab world and some Orthodox communions recognized papal authority and were thus united with Rome. Consequently, some Western Christians developed a more informed knowledge of Islam. William of Tripoli (1220-73 CE), a Dominican missionary who claimed substantial numbers of converts from Islam, wrote: Though their beliefs are wrapped up in many lies and decorated with fictions, it now manifestly appears that they are near to the Christian faith and not far from the path of salvation. (Southern, p. 62)

Latin Archbishop William of Tyre (1130-86 CE), too, knew something of Islam and was not markedly biased in his history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (from Muhammad to 1182 CE). Yet even residents in the Arab world could demonstrate ignorance of Islam. Jacob of Vitry, an Archbishop of Acre in the thirteenth century, whom one would have thought well placed to observe Islam accurately, lent his belief and credulity to the story of an image of Muhammad in the Mosque of Umar at Jerusalem. The Importance of Spain It was in Spain under Muslim rule from 711 to 1479 CE that Christians thought most about Islam. Early opposition to the Moors was led by the Christians of Cordoba, who interpreted the rule of Islam as preparation for the final reign of the Antichrist. In Daniel VII they found the biblical evidence they needed. Islam, they believed, would flourish for three and 4

Introduction: Images in the Making

one-half periods of seventy-five years before the world would end. Islam was a sinister conspiracy against Christianity. Although ignorant of Islam's tenets, they saw in its details the marks of the Antichrist. Eulogius (d. 859 CE) inspired a movement of voluntary martyrdom which may have influenced subsequent European attitudes towards Islam. Later, however, Muslims and Christians in Spain enjoyed a period of intellectual excellence when under the Moors Spanish universities led Europe in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Christian scholars who studied there not only placed their own universities in debt to the Muslim teachers but also took back to Europe more positive impressions of Islam. Positive interaction also occurred in Sicily, which was under Muslim rule from 827 to 1060 CE. The greatest impact was made by Averoes (Ibn Rushd: 1126-98 CE) whose interpretation of Aristotle inspired, especially through contact with the University of Paris and the Franciscans, the school of thought known as Latin Averoism. Important in this process was Friar Roger Bacon (1220-92 CE) who lectured on Aristotle at Paris and who complained about European ignorance of Arabic. Bacon abandoned the Bible as the tool for understanding salvation history and used philosophy instead. Most earlier writers had regarded Islam or the Muslim Empire in negative terms, as part of a downwards movement towards the final holocaust. Bacon, however, 'had some conception of an upward movement towards unity and articulateness in which Islam had an essential role to play before it withered away' (Southern, p. 61). His view is more reminiscent of William of Tripoli than of Eulogius and the voluntary Martyrs of Cordoba. Another eminent writer of the Scholastic School, Thomas Aquinas (122S-74 CE) also turned to philosophy to present Christian thought vis-a-vis Muslim thought in a work intended for missionaiy use, the Summa Contra Gentiles. Sweetman writes that Aquinas did not regard Muslims as 'utterly outside the pale'. He rejected war in favour of 'the pacific and persuasive approach to men of other faiths' (Sweetman, pt 2,1:114). The account of St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226 CE) visiting the court of the Sultan of Egypt may also be cited as encouragement to a pacific (irenic) approach to Islam. Francis's intent, in contrast to the Crusaders who he is said to have accompanied, was pacific: to preach the Gospel of the love of God. He believed that the crusaders' victories would be of no account unless followed 'by a pacific victory of the evangelical spirit' (Sweetman, pt 2,1:94-1 IS). In his Regola non bollata (1221), Francis wrote that the friars who would 'Go among Muslims...can establish spiritual contact with them in two 5

Victorian Images ofIslam

ways:...they should be subject to every human creature for the love of God and confess themselves to be Christians. The other way is that when they see that it would be pleasing to the Lord, they should announce the word of God' (WT Bulletin, XIX: 126-40). The Crusades The Crusades represent a political as well as theological approach to Islam. Sweetman maintains they were not primarily religious but had 'worldly and material purposes, cupidity and greed'. However, whatever their origin, the Western Church's sanctification of the crusading idea is undeniable and the Papacy's wealth and power were greatly enhanced by its support. Papal indulgences, for example, were first offered during the Crusades and henceforth the idea of holy war, commanded and blessed by the Church, became part of the European mind-set. An overriding motive, alongside political and other considerations (such as the reunification of the Western and Eastern Churches, a motive especially urged by the Abbots of Cluny) was to destroy the Muslim creed, to annihilate Islam. Some even taught that it was meritorious to kill Muslims provided that any spoil was dedicated to the Church. Whatever their original motive, the Crusades created vast misrepresentation and misunderstanding on both sides and permanently embittered relations between Christians and Muslims. One writer suggests that if: Prior to the Crusades, the Muslims had been quite tolerant of the Christians and Jews whom they conquered, the harsh treatment of Muslims by the Crusaders during a period of three or four centuries inevitably made the Muslims less tolerant of the unbelievers. Furthermore, the Crusaders must share with the Turks, Mongols and Mamelukes the blame for that constant battering of the Arab aristocracies which gradually reduced them from an enlightened urbane culture, superior to that of western Europe in tolerance and in breadth of intellectual interest, to a narrow religious conservatism under which secular learning declined. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 6(1971) 834)

The Medieval Picture Drawing on early traditions which associated Muhammad with the Antichrist, the prophet of Islam was regarded in Medieval Europe as the 6

Introduction: Images in the Making

Devil's son, the Devil incarnate, a false prophet and a charlatan. Islam, viewed as a politico-religious unit, which was how Europe, as Christendom, saw itself, was thus identified as the spiritual and political enemy against which Christians should fight. To fight the infidel was part of the warfare against 'the world, flesh and the devil' enjoined on Christians in the baptismal collect Little effort was made to understand what Muhammad had actually taught, with such few exceptions as Ramon Lull (1234-1316) and Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny (c. 1092-1156). Lull was a tertiary Franciscan who, inspired by St Francis's example, repudiated violence and turned to a serious study of Arabic and Islam in order to share God's love with Muslims. Lull's method was based on rational argument, rather than on scriptural authority, reminiscent of Bacon. Peter the Venerable, like Lull, was a product of the period of positive interaction in Spaia He, too, attempted to create a rational apologetic for Christianity in relation to Islam and Judaism. These three religions were awakening through peaceful and profitable coexistence in Spain to 'consciousness of one another as systems of thought theologically differentiated, which could not be debated by appeal to authority alone, but must find a common meeting ground for discussion'. Peter aimed to assail Islam but 'not with weapons, as other Christians [had] done, but by word, not by force but with reason, not with hate but with love, by a love albeit such as a Christian can feel towards the enemies of Christ' (Sweetman, pt 2,1:79). In order to acquire the skills necessary to translate the Quran into Latin, Peter studied at Toledo though he actually commissioned Robert the Englishman (fl. 1143) and Hermannus Secondus to render both the Quran and the early Christian apology of Al-Kindi into that language. These examples of a more informed and irenic approach to Islam are highly significant, but it must be emphasized that they are exceptions to the rule. Generally, Europeans remained ignorant of Islam as a religion and accepted the most far-fetched myths as fact. Dr Sweetman suggests that the words which Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) placed on the lips of Wamba the Jester represents 'no licence but..a faithful report' of what 'Scott had found in his wide medieval reading'. The jester disparaged the Saracens as 'worshippers of Mahound and Termajant' (Sweetman, pt 2,1:63). Medieval literature well illustrates popular ideas of Muhammad: he was a renegade cardinal from Rome who, having failed to achieve the object of every cardinal's desire, fled to Arabia and founded a rival religion in a fit of pique! He was one of a pantheon of three gods or, in Shakespeare, the 'prince of darkness, Modo, or Mahu' (King 7

Victorian Images ofIslam

Lear, DI:iv). In the story of Roland, the French national epic, he is accompanied on one side by the chief god of the pagans, on the other by Satan. Invariably, Muhammad's name was rendered incorrectly, as Maphomet, Bafum, Mammet, Mawmet or Mahomet. It was rarely mentioned without some such imprecation as 'at whose name we ought to shudder'. Writers who did venture to address Islam felt obliged to apologize for daring to suggest that Islam 'was worthy of scholarly treatment'. In their assessment of Islam, the Protestant reformers differed little if at all from Catholic writers. In Germany, the Ottoman Turk as the enemy of Christendom was an important theme for both Catholic and Protestant pamphleteers; one described the Austrian Emperor as the 'Protector of Christendom', while the Turkish Sultan was the 'hereditary enemy of the Christian faith'. Martin Luther (1484-1546) called the Turk 'a scourge of God and a servant of the devil', and wrote in his 'On War Against the Turks' (1S29), 'if the Pope is the Antichrist, the Turk is the Devil incarnate'. In the introduction to one of his hymns, Luther identified the Pope and the Turk as the two archenemies of Christ and his Church. In 1542, a Lutheran writer published a biography 'of the Turkish idol Mahomet' which depicted Muhammad as 'an impostor inspired by Satan to found a cult capable of challenging and eventually destroying Christianity' (Bohnskdt, p. 22).

The Scholarly and Philosophical Tradition The seventeenth century witnessed the genesis of a new quest for an understanding of Islam, symptomatic of which were the various renderings of the Quran. Both Luther (1543) and Melancthon (1550) wrote prefaces to editions of Robert Retinensis's rendering. Christians began to realize that if Islam was to be refuted, they must first know what they aimed to refute. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) addressed Islam in his De Veritate religionis Christianae\ though written as part of an apology, his treatment was scholarly and sober. For others, Islam became a valid subject for serious academic inquiry. The best example was Edward Pococke (1604-91), who learned Arabic while chaplain at Aleppo and became the first Professor of Arabic at Oxford. His Specimen historiae arabum (1649), based on Arabic sources, made new materials available for Europeans to construct Muhammad's biography. Pococke also translated Grotius's De Veritate into Arabic, with permission to edit his section on Islam. Pococke's work established as axiomatic that the principal 8

Introduction: Images in the Making

authority for facts about Islam must be Muslim. He was followed by Ludouici Mairacci, whose rendering of the Quran appeared in 1698. In his Refutatio, Marracci tried to give new life to the traditional polemic but also used much information from authentic Arabic sources. Alexander Ross (1590-1654) translated Andre du Ryer*s Quran into English with a 'Needful Caveat or Admonition', but his Pansebeia, or A View of all Religions in the world, together with A Discovery of all Known Heresies (1653), was, says W. Montgomery Watt, 'a pioneer work in comparative religion' and gave 'an objective account of Islam and its founder according to the sources then available' (Watt, p. 251). Scholars such as Johan Heinrich Hottinger (1620-67) in his Historia Orientalis (1651), George Sale (1697-1736) in his Preliminary Discourse (1734), John Gagnier (1670-1740) in his translation of Abu Al-Fida (1723) and in his ¿a vie de Mahomed (1730) and Adrian Reland (1676-1718) in his De Religione Mohammedica (1705, 1717) examined Islamic history for its own sake and added manuscripts carefully collected and studied to the gradually accumulating store of knowledge. The work of Simon Ockley (1678-1720), Professor of Arabic at Cambridge was also significant. His History of the Saracens (1708-18) was not based on the best source but its importance 'to the progress of Oriental studies cannot be overestimated', says Stanley Lane-Poole, who judges it to have stimulated students to further research by making Oriental histoiy an attractive subject. It was this store of scholarly knowledge which enabled Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, though not an Arabist, to 'avoid many of the erroneous statements about Muhammad that had been current previously' (Watt, p. 250). In his 1955 Hibbert Journal article, Professor Watt suggests that even if 'the old medieval world picture of Islam' is 'still much in evidence' in Gibbon's work, he yet represents 'the beginning of the movement for the rehabilitation of Muhammad' (Watt, p. 251). Norman Daniel similarly states, 'if we discount Gibbon's prejudice, we can measure in the story he tells the point to which scholarship had advanced' (Daniel, Islam, Europe, p. 24). Gibbon, however, was antagonistic to all religion and his sympathetic treatment of Islam was partly aimed against Christianity. He chose to champion Islam because he interpreted it as an example of a successful secular movement Other writers, such as Professor Joseph White (1746-1814) in his Bampton Lecture (1784), attempted to explain Islam by purely human causes. It was Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) who in 1840 made the 'first 9

Victorian Images of Islam

strong affirmation in the whole of European literature, medieval or modem, of a belief in the sincerity of Muhammad'. In analysing the background to Carlyle's essay, 'Muhammad: Hero as Prophet', Professor Watt asks: How was it that in May 1840, after centuries in which Muhammad had been called an imposter, an Antichrist and worse, Cariyle publicly insisted that he was essentially a sincere man, sincerely following such light as he had? What were the current views against which Cariyle was protesting and how did they come to be what they were? What, on the other hand, were the existing tendencies towards a rehabilitation of Muhammad? (Watt, p. 247)

The popular view of Islam and of Muhammad has been outlined above. Addressing his second question, Watt identifies two independent tendencies of which Cariyle was the mouthpiece The first was the scholarly tradition, from Pococke to Gibboa The second was a philosophical school, represented by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), G.W. Leibnitz (1646-1716), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and J.W. Goethe (1749-1832), behind whom stood the poetic and literary influence of the Saracens via Spain and Sicily where much creative cultural and intellectual interaction occurred between the Christian and Muslim worlds. Cariyle was Goethe's English translator. However, like Gibbon, Cariyle was opposed to all churches and creeds though, unlike Gibbon, he was not an atheist. Cariyle appears to have taken delight in shocking Christians by championing Muhammad, writing on 6 May 1840: I gave my second lecture yesterday...on Mahomet...I gave them to know that ..the Arab had points about him which were good for all of them to imitate: that they were more quacks than he: that, in short, it was altogether a new kind of thing they were hearing today. The people seemed greatly astonished. (L. Ahmad, p. 181)

A New Christian Assessment Neither Gibbon nor Cariyle contributed directly towards a Christian reappraisal of Islam, since Christians could reject their views as 'infidel'. This book is concerned with writers who attempted to re-evaluate their attitudes to Muhammad within a framework of Christian theology. It is concerned with the nineteenth century and with two contrasting schools of thought. The first may fairly be regarded as a derivative of that 10

Introduction: Images in the Making

represented by Carlyle in that it built on the materials provided by the Orientalists but reacted against the secular inteipretation of histoiy. Its exponents were Christian writers concerned with asserting a theology of Christian-Muslim relations. At least two of the three whose work will be discussed may have been labelled 'liberal', but to borrow a phrase from Eric J. Sharpe, they claimed to operate 'within the framework of the historic Christian community, rather than from a position either outside the community or on its sidelines' (Comparative Religions, p. 146). In this book, however, we locate the genesis of this conciliatory but confessedly Christian school with Charies Forster (1787-1871), whose Mahometanism Unveiled was published in 1829. Forster, who was deeply aware of earlier Christian writers on Islam, drew on Pococke and Sale, but more significantly still greatly admired Roger Bacon, to whose unpublished manuscript he had access. Forster reacted against Gibbon's secular interpretation of histoiy. However, like most scholars who react against other writers, he was intimately acquainted with his woik and made considerable use of it in his own. Norman Daniel suggests that Forster represents the beginning of a new approach to Islam, observing that it is consequently to be located earlier in the nineteenth century than has generally been thought. I will suggest, however, that Forster's approach was less 'new', that it was rather a development of the quest for a different understanding of Islam by Western Europeans which dates from such early thinkers as Roger Bacon. Although there is no evidence that Forster was familiar with the histoiy of early Eastern Christian-Muslim relations or with writers such as John of Damascus, his approach is in ideological if unconscious succession to a more primitive tradition. Forster knew William of Tyre's history and Daniel compares him with William of Tripoli (Daniel, Islam and the West, p. 387). Less tenuous, though, is Forster's intimate knowledge of the interaction between Muslim and Christian scholars in thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuiy Spain, to which tradition he owed much; his approach also resembles that of earlier exponents of the biblical approach. Albeit Hourani describes Forster as a 'rare and eccentric example' of a nineteenth-century writer who, while accepting traditional formulations of Christian faith, attempted to engage theologically with Islam (Hourani, Europe, p. 35), which neither Gibbon, nor Carlyle, nor writers such as Washington Irving or Godfrey Higgins claimed for their respective treatments of Muhammad and his religioa It is to Godfrey Higgins (1771-1833) that the real credit for first asserting the sincerity of Muhammad should go: his Apology for Mohamed appeared in 1829. li

Victorian ¡maga ofIslam

Higgins believed that Jesus was a 'Nazarite of the monastic order of Pythagorean Essenes, probably a Samaritan by birth'. His contemporaries thought his views 'destructive', though he was a member of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Fellow of the Society of Arts and was, later, highly regarded by Muslim writers such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. In 1830, ten years before Carlyle's Hero and Hero Worship, Higgins wrote: It is unfortunate that many religious persons should imagine that they are promoting their own religion by running down the character of the founders of those of their neighbours....genuine Christianity requires no such defences; ...though Mohamed was liable to faults, like every other human being, yet that the closer his character is canvassed, the clearer it will appear that he was a very great man, both considered as a hero, a philosopher and a Christian, the latter of which he really was, as he professed to believe in the divine mission of Jesus Christ, and in the truth of the doctrines taught by him.

(Gentlemen'sMagazine, C[1830]:112)

Higgins concluded that he could no more hold Muhammad responsible for what his followers said about him than he could Jesus for what 'is said in the...Gospels...respecting him'. Forster is discussed in this book in preference to Higgins because he identified with traditional formulations of Christianity. Hourani remarks of Forster that, 'Such rare and indeed eccentric thinkers apart, the problem of Islam aroused scarcely an echo in the Western mind until the turn of the century'. Early in the twentieth century, Louis Massignon (1883-1962) attempted to relate positively with Islam. 'The majority of Christians continued to dismiss Islam as wholly false and evil' (Hourani, Europe, p. 37). More recently, writers with missionary experience such as Temple Gairdner, Bevan Jones, Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Kenneth Cragg have adopted a more conciliatory approach to Islam, which has been interpreted as a strategic reaction to the confrontation tactics employed by such of their missionary predecessors as Henry Martyn and Karl Pfänder. However, at least some of their ideas were anticipated by Forster, F.D. Maurice and R. Bosworth Smith. The Traditional View Re-visited The second school of thought with which we are concerned may fairly be regarded as reactionary, since it began before Forster, Maurice and Bosworth Smith and critically interacted with their work. This school 12

Introduction: Images in the Making

saw itself as preserving Christian truth against those who, they believed, 'compromised' with Islam. It thus reacted against Forster and his ideological successors, who claimed to present their vindications of Muhammad within Christian frameworks. Realizing that earlier anti-Muslim Christian apologies had often contained false information, which rightly attracted the censure of Forster, the exponents of the reactionary school attempted to defend traditional criticism of Islam on the basis of scientific study of Islam's original texts, authoritative histories and contemporary practices. Sir William Muir, Indian civil servant, lay vice-president of the Church Missionary Society and biographer of Muhammad, exemplifies this tradition. Hourani comments that Muir's 'books on Muhammad and the Caliphate are...still not quite superseded'; despite this, Muir 'upheld, almost without qualification, the traditional Christian assessment of Islam' (Hourani, Europe, p. 34). To underscore the contrast with Forster's conciliatory approach, that represented by Muir and his heirs is termed 'confrontational'. This is not a value judgement but rather accurately represents these two traditions: the latter's self-confessed aim was to confront Islam with the truth of the Christian gospel. Muir profoundly influenced missionary thought and a phalanx of missionary scholars took their cue from him as he himself had from the German missionary Karl Pfander. In this book two such missionary scholars, William St Clair Tisdall and John Drew Bate will, alongside Muir, be contrasted with Forster, Maurice and Smith. The Two Approaches in Contrast Five are members of the Church of England, but Bate, a Baptist, will be examined in the context of Baptist contributions to Christian understanding of Islam. It is significant that the representatives of the 'conciliatory' school, who chose to adopt a sympathetic attitude towards Islam, were, firstly, Britain-based and, secondly, 'amateurs' in Oriental studies. Though accomplished scholars, they were nevertheless dependent on secondary sources on which to build their appraisal of Islam. In contrast, Muir, Bate and Tisdall were professional Orientalists: they did not earn their living from Oriental scholarship but their qualifications entided them to academic recognition in this field. Muir and Bate were members of the Royal Asiatic Society. Tisdall was awarded a DD by Edinburgh; Muir received honorary doctorates from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge, Oxford and Bologna. They were also expert linguists, whereas in 13

Victorian Images ofIslam

the conciliatory school only Forster even pretended to have knowledge of Arabic. The Muir tradition, therefore, criticized the Forster tradition for daring to address Islam without either Arabic or the experience of living among Muslims. My research, however, suggested that despite reliance on secondary sources, Forster and his heirs used the best that were available and used them well. Indeed, many were translated by Muir and his colleagues. If sound judgements cannot be based on such English renderings, they can have but little value. It is not insignificant that Muslims themselves, despite Muir's opinion, preferred Smith's work to his and quoted appraisingly from him and from other writers who shared his approach. This suggests that they, more so than Muir, fulfilled Wilfred Cantwell Smith's definition of the task of the Christian scholar 'writing about Islam is that of constructing an exposition that will do justice to the faith in men's hearts by commending their assent once it is formulated. It is a creative task and a challenging one' (Parrinder, pp. 120-1).

The Role of Colonialism Muir, who combined the scholar and the colonial administrator, influenced missions in India towards a less conciliatory view of Islam, which was consistent with what is now widely recognized to have been the 'unofficial official' policy of the British Government in India. Muir was inculcated at Haileybuiy College, the officers' school of the East India Company, to believe that he went to India as ambassador of a superior civilization, to educate and to uplift; he also believed that his religion was superior to Islam. Charles Grant (1746-1823), founder and architect of the College's curriculum had also held this view. Forster, Maurice and Smith were not subject to this colonial influence and actually criticized such attitudes of racial and cultural superiority. John Davenport (1789-1877), a writer of similar genre (though one who did not share their Christian orthodoxy) negatively contrasted the nature of British rule with that of their Mughul predecessors. For their part, writers such as Muir could only justify their position by maintaining that their regime was better than any that India, until civilized, could provide. While there is some justification in the charge that Forster et al were, from a distance, liable to romanticize and generalize, there is also some truth in surmising that they were free to be unprejudiced. In India, the 14

Introduction: Images in the Making

Muslim was the conquered race, regarded as the most likely source of threat to British role. The anti-British rebellion of 1857, which resulted in the final abolition of the myth that the British ruled as agents of the Mughul Emperor, was predominantly Muslim led. This resulted in an increasingly hostile view of the Muslim community, a fact well established by such writers as Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840-1900) and Peter Hardy. Consequently, fewer Muslims than Hindus entered government service or received a Western education. I will argue that missionary attitudes to Islam also became more negative as the administration, previously hostile towards all missionary activity, began, through the agency of people such as Lord Lawrence and Sir William Muir, to identify itself more closely with Christian missions. There is some evidence to suggest that before 18S8, church leaders and missionaries, as well as members of the judicial and civil services, were more positive towards Islam than towards Hinduism. At the very least, pre-1858 British attitudes towards Indian culture were generally more positive than they were afterwards. Sir William Jones (1746-94), Warren Hastings (1732-1818) and others aimed to preserve the values of Indian culture. After 1858, the aim was to Westernize India Bishop Heber, too, had written: "The Mussulmans have a far better Creed (thai the Hindus and) though they seldom like the English or are liked by them, I am inclined to think are, on the whole, a better people' (Heber, 2:275). Heber warned missionaries to avoid 'all expressions hurtful to the national pride, and even all bitter and contemptuous words about the objects of their idolatry' (Bearce, p. 87). However, once willingly or unwillingly enlisted to the Government's unofficial policy of hostility, missionary attitudes began to reflect those of officialdom; a sympathetic assessment of Hinduism, represented by such missionary scholars as T.E. Slater (1840-1912) and John N. Farquhar (1861-29) and stimulated by Sir William's brother John (1810-82), who 'was insistent that the missionary should have intimate knowledge of Hinduism', began to develop. In the eyes of missionaries such as Bate and Tisdall, the writings of liberal Christians who sought to reconcile their faith with Islam became even more objectionable. Missionary attempts to disprove Islam can therefore be interpreted as apologies for their understanding of Christian faith and Western civilization as opposed to the liberal understanding. Their attempts to base their views on scientific study of Islam may also be interpreted as a statement to the liberal writers that their ideas could not be reconciled with fact. Muir's work was then, in part at least, a reaction against Forster's views: he attempted to vindicate the 15

Victorian Images ofIslam

traditional Christian approach to Islam with new materials and a new methodology. He knew that without such support the work of Karl Pfander, which he championed, would fail because it rested on too poor a foundation. Muir, Tisdall and Bate employed what has been called the 'new methodology', since their conclusions were based not on medieval myths but on Islam's own source materials. This gave Christian writers (including Smith) access to accurate historical and factual information. Considering that they wrote before the new methodology had developed, Forster and Maurice's conciliatory attitude becomes all the more remarkable. It will also be noted that, while claiming to be objective scholars, writers of Muir's school rejected the findings of reputable Orientalists which confirmed the view of Forster, Maurice and Smith. For example, Tisdall consistently dismissed Sir Thomas Arnold's thesis in The Preaching of Islam that the history of Muslim expansion was more a history of missions than of military conquest. Also of interest is the fact that Forster and Smith chose to base much of their evaluation not on Indian but on African Islam. Smith's most influential supporter was the African patriot, Edward W. Blyden. British attitudes to Islam received, in contrast to India, their most sympathetic stimulus in Africa where, until later in the nineteenth century, British power was weaker. Carlyle decided to address 'Muhammad as Hero and Prophet' while reading Edward Lane's Modern Egyptians (1836). In Egypt, Lane, (1801-76) often dressed as an Arab, prayed regularly in Mosques and began each day with the Bismillahi. Modern Egyptians, says Leila Ahmad, was not only 'conceived and written but also enthusiastically received and reviewed...in the same historical context' as Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship (Ahmad, p. 121). Ahmad, a Muslim, suggests that Lane possessed an accurate and sympathetic understanding of Islam and portrays him as a pioneer of the positive approach who adopted the 'eccentric and peculiar British practice of assuming Arab disguise and travelling through the Muslim world' (Ahmad, p. 95). In this, the Swiss employee of the British African Association, John Lewis Burckhardt (Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdullah), who performed the Hajj, inspired him. Förster refers to Burckhardt (1784-1817) in Mahometanism Unveiled and consulted him in his Historical Geography of Arabia. Later, such sympathetic Islamic scholars as L. Bevan Jones (1880-1960) were to think highly of the work of the Lane-Poole family who, alongside Muir, provided Maurice and Smith with the materials on which they reflected in their own work.

16

Introduction: Images in the Making

The Main Issues In the following chapters, I will discuss the work of each scholar in turn, first placing their work within the context of their own careers and academic stimuli; secondly, locating the genesis of their interest in Islam; and thirdly, discussing critical reaction to their work and, where appropriate, the Muslim response. In order to underline the contrast between the two approaches, the following areas will be highlighted: 1. Whether Islam is opposed to Christianity, or a preparation for it. 2. Whether Islam promotes or opposes civilizatioa 3. Whether Muhammad was sincere or not. 4. To what extent Islam was propagated by the sword. 5. Whether Muhammad was descended from Ishmael. 6. Is Islam a spiritual religion? 7. Does Islam have a place in God's future? I will also consider how each writer applied his theological assessment of Islam to the practice of Christian mission, noting common ground. The six did not always address these questions directly, nor are explicit answers always possible. Rather, it is a question of balance. The conciliators, on balance, answered positively; the confrontationalists, negatively. I will trace the development of the debate between the two schools, which became considerably less obscure as the nineteenth centuiy progressed. Following the publication of Forster's book, it moved from the pages of now forgotten journals and reviews to, following Canon Isaac Taylor's address at the Wolverhampton Church Congress in 1887, the pages of such national newspapers as The Times. This very public discussion included a controversy, described in the Appendix, over the propriety of Christian missions and of contemporary missionary methods. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the two approaches to Islam against the background of the wider intellectual climate of the nineteenth century. The previous century had been that of the Enlightenment, a period of unparalleled scientific and technical progress, of discovery and of conquest For many, new knowledge and widened horizons led to increased confidence in mankind's ability to control his own destiny without need for divine oversight. In 1784, Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) towards the end of the Enlightenment defined the era as the period of man's emergence from his 17

Victorian Images of Islam

self-imposed minority. He offered as its motto, sapere aude (dare to know). Man had come of age and for some, such as Voltaire and Gibbon, God belonged to his infancy. The theory of evolution, for example, appeared to demolish Christianity and to provide an alternative explanation for the origin and development of the universe. While many Christians totally rejected evolutionary thinking, some such as Bosworth Smith found value in the idea of mankind evolving towards a higher and better life. Textual criticism of the Bible, which demonstrated how biblical concepts had themselves evolved, added to its value as a resource book for human living. However, for such a conservative theologian as Tisdall, this criticism was an anathema against which he wrote numerous articles and pamphlets. For Tisdall, the new criticism denied that the Bible was revealed. Forster, Maurice and Smith were, it will be argued, Enlightenment thinkers. They did not necessarily accept all the new criticism offered (Forster rejected Darwinism), but in their different ways they were prepared to expand their Christian outlook to embrace new possibilities, principally in the present context that truth was not exclusive to Christianity and that Islam was not totally false. Muir, Tisdall and Bate also lived in the post-Enlightenment period, but rejected all it offered. New territories, cultures and communities of faiths which Europe's colonial expansion made accessible to them did not primarily represent new truths to be learned, added to or assimilated by Christian truth, but objects to be converted. The themes of the Enlightenment were perceived as anti-Christian, to be opposed and not embraced. For them, evangelical Christianity already possessed the whole truth. Forster, Maurice and Smith dared to learn because truth for them was not a closed book. Chapters remained unwritten and God alone knew their texts.

18

2

Charles Forster 1787-1871

Charles Forster, BD, the son of a countiy solicitor, William Pragmaticus Forster, of County Kerry, Ireland, entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a pensioner in November 1807. He took his BA in 1812, followed by his MA in 1820 and BD in 1821, which was incorporated at Cambridge in 1826. Dublin was then the second largest English-speaking city in the world and though considered 'provincial' by the English, it and Trinity (a daughter college of the University of Cambridge) were nonetheless centres of literary and academic excellence. Early in his life, Forster became a protege of Alexander Knox (1757-1831) and of his friend, the Revd John Jebb (1775-1833). Knox, a lay theologian of considerable importance, and Jebb were pioneers of the Oxford Movement Knox's home in Dublin's Dawson Street, where Forster first met Jebb in 1808, has been compared with that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge at Highgate, London; both attracted leaders of literary, ecclesiastical and civic society. Eric J. Sharpe locates Coleridge's influence as one factor behind the emergence in Britain of a more tolerant attitude towards other faiths (Sharpe, Comparative, p. 146). Jebb was appointed rector of Abington, County Limerick, in the summer of 1809, where Forster joined him as curate in 1813, thus beginning a working relationship which continued until Jebb's death. When Jebb became Bishop of Limerick in 1822, Forster was appointed Examining Chaplain and Chancellor of Ardfert. Together they raised the standard of examinations for candidates for orders, adopting a maxim from the puritan divine, Anthony Tuckney (1599-1670), 'they may deceive me in their godliness, they cannot in their scholarship' (DNB, 29:259-61). Jebb's own academic reputation was earned by his Essays on Sacred Literature (1820) in which he applied Bishop Robert Lowth's principles of Hebrew parallelism to the New Testament. 19

Victorian Images of Islam

Jebb, Forster and Knox made several visits to London where they were regular guests of the social and religious circle known as the Clapham Sect, who 'saw themselves as trustees under God to use their favoured social position and wealth in ameliorating the ills of society' (Shenk, pp. 1-2). This group of evangelical Anglicans, Henry Thornton (1760-1815), Charles Grant (1746-1823), Hannah Moore (1745-1833), William Wilbeifoice (1795-1833), et al, were involved in establishing both the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society. Grant, a director of the East India Company, recruited such evangelical chaplains as Henry Martyn (1781-1812) and Thomas Thomason (1774-1829), who pioneered Anglican mission woik in India. The three Irishmen, however, were not completely at home with the Clapham Sect's churchmanship. They maintained, for example, a more tolerant attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church, supporting emancipation. They also disapproved of the Bible Society because it was not sufficiently church based. Hannah Moore, writing in 1818, provides an early description of Jebb and his protege: Two hermits of Abington Glebe, so elegant, so poetical, so romantic in the best sense of the word, so unlike the creatures of 'this dim spot called earth' that they are perfectly amusing; pity such a pair of affectionate heavenlyminded things should be locked up in a dismal Irish parish with only forty Protestants. If they had not caught a little tincture of Anti-Bible Society-ism from dear Knox with a snatch of one or two other tinctures, they would be perfect. (E.M. Forster, p. 83)

During the pre-famine riots, Abington was the only parish to escape violence. Forster and Jebb exercised a pacifying and tolerant influence, for which Jebb was awarded his bishopric. In 1827, Jebb was forced by paralysis to retire and settled in Leamington Spa with his chaplain. Forster continued to visit the Thornton's house at Battersea Rise and in 1833 married Laura Thornton. Her brother, Hemy Sykes Thornton (1800-81), who believed that money should many money, at first opposed the match: 'Mr Forster might be pious and respectable, but he was poor'. However, when Charles agreed to insure himself for £5,000, Thornton acquiesced (E.M. Forster, p. 143). The year after Jebb died in 1833, his Correspondence with Knox was published, edited by Forster, whose own Life of Bishop Jebb appeared in 1836. From 1834 to 1838 Forster was Peipetual Curate of Ash, Kent. In 1835 Archbishop Howley appointed him one of the Six Preachers at 20

Charles Forster 1787-1871

Canterbury Cathedral (which office he retained until his death), and in 1838 he was presented to the living of Stisted near Braintree, Essex. Although the Thorntons continued to regard Forster as a 'poor relative', his living with an annual income of almost £1,000 was actually within the 'blue ribbon' league, which justifies Forster being regarded as a 'successful clergyman'. Most of his sons attended Charterhouse and Cambridge, and when he died in 1871 he was mourned as 'one of the English churches'...most learned sons and able defenders' (Braintree Advertiser, 30 August 1871). Forster wrote prolifically, producing a total of ten books. In his Stisted Rectory, however, he grew increasingly 'remote from events' and failed to realize the 'full enormity' of developments such as Darwinism, although his daughter became a lifelong friend of Darwin's daughter (E.M. Forster, p. 220).

Mahometanism Unveiled Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled appeared in 1829, though its genesis was in 1820 when in conversation with Jebb and a mutual friend, William Phellan (1789-1830), Forster decided to base an enquiry into the origin and success of Islam on an examination of scriptural references to Ishmael, to whom Muslims look as Muhammad's ancestor. Although Islam had long been a subject of interest for him, the particular train of thought pursued in his book occurred to him during this conversation. Afterwards he tells us that his 'reading became directed to the collection of the necessary materials' (Forster, Mahometanism Unveiled [hereinafter, MU\, 1 :ix). It is no easy task to trace the origin of Forster's interest in Islam at this early period, well before Christian missions had begun to make an impact on the British public, indeed only seven years after the legalization of missionary activity in India However both Bishop Jebb and Dr Phellan were important stimuli, for Forster regularly consulted Jebb during his research and the Bishop's imprimatur helped to commend the book to public notice. Forster also valued the advice of his senior friend and scholar, Dr Phellan, and was influenced by George Miller (1764-1848), whose lectures on the philosophy of modern history at Trinity were among the most popular in the college. They were published by the University of Dublin in 1828, and in the Edinburgh Review were discussed in the same article as Mahometanism Unveiled. Forster frequently cites Miller, whose book also addressed the question of Islam's rise, success 21

Victorian Images of Islam

and permanence. The Edinburgh Review contrasts Miller's approach with Forster's, but suggests that the two inevitably 'run into each other'. Miller approached 'providential history' by 'keeping constantly in view the end that Providence may be supposed to have contemplated'. Forster's approach was to 'delineate the precise course of human affairs which God has directed into the channels that He had by ancient prophecy marked out' (Edinburgh Review, 50:293). Forster quotes Miller on his title page, 'The extraordinary success which has attended the imposture of Mahomet, has exercised the ingenuity of Christian writers, and yet does not appear to have been satisfactorily explained.' Forster, who set out to explain Islam satisfactorily, appears to have taken his cue from this observation. He also cited Dr Johnson on his frontispiece, 'There are but two objects of curiosity—the Christian world, and the Mahometan world: all the rest may be considered as barbarous.' Another influence was Hugo Grotius, whose De Veritate Religionis Christianae (1622) with its section on Islam was mandatory reading for divinity students at Trinity. Once Forster had decided to address the problem, he read the authors available to him. He concluded, as had Miller, that they failed to do justice to the phenomenon of Islam, principally because they were predisposed to think ill of Muhammad. Writers brought 'crude and undigested theories' to bear on their subjects and 'bent the facts to accommodate' them. 'Prejudice', he said, 'has too often usurped the place of sound reason' (MU, 1:4). He also noted that too little thought had been given 'with reference to the effects which a wrong appreciation of their religious system may have had heretofore and may continue to have on Mahometans themselves' (MU, 2:375). To be unjust to the fair claims of another system was, he argued, to be guilty of gross injustice to the claims of the Gospel (MU, 1:54). He commented in a footnote that the interests of truth would be better served if 'Christian controversialists would learn to attend to less preconceptions and more facts' (MU, 2:464). With the exception of Prideaux (1648-1724), whose Life of Mahomad was written as a polemic attack against the Deists, Forster consulted those writers who belonged to the more positive scholarly tradition. These scholars used original sources to construct their picture of Islam and his reliance on them suggests that his determination to correct erroneous notions of Islam led him to use, where possible, sources close to the original Islamic texts. He identified with the Orientalist tradition of Edward Pococke and George Sale and learned some Arabic himself, acknowledging the assistance of Professor Alexander Nicoll (1793-1828) of Oxford. He made good use of Captain 22

Charles Forster 1 787-1871

Matthew's translation of the Mislcat-ul-Masabih (1810), then and for many years the only English rendering of the traditions and of Reiske's edition of Abulfreda (Abu'l-Fida). Forster also knew something of the philosophical school represented by Dante and Leibnitz. Of the scholars whom he consulted, George Sale was most influential. Through his friend, Sir Hany Inglis, Forster had access to some of the original manuscripts of Sale as well as to his Adversaries and Preliminary Discourse. Sale, whose memory, Forster commented, had 'been very undeservedly aspersed by controversial writers', was also, probably, the least prejudiced (MU, 2:475). He appears to have tost favour with his erstwhile employers, SPCK, because of the sympathetic tone of his Preliminary Discourse, in which he dared to suggest that 'there might be something more than what is vulgarly imagined in a religion which has made so surprising a progress' (Sale, p. 1). Gibbon refers to Sale as 'half a Mussulman', while Voltaire represents him as 'having spent twenty-five years near Arabia'. In fact, he never left Britain. Forster refers several times to an article on Sale by Edgar Taylor (1793-1839) in the Retrospective Review, which vindicated him against 'insolent approbrium and ignorant declamation'. The following quotation from Taylor's article indicates the similarity of their approach: We are persuaded that of those who have considered the comparative influences of the Mahometan and Christian religions, there are few who have not at times found themselves compelled to admit that even the former must have been ordained for many wise and beneficent purposes, and to confide at any rate of great eventual good. (E. Taylor, p. 3)

Forster thought highly of Roger Bacon, whose role as a catalyst between Muslim learning in Spain and Christian Europe has already been noted. Forster had access, through Jebb's relative, Samuel Jebb (1694-1772) to Bacon's Opus Majus. Following the historian Sharon Turner (1768-1847), he championed Bacon's indebtedness to Moorish learning. Bacon, he said, 'drank deeply of the Arabian learning at the fountain head' and provided 'the undoubted origin of the true astronomy as afterwards unfolded in the Copernican system'. Forster linked Bacon with Roger Boyle (1627-91), who took up his earlier woik in chemistry. Boyle, whom Forster describes as 'the prime ornament of the first philosophical society in Europe' also financed Pococke's translation of De Vertíate Religionis Christianae (MU, 2:276). Writing from Ireland, Forster read accounts of contemporary European travellers in Muslim lands. He praised the Orientalist Sir William 23

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

Jones (1746-94) and cited his statement that Muslims 'are Christians, if Locke reasons justly, because they firmly believe the immaculate conception, divine character and miracles of the Messiah' (MU, 2:523). Familiar with Bishop Heber's Journal, Forster described the Bishop as 'the most accomplished observer, after Sir William Jones, who ever visited India from this country'. His interest in Christian mission is suggested by reference to 'a missionary friend' and to Dr Ebenezar Henderson of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Perhaps the most important stimulus behind the writing of Mahometcmism Unveiled was Forster's critique of Edward Gibboa Forster severely criticized Gibbon's scepticism and his 'invidious eloquence'. Gibbon, he wrote, 'never admits a Providence in the affairs of men, and his history continually labours under the jarring and contradictory effects of his scepticism'. Although he reacted against Gibbon, Forster also cited him appraisingly, Gibbon being his most frequently cited authority (MU, 2:474, 511). Gibbon, who opposed all religion, redacted all possible reference to divine providence from his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His treatment of Muhammad, however was remarkably accurate and represents the beginning 'of the movement for the rehabilitation of Muhammad'. Watt suggests that scholars such as Gagnier, Pococke, Hottinger, Sale, Reland and Marraci (all of whom Forster had read) gradually 'added to the...accumulating store of knowledge' of Islam so that Gibbon, writing in the 1780s 'was able to avoid many of the erroneous statements about Muhammad that had been current previously' (Watt, 'Carlyle', p. 251). However, Gibbon's treatment of Muhammad was in part designed to score points against Christianity. He interpreted Islam as a successful secular movement. Similarly, Voltaire ridiculed Muhammad in his Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophete (1741) in older to discredit all religion, especially Catholicism (Watt, 'Carlyle', p. 251). Forster, who believed that God was the prime mover behind all history, reacted against Gibbon's secularism. He asserted that in restoring 'God' to history, restoration must be made across the board: thus Islam's origin, success and permanence no less than Christianity's could be explained only with reference to 'the one great primaiy cause and origin of all things, the special superintending providence of God' (MU, 1:65). Forster rejected the popular Christian explanation of Islam advocated by such writers as Joseph White (1746-1814), professor of Arabic at Oxford, who ascribed its success to the ingenuity of Muhammad's doctrine, and a combination of favourable historical circumstances coupled 24

Charles Forster 1 787-1871

with appeal to the swoid. How unacceptable, he pointed out, would Christians find this explanation if it were applied to their faith: Christ was successful because he preached a religion of peace to a Pax Romana thirsting for a spiritual creed to replace its bankrupt pagan philosophies and cults. The origin of both religions, he suggested, is 'located in the only adequate source in interposition, for some wise and gracious, though inscrutable end, of the special superintending providence of God' (MU, 1:68). Forster, therefore, looked beyond 'causes merely human to the agency of a controlling and directing Providence' (MU, 1:68). Believing that the Bible contained the blueprint for all history, Forster was 'naturally led' to seek to locate in scripture support for his hypothesis. Here he was influenced by Dr Phellan, the Trinity Fellow in conversation with whom he had originally decided to write the book, who: In the society of his chosen inmates, whatever might be the subject of conversation,...never failed to terminate in considerations drawn from the sacred writings;...'he soon proved' that, by the light of Scripture, it could best be elucidated and expanded. (Phellan, p. 77)

Such writers as Grotius (1583-1645), William Paley (1743-1805) and Bishop Edmund Law (1704-87), who believed that all authority was vested in scripture, clearly influenced Forster. If in later books Forster's biblicism proved disabling, with reference to Islam it was enabling since it made possible his adoption of the Abraham-Ishmael-Muhammad tradition as his starting point. Forster's Historical Geography ofArabia was an enlargement of his earlier work on the descent of the Arabs. His thesis involved identifying some biblical place names with Arabian locations. One reviewer commended Trinity College, Dublin, for rendering in Forster good service to 'Oriental learning'. An amateur palaeographer, Forster became obsessed with attempting to discover the Lingua Adamica. The result of his search may be seen in some rather curious volumes, which, though eccentric, yet contain some valuable material. His One Primeval Language was dismissed by one writer as 'a monument of laborious and misdirected learning' (Ward, p. 329), but was praised by another writer as opening the true principles by which the Himyaritic inscriptions (on which Forster based his search) were to be deciphered. The writer regarded Forster's book as: Another proof that testimonies to the truth of scripture will be continually increasing in an equal ratio with our knowledge....Science is thus made the hand-maid of religion...firmly believing that the word of God and His works will always be found to harmonize. (Christian Observer, March 1853:203) 25

Victorian Images of Islam

Although Forster's grandson, the novelist E.M. Forster, thought his books 'worthless', his contemporaries thought otherwise: his Life of Bishop Jebb was twice republished and his Vindication of the Apostolic Authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, if obscure now, was praised in the British Magazine (XIV:311) as a 'valuable contribution to the interpretation of the New Testament'. The Prospective Review critic, who thought Forster's reputation to be a 'false one', also observed that the 'sensibilities of the public' would 'secure him many favourable judges' (XD£:33-4). At the very least, Forster's later books are reflective of the debates and concerns of the period. For example, the search for the Lingua Adamica was, says R.H. Robbins, part of the 'battle between fundamentalists and revisionists over the interpretation of the Bible' and even August Pott, 'one of the founders of modern comparative linguistics... found it necessary to devote a book to the refutation of such a tradition maintained in the published work of a contemporary' (Robbins, pp. 10-11). Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, though, was undoubtedly his most original work and contains ideas which merit serious consideration today. Before examining the book, a word on his theological stance is necessary. It is not easy to categorize him as 'conservative' or 'liberal', since such terms belong more accurately to the second half of the nineteenth century. He clearly regarded himself as a defender of revealed religion against those who adopted a mythological interpretation of the biblical stories. He almost certainly believed that a stone tablet passed from God to Moses on Mt Sinai. However, following the publication of Mahometanism Unveiled, some questioned his orthodoxy. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (VIII:684, 765), for instance, regarded him as a 'rather melancholy' example 'of the laxity and boldness of thinking' which had 'recently exhibited themselves in the Established Church' and judged that Forster must only know Christianity's 'letters' and 'externals' and not its 'real spirit'. The Electric Review (1829:405) thought his thesis that Islam pioneered the way for Christianity 'dangerous and unscriptural'; he approached 'the verge of blasphemy' with his 'vile, infidel publication'. Other reviewers, however, commended his 'piety' and 'Christian charity'. The British Critic (1830:41) rejected his theory, yet wrote, 'To one praise he is most signally entitled—he brings with him to his task a truly candid, generous and Christian spirit' and even if we choose to disagree 'it becomes us to listen respectfully to the charitable suggestions of a kind hearted, pious and learned man'. There appears to be no justification in doubting his fundamental 26

Charles Forster 1787-1871

loyalty to basic Christian dogmas. Where he parted company with his critics was in his willingness to speculate: F.D. Maurice would refer to Mahometanism Unveiled as an example of 'learned and ingenious speculation'. However, it was this willingness to speculate that Islam was not opposed to Christianity but a 'sister-faith' that enabled him to pioneer a new, confirmatory, Christian approach to Islam which attracted both cautious praise and fierce criticism. His biblical fundamentalism—the conviction that Genesis is the gateway into all history—actually enabled him to accommodate Islam within a framework of Christian reflection.

Muhammad's Descent from Ishmael Forster's argument rested on his acceptance of Muhammad's Ishmaelite descent, which enabled him to locate his enquiry in a discussion of scriptural references to Abraham and his first-born son. Gibbon had sneered at this Muslim convictioa In defending it, Forster researched extensively into the genealogical history of the Arabs and gave his findings in an appendix, further expanded in The Historical Geography of Arabia. Sir William Muir made extensive use of this book in his Life of Mahomet. Forster believed that the original promise to Abraham of Genesis 12:2-3 branched in chapter seventeen into two separate but related promises. The greater promise, 'the everlasting covenant', was with Isaac; a lesser and subordinate promise was with Ishmael in answer to Abraham's prayer, 'O that Ishmael might live in they sight'. He wrote, 'from Abraham, by his sons Isaac and Ishmael, went forth a twofold promise and a twofold progeny' (MU, 1:71). He argued that, just as the Isaac-covenant was preeminently spiritual with a subordinate temporal aspect, so the Ishmael-covenant was preeminently temporal but enjoyed a real, though inferior, spiritual aspect. He therefore believed that Islam possessed, independently of anything borrowed from Judaism or Christianity, inherent moral and spiritual value: fruit of the original promise. Abraham had desired a spiritual as well as a temporal blessing for Ishmael, whom he loved. Forster emphasized the importance of Muslim circumcision as a sign of their lesser covenant. 'Ishmael', he also pointed out, was not 'cut off from opportunities of religious improvement. To his eightieth year, he lived in or near contact with Abraham, and the true patriarchal faith; and, at the last, he and 27

Victorian Images of Islam

Isaac met together, as brethren, over the grave of their common father' (MU, 2:484). Forster argued that the Arabs had preserved for much of their histoiy the faith of their 'illustrious ancestor, Abraham' (MU, 2:420). He cites Jethro as an example of the existence of patriarchal religion among the Midianites as late as the time of Moses. He thought Job to have been an Idumaen Arab, possibly descended from Esau and followed Bishop Lowth in ascribing an eariy date to the Book of Job. He noted the significance that the part of the Old Testament which contains 'some of the profoundest..anticipations of the Messiah's kingdom should have been the production of an Idumaen Arab; and should have been adopted, from the first, as an integral part of the volume of Jewish revelation' (MU, 2:423). Citing Muslim tradition that the Ka'bah was built by Abraham and Ishmael, Forster considered it more probable to suppose that it was 'originally a place of worship or temple erected by some later patriarchs descended from Ishmael [but] its antiquity as a Temple is certainly high' (MU, 2:393n). He attached much significance to the Arab's preservation of the custom of circumcision in the thirteenth year, since Ishmael was circumcised at age thirteen. He was more prepared to accept the fidelity of Arab traditions than many of his contemporaries which, later, attracted the approval of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who praised Forster's use of 'highly reliable authorities' (Khan, p. 15). In another passage, Forster again paid tribute to the accuracy of Arab traditions when he identified the three visitors from the East of the nativity story with 'Arabian emirs': Here, in the persons of her wise men, we see Arabia, as had been foretold of her, coming in to the king Messiah as the firstfruits of the Gentiles. We see Ishmael bowing down to Isaac...[this] stands as a pledge of the more glorious accomplishment of the kindred prediction of Isaiah which describes the tribes of Arabia as ushering in the fulness of the Gentiles. (MU, 2:431)

A Spiritual Religion Forster is almost certainly one of the earliest Christians to affirm Islam as a 'spiritual religion'. Islam, he believed, fell short of Christian standards but nonetheless bore its 'lesser fruits' which 'discover themselves in a reality of belief, a fervour of zeal and a sincerity of devotion which, it has often been remarked, might put to shame the majority of the Christian world' (MU, 1:359). He rejected what he called the 'vulgar 28

Charles Forster 1787-1871

notion that Islamism is altogether a religion of form' (MU, 2:464). Imitation may explain some but by no means all of Islam's true spirituality: It was not imitation that made Moses and Mahomet alike the descendants of Abraham, that made them offspring and representatives of Isaac and Ishmael, whose covenants, in point of fact, they successively asserted...it was not imitation that cast their common lot..in the same Arabian soil: that caused the books of the Law and of the Koran to be composed and published [or that] ended their day...on the eve of the two-fold irruption of their kindred nations [or that] made Mahomet as well as Moses, the successful founder of a polity which exists in full vigour, after the lapse of twelve hundred years.

(MU, 1:294)

Propagated by the Swoid? Forster questioned, as had Sale, the extent to which Islam owed both its propagation and permanence to the sword. He pointed out that in North Africa, Islam flourished apart from reliance on 'political domination' and that 'its votaries' were 'unshackled by the restraints imposed by a Mahometan government' (MU, 1:15). He praised 'the salutary moral influence of Islamism upon its negro proselytes' (MU, 2:522), anticipating the theme of Dr Blyden's Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, which argued that while Christianity had a retarding influence in Africa, Islam's was salutary. In questioning the view that Islam always or even normatively owed its propagation to the sword, Forster pioneered the correcting of this popular Christian myth, a view which, writes Trevor Ling, 'does not bear prolonged examinatioa..the history of the expansion of Islam is in fact veiy much more a history of missions than a history of violence and persecutions' (Ling, p. 222). Forster criticized Joseph White's Bampton lectures for distorting facts to comply with his preconceptions. According to the Bampton Lectures, the nations who have embraced Mahometanism are universally distinguished 'by a spirit of hostility and hatred to the rest of mankind'....The style of these sermons... aims too manifestly to dazzle by the force of ambitious contrasts: Christianity is merciful, therefore Mahometanism must be painted cruel. The zeal of controversy seems equally to forget the exemplary humanity of the Saracens in Spain and the merciless barbarities of the Spaniards in South America, and of the Portuguese in India. Even during the iron Middle Ages, the religion of Mahomet was 29

Victorian Images ofIslam

distinguished by a spirit of charitable and courteous beneficence. The treatment of Christians of Jerusalem by the generous Saladin may be cited as a memorable example. (MU, 2:469-70) Forster wrote that 'signal examples aie not lacking of [Islam] progressing among nations who never felt its sword' (MU, 1:37). He spoke of Islam being 'peacefully propagated by the preaching of the Koran' and also of the alleged burning of the library at Alexandria as possibly apocryphal (MU, 2:514,470n35). Even in the twentieth centuiy, writers continued to maintain that Islam was characteristically violent. Contribution to Human Progress Forster further developed his theory by asserting that, fulfilling the prophecy that Ishmael would dwell in the midst of all his brethren, Islam had positively contributed to human knowledge and advancement. He repudiated Professor White's claim that Islam represented 'a deep pause in science and philosophy'. Instead, 'from the Chair of the Professor of Arabic' we should 'have heard of the great advances which Islamism occasioned in both' (MU, 2:470). 'The sword of Omar', he suggested, 'is everywhere...the example of Al-mamun forgotten...the enterprising genius of the Saracens lost sight' of by the controversialists who fixed their eyes exclusively on 'the barbarous Turks'. While European advances in science were put forward to 'elucidate the social influences of the Gospel', the Quran was 'refused its proper place and share' (MU, 1:48). Among Christians who travelled to study in Spain or elsewhere in the Muslim world, he mentions Constantine the African (c. 1010-87), who translated pseudo-Galen and 'after a thirty-year scientific pilgrimage in the East' settled at Salerno's Mt Casino; Gerald of Cromono (1114-87), who studied at Toledo and translated Ibn Sina and Al-Farabi; Peter the Venerable (1092-1156); the Englishman Robert Retinensis (f.1143); and Herman the Dalmatian, who, at Peter's request, rendered the Quran into Latin (MU, 1:53). He singled out Friar Bacon for special praise: this 'chief and prince of philosophy' knew the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Al-Farabi (Alpharabius) as well as he knew the Latin masters. In his Opus Majus, Bacon constantly 'adduces his Arabian masters' and places 'their authority on a par even with that of Aristotle' (MU, 2:312). The Muslim universities of Baghdad, Alexandria, Cairo, Fez and Toledo, says Forster, provided the model for the establishment of 30

Charles Forster 1787-1871

Bologna, Padua and Paris, whose 'whole course of study' bore 'the marks and traces of their Saracenic origin' (MU, 2:335). Especially in chemistry, the Arabs assumed 'the undisputed rank of inventors' (MU, 2:271). Acknowledging that in some areas the Arabs embellished the Greek legacy, Forster nevertheless argued that Arabs progressed in moral and metaphysical thought far beyond the original sources and that 'in whatever point of view we contemplate the phenomena, the lights of Arabian learning are inseparable from the influence of Mahometanism' (MU, 2:305). Islam may have borrowed but it also gave back with interest. He cites Muhammad: 'a mind without erudition is as a body without a soul' and 'glory consists not in wealth but in knowledge' (MU, 1:46). He also argued for Muslim tolerance, noting that Christians had often been employed in pursuit of learning, citing the example of Messul at Damascus under Caliph Al-Mamun (d.833 CE). While the Moors had dealt civilly with their Christian citizens, after the restoration of Christian rule, the priests of the Church 'goaded on the civil power to treat with unexampled bigotiy a people from whom they had always received humanity [sic] and protection' (MU, 1:47). Forster argued that Muslim scholastic theology, itself inspired by Aristotle, influenced the Christian Schoolmen. Muslim scholars began by debating the laws of practical theology and moved into discussion of abstract attributes of the Deity. The Christian Schoolmen debated nominalism versus realism, Augustinianism versus Aristotelianism. The influence of Ibn Rushd is well documented. Forster also located the Crusades as a period of positive interaction between Christians and Muslims. His theories here drew on French scholarship, especially on several books published by the French Institute in Paris. From their Muslim enemies, according to Forster, the Crusaders had learned such wide-ranging skills as hospital-building and chivalry. He wrote 'the spirit of chivaliy, first caught by Christians from the Saracens, found a congenial food in their heroic poetry and chivalrous romance'. Tales were carried back to Italy by returning crusaders where they fired the imagination and genius of Dante. Chaucer, too, was 'kindled by the genius of Arabia' whose influence can be seen in the 'works of Spenser, of Shakespeare and of Milton'. Forster connected Paradise Lost with the mental images and influences of Islam (MU, 2:321-3). Forster did not deny that Islam sometimes opposed Christianity, 31

Victorian Images ofIslam

which he inteipreted as fulfilling the prediction that Ishmael's 'hand would be against eveiy man'. In his inteipretation of scripture, Forster was prone to pursue his analogies too far some are, as Muir commented, 'sufficiently far fetched'. He paralleled the story of Isaac's and Ishmael's progenies through scripture, which resulted in one startling and possibly unfortunate theory: he argued that since Isaac was legitimate, his covenant was fulfilled in the legitimate Gospel, whereas since Ishmael was illegitimate, his covenant was fulfilled in an illegitimate or spurious Gospel (MU, 1:90). Positively, this view emphasized the fraternal relationship between the two creeds. Negatively, it enabled Forster to apply the traditional title of Antichrist to Muhammad (he also believed the Pope was a manifestation of the Antichrist). Romanism and Islam were Western and Eastern heresies— raised respectively up by God for his own purposes, curiously related yet also curiously opposed to the true religion. Much space is devoted to interpreting biblical prophecies and in applying them both to the Papacy ami Muhammad. In this survey, he took his cue from Robert Boyle, whom he cites, 'I meet with much fewer than I could wish who make it their business to search scriptures for unheeded prophecies, overlooked mysteries and strange harmonies' (MU, 1:241). To the modern reader, these sections almost devalue the whole woik: the reasoning is alien to contemporary scholarship. However, in 1829 such an approach would not have appeared bizarre, as evidenced by the following extract from Edward Bickersteth (1786-1850), who referred to 'objectionable features' in Mahometanism Unveiled, but wrote, 'on the dead carcases of a nominal Christianity, infidelity, Mahomedanism and Popeiy feed and subsist....the bright lights of Christian truth...would scare away these anti-Christian delusions' (Bickersteth, p. 623). In support of his opinion, Forster cited a galaxy of distinguished writers, including Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Bishop Thomas Newton (1704-82), Bishop Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761), G.S. Faber (1773-1854), and Joseph Mede (1586-1638). Forster's attitude to Roman Catholics, however, was not totally negative. Alexander Knox's influence may be detected here: Knox maintained that the Church of England was not a Protestant Church but a reformed branch of the Church Catholic. Forster argued that the Roman Catholic Church had providentially carried civilization forward despite what he considered to be its heresies. Protestant writers, he said, would do well to remember that to Popes and to 'devoted ministers of papal power' they stand indebted for much knowledge and progress. Rome's 32

Charles Forster 1787-1871

'list of worthies...all but redeems her heavy kalendar of guilt' (MU, 2:119). However, this remnant of a more traditional view of Muhammad is to a very large degree redeemed by his conclusion. Preparation for Christian Faith Forster concluded that because Islam resulted from one branch of God's originally singular promise to Abraham, it therefore tends to converge naturally towards Christian belief. Taking the opposite course to all other heresies, Islam is distinguished 'by an upward progress towards the great and inscrutable mystery of Catholic Christianity'. It was in 1829 nearer to the Gospel than it had been at its birth. Forster suggested that the eventual bringing in of Islam would be brought about 'by extraordinary providential interposition'. Thus, 'by convergement in the fulness of time of Ishmael to Isaac, of Mahometanism to Christianity the whole world shall one day be poured into the fold of the true shepherd, our only Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ' (MU, 1:110). Precisely how this in-gathering would happen is 'unfathomable by man's judgements' (MU, 2:523). This theory was based on his historical overview which convinced him that Islam had assimilated a more spiritual and less mechanical understanding of prayer and heaven, and that its moral teaching was capable of similar improvement. Forster is guilty of making evidence fit theory and of interpreting Islam through Christian eyes, but at least his theory was positive towards a faith traditionally viewed by Christians as unmitigated evil. He offered as an example of Islam's upward movement the leavening of the caste system, especially in Bengal, which had also influenced Sikh theism. Jointly, Islam and Christianity had exercised 'a twofold instrumentality', acting 'on a vast scale' on the civil and social, moral and spiritual interests of mankind (MU, 1:108). Eventually, there would be 'one great consummation—the glorious fulfilment of the twofold covenant of God with Abraham, in its social and intellectual aspect, by the eventual reunion of his sons Isaac and Ishmael as joint civilizers of the world' (MU, 2:360). Forster associated this consummation with the gathering in of the Gentiles of Isaiah (chapter 60) and, significantly, he incorporated the Jews in this final consummation. He thus speaks of the 'final bringing in of Jew, Mahometan and Gentile, to the Church and Kingdom of the Gospel' (MU, 2:371). He has much praise for the role played by the Jews during the Middle Ages as catalysts between the Christian and 33

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

Muslim worlds, referring to them as a 'miraculous people'. God, as though in the midst of wrath, remembered his suffering people and raised them up to bridge the gap between Isaac and Ishmael so that, 'At this extraordinary juncture, we see the covenants of Isaac and Ishmael united...:and Mahometanism, Judaism and Christianity standing forth together, the joint enlighteners of the world' (MU, 2:329). Forster, though preferring to leave the question as to how the in-gathering would take place with God, did not oppose missionary effort. Since Islam contained within itself 'occurrences of futurity', her doctrines 'laid the train for eventual acceptance of the whole Christian system' (MU, 1:398). He saw Islam not as opposing Christianity, but as 'fitted to prepare the way...for the still more universal diffusion of Christian lights' (MU, 2:359-60). He suggested that missionaries should follow St Paul's example by availing themselves of pre-existing lights. They should give full justice to Islam's contribution to scientific and material progress. He totally rejected: What we have so often been told by Christian writers, that 'throughout every country where Mahometanism is professed, the same deep pause is made in philosophy' that 'in the East under the influence of Mahometan belief, the natural progress of mankind, whether in government, in manners, or in science, has been retarded'. (MU, 2:376-7)

It is, he said,- only when we 'fairly acknowledge' what Muslims have 'that we can hope to make them sensible of what they have not'. He knew that Muslim pride and prejudice constituted 'the most formidable obstacles' to their 'entertaining arguments involving change in their religious beliefs'. A 'false estimate' of Islam's 'civil and intellectual influences' will only encourage Muslims to conclude that everything else we say is also untrue (MU, 2:378). Significantly, he singled out for praise the Moravian missionaries, whose religious instruction went hand-in-hand with civil improvement Later writers otherwise critical of Christian missions and of their attitude towards other faiths and cultures would also praise the Moravians, who prayed Abraham's prayer, 'O, that Ishmael may live before thee'. Was Muhammad Sincere? In the context of his argument that Muhammad fulfilled the spiritual aspect of Ishmael's covenant, despite his retention of the title 'Antichrist', 34

Charles Forster J 787-1871

Forster attempted to defend Muhammad of charges against his character and conduct He argued that many of the so-called 'moral blemishes' could be mitigated when tried, not at the bar of the New, but of the Old Testament. He followed Sale in suggesting that Muhammad's relaxation of the law of marriage and divorce in his own case was wholly consistent with the practice of the Jewish rabbis, which 'extended extraordinary licence to the Head of State'. The eleven wives of Muhammad compare favourably with the eighteen allowed by the rabbis to Jewish chiefs. Extenuating historical circumstances, too, must not be overlooked. Muhammad may be justly compared with Moses: both leaders found their people sunk in immorality and paganism. Both leaders had to 'consult the possible rather than the desirable; and [were] compelled to lower the standard of [their] reformation because of the people's hard heartedness' (MU, 1:327). Given that Muhammad 'possessed no extraordinary advantages, no superior illumination', Forster wondered that his 'moral code was not worse' (MU, 1:278). Neither Muhammad nor Islam, he suggested, could sustain comparison with the 'pure and searching light of the Gospel', but since scholars were unanimous in their opinion that Christianity in Arabia was 'totally corrupt' it was hardly just to try Muhammad by a standard he did not know. Muhammad, he said, did not know Christianity, 'but a vile parody of this divine religion'. As Muhammad did not understand orthodox Trinitarian doctrine, but did understand Unitarianism, it is easy to appreciate 'the efforts of early Unitarians to effect a Union with Islamism' (MU, 2:499). Forster did not direcdy address the question of Muhammad's sincerity, but the general picture he gave is of a man who genuinely tried to raise moral standards. As an 'instrument of heaven' it is difficult to see how Muhammad's sincerity could have been at issue for Forster. Although this is an argument from silence, it would follow logically that Forster tacitly endorsed Muhammad's sincerity. Certainly, he defended Islam against charges of encouraging licentiousness and immorality. He allowed, for example, the arguments of the more eminent Muslim doctors that quranic descriptions of Paradise were allegorical, not literal. Even though this was 'contrary to the Koran's too palpable tenor and design', it proved Islam's tendency to 'improve; and to improve by approximation to the lights of Christianity' (MU, 1:379, 381). Forster noted the tendency to regard fasting and ablution in Islam as 'mere outward forms' and enquired, 'How have these...been understood by Muslims themselves?' (MU, 1:356, 358). Forster's willingness to accept that 35

Victorian Imagts of I slam Islam could improve or reform was equally uncharacteristic of Christian writers, who believed Islam stationary and bound to remain so. He praised Al-Ghazzali's writings on Muslim ethics and Ibn Tufayl's romance Hayy Ibn Yagzan, and appraisingly cited the proverbs of Ali b. Alu Talib as evidence of Islam's inherent moral value.

Critical Reaction Mahometanism Unveiled was widely reviewed throughout the United Kingdom with a fervour and interest far beyond the author's expectations. Without exception, critics praised Forster's learning and scholarly ability. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, which carried the most negative assessment of his 'infidel' theory, praised his scholarship: 'Incidentally, as well as directly, it touches on many points of importance very instructively; and on Mahometan doctrines and history affords considerable information which will be new to the general reader. This has rightly earned the approbation of reviewers' (Vm:682). Similarly, the British Critic Quarterly observed that, though Forster could not be trusted as a 'safe guide' he would prove 'a very useful and enlightened companion' along the way' (1830:40ff). Unqualified praise, however, came from the Literary Gazette: 'The learning, research and great ability with which this extensive inquiry is pursued, render these volumes a highly valuable addition to English literature, and entitle the author to take his rank with our Turners and Hallams, our Southeys and Linyards' (1829:3). Although the Gazette did not attempt to discuss the merit or demerit of Forster's 'somewhat startling hypothesis', it did suggest that Forster had ably demonstrated that Islam's 'approximation to Christianity is very much closer than has usually been imagined' and 'that the wide diffusion and permanent dominion of this heresy are not to be satisfactorily accounted for by the secondary causes usually assigned as a solution to the problem'. The review gave at least tacit approval to the book's thesis, particularly endorsing the view that Islam was not 'inherently hostile to the advancement of knowledge' and noting positively that, while building on Sale and Gibbon, Forster had adopted a truer, more just attitude towards his subject. Similarly, the Eclectic Review considered Mahometanism Unveiled to be 'not merely the best work which has...appeared upon the subject, ...but the only one in which anything like justice has been done to the subject' (1829:384). Both the Gazette and the Eclectic were full of 36

Charles Forster J 787-1871

praise for the length and depth of Forster's research, the latter noting that his labours entitled him to 'no mean or ephemeral reputation', that his book would 'live and last'. The Monthly Review, too, tacitly accepted Foister's theory: We regard his position as highly valuable, and meriting the attention of all who are interested either in the religious or civic history of the world [though] we confess there are parts of his work on which we have felt inclined to offer opposite sentiments...but..we rest content with having introduced to ourreadersa very admirable book, excellent in its design, and acute and erudite in its contents...no one who has read Gibbon shouldremaina day without perusing the author's admirable observations on thereligiouswars of the Middle Ages. (1829:491) Sir William Muir's assessment in the Calcutta Review did not appear until 184S, which testifies to the continuing relevance of Forster's thesis; Muir was dismissive of Forster's theory, but admitted that it contained 'a vast fund of useful information'. An examination of critical responses highlights those areas of Mahometanism Unveiled that attracted approval and the grounds upon which severalreviewersrejectedthe book's basic premise. The most acclaimed section was his review of Islam's contribution to the progress of civilization, via contact with Europe in Spain, Palestine and Sicily, much of which anticipated the work of John William Draper in his History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. Forster's treatment of the Crusades was singled out by the British Critic for particular praise, which with the chapters on Islam's civilizing influence was 'the most valuable, interesting and instructive portion of his volumes'. This section afforded him 'once more an opportunity of exposing and chastising the contemptuous scepticism of the infidel historian'. Forster's mistake, however, was that he forgot that Muslims 'have been civilised, kind and scientific in proportion to their departure from the true spirit of their faith'. Later, this argument was popularly advanced to counter the claims of Forster and his heirs, especially Bosworth Smith. Critics insisted that a combination of Christian influences and circumstances totally unrelated to Islam were responsible for any progress, or they argued that Muslims simply embellished what they had received from the Greeks. The Methodist Magazine regarded Forster's historical review as the most acceptable section, especially if the reader substituted 'Saracen' for 'Muslim'. The Eclectic, however, was less pleased with the Crusades chapter 37

Victorian Images ofIzlam

than with 'any other section', considering its assertions strong 'in proportion to the slenderness' of the argument, and that Forster's 'personal feud with Gibbon' caused him to overplay his theory at the expense of scholarly accuracy. The reviewer thought Forster mistaken in supposing that the Crusades had aided rather than arrested the march of progress. He commended, however, Forster's recognition of 'the important services which the Jews, at this period, rendered to Christianity'. Scholarly opinion regarding the Crusades would appear to support Forster. Certainly, the concept of chivalry was imported to Europe by returning Crusaders. New trading links were established and Western Europe was brought 'into intimate contact with the high civilizations of the near East' (Latourette, 1:414). At the very least, they widened the European's horizons, so that strange tales of the East were told even in remote, rural England. The Eclectic praised Forster's defence of Muhammad's character, conduct and intentions, criticized Forster's open-minded stance regarding whether Muhammad 'was or was not familiar with the Bible', but agreed that 'Muhammad has been unjustly traduced and ignorantly arraigned by Christian writers' (p. 394). Muir rejected the idea that Muhammad should be judged by the standard of the Old, not the New Testament: 'Surely there can be no reason why his creed should not be tried and condemned by that faith which its founder supplanted' (Muir, Mohammedan Controversy, p. 46). It was Forster's theological premise that was found most objectionable, especially by the Methodist Magazine, the British Critic and Sir William Muir. TTiey rejected the theory that Ishmael enjoyed a subordinate covenantal relationship with God, of which Islam is the providential fulfilment. Muir actually disputed the Ishmaelitish descent of Muhammad; therefore, any discussion of Ishmael was irrelevant. He also denied that God's promise had contained any spiritual aspect: it was a purely temporal blessing, adequately fulfilled in the Old Testament 'in the rapid increase of Ishmael's posterity and the twelve princes mentioned in Genesis XXV' (Muir, Mohammedan Controversy, p. 42). The Critic did not reject the Ishmaelitish origin but actually commended this section, choosing to refute Forster's view that all Muslims should be considered as offspring of Hagar in the same way that Christians are regarded as spiritual sons of Sarah: The Church is part of the Israel of God but to suppose that all Muslims are 'reckoned among Hagar's offspring' would compel us to regard [Islam] not 38

Charles Forster 1787-1871

as a gigantic positive evil, but as a sort of qualified and secondary good; not as one of the most fatal exhibitions of the Spirit of Antichrist, but rather as a species of auxiliary power, destined eventually to prepare for the wider establishment of the redeemer's kingdom, (p. 9)

Islam could have no more connection with God's dealings with Abraham than did Hinduism or Buddhism. The Methodist Magazine also rejected the idea that Ishmael's circumcision admitted him to a 'subordinate covenant'. Forster 'absurdly understands the participation of Ishmael in the rite of circumcision as conveying something of spiritual grace into the temporal promise made to him', whereas 'all spiritual good was conveyed through Isaac' (p. 75S). The reviewer asked whether Forster supposed that Islam contained that by which men might be saved and accused Forster of sanctifying Islam by 'giving it an origin in the grace and benefaction of the Abrahamic covenant' (p. 756). Muir and John Arnold similarly objected to Forster's profane theory because it would establish 'the divine origin of Islam' (J.M. Arnold, p. 236). The Methodist Magazine did not hesitate to ascribe a Satanic origin, or at least a Satanic 'helping hand' whose 'agency, dark, active, malignant and intense, would be employed to give it success and extension', but agreed that Forster's curious retention of the title 'Antichrist' for the Prophet and his 'analogy of Mahomedanism with popery stands upon much better ground' (p. 75). The British Critic caricatured Forster's theory as depicting Isaac and Ishmael wrestling 'kindly and amiably' with each other 'throughout history' until 'in God's good time' Ishmael should serve as the bridge over which Christianity must march 'to the conquest of the world', so that it appears as though 'Isaac without Ishmael could not have been made perfect'. Thus, instead of being a 'savage and incorrigible adversary to' Christian faith, Islam will in fact be found to have been successfully labouring 'to prepare the way for the Gospel' as a 'sort of drudging goblin' whose 'hairy strength has been employed to make the rough places level and the crooked ways straight'. Fraternal disposition for the Muslims had misled Forster into believing, incorrectly, that 'ignorance and brutality' are not 'the universal and inevitable accompaniments of the Koran' (p. 42). Should Forster's view become popular, the Critic would not be at all surprised to learn of proposals for a 'Society for the Propagation of Islam'. If 'upon mature reflection' Forster decided not to recant his opinion that 'the Christian cause...is likely to be a debtor to this mystery of deception' (p. 43), he ought instead to expunge from his book all references to Muhammad as the Antichrist because this belied his 39

Victorian images ofIslam

real positioa The Edinburgh Review observed that: If Mahometanism is truly entitled to the pedigree and praise bestowed upon it by Mr Forster. our societies ought to...divide their labours. A wing of Bartlett's Buildings should be devoted to the printing of cheap Korans, and sending missionary Moulahs to the heathen. (50:331)

Nailing the final bolts into the coffin of Forster's argument, these critics categorically denied that Islam could in any sense whatsoever prepare the way for the reception of the Gospel or converge towards Christianity. Instead, it raises 'impenetrable barriers against the success of evangelical truth' (Methodist Magazine, p. 764) and presents a 'thick...veil which effectively excludes every glimmering of the true light' (Muir, Mohammedan Controversy, p. 48). These last two critics suggested that pagans are easier to evangelize than are Muslims. Many more 'primitive peoples' in the Pacific had accepted the gospel than had Muslims anywhere in the world; the labours of Henry Martyn would surely 'have been more productive of much better results in almost any part of the pagan world' {Methodist Magazine, p. 764). A modern scholar of Genesis, Walter Bruggerman, interprets the Ishmael material in a way not dissimilar to Forster, emphasizing that no negativity is expressed toward Ishmael. Although Ishmael's birth was the result of Abraham taking the promise into his own hands, God nevertheless intervened and turned positively towards the outsider. The Genesis story is, he suggests, embarrassed by Ishmael's intrusion, since he appears to threaten Abraham's reliance on God. However, even when a distinct Isaac-bias has been introduced, Ishmael refuses to disappear, remaining on the sideline, located in the Kingdom of 'necessity' rather than the Kingdom of 'freedom and hope'; God, however, continued to be concerned for Hagar and her son who remained outside the line of Abraham-Sarah. This suggests, according to Bruggerman, that God may not have exclusively committed Himself to that line: Ishmael has valid claims and is not without his value. Indeed, at Abraham's death, he received, in addition to the substantial blessing promised at the annunciation of Isaac's birth, a gift. Ishmael may not have been the child of promise, but he was born to the man of promise. He was not adopted but legitimate. He was the eldest son, not an intruder and 'for some inscrutable reason, God is not quite prepared to yield easily to his own essential plot'. Consequently, he continues to care for the 'outsider' whom tradition wants to abandon so that a tension develops between the one who is elected and the non-elected who is yet treasured, both by 40

Charles Forster 1787-1871

Abraham and by God. God remains attentive to Ishmael, as he is to all his children. He heard Ishmael (whose name means 'God hears') and Ishmael retains his claim as a son of Abraham by right. At the deathbed, he 'is not a man without a story and a future. He has also received gifts and bears a blessing' (Bruggerman, p. 183). The tension within the family remains unresolved until 'the promise is fully kept' and Bruggerman, as had Forster, associates the 'keeping of the promise' with the in-gathering of the Gentiles, citing Isaiah 19:23-3. Here we are very close to Forster's theory. The traditional Christian rejection of any spiritual aspect of Ishmael's blessing seems unfounded. The same work 'barak' is used for his blessing and for the original Abrahamic blessing. The Edinburgh Review thought Forster's thesis contrary to Paul's interpretation of the allegorical relationship between Isaac and Ishmael, arguing that a double application is irreconcilable with Galatians 4:22-4 (50:334-5). If true, this would deny that the Old Testament's legal covenant had conveyed any spiritual blessing. Again, modern commentaries are not inimical to Forster's inteipretation. Alexander Ross, in the New Bible Commentary, interprets the statement that Hagar corresponds to the present Jerusalem, who is in 'slavery with her children' to mean that, before the events associated with Jesus's life, death and resurrection, Jerusalem was in both political and spiritual bondage since she had not yet received the freedom Christ offers her. Ross then remarks that Paul's quotation (Galatians 4:27-8) from Isaiah 34:1 'predicts the vast increase of Jerusalem's children... Jerusalem is promised a day of blessing and increase'. Isaiah's prophecy is spiritually fulfilled in the in-gathering of the Gentiles into the Church of God. Forster's belief that at the consummation, 'Jew, Mahometan and Gentile' would be brought in 'to the church and kingdom of God...not by ordinary means, but by extraordinary providential interposition' is not inconsistent with this interpretation. Forster's theory remained a debating point for a considerable period after the publication of Mahometanism Unveiled in 1829. F.D. Maurice refers to it in his Boyle Lectures of 1846. Muir's review, first published in 1845 was republished in 1897. The German-born Anglican missionary, John Muehleisen Arnold refers to the 'perverted scope' of Forster's book in The Natural History of Islamism in 1859. In 1884 John Drew Bate made extensive use of Forster in The Claims of Ishmael, which he wrote principally to refute Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's argument; Bate rejected Forster's theory but thought highly of his learning and ability. 41

Victorian Images ofIslam

There is a reference to Forster as an 'authority' in a review of Washington Irving's Mahomet and His Successors (North American Review, 1850:273-307). Dr Samuel Zwemer, the reformed church missionary scholar of Islam who led the development of serious academic study of Islam among missionaries, included Forster in the bibliography of his 1900 Arabia, the Cradle of Islam. The missionary scholar T.P. Hughes in his classic Dictionary of Islam also lists Forster in his bibliographical article on 'Muhammadanism'. Perhaps the most significant reference to Forster is a footnote in John Davenport's 1869 Apology for Mohammed and the Koran. Vilified by the missionary press, Davenport was welcomed by Muslims such as Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sayyid Ameer Ali. With Higgins, Bosworth Smith and Isaac Taylor, Davenport was enthusiastically greeted and continues to be cited by contemporary Muslim authors as a Christian who sympathized with Islam. What is significant is that if Forster's interpretations of prophecy and his paralleling through history of the seeds of Isaac and Ishmael were redacted from Mahometanism Unveiled, the result would be almost identical to Davenport's book. Davenport took his cue from Carlyle, whom he quotes on his title page: 'I confess I can make nothing of the critics in these times, who would accuse Muhammad of deceit prepense; of conscious deceit generally, or, perhaps, at all; still more, of living in a mere element of conscious deceit, and writing this Koran as a forger and a juggler would have done. Every candid eye, I think, will read the Koran far otherwise than so' (Carlyle, Works, 10:214). Davenport defended Muhammad's character and conduct, accepted his Ishmaelite origin, rejected charges of 'insincerity', praised Islam's tolerance, its contribution to civilization and negatively contrasted much of this with Christian history. However, Davenport explicitly favoured Unitarianism and made no pretence at attempting a theology of Christian-Muslim relations. While he shares much in common with the conciliatory tradition, he cannot be regarded as belonging to it since he considers the doctrine of the Trinity as a regrettable 'interposition' into the original Gospel. Nevertheless, Davenport's popularity among Muslim writers is evidence that the substance of Forster's approach is not unacceptable to Muslims. Forster's thesis was echoed by F.P. Noble's 1899 The Redemption of Africa. Norman Daniel writes that Noble: 'Took up a point made by Forster, the "religious truths common to the half-brothers may be made a means for bringing the Muslim to Christianity"—"the Arabian 42

Charles Forster 1787-1871

prophet can be made the servant of Christ'" (Daniel, Islam, Europe, p. 301). Edward Blyden, friend and reviewer of Boswoith Smith, also cited the Moravian prayer and accepted as an important link the fraternal relationship of Isaac and Ishmael: Whatever it may be in other lands, in Africa the work of Islam is preliminary and preparatory. Just as Ishmael came before Isaac,...so here the descendant of Ishmael has come before the illustrious descendant of Isaac....Where the light from the Cross ceases to stream upon the gloom, there the beams of the Crescent will give illumination....Then Isaac and Ishmael will be united, and rejoice together. (Blyden, pp. 24,233)

Blyden also echoed Forster's conviction that the Arabic language was itself a vital link in the chain between Islam and the Gospel, as a lingua franca throughout Africa and Asia. The Muslim Response Muslims were well aware of traditional Christian attitudes towards Islam and their prophet. However, as the conciliatory approach developed, Muslims began to welcome the work of Christian and Western writers who openly sympathized with Islam. Muir wrote his review of Forster because he feared he might damage the missionary cause: 'How eagerly would our Maulavis [sic] welcome Mr Forster...who holds that the twelve princes are the twelve Imams and "the innumerable multitude" Musulman believers' (Muir, Mohammedan Controversy, p. 42). Certainly, as Bate was to point out, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's argument in his Essays on the Life of Mohammed was identical to Forster's. Curiously, Gibbon (and not Forster) was called as Sir Sayyid's principal non-Muslim witness. Bate commented: Inasmuch as [Forster] has used Biblical materials to cany the point, the apologists and adherents of Islam find it prudent to ignore his learned contribution, and prefer to fall back upon the fragmentary utterances of Gibbon, notwithstanding the scathing cynicism respecting thereligiouspretensions of Muhammad which he imports into them. (p. 111)

However, in his essay 'The Claims of Ishmael', Sir Sayyid did cite numerous passages from Forster's Historical Geography of Arabia. He was critical of some of Forster's conclusions regarding the identity of 43

Victorian Images ofislam

certain places and tribes but generally endorsed his work as 'sound and able'. He chose to cite only those authorities accepted by Forster. In his 'Essay on the Pedigree of Muhammad', he refers to Forster as an 'unwilling witness', citing not from Mahometanism Unveiled but from The Historical Geography. Since the object of the latter book was to offer further proof of Muhammad's descent from Ishmael on which the basic premise of Mahometanism Unveiled stood or fell, it would seem that Sir Sayyid had not read the earlier book. Nevertheless, even regarded as an 'unwilling witness', Forster, known to be a clergyman, is here quoted by a Muslim whose next sentence reads, 'Sir William Muir alone stands against the unanimous opinion of the learned' in rejecting the Ishmaelite origin, thereby contrasting Forster with Muir (Sayyid Khan, p. 159). It is also possible that awareness of the Muslim argument from Ishmael helped to shape Forster's theory. He knew that Muslims insist that 'several predictions in the Pentateuch could not possibly relate to any prophet who had appeared since the time of Moses, except Muhammad' {Edinburgh Review, 50:329). He agreed with Muhammed Ruza of Hamadan that the prediction that Ishmael 'would rule over all' can only have been fulfilled in Muhammad, since no other descendant 'ever obtained universal dominion, either temporal or spiritual, not even over his own brethren'. If this Muslim argument was behind this aspect of Forster's thesis, we have here an example of a Christian writer who allowed his theology and his biblical interpretation to be influenced by Muslim thought. However, the full title of his book, Mahometanism Unveiled: an Enquiry in which that Arch-heresy, its Diffusion and Continuance, are examined on a New Principal, tending to Confirm the Evidence and Aid the Propagation of the Christian Life, would not have commended its contents to many Muslim readers. This title belies the animus with which the book was written—a trap into which a recent Muslim writer appears to have fallea Leila Ahmad writes: To show Muslim belief as absurd was not generally a matter on which most Englishmen of the day reported with disinterest: in 1829 there appeared. . Mahometanism Unveiled. Reports of the absurdity of Muslim belief tacitly served the purpose that the author...made his declared objective, (p. 70)

S. Khuda Buksh (1877-1931) refers to Forster in 'A Muhammedan View of Christendom', where he wrote: The spirit of hostility which marked the writings of early European scholars curiously continued in all its fanatical fervour till 1829, the date of the 44

Cha-les Forster 1787-J871 appearance of Mahometanism Unveiled....But things are changing today,...Muhammad is no longer deemed an impostor, but a reformer of worldwide importance; Islam is no longer regarded merely as a religion propagated at the point of the sword; Islamic culture is no longer considered a curse. (Peake, V:245) In the same way that Bosworth Smith was deeply hurt by unkind reviews and letters, Forster reacted similarly to unkind criticisms, as evidenced by his Vindication where he almost but not quite repudiated his theory, 'If I shunned to put more confidently before the public my own private belief that Muhammad may have been the subject of a Satanic inspiration, I may have erred' (p. 41). However, he reaffirmed his conviction that Islam carried spiritual blessing: 'that it has some mysterious and inscrutable share' in the fulfilment of God's purposes, his conviction remained 'full and unchanged' (p. 47). Against his critics, he also reaffirmed his conviction that Islam prepared a way for and tends to converge with the gospel. Unlike Cariyle, who in a later essay recanted his earlier estimate of Muhammad, Forster remained consistent and his work stands as an early nineteenth-century Christian attempt to wrestle with the challenge of Islam, represented by Ishmael, who refuses to disappear. Much of Forster's thesis that Islam has been and can be a civilizing influence, that it is not intolerant, is capable of reform and of progress and that it contains valid spiritual fruits became popular themes of such Muslim apologists as Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Khuda Baksh; their Western critics, such as E.A. Freeman and Malcolm MaColl, who also opposed Forster's successors, argued that Islam was intrinsically opposed to civilization, reform, progress, true spirituality and to tolerance. It is therefore possible that Forster was both influenced by and, indirectly through Davenport, in turn influenced Muslim apologetic thinking.

45

3

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

John Frederick Denison Maurice, MA, is well known as a scholar and theologian, in contrast to Forster's comparative obscurity, though his contribution to a Christian understanding of Islam is less widely known. He has been called in the context of British theological thought, "The most important thinker in the middle of the nineteenth century' (Cunliffe-Jones, p. 89), and the 'most originating of Victorian theologians' (Vidler, p. 84). The obscurity of his contribution to Christian understanding of Islam is not surprising since he never returned to the subject after 1846 when, at the age of forty and already a professor at King's College, London, he gave his Boyle lecture on The Religions of the World. Republished six times during his lifetime, this book was a serious attempt by a young but eminent theologian to develop a theology of religions, based on those sources which were available to a scholar who was not a professional Orientalist and whose aim was to write a theology of religions rather than a comparative study of religioa His apologetic brief was mandated by Robert Boyle's 1691 will, which provided funds for the annual preaching of eight sermons 'for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels, to writ, against Atheists, Pagans, Jews and Mahometans' while 'not descending lower to any controversies that are among Christians themselves' (Maurice, Religions, p. 1). Maurice spoke of Boyle's concern for the people who, in the late seventeenth century, were beginning to experience Europe's colonial power and asked, 'Were we really cariying truth into the distant parts of the earth when we were carrying our own faith into them?' (Religions, p. 3). He also spoke of Boyle's crises of faith. Doubting some of the fundamental aspects of Christianity, he had questioned different schemes of belief 'to ascertain what each of them could do for him: what was there 46

John Frederick Denison Maurice J 80S-1872 in them to meet the demands of his heart and reason'. A recent writer has suggested that, for Boyle, a 'comparison of religious systems was no dry legal enquiiy but a question of life and death, arising from the anguish of his mind in so tremendous a conflict between faith and doubt' (Sargant, pp. 36-40). Boyle aided missionaries in North America among the slave population, but knew that among the Muslims and Hindus of Asia, missionaries would require 'help of a different order'. Confronted by sophisticated systems, they would need assistance in order to answer objections to Christian faith. Maurice himself suggested that without 'something of like anguish' no one could truly contemplate the question of Christianity's relationship with other faiths. He, therefore, began his exploration into this relationship prepared to take risks. He knew that for people of faith, the road could not be easy. Like Forster, his exploration was academic in the sense that he wrote from Britain without the experience of actual encounter with people of other faiths, but it was also a theologically vital quest, concerning not only his own salvation but others as well, lest salvation become selfish. Maurice was one of the first mainstream British theologians to give serious consideration to a theology of religions. Maurice was born in 1805 and was twenty-four when Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled was published. Then editor of the London journal The Athenaeum, he would almost certainly have read some of the many reviews which appeared in contemporary publications. His reference to the book in The Religions of the World suggests that he knew something of the controversy it had provoked. Maurice was influenced by the rational faith of his father, the Unitarian minister Michael Maurice, which owed much to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), and by the evangelical faith of his mother who was a Baptist At Cambridge, where he chose to study because of its reputation for intellectual freedom, he attended the lectures of Jules Hare on Plato and was befriended by Hare (1795—1855), whose thinking influenced his owa His tutor at Trinity was the biblical and patristic scholar Frederic Field (1801-85), whose influence can be detected in Maurice's method of using Bible commentaries to explicate his theological ideas. In 1825, Maurice took a first class degree in civil law but, still loyal to his father's dissenting principles, refused to subscribe to the thirtynine articles and was unable to graduate or pursue an academic career. Moving to London to edit The Athenaeum, bought by his Cambridge friend John Sterling (1806-44), he became a fervent disciple of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), rather as Forster had early in his life 47

Victorian Images of Islam

entered the intellectual circle of Alexander Knox. The comparison is not without significance. Both Knox and Coleridge were lay-Anglicans whose thinking influenced contemporary theologians of stature and both made their homes centres of philosophical and literary discussion. Attention to Coleridge's role in the emergence of a more tolerant attitude towards other faiths has been drawn by Eric J. Sharpe {Comparative Religion, p. 146). In London, Maurice joined John Stuart Mill's debating society, but he shared Coleridge's dislike of Benthamite materialism, against which background his own theology developed. His starting point was a synthesis of the Unitarian emphasis on the vigour of humanity, summed up by Emerson's 'know your own self—it is the only way' and Coleridge's belief in 'something true and eternal' in the transitoriness of life. These two convictions pointed him towards the possibility of union between human and divine, convincing him that fellowship with God was possible. Concluding that God can only become real for people 'if He can be contemplated in human form', Maurice could now accept orthodoxy and could go up to Oxford to read theology. He chose Oxford for its reputation of 'reverence for tie established church', though while there he was briefly attracted by Edward living's Catholic Apostolic Church. His eventual decision to join the Church of England was prompted by the growing conviction that it had a unique role to play in the wider social, cultural and religious life of Britain. He shared Coleridge's idea of a national church or 'clerisy' which would include free church clergy, responsible for educating the nation in good ethics and citizenship. The Unitarian divine James Martineau (1805-1900) shared this concept. However, Maurice considered the Church of England to be the established branch of the universal church in Britain and therefore felt compelled 'for better or for worse' to join her ranks. He was baptized in 1830 and graduated the same year. He delayed ordination until 1834 when, as a curate in Warwickshire he wrote his autobiographical novel, Eustace Conway. In 1835, he wrote Subscription, No Bondage which, perhaps surprisingly, defended the imposition of religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge. He was for a while attracted by the Oxford Movement, of which Forster's mentors, Jebb and Knox, are acknowledged precursors, suggesting some similarity in Forster's and Maurice's ecclesiological backgrounds. The remainder of Maurice's career can be briefly told, though full of vicissitudes. From 1836 to 1840 he was chaplain at Guy's Hospital, where he wrote his classic The Kingdom of Christ that marked him as a theologian and thinker of note. Consequently, he was elected professor of English 48

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

literature at King's College, London, and in 1846 to the newly created Theology Chair. His Theological Essays provoked a debate regarding his orthodoxy and resulted in his removal from King's College where his name is now honoured by an F.D. Maurice Chair of Theology. In 1854, he founded the first Woiking Men's College to promote the ideas and ideals of the Christian Socialist movement which he had pioneered ith John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow (1821-1911) and Charles Kingsley (1819-75). There then began a gradual rehabilitation with his appointment in 1860 to the living of St Peter's, Vere Street, culminating in 1866 when Cambridge appointed him to the Knightsbridge Chair of Moral Philosophy. Since Maurice never returned to the subject of Islam, we are confined to The Religions of the World (hereinafter, Religions), and more particularly to its sections on Islam. However, Maurice's general theological position clearly influenced the writing of this book and predisposed him towards a sympathetic and positive attitude to other faiths. This predisposition itself identifies Maurice with Forster's conciliatory approach. Forster began his study with the conviction that Islam could only be adequately explained by reference to divine providence, which, believing that scripture anticipated all human history, led him to the Bible to look for clues. Maurice's starting point was similar. He believed that all religions stem not from the human ground but from something better, which he called 'the ground of man's being' and 'the higher ground' (Religions, pp. 25-6,245). Although Maurice held the Bible in high esteem and wrote most of his books as Bible commentaries, his method in Religions was to compare ideas. He was not primarily concerned with historical facts or even with biblical comment but with theological concepts. The book was offered as a comparative study of world religions and represents, as a recent writer has suggested, 'probably the first multi-faith book in English' (Sargant, p. 40). Despite his critics' contraiy opinion, Maurice was a mainstream theologian. Even when dismissed from King's College, he remained chaplain at Lincoln's Inn and, in his own self-estimate, loyal to the traditional formulations of Christian faith. In attracting criticism of his orthodoxy, he also compares with Forster. Though more liberal than the earlier writer, he claimed to operate from a position within the Christian community. Acquainted with such thinkers as Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), John Stuart Mill (1806-73) and Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), whose teachings were according to Alex Vidler, 'calculated to unsettle, if not destroy, traditional Christian 49

Victorian Images ofIslam

belief (p. 112), Maurice's aim was radically different. He sought rather to re-express and to reinterpret. Maurice is generally identified with the Broad Churchmen, among whose leaders were many of his friends, but he did not share their dislike of the creeds. Maurice himself believed that the creeds 'enshrined fundamental truths about God and man', but claimed the right to express these truths in new ways. Hare's influence is traced in his 'Platonic realism' which viewed the Church, the creeds and the sacraments as imperfect earthly embodiments of transcendental realities. Rejoicing in paradoxical language, Maurice's work tended to provoke controversy, but he would have repudiated 'identification with the Broad Churchmen' because he was 'grieved by party strife' and 'longed for the unity of all Christians' (Latourette, 2:1114). This was one reason why he had left the Unitarians. His thirst for unity may have been encouraged by his friendship with A.P. Stanley, whom he first met in 1834 and who opened up Westminster Abbey to Christians of all denominations. Labelling Maurice is no easy task. He disassociated himself from both the liberals and the evangelicals and thought the high churchmen too exclusive. In 1870, he wrote that he considered the liberals no closer to him than they had been in 1835, when he had written Subscription, No Bondage. The liberals, he said: Were clearly right in saying that the Articles did not mean to those who signed them...what I supposed them to mean, and I was wrong. They were right in saying that subscription did mean to most the renunciations of a right to think, and, since none could renounce that right, it involved dishonesty. All this I have been compelled by the evidence of facts sorrowfully to confess. I accept the humiliation. I give the liberals the triumph they deserve. But they feel and I feel that we are not a step nearer to each other in 1870 than we were in 1835....They are called 'Broad Churchmen' now....But their breadth seems to be narrowness. They include all kinds of opinions but what message have they for the people who do not live upon opinions or care for opinions? Are they children of God?, or must they now and for ever be children of the devil? The Broad Church Man gives no answer. (Maurice, Life, 2:183-4)

Writing to Canon Isaac Taylor (1829-1901), who shocked the religious press with his 1887 Church Congress paper on Islam, Maurice said, 'I do not well know what the Broad Church is' (Life, 2:359). He rejected the evangelical message as too gloomy because it overemphasized sin and the consequences of man's fall from grace. He preferred to stress 50

John Frederick Dentson Maurice 1805-1872

God's love, the theme of The Kingdom of Christ (hereinafter, Kingdom) and the controversial Theological Essays (hereinafter, Essays). In Essays, he spoke of God's universal love for all people and summoned Unitarians to accept the incarnation as the supreme manifestation of divine love. He discussed the question of death and eternal life and concluded that no limit could be set on God's love, which would not allow people to suffer eternally. Popularly, Maurice became known as 'the clergyman who didn't believe in hell', which was damaging enough for the College Council to remove him from his Chair. In Kingdom, he argued that, through the incarnation all human life had been hallowed, which makes 'social righteousness the concern of all true Christians'. Thus his Christian Socialism developed. All the main themes of Maurice's thinking are found in Kingdom which provided the theological framework into which his Religions was placed. Biographer Florence Higham says that Kingdom 'contained all the essentials of his later thought' (p. 124). In fact, the style and aim of the two books are remarkably similar. In Kingdom, subtitled Hints on the Principles, Ordinances and Constitution of The Catholic Church in letters to a member of the Society of Friends by a Clergyman of the Church of England, Maurice maintained that: Each of the main divisions of Christendom, and each of the parties in the Church of England, and...each secular philosophy and movement..stood at bottom for a true principle or at least a valid quest: their mistake was to assert their own truth exclusively against others. (Vidler, p. 84) He thus spoke, for example, about the positive aspects of Fox's doctrine of the indwelling word but of its insufficiency without the doctrines of justification and imputatioa In Religions, he applied the same thesis to the relationship between the world's religions: each contained some vital truth but erred when it denied truth to others. Behind both stands Maurice's passionate desire for unity which, says Higham, was all pervading. This desire for unity was grounded in his conviction that Christ is the universal head and king of the human race, a doctrine which ran throughout Maurice's theological teaching as a dominating conviction. Maurice began with the truth that God had both created and also redeemed man in Christ and that every person is therefore in Christ, whether he or she knows it or not. The foundation of Christian theology did not lie, for him, in sin—hence, his criticism of the evangelicals—but in the fact that prior to sin mankind was created in Christ who is the si

Victorian Images ofIslam

image of God. It is sometimes said that Maurice did not believe in sin: he did, but believed that sin was not man's true state. Man's evil nature is due to his departure from his true self. Maurice's doctrine of the atonement was unconventional. He interpreted the atonement not as 'the offering of a vicarious sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty to satisfy the requirements of a just God, but the fulfilment of the law of righteousness by sharing the sufferings of mankind' (Latourette, 2:1174). Like baptism, the atonement was a Sign and a promise, an afflimation of what eternally is: God's self-giving love, above and beneath man's persistent selfishness. There was no idea of a bargain, any more than...rewards and punishment in Maurice's conception of redemption. (Higham, p. 124)

Maurice believed that the fact of man's creation in God's image makes possible an intuitive knowledge of God in all people. This belief found poetic expression in the work of his friend from his Cambridge days, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92) to whom he dedicated his Essays. Indeed, Maurice's own writings are almost poetic in imageiy if not in form. His overriding confidence in God's love convinced him that God would not condemn people for their ignorance because they knew nothing of the words of eternal life. When expressing this conviction, Maurice had, says Higham, in mind 'the whole mass of human beings in our streets, nineteen-hundredths of the population of all the Continental countries, most of the American slaves, besides the whole body of Turks, Hindus, Hottentots and Jews' (p. 93). It is not difficult to see in this conviction potential for developing a positive attitude towards other religions and their place in eternity. Maurice knew that a consideration of the theology of religions involved the fate of millions of men, women and children. He knew, too, that without something of the 'anguish of mind', no one could truly contemplate Christianity's relationship with other faiths. In Religions he did not work from a preconceived base or towards a preconceived conclusion, but he did apply the theological principles he had woiked out in Kingdom to the subject now before him. His fundamental question was where, in the world of many faiths, is the gospel of good news for all people, for people in different conditions, for the many and not just for the few? His entry into a sympathetic engagement with Islam was not Forster's biblicism, though like Forster, he was willing to think new thoughts. He had read Mahometanism Unveiled, but chose to use Carlyle's more popular lecture on 'Hero as Prophet' (from Heroes and Hero 52

John FrederickDenison Maurice 1805-1872

Worship) as the basis of his sermons. Maurice knew Carlyle socially, but reacted against his writings, especially against his vague, ungrounded faith in the 'everlasting yea'. He deplored Cariyle's 'miserable vagueness', 'his silly rant about the great bosom of nature' and his pantheism (Maurice, Life, l:282fi). Much of Maurice's thinking developed in reaction to Carlyle, whose dislike of organized religion would hardly have commended itself. In the present context, Maurice especially quarrelled with Cariyle's conclusion that 'belief in a personal being, possible in Mahomet's day and in the days of Christian Puritanism, was in the present day no longer possible' (Maurice, Religions, p. x). Maurice asked 'Why so?' He thus reacted to Carlyle much as Forster had reacted to GibtKm, who had been Cariyle's principal source. Maurice had read Forster and referred to his 'learned and ingenious speculations', but did not 'feel competent to express an opinion' regarding their veracity. His business was with popular views upon the subject. Nevertheless, he thought that so far as Mahometcmism Unveiled had evinced a 'desire to deal fairly with facts Christian apologists have often perverted, and a confidence that the cause of Christianity must be better for such fairness, it must...have done good' (Religions, p. x). Because Cariyle's lecture on Muhammad, he concluded, 'is probably much better known to my readers than Mr Forster's treatise', he chose to use Carlyle. However, Maurice has enough in common with Forster to justify classifying him as a writer who belonged to the same conciliatory tradition; it is difficult to resist surmising that Mahometcmism Unveiled did influence the writing of Religions. Maurice's description of Forster's aim, to deal fairly with facts and thereby to benefit the Christian cause, might equally be applied to his own book, which added theological breadth and depth to the tradition that Forster represented. Maurice's reliance on Carlyle partly determined the book's reflective style, which is concerned less with historical fact than with theological ideas; this, however, was also consistent with his overall thinking which gave priority to ideas. Cariyle's aim in 'The Hero as Prophet' had not been historically to reconstruct Muhammad's life, but to write a psychological one. He was interested in Muhammad the man as he grappled with the problems of human life. He broke little new ground in historical reconstruction, but he did break new ground in attempting to understand 'the inner experience' of Muhammad. However, in that he used such writers as Sale, Gibbon and the French Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838), who belonged to the more sympathetic scholarly tradition, he was still able to produce a picture of 51

Victorian Images of Islam

Muhammad that is essentially a true one 'and one that is still of value in its broad outline to the historian today' (Watt, p. 254). These sources, together with the philosophical thought of Goethe, whose works Carlyle had translated into English produced 'Hero as Prophet'. Maurice, using this essay as his principal authority but with Forster's book also to hand, was in his turn able to produce a scholarly and serious work, which, within the limitations of his situation, used relatively accurate and up-to-date information. The book was written as a comparative study of world religions; Islam is therefore discussed not only in relation to Christianity but also in the context of other faiths, especially Judaism.

Theology of Religions Maurice's gateway into the discussion of Islam and its relation to Christianity was his conviction that all religions stem from people seeking something above and beyond themselves, which can sustain them despite human weakness. He believed the inner strength and vitality inherent in all religions raised their faithful above human shortcomings, and the origin of this strength was divine, not human. In his examination of world faiths—Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism—he suggested that each faith stressed an important aspect of the God reality. His object was not to discuss the details of these religions or 'even their absurdities', but 'to enquire what was their main characteristic principle', to 'search out the good in them' and to suggest how that good could be 'preserved and made effectual' (Religions, p. 10). He interpreted his brief as being to bring Christianity into contact with the beliefs of other world faiths; not to prove Christianity on paper, but to 'enter into actual intercourse with Jews, Mussulmans, Hindoos and Buddhists' (Religions, p. 245). He was not entering a personal dialogue with living adherents of these faiths, but was restricted to discussing what he interpreted as their main ideas and concepts. Maurice began his discussion, as had Forster, with a survey of Islam's rise and expansion. Like Forster, his aim was to demonstrate the fallacy of traditional explanations of Islam's origin, which posit purely human causes. With Forster, he looks to the divine as the mover behind all great religious systems. In this section, Maurice highlights the vitality of the Islamic Empire: its battles with Christendom for possession of the Holy Land and its lack of signs of decay, which prompts Christians 54

John Frederick Detti son Maurice ¡805-1872

to enquire what has 'given such prevelency to this faith in past days' and 'what keeps it alive today' (Religions, p. 12). Maurice admitted that Islam's combination of church and state has provided fuel for Christian apologists to contrast this negatively with the Gospel's message of peace. Though he said that this argument had undoubtedly been compromised by the actual practices of Christians, he did not consider it unfair, since the sword's use is not merely countenanced but commanded by Islam. Maurice considered Islam's combination of church and state a strength, not a weakness. Following Coleridge, he supported the call for the creation of a national clerisy to safeguard the nation's welfare, to educate the people. Preaching at Lincoln's Inn, Maurice addressed the question of Islam's alleged 'sensual paradise' offered as a reward to those who die fighting for the faith. He argued that if there is no reward for the senses as well as for the soul 'for the outward man as well as for the inner', the promise of a 'redeemed body and a redeemed earth' is meaningless. Christians 'blunder' when they call the 'visible world' evil and devote all their attention to the 'invisible world' (Maurice, Lincoln 's Inn, ii:264-5). In his Christian Socialism, too, he attacked the outlook that regarded men as mere self contained individuals. He taught that the true law of the universe is that man is made to live in community: men realize their nature when they co-operate with one another. Islam and the Sword Maurice accepted, more so than Forster, that Islam was characteristically a religion of the swotd. Unlike Forster, he did not champion Islam in North Africa as an example of Islam prospering without the protection of an Islamic state. Nevertheless, he suggested that, even admitting that Islam is essentially warlike, this alone does not account 'for its spread over so large a portion of the earth'. The sword may explain how Islam spread but it does not account for the faith which wielded the sword. Nor does it explain why Muslims have been prepared to fight and to die for their faith. Maurice asked if arms are not, as Christians suppose, the 'most mighty things', what does their apparent success in preaching Islam say to Christians? 'Are there not', he continued, 'secret, invisible influences stronger than the sword?' (Religions, p. 14). Thus, Maurice did question whether violence alone could adequately explain Islam's success, even though he was not a pacifist and strongly supported the military activities of nations, arguing that God had 'not 55

Victorian Images of Islam

given swords to men in vain' (Kingdom, p. 353). As a result, his judgement of Islamic militarism was unlikely to be too harsh. Maurice then examined the impostor theory that Islam's success lies in its inherent evil and false nature. However, he concluded that though man's propensity to 'believe in imposture' might explain some aspects of Islam, it fails to provide the key to the secret of its permanence or vitality (Religions,

p. 15).

Examining the argument that Islam's success is due to plagiarism from Christianity, he commented that, although Muhammad's self-identification with the patriarchs (Moses, Abraham) may have helped to commend Islam to some, this could not in itself explain its overall success, since 'to successfully revive even an old principle' one must be 'penetrated' by it, 'possessed and inspired' by it so that it becomes impossible for others not to capture its vitality (Religions, p. 17). Nevertheless, Maurice thought Islam akin to the Judaism of the Old Testament, which, like Islam, contains little or no reflection about God: all is set forth as coming from God. Both religions teach that God speaks to men, revealing His will. In Islam, said Maurice, 'Revelation, or the declaration of God's mind and will—of God Himself to man is assumed as the ground of action, history and knowledge' (Religions, p. 136). This, in Islam, is no 'dead doctrine' but a 'living, terrific quality—a truth which men must be taught by the sword, if they would be taught no other way' (Religions, p. 135). Muslims believe that Muhammad 'acted under a divine call', just as the Jews believed their prophets did. Muhammad, like the prophets, believed that a record should be kept of God's words to man, and that such a book should be authoritative. This, Maurice suggested, was a conviction from which Muhammad could no more part than he could from that of his prophetic vocatioa

Islam and Judaism The difference between Muhammad and the Jews was that, while he considered that his book was complete, they believed their book still growing. Maurice compared the Muslim belief in their calling as a 'nation under God' with the Jewish conviction that they are God's chosen people. The Caliphate 'resembles the Hebraic concept of kingship exemplified in the Old Testament account of the Davidic covenant'. Christians, too, have believed that their kings are 'covenant kings, reigning in the name of the Lord, as much as the kings of Judah had ever done'. 56

John Frederick Dettison Maurice 1805-1872

This 'real affinity between Christianity and Islam', according to Maurice, stood 'upon Old Testament ground' (Religions, p. 142). He argued that the Jews of today, while still believing in divine unity, no longer believe in a God who acts. Occasionally, belief in a 'living being' may be drawn out by persecution, but for the majority it has degenerated into a dead formula, the reality of the unseen 'lost' and the Book 'stifled' under rabbinical interpretations. Nevertheless, the Jews of Muhammad's day managed to sustain their faith and refused to follow the standard of Muhammad even though they had, for 600 years, been without a temple or capital. 'Even in defeat, they did not abandon their belief that they were Abraham's legitimate offshoot' (Religions, pp. 143-4). Muhammad's descent from Ishmael was not vital to Maurice, but he did not disallow that Muhammad was, illegitimately, descended form Abraham. Discussing the view that Muhammad's own persona attracted people's allegiance, Maurice asserted that, however our conception of Muhammad may be at variance with this view, 'there is much in his biography to bear it out'. Certainly, Muhammad had been unfairly dealt with by Christian writers. On the other hand, in a religion which 'looks upon man as separated...from God', Muhammad has commanded more reverence than one might expect (Religions, p. 21). Maurice also debated the concept of Islam's uncompromising iconoclasm which carried her armies to victory after victory and concluded that iconoclasm alone, however fervent, could not permanently vitalize any society. He rejected the punitive theory: that Islam was God's punishment against the corrupt churches of Asia Minor—a view which many of Forster's critics endorsed. This, Maurice admitted, might explain Islam's origin but not its continuation unless belief in God's love and mercy are abandoned. Finally, he located Islam's vitality in its ever fresh message that it is God who is Himself 'the ground of man's being'. It is Islam's message that 'God is', over and against notions or theories about His nature, which, requiring no 'physical symbol, no tangible manifestation', provides Islam with its essential vitality, more so than any of 'its accompanying moral principles' (Religions, p. 33). Thus, Islam's 'accompanying moral principles' were less important to Maurice than they had been to Forster, although he did not question their existence. However, Maurice also located in this uncompromising monotheism, Islam's weakness as well as its strength. He argued that Islam was best able to sustain the faith of its followers when it was destroying idols and converting infidels. Once these tasks were complete, it began to decay. In peaceful times, he believed insistence on the fact of 57

Victorian Images ofIslam

God's Being would prove insufficient to satisfy human need and Muslims would therefore begin to seek visions of their God; they would indulge in 'philosophical speculations' and 'substitute theories and notions for that Being in whose name their fathers had fought' (Religions, p. 27). This section of Maurice's book became the most widely cited. Writers such as E.A. Freeman (1823-92), whose attitude towards Islam was negative, found support for their views in this section, while Sir Thomas W. Arnold (1864-1930) in The Preaching of Islam disagreed profoundly. Citing Maurice, Arnold wrote, 'on the contrary, the loss of political power and worldly prosperity has served to bring to the front the finer spiritual qualities which are the truest incentives to missionary work' (T.W. Arnold, p. 346). Maurice thus differed from Forster in supposing that Islam could only thrive while 'aiming at conquest'. Forster had praised African Islam as an example of Islam's salutary and beneficial influence 'apart from...alliance with political domination'. It is, however, not surprising that Maurice criticized the tendency of Muslim theologians to speculate about God. Like Coleridge, he could not be satisfied with anything less than direct and immediate communion with his maker. He found, writes C.R. Sanders, 'little comfort in beliefs about God. Instead he demanded a belief in God, unobstructed intercourse with the Deity.' Religion, he complained, had for 'his generation come to mean the acceptance of convictions about God' (Sanders, p. 221).

Has Islam Spiritual Value? Maurice called the tendency to move from what he considered to be Islam's distinctive emphasis on God's Being to visions of His nature an example of Islam's 'degeneration into the direct opposite and counterfeit of itself (Religions, p. 30). At first, this appears to contradict Forster's belief that Islam converged towards Christianity. The two writers, however, are expressing the same conviction in different ways. Maurice considered Islam's tendency towards 'speculation' to be a degeneration of Islam's own principle, but one which brought it nearer to Christianity. Forster interpreted this as a positive movement towards Christianity—which he might well have called 'the direct opposite' of Islam. Muhammad was right, Maurice continued, to substitute the grand truth of God's reality for the Jewish and Christian 'notions' about Him which were extant at that time in Arabia. However, in so doing he also 38

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

sanctioned some of the worst, most characteristic superstitions and evils of the Jews and Christians against whom he protested. For example, in asserting that God's self-revelation was now completed and eternally enshrined in the Quran, he 'denied the possibility of progress' and increased the distance between creature and creator. Thus in the course of time Muslims find themselves to be no longer the noble witnesses of a 'living being' but worshippers of a 'dead necessity'. Consequently, since man can not raise himself to God he must remain submissive, which society begins to reflect in its relationships between ruler and the ruled. Maurice is close to saying what Christian critics have said: that Islam produces political despotism, is inherently hostile to democracy, stifles development and encourages stagnation and fatalism. This, however, may be remedied, Maurice believed, by the Christian gospel which, if applied correctly, can 'strengthen and quicken' Muslim faith (Religions, p. 153). However, if the gospel is presented as a 'better scheme of conduct' than Islam, Muslims will reject it. Believing that their religion is of God, any message that negates theirs will be received as 'of the devil'. However, if the gospel is grounded in their original faith but is at the same time seen to both expand and develop it, they may welcome and recognize it. If the gospel is really arevelation,it will be able by a power 'which can avenge the outrages and injuries of Islamism' to preserve 'the precious fragments of truth which are lodged within it', and 'forming them into a whole', make 'them effectual for the blessing of all lands over which it reigns' (Religions, p. 154). By receiving 'culture from without', Islam 'may yet blossom and bear fruit abundantly' (Religions, p. 30). Similarly, by proclaiming to Jews that their redeemer has already come, Christianity may restore to them their lost vision of the universal kingdom that has degenerated into a narrow nationalism. Maurice therefore answered in the affirmative that Islam occupies a place in God's future, speaking of Islam's 'place in the scheme of providence' (Religions, p. 232). Anyone, he said, who believes at all in a divine providence will inevitably interpret great events as the working of a divine regulating hand. Here he shares Forster's rejection of secularp history. Such a view, Maurice suggested, may offer a key to understanding Islam's origin and lead us to regard its continuation 'not wholly as a calamity' (Religions, p. 23). A Christian, he said, has 'no right to undervalue any good thing which he finds in any Jew or Mahometan; it flows from a principle which he ought to hold fast, and which ought to produce the same or better fruits in him' (Religions, p. 159).

Victorian Images of Islam

Explaining what he meant by Christianity's 'Jewish-side', Maurice suggested that when Christianity exalts too highly the concept of a 'Living King and Lord of All Creation', it commits the typically Jewish mistake of distancing the human from the divine. Turning to explain its 'Mahometan side', he suggested that if Christians go forth to spread the principle of a universal family 'by any means other than those of love and charity', they copy the Muslim example. If they deny that the 'unseen God could have manifested forth in the Son or that the Spirit binds them together in an ever blessed Unity' they fall into a 'merely theoretical Judaism or Mahometanism' (Religions, pp. 157-8). If this paints Islam in a negative hue, Maurice countered that Christians also need to be reminded by Muslims that distinction as well as affinity subsists between the human and the divine. A notion of God that minimizes the distinction can never 'satisfy human beings who know their own necessities' and inability to meet them (Religions, p. 159). With this view, Maurice is reacting against Carlyle's pantheism.

Islam as Preparatoiy for the Gospel Christians, Maurice suggested, may affirm 'any good thing' which they find in Judaism or in Islam, because these may be fulfilled in the light of the gospel. He thus speaks of 'Mahomet's witness for the Gospel' much as Forster had of Islam as preparatoiy for Christian faith. Islam's rise may have been a testimony against the practices of corrupt Christians, but it was not testimony against the gospel and it might even prove to be 'one of God's witnesses before the Cross', before which it has not fallen (.Religions, p. 238). Maurice agreed with Forster that Islam did not oppose Christianity but actually served the Christian cause. Although he did not stress fraternity of the two religions, he did refer to examples of positive interaction. He suggested that 'the formation of society in modern Europe' stood in 'close relation to the history of Mahometanism' (.Religions, p. 231). He probably meant that medieval pan-Europeanism, represented in the Holy Roman Empire, consciously developed against the background of the expanding Caliphate. Christian nations, he said, observing how 'large portions of the world' were 'knit together in the acknowledgement of the Arabian prophet' began to feel that they were connected, that united they would stand. In the face of Muslim unity, the realization emerged that all government must have a basis in the divine, 'the Kings must be anointed 60

John Frederick Dem son Maurice 1805-1872

with oil in the name of Christ. Christians believed that the earth had been redeemed and claimed as God's possession by Christ' (Religions, p. 231). The veiy existence of Islam seemed to deny this doctrine: hence, the emergence of Christianity's hostility which, Maurice argued, should not characterize the Christian's approach. Explaining his suggestion that hostility should not characterize the Christian approach to Islam and that Christians could claim for themselves truths in Islam while also supplying Islam with new life, Maurice applied the Apostles creed to a theology of religions which usefully puts flesh to his ideas. If we believe, he wrote, in 'God the Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth', we should 'acknowledge that which Jews and Mahometans acknowledge as the ground of all things' but also confess that it is 'the loving and fatherly will made known in Jesus'. If we believe in 'Jesus... conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary', who 'suffered under Pontius Pilate,...was crucified, dead and buried', we should also 'feel and understand that there is indeed a Man who will reign over the world and judge it, as Jews and Mahometans teach' but we will acknowledge that 'Man is the Son of God and the Son of Man who has already set up His throne in the highest regions of all and calls upon every voluntary creature in his heart and spirit to do Him homage'. If we believe in the 'Holy Spirit...in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins', we will become 'more completely servants of an human King and of the Divine will...more triumphant over death' than either Jew or Muslim thinks possible. We will believe that the faithful departed have passed 'not into a sensual paradise' but into a 'kingdom of righteousness, peace and love' (Religions, pp. 160-1). Islam's vitality, then, lies in her proclamation that 'God is' and that He seeks out man, a principle also fundamental to Christianity. Its weakness is that it is not accompanied 'by other kindred truths, which belong to the essence of Christianity' (Religions, pp. 165). Maurice contended that in the teachings of Christ all aspects of the God-reality arc brought into perfect harmony—the correct balance between human and divine distinction and affinity. However, he did not identify this with the Christian Church, or with Christianity as a system; he qualifies his use of the word 'Christianity', pointing out that the Apostles preached 'The Kingdom of God' or 'The Gospel of Christ', not Christianity. When Christianity has neglected the spiritual in favour of the physical, it has mistakenly veered towards Islam. When it has neglected the physical in favour of the spiritual, it has veered towards Hinduism. Contact with Hinduism has »acquainted Englishmen with their deeper natures. 61

Victorian Images of Islam

Contact with Islam has reminded Englishmen that ultimate reverence is due to the 'unseen'. Contact with Buddhism has reminded them that 'true religion is above all systems' and that Christianity fails when it degenerates into just another system. Unless the Church is a 'living body ...united', she can not 'heal the broken limbs of the world' wherein lies her true mission. Only by truly asserting the 'higher ground' can the Church effect reconciliation. Addressing the missionary enterprise, which the terms of the Boyle lectures required of him, Maurice saw the missionaries' task as one of interpreting and reconciling the other religions. Real faith, he believed, belongs to the whole human race, not to nations or particular races. Christianity must be universal. Developing his belief that Christ is the head of mankind and that 'every man is in Christ, whether he knows it or not', Maurice commended St Paul's strategy at Athens. Paul had accepted that the Stoics and Epicureans were already searching for God and that, although ignorantly, they were actually worshipping Him. He did not ask the Greeks to cease to believe in their 'powers ruling in the sun or moon', but to acknowledge Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The gospel was adopted as the missing centre of their philosophical mythology: 'This was its charm—the Greek had a world without a centre—the preachers of the Gospel made the centre known to him. What could revolve around it, fell into its proper orbit, what determined to move independently of the centre, was seen to be unnatural and distracted' (Religions, p. 222). However, it is vital that Christ, not limited perceptions of Him, is supplied as the missing centre. Maurice was aware that Western Christianity had sometimes degenerated into a religion of social control—'to make servants respectful of their masters, to keep the humble classes from interfering with the privileges of their superiors'. The Kingdom was too often preached as a 'place where certain rewards were bestowed for decency of conduct here' (Religions, p. 236). Propagated among conquered races, Christianity would lose its universality if it was identified too closely with a particular people, class or sect We must ascertain 'whether we are holding a faith which addresses us as members of a class, a class of fine gentlemen, philosophers, divines, or one which addresses us as men, which explains the problems of our human life' (Religions, p. 249). Too often, Maurice suggested, workers in Manchester or in Birmingham have been addressed not as men but as spinners or hardware manufacturers. Religion has been made to 'keep hands in the state in which they will do most work and give the least trouble'. Missionaries must 62

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

not be seen to preach that Jesus is the head of their sect or that He took nature as an 'Englishman, Frenchman or Spaniard', but of 'man'. Otherwise, the evangelized will say: These Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards or Englishmen acknowledge a certain teacher to whom they attach very high titles. They wish us to acknowledge their teacher instead of those whom we in Arabia, Persia or Hindostán have been accustomed to honour....they wish to make us Europeans, to bring us over to their modes and habits of thinking. (Religions, p. 239)

To retain its universality, Christianity must be able to 'deal with men in all possible conditions'. A religion for 'spinners' is not one for 'men' and will have little or nothing to say to those who, in Tibet or Persia, are not 'called to spin or woric in hardware, but who are creatures of a kindred kind with those who do'. Maurice suggested that without seeking out men in each and eveiy human condition, it would not be possible to preach the message that is 'not of man, nor by man but for man, ...tere and everywhere'. Although he felt that Christian disunity damaged the missionary cause, he did not denounce missions. Since Europeans were already trading with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, 'conquering them' or 'keeping possession of their lands', it is inevitable that Christians should 'have some kind of communication with them' and not to 'relate to them spiritually would be to deny that they are spiritual beings'. Indeed, if Christians limit their Christianity to England, they will corrupt it; it will 'adapt itself to the habits and fashions and prejudices of England'. Contact with other faiths is therefore necessary for Christianity, to help it return to its true ground. Interfaith relations, then, is properly a universal Christian concern. (Religions, pp. 247-8) Maurice also defended the policy of religious neutrality against those who believed that it constituted a betrayal of England's national faith. In his Lincoln's Inn sermon 'On Theology and Government in India', he asked, if as a nation England committed itself to evangelize India to 'preach an ethical religion to supersede that which exists among Hindoos and Mussulmans', would she not also, being Protestant, choose 'to evangelize India according to Protestant maxims...in a Protestant way'. He suggested that what in fact would be propagated would not be Christian faith, but a 'set of theological notions, tenets concerning God', in short, a national, English religion. The apostles, he continued, were not commissioned to propagate 'certain tenets of certain doctors or of a certain church', but 'His own message concerning Himself (Lincoln's Inn, 4:250-1). Unless modern missionaries do this, the result will not be the til

Victorian Images of Islam

bringing of people into a living relationship with Christ but recruitment of members to a religious system. For example, in approaching Muslims, missionaries should not tiy to give them images or symbols when what they want is the symbolized.

Critical Response Perhaps surprisingly, since its author was already an established scholar, Religions was not reviewed as widely as Mahometanism Unveiled. The Eclectic (85:686-701) typifies the critical reaction to Maurice's approach, praising the book as from the pen of 'a distinguished clergyman of the Established Church, a professor of theology in the metropolitan university and the Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, a worthy example of British scholarship beginning to think for itself. Germans had led the way for too long, the reviewer continued, and too many theologians merely aped their 'eccentricities'. In their criticism of the biblical texts, said the Eclectic, the Germans had all but accused the biblical authors of 'imposture'. They had mythologized all ancient history and subjectivized all truth so that religion had been reduced to 'the outward workings of the religious principle in man'. Against this view, Maurice was offering an 'antidote' (pp. 686-7). However, in the reviewer's opinion, the antidote failed because, in examining the principal religions of the world, Maurice attributed their influence to 'something in each which is intrinsically good and divine'. Although he pointed out the errors and defects in other religions, he yet claimed that the errors could be corrected and the defects 'supplied by Christianity', which embodies 'every principle in them that may be regarded as divine' (p. 692). For example, against all that had been alleged against Muhammad's character, or about his appeal to the swoid, Maurice maintained that 'Islamism should be regarded as a grand and blessed testimony to the existence of a Divine and Almighty Will, to which all other wills are to be bowed and that this is the only explanation of its power' (p. 693). Just as Forster's reviewers could not accept his picture of Islam as a 'blessing', so the Eclectic reviewer rejected Maurice's idea that Islam witnessed the Almighty: Mr Maurice has out-Carlyled Carlyle in his defence and admiration of the great Arabian impostor, whom he has converted into a religious reformer and witness for God...but still we have to ask why a crafty homicide, who rioted 64

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872 through the whole of the latter part of his life in sensuality and blood, should be canonized in the nineteenth century, as a great reformer or witness for God. (p. 699)

Muhammad himself, the reviewer suggested, 'with the consciousness he must have had of his crimes and impostures' could not have 'dreamt that in a Christian land, he should find himself so metamorphosized' (p. 699). Forster and Maurice were thus both accused of attempting to vindicate the indefensible: Islam could not be regarded as anything but a curse. However, whereas Forster's critics based their argument on their interpretation of the Genesis narrative, Maurice's based theirs on an interpretation of his concept that something divine lies at the heart of all great religions. The reviewer asked, if the 'heathen theologies' are not 'discoveries of the human mind', what are they? Are they separate revelations? 'Mr Maurice...presumably regards them as "divine traditions" but neglects to say so. Yet, if they are not to be thus accounted for what can they be but the "woiking of the religious principle in man" which he denies?' (pp. 696-7). The suggestion here is that Maurice ascribes the 'divine something' in all religions to God's revelatoiy activity. The reviewer also found fault with Maurice's non-substitutionaiy theory of the atonement, suggesting that, while Maurice 'carefully speaks of Christ, with the devoutest of feeling, as Saviour', he failed to give the atonement the prominence it requires. Nevertheless, the book contained many interesting suggestions as to the manner in which world religions 'should be met by the Christian missionary'. Although the reviewer 'could not subscribe to some of them', he considered that they were 'all worthy of attention from those whose high office it is to preach among the heathen, the unsearchable riches of Christ' (p. 693). He commended Maurice's defence of missions against those who thought they 'wounded the prejudice of Indians', but criticized as unworthy his apology of the earlier generation of British officials who had opposed the admission of missionaries to India. Maurice ascribed this to their concern for the 'holy' and 'tender feelings' for the 'prejudices of the heathen'. In fact, said the Eclectic (p. 700), they not only wounded Christians at home but robbed and looted the very homes of the Indians for whom they claimed consideratioa The critic in the North British Review (7:299-303) was more positive about Maurice's Christian integrity, suggesting that in following his analysis of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, of the Greek, Roman, Persian and Egyptian systems and of how Christianity could 'aid all that is good in them' and displace 'all that is erroneous', he had been guided by one 63

Victorian Images of Islam

who had himself laid 'the grasp of so firm and earnest a faith on the great and peculiar doctrines of the gospel' (p. 300). Yet Maurice's 'candour and catholicism of spirit' had enabled him to 'look with a kindly eye upon whatever has ministered long and largely to the religious wants and longings of our natures' (p. 308). The reviewer hoped that the day was past when thoughtful people considered 'the religions of the world the artful fabrications of the few invented for the subjugation of the many'. 'Any faith, provided that it be sincere and strong' should not be 'pitied and despised' but 'respected, admired and...applauded'. Christians feared that by affirming truth in other faiths, Christianity's 'peculiar and distinctive claims' might be disowned and repudiated. Maurice had not done this but had patiently, candidly and honestly searched out truth and falsehood and suggested how Christianity 'comes in aid of all that is good' (p. 302). Generally, though with several notable exceptions, Maurice's theology was anathema to missionaries and to their supporters at home. Few specific references to Religions exist in the missionary press, but his overall theological position is referred to in a number of articles as being itself mimical to the cause of missions, a subject he also addressed in several published sermons. Indeed, it is inappropriate to isolate Religions from Maurice's overall theology, because the book's main achievement was the locating of a theology of interfaith encounter within a wider framework. Whereas the book was not widely reviewed, it was widely read and helped, as the century progressed, to attract theological respectability to the subject it reviewed. As Eric Sharpe points out, Maurice may have been removed from his theology chair at King's College but he remained a serving priest of the Established Church. He could not be silenced, nor could students, especially theological students, 'be prevented' from reading him, any more 'than they could be from reading Welhausen, Ritschl or Henry Drummond' (Sharpe, Comparative Religions, p. 148). The tide 'father of comparative religions' may have been won by Max Muller, but he was not a theologian. Though Muller was a loyal lay member of the Anglican Church and the first layman to preach at Westminster Abbey, he did not address the issues from within a theological framework of Christian orthodoxy and he was too much influenced by evolutionary theory for the liking of the academic establishment. Also, comparative religion at Oxford was first taught by the Unitarian Joseph Carpenter (1844-1927), at Manchester College. Later, at Mansfield, A.M. Fairburn (1838-1912) occasionally lectured in comparative 66

John FrederickDenison Maurice 1805-1872

religion. Respected scholars though Carpenter and Fairbum were, the one was a Unitarian, the other a dissenter and both were consequently outside the mainstream of university life. Eric Shaipe comments that there was thus: More than one reason why the academic establishment tended to look askance at this strange manifestation in its midst. The evolutionary science of religion was bad enough, coupled with Unitarianism it called forth a double measure of suspicion. (Comparative, p. 130)

Though much neglected in the twentieth century and not widely reviewed in the nineteenth, Maurice's book was nonetheless highly significant and influential. The man who was to build on its thesis was R. Bosworth Smith, who considered that it was the one which of 'perhaps air Maurice's writings 'best shows the character and mind of the man': Mr Maurice did far more, and penetrated far deeper (than is sometimes allowed and) when the acknowledged debts of the nineteenth century to its great writers come to be added up, I am convinced that it will be fully recognized that the mental powers of Mr Maurice rank as high as did the purity and nobility of his life, and more can hardly be said. (Mohammed and Mohammedanism, pp. 157-8)

Sharpe says that though Maurice was at times 'dreadfully inaccurate', he exhibited a breadth 'of sympathy' and a 'desire for accurate and up to date information which was unusual at the time'. A scholar such as Charles Hardwick (1821-57), said Sharpe, may have known more than Maurice but it was the latter who 'succeeded in presenting the non-Christian religions not merely as tissues of falsehood but as evidence of man's inalienable desire to worship' (Comparative, p. 146). It was because scholars such as Maurice were prepared to address seriously the subject of comparative religion that it eventually could no longer be dismissed as a field for eccentrics and the unorthodox. The motive behind Maurice's Religions can be described in words of Paul Tillich, who wrote 'a Christian theology which is not able to enter into a creative dialogue with the theological thought of other religions misses a world-historical occasion and remains provincial' (Systematic Theology, 3:6). Maurice was profoundly convinced that theology must not be provincial but universal. In addition to Smith, several scholars also acknowledged their indebtedness to Religions. In The Catechetical School of Alexandria, C.E. «7

Victorian Images of Islam

Kennet spoke highly of Maurice. T.E. Slater (1840-1912), a London Missionaiy Society missionary in India, was influenced by Maurice, especially in his Higher Hinduism in Relation to Christianity. Slater, who developed a fulfilment approach to Hinduism, was actually accused of 'Unitarianism' and called to account for his views by the LMS Board. He aimed to preach Christianity: Not as a voice sounding the knell of doom to non-Christian nations, but in the firm persuasion that all are by nature Christians, to hold it up as that in which Hindus would find realized and satisfied the noblest and earliest ideas of their sages, and the truest sentiments and yearnings of their hearts. (Slater, God Revealed, p. iii)

It is easy to see how this view could have taken its cue from Maurice's belief that Christ is the head of all: compare his statement that the Hindu system is to be seen as 'evidence that there is that in man which demands a revelation that there is not in him which makes a revelation'. Slater, in turn, influenced J.N. Farquhar who was introduced to his woik on his arrival in India. Dr Edward Wilmot Blyden was also familiar with Maurice's book, recording in a letter of 1875 that he had sent his copy of Religions to be rebound. Professor E.A. Freeman refers to the book in his review article 'Mahometanism in the East and West', writing that Maurice offers some 'excellent remaiks', if tinged with 'some of the author's well known peculiarities' (North British Review, xxiii:470). Freeman maintained a negative attitude to Islam and found unexpected support for some of his arguments in Maurice's thesis that Islam flourishes only when it is placed in an antagonistic position to other religions, but degenerates when the enemy is defeated and the sword put to rest. However, the context in which Maurice locates this thesis is somewhat more positive towards Islam than Freeman's—hence, the 'peculiarities' of Maurice's thought. T.W. Arnold refers to these same remarks in The Preaching of Islam. In the twentieth century, Christopher Lamb has suggested that Maurice influenced Bishop Kenneth Cragg, who calls Christians to retrieve what is wholesome and holy from Islam. However, with some exceptions, missionaries generally thought Maurice's whole position endangered their cause. An article in the Church Missionary Intelligencer of September 1866, for example, showed 'how the Neo-Platonism of Maurice tended to foster carelessness about missionaiy effort' (Stock, CMS History, 2:345). The writer attacked what he called 'philosophized Christianity', which 'might be Christian...but the ideas which are veiled under these 68

John Frederick Deniion Maurice 180S-1872

phrases are not Christian'. Their opinions are 'inconsistent with and subversive of genuine Christianity'. Though professing to believe in the Trinity, the 'philosophized Christian' school speak so vaguely of it that one is led 'to the apprehension that, by the expression Trinity, some of its members understood not so much distinct persons, as models of deity and aspects of the godhead, in short a triad of hypostases'. They nullify the atonement by positing that 'prototypes of mankind' dwelt 'in the Father from all eternity' and that this relationship can never be disannulled. Christ came not 'to save' but simply to manifest this indissoluble oneness. Thus (and this was Maurice's view), 'there was nothing of a penal nature in the death of Christ, nothing of a propitiatory or expiatory character' (CMI, September 1866:257-61). Maurice's sermons on the Indian Mutiny and 'against prayer in connection with the providential dealings of God' exemplify 'the objections' urged by 'this philosophical school against our modes of conducting missionary enterprises' {CMI, 1866:261). In fact, Maurice emphatically did not reject missions but repeated his argument that what must be preached is Christ, not Christianity. Christ 'laid down his life for Muslims...as well as for us', said Maurice, but our evangelism will not succeed if we preach a religious system and not Christ who 'was born, and died, and lives to make the oriental and the occidental...one family in Him' (Maurice, Lincoln's Inn, 2:264-6). As long as people think 'of Christianity chiefly as a Western or English religion, which is to drive out different Asiatic religions', evangelism will fail, since 'God, and not man, has put them [other religions] there' (Lincoln's Inn, 2:214). Instead, Christian faith must be broad enough to affirm that 'all gifts with which men are endowed are gifts of the Holy Spirit' and that Christ is 'the author of all that is pure and true' (Lincoln's Inn, 2:234). Earlier, in 1857, John C. Miller (1814-1880) in his Missionary Sermon had denounced the 'teachings of this school' as 'another Gospel...a Gospel which must fail to enrich men and which will bring no gloiy to God'. Maurice's gospel was considered insufficiently condemnatory of human sin. There is, said Miller, according to the teaching of this theological school, no such offensiveness in sin as to render it impossible it should be pardoned (Stock, CMS History, p. 340). Still earlier, in the Christian Observer in 1855, John Cunningham (1780-1861) had reviewed some works of Jowett and Maurice: 'Breadth...was all very well; but what sort of breadth? There is such a thing as the breadth of the bright, deep, flowing river and there is the breadth of the shallow and corrupted marsh' (Stock, CMS History, p. 69

Victorian Images of Islam

340). Maurice would probably have agreed with this verdict on the Broad Churchmen. R. Bosworth Smith, who acknowledged much indebtedness to Maurice would, in turn, be criticized by the Church Missionary Society for heeding Maurice rather than the apostles, who had been taught by Christ, not by 'Mr Maurice or Mr Matthew Arnold; and when they lived, the science of comparative religion was not yet even in its infancy....That highly artificial product of modern intelligence, the introduction of Professor Max Muller, was still in the womb of the future' (CMI, March 1874:231-2). No references to Maurice appear to have been made by Muslim writers. Muslims tended to read those Christian writers who addressed other areas of concern, especially biblical criticism which could be used to question the reliability of Christian scripture and therefore the validity of Christian teaching compared with the Quran. However, from the Christian perspective, the value of Maurice's contribution lies in his attempt to provide a theological framework in which the debate between Christianity and other religions could be pursued. He was prophetic in locating much of his discussion around the doctrine of revelation and his own belief that Christ is the head of all. The Eclectic, though, was incisive in its criticism that Maurice failed to explain what the relationship is between 'religions' and 'revelation'. Are religions man's own response to the hidden presence of Christ in the world of His creation, fully knowable only through the Christ-event, or are they separate revelations from God, or the remnant of primordial revelation. If either of the latter, writers such as William St Clair Tisdall would reject Maurice as compromising the uniqueness of Christ. Tisdall maintained that Christianity differs in kind, not in degree, from other faiths. They may be viewed as the result of human thirsting after God, and Christianity may quench this thirst. Maurice's position becomes clearer if it is assumed that he believed religions to have originated from 'the remnant of antediluvial or patriarchal revelation' (Eclectic, 85:697). He wanted, however, to say more: than that other religions are fulfilled in Christ; he was striving to articulate a less imperialistic approach than that of some exponents of the fulfilment theory. Here he may be compared to Forster, who was content to leave the final issue with God. Maurice predates Max Muller and the theory of evolution. Smith was influenced by both and succeeded in synthesizing Muller and evolutionary theory with Maurice. Muller believed that Christianity was a 'superior stage' in religious evolution, that other religions were 'preliminary stages'. However, 70

John FrederickDenison Maurice 1805-1872

Christianity was itself in a state of process and its 'superiority' was relative, not absolute. Muller wrote, 'The true religion of the future will be the fulfilment of all the religions of the past' (2:135). Maurice was searching for a similar concept. For him, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism not only 'bore witness' to the gospel but prevented the religion of the gospel from degenerating. As for Forster, Isaac without Ishmael was incomplete, so, for Maurice, Christianity without other faiths was liable to self-distortion. Indeed, until the gospel had been tested in all conditions of life, it remained particular to some and failed to be truly universal. Maurice was also prophetic in locating conversion as problematic; he did not reject conversion but rightly pointed out how Europeans tended to convert non-Europeans to being European so that Christianity was for them dressed up in European clothes. Maurice foresaw how intermingled European rule, commerce and religion would inevitably be viewed by non-Europeans who have spoken of the part played by missions and Western Orientalist scholarship in the dialectic of information and control which consolidated colonial rule. His attitude towards imperialism is not easy to determine. He was not, comments C.R. Sanders, a democrat: 'he believed that governments were established by God and that kings reigned by His grace, not by the consent of their subjects' (p. 259n4). However, Maurice believed that kings should rule justly and nations should be just in their relationships with other nations. In his sermons on the Indian crises, Maurice criticized the commercial companies for not treating Indians as fellow human beings, but he laid the blame for this at the feet of those people in England who regarded 'Asiatics with scorn and hatred' instead of as people 'made in the image of God' (Maurice, Lincoln's Inn, 2:212). The question for Maurice was not how Britain had acquired an empire or whether one ought to have been acquired, but whether Britain treated all her subjects as children of a common father. Maurice, then, viewed Islam as of permanent value, as a testimony to the gospel which he called a 'debtor' to Islam. He did not question the extent to which Islam had been propagated by the sword, but he did depict Muhammad as a reformer wd a witness for God. He did not speak of Islam as a blessing as Forster had, but he did speak positively of its contribution to the development of a national sense and of society in Western Europe. He did not stress the Isaac-Ishmael relationship as had Forster, but he did speak of a 'real affinity between Islam and Christianity', and as had Forster, he wrote in order to respond theologically as a Christian to the challenge of other faiths. For him, too, Islam had a 71

Victorian Images of Islam

vital part to play in God's future; it need not be replaced by Christianity. What is highly significant is that what was for others a point of criticism of Islam was for Maurice one of its strengths, namely, its combination of church and state. Christians either neglect the spiritual in favour of materialism or forget that the physical world is also to be redeemed as 'part of God's kingdom'. Too often, Christians have regarded the world as evil and have failed to uphold justice within society and to fulfil their duty as stewards of God's creation. For Maurice, religion and politics could not be separated: a conviction that stemmed from his fervent desire for unity. His work in the Cooperative Movement involved partnership with freethinkers and others, who shared the movement's ideals but whose convictions were not Christian. Maurice inclined towards the view that 'all who did Christ's work' were 'worthy fellow labourers' (Higham, p. 77). In Religions he almost, though not quite, suggests that Muslims may also be fellow labourers and not, as many contemporaries would claim, the devil's workers. Maurice, for his part, felt able to work with 'all men of honest purpose'. Smith was to develop, in particular, Maurice's emphasis on faith as opposed to belief, with particular reference to the consequences of this for missionary evangelism. As a recent review of Religions suggests, Maurice still has much to teach, including 'breadth of knowledge, and generosity of spirit in seeking what is good in other faiths' and 'humility in learning from them' (Sargant, p. 36). Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Maurice's work is that, apart from several passing references in his sermons, he never returned to the subject. If to attempt to address such complex issues in one volume was ambitious, not to return with the hindsight of more detailed research was, arguably, for a scholar of his status bordering on arrogance. Further research would have shown that Islam can flourish without wielding the sword. It would also have shown more positive examples of interaction between Islam and Christianity. Maurice must be criticized for failing to follow through his ideas in order to support them with accurate historical data. Schemes explaining Christianity's relationship with other world faiths must be based on accurate knowledge of their teaching and history. Maurice was less interested in facts than in truth. For example, though he disapproved of Bishop Colenso's work on the Pentateuch, his disapproval was pastoral rather than theological. He was concerned that what might be understood as an attack on the accuracy and reliability of scripture might undermine people's faith. He himself was not really veiy interested in 72

John Frederick Denison Maurice 1805-1872

when or by whom a text had been written, but with the eternal truth it enshrined. Where his theology was weakest was in his inability to explain why certain truths are true. He refused to say why they were not opinions as are the objects of other people's judgements. H. CunliffeJones comments, 'Maurice didn't explain. He merely asserted, and he was annoyed if his main convictions were questioned' (p. 90). Reginald Bosworth Smith, as a professional historian, was able to cast Maurice's thinking within a more detailed historical structure. However, Smith still remained primarily committed to ideas which, at times, also inhibited his critical acumea

4

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

Reginald Bosworth Smith, JP, MA, historian and biographer, is described best as a man of letters. In addition to three major books, he contributed several significant articles to the periodical press and wrote numerous letters to The Times. In his own lifetime his influence in public and political life was widely recognized. The Dictionary of National Biography records that he 'constantly and effectively intervened in current political, religious and educational controversies', while The Harrovian speaks of how 'burning articles from his pen in the press and magazines' illuminated 'the great questions of the day, social, political and ecclesiastical' (xiv:76). He was a self-confessed Liberal, who did not always agree with his own party. Smith's career is soon told. After school at Milton Abbas and Marlborough, where he was Head Boy and was much influenced by G.E.L. Cotton (1813-66), later Bishop of Calcutta, he matriculated to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was president of the Union in 1862 and graduated with a first-class degree in Moderations and Litterae Humaniores. After graduation, he taught classics for three years at Corpus Christi and Trinity, where he was a Fellow, before marrying and moving to a permanent post as an Assistant Master at Harrow. From 1870 until his retirement, he was Master of 'The Knoll', one of Harrow's large houses, which he built at his own expense. In very active retirement at Bingham's Melcombe, Dorset, he served as a magistrate and as a member of the local Education Committee. Smith was the son of a distinguished Anglican clergyman, Canon Reginald Southwell Smith (1809-96), rector between 1836 and 1896 of West Stafford, Dorset, and a canon of Salisbury. Himself a loyal laymember of the Church of England, Smith became a member of both the Salisbury Diocesan Council and of the House of Laymen in the 74

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

representative Church Council at Westminster. He also chaired the Harrow branch of the Bible Society. Our concern, however, is with his interest in Islam, which began in the early 1870s when Harrow's headmaster, H. Montagu Butler (1833-1918) suggested that staff members should research and write essays outside their usual school work. Smith had read Maurice's The Religions of the World, several of Max Muller's books and Dean Stanley's Lectures on the Eastern Church (1862), which contained a chapter on Islam. Consequently, his thoughts had already 'turned towards the study of comparative religion and the relations between civilized nations and those on a different plane of culture' (Grogan, p. 75). Smith's world was very different from Forster's. The years between them had seen the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of the Species which no theologian could now ignore. While many Christian writers continued to denounce evolution, some attempted to respond creatively: foremost was Max Muller who almost single-handedly founded science of religion, or comparative religion, as an academic discipline. Muller used evolution to make sense of the relationship between religions and concluded that Christianity represented 'a superior stage in religious evolution'. Christianity's superiority was, for Muller, only relative. Since all religion is 'the light of truth as reflected in human minors, however pure and spotless...[the] mirror may be, there is none which in reflecting does not deflect the rays of light that fall on it' (Sharpe, Not To Destroy, p. 46). All religions, therefore, had legitimacy for Muller, who believed that all contained elements of the true light Consequently, they must be studied with respect and sympathy and Christian missionaries who dismissed other religions as totally false were guilty of blasphemy since they ascribed to the devil what in reality was God's work. Muller believed that the evolutionary process was not yet complete but would eventually produce what he called the 'true religion of humanity'. This would be derived not from ecclesiastical Christianity as Muller knew it, but from 'all the varied repositories of truth scattered over the face of the earth' (Sharpe, Not To Destroy, p. 48). Clearly influenced by Muller, Smith began his study of Islam convinced that too many Christian writers had 'approached Islam only to vilify and misrepresent it', writing from preconceived positions. Consequently, its 'defects' were 'well known', while 'its merits' were 'almost ignored', by the great majority of Englishmen (Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism [hereinafter M&M], 1874, p. ix). He determined to 75

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

write about Islam from the viewpoint of a friendly critic, dwelling 'on what is good rather than on what is evil', searching for 'points of resemblance rather than of difference', pointing out 'what is the outcome of mere human weakness as distinguished from the flaws in the primal documents of the religion, or in the life of its founder' (M&M, 1876, p. xii). Smith aimed to 'turn the mirror in upon himself, to ensure that he complied with 'that great principle of Christianity of judging and of treating others as we would wish to be judged and treated'. He was convinced that this attitude was the 'only way in which the better spirits of rival creeds can ever be brought to understand one another' {M&M, 1876, p. xii). He was also much influenced by the writings of Matthew Arnold (1822-88) with his emphasis on ideas rather than form, on the spirit instead of the letter. Although he thought highly of F.D. Maurice, he did not share Maurice's confidence in the creeds, which Smith found restrictive and divisive and believed that the removal of 'stumbling blocks and disabilities' would strengthen rather than weaken the Church of England, in whose 'elasticity' he rejoiced. At Oxford, he had supported Benjamin Jowett (1817-97) in the controversy following the publication of Essays and Reviews (1860) and thereafter vigorously opposed 'anything like persecution for conscientiously held opinion' (Grogan, pp. 193-4). Smith shared Maurice's dislike of labels and refused to identify himself with any single party, although like Maurice he counted many leading Broad Churchmen, including Dean Stanley, among his personal friends. His catholicity led him to friendships with many of the leading ecclesiastical, literaiy and political personalities of the day, including the Unitarian divine James Martineau (1805-1900) with whom, his daughter records, 'he probably spoke more than with any other man on life's deeper things' (Grogan, p. 93). Smith wrote that Martineau 'always seemed to look beyond material things'. Smith's position at Harrow, his membership of the Athenaeum Club, and his own family background (his grandfather was Sir John Wyldbore Smith [1770-1852]) no doubt helped to bring him into social contact with a wide range of people. In the context of his study of Islam, these friendships are not insignificant. Smith claimed no expertise in Oriental studies but was, like Maurice, an amateur, dependent on sources available in English. He had no experience of life in a Muslim country. However, many of his friends had considerable such experience which suggests that he was able to draw on their knowledge, at least in his later if not in his early woik. He 76

ReginaldBosworth Smith ¡839-1908

researched his subject extensively, reading almost eveiything available in English and some in French. He read classical and contemporary authors, including many journal articles and reviews. His bibliography provides an index to many excellent but now obscure articles, such as Meredith Townsend's 'The Great Arabian' and Emanuel Deutsch's 'Islam'. Smith thought veiy highly of Deutsch (1829-73), the Talmud scholar who was a colleague of the Lane Pooles at the British Museum. He also read many of the authors whose work had earlier been consulted by Forster: Gagnier, Sale, Ockley and others. In his chapter on Muhammad, he reviewed Christian attitudes towards the prophet of Islam from the seventh century to his own day. He suggested that it was not until the initial shock of Islam's dramatic rise had subsided that European Christians had any time to reflect theologically about Islam. Once the Muslim advance had been checked, they manufactured 'calumnies and victories at pleasure' against Islam, inventing non-existent victories over the 'destroyer of idols' whom they transformed into 'an idol of Gold' (M&M, 1876, p. 75ff). A dark picture was painted of Islam to contrast with the light self-image of Christianity and every crime imaginable was popularly associated with Muhammad. Smith interestingly traced several words, such as 'mummery' (superstition) to perverted forms of Muhammad. Thus, Muhammad was a servant of the devil and the physical enemy was identified as the spiritual enemy against which Christians were summoned to fight. In the imagination of both Catholic and reformed biblical commentators, Smith observed, Muhammad was the subject of special prophecy in Daniel and Revelations: 'He is the Little Horn, the Antichrist, and I know not what besides' (M&M, 1876, pp. 77-8). In reformed thinking, Muhammad divided this peculiar 'credit or discredit' with the Pope. Smith suggested that with the 'strange exception of Maimonides', not a single writer treated Muhammad 'as other than a rank impostor' (MAM, 1876, p. 81). He is at the very least unfair to Sale, but correct in observing that Prideaux, Voltaire and Carlyle had addressed the subject 'to prove a thesis': Muhammad was to be either a 'hero or an impostor'. Consequently, they teach us 'much that has been said about Mohammed but comparatively little of Mohammed himself. Therefore, even when as in Carlyle 'extravagant destruction' gave way to 'extravagant eulogy', the result was equally inconsistent with what 'Mohammed claimed for himself and most Englishmen still happily sung Charles Wesley's hymn' (M&M, 1876, p. 82): 77

Victorian Images ofIslam

The smoke of the infernal cave Which half the Christian world o'erspread, Disperse, thou heavenly light, and save The souls by that impostor led That Arab thief, as Satan bold Who quite destroyed thy Asian fold. Oh may thy blood once sprinkled cry For those who spurn they sprinkled blood! Assert they glorious Deity, Stretch out thine aim, thou Triune God, The Unitarian fiend expel And chase his doctrine back to hell. Smith called Gagnier (1670-1740) the first European to attempt a genuine assessment of Muhammad's character. Sales's Koran, too, provided Gibbon, 'the materials for his splendid chapter on Mohammed' (.M&M, 1876, p. 84). Smith regretted that dislike of Gibbon's treatment of Christianity prejudiced people against his treatment of Muhammad, which he rated superior to Carlyle's, from whose account 'Englishmen who do not condemn the prophet unheard derive what favourable notions they have'. However, Smith continued, nineteenth-centuiy scholars such as Aloys Sprenger (1813-93) and William Muir had placed 'the materials for a fair and unbiased judgement within the reach of eveiyone' (M&M, 1874, p. xxii). Therefore,Smith was able to use the classical writers and the fruit of the 'new methodology' in Western Orientalist scholarship. They used original sources, the Sira and Hadith, including recently edited texts unavailable to earlier European writers. In addition to Sprenger and Muir, Smith relied heavily on facts culled from Caussin de Perceval's Essai sur l'Histoire des Arabes (1847), T. Noldeke's Geschichte des Ourans (1860) and G. Weil's Sirat-er-Racoul (1864). In his treatment of Moorish Spain, he also used R. Dozy's Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne (1861). Smith accepted Muir's and Sprenger's books as reliable and accurate in historical detail but, as an historian, he criticized their impartiality and their assessment of Islam. In Smith's opinion, Muir's Life was 'learned and comprehensive, able and fair', but 'its scientific value' was 'somewhat impaired by theological assumptions about the nature of inspiration, and by the introduction of a personal Ahriman, which, whilst it is self-contradictoiy in its supposed operation, seems to me only to create new difficulties instead of solving old ones' (M&M, 1874, p. xxvii). In completing his book, Smith read Sayyid Ahmad Khan's 78

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

Essays on the Life of Mohammed and Sayyid Ameer Ali's Examinations on the Life and Teachings of Mohammed, and suggested that from a Muslim point of view, they advocated 'something of the spirit and...the results', which he urged from the Christian viewpoint. He 'purposefully abstained from consulting them', since to arrive independently at similar results might be better proof of their value (M&M, 1874, pp. xxx-i). In setting out to 'render justice to what...has been good in Mohammed's influence on the world' (M&M, 1874, p.xx), Smith knew veiy well that tradition was against him. His own appraisal stands firmly in the tradition of Forster and Maurice, though his thinking was not in all respects identical to theirs. He was less fundamental in his biblical interpretation and more evolutionary in his theology of religions. There is no evidence of direct indebtedness to Forster, though, at the very least, he would have read Maurice's remaiks on Forster in The Religions of the World. Smith wrote, 'perhaps of all his writings', this book 'best shows us the character and mind of the man' (M&M 1874, p. xxviii). He shared with Forster the belief that Islam's influence was salutary, not baneful, and that it prepared the way for rather than opposed Christianity. Many of his sources, including Sir William Muir, claimed that Islam was always, everywhere and intrinsically opposed to civilization. He used, for example, both E.A. Freeman's History and Conquests of the Saracens and his January 1872 Quarterly Review article, 'Mahomet', which reviewed Muir and upheld his views. Edward Augustus Freeman, Regius Professor of History at Oxford, claimed, like Smith, no 'Oriental learning', but thought there was 'some advantage in a treatise composed not by a professional Oriental scholar, but by one who looks at Eastern history through Western eyes'. He judged 'the West to be progressive, legal, monogamous and Christian', the East as 'stationary, arbitrary, polygamous and Mahometan' (Freeman, History, pp. i, 4). His History and Conquests of the Saracens was substantially an estimate of Muhammad's character. He admitted that Muhammad 'soars above every other man recorded in the history of the East', but thought Islam 'an object of abhorrence,...essentially an obstructive, intolerant system'. Muhammad might not have been 'the Antichrist of scripture', but Islam was 'emphatically anti-Christian', the 'bitterest foe to Christian faith and Western law' (History, p. 72). Smith's view would sharply contrast with that of the Regius Professor, even though he shared his critique of Muir's historical method. Smith's own critics questioned his Christian commitment as a result of the attitude towards Islam which marked Mohammed and 79

Victorian Images of Islam

Mohammedanism, but his clearly stated intent was to write as a Christian who retained 'paramount allegiance to Christianity' while trying to portray 'without favour and without prejudice' another religion (M&M, p. xxiii). While some of his friends, such as the poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, paid their tribute to Christian faith by repudiating it, Smith's own purpose was to make Christian sense of the phenomena of Islam. He began this task by discussing a theology of religions, which he grounded in ethics and in morality. Acknowledging a particular debt to F.D. Maurice, Smith placed his ideas within a histoiy of religions framewoik provided by Muller, for whom, in 1846, Maurice had expressed high hopes. Although a layman, Smith did not hesitate to address the theological questions involved in attempting to contribute to what he himself called the science of comparative religion. A vital element in Smith's approach was to be as critical of his own creed as he was of others. He was, however, fully aware of the difficulties involved for people of faith to judge another religion without bias. All too easily, Christians would 'rise from their study of other religions convinced that they...fall short of the fullness of their own, just as Muslims and Buddhists would reach similar decisions concerning their faiths (M&M, p. 67). Nevertheless, a person of faith is better placed to study another faith because he knows what it is to have faith. This is denied those who either hold that all religions are equally true or that they are equally false, since either opinion is incapacitating 'for viewing the Mussulman creed from the Mussulman standpoint', which Smith tried to do. The substance of Smith's Mohammed and Mohammedanism was delivered as lectures to colleagues at Harrow in 1872. The enlarged and revised lectures were delivered before a distinguished audience, which included Charles Darwin, Matthew Arnold and Dean Stanley, at the Royal Institution and subsequently published by Smith and Elder (1874) with an American edition by Harper the following year. In the second edition (1876), Smith responded to some of the critics, 'the great majority of them incisive yet kind, just yet scrupulously appreciative'. The third edition (1889) was, his daughter and biographer observed, 'warmly received by some of the veiy newspapers' which had condemned the first edition. Unlike Forster and Maurice, Smith maintained his interest in Islam throughout his life. Through the publication of Mohammed and Mohammedanism, he gained Muslims friends. He developed a particular interest in Africa, on which he wrote several articles, most significantly, 'Mohammedanism in Africa' and 'Englishmen in Africa'. Although he 80

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

only ever visited Tunisia, he became a recognized authority on African affairs, not least through his friendship with Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), with Chief Tetteh Agamazong of Quiah, the Revd James Johnstone of Lagos and with other leading Africans. Harrow boys were much impressed by the steady stream of 'distinguished coloured guests', whom they took 'for princes', bearing 'gifts to the biographer of Muhammed' (Harrovian, xxi:82). Smith refused to speak on Islam at the Church Congress in 1887 and again in 1889, but the first time Canon Isaac Taylor (1829-1901), a distinguished philologist, accepted in his place. Taylor based his lecture mainly on Smith, Blyden and the explorer Joseph Thomson (1858-94). Although Smith's book was, at least in academic circles, recognized as among the best accounts of Islam in English, Taylor's portrait of Islam as morally superior to Christianity in some respects and of Muslims as 'already imperfect Christians' and his conclusion that missionaries should try to reform rather than subvert Islam caused a furore in the religious press (the debate is more fully discussed in the appendix). Smith had declined the invitation because, still hurt by some of the less kind criticism of Mohammed and Mohammedanism, he thought the climate not yet sufficiently tolerant to allow the subject a fair hearing, given 'the 20 minutes allotted for the purpose'. He wrote, 'Canon Taylor rushed with headlong heedlessness upon all the dangers which had deterred or daunted himself ('Mohammedanism in Africa', p. 792). Smith wrote 'Mohammedanism in Africa' both to review BIyden's Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, which he called 'an epoch in the history of the Negro race' (Holden, p. 951) and as a contribution to the Taylor controversy. In 1894, however, he addressed the Anglican Missionary Conference on Islam, where he shared the platform with Sir Monier Williams on Hinduism and Bishop Coppleston on Buddhism; by 1905, he judged the climate more tolerant and finally accepted the Church Congress's long standing invitation. His paper, representing his mature reflection on Islam, testifies how little his opinions had changed and how similar, too, they actually were to Taylor's. His daughter wrote: 'Bosworth Smith repeated, with no uncertain sound, his matured convictions as to the way in which Christian missionaries should approach Mohammedanism; once more he urged that they should dwell on what is common to both faiths' (Grogan, p. 153). Smith thus repeated his call for an inclusive approach, though he thought an exclusive approach inevitable as long as missionaries insisted on imposing creeds on their converts 'as 81

Victorian Images ofIslam

something which must be accepted whole or not at all' (Church Congress Report, 1905:179). Theology of Religions There is much evidence in Smith's theology of religions of his indebtedness to Max Muller, with whom he ascribed all religions to the existence of holy ground. He denied that Christianity was different in kind to other faiths. Rather, as an evolutionary superior religion, it differed in degree. Therefore, he reasoned, Christians must not claim 'the monopoly of all that is good or true', nor that Christianity is 'the only revelation of Himself that God has given to the world'. Smith is less ambiguous than Maurice in affirming the revelatory origin of other faiths. He questioned whether anyone could fairly claim that there was 'no real revelation of God in the noble lives of Confiicious or Buddha, and no fragments of truth in the pure nobility of the systems which they founded' (M&M, 1876, p. 64). He questioned the distinction sometimes made between revealed and unrevealed religion by citing St Paul, who declared that if people ignorant of God's law do by nature what it demands, they are 'in truth a law to themselves'. Thus the voice of conscience is the voice of God and all religions are partially the result of human aspiration for communion with God. 'What we have to do', said Smith, 'is to feel after Him'. No one, he believed, could 'grope after God, even in the dark, without getting the light which is sufficient for them' (M&M, 1876, p. 70). Smith, who differed from Maurice in asserting a moral rather than a theological base of all religions, thought religion a universal phenomena. He accepted Muller's view that Christianity was a superior stage in religious evolution but suggested that peculiar lessons could be learned from studying Islam's origins since, of all religions, it was the 'most historical'. 'Who', he asked, 'could lift the veil of the thirty years that prepared the way for the three' (M&M, 1876, pp. 16-17) of Christ's life? With Islam, everything is different and we know as much about Muhammad as we do about Milton or Luther. Considered as a strictly historical religion, Islam promises to aid the investigation into the origin of all religion, because its origin can be traced more clearly than that of any other faith. Comparing Islam's and Christianity's permanence and strength, phenomena which had attracted both Forster and Maurice to think seriously about Islam, Smith concluded that for two religious systems to have exerted so great a hold upon much of mankind, many points of contact between them must exist. This 82

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

conviction was based on his desire for unity, which he shared with Maurice. He thus spoke of a unity beyond that of Christendom, 'a unity which rests upon the belief that "the children of one Father may worship Him under different names"; that they may be influenced by one spirit, even though they know it not; that they may have one hope, even if they have not one faith' (M&M, 1876, p. xxv-vi). He reacted against limited concepts of inspiration, which he said 'in the broadest sense of the word is to be found in all the greatest thoughts of man, for the workings of God are everywhere, and the spirits of men and nations are moulded by Him to bring about His purposes of love' {M&M, 1876, p. xvi). Maurice's influence can be seen in both Smith's idea that God is present in all people and in his concept of the ultimacy of God's love. Smith's object was not to localize God exclusively in one place or creed, 'but to trace Him everywhere in measure' (M&M, 1876, p. xvi). He clearly regarded both Muhammad and the Quran as subjects of this broadly defined inspiration, which he elsewhere identifies with enthusiasm. He spoke of the inspiration pent up within Muhammad producing passages equal in grandeur to some of the most sublime passages of Job, David or Isaiah. He rejected, however, the claim of mechanical revelation for the Bible as well as for the Quran, accepting Bacon's maxim that the human mind is 'an unequal mirror to the rays of things, mixing its own nature indissolubly with theirs' (M&M, 1876, p. 65). He was unhappy with attempts permanently to capture religious experience in formal creeds, which he considered ex viterim to be legal, logical, technical and metaphysical. However, they had helped to focus the collective thoughts of the adolescent church but thereafter spoke to the head, not the heart, and had wrongly obscured the fundamental message, that God is 'not primarily justice or truth, but love' (M&M, 1876, p. 277). Smith agreed with Matthew Arnold's thesis that poetic imagery becomes, in the course of time, mistaken for scientific exactness. Jesus himself, Smith observed, drew up no creed but simply called people to believe in Him. He therefore argued that since the early church had grown up 'without any elaborate and crystalized formulae of belief, is it not reasonable to suppose that new converts can still be added to it without similar aids or obstacles?' (Church Congress Report, p. 180). Muhammad As most Christian appraisals of Islam depend ultimately on the view taken of Muhammad, Smith devoted much space to a detailed discussion S3

Victorian Images of Islam

of Muhammad's life. I will review Smith's critique of Muir, Sprenger and such other writers as E.A. Freeman, concentrating on their views of Muhammad's sincerity and of alleged moral declension. Smith began his examination by defending Muhammad from Sprenger's and Renan's charge that Islam owed more to circumstance and to Muhammad's predecessors and successors than it did to him. He did not deny that Muhammad borrowed from elsewhere but thought that J.S. Renan (1823-92) was incorrect on two counts in explaining the whole fabric of Islam by the 'ideas that existed before Mohammed and the political direction given it by his successors' (M&M, 1876, p. 11). First, the question of originality was, Smith judged, a non-issue. Muhammad only ever claimed to be preaching 'the original creed of Khalil Allah, the Friend of God', and no religion, he argued, is less true 'because it recognises itself in other gaibs' {M&M, 1876, pp. 13-14). Jesus had come not to destroy but to fulfil, and Christianity owed much to both biblical and talmudical Judaism. Second, Renan was incorrect because it was Muhammad's genius which was needed to collect the pieces together: while a breeze may have been blowing in the Hanafite movement it was Muhammad who blew it into a storm. Describing Muhammad's vision in the cave at Mount Hira, Smith criticized Muir for choosing this 'period above all others...to suggest his peculiar views that the prophet's belief in his inspiration was Satanic in its origin'. Smith rejected this, suggesting that were it true, Satan 'never so completely outwitted himself, because once inspired, Muhammad 'revivified a third of the then known world' and effected a 'social and moral revolution' which few could have anticipated (M&M, 1876, p. 115-16). He also rejected Sprenger's theory that Muhammad's visions were caused by hysteria and catalepsy, that as 'all hysterical people have a tendency to lying and deceit', Muhammad was predisposed towards dishonesty (Sprenger, p. 2 lOff) Smith saw in Muhammad the type of inspired reformer who 'saw what he saw and took his stand', just as Luther who, had he read the Quran, might have recognized in Muhammad a singleness and a sincerity of purpose which 'would have made him honour him as a man even if he could not' welcome his as a brother (M&M, 1876, p. 119). Luther, Smith observed, had thrown an inkstand at the devil but no one diagnosed him as epileptic or hysterical. Smith offered as evidence of Muhammad's sincerity the fact that he initially rebelled against his calling, just as Isaiah had, who, despising soothsayers, in the irony of destiny became one himself. He also thought it significant that those who knew Muhammad best accepted him before 84

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

those who knew him least Until the Hijrah, Smith judged his sincerity 'beyond question'. He described at length the incident at Mt Thawr when, on the eve of the Hijrah, a search party from Mecca almost discovered the unarmed Muhammad and his sole companion, Abu Bakr, as they hid inside a cave. Muir had suggested that had Muhammad perished then and there, his life would not have degenerated and history would have recorded him as a noble searcher after truth. Smith, however, located in Muhammad's reassuring words to Abu Bakr, 'There is a third with us, it is God Himself, the key 'to almost everything else' in his character and suggested that nothing but calumny could couple this Arm conviction in God's presence with imposture. After the Hijrah, however, Smith upheld Muir's verdict that a change occurred, but not his verdict that this represented a moral declension. Rather, Muhammad changed tactics in response to a radically different situation. At Mecca he had been a religious reformer purely and simply; at Medina he was ruler and magistrate, employing means appropriate to these offices. Both Muir and Freeman judged Islam's combination of the civil and religious as its most fundamental transgression. Smith, however, thought this a strength rather than a weakness because it enabled Islam to develop a social consciousness which was often denied a church distinct from the state. He also argued that, despite change in both circumstance and tactics, what can be affirmed of Muhammad is not how much, but how little he differed from himself. Smith's next paragraph was widely cited by contemporary Muslim writers and is still quoted in Muslim books today: In the shepherd of the desert, in the Syrian trader, in the solitary of Mt Hira, in the reformer in the minority of one, in the exile of Medina, in the acknowledged conqueror, in the equal of the Persian Chores and the Greek Heraclius we can still trace a substantial unity. (M&M, 1876, p. 140)

To Smith, Muhammad was 'half-Christian, half-pagan, half-civilized, and half-barbarian, Head of State and Head of Church [he was yet] Pope without the Pope's pretensions and Caesar without all the legions of Caesar. He had all the power without its instruments and supports [and] if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by a right divine, it was Mohammad' (M&M, 1876, p. 341). Addressing Muir's specific charge, that Muhammad was 'guilty of the high blasphemy of forging the name of God', Smith acquitted him of imposture but not of sometimes subordinating everything else to his passionate belief in his inspiration. Sometimes 'personal fancy' received divine sanction. Muir 85

Victorian images ofIslam

had instanced Muhammad's marriage to Zeinab, a divorced wife of his adopted son as proving 'conscious insincerity'. Smith, however, pointed out that Muhammad's companions did not interpret this marriage as undesirable or as unlawful. Possibly, Muhammad justified the marriage and the Surah XXXIII:37 which sanctioned it, which Muir says introduced 'the dangerous doctrine of abrogation by the example of the Ethiopian marriage not condemned in the case of Moses' (M&M, 1876, p. 134) and by the notion of the Jewish rabbis that a properly commissioned prophet might supersede any law. Were Muhammad really guilty of forging the name of God, Smith asked, would he have dared challenge anybody in his last speech to 'mention ought they had against him' (M&M, 1876, p. 145)? Smith did not vindicate Muhammad of all alleged blemishes but suggested that for a man who never claimed to be other than 'a man of like passion with ourselves', it is not surprising that he sometimes stumbled. He also argued, as had Forster, that Christians are wrong to judge Muhammad by a standard he did not himself know. Muhammad drew his notions about Christ from a hopelessly corrupt Arabian Church, notorious for its 'pointless discussions of the minutest dogmas of the church' (M&M, 1876, p. 99). Sprenger, too, was unfair to accuse Muhammad of sensuousness, a charge which the facts did not support. Sprenger characteristically explained Muhammad's faithfulness to Khadijah as due to dependence, not inclination. Were that true, said Smith, 'why the interval before Mohammed married again and why, long afterwards, his noble outburst of gratitude to her memory when Ayishah contrasted her own beauty and Khadijah's age' (M&M, 1876, p. 152)? Smith's final estimate of Muhammad arguably went further than any writer who claimed to retain 'a paramount allegiance to Christianity'. Smith suggested that there is no more crowning proof of Muhammad's sincerity than that, until the end of his life, 'he claimed for himself that title only with which he had begun, and which the highest philosophy and the truest Christianity will one day, I venture to believe, agree in yielding to him—that of a Prophet, a veiy Prophet of God' (M&M, 1876, p. 344).

Muhammad and Ishmael Smith understood Islam to enjoy a fraternal relationship with Christianity, due to their shared indebtedness to Judaism. He spoke of them as 86

Reginald Bosworth Smith ¡839-1908

'branches of the same parent stock', each looking to 'the majestic character of Abraham as the first teacher of the unity of God'. 'The primary message delivered by Mohammed to the Arabs is almost identical to the message that Moses gave to the Hebrew people, in almost the same stage of civilization..., "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One Lord'". He surmised, too, that Muhammad was correct to assert that the 'children of Abraham by Ishmael' were not excluded from the blessing, 'In thee all families of the earth shall bless themselves' (Genesis 12:3). Consciously or unconsciously, this brings Smith very near to Forster's thesis. He regretted, though, that Islam's avowed relationship with Judaism had not 'protected it from the assaults of Christian apologists' (M&M, 1876, p. 13). Like most quarrels between near relations, that between Muslims and Christians was based on misunderstanding. He commented that John VI Cantacuzene (1292-1383) had regarded Muslims as 'sectaries', Dante had placed Muhammad in his 'inferno' as a heretic and Dean Stanley interpreted Islam as an Eastern heresy'(M£A/, 1876, pp. 260-1). Forster, who cited Joseph Meade's 'Mahommedanism began as a Christian heresy', regarded Islam as a heresy even though this sat uncomfortably with his thesis that Islam represents the providential fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham concerning Ishmael. From the perspective of Christian-Muslim relations, this view is significant. Although Christians have not always treated heretics with special regard, the Bible arguably teaches that heretics, like lost sheep, should be brought back into the fold. From a Muslim perspective, however, this view imposes a Christian definition on Islam, which it rejects. It is significant, though, that both Smith and Forster explicitly and Maurice implicitly accepted Muhammad and Muslims as spiritual heirs of Ishmael, which the confrontational school rejected. Spirituality of Islam Smith wrote that Islam 'is in the true sense of the word a spiritual religion' {M&M, 1876, p. 264). He also rejected the opinion of many critics that Islam is intrinsically fatalistic. Prayer, he suggested, would not play such a central role in a fatalistic religion, since prayer presupposes that the human condition can be affected and Muslims respond to the muezzin's call 'prayer is better than sleep' with 'full confidence in the efficacy of prayer'. Nor could Islam's appeal be explained by its alleged sensuousness. The fast, daily prayer, almsgiving, said Smith, appeal little to lazy, sensual or selfish people. Nothing could be more destitute 87

Victorian Images of¡slam

of truth than to argue that a religion owed 'its permanent success to bad morality' (M&M, 1876, p. 196). He praised Muslim prayer. Although he judged it sometimes as purely mechanical, it could also be 'sometimes more profoundly devotional'. He said that Christians too often compared Christianity's best with Islam's worst, forgetting, for example, that Christians had allowed external rites to gain undue prominence, so that the accidental, secondary and relative became absolute, primary and eternal. Without Wesley and Whitefield, English Christianity would hardly qualify as superior to the religion of pious Muslims. No religion should be judged by its corruptions. It was wrong to take Turkish despots or Persian libertines as typical of Muslims as it would be to take Pillar Saints or Shakers as typical of Christian life. He thought, though, that the hajj was an 'inconsistent concession to natural weakness' in so spiritual a religion as Islam, but following his principle of 'turning the mirror in upon himself he similarly criticized Christian pilgrimage. He suggested that the negative results of reverence for holy places outweighed positive ones.

Civilization in Islam Smith rejected the thesis that Islam was intrinsically wedded to despotism and opposed to civilization, which Muir and Freeman advocated. Freeman claimed that by enforcing the code of precepts which had been a 'vast reform at Mecca and Medina in the seventh century', Islam condemned all Muslim lands 'to a permanent state of imperfect civilization' ('Mohammed', p. 133). Smith considered it 'not quite as true as is commonly supposed that Islam is reconcilable with one narrow form of government or society only' (M&M, 1876, p. ). He referred to the Muslim modernists in India and Mir Aulad Ali (d.1898) at Dublin who 'without a suspicion of heresy' were opposed to polygamy and slavery as unlslamic practices. Contrary to the popular charge that Islam was hostile 'to the growth of human intellect', Smith instanced how, in Muslim Spain and Sicily, Muslims had 'held up the torch of learning to humanity' during Europe's dark age (M&M, 1876, pp. 214-17). Many of his examples are identical to Forster's and gained currency in Muslim apologetic writing. Smith argued that, while the Muslim conquest of Spain was a blessing to the whole of Christendom, Phillip Ill's decree banished from his realm his 'most enlightened and industrious subjects'. Sicily's only period of prosperity and good government was under Arab 88

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

rulers. Its later Norman conqueror's also 'adopted the customs of the people they had overthrown' so much so that William the Good was reputedly as 'much Muslim as Christian' (M&M, 1876, p. 288). Smith also supported his defence of Islam's contribution to civilization, as had Forster, with evidence from Muslim traditions: 'a learned man is as superior to a worshipper as a full moon to the stars'. A religion, he added, which says that 'the ink of the learned is as precious as the blood of the martyrs' and 'that at the Day of Decision a special account will be given of the use made of the intellect' cannot fairly be accused of obscurantism {M&M, 1876, p. 214-16). Smith agreed with Freeman and other writers that slaveiy blemished Islam but suggested that its practice was actually contrary to the spirit of Islam, whose Prophet had ruled that the captive who embraced Islam was ipso facto free. Muhammad had also made sure that no stigma attached to the emancipated slave. Also, while Islam afforded slaves some rights, in the United States they had none. He did, however, think Islam tended to encourage intolerance towards non-Muslims, especially polytheists though he did not judge Islam to be essentially intolerant. His verdict, however, was unambiguous: Islam was a blessing and not a curse on its subjects.

Violence in Islam? Smith did not dispute that Islam sometimes used the sword to gain adherents but questioned, as had Forster and Maurice whether 'appeal to the sword' could alone explain Islam's success. There were examples where Islam had peacefully progressed across vast areas, as in Africa, where 'there could be no doubt that Islam [was being propagated] by simple preaching and with marked success' (M&M, 1876, p. 352). Smith here anticipates the much more thorough research of Sir Thomas Arnold's The Preaching of Islam. Arnold cites R.B. Smith's 'Muhammedanism in Africa' in his chapter on 'The Spread of Islam in Africa', agreeing with his verdict that Islam gave African converts 'an energy, a dignity, a self-reliance and a new respect which is all too rarely found in their pagan or their fellow Christian country men' (T. W. Arnold, p. 292). Again, applying his principle of 'turning the mirror upon himself, Smith pointed out that as a fact of history, Christians have waged Holy Wars. In an appendix on the 'Comparative Ferocity of Muslim and Christian Religious Wars', he paralleled examples of each 89

Victorian Images of Islam

to the debit of the latter. For example, in the full career of their African conquest, the Saracens never 'deliberately destroyed a single city'. In sharp contrast, in 1874, the English burned their enemies' capital during the war for the Gold Coast and no one, neither Church nor State, raised a voice in condemnation. Muslims may rightly claim that their use of the swoid is sanctioned by Islam, but Christians have wielded it in direct disobedience to Christ's teaching; yet Smith observed, 'the extermination of evil' is not always an unworthy object of war. What he considered dangerous was for anyone, Christian or Muslim, to assume that 'one fallible man holds a fiat from Omnipotence to step between another human soul and God; and to enforce his partial views of truth upon a fellow mortal who, for ought he knows, may have as wide a prospect and as deep an insight as he has himself (M&M, 1876, pp. 356-9) Christian wars, too, such as that fought to safeguard the opium trade or to extend trade with Japan, or the African wars to possess territoiy, or the American Civil War to perpetuate slavery in the southern states, carried little, if any, moral justification. Muslim wars were, generally, if not 'excusable' at least 'intelligible and natural' (M&M, 1876, p. 220). Ally of Christianity Not suiprisingly, Smith again disagreed with Muir and Freeman. They argued that because Islam comes closest to meeting mankind's spiritual needs yet falls short, it is above all other 'false systems' preeminently anti-Christian. Smith instead suggested that, as the religion which after Christianity most satisfies 'the wants of man's spiritual nature', Islam was not Christianity's worst enemy but its best ally. Christians who failed to recognize good outside Christianity limited God's spirit. Rather than claiming 'the monopoly of doing good', they should rejoice at good wherever and by whosoever it is done, thus showing that the Christian faith is 'wide enough to embrace within its ample bosom all honest seekers after God and all true benefactors of humanity' {M&M, 1876, p. 280). Smith asked whether Islam prepared the way for Christianity or represented an obstacle to Christian faith. Since his childhood, he had maintained an interest in Christian mission. At the rectoiy his daughter records the only reading permissible on Sundays was mission literature. About contemporaiy mission, Smith was scathingly critical. Missionaries approached Islam with the wrong attitude. Too often their zeal was tampered by inaccurate knowledge of the subject. Even the renowned and much respected Hemy Martyn 90

Reginald Bosworth Smith ¡839-1908

(1781-1812) had sailed for India without having read a single Surah of the Quran and always regarded Muhammad as an impostor and Islam as 'the work of the Devil'. Similarly, Charles Benjamin Leupolt (1805-84) believed that the Quran led people 'daily further from God' and united them 'closer to the Prince of Darkness' (M&M, 1876, p. 353). If missionaries were ever to win Muslims for Christ, Smith advised them to change their tactics if not their theology. Instead of throwing doubt on Muhammad's character, they should 'pay him that homage which is his due' (M&M, 1876, p. 343). Instead of stressing differences between Islam and Christianity, they should emphasize resemblances. The attitude of Christians to Islam should resemble a Muslim's attitude towards Christians. He observed that many Muslims still tended to regard Christians as at least potentially brother Muslims, and that Muhammad had himself taught at one stage 'that Islam was a religion co-ordinate with Christianity' (M&M, 1876, p. 268). Smith's own conclusion was that Christianity could not hope to sweep Islam into oblivion but instead ought to attempt to revive and modify it. While he believed that the true spirit of Christianity was 'more elevating [and] majestic' than Islam, he also believed that twoway communication was possible so that Islam might yet, by a 'process of mutual approximation and mutual understanding', prove Christianity's best ally (M&M, 1874, p. xxv). As had Forster, Smith foresaw the possibility of the two faiths working conjointly for the good of the world. The two great religions, which started from kindred soil, the one from Mecca, the other from Jerusalem, might work on in their respective spheres, the one thereligionof progress, the other of stability...the one the religion of the best parts of Asia and Africa, the other of Europe and America, each rejoicing in the success of the other, each supplying the other's wants in a generous rivalry for the common good of humanity. (M&M, 1874, pp. 338-9) His comparison of seventh-century Mecca with first-century Jerusalem must, however, be questioned. It suggests that his theological convictions sometimes weakened his historical accuracy. The two cities have similar climates but differed politically and economically. Mecca was a powerful commercial and pilgrim centre, Jerusalem was occupied by a foreign power. Islam, too, was quickly the ascendant political and spiritual power. Christianity was born at the foot of the cross and was persecuted and powerless for several centuries. Smith would have been on safer ground had he compared Mecca with Ur of the Chaldees from where Abraham began his journey. Smith's verdict is again 91

Victorian Images of Islam

unambiguous: Islam need not disappear but might be drawn by God into that ultimate unity for which Smith prayed. Smith's evolutionary view of the world suggested that Islam was suitable for what he called the 'stationary races'. Therefore, in Africa and Asia, instead of competing with Islam, missionaries should aim to elevate and chasten Islam so that if these continents cannot become Christian, they might 'become what is next best to it, Mohammedan' (M&M, 1876, p. 57). Smith's critics thought this totally preposterous: he was consigning nations to 'abiding despotism' and they pointed to Turkey as the outstanding example. Smith argued, however, that while corruption was undoubtedly present within the Turkish Empire, this was due not to Islam but to the fall of a once-proud imperial race In fact, the Turk was naturally honest and fair and Islam leavened rather than aggravated corruption. He later returned to the defence of the Turks when, during the Turco-Russian conflict (1876-78), Gladstone branded them as 'scarcely human monsters' (M&M, 1876, p. 210-12). He argued that all religions experience decay, citing Muller's dictum that revival is essential for any religion that is not waiting to be swept away. Smith refuted the popular Christian conviction that Islam was 'dying out because it has no power of revival'. Islam had in the past revived itself and would continue to do so. Indeed, one of its strengths was its ability to accommodate itself 'to the changing circumstances and various degrees of civilization of the nations which professed it' (M&M, 1876, p. 314). Smith actually suggested that Christian missionaries had much to learn from their Muslim counterparts who identified themselves fully with the people among whom they lived. Consequently, Islam adapted itself to local cultures instead of destroying them. Thus, in Africa, Islam exhibited a 'forbearance and a sympathy for native customs and prejudices and even for their more harmless beliefs' (M&M, 1876, p. 40). Acclimatizing 'itself to the peculiarities of the Negro race', it left the African free to develop with a new dignity which membership of a universal brotherhood conferred on him. As Islam encourages an upwards moral movement, polytheism disappears, sorcery declines and squalid filth gives way to personal cleanliness. For its part, Christianity had arrived in Africa 'weighed with the shortcomings and crimes of its professors'. It arrived, too, not as 'a development from within but as a system from without' (R.B. Smith, 'Mohammedanism in Africa' [hereafter, 'MiA'], p. 809). It imposed its creeds, which Smith believed were too much the product of 'all that civilization had done for Christianity' as well as of what Christianity 92

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

had done for civilization (M&M, 1876, p. 249). Christianity was too closely identified with Western civilization, which accompanied it wherever missionaries went. Demanding that as far as possible Western civilization 'be swallowed with it', Christianity actually undermined the black man's self-respect and destroyed his individuality. Taught to ape the white man, the African became 'the stunted spiritless creature with which we are all familiar'. Developing this theme in 'Mohammedanism in Africa', Smith wrote 'from the lessons he receives eveiyday, the Negro unconsciously imbibes the conviction that to be a good man, he must be like the white man' ('MiA' p. 810). However, instead of being welcomed as were Muslim converts as equal members of the universal brotherhood, Christian converts were regarded 'with that instinctive feeling of race repulsion which has been felt even by the warmest Absolutionists and [which] makes itself painfully evident wherever the black man comes into contact with the white man' ('MiA' p. 809). Europeans, Smith observed, seemed 'either unwilling or unable to treat their converts as other than inferiors' (M&M, 1876, p. 247). In Africa where 'Christian' and 'European' were synonymous, Christians had done less for Africa than had Muslims. Christians had introduced gunpowder and gin and with atrocity after atrocity had kidnapped thousands of Africans and 'carried them off to a living death in the new world' ('MiA', p. 807). Slaveiy also blemished Islam's copybook, but the damage caused by Christian slavers 'burned into the soul of the sufferers' and was impossible to undo. Treaties had too often been contracted and broken for purely selfish gains. If the Portuguese 'were to leave Africa tomorrow, what, besides a few fine buildings' would they leave behind? ('MiA', p. 810). He contrasted this with Islam's legacy, citing from Mungo Park's Travels: Muslims had built numerous schools and travelled great distances to 'secure the best possible education' at 'El Azhar, the great Collegiate Mosque at Cairo' (M&M, 1876, p. 41-3). Christianity with its professors' attitude of racial and cultural superiority had become 'an object of suspicion and repugnance to the Negro race' (M&M, 1876, p. 38-9). Consequently, much missionaiy effort, especially in the malarial band of West Africa, had been noble but short-sighted. Its heroism had been in vain. Dedicated to helping inhabitants of the dark continent into the light, he believed missionaries had actually retarded development ('MiA', p. 808). During the 'great missionaiy failure' debate, Isaac Taylor suggested the English way of life in the mission bungalow itself to be a formidable 93

Victorian Images of Islam

obstacle to attracting converts. Other contributors to the debate, such as the explorer Joseph Thomson (1858-94) and the Indian affairs columnist Meredith Townsend (1831-1911), added their experience and authority to this view. Smith thus seriously questioned much of Western imperialism. 'What right' he asked, had Europeans 'to parcel out what did not belong to them', or to 'force their way into uncivilized countries' to discover 'aborigines who knew well enough they were there all the time and who had no wish to be discovered?' (R.B. Smith, 'Englishmen in Africa' [hereafter, 'EiA'], p. 72). He admitted that Western science, the railway, the printing press and the telegraph would improve the economies of Eastern nations but said that these would do 'little for their moral welfare'. In the process of acquiring 'a thin varnish of Western civilization', the people of Africa and Asia had 'lost their own self-respect' (M&M, 1876, p. 333). Accepting, however, that history could not be rewritten, he argued for what he called a moral policy. Britain should ensure that she ruled her territories in order to 'help them forward...Africa for the Africans—to a natural development of her own, redolent alike of the people and of the soil' ('EiA', p. 76). Smith's verdict was that instead of competing with Islam, Christianity ought, in Africa if not elsewhere, to learn lessons from that faith.

Critical Response Smith's Mohammed and Mohammedanism was widely reviewed, provoking considerable controversy that moved out of the academic inton the popular domaia Reviews were almost entirely by missionaries, who were negative, or by Orientalists, who were positive. A few reviewers, such as Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) and George Percy Badger (1815-88), belonged to both groups. The early missionary reviewers dismissed the book out of hand. Smith had no authority to address Islam. He did not know Arabic, nor had he lived in a Muslim country. Neither had he anything original to say. Unfortunately, because the lectures had been delivered in the prestigious Royal Institution and because he taught at a leading public school, the book was 'invested with a degree of apparent importance' which would attract Muslim interest. Muir had voiced the identical concern regarding Forster's book. The most vitriolic review came from George Knox (1814-91) who 94

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

had served with the Church Missionary Society in India (1838-55) and edited the Intelligencer (1871-88). He compared Smith's book with John Davenport's Apology for Mohammed. Both Smith and Davenport had 'concocted' books which Indian Muslims would 'receive with wonder' and 'puzzle' how they could 'best reconcile what they are with the portraiture therein supplied to them'. Indeed, Muslims had already 'seized' Davenport and were 'applying' his book 'to the detriment of Christian truth and to the opposition of missionary exertion' (Knox, 'Mohammed and Mohammedanism' [hereafter Knox, 'M&M'], pp. 225, 330). According to Knox, Smith's gravest error was his discipleship of Arnold, Maurice and Muller, instead of the apostles, who had only Christ to teach them. Smith's philosophy required 'neither scripture nor facts for its standard of right and wrong'. His 'philosophical crotchets should be dismissed' as were 'the questions debated by the Schoolmen'. Put bluntly, his view of Islam was wrong. Islam was licentious, bigoted, intolerant and violent. Knox disagreed with both Smith's estimate of Muhammad's character and with his 'proposition that there has been good in Muhammad's influence on the world' (Knox, 'M&M', p.230). 'What Christianity is to learn from Islam', said Knox, 'is a thing altogether beyond us' (Knox, 'M&M', p. 234). Against Smith's portrait of Islam in Africa, Knox marshalled the evidence of David Livingstone (1813-73) and Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) to help 'every speaker on a missionary platform blow to atoms' Smith's theory 'of the blessings of Islam' (Knox, 'M&M', p. 335). Knox declared that 'all the Mohammedan Negroes in Africa who have read the Koran, even once, might be comfortably accommodated in the waiting room of Euston Square Station' (Knox, 'M&M', p. 247). Knox doubted Smith's loyalty to Christ, since in his opinion the book begged the question 'what thinkest thou of Christ?' whose Godhead Smith had stripped for 'the sake of an argument'. 'Pooh-poohing One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism' as an antiquated statement, he had relegated the 'all important question of a Saviour' into obscurity (Knox, 'M&M', pp. 231, 228). Far from regarding Islam as an ally, Christians should 'seek by all lawful means...to rid the world of Mohammedanism as its bane' (Knox, 'M&M', p. 235). Knox also questioned how comprehensive Smith's research had been, here citing a review in the Athenaeum which compared Mohammed and Mohammedanism with the 'cram usually got up' for 'Greats at Oxford'. Dismissing Smith as 'ignorant and prejudiced', Knox instead commended Muir's Life of Mahomet: in 'addition to his 95

Victorien Images ofIslam

well known Arabic scholarship', Muir had 'seen the practical working of Islamism in India' and his 'pious and godly coviction that Christianity is true' better qualified him for the task of examining Islam's claims (Knox,'M&M',p. 331). With his own review, Knox published a second review by Thomas Patrick Hughes (1838-1911) who compared Smith to Davenport. Hughes suggested that if Smith's views gained popularity, India would have to send a 'Safdar Ali* to the alumnae of Harrow, Rugby or even Oxford itself. Hughes credited Muhammad as a warrior, a legislator, even as a poet but judged him an 'impostor' for having claimed to supersede Christ Smith's suggestion that Christians might one day recognize Muhammad as 'a very prophet of God' could not be reconciled with the facts of Muhammad's life. Hughes preferred to accept Muir's opinion, founded on an intimate acquaintance with Islam and to reject 'that of one who can lay no claim to Oriental research and has not had any practical experience of the working of that great religious system which he has undertaken to defend' (Knox, 'M&M', p. 340). It was Smith's claim that missionaries had laboured and even sacrificed their lives in vain which especially attracted the censure of the missionaiy press. One reviewer accused Smith of Unitarianism. Another wondered what parents of Harrow boys must feel now that they realized into whose 'hands they had committed their sons'. Lady Grogan records that her father had known that his book would 'perplex and pain those who clung to a different idea of Christianity' and might grieve his parents, but he was 'gravely hurt' by the 'contempt and obloquy' of the first wave of critics (Grogan, p. 178n). Missionaries, however, continued to read Smith's book; although they remained critical of his views, later writers were more positive about the quality of his scholarship, no doubt due to the second wave of appreciative reviews by professional Orientalists who uncovered the superficiality of the judgements of Knox and the Athenaeum. William St Clair Tisdall called Smith a 'modern apologist for Muhammad...led astray by the false liberalism of the day' (Crescent, pp. 80, 126). A standard criticism was that Smith gave too much credence to Muslim modernists, who did not represent the majority or the thinking of orthodox Islam. A typical reference to Smith in missionaiy literature was Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle (d.1902), who asked, 'what must we think of the Christianity of a writer who...wishes to restrict the "All power in heaven and earth" claimed by Christ [and who] resigns himself to the perpetual domination of Islamism over Africa and Asia' (pp. 452-4)? 96

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

Charles Reginald Haines (1859-1935) thought Smith's 'brilliant but one-sided book' overstated the case for Islam, whereas Muir overstated the case against Islam. He preferred Robert D. Osborn's Islam under the Arabs, an opinion rejected by Blyden who wrote that despite Osbourne's experience of Muslim countries, he 'not only shared' but reproduced 'the vulgar estimate held in Christian lands of the Mohammedan religion' (p. 255). T.P. Hughes, a close friend of Smith who disagreed with his views, referred to Smith as 'one of the best defenders of the Arabian prophet' in his Notes on Mohammedanism and included a lengthy citation in his classic Dictionary of Islam. Even the Church Missionary Intelligencer published an appreciative review of Smith's 'Mohammedanism in Africa'; while disagreeing with Smith's conclusions, the reviewer said the article would 'shape for years to come the thoughts which [people] may have on the subject it treats' (1888:65). The second wave of critically appreciative reviews, along with favourable letters from such eminent persons as W.E. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold and George Eliot, surprised Smith just as the first had grieved him. These reviews by such distinguished Orientalists as T. Noldeke (1836-1930), G.P. Badger (1815-88), Stanley Lane-Poole (1854-1931), E.H. Palmer (1840-82) and E.W. Blyden (1832-1912), whose authority to speak about Islam even Knox could not impugn, reversed the earlier superficial judgement of Smith's scholarship. Mr Smith has spared no pain and has obviously studied all the principal works, especially the Koran. He does not pretend to original learning....But original research is not how needed...the minute, circumstantial facts have been set before us...what is needed is the mind that can see the true meaning of the facts and grasp the complete character of the great man whose life they mark out, like the stones of a grand but intricate mosaic. (Lane-Poole, 'Mohammad', p. 623) Mr Bosworth Smith is an apologist of a different stamp. He writes as a Christian and a genuine Catholic spirit pervades his lectures...executed with a union of candour and reverence befitting a subject of such momentous importance. (Badger, p. 87) The author is not an orientalist in the technical sense of the word, but he has made such careful use of the ample materials existing for the study of his subject, that his treatment of it loses nothing in accuracy from this fact, whilst his views are no doubt broader than they could have been had he been hampered with the minute knowledge of a specialist. (Palmer, p. 207)

97

Victorian Images of Islam

We are very much mistaken if his book does not form an important startingpoint on the road to a more tolerant—if not sympathetic—view among popular readers of the chief religion of the Oriental World. (Blyden, 'Mohammedanism', p. 598)

Blyden marshalled his own considerable experience of Islam's salutary and Christianity's retarding influence in Africa against the evidence of Smith's earlier critics. Although Knox's review of Blyden was as vitriolic as his review of Smith, Blyden's work has stood the test of time. His Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, which republished his reviews of Smith's three main books, was itself republished by Edinburgh University Press in 1965. The editor wrote, 'In its sweep and scholarship, there are many parts which cannot be bettered today' (p. vii). Blyden's review was especially significant because it countered Knox's criticism that Smith's distance from his subject disqualified him. Nor is it insignificant that Smith's third book. The Life of Lord Lawrence, written at the request of the Lawrence family, was widely acclaimed as 'not only the best biography of any great Indian statesman but a unique example of how an author who never visited India can by study and imagination reproduce the Indian atmosphere' (The Harrovian, xiv:76). In retrospect, it is possible to recognize that Smith had approached his reconstruction of Muhammad's life with the same intention of probing to the man behind the 'flesh and bones'. Blyden recognized similarities in all three of Smith's books, arguing that as an historian the particular skill Smith brought to bear on all his subjects was that of unmasking the bias by probing the facts behind historically biased accounts. Although limited by lack of Arabic in his study of Islam, he still applied this method to the sources available. His second book, Carthage and the Carthaginians, widely acclaimed as a vindication of the character of Hannibal against the bias of Roman historians, was hailed as a 'masterly description of Carthaginian histoiy' (Grogan, p. 81). Blyden praised Smith's work as having been composed not merely to fill blanks in 'religious or historical literature' but 'for high moral ends'. They dealt a severe blow at 'the causes of war, aggression, cruelty and the pride of race' (Christianity, p. 287). The Orientalists did question some of Smith's opinions. Badger, the 'hookah smoking Arabist' who also regularly visited Harrow, thought him over-critical of the Eastern Church. He thought Islam's non-sacerdotal nature disqualified it as genuinely spiritual and he upheld Muir's verdict of a moral declension after the Hijrah. Both he and Lane-Poole 98

Reginald Bos worth Smith ¡839-1908

found Smith's attempt to vindicate Islam of its traditional charges of intolerance, polygamy and slaveiy ingenious but unconvincing. Smith's main fault was that he discussed a theoretcial Islam rather than contemporary Islam. Palmer agreed with Smith that Islam neither opposed peace nor progress nor was antagonistic to religious or political tolerance, but found his defence of Muhammad at Medina unconvincing: we 'surely have the right to brand his doctrine as damnable and un-Christian' (p. 221). Smith was right to defend the Turks but his account of Islam's civilizing influence in Africa was too favourable. Palmer upheld, however, Smith's verdict that Islam was a 'religion cognate, if inferior to our own' and that if Christians could not replace it they ought to 'develop Christian virtues out of the Muslim creed' (p. 237). All these reviewers concluded with warm commendations. For example, Badger wrote, The motive was a generous one, considering its bearings on the moral and social improvement of so vast a portion of the human race and as such is highly commendable. I have not hesitated to point out what has appeared to me defective in his statements and to express dissent from some of his deductions; none the less, however, do I commend these lectures to the attentive yet careful perusal of the student, the politician and the missionary, (p. 102)

As a post-Enlightenment thinker who dared not only to know but to doubt that his tradition monopolized truth, Smith was able to recognize truth elsewhere. Unlike such other Enlightenment scholars as Voltaire and Gibbon or contemporary Romanticists as Carlyle, Smith was earnestly Christian. Koelle and Tisdall unjustifiably bracketed Smith with Carlyle; although both tried to penetrate to Muhammad's inner character and personality, there the similarity ended. Taking a delight in shocking his audience, Carlyle had no desire to produce a Christian response to Islam, which was Smith's aim. Missionary reviewers questioned Smith's loyalty to Christ, whereas the Orientalists paid tribute to his Christian spirit. The most important aspect of Smith's book is its attempt to penetrate Islam's inner meaning and to take the challenge of Islam into his understanding of Christian faith. Smith was prepared to adjust his theology to respond to the good he recognized in Islam, believing that Christian experience ought to have priority over 'dogmas' and that the Church should accommodate itself to Muslim and other environments. 99

Victorian Images ofIslam

Smith knew that his conciliatoiy, affirmative approach to Islam would provoke controversy, but he was courageous enough to say and publish what he believed. Indeed, he frequently supported unpopular causes, such as his defence of the Turks, his condemnation of Hodson's Horses cruelty in recapturing Delhi and his criticism of the Afghan wars as an unnecessary and unjust interference. No less courage was required to speak his mind about Muhammad, against the background of his own survey of Western European attitudes towards the Prophet. Perhaps not surprisingly, as Knox and Hughes had feared, Smith's book was warmly received by Muslim writers. Professor Mir Aulad Ali of Trinity College, Dublin, translated Mohammed and Mohammedanism into Urdu, and Smith received congratulatoiy letters from both Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sayyid Ameer Ali, who wrote, Your book has not only confirmed me in my own faith but it has given me a far higher idea of Christianity than I yet possessed. Like all those who grew up amidst the corrupted form of a once pure religion, and whose constant attempts at accommodating what they know to be tnie to what they have been taught to regard as true, seem to me, if not entire failures, at least in great confusion. I had naturally begun to be sceptical on many points and it was a relief to find that some matters, at any rate, which were hitherto quite obscure to me, could be explained on a more rationalistic principle than I had yet seen applied to them. (Grogan, p. 148)

Ali also suggested that because Smith had 'not been in Mohammedan countries, it had been possible for him to write with greater detachment and to depict Islam as it was in its earlier and more ideal form'. In The Spirit of Islam, Ali wrote, 'a great change has taken place in the estimate of Islam as a Faith among the cultured classes of Christendom. Writers like Johnson, Lane-Poole, Bosworth Smith, Isaac Taylor have discussed from a philosophical and historical point of view, the merits of Islam both as a creed and as a humanizing agency' (p. vii). Ali was highly critical of Sir William Muir, whom he called 'an avowed enemy of Islam', but appraisingly quoted from Deutsch (p. 211). Wilfred Cantwell Smith observed that Bosworth Smith became one of several sympathetic Western writers on Islam whom Muslims frequently cited to support their views. As a result of the publication of his lectures, Smith gained friends and correspondents the world over, many visiting him at Harrow. He was prayed for 'in the Mosques along the West Coast of Africa as having attempted to do justice to Islam as a civilizing and elevating agency 100

Reginald Bosworth Smith 1839-1908

among pagan negroes' (Grogan, p. 141). The Tuikish ambassador, Musurus Pasha, conveyed official appreciation on behalf of the Ottoman government, although later efforts to publish in Tuikish were at first delayed by censorship. The warmth of letters of condolence to his widow following his death testify to the enduring esteem in which this Christian writer was held by members of the religion about which he had writtea A representative of the Muslim community of Sierra Leone wrote about 'the deep feeling of sorrow with which [we have] learned of [Smith's death] who has laboured so long and so successfully in the course of the Holy Religion they profess' (Grogan, pp. 156-7). From India, the Maharajah Singh wrote, I was his pupil for two terms in 1893....I cannot forget his kindness to me....But he was much more than a Master at Harrow. The Indians owe much to him, and Indian Mussulmans should remember that he was one of the first Englishmen to take a truer, juster and more sympathetic view of the great Arabian....Only a few months ago I received a long letter from him in reply to one from me expressing my humble appreciation of his great works on Mohammed and Lord Lawrence. It was a letter full of sympathy for this country and its peoples, and will be a treasured possession. May he rest in peace. (Grogan, p. 192)

Smith's opinions regarding Christianity and Islam in Africa are largely corroborated by modern scholarship. Research has shown how Islam did adapt itself to a very gradual penetration of Africa both in the range of its appeal and in the content of its teachings. It has also exposed the fallacy of the nineteenth-century European's confidence in his own cultural and racial superiority. Proportionately, Christian Europe had 'little more literature than the countries of African Islam', nor was European technology markedly more advanced. The actual gap in power was only a small one. Potentially, the gap was wider but 'potentiality is not the same as actual achievement' (Davison, p. 132). Bosworth Smith is a scholar who, while loyal to his own faith, could question assumptions of both religious and cultural superiority and portray another faith, traditionally feared and misunderstood, in tenuis not merely sympathetic but acceptable to some Muslims. In contrast, the work of professional Orientalists, who regarded Smith with disfavour, failed to attract the approval of Muslim writers who acknowledged their learning but disallowed their opinions. Sayyid Ameer Ali's comment that Smith's distance enabled rather than hindered objectivity is particularly significant. For example, Smith knew full well that the propemoun 101

Victorian Images of Islam

was 'Islam', writing, 'Mohammedanism is a misnomer, never used by Mohammed himself....To call a follower of the prophet a "Mohammedan" is to offer him the same kind of insult that it is to call a devout Catholic "a papist"' (M&M, 1876, p. 161). However, 'in compliance with European custom', he used the word. Even such a leading Islamic scholar as Sir Hamilton Gibb (1895-1971), whom Edward Said describes as 'a dynastic figure within the framework of British (and later of American) Orientalism' (p. 27S), justified the term in his Islam, which first appeared as Mohammedanism in 1949.

102

5

Sir William Muir 1819-1905

Sir William Muir, KCSI, DCL, LLD, PhD, achieved eminence as a civil servant in India, as an Orientalist scholar, as an educationalist, as a Christian apologist and as a supporter of missions. Many missionaries developed academic interest in Islam as a result of his work, including the Anglican William St Clair Tisdall and the Baptist John Drew Bate. Muir also stimulated several Muslims to reply to his views in defence of Islam: Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Rt Hon. Sayyid Ameer Ali were the most eminent among them. In an early Calcutta Review article, Muir rejected Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled as subversive to the missionary cause, but later referred more positively to Forster's The Historical Geography of Arabia in his own classic Life of Mahomet. Muir rose through the ranks of the Indian Civil Service (ICS)—from settlement officer, to district collector, to secretary to the provincial government—to become Lt Governor of the vast territory known as the North West Provinces, the fifth highest office in a very precedentconcious service. His interest in education developed early in his career: his 'Report on Native Schools of the Futtehpore District' was published by the NWP Government in 1846. Its promotion was his major concern during his Lt Governorship and his main achievement was the establishment of the Muir Central College, now Allahabad University. Finally, he was employed within the educational establishment as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University. Muir may properly be regarded as a professional scholar, although scholarship did not for most of his life provide him with his living, it did attract academic recognition. Unlike Forster, Maurice and Smith, Muir was not totally self-taught in Oriental studies. Though he did not possess an earned degree in any subject, he excelled in Oriental languages at Haileybuiy College, through which all ICS recruits passed. 103

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

Before accepting nomination for the Bengal Civil Service, he had matriculated to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but left before taking his degree. However, aspiring civil servants were expected to build on their Haileybuiy training by familiarizing themselves with local dialects, customs and religious practices in order to govern effectively. Settlement duty, to which Muir was seconded early in his career, provided a coveted opportunity for such familiarization. The ICS did produce many scholars, among them Muir's elder brother, John, who was a Sanskrit scholar of some renown. A phenomenon of British India is that the scholars came not from the less highly paid and less prestigious Education Service but from the ranks of government and military officers. That the contributors to the Cambridge History of India, for example, were almost all retired civil or military officers prompts modern Indian historian R.C. Majumdar to write: The current books on the history of Indi&..written by English historians since 1870 were mostly influenced by the Spirit of jingoism which looked to every event...from the standpoint of the imperial interests of the British... A modem historian of British India...finds it absolutely necessary to dispose of a large legacy of falsehood, half-truths and perversion of facts and judgments, which are now passing currently as history. (Majumdar, IX:xxv-vi)

The close relationship between the Orientalists and colonial authorities has been criticised by Edward Said as a 'dialectic of information and control' (p. 36). Said contends that the scholars provided information for the colonial authorities which aided and abetted the process of social control. Hugh Goddard, too, has written of Muslim criticism of Western scholars, who appear to have 'been content to use their expertise to advise governments in the formulation of their policies in the Orient...and thus to become implicated in imperialistic designs and policies in the Muslim world' (pp. 124-5). In the Indian context, it is undoubtedly true that officials utilized their knowledge of people, language and culture for purposes of control. Muir's obituaries refer to several occasions when, as Lt Governor, he was able to use his Islamic scholarship to help to maintain order. Sir John Lawrence, under whose Governor-Generalship Muir served as Foreign Secretary, referred to him as 'the best authority on all questions connected with the landed tenures and customs of the North West Provinces [and] a first rate Oriental scholar', concluding with the remark that he 'did good service in the mutiny' (Smith, Life, p. 512). Said's most incisive criticism suggests that Orientalists consistently 104

Sir WilUam Muir ¡819-1905

misrepresented and undervalued their subject in order to justify colonial dominance. In the early years of Britain's colonial expansion, commerce and trade were sufficient motive. Later, European nations convinced themselves that their rule benefited the ruled. It became Europe's burden to educate and uplift benighted Africans and Asiatics: hence, the series of reports on the 'Moral and Material Progress and Conditions of India', regularly submitted to Parliament after 1857. Several significant factors helped to create the milieu in which Muir developed his interest in Islam, a milieu in which attitudes towards Indian culture had become progressively more negative as British power in India became more firmly established. Two factors contributed to the West's assumption of superiority over the East and to the justification of colonial rule: paternalism as the dominant social philosophy of Victorian England, and utilitarianism as a dominant political theoiy. Paternalism described the English ruling class's assumption that it was organically superior to the working class. Society was regarded as hierarchical: just as the British ruling class in India saw themselves as trustees of a backward ward, so the squire or captain-of-industiy magistrate in England saw himself as guardian of the poorer classes. Service in Parliament was voluntary, part of the duty and responsibility of land or wealth. Paternalists believed in rights of rank and station, not in equal rights, for how could the governing classes 'attend Parliament and guide the nation's destiny unless they were superior in rank' (Roberts, p. 3). Thus, the British counterpart of the Indian Civil Service's collector-magistrate was not the Whitehall civil servant but the squire-magistrate Member of Parliament Both thought themselves inherently superior to the ruled, for whose welfare they wereresponsibleand whose needs they naturally knew better than the people did themselves. Said writes, 'Subject races did not have it in thein to know what was good for them' (p. 37). Said underestimated the influence of utilitarianism. He argued that its emphasis on 'legal and penal codes' produced 'an irreducible supervisory imperial authority', but he did not explore its importance as a theoretical justification for the rule of a few over the many (pp. 214-15). Although the utilitarian's object was to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number, politically, utilitarians such as J.S. Mill (1808-73) also warned against the tyranny of the majority. Public opinion, Mill believed, was notoriously susceptible to error: Mill taught that majority rule was contingent on their maturity. Children, being immature, must be guided; backward states, similarly, required paternal government 105

Victorian Images of Islán

since, if allowed self-government, they would fall back into chaos. He applied this theory directly to India in his famous 'Memorandum on the Indian Administration' in which he wrote, 'It is presumed that no one considers the people of India to be at present ripe for taking any constitutional share in their own government...therefore under this circumstance...the dominant country is charged with the whole responsibility of governing them well'. In political lobbying, the utilitarians effected an alliance with the evangelicals. Both saw themselves as trustees of India's moral welfare, finding little to praise in Indian life and thought. Their combined influence was far-reaching and politically effective. Muir's own contribution is complicated by the marriage between officialdom and mission, which he represented, in addition to his combination of official and scholar. The official policy in India was religious neutrality. After the East India Company Charter of 1813, missionaries were allowed into India but no special privileges were granted. Thomas Middleton (1769-1822), the first Bishop of Calcutta, even refused to license Anglican missionaries employed by the CMS, a policy due in part to commercial caution, but also reflecting some respect for Indian culture. Officials tended to regard Indians as equals and some at least were genuinely attracted by Indian culture. Indian law was retained for the vast majority and only the 'bare essentials of political life' were changed (Lloyd, p. 149). Some early officials established Hindu and Muslim educational institutions. Even some English churchmen in India were not unsympathetic towards other faiths. The prevailing mood of English religion in the eighteenth century was latitudinarian. It found a 'decent and composed belief in religion acceptable', but viewed 'enthusiasm, dedication and the spirit of martyrdom with suspicion' (Lloyd, p. 135). A number of early missionaries, too, had some sympathy with the religions from which they aimed to win converts. It has been suggested that we do the pioneer Baptist missionary William Carey an injustice if we assume that he viewed Hinduism in purely negative terms. The nineteenth century, however, witnessed many changes. In Britain, social justice was championed by such diverse eminenti as Charles Dickens in his novels, F.D. Maurice in Christian socialism and the evangelical Lord Shaftesbury in the Lords. One result was that government was charged with the moral responsibility of protecting the welfare of the body politic. The evangelical awakening led many Christians to believe that their faith carried the only guarantee of salvatioa People of other faiths must convert to Christianity or face eternal perdition. Other religions were thought to be tissues of falsehood, their followers condemned to eternal 106

Sir William Muir 18¡9-1905

damnation. Their origin was, at best, human striving after God; at worst, they were demonically inspired systems. British Cultural Imperialism Religious imperialism was accompanied by a growing sense of cultural superiority, which was usually cited as colonialism's justification. According to R.C. Majumdar, the British always claimed that protecting the welfare of the masses was the raison d'etre of their rule. Later, though, such statesmen as Neville Chamberlain needed to look no further than the 'expression of vital forces within the British people' to justify the imperialism of what he called 'the greatest governing race the world has ever seen' (Embree, p. 288). The British were predestined to rule others because they were naturally suited to the task. Increasingly, they found it difficult to believe that other people could govern themselves even if they were allowed to try, and the conviction grew that nothing good was to be found in the Indian past. More alarming were the words of Cornwallis that 'every native of Hindustan is corrupt' (Spear, 2:95). Since it was perceived to be Britain's national duty to rule, educate and civilize India, the private enterprise of the East India Company was gradually replaced by control from Westminster, inevitably resulting in the imposition of British institutions and in more negative perceptions of traditional Indian ones. English became the official language and, in 1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59), though unfamiliar with any non-European language, could confidently declare that a single 'shelf of a good European library was worth the whole literature of India and Arabia' (Cracknell, p. 169). As President of the Board of Education, Macaulay's views prevailed, even in the face of opposition from some of the old guard led by Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860). Indian languages and literature disappeared from the curriculum of government schools, typifying the overwhelming sense of racial superiority which 'made even some eminent Englishmen, including Governors-General and British Cabinet Ministers, look upon the Indians as little better than animals or primitive savages' (Majumdar, IX:xxv). Progress was equated with Englishness. The object of education was to create a class of persons Indian in blood and colour but English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect. If, as it was believed, it was Britain's duty to civilize India, logic demanded that India's culture be regarded as uncivilized and worthless. Muir believed that his primary 107

Victorian ¡magts ofIslam responsibility as a civil servant was to 'raise and educate the people, to make them the better' for his being there. Norman Daniel identifies Muir's persistent call for female education in India at a time when 'the long struggle for women's education was barely begun' in Britain itself as an example of a colonial ruler who was 'acting, or thought he was acting, as an imperial ruler obliged to impose benefits upon a reluctant Islamic society' (Daniel, Islam, Europe, p. 279). Though always officially neutral, the government began to value the role played by missionaries in helping to Westernize India. Consequently, covert if not overt aid was given, which later writers admitted. Certainly, as private individuals many officials supported missionaiy endeavour. Muir and the senior members of the ICS who most influenced him—Robert Mertins Bird (1788-1853), James Thomason (1804-53), Lord Lawrence (1818-79)—were evangelical Christians who gave liberally to the work of Christian missions. Muir publicly explained his policy of official neutrality and private bipartisanship while speaking at the Anglo-Oriental Mohammedan College at Aligarh. In Britain, some politicians openly linked the aims of colonialism with that of Christian mission. Sir Charles Wood spoke of every additional Christian in India being an additional bond of union with England. Lord Palmerston believed it in England's interest, as well as her duty, to promote Christianity in India. Thus, Kenneth Cracknell and others have spoken of a marriage between the concepts of empire and Christianity. Muir himself spoke of the Englishman's duty to build up 'with credit and honour the Christian and the British name in India' (Addresses, p. 47). Not surprisingly, Muslim critics have seen Christian missions as integrally bound to Western imperialism: the Church Missionaiy Society rejoiced in the support it received from such colonial administrators as Muir. In his History of the Church Missionary Society, Eugene Stock (1836-1928) gives almost as much attention to some of these lay-supporters as he did to serving missionaries. By the mid-nineteenth century, anti-British feeling exploded in the first Indian war of independence, which British writers improperly call the Indian mutiny. Indian writers correctly point out that as the Mughal emperor was still acknowledged by the East India Company as sovereign, it was the British who mutinied against their king, not the Mughal emperor against his queen. One of the causes of the 1857 revolt was the fear that the British intended to convert India to Christianty. Muir himself, who rose to prominence during the events of 1857, officially translated Nana Sahib's 'Declaration of the Fifth of July' that the British planned to convert 'all 108

Sir William Muir ¡819-1905

Hinustanis to Christianity' (Muir, Records, p. 2). When at the time missionaries and their official supporters were blamed by some for causing the revolt, they replied that the reverse was true, that the revolt was divine punishment against Britain for neglecting her evangelical reponsibilities as a Christian nation. What is particularly relevant in placing Muir's attitude to Islam in its historical context is that the revolt was represented by the British as Muslim-inspired and led. The result was more negative views of Islam and discrimination against Muslims in favour of Hindus. 'An immediate effect of the Mutiny was the growing hatred of the Englishmen towards the Muslims' (Majumdar, IX:661). In the four volumes of his Life of Mahomet, written before, during and after 1857, Muir concluded that 'the sword of Mahomet, and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of Civilization, Liberty and the Truth which the worid has yet known' (Life, 4:322 ). If some officials before 1857 had believed that after civilizing India the British would leave, after 1857 this idea seemed implausible. The British now felt that they had fought for India, and woa Mohammedan Controversy Muir wrote The Mohammedan Controversy to attract wider support for Carl Pfander (1803-65), the German-born CMS missionary, who also encouraged his writing of The Life of Mahomet. The Mohammedan Controversy, which contained Muir's review of Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, allows us to contrast Muir's view of Islam with that of Forster and with others whose writings were consistent with Forster's. The Mohammedan Controversy is much more than a description of Pfander's debates. In addition to the review of Forster, it surveys the history of the West's encounter with Islam. Clearly, despite the study which must have enabled Muir to earn his seat on the Provincial Education Committee and to write several official reports of significance, he devoted considerable attention to researching his article. He had read Lee's translations of Henry Martyn's tracts, several of the works of Pfander and their Muslim rejoinders, as well as Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled. In 1852, he continued his commentaiy of Pfander's debates in his article 'Biographies of Mohammed', which also reviewed several native biographies. As he believed that suitably accurate biographies were lacking, he began his own Life, parts of which first appeared as a series of fifteen articles in the Calcutta Review. 109

Victorian Images of I slam

Muir's survey of the West's encounter with Islam divides into four periods: the initial Muslim onslaught, reversed at the Pyrenees; the Crusades; the fall of Constantinople; and the period of European dominance in the Orient, contemporary with his own life. He spoke of 'the first tide of Mohammedan invasion' almost overwhelming 'Europe and extinguishing every trace of Christianty'. He regretted, however, that Christendom, instead of entering the lists with a sword in its hand did not wield such 'spiritual weapons...better suited' to 'the sacred contest'. In his Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt he referred to the Crusades as 'that great armament of misguided Christianity'. Only afterwards 'when, in the vicissitudes of military advance, the arms of the Mohammedan were found to preponderate' were some 'faint attempts made, or meditated, to convince those whom it proved impossible to subdue' (Mohammedan Controversy, [hereafter, AtC\ p. 3). Muir makes no reference to Eastern Christian thinking, although he later translated the Apology of Al Kindy. Briefly discussing such attempts that were made to convince rather than subdue, he lists the move of Honorius IV in 1285 to establish schools for Arabic in order to 'convert the Saracens' and the Council of Vienne's recommendation (1312) of the same measure, but does not refer to St Francis or Ramon Lull. He concluded that the 'marks and effects' of these feeble efforts lie 'buried in obscurity'; although he could not identify 'a single account of their success', he did not doubt that many devout Christians had zealously 'attempted the conversion of the Mohammedans' (A/C, p. 4). Such works of apology that were produced 'too often fought with the air' and betrayed 'gross ignorance of the real views and tenets of Islam', probably serving only to confirm Muslims in their unbelief. Muir considered Al Kindi's work an exception to this rule, dating the original at AD 830 as the work of 'a learned Nestorian Christian who held a high position at the tolerant court of the great Caliph, al-Mamun' (Apology t.p ). In fact, though more moderate and sympathetic than some contemporary works of apology, Al-Kindi's work demonstrated little real knowledge of Islam, being totally negative in its approach. It may fairly be regarded as a classical archetype of the approach Muir criticized. Muir did acknowledge Europe's intellectual debt to Muslims during the mediaeval period for their stewardship of the classical legacy and spoke of 'intimate relations' between East and West, confirmed and perpetuated by the fall of Constantinople. He regarded his own era as representing 'the fourth grand era of Christian-Muslim encounter' (A/C, p. 5). He believed that Britain's position in India carried special 110

Sir William Muir 1819-190S

responsibilities: the 'enlightenment of the people of India depended on her' not neglecting her 'noble vocation'. He wrote that 'Britain must not faint until her millions in the East abandon both the false prophet and the idol shrines and rally around that eternal truth which has been brought to light in the Gospel' (MC, p. 100). Here, Muir holds together the aims of colonialism and mission, seeing both the task of enlightening, or civilizing, and of evangelism as national responsibilities. Other nations were sadly failing in their duties: Catholic France and Orthodox Russia were failing respectively in North Africa and in Turkey, while 'bloody battles' over possession of the sacred sites in Palestine between the Greek and Roman churches only 'inspired Muslims with contempt and disgust' (MC, p. lOOnl). Unlike Maurice, who defended the early policy of the East India Company to ban missionary activity, Muir deeply regretted that the British had not only neglected their duty but had exhibited 'to heathens and Mohammedans the sad spectacle of men without a faith' (MC, p. 6). Far from being neutral in the conflict, these men confirmed Muslim prejudices and arguments. The fight silently advanced in Islam's favour until a better era dawned. Christianity in Britain woke from its sloth and sent out to India such men as Claudius Buchanan, David Brown, Henry Martyn and Thomas Thomason (James Thomason's father). Referring to these evangelical East India Company chaplains or 'harbingers of a better era', Muir also paid tribute to 'the venerable Carey' (MC, p. 6). Previously, England had allowed Portugal to take the lead in the endeavour. Muir commented briefly on the work of the Portuguese Jesuit Hieronymo Xavier who in the seventeenth century had presented an elaborate treatise on Christianity to Emperor Jahangir. Muir considered Xavier 'a man of high ability' but too prone to rely on 'his own ingenuity' rather than on 'the plain declaration of Holy writ'. Also, his obligation as a Catholic to defend miracles and the use of images played into Muslim hands, affording them 'a peculiar and advantageous line of argument' (MC, pp. 8-9). He therefore welcomed Henry Martyn as the champion of England's honour in defending the true against the false faith. After a gap of some years, Martyn's place, said Muir, was taken by Carl Pfander, whom he described as 'the most distinguished Christian opponent of Islam that has yet appeared' (MC, p. 67). The turning point, however, was reached when many of England's exiled sons, her civil and military officers in India, 'began to perceive their responsibilities for India's regeneration' and acknowledged that her enlightenment was their 'highest object' (MC, p. 5). As a district ill

Victorian Images of Islam

magistrate of the Indian Civil Service, Muir was responsible for governing the lives of tens of thousands of people. In 1845, not all civil servants would have welcomed such a close association of the Christian with the civil task, although it had been the view of one of the most influential directors of the East India Company, Charles Grant (1746-1823). Grant recruited through his friend Charles Simeon (1759-1836) of Cambridge the famous evangelical chaplains, campaigned for missionaries to be allowed into East India Company territory and, before the 1813 Charter legalized this, assisted William Carey's settlement at Danish Serampore. Grant used his powerful position to mould and influence those who were to serve in India towards his view that England's primary responsibility was to Christianize India He founded Haileybuiy College, through which all ICS recruits passed, and designed its curriculum to produce men 'who would be not just capable civil servants but also bearers of a moral and religious tradition from a superior to an inferior society' (Embree, p. 201). Grant would have recognized in Muir, who excelled at Haileybuiy, an exemplary product of the curriculum he so carefully designed.

Carl Pfander Muir's principle object in The Mohammedan Controversy was to review Pfander's debates with Sayyid Rahmat Ali, Mohammed Kazim Ali and Sayyid Ali Hassan. Muir said that Pfander was an ordained minister of the Church of England, when in fact he was a Lutheran in the service of the Church Missionary Society. Bishop Stephen Neill has described the 'remarkable ecumenical experiment' which resulted in the 'episcopal Church of England from 1728 to 1861' employing 'missionaries who had never received episcopal ordination according to the Anglican rite', but who were duly licensed to use the Book of Common Prayer and to celebrate Holy Communion (p. 233). Trained at Basel, Pfander worked at Shusha in Iran before joining the CMS at Agra in 1835. He was expelled from Shusha by the Russian government, who were distuibed by the fierce opposition with which his Mizan-ul-Haqq was met, which also nearly cost Pfander his life. He remained in India until 1858, when he was transferred to Constantinople to establish a mission there. Muir discussed the contents of Pfander's Mizan-ul-Haqq (Balance of Truth), Miftah-ul-Asrar (Key of Mysteries) and Tariq-ul-Hayat (Way of 112

Sir William Muir 1819-1905

Life) in detail. Pfander's style was hard hitting. He tried, he believed, both Christianity and Islam at the bar of reason and proceeded to argue that Christianity conformed with the a priori (as defined by himself) criteria of true revelation, whereas Islam was found wanting. Muir did offer some negative criticisms of Pfander. For example, he thought that Pfander relied overmuch on reason, especially in his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity. For his part, Muir thought it doubtful 'whether man, even in a perfect state, could, without Revelation, have discovered the Doctrine of the Trinity; whereas the mode of expression here adopted implies that there are marks in creation which do plainly indicate the Trinity of the Creator' (MC, pp. 24-5). Muir realized that it is possible to win arguments while losing souls: 'Hence the paramount necessity for all engaged in this work to be intimately acquainted not merely with the rules of logic and requirements of sound reason, but with the human heart'. The missionary should approach the Muslims with 'prudence, kindness and love' (MC, pp. 40-1). Muir suggested two negative results of an incorrect approach to Muslims. First, too harsh criticism (of which Pfander, when goaded, was guilty) would result in unnecessarily wounding Muslim pride, which would merely harden their hearts and invoke similar harsh criticism of Christian faith, such as that contained in the Saulat-ud-Daigham (Lion's Onset). Speaking of their 'deep rooted pride in their faith', Muir wrote, 'If anywhere we are to expect prejudice, anywhere to make allowances for it, surely it must be here' (MC, p. 41). Somewhat earlier Forster had suggested that Muslim prejudice and pride might be harnessed by fairly acknowledging the 'secular and temporal benefits' which the 'instrumentality of the Koran' had 'imparted both to East and West' (Forster, MU, 2:378). Muir, though, rejected the notion that Islam was capable of conferring benefit on anyone. The second result of the harsh criticism, Muir pointed out, is that if Muslims perceive 'want of accuracy in our narratives and imperfection in our means of information, they will naturally doubt all our assertions and deny our conclusions' (MC, p. 87). In this call for a more irenical approach, Muir is surprisingly close to Forster's advice that Christians should approach 'the understanding through the avenue of the heart' (MU, 2:378-9). Muir warned against the danger of accounts based on inadequate knowledge of Islam or on inaccurate sources. Early writers, such as Maracci and Prideaux had only been able to address the Muslim in the language of the West; their work, rightly, was received with 'contemptuous incredulity'. Muir urged his compatriots to produce books specially 113

Victorian Imagts ofIslam

written for Muslims in language they could comprehend, later complaining that despite such new sources now available as Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi, ibn-Hisham and Tabari, which Muslims could not but respect and heed, Christians were failing to produce suitable works. He offered Washington living's Life of Mahomet as an example of bad practice, observing that though the book was written as a novel, the author had failed his public by not being rigidly accurate in his use of authorities. Irving viewed Muhammad through romantic eyes, and 'amid the charms of a romantic bias too often lost sight of truth'. So much, Muir commented 'for the delightful but fancy sketches of Washington Irving'. Pfander's works, also not quite adequate, were the best available but had 'little reference to the historical deductions of modern research [dealing rather] with the deep principles of reason and of faith' (MC, p. 67). Muir praised Pfander's mastery of language and considered his Tariq-ul-Hayat excellent in its 'exuberance of language and richness of dictum'. He observed that many Muslims were perplexed by the 'padres accomplishments', while some thought his work that of a 'renegade Muslim' (MC, p. 30). Mastery of language became a vital ingredient in the training of missionaries to Muslims. Later writers considered the value of Pfander to be as a guide to something better. His attacks on Muhammad's character resulted in tit-for-tat attacks on Christ, sometimes uncharacteristically vehement. Pfander, said Muir, 'attack[ed] Mahomet's mission; allege[d] the debasing nature of some of the precepts and contents of the Co ran' (MC, p. 11). Recently, A. A. Powell has argued that Pfander actually lost his debates, defeated by his opponents' use of modern biblical scholarship of which he was largely ignorant Muir, however, considered Pfander's opponents quite unable to match his arguments and referred to Kazim Ali as a bully. His work, he said, descended to 'petulant and offensive remarks' (MC, p. 34).

Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled It is in the context of his dismissive review of Pfander's Muslim respondents that Muir discussed Forster's book, since Forster was arguing their case. In reviewing Forster, Muir echoes the earlier praise of even Forster's most outspoken critics of his learning and ability. The book, opined Muir, contained 'a vast fund of useful information' (MC, p. 45). Forster, said Muir, dealt ably with his thesis that Islam is the 'fulfilment of the blessing promised to Abraham for Ishmael's seed' (MC, p. 42). If 114

Sir William Muir 18¡9-1905

proved, this thesis would establish the divine origin of Islam. Observing that the same argument was popularly advanced by all the Muslim writers he had just reviewed, Muir suggested that Forster's ordained status would afford him a warm welcome among the Moulvie of India. Forster may possibly have been influenced by Professor Lee's account of the arguments of Muhammad Ruza of Hamadan. In refuting Forster, Muir denied that Ishmael's blessing carried a spiritual aspect. It was, therefore, adequately fulfilled in the 'rapid increase of Ishmael's posterity' (A/C, p. 43). Denying the spirituality of Ishmael's blessing, Muir simultaneously denied any spiritual relationship between Ishmael and Muslims. In his Life, he rejected the claim that Muhammad was a decendant of Ishmael, thus rejecting the conclusions of Forster's Historical Geography of Arabia. If Islam was 'the fulfilment of a promise it..must be acknowledged a divine faith', Muir reasoned, which was at odds with his view of Islam as the ingenious conduction of Muhammad's mind, at best. At worst, he strongly hinted at Satanic inspiration. 'Could the counsels of the Evil One', he asked, 'have devised any more perfect plan for frustrating the Gospel and grace of God?' (A/C, p. 48) Islam as Anti-Christian Muir rejected Forster's view that Islam prepared the way for the gospel. Instead, it is a deadly and devastating apostasy presenting a thick impenetrable veil which effectually excludes every glimmering of the true light. Instead of tending towards Christianity as Forster suggested, Islam posed obstacles to conversion greater than those of heathenism itself (A/C, p. 47). Heathenism, Muir argued, was passive and tended to surrender quickly. Islam, in contrast, was an undisguised and formidable antagonist,...an active and powerful enemy (A/C, p. 2). Muir had referred to the fight between Islam and Christianity having advanced in the former's favour when the latter had failed to wield suitable weapons. The controversy with Islam was, for Muir, a spiritual contest or crusade. It was this consideration that inspired his call for the production of suitable books; the imperative was not that of 'the charms of antiquarian research' or 'the substantial acquisition of remote historical truth', but the fate of the millions of Muslims throughout the world (A/C, pp. 65-6). Reginald Bosworth Smith, who, as had Forster, rejected the idea that Islam was Christianity's enemy, spoke of Muir's view of Islam as 'the personal enemy and rival of the Faith, disputing on equal terms for the same prize' (M&M, 1876, p. 278). 113

Victorian Images ofIslam

Islam as Anti-Civilization Muir's view of Islam as an enemy, first articulated in 1845, continued to colour his later writing, especially his Life, his Annals of the Early Caliphate and The Caliphate, Its Rise, Decline and Fall. His statement, probably written during the events of 1857-8, that 'the sword of Mahomet, and the Co ran are the most stubborn enemies of Civilization, Liberty and Truth which the world has yet known' was retained in the 1894 edition of the Life (4:322; 1894, p. 506). Thus viewing Islam as an enemy of civilization, Muir rejected Forster's theory that Islam had contributed greatly to the advancement of humanity. He fits well Forster's description of those scholars who hold that Throughout every country where Mahometanism is professed, the same deep pause is made in philosophy, and that...in the east, under the influence of Mahometan belief, the natural progress of mankind, whether in government, in manners, or in science, has been retarded [and]...over the various nations of the Mahometan world some universal but baleful influence seems to have operated, so as to counteract every diversity of national character and restrain every principle exertion. (MU, 11:376-7)

In his Caliphate, Muir based his conclusions equally on his life-long study of Islam and on his many years of imperial service in India: The Islam of today is substantially the Islam we have seen throughout history. Swathed in the bands of the Coran, the Moslem faith, unlike the Christian, is powerless to adapt..to varying time and place, keep pace the march of humanity, direct and purify the social life and elevate mankind, (p. S98)

This last point was taken up by one of hisreviewers,E.A. Freeman, who concluded that because Christianity was not allied to any one political form, it could adapt itself to all political conditions. In contrast, Islam 'by enforcing the code of precepts which were a vast reform at Mecca and Medina in the seventh century, has condemned all the lands of its obedience to abide in a state of imperfect civilization' (Freeman, 'Mohammed', p. 133). Islam was a reform that 'stifled other reforms'. Hence, Muir observed, 'we fail of finding anywhere the germ of popular government or approach to free and liberal institutions'. Islam, he opined, kept Muslim nations 'in a backward and m some respects barbarous state' (iCaliphate, p. 599). Lest his readers point to the achievements of Damascus, Baghdad or Cordoba as evidence of learning and scientific excellence in the Islamic 116

Sir William Muir 1819-1905

world, which Forster had extolled, Muir dismissed these as short-lived and superficial. He argued that these periods of high civilization failed to penetrate the family or to ieaven domestic life'. The social evils of 'polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage and the veil' which lie at the root of Islamic society, withered away temporary progress and caused a relapse 'into semi-barbarism' (Caliphate, p. 599). Thus, the world of Islam remained as it was in the days of the Caliphate: 'The Christian nations may advance in civilization, freedom and morality, in philosophy, in science and the arts, but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the lessons of history avail, it will remain' (