■ 
 
 
 ii i':n>
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 IProbstbain's ©dental Sedes 
 Vol. V. 
 
 ESSAYS : INDIAN AND ISLAMIC
 
 ESS AY S 
 
 INDIAN AND ISLAMIC 
 
 BY 
 
 S. KHUDA BUKHSH, M.A. (Oxon) 
 
 PROBSTHAIN ^ CO. 
 41 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 
 1912
 
 3)5 
 
 .43 K 
 
 5fY 
 
 TO 
 
 Sir R. W. CARLYLE, C.S.I., 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 THESE PAGES AS A TOKEN OF GREAT RESPECT 
 
 AND PROFOUND GRATITUDE 
 
 20(1^807
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE SPIRIT OF ISLAil - - - - 1 
 
 II. THE ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY - 25 
 
 III. THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM ; ITS 
 
 ORIGIN, ITS GFvOWTH, AND ITS RESULTS - 56 
 
 IV. GHALIB: AN APPRECIATION - - - 127 
 V. MY FATHER: HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES - 139 
 
 VI. HINDUSTANI LITERATURE -, - - 204 
 
 VII. THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION - 213
 
 ESSAYS: INDIAN AND ISLAMIC 
 
 I 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 I 
 
 1 DO not desire to explain the importance and sig- 
 nificance of Islam among the religious systems of 
 the world ; nor am I to fix and ascertain the exact 
 position of Mohamed as a religious teacher among 
 the world's great teachers of religions. My effort 
 in this paper is simpler, and yet. not altogether free 
 from hewilderiiig perplexities. I desire to explain 
 what Islam is and what its teachings are — Islam as 
 preached and delivered by the Prophet of Arabia ; 
 Islam stripped of the accretions of ages of theological 
 disputes and controversies ; in other words, to sketch 
 out, to the best of my light and leading, Islam of the 
 Prophet Mohamed. Diflicult though this task is, it 
 is not indeed a hopeless venture for one who has kept 
 himself clear and free from narrow sectarianism. 
 
 To fully appreciate the message of Mohamed, it is 
 essential that I should say something about the con- 
 dition of Aral)ia before Islam. I must readily admit 
 that BO far as the Pagan Arabia is concerned, we are 
 
 1
 
 2 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 in great dearth of authorities. Our information is 
 shadowy, fitful, and fragmentary, and the industry 
 of European scholars (such as Caussin de Perceval, 
 Krehl, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, and Sir Charles 
 Lyall) has succeeded but in lifting the veil at its 
 fringe. But however partial and unsatisfactory the 
 account is of the Pagan days, we can yet form an 
 idea of the life that the Pagan Arabs led, and the 
 thoughts that swayed and animated their conduct 
 and their deeds. I will therefore describe '* The Pre- 
 Islamic Arabia " as briefly as I can. 
 
 The Pre-Islamic Arabs were not a nation. Of the 
 sense of nationality, indeed, they had not the vaguest 
 conception, though they were linked by community 
 of speech. Arabia was a sum-total of loose and dis- 
 connected congeries of tribes, and the tribe was the 
 source and the limit of social and political obligation. 
 Beyond the tribe there lay no duty and no obligation 
 either. Political relations were moral, for morality 
 was confined within the limits of the tribe. Political 
 organization was represented by the corporate feeling 
 which found expression in the exercise of the duties of 
 brotherhood. Within the pale of the tribe obtained 
 the prohibition to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, 
 etc., etc. Beyond it there was no such prohibition. 
 Fidelity to one's kinsman was an imperative duty, 
 apart from any question of the Justness of the cause-* 
 Outside the tribe there was nothing but constant 
 plunder and unceasing warfare. " Certain large 
 groups were, indeed, almost continually at war with 
 one another. Ma'add, the people of the Hijaz and 
 
 * Wellhausen, " Reste Arabischen Heidentums," p. 226.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 3 
 
 Al-yamamah generally, looked upon Al-yaman as 
 their natural prey, and were constantly raiding the 
 herds of their southern neighbours. Between Tamim 
 and Bakr, son of Wail, there was permanent bad 
 blood. Ghatafan and Hawazin had a standing feud. 
 In the north the kingdom of Al-Hirah, the represen- 
 tative of Persian predominance, was the hereditary 
 enemy of Ghassan, the representative of the might of 
 Eome." (Lyall, " Ancient Arabian Poetry," p. xxiii.) 
 Arabia, before Islam, was thus a theatre of internecine 
 warfare, restrained but partially by the introduction 
 of blood-money. There was compensation for every- 
 thing for which vengeance could be exacted. All 
 crimes were assessed as economic damage. Every 
 loss of honour, property, or life could be appraised 
 by agreement, all having their price in camels. 
 We thus see that the Arabs before Islam had scarcely 
 emerged from barbaric conditions.* There was no 
 social order, no organized government. The law of 
 sheer brute force prevailed, untempered and unre- 
 strained by any civilizing or controlling influence. 
 Nor did they attain to any refined idea of religion. 
 Their religion was nothing more or less than gross 
 fetichism — the worship of tree and stone, the venera- 
 tion of certain personified divine attributes, meaning- 
 less ritual and ceremonials. The true religious 
 spirit they never succeeded in grasping, and the 
 fear of God never exercised any real, practical 
 influence over their conduct and actions. It was 
 
 * I have avoided further details here, as I have dealt witli 
 this subject at length in my "Contributions to the History of 
 lalamic Civilization," pp. 140-169.
 
 4 THE SPIEIT OF ISLAM 
 
 reserved for Islam to instil into them the sense of 
 responsibility to God, and to make this idea of human 
 responsibility the guiding and controlling principle of 
 life. To all appearance the Arabs honoured the gods, 
 went on pilgrimage to their sanctuaries, made sacri- 
 fices in the temples, anointed with the blood of the 
 victims gods carved out of stone or made of wood, 
 consulted the oracles when in difficulty, and questioned 
 them about the future. But all this was sham and 
 counterfeit. Of real, genuine, religious feeling there 
 was none. This empty show, however, was kept up 
 for purposes of gain, the manifold sanctuaries yield- 
 ing large incomes to certain noble families and clans. * 
 In a soil apparently so uncongenial, how did Islam 
 strike its root ? This is an interesting and fascinating 
 question and we must try to solve it here. The solu- 
 tion of this question is to be found in the existence of 
 Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, and in 
 the commercial activity of the Arabs on the other. 
 By commerce the Arabs acquired an extended know- 
 ledge of foreign nations and their civilization. 
 Frequent contact with the outer world widened their 
 intellectual horizon and awakened in them higher and 
 more spiritual thoughts. They learnt new ideas, 
 acquired new habits, and, what was most valuable of 
 all, they learnt to think for themselves. But not 
 merely did travel in foreign countries and intercourse 
 with foreign people exercise a disruptive influence, 
 but there were forces, alike subversive and destructive, 
 
 * Deutsch, " Literary Remains," p. 87. For further infor- 
 mation see Von Kremer, " Culturgeschichtliche Streifzuge " (my 
 translation, p. 49).
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 5 
 
 nearer home. In Arabia itself the two streams of 
 Christianity and Judaism flowed side by side with 
 the Arab heathenism. 
 
 That Christianity had made a considerable advance 
 among the Arabs is clear from the fact that, at the 
 time of Mohamed, it was considerably diffused not 
 merely among the Rabia tribes but even among the 
 Tamim. Nor did the Taiyy altogether escape its 
 influence. Its growth, however, was not so favour- 
 able in Hijaz and Central Arabia, but even here 
 Christian ideas undoubtedly made their way through 
 commerce and social intercourse. Similarly the 
 Jewish influence was equally powerful. When the 
 Jews came to Arabia we do not definitely know, but 
 Dr. Noldeke points out that a great Jewish immigra- 
 tion into Arabia cannot be fixed prior to the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem by Titus and Hadrian. At all 
 events, it is clear that at the time of Mohamed there 
 was a large colony of Jews at Taima, Khaibar, 
 Yathrib, Fedak and Yaman. They did not live 
 scattered amidst the Arab population but kept together, 
 and, though despised by the Arabs, they were yet 
 indispensable to them as merchants, jewellers, and 
 goldsmiths. It would, therefore, be not an error to 
 suppose that they exerted no small spiritual influence 
 over the Arabs.* That this is no unfounded theory 
 or improbable supposition is evidenced by the fact 
 that in the works of four of the most prominent 
 Arabian poets of the Pre-Islamic time — An-Nabigah, 
 Zuhair, Al-Asha and Labid — we find expressions 
 which show that they, at least, if not the wild 
 ♦ Wellhausen, " Keste," pp. 230, 231.
 
 6 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 wanderers of the desert, knew very well what a 
 spiritual religion meant.* Ibn Qutaibah enumerates 
 drinking, joy, wrath, and love among the *' motive 
 causes " which speed the poet, but we cannot fail to 
 detect in their poems an undercurrent of deep religious 
 feelings. Individual minds felt a sense of uneasiness 
 and sought to find some plausible solution of the 
 mysteries of life and death, and traces of such a frame 
 of mind we notice frequently in ancient Arab poetry. 
 On no other basis, indeed, can we explain the 
 lamentations of the royal poet Imru-ul-Qais over the 
 worthlessness of the life of pleasure that he had led 
 and the conversion to Christianity of Qais B. Zuhair, 
 the leader of the Abs in the long fratricidal war 
 against the Dhubian. f In considering the rise of 
 Islam we cannot be unwatchful of the course of 
 contemporary thought or unmindful of the religious 
 forces which contributed to its success. Such, indeed, 
 were the forces at work in Arabia before Mohamed — 
 forces which could not have failed to stir higher 
 thoughts in enlightened minds and to create a re- 
 action against the Arab heathenism. And a reaction, 
 indeed, did set in. A band of distinguished men, 
 whom we must recognize as the heralds and standard- 
 bearers of Islam, no longer willing to tolerate idol- 
 atrous practices, definitely cut themselves adrift 
 from the Arabian Paganism. They called themselves 
 Hanifs, a word of doubtful meaning and the cause of 
 much controversy. " The most acceptable conjecture 
 
 * Lyall, " Ancient Arabian Poetry," p. 93. 
 t In Wellhausen's " Reste," p. 229, will be found the passage 
 in question from Imru-ul-Qais.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 7 
 
 seems to me," says Sir Charles Lyall, " to be that 
 of Sprenger, that it is connected with the Hebrew 
 Hanef (heretic)." Hanifism had certain specific 
 features : rejection of idolatry, abstention from 
 certain kinds of food, and the worship of " the God 
 of Abraham." Ascetic practices, such as the wearing 
 of sackcloth, are also ascribed to some of the Hanifs.* 
 Islamic tradition has handed down to us the names 
 of a number of religious thinkers before Mohamed, 
 who are described as Hanifs, and of whom the follow- 
 ing is a list : 
 
 1. Warakah b. Xaufal of Kuraish. 2. Ubaidulla b. Jahsh. 
 3. Uthman b. Al Huwarith. 4. Zaid b.' Amr b. Naufal. 
 
 Ibn Kutaibah adds to the above : 
 
 5. Urbab b. al Bara' of Abdul Qais. 6. Umayyah b. Abi-s- 
 Salt. 7. Kuss b. Saidah of lyad (" Aghani," xiv. 41-44) ; 
 Mohamed heard him at Ukadh, bnt he died before the 
 mission. 8. Abu Kais Simrah b. Abi Anas. 9. KhaUd 
 b. Sinan b. Ghaith of Abs. 
 
 To these Sir Charles Lyall a'dds : 
 10. Abu Kais Saifi, Ibn Al-Aslat of the Aus-allah of Yathrib. 
 
 It is impossible to misconceive the importance and 
 significance of Hanifism in the origin of Islam. The 
 path was already prepared for it, and Islam offered to 
 the Arabs what they were long in search for : a moral, 
 ethical, and spiritual teaching ; a higher form of 
 worship, and last, but not least, fraternity and union. 
 The tribal cults were henceforward merged in a higher 
 
 * Journal of the Asiatic Society, October, 1903, p. 773. 
 Khuda Bukhsh, "Islamic Civilization," p. 147, and the authori- 
 ties therein cited.
 
 8 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 worship, and the nobler energies of the Arab race 
 obtained a religious consecration. 
 
 Islam became the starting-point for the Arabs for 
 conquests, alike spiritual and temporal. With Islam 
 it became the prerogative of the Arab race to be " an 
 ensign to the nations," to bear and to carry the 
 banner of the true God to the remotest corner of the 
 earth. Hence the unceasing campaigns and hence 
 the far-extending conquests. 
 
 II 
 
 It is clear beyond doubt that Christian and Jewish 
 influences to a large extent unsettled and disturbed 
 the beliefs of the Pagan Arabs and paved the way for 
 the Prophet. Eesistance to his faith there was, but it 
 was resistance on the part of those who sought to 
 maintain the old faith and superstition, not on 
 account of any warmth of conviction or sincerity 
 of zeal, but on account of the fear and apprehension 
 that the success of Islam would mean loss of large 
 incomes derived from the temples and old heathen 
 practices.* But resistance, founded upon such a 
 selfish basis, could not prevent, and, indeed, did not 
 prevent, the onward progress of Islam. In the deadly 
 conflict between Islam and the Arab heathenism 
 Islam triumphed. 
 
 We "now proceed to inquire what was the basis, 
 or, in other words, what were the sources from 
 which Islam was derived. Islam freely borrowed 
 
 * Von Kremer, " Culturgeschichte des Orients," vol. i., p. 24.
 
 THE SPIEIT OF ISLAM 9 
 
 from Judaism and Christianity, and even did not 
 hesitate to adopt practices prevalent in Pre-Islamic 
 Arabia. In fashioning his religion the Prophet 
 adopted an eclectic method, retaining or rejecting 
 from the older systems whatever seemed to him 
 necessary and proper. It is not exactly within the 
 scope of my paper precisely to specify or accm-ately to 
 define the exact obligation of Islam to Christianity or 
 Judaism. Such a discussion would take me far afield. 
 Professor Wellhausen is inclined to belittle the 
 influence of Judaism in the birth and infancy of 
 Islam, and points to the Islamic conception of Jesus 
 as the greatest of the prophets before Mohamed 
 as a conclusive proof of his contention. But the 
 present writer is not prepared to attach much weight 
 to this argument. If the Islamic conception of Jesus, 
 indeed, is to be put forward as indicating the absence 
 of Judaic influence on early Islam, with equal force 
 might the Islamic conception of Jesus be urged as 
 subversive of the theory of Christian influence, so 
 stoutly advocated by Professor Wellhausen.* The 
 basis of dogmatic Christianity, namely the sonship 
 of Christ, Mohamed inveighed against early and late. 
 It would be idle to deny the indebtedness of Islam 
 to Judaism. Mohamed has not merely accepted 
 dogmas and doctrines of Judaism, minute Talmudical 
 ordinances, but has even adopted in their entirety 
 some of the Jewish practices, and, far above all these, 
 
 * Wellhausen, p. 236 et seq. Professor Wellhausen admits 
 Jewish influence in the Islamic theocracy and in the belief that 
 the Prophet, as representative of God, is alone entitled to rule 
 and govern, to the exclusion of all other powers. See also 
 Deutsch, p. 171.
 
 10 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 that which, indeed, constitutes the very foundation of 
 Islam, namely, the conception of a severe and uncom- 
 promising monotheism.* The fact is that both 
 Judaism and Christianity were used, and used freely, 
 by the Prophet in building up his religion. Nor is 
 this a new theory. The Prophet never put himself 
 forward as introducing something new, but he invari- 
 ably claimed for himself the honour of reviving the 
 old and the true beliefs which had fallen into neglect 
 and oblivion. But besides the Jewish and Christian 
 sources, not a small portion of Islamic ritual and 
 ceremonials were mere reproductions of Pre-Islamic 
 practices. The entire ceremonies relating to the 
 pilgrimage (Hajj) and the sacred service at the temple 
 of Mecca, have survived in Islam with little or no 
 variation from the days of Arab heathenism ;-f- the only 
 change that Mohamed effected in them was to allow 
 the pilgrims to put on a particular pilgrim dress, 
 consisting of two pieces of cloth, of which one covers 
 the hip and the other breast and shoulders ; while 
 the head has to be kept uncovered, as in ancient days, 
 when they used to make up their hair into a sort of 
 wig by means of some glutinous substance. And so, 
 indeed, it has remained, to this day, the prescribed 
 pilgrim costume. After visiting the Kabah they used, 
 in heathen days, to visit the two rocky hills of Safa 
 and Merwah, on which were placed two bronze idols. 
 
 * See the learned monograph of Geiger, " Was hat Mohammed 
 aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen." 
 
 t Lyall, p. 93 ; Von Kramer's " CulturgeschichtHche Streif- 
 ziige " (my translation, p. 47). The author of " Ras' Mai in- 
 Nadim" (Bankipore MS.) gives an account of heathen practices 
 (fol. 17 et seq.), specially drawing attention to those retained by 
 Islam.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 11 
 
 Mohamed went so far in his toleration of the heathen 
 pilgrimage customs that he suffered the visit to Safa 
 and Marwah to continue as before, but had the two 
 idols removed. Of the history of the origin of the 
 forms of the prayer, prostration, ablution, and fasts, 
 our knowledge is vague, uncertain, and shadowy. 
 Islam has, says Von Kremer, 
 
 " largely drawn upon Judaism, Christianity, the rehgion of 
 Zoroaster, and possibly even upon Manichteanism. From Par- 
 siism it has taken both directly and indirectly. A number of 
 obviously Parsi ideas have penetrated into Islam through the 
 channel of Jewish books— notably the Talmud. The doctrine 
 of the Eesurrection, most of the legends relating to heaven and 
 hell, and the entire system of demonology, have found their way 
 into the Quran through Judaism. So, indeed, did the description 
 of the trial and the tortures of the dead in the grave by two 
 angels, Munkar and Nahir. The idea of the bridge sirat^ as 
 thin as a hair, which leads to paradise across the abyss of hell, 
 is certainly derived from the Parsis, havmg passed over into the 
 Qur'an through the Midrash. But Islam has not hesitated to 
 borrow directly from Parsiism. It is a significant fact that the 
 word din, which so repeatedly occurs in the Qur'an, has been 
 borrowed from the Parsi books. In the Huzveresh it appears 
 in exactly the same form (old Bactrian, dcena)."* 
 
 It is not suggested that the Prophet had access to 
 the written books of either the Jews or the Christians ; 
 though in some passages of the Qur'an we can trace 
 direct resemblances to the text of the Old Testament 
 and the Mishna.f His knowledge of the Jewish and 
 Christian books, at times faulty and imperfect to 
 
 • See note f, p. 10. 
 
 t Von Kremer, " Culturgeschichtlicbe Streifziige " (my trans- 
 lation, p. 47). Compare Qur'an, xxi. 105 with Ps. xxxvii. 29; 
 1-5 with Ps. xxvii. The New Testament : Compare vii. 48 with 
 Luke xvi. 24 ; xlvi. 19 with Luke xvi. 25. Then again, verse 35 
 corresponds almost word for word with Mishna Sanh., iv. 5 ; 
 also ii. IB.'i with Mishna Ber., 1, 2. Koldeke, "Sketches from 
 Eastern History," p. '61.
 
 12 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 a degree, was derived almost exclusively from oral 
 communications. 
 
 I trust I have said enough to illustrate the condi- 
 tion of Arabia before Islam and the sources from 
 which the Prophet of Arabia received his religious 
 inspiration. I now go on to explain Islam and its 
 tenets. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Mr. Ameer Ali explains Islam as " striving after 
 righteousness," but Prof. Hirschfeld, in his luminous 
 " Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the 
 Qur'an," very correctly points out that Mr. Ameer All's 
 definition only reflects the theoretical and moral side 
 of the question — limited to the initial stage of 
 Islam.* 
 
 The term Islam, as time went by, included the 
 whole of the theoretical and practical constitution of 
 the faith, and as such it is interpreted by Al-Ghazzali 
 in his Ihya ul-ulum (vol. i., p. 104). Islam, says he, 
 is an expression for submission and unquestioning 
 obedience, abandonment of insubordination, defiance 
 and opposition. And it is in this light, indeed, that 
 the Prophet himself regarded Islam, " The Bedwins 
 say (xlix. 14) we believe. Speak ! you shall not 
 * believe ' (only) but say we practise Islam (Aslamna)." 
 In Surah iii. 17 [cf. v. 79) Islam is identified with 
 din (cf. Ixi. 7-9), and the relation between the two 
 synonyms, says Prof. Hirschfeld, is broadly discussed 
 
 * "Life and Teachings of Mohamed," p. 226; Professor 
 Hirschfeld, p. 14.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 13 
 
 by Al-Shahrastani (Milal, pp. 25-27) and is stated 
 to embrace the five duties, viz. : Testifying to the 
 unity of God and the Divine inspiration of Mohamed, 
 reciting prayers, giving alms, fasting in the month 
 Ramadhan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. 
 The fundamental basis of Islam is the unity 
 of God, stern, unbending monotheism, and this 
 doctrine of the unity of God is proclaimed in the 
 Qur'an, in season and out of season, and ever and 
 anon with augmented emphasis. To associate gods 
 with God is the most unpardonable sin, and the 
 Prophet's extensive vocabulary of vituperation is never 
 exhausted in attacking those who associate gods with 
 God. In Surah vi. (vers. 74-79) we have one of the 
 most charming passages testifying to the unity of 
 God: 
 
 " And remember when Abraham said to his father, Azar, thou 
 takest those images as God ? verily I see that thou and thy 
 people are in manifest error. 
 
 " And so did we show Abraham the domain of the heavens and 
 of the earth that he might be one of those who are established 
 in knowledge. And when the night overshadowed him he 
 beheld a star, ' This,' said he, ' is my Lord ' ; but when it set, 
 he cried, ' I love not gods which set.' And when he beheld 
 the moon uprising, 'This,' said he, 'is my Lord'; but when it 
 set, he said, ' Surely, if my Lord guide me not I shall be of 
 those who go astray.' 
 
 " And when he beheld the sun uprise, he said, ' This is my 
 Lord; this is the greatest.' But when it set, he said, ' O, my 
 people, I share not witli you the guilt of joining gods with God.' 
 
 "I verily turn iny face to him who hath created the heavens 
 and tJie ear tJi, following the right religion; and I am not one 
 of those who add gods to God." 
 
 Not a whit did Gibbon* exaggerate the truth when 
 he wrote : " The creed of Mohamed is free from suspicion 
 
 * Gibbon, Bury's edition, vol. v., p. 339.
 
 14 THE SPIEIT OF ISLAM 
 
 or ambiguity, and the Qur'an is a glorious testimony 
 to the unity of God. The Prophet of Mecca rejected 
 the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on 
 the rational principle that whatever is born must die, 
 that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish." 
 And, again, says the historian of the Roman Empire : 
 " These sublime truths, thus announced in the 
 language of the Prophet, are firmly held by his 
 disciples and defined with metaphysical precision by 
 the interpreters of the Qur'an. A philosophic atheist 
 might subscribe the popular creed of Mohame- 
 dans, a creed too sublime perhaps for our present 
 faculties." 
 
 The unity of God, therefore, is the central faith of 
 Islam, and connected with it, by natural process as it 
 were, is the belief that man is responsible to the 
 Creator for his actions and deeds. This belief the 
 Pre-Islamic Arab never knew or conceived, and the 
 Prophet Mohamed, by inculcating this belief, not only 
 laid the foundation of a spiritual life among his 
 countrymen, but also that of a well-organized 
 society, soon destined to grow into a magnifi- 
 cent empire. The sphere of duty and obligation, 
 charity and sympathy, confined hitherto merely 
 to tribesmen, was widened and extended, and the 
 narrow tribal tie was lost in the larger brotherhood of 
 faith. At this distance of time it is perhaps difficult 
 for us fully to realize the influence of this teaching, 
 but to it alone must we ascribe the dethronement of 
 those ideals of Arabian Paganism which the author of 
 the " Muhammedanische Studien " has so graphically 
 described, comparing and contrasting them with the
 
 THE SPIEIT OF ISLAM 15 
 
 higher ideals substituted by Islam.* The religion of 
 the Prophet, like the wand of a magician, completely 
 and utterly changed the life of the Arabs. It hushed 
 their tribal disputes into silence ; it destroyed their 
 insularity ; it set up a purer and a more refined 
 standard of domestic life ; it opened before them fresh 
 vistas of spiritual happiness and temporal success. 
 
 Next to the unity of God, Islam enjoins five daily 
 prayers upon its followers. It is curious that the 
 Qur'an lays down no rule as to the manner in which 
 the prayer should be offered. Apparently, as Mr. 
 Ameer Alif points out, the practice of the Prophet 
 has associated certain rites and ceremonies with the 
 due observance of prayer. In the Mohamedan prayer 
 we observe the Jewish practice of standing erect, the 
 Christian of prostration and a third of inclination.} 
 Originally the Prophet instituted three daily prayers. § 
 Their extension to five was an innovation of the late 
 Meccan period ; the details of the purity legislation 
 appear to have still later. " Yet the theory," says 
 Prof. Margoliouth, " that God should be approached 
 only by persons in a state of purity was known in 
 South Arabia before Mohamed's time, whence it is 
 probable that his earliest converts were instructed 
 therein." 
 
 Prayers are to be performed five times in the course 
 
 * Goldziher, " Muhammedanische Studien," vol. i., the chapter 
 on Muruwwa und Din ; Nicholson, " Literary History of the 
 Arabs," pp. 177-179; Browne, "Literary History of Persia," 
 p. 189 et acq. 
 
 t " Life and Teachings of Mohamad," p. 263. 
 
 j Margohouth, " Life of Mohanied," p. 102. 
 
 § Ibn Sad, vol. iv., part i., p. 159.
 
 16 THE SPIEIT OF ISLAM 
 
 of every day : between daybreak and sunrise, between 
 noon and the " asr " (which later period is about mid- 
 time between noon and nightfall), between the " asr " 
 and sunset, between sunset and the " asha " (or the 
 period when the darkness of night commences), and 
 at or after the "asha."* It is considered more 
 meritorious to take part in the public salat of the 
 community conducted by a leader (Imam) than to 
 discharge the salat by oneself. Von Kremer has 
 rightly emphasized the importance of the Muslim 
 prayer by recognizing the mosque as the drill-ground 
 for the warlike believers of early Islam. In stern dis- 
 cipline, in unconditional obedience, says Von Kremer, 
 the author of the " Culturgeschichte des Orients," 
 lay the greatest achievement of Mohamed and the 
 real secret of the strength of Islam.f The five daily 
 prayers where the leader (the Imam) stood before the 
 community, closely arrayed behind him, and where 
 every movement of his was imitated with military 
 preciseness, by the hundreds of the faithful assembled 
 in the mosque, served, among the Muslims, in those 
 times, the purpose of what is known now as the 
 drill-ground, a school where the people learnt to 
 assemble, to move in a body and to follow the 
 Commander. 
 
 In the Qur'an 1 the command to pay the poor-tax 
 (zakat) directly follows the command to pray : perform 
 the prayers and pay the poor-tax. This tax had a 
 
 * In Lane Poole's "Arabian Society in the Middle Ages," 
 pp. 1-24, the reader will find a detailed account of the religious 
 institutions of Islam. 
 
 t Vol. i., p. 10. 
 
 X Surah, 2, 40.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 17 
 
 strong communistic complexion which is evidenced by 
 the following tradition : ** The prophet sent Mu'adh to 
 Yaman and told him : summon the people to accept the 
 confession of faith, namely, there is no God but Allah 
 and I that am his prophet ; if they listen to it, teach 
 them further that God has ordained five daily prayers ; 
 if they are also agreeable to this, teach them further 
 that God has enjoined the poor-tax (sadakah) payable 
 by the wealthy upon their property for distribution 
 among the poor."* This tax was annually payable 
 upon camels, oxen (bulls and cows) and buffaloes, 
 sheep and goats, horses and mules and asses, and 
 gold and silver (whether in money or ornaments, 
 etc.), provided the property was of a certain amount ; 
 as five camels, thirty oxen, forty sheep, five horses, 
 two hundred dirhams, or twenty dinars. t The pro- 
 portion is generally one-fortieth, which is to be paid 
 in kind or in money or other equivalent. 
 
 The third most important obligation enjoined by 
 Islam is fasting in the month of Uamadlian. The 
 Muslim must abstain from eating and drinking and 
 from every indulgence of the senses, every day during 
 the month of Ramadhan, from the first appearance of 
 daybreak until sunset, unless physically incapacitated. 
 The last but not least is the pilgrimage to Mecca and 
 Mount Arafat, which the Muslim must perform at 
 least once in his life. 
 
 These then — namely, the unity of God, the belief 
 in the Divine mission of the Prophet, five daily 
 prayers, fasting in the month of Uam<uJ1ian and the 
 
 ♦ Von Kremer, KulturgescMchie, vol. i., p. 50. 
 t Lane Poole, "Arabian Society," p. 14, 
 
 2
 
 18 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 pilgrimage, are the essentials of Islam. The one 
 supreme mission of the Prophet was to create and to 
 maintain an absolute brotherhood in faith. All 
 Muslims were declared equal, irrespective of birth, 
 rank or profession ; and the world has never seen, 
 perhaps, a more perfect democracy than the one called 
 into being by the Prophet. Truly, the most worthy 
 of honour in the sight of God, says the Qur'an, is he 
 who feareth Him most ; for the faithful are brethren ; 
 whereupon make peace between your brethren. A 
 similar refrain runs through the parting sermon of 
 the Prophet : " men ! God has taken away from 
 you the arrogance and pride of ancestry of heathen 
 days. An Arab has no excellence or superiority over 
 a barbarian than that which is secured to him by his 
 God fearing and righteousness. Ye are all the 
 j)rogeny of Adam, and Adam himself is of the Earth." 
 
 No caste and no priestcraft does Islam recognize. 
 Every Muslim is his own priest and every spot of land 
 is his mosque to pray and to worship Allah. For no 
 other purpose than to keep alive the sense of corporate 
 unity of the Muslims did the Prophet declare the 
 superiority of the public prayer over prayer by one- 
 self and establish the institution of pilgrimage. 
 
 Year after year, from all parts of the Islamic 
 world, streamed to Mekka Muslims in thousands and 
 tens of thousands, to worship Allah at the Ka'bah 
 and to perform the Hajj. There, at Mekka, year 
 after year, Muslims of divers nationalities recognized 
 and realized the potent spell of their faith and felt 
 more deeply and keenly than ever the tie which 
 bound them together. Moreover, as Von Kremer
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 19 
 
 points out, there did the Muslims obtain an oppor- 
 tunity of listening to the lectures of far-famed 
 professors and men of letters, who attracted, year 
 by year, an ever-increasing audience. There, indeed, 
 did Islam shine forth in its full lustre, attracting 
 and alluring, enthralling and captivating its followers, 
 as it could do nowhere else. Every spot associated 
 with some historical incident, every place connected 
 with some important event or other of the life of the 
 teacher, awakened the love and fired the enthusiasm 
 of Muslims for the son of Abdullah, the maker of 
 Arabia and the founder of Islam. 
 
 In his fascinating book, " The Life and Teachings of 
 Mohamed," Mr. Ameer Ali has admirably summed 
 up the Islamic teachings : " Nothing can be simpler 
 or more in accord with the advance of the human 
 intellect than the teachings of the Arabian prophet. 
 The few rules for religious ceremonial which he 
 prescribed were chiefly with the object of maintaining 
 discipline and uniformity, so necessary in certain 
 stages of society, but they were by no means of an 
 inflexible character. He allowed them to be broken 
 in cases of illness or for other causes. ' God wishes 
 to make things easy for you, for,' says the Qur'an, 
 ' man was created weak.' The legal principles which 
 he enunciated were either delivered as answers to 
 questions put to him as the Chief Magistrate of 
 Medina or to remove or correct patent evils. The 
 Prophet's Islam recognized no ritual likely to distract 
 the mind from the thought of the one God, no 
 law to keep enchained the conscience of advancing 
 humanity."
 
 20 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Nothing was more distant from the Prophet's 
 thought than to fetter the mind or to lay down fixed, 
 immutable, unchanging laws for his followers. The 
 Qur'an is a book of guidance to the faithful, and not, 
 to be sure, an obstacle in the path of their social, 
 moral, legal, and intellectual progress. The require- 
 ments of Islam are at once easy and simple, and leave 
 scope to Muslims to take part in their duties as 
 subjects or citizens, to attend to their religious 
 obligations without sacrificing their worldly prosperity, 
 and to adopt whatever is good in any community or 
 civilization, without any interference on the part of 
 their religion. 
 
 IV 
 
 I shall now make a few general observations on the 
 religion of the Prophet of Arabia. Whatever Islam 
 may have become through pharisaic artificiality and 
 theological subtlety, its leading principles are as 
 broad as the starry heavens and as enduring as the 
 everlasting hills. It contains, in common with other 
 great religions, those eternal truths which are only 
 too liable to be forgotten in blind zeal, in warmth 
 of controversy, in sectarian narrow-mindedness, in 
 religious fanaticism, but which our education and 
 culture teach us to discover and appreciate, wherever 
 we find them. The governing principle of all religions 
 is the same. In the language of the Apostle James : 
 " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
 Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows 
 in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 21 
 
 the world." This is the burden of all religions and 
 this the burden of Islam. 
 
 The kernel and doctrine of Islam, Goethe has 
 found in the second surah which begins as follows : 
 " This is the Book. There is no doubt in the same. 
 A guidance to the righteous, who believe in the 
 unseen, who observe the prayer, and who give alms of 
 that which we have vouchsafed unto them. And who 
 believe in that which has been sent down unto thee — 
 (the Eevelation) which had been sent down to those 
 before thee, and who believe in the life to come. 
 They walk in the guidance of their Lord, and they are 
 the blessed. As to them who believe not — it is 
 indifferent to them whether thou exhortest them or 
 exhortest them not. They will not believe. Sealed 
 hath Allah their hearts and their ears, and over their 
 eye is darkness, and theii's will be a great punish- 
 ment. — " " And in this wise," Goethe continues, 
 *' we have surah after surah. Belief and unbelief are 
 divided into higher and lower. Heaven and hell 
 await the believers or deniers. Detailed injunctions of 
 things allowed and forbidden, legendary stories of 
 Jewish and Christian religion, amplifications of all 
 kinds, boundless tautologies and repetitions, form the 
 body of this sacred volume, which, to us, as often as 
 we approach it, is repellent anew, next attracts us 
 ever anew and fills us with admiration, and finally 
 forces us into veneration." 
 
 This passage, indeed, is as good a summary as any 
 other, but there is one, and in this same chapter, still 
 more explicit, illustrating the catholicity of the 
 Prophet's mind and his discerning judgment. When
 
 22 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 Mohamed, says Deutsch,* told his adherents at 
 Medina no longer to turn in prayer towards Jerusalem 
 but towards the Ka'bah at Mekka, to which their 
 fathers had turned, and he was blamed for this 
 innovation, he replied : " That is not righteousness : 
 whether ye turn your faces towards east or west, 
 God's is the east as well as the west. But verily 
 righteousness is his who believes in God, in the day 
 of judgment, in the angels, in the book and the 
 prophets ; who bestows his wealth for God's sake 
 upon kindred, and orphans, and the poor, and the 
 homeless, and all those who ask ; and also upon 
 delivering the captives ; he who is steadfast in prayer, 
 giveth alms, who stands firmly by his covenants, when 
 he has once entered into them ; and who is patient in 
 adversity, in hardship and in times of trial. These 
 are the righteous, and these are the God-fearing." 
 What a noble idea of life and religion do we find here ! 
 It is not merely the recitation of prayers which 
 constitutes righteousness, but in solemnly acting the 
 religion we profess ; in tender regard for the poor and 
 the orphan, the forlorn and the suffering ; in relieving 
 the miseries of the captives, in holding by the 
 promises made, in enduring with calm fortitude 
 the trials and reverses of fortune. Here, in this 
 passage, we have the key to Islam, nay, I would 
 go farther and say a key to all religions. It is 
 only the clouded vision which sees difference between 
 one religion and the other ; to one who has the eyes 
 to see and the heart to feel, all religions appear as 
 but a reflection of one and the same light. 
 
 * " Literary Remains," p. 128.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 23 
 
 This was the spirit of the Prophet's religion which 
 he preached in the Qur'an in every accent of pleading 
 and warning, of pathos and hope, of repentance and 
 forgiveness. He stood firm by his faith, unshaken by 
 threats and persuasion. His success, indeed, marks 
 the ascent of the soul, of the higher and nobler nature 
 of man from the darkness to the light. Nor was it a 
 different light to that which had appeared to humanity 
 " at sundry times and in divers manners." His 
 preaching fell on the Arabs, still in the spring-tide of 
 their national life, and laid a tremendous hold upon 
 their mind and their imagination, changing and 
 transforming them and giving them, as it were, a new 
 existence. It taught them firmness of resolve, con- 
 tempt of death, singleness of purpose, unity and 
 fraternity, and it gave them that intensity of religious 
 fervour which became the most valued asset of their 
 national life. Above all, says Dr. Noldeke, Islam 
 gave and gives to those who profess it a feeling of 
 confidence such as is imparted by hardly any other 
 faith.* And, indeed, it was this, again, which made 
 them great warriors and conquerors of the world.t 
 
 Islam possesses an inherent force and vitality which 
 nothing can weaken or destroy. It carries within it 
 
 * " Sketches from Eastern History," p. 27. 
 t Von Kremer, vol. i., p. 92.
 
 24 THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM 
 
 germs of progress and development, and has great 
 powers of adaptability to changing circumstances. 
 There is nothing in its teachings which conflicts with 
 or militates against modern civilization, and the 
 moment Muslims realize this truth their future will be 
 assured and their greatness only a question of time. 
 Modern Islam, with its hierarchy of priesthood, gross 
 fanaticism, appalling ignorance and superstitious 
 practices, is, indeed, a discredit to the Islam of the 
 Prophet Mohamed. Instead of unity we have Islam 
 torn into factions, instead of culture we have indiffer- 
 ence to learning ; instead of liberal-minded toleration 
 we have gross bigotry. But this intellectual darkness 
 must necessarily be followed by intellectual dawn, and 
 we trust that it is not now far distant or too long in 
 coming. 
 
 An impartial consideration of the life of the Prophet 
 and his teachings cannot fail to awaken the warmest 
 admiration for the man and his mission. Whatever 
 may be the defects in the Qur'an, even non-Muslims 
 must concede that it is a noble testimony to the unity 
 of God, and whatever may be the blemishes in the life 
 of the Prophet, none but a perverse mind will 
 regard him as anything but sincere in his con- 
 viction, honest in his purpose, and unshaken in his 
 resolve. Mohamedan civilization was the outcome of 
 Mohamedan faith, and nothing but Islam can again 
 give to the Mohamedans what they have lost — their 
 civilization, their culture, and their empire.
 
 II 
 
 THE ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 In Islam the functions of the priest and the sovereign 
 were concentrated in one and the same person. 
 Mohamed was ahke the Prophet of God and the 
 temporal ruler of the Arabs. He thus united 
 in himself the two functions of the king and the 
 spiritual chief. He was, so to speak, Caesar and 
 pope in one ; and this feature of the Islamic 
 sovereignty has continued to the latest times, though 
 indeed with important changes and modifications. 
 We do not for a moment suggest that circumstances 
 were moulded and shaped to suit preconceived 
 theories, but rather, as is always the case, theories 
 were fashioned out of the events which took place. 
 With the rise of the Abbasids begins the age of 
 theories and speculation, since it was under them 
 that the foreign influences slowly and silently com- 
 menced to leaven the entire social and political condi- 
 tions of the Caliphate. 
 
 We propose to discuss in this paper the Islamic 
 conception of sovereignty, but the bare statement of 
 political theories without reference to facts which had 
 called them into being would alike be barren and 
 
 25
 
 26 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 unprofitable. We therefore consider it necessary 
 to discuss the theory of sovereignty in the light of 
 the history of the Caliphate. The history of the 
 Caliphate might be divided into three unequal parts, 
 each, indeed, with strong characteristics of its own : 
 the patriarchal period ; the period of the Omayyads, or, 
 as it might be called, the rule of the Arab aristocracy ; 
 and the period of the Abbasids, or in other words, the 
 rule of the Persians, the Turks and the Kurds. * By 
 the patriarchal period we mean the Caliphate of Abu 
 Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali. During this period the 
 strongest tie that united the Arabs was that of religion 
 and conquest. 
 
 The Caliphs were the true successors of Mohamed 
 in matters spiritual and temporal, and fully justified 
 their position by their single-hearted devotion and 
 loyalty to the cause of Islam, For them no considera- 
 tion was so supreme and no interest so engrossing as 
 that of Islam. Impelled by no other motive than 
 that of the expansion of Islam and fighting the world 
 in its cause, the question of succession, though keenly 
 discussed even then, did not assume the importance 
 and bearing which it did in the subsequent history of 
 the Caliphate. After the death of the Prophet, Islam 
 was threatened with immediate destruction, and the 
 question came to the front as to who should step 
 into the place of Mohamed as the leader of the 
 growing Islamic community. Opinion was divided. 
 The Muhajirin and the Ansar would not agree and 
 a proposal was made that each party should select a 
 leader of its own. But the fiery Omar — to whom 
 
 * Diercks, " Die Araber im Mittelalter," p. 85.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 27 
 
 Islam is more indebted than to anybody else after 
 Mohamed— decided the fate of the day by offering 
 homage to Abu Bakr, the father-in-law and the most 
 trusted counsellor of the prophet. The die was cast 
 and Abu Bakr was chosen. The dense cloud which 
 hung over the Muslim horizon was thus rolled away, 
 and a crisis, which might have ended most fatally for 
 Islam, averted. 
 
 With regard to this election it is necessary to note 
 two things. Abu Bakr could not have been accepted 
 as Caliph by the Muslim community if the idea of 
 hereditary succession at all had then existed ; for from 
 the point of view of hereditary succession none was 
 more entitled to the Caliphate than Ali, the husband 
 of Fatima. In the second place it is to be borne in 
 mind that when Omar had put Abu Bakr forward, as 
 the successor of Mohamed, and had done homage to 
 him, the devolution of authority was not perfectly 
 complete till ratified, the following day, by the general 
 homage of the Muslim community. The question 
 naturally suggests itself whether Omar was at all 
 guided by any principle or precedent in adopting the 
 course that he did adopt, or was induced to do so 
 by the desire to prevent a breach or division among 
 the Muslims. For the solution of this question we 
 find a most important key in the Pre-Islamic history 
 of the Arabs. The Arabs, from time immemorial, 
 have been averse to submitting to any authority or 
 government of either a foreign ruler or a native king, 
 and though, no doubt, portions of Arabia came 
 under the Roman rule or Persian hegemony, still 
 Hegaz — the birthplace of Mohamed and the cradle of
 
 28 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 Islam — never bent its neck to the authority of an earthly 
 sovereign. In its independence it always gloried, and 
 with jealous pride it has preserved and maintained it 
 to this day. The Arabs — divided into clans and tribes 
 — acknowledged no authority other than that of their 
 tribal chiefs, chosen and elected by the members of 
 the tribe.* In the election of their chief they were 
 guided mainly by seniority of age and nobility of birth. 
 It would not, therefore, be rash to conclude that in 
 putting forward the candidature of Abu Bakr — the 
 most senior and the most respected of the Muslims — 
 Omar was only giving effect to a principle well 
 established among the Arabs — the principle of seni- 
 ority and nobility of birth. The succession of Omar 
 was effected by the nomination of Abu Bakr, while 
 that of Othman was decided by a conclave appointed 
 by Omar. When Omar was mortally wounded he did 
 not die on the spot, but had sufficient time to make 
 arrangements for the appointment of his successor. 
 He appointed a Council of regency consisting of the 
 most important companions of the Prophet, viz., Ali, 
 Othman, Zubair, Talha, Sa'd, Abdur Eahman ibn 
 Auf. With these he associated his son Abdallah, 
 who was only to take part in the deliberations ; 
 but he expressly enjoined that Abdallah, though 
 he was to give his casting vote in case of an equal 
 division, was on no account to stand as a candi- 
 date for the Caliphate. This fact, perhaps, is the 
 strongest proof of the proposition that the idea of a 
 hereditary monarchy did not then at all exist. Nor 
 
 * Professor Wallin's " Journey from Cairo to Medina and 
 Mekka," p. 180.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 29 
 
 was it indeed conceivable ; foreign as it was to the 
 inherited traditions and deep-rooted sentiments of the 
 Arabs. Ali comes fourth on the list, and the fact 
 that he was passed over not once or twice, but three 
 times, makes it further clear beyond doubt that the 
 idea of a hereditary succession was quite foreign and 
 unknown at that time, and has been, much later, 
 engrafted upon Islam to support the claims of the 
 Abbasids. We shall consider, in the sequel, the 
 importance of these various modes of succession. 
 
 Though no doubt an attempt was made as early as the 
 time of Muawiah to establish the hereditary Caliphate, 
 the elective principle was so firmly planted among 
 the Arabs that the Omayyads — invested with large 
 powers as they were — could not altogether disregard or 
 override it. The suggestion to constitute the Caliphate 
 a hereditary office was first made to Muawiah by 
 Al Mughira ibn Shu'bah — the earliest Muslim forger 
 of false coins — and it was upon his advice that hom- 
 age was obtained for Yazid during the lifetime of the 
 first Omayyad.* The founder of the Omayyad 
 dynasty was the first to call himself king, t It called 
 forth the bitter observation of Sa'id ibn Musyab : 
 " May God retaliate upon Muawiah for he was the 
 first who converted this thing (the rule over the 
 faithful) into a nmlk.'' I There is a story which 
 may be related here as indicating the feeling with 
 which the Muslims regarded the Omayyads. Sa'd ibn 
 Abi Wakkas presented himself before Muawiah, after 
 
 ♦ Goldziher, " Muh. Studien," vol. ii., p. 32 ; Zydan, 
 " Umayyads and Abbasids," Professor Margoliouth's translation, 
 p. 61. 
 
 t Al-Yaqubi, vol. ii., p. 276. I Goldzilicr, vol. ii., p. 31.
 
 30 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 the sovereignty of the latter had been confirmed, and 
 saluted him as king. Muawiah, laughing, asked him 
 what harm it would have done to have used the 
 title '' Commander of the Faithful "? Sa'd's answer 
 was : " What ! can you talk of this with a smile ? 
 I assure you that I had rather not have the post if it 
 was to be acquired as you acquired it." This shows, 
 says Zydan, that the Muslims did not like to connect 
 the Caliphate with diplomacy and astuteness, and 
 believed that the Omayyads had degraded Islam from 
 religion to chauvinism and militarism, and thence to 
 pure royalty.* Though strenuous effort was made, 
 at the time of both the Omayyads and the Abbasids, 
 to make the Caliphate hereditary, the idea never 
 struck root among the people. Traditions were forged 
 to support it, but with no result.! It was against 
 the spirit of the age and the temper of the people. 
 
 We have the most clear and convincing proof of 
 this in the fact that of the fourteen rulers of the 
 Omayyad dynasty only four had their sons as 
 successors. Similarly of the first twenty-four rulers 
 of the House of Abbas only six had their sons as 
 successors. The old Arabian idea of seniority lay 
 in constant conflict with the natural zeal of the father 
 to hand down the sovereignty to the son. I Many 
 individual cases prove the tenacity of the old Arabian 
 right of election and the deep root that it had taken 
 
 * Zaydan, p. 250. 
 
 t Suyuti, " Tarikh-ul-Kliulafa," Jarrett's translation, pp. 12, 
 13 ; De Goeje, " Frag. Hist. Arab.," vol. i., p. 216. 
 
 j Von Ki-emer, " Culturgeschichte des Orients," vol. i., p. 385 ; 
 Miiller, "Islam im Morgen und Abendland," vol. i., p. 209; 
 Von Kremer, " Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen," p. 409.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEKEIGNTY 31 
 
 among the people. x\bdul Malik proposed the election 
 and homage of his two sons by a plebiscite of the 
 whole nation. To the governors of the provinces 
 he issued orders to bring the whole weight of their 
 official influence to bear upon and conquer an}^ 
 opposition to it. In obedience to the Caliph's com- 
 mand the governor of Mekka summoned the people 
 together, but one of the most influential jurists of his 
 age, Sa'id ibn Musyab, peremptorily declined to 
 elect a successor during the lifetime of a reigning 
 sovereign. By threat and ill-treatment the governor 
 sought to intimidate him, but Sa'id held fast to his 
 proposition. The matter was reported to Abdul Malik 
 who censured the conduct of the governor and wrote 
 back: "Either you should immediately have be- 
 headed the man or let him alone." The latter course 
 was adopted and the old man was worried no more. 
 The rule of succession was never settled or well- 
 defined, but the history of the Caliphate unmistakably 
 proves that election by the people or nomination of a 
 successor by the reigning sovereign, confirmed by the 
 homage of the people, was regarded as the only valid 
 title to the throne. We will not enter here into the 
 details of the fraud by which Safifah outwitted the 
 Alide claimant to the Caliphate ; nor shall we discuss 
 the ruthless policy of massacre and extermination 
 of the Alides deliberately inaugurated and successfully 
 carried out by Mansur. We shall here cite one 
 instance of the sacredness attached to the oath of 
 allegiance and homage to the sovereign-elect. The 
 first thing that the Caliph Iladi did on his accession 
 to the Caliphate was to cancel the succession of
 
 32 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 Harun ur-Rashid and to transfer it to Ja'far, his son. 
 Yahya ibn Khalid, alluding to this incident, told 
 Hadi : " Commander of the Faithful, if you encourage 
 people to violate their oaths, perjury will be thought 
 lightly of by them ; whereas if you let them abide by 
 their allegiance to your brother and proclaim Ja'far 
 as his successor, the sanctity of the oath of allegiance 
 will be maintained."* 
 
 Election and homage were looked upon as a sacred 
 
 tie linking the sovereign to the people. Once the 
 
 election was effected and homage done, the relation 
 
 between the sovereign and the people was complete. 
 
 An election was likened to an unseverable chain 
 
 binding the electors to the sovereign-elect, and thus 
 
 we find a very common saying : *' Election lies 
 
 heavy on my neck." It involved certain rights and 
 
 certain duties, upon the faithful fulfilment of which 
 
 depended the continuity of the relation. Even in this 
 
 we cannot fail to find the traces of the relation of the 
 
 tribal chiefs with the members of the tribe. We 
 
 possess an address ascribed to Yazid III., and this 
 
 document, which cannot be overestimated, indicates 
 
 the thoroughly democratic idea which the Arabs 
 
 entertained of the position of the Commander of the 
 
 Faithful. Against his cousin Walid IL, the debauchee 
 
 and squanderer, Yazid had organized an insurrection. 
 
 He fell upon him in his country place and killed him. 
 
 Alluding to this he said in his inaugural address : 
 
 "By God! I have risen against him not for the 
 
 gratification of any ambition or any worldly desire or 
 
 any craving for sovereignty. I say this not out of 
 
 * Zydan, p. 192.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 33 
 
 vanity, for a sinner indeed am I, if God showeth not 
 compassion on me. I took up arms purely out of 
 zeal for God and His religion. I invited men to come 
 back to the path of God and His revelation, to the 
 sayings of the Prophet, since the ordinances of religion 
 had been forgotten, traces of truth effaced, and the 
 light of revelation quenched. Let it be publicly 
 and openly avowed that Walid was a self-willed tyrant 
 who considered permissible things that were forbidden, 
 and indulged in every form of heresy ; for he believed 
 not in either the Day of Judgment or the Qur'an, 
 though he was my cousin and kinsman. When I 
 considered this I turned to God for counsel, and begged 
 of Ilim to give no other helper than Himself, and 
 prayed for His assistance. Many of His pious 
 worshippers accordingly listened and hearkened unto 
 me. I marched against the tyrant, and God delivered 
 His people from his violence, not by any power of 
 mine, but through His own grace. people ! I 
 pledge myself to erect no buildings, to excavate no 
 fresh canals, to build no palace, to hoard up no 
 riches, to enrich neither wife nor child. From me 
 is duo to you your annuity year by year, and 
 provisions, month by month, so that prosperity 
 among Muslims may increase, and those who live far 
 away may participate in it, just as well as those living 
 near. Should I keep my promise you arc in duty 
 bound to listen to me, and cheerfully obey me, to 
 support and protect me. If, on the other hand, I do 
 not keep my word, you are free to depose me ; only 
 you should give me timely warning; and were I to 
 improve, then accoi)t my apology. Should you, 
 
 y
 
 34 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 however, know a man of tried temper, who willingly 
 offers you what I have offered, choose then such 
 an one, and if you so desire, I shall be the first to do 
 him homage and render him obedience. people ! 
 you are aware that no man is to be obeyed when 
 he commands an act that is sinful. This is my 
 address to you, and I pray God for forgiveness for 
 myself and you."* 
 
 We might recall here the speech of Da'ud ibn Ali, 
 which is quite pertinent to the point we are making. 
 When the Abbasid cause triumphed and their Caliphate 
 was secured, Da'ud ibn Ali (the uncle of Saffah) 
 addressed the people thus : " Wo pledge our word in 
 the name of God the most High and the Prophet and 
 Al-Abbas, that we shall rule you in accordance with 
 the ordinances of God and shall act towards you in 
 accordance with the book of God and treat the high 
 and the low as did the Prophet."! 
 
 It is obvious from these two speeches that the Arabs 
 did not consider their ruler as a person who could not 
 be questioned or taken to task for his action. In fact, 
 it is apparent that as against their homage and 
 obedience they expected certain corresponding duties 
 which the ruler was bound to fulfil. He was, so to 
 speak, a steward responsible for his stewardship, and 
 liable to dismissal for neglect or omission of his 
 duties. Such seems to be the idea — shall we say the 
 theoretical idea — entertained by the people, of the 
 Caliph and his position. In theory, at all events, this 
 
 * Mas'udi, vol. v., p. 458 (the Author's translation of Von 
 Kremer in the Journal of the Muslim Institute, pp. 213, 214, 
 January- April Number, 1907). 
 
 ■\ Ibn Atliir, vol. v., p. 317 (Tornberg's edition).
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 35 
 
 notion of the position of the Caliph continued 
 unaltered, and instances are not wanting when the 
 pious and the God-fearing did not shrink from 
 warning or rebuking the Caliph for acting unjustly or 
 failing to come up to the standard of excellence 
 expected of him. In this connection it will be 
 interesting to quote here the reply of Sufyan Thauri 
 on the occasion of an invitation to Baghdad by 
 Harun-ur-Eashid to promote him and do him honour. 
 Thus replied Sufyan : '* I write to tell thee that 
 I break off all ties with thee and renounce thy love, 
 and that thou hast rendered me a witness against 
 thee in that thou hast in thy letter confessed against 
 thyself that thou hast pounced on the treasury of the 
 Muslims and expended what was therein where it was 
 not due, and sent it to such as had no right to it ; and 
 not content with what thou didst at a distance from 
 me, thou didst even write to me to make a witness 
 against thyself ; and such witness do I now bear, as 
 do all my brethren such as saw thy letter, and on the 
 morrow we shall present our witness against thee 
 before God the just Judge. 0, Harun ! hast thou 
 verily pounced upon the treasury of the Muslims 
 without their leave ? Ilast thou for this the assent of 
 those whose hearts are united, and those that are set 
 in authority thereover in God's earth, and those that 
 fight in God's path, and tlie son of the road? Hast 
 thou the assent of them that carry the (^ur'an in their 
 minds and the men of knowledge ? Ilast thou the 
 assent of the widows and the orphans or of any class 
 of thy subjects?"* 
 
 * Daiuiri, vol. ii., p. 1H8; apucl Zaydaii, p. 2.00.
 
 3G ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 The religious character of the Caliphate ends with 
 the first four Caliphs. It was then a purely religious 
 office held by men who had staked all that was dear 
 to them for the cause of Islam. They led the com- 
 munity at the prayers, distributed the poor-tax, 
 performed other religious duties, and only incidentally, 
 as trustees and custodians of the faithful, administered 
 the Empire which was the maturity and consummation 
 of an eventful history. Even when in the full tide of 
 brilliant victories they never forgot their mission or 
 neglected their duties. Such an apostolic succession, 
 however, was not expected to continue for any length 
 of time, and the change from a religious to political 
 sovereignty was a matter of natural necessity. But 
 the religious duties and the religious character of the 
 Caliphate, though occasionally obscured and blurred, 
 were never wholly lost. The appearances were always 
 kept up even in the worst days of Omayyad lust and 
 licence. The religious aspect of the Caliphate, how- 
 ever, comes into greater and greater prominence 
 during the declining years of the Abbasid dynasty, 
 gaining greater and greater strength in proportion to 
 the loss of political authority. The Omayyads, with 
 the sole exception of Omar II., were, and remained, 
 Pagans at heart. They were the fiercest opponents of 
 the Prophet, and only made their submission to Islam 
 for motives either of gain or fear of loss. Numerous 
 companions of the Prophet, c2ngoni, devotees, they 
 killed in cold blood, and with a view to bringing 
 contempt on the cause of Ali and his party they 
 started the practice of cursing Ali from the pulpit and 
 issued orders that every person on pain of death
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 37 
 
 should curse him. The first person executed for not 
 complying with this order was Ilujr ibn Adi the 
 Kindite in the time of Muawiah. The practice con- 
 tinued to the days of Omar II., who abolished it. 
 They openly defied the precepts of Islam, and in the 
 lively pages of Von Kremer we have a most graphic 
 picture of the licence and excesses at the court of 
 Damascus. Of such monstrous brood of vipers we 
 shall not be surprised to learn that the " Omayyad 
 drunkard " Al-Walid ibn Yazid, when mad with drink, 
 shot arrows at the Qur'an. There is a story that one 
 night he looked for a Sors in the Qur'an and opened the 
 book at the words : " They asked for a decision. And 
 disappointment shall overtake every rebellious tyrant, 
 behind whom is hell, where he shall be given to drink 
 of pus." He ordered the Qur'an to be hung up, 
 and took a bow and arrows and began to shoot at 
 it till it was all torn to pieces. He then composed the 
 following epigram : — 
 
 " Thou tauntest the rebel and tyrant ? Ah well, 
 A tyrant am I, and prepared to rebel. 
 When thou meetest thy Lord on the last judgment morn 
 Then cry unto God, ' By Walid I was torn.' "* 
 
 There was not a shred of religious feeling or 
 religious sentiment among the Omayyads. 13y 
 tyranny and oppression they had set their subjects 
 against them, and by their lawlessness and irreligion 
 gave offence to tlio pious. Khurasan — the head- 
 quarters of the Alidcs and the centre of disaffection — 
 took the lead in putting an end to their authority and 
 in transferring it to the Abbasids. As regards the 
 
 * Ziiydiui, p. 101 ; Al-Fiikln-i, p. 159.
 
 38 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 Omayyads it is to be noted that they never rested 
 their claim to the Caliphate on any ground other than 
 that of force. They had obtained it by force and 
 fraud, and with these two weapons they kept it as long 
 as they could. Their rule was that of the Arab 
 aristocracy with all its virtues and vices. Arabs to 
 the core, they could believe in no source of authority 
 other than that of election and homage. To it they 
 firmly clung, and the speech of Yazid III., quoted 
 above, is the best evidence of the temper of the times. 
 The Abbasid Caliph stood, in contrast to the Omayyad 
 king, as a religious chief who was not only the head 
 of an hierarchy but the hierarch himself ; the ruler 
 not of the state but of the state church also. He was 
 surrounded with theocratic nimbus and passed off as 
 the Imam, In the spiritual affairs of the community 
 he looked upon himself as the successor of the 
 Prophet, and as such, as the holder of an office 
 established by God. While the Omayyads considered 
 the sceptre and the seal as the insignia of their royal 
 power, the Abbasids added to these the mantle of the 
 Prophet* which he is said to have given to Ka'b ibn 
 Zuhair as a token of honour for his Banat Su'ad. 
 This mantle the Abbasids wore when they first received 
 the homage of their subjects and on all serious or 
 festive occasions, but chiefly when they led the com- 
 munity at prayers. On important state ceremonials 
 they appeared covered in this holy relic, and on 
 special state occasions when it could not be used, they 
 had it lying before them. Very different was the 
 case with the Omayyads. Yazid ibn Walid did not 
 
 * De Goeje, p. 208.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 39 
 
 consider it improper to appear even at the 'Id prayer 
 in full military costume.* The Abbasids put religion 
 under contribution with a view to secure their posi- 
 tion with the people, and it is singular, indeed, how 
 in process of time the Abbasids secured for themselves 
 a respect and veneration which almost bordered on 
 divinity. Long before the destruction of the Caliphate 
 by Moguls— an institution hallowed by the faith of 
 many generations — would it have perished had it not 
 been for the theocratic nimbus which encircled the 
 monarchical sceptre. People spoke of the "light of 
 the Caliphate," even of the "light of prophecy" 
 which illumined the brow of the Caliph ; while for 
 the Caliphs of tho patriarchal epoch the epithet of 
 the " best of the Quraish " sufficed. Abu Bakr 
 would not even consent to adopting that title, but the 
 Abbasids allowed themselves to be addressed with 
 a title which heretofore was only applied to the 
 Prophet, " the best of liuuian beings." The Abbasid 
 Caliphs prided themselves on being God-appointed 
 rulers on earth. Even as late as the eighth century 
 of the A. II., the mock Caliph in Egypt, tolerated and 
 maintained by the Mamluks, is addressed in a 
 document as the representative of God on earth 
 (Naib ullah fi ardhihi).t With the extension of the 
 Muslim Empire grew the difficulty of effectively 
 ruling tho [jrovinces from the central authority at 
 Baghdad. ]jut tliis was not all — the religious 
 enthusiasm that had united tho Arab tribes into 
 one great whole was soon lost, and tho more the 
 
 * GoM/.ihcr, vol. ii., p. 5.'5. 
 t Ihiil, p. m.
 
 40 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 foreign peoples entered as converts into the bosom of 
 Islam the more the Caliphate lost its national Arab 
 character. The inllux of foreign nations — with their 
 conflicting habits and traditions — awoke mutual 
 rivalries and jealousies, and called into being the 
 feeling of nationality which, henceforward, became 
 powerfully effective- The feeling of nationality, 
 indeed, proved stronger than the tie of a common 
 faith, and made the first breach in the proud edifice of 
 the Caliphate. The Persians in the east, the Berbers 
 in the west, who had been impatient of the yoke, soon 
 succeeded in getting rid of it and founding in- 
 dependent dynasties. The strength of the Caliphate 
 hitherto rested upon the national feeling of the Arabs, 
 but when this lost its original force and vitality, and 
 the Caliph sought the assistance of hired mercenaries 
 — heedless of the cause in which their lances were 
 hurled — the splendour of the throne and the sceptre 
 rapidly disappeared. Weakness of the central authority, 
 extension of the Empire over large and widely separated 
 tracts of countries, want of effective control, growth 
 of the national feeling among foreign converts, 
 all contributed, indeed, to reduce the Caliphate 
 to the shadow of a shade. It became the fallen ruin 
 of ancient magnificence. The time was ripe for 
 the governors to assert their independence and found 
 dynasties of their own. The bold and the adventurous 
 availed themselves of these favourable conditions for 
 the furtherance of their interest. Persian and Turkish 
 dynasties sprang up in the bosom of the Caliphate,* 
 and of such were these : 
 
 * Zaydan, pp. 240-242.
 
 ISLAJVIIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 41 
 
 TuE Persian Dynasties. 
 
 Dynasty. Province. Duration. 
 
 Tahiridcs ... Khurasan ... 205-259 . 
 
 Saffaridcs ... Fars 254 290 . 
 
 Samanidcs... Transoxiana ... 261 389 . 
 Sajides ... Ailhcrbijan ... 266-348 . 
 Ziyarides ... Jurjan ... 316-434 , 
 
 Foimder. 
 Tahir ibii-iil Hassan. 
 Yaqub ibn al Laitb. 
 Nasr ibn Ahmed. 
 , Abu'lsaj. 
 Mardawiyj ibn Ziyar. 
 
 The Turkish Principalities. 
 
 Tulunid ... Egypt ... 254-292 
 
 Ilekid ... Turkistan ... 320-560 
 Ikhshidi ... Egypt ... 323-358 
 
 Ahmed ibn Tulun. 
 Abdul Karim Satuk. 
 Mohammed al Ikhshid. 
 
 Alptakin. 
 
 Gha.n,via {^'^SZr } '''-'>^ 
 
 Besides these there were other dynasties to which 
 it is not necessary to refer here. 
 
 From the fair realms of the Cahphate these 
 knightly adventurers carved out their fortunes, but 
 remarkable, indeed, it is that, though the Caliph 
 was unable to protect himself or his Empire, none of 
 these felt themselves secure in the possession of their 
 power until armed with a letter of acknowledgment 
 from the Caliph. All, without exception, craved for 
 and obtained confirmations of their authority from 
 the pinchbeck successors of Saffah. 
 
 During the last decades of the Caliphate nothing 
 was left to the Caliph of his extensive regal powers 
 except the privileges of having his name engraved on 
 the coin and mentioned from the pulpit. Coin and 
 Khutbah (Al Sikkali wal Khutbah) became a watch- 
 word and a Ijyword for ridiculous formalities and 
 meaningless splendour.* But puppet as the Caliph 
 alternately was in the hands of the Tersians, the 
 Turks, and the Kurds, his person was hedged round 
 * Al-Fakhri, p. 38.
 
 42 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 with a halo of sanctity which, in spite of repeated 
 murders of Caliphs, was never wholly lost till the sack 
 of Baghdad and the murder of the last of the Abbasids 
 by Hulagu Khan — the godless Mongol. In this 
 connection we might refer to a passage in the Jama'i- 
 ul Tawarikh of Pashid ud-din : " Before setting out 
 for Baghdad Hulagu took counsel with the chief 
 noblemen of his kingdom and his principal courtiers. 
 Every one advised according to his light and leading. 
 Ilusam ud-din, the astronomer of the Khan, was 
 asked to fix a favourable time for setting out for 
 Baghdad. The astronomer, emboldened by his 
 residence at the Court, formally pronounced un- 
 propitious an enterprise which had for its aim an 
 attack on the family of the Caliph and assault upon 
 the city of Baghdad. In fact he said up to this time 
 every king who has dared to march against Baghdad 
 and the descendants of Abbas has maintained neither 
 his throne nor his life. 'If the prince,' he added, 
 'refuses to listen to my advice and persists in his 
 design, six serious misfortunes will be the result : 
 (1) All the horses will die and the soldiers will be 
 attacked with serious diseases ; (2) the sun will not 
 rise ; (3) the rain will not fall ; (4) violent winds will 
 blow ; (5) lands will no longer produce plants ; 
 (6) the great monarch will die in the course of the 
 year.' On the other hand the Bakhshis (the Lamas) 
 protested that an expedition against Baghdad was 
 a perfectly legitimate expedition. Hulagu then sent 
 for Nasir ud-din Tusi and asked his advice. Nasir 
 ud-din, frightened and thinking that they wanted to 
 test (his loyalty) replied : * Of all the misfortunes
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 43 
 
 prophesied none will come to pass.' He further said : 
 ' Hulagu will be installed in the palace of the Caliph.' 
 They then sent for Husam ud-din in order that he 
 might discuss the matter with the Khajali who added : 
 * According to unanimous traditions of the Muslims 
 several of the principal Companions of the Prophet 
 died in defending their religion, and yet no disaster or 
 misfortune took place. If it is asserted that a special 
 prerogative attaches to the Caliph, my reply is that 
 Tahir started from Khurasan, under orders from 
 Mamun, and killed Amin, brother of Mamun. Muta- 
 wakkil, in concert with the Amirs, was killed by his 
 own son. Muntasir and Motazz were murdered by 
 the Amirs and the pages. Several other Caliphs were 
 killed without any disorder or irregularity in the 
 natural course of things taking place.' " *' This 
 passage unequivocally demonstrates the feeling of 
 awe and veneration entertained by the people towards 
 the Caliph. 
 
 Thus do the facts stand in broad outline. Now let 
 us proceed to the consideration of the theories evolved 
 by Muslim jurists. Just as we find traces of Roman 
 law in Muslim jurisprudence, so do wo find unmis- 
 takable impress of Greek philosophy and political 
 science in their speculations. It is undoubted that 
 under the Abljasids Greek philosophy was studied in 
 Arabic versions, and the Greek works, or at least some 
 of them, were familiar enough to the Arabs. Thanks to 
 Prof. J)icterici we now possess in print the model state of 
 Al-Farabi, which is more or less an imitation of i'lato's 
 "Republic." Whether Al-Earabi had an opportunity 
 * i'uritf edition, pp. 2Gl-26y.
 
 44 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 of studying the Greek original is, perhaps, doubtful ; 
 but it is certain enough that he must have received 
 some knowledge of Plato and Aristotle through the 
 celebrated Christian savant Abu'l-Bashar Matta, 
 whose Arabic version of some of the writings of 
 Aristotle has come down to us, and under whom 
 Al-Earabi studied philosophy. Besides having Abu'l- 
 Bashar Matta as his master, Al - Farabi studied 
 Logic under John, a Christian physician at Harran ; 
 and it is recorded that in a short time Al-Farabi 
 excelled the best disciples of John.* But of the 
 writers who have written on political science, as we 
 understand it, we might mention Mawardi, Ibn Hazm, 
 Ibn Jam'a, Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Tabataba. Of these 
 perhaps the most important is Mawardi, whose 
 "Ahkam us-Sultania" (Jus Sultanicum), divided into 
 twenty chapters, we possess in print.f He delivered 
 lectures on jurisprudence for many years at Baghdad 
 and Basra. Though offered the Kadiship of several towns 
 he refused, and was induced, only for a short time, to 
 accept the chief Kadiship of Ustuwa in the neighbour- 
 hood of Nishapur. He died on May 27, 1058. Ibn 
 Jam'a is a much later writey. He was born 
 A.ii. 639 (a.d. 1238), and died a.h. 773 (a.d. 1371). 
 Mawardi divides the whole nation into two classes : the 
 first embracing all those who possessed electoral powers, 
 and the other those who laid a claim to sovereignty. 
 Mawardi discusses the subject from a purely theoretical 
 point of view, disregarding the actual political situation 
 
 * He died in A.n. 339 (a.d. 950). " Nouvelle Biographic 
 Universelle," s.v. " Al-Farabius"; Qifti, " Tarikh-ul-Hukama," 
 edited by Lippert, p. 45. 
 
 t Wiistenfeld, "Der Imam El Schafii," p. 265.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 45 
 
 of the times. He considers the CaHphate an elective 
 sovereignty, and lays down the necessary qualifica- 
 tions both for the electors as well as the candidates 
 to the throne. Among the conditions, Mawardi, says 
 Von Kremer, omits two which have been added by 
 later jurists ; for instance by Kadhi Baidhawi in his 
 Anwar Ta'wil, and by Ghazzali in his Ihya ul- 
 'Ulurn (vol. i., p. 147) : full manhood, or as we should 
 say maturity, and the male sex.* 
 
 As a natural outcome of the conception of elective 
 sovereignty Mawardi regards the relation between the 
 sovereign and the nation as a bilateral compact (Iqd) ; 
 in other words he imposes certain duties and obliga- 
 tions on the sovereign as a consideration for the 
 homage and obedience of the people. Philosophers 
 from the earliest times have been divided upon the 
 question of the origin of law and government. While 
 one school found the origin of law and government in 
 compulsion, the other found it in agreement. Both 
 schools are of high antiquity and have been repre- 
 sented by many eminent names. One gathers from 
 Plato that divers sophists maintained the former 
 thesis. It is in substance not far from that assigned 
 to Thrasymachus in the " Republic," where the sophist 
 says that justice is nothing but the advantage of the 
 stronger, and in later times Ilobbes and Bentham are 
 eminent among those who embrace it. The other 
 view is most familiar to moderns from the writings 
 of Rousseau, f 
 
 That Mawardi should have taken such a liberal 
 
 * The Author's trariHlation, p. 223. 
 
 t Jiryco, " hJtudicH in Ili.story and Jurisprudence," vol. ii. 
 pp. 1 . 2.
 
 40 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 and comprehensive view of politics is the most con- 
 vincing proof of the high culture and civilization of 
 the Arabs. Such ideas can only strike root and thrive 
 among highly advanced nations. 
 
 The Arab jurists, along with election, recognized 
 another mode of transmission of sovereignty — viz., by 
 the direction of the ruler himself when he nominated 
 his successor. This view rested upon the historical 
 precedents of the first Caliphs when such cases 
 occurred. It was further conceded that the reigning 
 Caliph could nominate two or three successors to 
 follow one after another. Thus Harun appointed 
 his three sons Amin, Mamun, and Mutamin to 
 succeed to the Caliphate one after another. We need 
 scarcely emphasize the apparent opposition between 
 the two methods of transmission of sovereignty — viz., 
 elective sovereignty and transmission of sovereignty 
 by royal disposition. Elective franchise was due to 
 the old Arabian custom of election to the tribal chief- 
 tainship by different tribes. The transmission of 
 sovereignty by testamentary disposition, on the other 
 hand, owed its origin to the too frequent instances of 
 such transmission of sovereignty both among the first 
 Caliphs as also among the Omayyads and Abbassides. 
 But even when the reigning sovereign had appointed 
 a successor, this arrangement had invariably to be 
 confirmed by general election and homage; and no 
 Caliph, appointing his son or kinsman as his suc- 
 cessor, omitted to obtain the general homage by 
 which popular approval was secured, and supreme 
 consecration obtained.* 
 
 * The Author's translation of Von Krcmer, p. 224.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 47 
 
 The jurists of later times tell us of a third mode of 
 acquiring sovereignty — viz., election by force (Al-ba*ah 
 al-Qahiriyyah). By this they understood cases of 
 sovereignty assumed by force, as happened in times of 
 an interregnum or anarchy, when no universally and 
 lawfully acknowledged sovereign ruled, and a bold 
 party-leader violently took possession of the throne 
 and the army without election and homage of the 
 people, or testamentary disposition either, and called 
 upon the Muslim community to do obedience to him 
 to avert anarchy or civil war. It did not matter in 
 the least, says Ibn Jam'a, if this ruler was unlettered, 
 unjust or vicious. But if another usurper rose against 
 him and deprived him of bis government, the victor 
 was to be regarded as the rightful sovereign.* It is 
 obvious from this that people had grown wiser by 
 experience. They had learnt to take account of actual 
 facts, and found it l)est to accept them. The Muslim 
 jurisprudence, in its final stage, gave an unconditional 
 assent to the right of the stronger. 
 
 These were then the three modes, utterly opposed 
 to each other, in which, according to IMuslim 
 jurists, sovereignty could be acquired. All these, 
 indeed, were generalizations from facts only too 
 familiar to Muslim pujjlicists. Wo shall now hear 
 what Ibn Ilazm has to say on the subject : " The 
 Sunnis, the Murjiah, the Shiahs and the Khawarij 
 are all agreed as to the necessity of an Im<iin and 
 as to the noccssity of obedience to him on the part of 
 the nation. To this the only exception is the Najdah 
 
 * Ibn Jani'a, "Tulirir-ul Ahkani," pp. 7, H (iipud Von 
 Kroiucr).
 
 48 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 sect of the Khawarij who deny the necessity of an 
 Imam and hold that men should act justly among 
 themselves. The opinion of this sect is worthless. 
 Enough refutation of their argument is that all the 
 sects we have mentioned are unanimous in holding 
 them to be in error. Both the Qur'an and the traditions 
 inculcate the necessity of an Imam. For instance 
 God says : ' Obey ye God, and obey ye the apostle 
 and those in authority among you.' Many traditions, 
 moreover, tell us of the obedience to the Imam, 
 and the necessity of an Imam. . . . We know in- 
 tuitively, moreover, that it is impossible for the 
 people to execute the ordinances of God as regards 
 property, delicts, murder, marriage, divorce, etc., to 
 check the wrong-doer and to do justice to the wronged 
 and oppressed, to inflict punishment, and so on, with- 
 out the help of an Imam. Without an Imam none 
 will undertake these duties; for one person or a 
 company of men might desire a certain person to 
 rule over them, while another person or company 
 of men would not desire that he should rule over 
 them, either because their judgment leads them to 
 a different conclusion or simply from a spirit of 
 opposition. This must necessarily happen, and it 
 may be witnessed in countries that have no chief ; 
 where no right is secured or punishment (to the 
 wrong-doer) dealt out, so much so that religion is 
 nearly lost in most of such countries. Eeligion 
 cannot be properly safe-guarded unless its cause is 
 entrusted to one or more persons. Now, there are 
 two courses open, that is, to have one or two or more 
 persons as Imams at the same time. But to have two
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 19 
 
 or more persons is open to all the objections already 
 set out. Therefore the only way in which order can 
 be established and maintained is to entrust affairs to 
 a single man who should be virtuous, learned, a good 
 administrator, and possessing sufficient strength to 
 see that the laws are carried out. But even if he 
 were not as we have said, oppression and neglect of 
 the law by one person, to be sure, is less harmful than 
 by two or more. . . . Again, those who accept the 
 necessity of an Imam are agreed that it is not admis- 
 sible that there should be two Imams in the world at 
 one and the same time, and that only one Imam is it 
 proper to have. Exceptions (to this general unanimity) 
 are Mohammed ibn Karram al-Sijistani and Abu 
 Sabah al-Samarqandi and their followers, who sanction 
 the existence of two Imams or more at one and the 
 same time. Their defence is the saying of the Ansar 
 who told the Muhajirin on the day of the As-Saqifah : 
 'A ruler from us and a ruler from you.' They also 
 cite the cases of Ali and Hasan in their relation to 
 Muawiah."* The Arabs had learnt the benefits of an 
 ordered government, and it is for this reason that 
 we find in their works augmented emphasis laid 
 upon the necessity of a government, even though it 
 be despotic or tyrannical. Tartushi, a Spanish jurist, 
 says that an unjust monarchy for forty years is pre- 
 ferable to an hour of anarchy, t 
 
 * Ibn Il.izin, " Milal W;i Nilial," vol. iv., p. .S7 ctscq.; SCG 
 the interesting paper of WelUiauHon, " Ein Gemoinwoaen oline 
 Obri^kcit." 
 
 t Von Kremcr, vol. i., p. I'.); Goldzihor, vol. ii., p. 'S.i; 
 Ibn Khaldun, " i'roleg.," p. B'2, note 2; ibid., pp. 321, 322 ; 
 Zydan, p. 127. 
 
 4
 
 50 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 TJiG more political parties were gradually formed, 
 the greater grew the diversity of opinion on vital 
 questions of politics; the first and foremost among 
 these was, indeed, the doctrine of election and suc- 
 cession to the throne. The party which adopted the 
 convenient theory of letting matters stand as they 
 were was always the most numerous. This party 
 assumed the name of the party of the Sunnah.* 
 They were always ready to accept accomplished facts, 
 and to recognize that Caliph as the legally elected 
 one who had been chosen by the most influential 
 persons in the capital. In opposition to these stood 
 the strict legitimists who only recognized Ali's 
 descendants as entitled to the Caliphate ; while the 
 Kharijites, as representatives of democratic ideas, 
 appeared on the scene as fanatical puritans who 
 defended the most opposite views. t They maintained 
 that every Muslim, provided he was pious and God- 
 fearing, even though a peasant or a Nabatean, could 
 be elected as Caliph of the Islamic community ; 
 and the most advanced party of the Kharijites even 
 went the length of asserting that a sovereign or a 
 Caliph was not necessary. In a learned spirit the 
 conservative majority, as against these extreme views, 
 sought to establish their principles, and early, indeed, 
 did questions relating to the title to the Caliphate, 
 sovereignty, and succession to the throne become 
 subjects of polemical discourse. As against the 
 extremists, both of the democratic Kharijites and 
 
 * See Goldziher, vol. ii., pp. 92, 98, Al-zuhri. 
 
 t " Die Charidschiten," p. 7 ; Von Kremer, " Geschichte der 
 herrschenden Ideen," p. 360; see further Farazdaq, Boucher's 
 edition, p. 203 et seq.j Z.D.M.G., vol. xiii., p. 605.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 51 
 
 the legitimists (Sbi'ites), the orthodox set up the 
 doctrme that in such matters the highest authority 
 rested with the community as a whole. In one of 
 the oldest religio-political tracts (Kitabul Luma) it is 
 expressly stated that it is not permissible to hold 
 that the entire community could commit an error of 
 judgment. 
 
 But modern jurisprudence understands by sovereign 
 authority the person or body to whose directions the 
 law attributes force, the person in whom resides, as of 
 right, the ultimate power either of laying down general 
 rules, or of issuing isolated rules or commands whose 
 authority is that of the law itself.* Judged from 
 this point of view the Muslim sovereignty was un- 
 doubtedly defective, the sovereign possessing no right 
 or power to interfere with or alter or modify the 
 Muslim law. Nor could the Muslim jurists take such 
 a comprehensive view of sovereignty as is taken by 
 European jurists, accustomed as they are to limited 
 monarchy or pure democracy. The Muslim sovereignty 
 was unlimited in one way and absolutely fettered in 
 another, inasmuch as interference with Muslim law 
 would have been equivalent to a defiance of the law 
 of God. But if it was narrow and confined in this 
 respect it was far too wide and extensive in other 
 ways. The power of the Muslim sovereign ranged 
 over not merely temporal affairs of the State, but also 
 matters religious and social. Ho had to protect 
 religion from heresies and innovations just as much 
 as he had to defend tlie frontiers from foreign inroads 
 and incursions. Here lay the strength as well as the 
 
 * Bryco, vol. ii., p. 51.
 
 52 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEEEIGNTY 
 
 weakness of the Muslim sovereignty. It was religion 
 which prolonged the existence of the Caliphate till 
 1258, and it was religion again which hopelessly 
 placed limitations and reservations on the powers 
 which a beneficent monarchy might have exercised 
 over the people by assisting the current of progress 
 unimpeded by the fetters forged by religion and 
 modifying and harmonizing the laws with advancing 
 civilization. 
 
 The union of religion and politics, beneficial as it is 
 at the earliest stage of national existence, tends, as 
 the national outlook is widened and the national 
 horizon enlarged, to stunt progress and stereotype 
 society. One of the greatest of modern political 
 thinkers, Walter Bagehot, has most admirably 
 described the situation, and it will not be out of 
 place to hear him at this point : " How to get the 
 obedience of men is a hard problem ; what you do 
 with that obedience is less critical. To gain that 
 obedience, the primary condition is the identity, 
 not the union but the sameness, of what we now call 
 Church and State. Dr. Arnold, fresh from the study 
 of Greek thought and Roman history, used to preach 
 that this identity was the great cure for the misguided 
 modern world. But he spoke to ears filled with other 
 thoughts, and they hardly knew his meaning, much 
 less heeded it. But though the teaching was wrong 
 for the modern age to which it was applied, it was 
 excellent for the old world, from which it was learnt. 
 What is there requisite is a single government — call it 
 Church or State as you like — regulating the whole 
 of human life. No division of power is then endur-
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 53 
 
 able without danger, probably without destruction ; 
 the priest must not teach one thing and the lung 
 another ; King must be priest and prophet King ; the 
 two must say the same, because they are the same. 
 The idea of difference between spiritual penalties and 
 legal penalties must never be awakened. Indeed, 
 early Greek thought or early Roman thought would 
 never have comprehended it. There was a kind 
 of rough public opinion, and there were rough, 
 very rough, hands which acted upon it. Wo now 
 talk of political penalties, and ecclesiastical prohibi- 
 tion, and social censure, but they were all one 
 then."* 
 
 With the Caliphate the distinction was never made 
 between religion and politics. In Islam, theoretically, 
 at all events, the two functions of the sovereign and 
 the priest were inextricably interwoven with each 
 other. Never was an attempt made to sever the 
 two. Nor can any attempt be over successfully 
 made, as religion and politics are indissolubly bound 
 up with each other. The Muslim sovereign has 
 always been, and is to this day regarded as the 
 representative of tlio Prophet, if not the vicar of God. 
 The institution of the Caliphate was the direct out- 
 come of the religious teachings of Islam. The doc- 
 trine of the unity of God enforced the unity of man, 
 and thus with tho new religion a community of the 
 faithful was formed and a divinely sanctioned govern- 
 ment established, designed to gather all men into its 
 bosom and to fight unto destruction tho Paganism of 
 tho outer world. Here, as opposed to tho theory of tho 
 * Bagehot, "Physics ami I'oliticH," pp. IT., 17.
 
 54 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 medieval empire, the priest and the King were merged 
 in one person, viz., in the Caliph. 
 
 Different was the case with the theory of the med- 
 ieval empire, where under the emblem of the soul and 
 body was the relation of the Papal and Imperial power 
 presented to us throughout the Middle Ages. The 
 Pope, as God's vicar in matters spiritual, was to lead 
 men to eternal life ; the Emperor, as vicar in matters 
 temporal, had so to control them in their dealings 
 with one another that they might be able to pursue 
 undisturbed the spiritual life and thereby attain the 
 supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. 
 The functions of the Emperor were twofold : to make 
 the Christian people obedient to the priesthood and 
 to execute priestly decrees upon heretics and sinners ; 
 abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not 
 sparing to use carnal weapons.* The duties of the 
 mediaeval Emperor, like those of the Caliph, were 
 eminently religious, but unlike the Caliph, he stood 
 under the spiritual control, nay, the spiritual terrors, 
 of an earthly reHgious potentate — the Pope. But the 
 Caliph, on the other hand, though independent of a 
 spiritual chief (being himself the spiritual head of the 
 Muslim community), holding his powers as he did, by 
 the title of election, was, in theory at least, responsible 
 to the nation. This, to my mind, appears the most 
 significant distinction between the position of the 
 Caliph and the medifeval Emperor. We cannot enter 
 here into a fuller and more exhaustive comparison 
 of the two theories, but it is a subject which might 
 profitably be studied and discussed. 
 
 * Bryce, "Holy Roman Empire," pp. 103, 104.
 
 ISLAMIC CONCEPTION OF SOVEREIGNTY 55 
 
 To pass to the institution of the Caliphate. Whatever 
 it became under the Omayyads and the Abbasids, its 
 early career was a drama of sustained interest and 
 equable and majestic evolution. Under the Patri- 
 archal Caliphs it shed its consolations and extended 
 its protection alike to the rich and the poor, the serf 
 and the slave. But, in spite of its faults and failings, 
 even under the Omayyads and the Abbasids, it can 
 proudly claim the merit of having covered the whole 
 range of its conquests with noble institutions of learn- 
 ing, broad capitals, marts of commerce, noble roads, 
 and spacious harbours. Even when sunk in deep 
 decay and surrounded by the ruins and wreckage of 
 its glorious days, it stood as an institution command- 
 ing the universal homage of the Muslim world. When 
 in 1258 the sun of the Caliphate went down in 
 thunder and storm and streams of innocent blood, the 
 link which connected the institution with the Prophet 
 of Arabia was rent asunder — never to be joined 
 again. Thus passed away the most venerable institu- 
 tion of Islam, leaving behind it the most enduring 
 monuments of arts, learning, architecture, and the 
 still more enduring memory of its scientific achieve- 
 ments, and military triumphs enshrined in tlio pages 
 of history.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM ; 
 
 ITS ORIGIN, ITS GROWTH AND ITS 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 The history of a nation, apart from the history of its 
 social and political movements, would only illuminate 
 a few yards of the glimmering pathway of humanity, 
 leaving the large tracts of human thoughts and aspira- 
 tions, slowly maturing to bloom, neglected and 
 unrevealed. Without it, history indeed would de- 
 generate into arid annals or a lifeless compilation. Our 
 conception of history, therefore, is no longer that of a 
 panorama of battlefields, or successful campaigns, or 
 humiliating retreats. Wo have a more exalted concep- 
 tion of history and its province. We regard it as the 
 quintessence of national thoughts and national aspira- 
 tions, linking one age to another in one compact and 
 homogeneous whole. Whatever may be the differences 
 and divergencies, certain broad features stand out in 
 bold outlines, common to all nations and to all ages. 
 In every nation at a certain stage of its national 
 existence the emancipated intellect has asserted its 
 rights and privileges, has dreamt dreams of liberty 
 
 56
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 57 
 
 and fraternity, and has made an effort to shake off 
 the tutelage or to remove the obstacles that lay in the 
 path of its progress. Among the progressive nations 
 of the world the intellect has triumphed in its efforts ; 
 while with others the movement has either been 
 prematurely smothered or stifled, or, on account 
 of unfavourable circumstances, has died a natural 
 death. Such has specially been the case with the 
 East, where religion and tyranny have always con- 
 spired together to keep the mind and the intellect 
 in a degrading subservience. We propose to discuss, 
 in this essay, the history of that interesting move- 
 ment in Islam known as the Shu'ubiyyah movement, 
 and consider the causes which led to its origin, its 
 growth, and finally to estimate its results upon the 
 Islamic Government. Its importance in the history 
 of Islam can scarcely be exaggerated, as it was one 
 of the few potent factors which smote the Arab 
 supremacy through and through, and which sowed 
 the seeds of disloyalty and disaffection, l)earing their 
 fruits in the rise of Abu Muslim and the overthrow of 
 the Omayyad rule. Ostensibly the Shu'ubiyyites 
 were those foreign converts to Islam who, while 
 advocating the excellence of their own respective 
 nationality, refused to acknowledge the superiority 
 of the Arabs ; but the Sliu'ubiyyah movement was 
 not merely a literary warfare waged between the 
 Arabs on the one band and the foreign converts on 
 the other, but a poliliciil movement having its origin 
 and its basis in the political conditions of the times. 
 The Muslim Empire was composed of a heterogeneous 
 population abounding in variations of temperament,
 
 58 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 faith, laws, habits and traditions ; a good portion 
 of which, either from genuine conviction or sheer 
 necessity, had accepted Islam. Though Islam had 
 placed these converts on a footing of absolute equality 
 with the Arabs, they yet, to their cost, found that the 
 Islamic teachings of equality and brotherhood were 
 more * a counsel of perfection ' than a precept to be 
 followed and observed by the House of Omayyah. 
 This large and ever-growing population lay prostrate 
 under the feet of a tyrannous government, and 
 silently resented the imperious dictation and super- 
 cilious haughtiness of their rulers. Their hearts 
 bled at the miseries of the time, and their blood boiled 
 at its injustice. The history of this movement, there- 
 fore, is the history of a long estrangement and mutual 
 distrust between the Arab Imperialism symbolized 
 in the Omayyad government and the foreign converts 
 to Islam, who were ever and anon striving for the 
 recognition of their rights as Muslims and for direct 
 participation in the State politics as fellow-citizens. 
 
 When Mohamed stamped out the Arab heathenism 
 and with it hushed into silence the tribal feuds and 
 jealousies, he proclaimed the brotherhood of all 
 Muslims irrespective of rank and birth. The doctrine 
 of equality of all Muslims so positively preached by 
 the Prophet and so nobly upheld by his two immediate 
 successors was quite foreign and distasteful to the 
 Arab aristocrats, the custodians of Arab heathenism, 
 even after the triumph of Islam, but so long as the 
 Prophet lived and his two successors reigned they 
 were kept well within bounds, and the doctrine of 
 the equality of all Muslims was not only an academic
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 59 
 
 proposition but a literal truth. With the accession 
 of Othman things changed, and changed for the 
 worse. The Arab aristocrats apportioned among 
 themselves the most lucrative governorships and the 
 most profitable government posts. For the rule of 
 Islam was substituted the rule of Arab aristocracy, 
 and the contrast between the two — owing to the 
 sudden change — was only too apparent and glaring. 
 Instead of the Caliphs Abu Baler and Omar, men of 
 candid gaze, of fearless heart, of deep compassion, and 
 infinite concern, the Islamic world had at its head the 
 weak but well-meaning Othman, wanting alike in 
 strength of character and firmness of resolve, and 
 unwittingly playing into the hands of his formidable 
 kinsmen. Hence the conspiracy against him and his 
 subsequent tragic death. It is scarcely necessary for 
 me to go into that deeply stained page of Muslim 
 history dealing with the Caliphate of Ali and his 
 sanctimonious son, and the final triumph of Muawiah, 
 the governor of Syria. With the rise of IMuawiah 
 fresh problems pressed for solution. The rapid con- 
 quests of Islam had widened the ever-growing circle of 
 new converts. Were these to be accorded perfect 
 equality with Arab Muslims as conceded by Islam 
 and its first two Caliphs ? The Arab aristocracy, freed 
 from the shackles imposed by the I'rophet and his two 
 immediate successors, and, in fact, in possession of the 
 supreme powers of the State, could not for a moment 
 endure or tolerate such a levelling doctrine of equality. 
 For them it was an inconceivable proposition and 
 an astounding claim which called for e(|uality between 
 the froc-born of the pure Arab race and a foreigner,
 
 60 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 an Ajami. Filled with the ideals of Paganism which 
 set a value on birth and descent, inconceivable by the 
 moderns, they would not hear of any such concession, 
 but held fast to their notions of exalted superiority, 
 and looked down with contempt upon the newly 
 enlisted band of MusHm converts. If such was the 
 unbending attitude of the Arab aristocracy, let us now 
 look generally into the position of the foreign converts 
 to Islam. They had not only great wealth at their 
 command, but in consequence of their many-sided 
 activities — literary, scientific and professional — they 
 had early secured an undoubtedly important position 
 in Muslim society which, in spite of the contempt in 
 which they were held, did not fail to cause uneasiness 
 to Muawiah and to make the Caliph Abdul Malik sigh 
 for the future of the Arabs. The existence of such a 
 feeling between the rulers and the ruled was not likely 
 to create sympathy in the one or confidence in the 
 other, and throughout the Omayyad dynasty we 
 notice the gulf widening more and more and estrange- 
 ment growing deeper and deeper between the two 
 classes. In the consciousness of military strength the 
 Omayyads forgot that no government could continue 
 for any length of time which rested solely on military 
 support ; for " force in one sense is always on the 
 side of the governed, and government in a sense is 
 always dependent upon opinion."* A striking illustra- 
 tion of this statement of Hume does the history of the 
 Omayyads offer. The constant quarrels of the North 
 and the South Arabian tribes ; the opposition of the 
 pietist party to the ungodlike and unrighteous govern- 
 * Hume.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 61 
 
 ment of the House of Omayyah ; the frequent risings 
 of the Kharijites, bitterly hostile to the ruling dynasty ; 
 added to these the silent yet powerful discontent of 
 the foreign converts who alternately cast in their lot 
 with the pietists, the Kharijites, the Murji'ites and 
 every insurgent who held out hopes to them — all 
 these combined and conspired indeed to shake the 
 Omayyad rule to its foundation and pave the way 
 for the success of Abu Muslim and the ascendancy 
 of the House of Abbas. The fall of the Omayyads 
 brought better days for the oppressed and the 
 despised converts. The Abbasids, thoroughly imbued 
 with foreign and specially Persian influences, showed 
 a distinct partiality towards the Persians at the ex- 
 pense of the Arabs. Persian fashion, Persian costume, 
 and Persian court etiquette became paramount 
 at the court and in society, and wo hea.r, as it were, 
 a note of discontent in the contemporary literature 
 of the Arabs against this inroad of foreign influences. 
 Compared with the Omayyads the Abbasids repre- 
 sented a policy of toleration which does them credit. 
 The national Arab government, however, perished 
 and perished for evermore. The Abbasids, within 
 almost half a century, became mere ornamental 
 figure-heads ruled by foreigners — Persians at first, 
 and Turks after. The Persians now took their 
 revenge and began to assail the Arab vanity at its 
 weakest point. They attacked their birth and descent 
 and painted them in the darkest hue, using against 
 them a language as uncomplimentary as the Arabs, 
 under the Omayyads, were wont to apply towards 
 them. A more conciliatory policy towards tlie
 
 62 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 subject races would not only have added strength 
 to the purely Arab national government (for such 
 was the Omayyad government) but would have saved 
 it from its premature fall. But the policy of the 
 Omayyads had a yet more disastrous effect. To it we 
 must mainly ascribe the reaction against Arabism, 
 which set in under the Abbasids in all its fierce 
 bitterness. It further rent Islam in twain and 
 emphasized the difference between the "Arab" and 
 " A jam " and thereby undid one of the greatest 
 achievements of Islam — the unity and brotherhood 
 of all Muslims. We now proceed to a fuller and a 
 more detailed consideration of the subject. 
 
 II 
 
 Islam was a democracy and a perfect brotherhood. 
 Conversion to Islam, according to the teachings 
 of the Prophet, meant an unqualified admission to 
 the theocracy set up by it, and full participation 
 in its rights and privileges, and an absolute extinction 
 of all differences based upon race, nationality, or 
 colour. " Truly the most worthy of honour in the sight 
 of God," says the Qur'an, " is he who feareth Him 
 most ; for the faithful are brethren ; wherefore make 
 peace between your brethren." In a similar strain 
 did the Prophet express himself in his parting sermon : 
 " men, God has taken away from you the arro- 
 gance and pride of ancestry of heathen days. An 
 Arab has no other excellence or superiority over a 
 barbarian than what is secured to him by his god-
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 63 
 
 fearing and righteousness."* Again the Prophet 
 said : " After my death beware of becoming heathens 
 afresh and slaying each other.'" t The same refrain 
 we find in the following traditions which, whether 
 genuine or apocryphal, express the real spirit of the 
 teachings of the Prophet : man, of a truth God is 
 one God, and the ancestor of all mankind is one ; 
 the religion is the same religion, the Arabic speech 
 is neither father nor mother to any one of you, 
 it is naught else but a speech. He who speaks Arabic 
 is thereby an Arab. 
 
 He of [the people of] Pars who accepts Islam is as 
 good as a Quraishite. 
 
 Did faith reside in the Pleiades, yet would men of 
 this people [the Persians] reach it — a tradition modi- 
 fied as follows : Were knowledge suspended to the 
 ends of heaven yet would a section of the people in 
 Pars reach it. I 
 
 The instances of Bilal the Abyssinian, and Salman 
 the Persian, clearly demonstrate that the Prophet 
 of Arabia never made any distinction between 
 Muslims, whatever was their nationality. The 
 pious Abu Bakr, similarly, made no distniction be- 
 tween Arabs and non- Arabs, slaves and freodmen, 
 so long as they were Muslims. He distributed the 
 State income among all Muslims : men, women, 
 children, freedmen and clients, § and Von Kremer 
 
 * Von Kremor, " Culturgcschicht. Streifziigo," p. 22; my 
 translation, pp. 80, 81. 
 
 t Von lu-cnier, " Culturgoschichte des Orients," p. 54;$, vol. i. 
 
 I Gold/ihor, " ]\Iuh. Studien," vol. i., pp. 110, 117; I'rofessor 
 Browne, vol. i., p. '204. 
 
 5 Abu YuBuf ; ajmd Von Krciuor, " Culturgeschichtc des 
 Orients," vol. i., p. GO, note 1.
 
 G4 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 (on p. 69, vol. i. of his invaluable " Culturgeschichte 
 des Orients ") specially draws attention to the fact that 
 the second Caliph effaced all distinctions between the 
 full-blooded Arabs (Sarih), the half Arab (Halif), and 
 client (Mawla), in assigning annuities. This was 
 quite in keeping with the declaration of his policy 
 which he made in his inaugural address as Caliph. 
 There, among other things, did he say : " By God ! the 
 weakest among you will appear to me as the strongest 
 until I have secured his rights to him, and the 
 strongest among you will I treat as the weakest until 
 he conforms to law."* Omar treated all Muslims 
 alike, irrespective of their nationality or social position. 
 To an Arab governor who, while refusing them to 
 the clients, granted annuities to the Arabs, he issued 
 the following laconic order : " It is reckoned as 
 wicked in a man to despise his brother Muslim." 
 Even to non- Arab converts did Omar assign annuities, 
 to various Persian landowners in Mesopotamia, and 
 to a quondam Christian of Hirah. As for foreign 
 converts and their clients he recommended his com- 
 manders of troop to treat them on exactly the same 
 footing as Muslims (i.e., Arab Muslims), in whose 
 rights and responsibilities they were to share. He 
 even suggested that they should form a special tribe 
 of their own and receive annuities according to the 
 very same principle which applied to the Arab tribes. 
 Such examples and precepts, however, were not 
 commendable to the aristocratic Arabs, the upholders 
 of the Arab national pride, and the founders of the 
 Arab Imperialism. If the democratic principles of 
 * Weil, "Geschichte der Cbalifen," vol. i., pp. 54, 55.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 65 
 
 Islam had been apj)lied to the neo-converts, the 
 brotherhood of Islam would have been an accom- 
 plished fact ; but the enth-e Islamic system was 
 opposed to the Arab frame of mind. Nor was this 
 unexpected. In the first place, says Professor Nichol- 
 son, the fundamental principle of Islam was foreign 
 and unintelligible to the Bedouins. It was not the 
 destruction of their idols that they opposed so much 
 as the spirit of devotion which it was sought to 
 implant in them ; the determination of their whole 
 lives by the thought of God and His pre-ordaining 
 and retributive omnipotence, the prayers and fasts, 
 the renouncement of coveted pleasures, and the 
 sacrifice of money and property which was demanded 
 of them in God's name. In spite of the saying, 
 " La Dina ilia bil-muruwwati " (" There is no religion 
 without virtue "), the Bedouin who accepted Islam 
 had to unlearn the greater part of his unwritten 
 moral code. As a pious Muslim he must return 
 good for evil, forgive his enemy, and find balm for 
 his wounded feelings in the assurance of being 
 admitted into Paradise. Again, the social organiza- 
 tion of the heathen Arabs was based on the tribe, 
 whereas that of Islam rested on the equality and 
 fraternity of all believers. The religious bond can- 
 celled all distinctions of rank and pedigree; it did 
 away, theoretically, with clannish feuds, contests 
 for honour, pride of race — things that lay at the 
 very root of Arabian chivalry.* The Arabs gloried 
 in the purity of their descent and the nobility of 
 their ancestors ; and the title of Ibn Ilurratin, the 
 
 * Professor Nicholson, " Lit. Hist, of the Arabs," p. 178. 
 
 6
 
 66 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 son of a free mother, was considered, after as before 
 Islam, as a title of special pride and glory.* They 
 believed that only the son of a free-born Arab could 
 protect the honour of the tribe and bring help to the 
 suffering and the oppressed, as also carry out the 
 duties and obligations of the Muruwwa (the old 
 virtue). Thus does the poet Tarafa say : 
 
 ^ t 9 " 
 
 i^yu'i ^ ^\ Jil J ^^\ ^\^ 
 
 j4=-\ >3^^l> *1j^1^ tJi'V. ^ i 
 
 " I sought approach to you by the common tie of 
 relationship, and by your good fortune, Malik, I do 
 present myself to help you when an affair demanding 
 serious efforts presents itself. 
 
 " And if I am called on by you in any serious affair, 
 I will be amongst the defenders of your honour, and 
 if the enemy comes to you, striving for your destruc- 
 tion, I will strive in repulsing him."t 
 
 And with noble pride for the services rendered to 
 his tribe does Imru ul-Qais I sing : — 
 
 Jl.-^ J^i ^ Jjbl^ J^ * ^i^^^^ Li^U^r ^^.!\ hjij 
 
 "And many a leather water-bag of the people 
 I have placed its strap over my shoulder, submissive 
 and repeatedly saddled with it." 
 
 * Goldziher, vol. i.^ p. 122. 
 
 t Arnold's edition of the " Moallaqat," p. 89. 
 
 X Arnold, p. 22.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 67 
 
 Among the Arabs the feeling of kinship and the 
 duties which it involved were regarded as almost 
 sacred, and, therefore, they thought that none but 
 a full tribesman could satisfactorily discharge those 
 duties. It was considered as an indelible stain upon 
 a tribe which counted a female slave as its ancestress. 
 "Inna ummakum amatun"('* Your mother is a female 
 slave "), thus does a poet attack the Banu Nujayh 
 of the tribe of Darim ; and according to Ibn Abd 
 Eabbih (Iqd., iii. 296) the hajin, i.e., the son of an 
 Ajamiya or non-Arab woman, did not inherit in 
 the times of ignorance. Even the brave and chival- 
 rous Antara did not escape the reproach of descent 
 from a negress, and, as a protest against the Arab 
 pride, he composed some of his finest verses : — 
 
 vJJ^! ^^^^ i js^'j ^^ * yj-^ u**r^ (J^^' ^^J:3\ J^ 
 
 And again : — 
 
 Though the children of an Arab by a slave-girl 
 or freed-woman were looked upon as legitimate, yet 
 the aristocratic Arabs would not treat them as their 
 equals in rank and position. Many Arabs were so 
 proud of their descent from their father's and mother's 
 side that they refused to believe that anybody could 
 
 * "Z.D.M.G.," vol. ii., pp. 190, 192.
 
 68 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 equal them. This is expressly related, says Goldziher, 
 of Ukail ibn Alafa, the poet of the Banu Murra. * In 
 this connection we might recall the immortal lines of 
 Tarafa : — 
 
 L5- 
 
 jjUXW ^^jS,.]\ t^Jl IX'j ^Jj 
 
 The Caliph Hisham told Zaid ibn Ali ibn Husain : 
 " It has come to my knowledge that you are coveting 
 the Caliphate and that you are very anxious to 
 secure it, but you are not the man for it inasmuch as 
 you are the son of a slave-girl." f Born and bred in 
 an atmosphere of the most narrow conservatism, the 
 ruling Arabs were not likely to treat foreign converts 
 as their equals. This was a demand — though repeat- 
 edly made by the neo-converts and the pious and the 
 God-fearing Arabs for them — which the ruling race 
 could not for a moment entertain, being opposed to 
 the inherited notions of racial pride. Were the con- 
 querors and the conquered to be on the same level and 
 the same footing ? Were they to stand on the same 
 platform and shake hands with each other as brothers 
 and equals ? The Arabs peremptorily declined to 
 concede any such privileges to the neo-converts. 
 Here the Arab Imperialism and the Islamic theocracy 
 stood in an irreconcilable hostility to each other. 
 The ruling Arabs would not yield and the Muslim 
 converts would not unhesitatingly submit to the 
 artificial barriers created by their rulers ; nor could 
 
 * Goldziher, vol. i., p. 131. 
 
 t De Goeje, " Frag. Hist. Arab.," vol. i., p. 93.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 69 
 
 they silently tolerate the invidious distinctions and 
 the sneering contempt of the governing power. A 
 collision between the ruling Arabs and the subject 
 races was inevitable, and when it did come, the Arab 
 Imperialism could not resist its overwhelming tide. 
 The crash of accumulated wrongs fell upon the 
 Omayyads, and with a weight which destroyed them 
 root and branch. 
 
 The misunderstanding between the Arabs and the 
 Neo-Muslims contributed largely to the incessant 
 insurrections and rebellions against the government 
 which took place in Iraq and gave so much trouble to 
 the Omayyad Caliphs that they had to send so ener- 
 getic a Governor as Hajjaj to restore peace and 
 establish authority. The Omayyads' was a purely 
 national government and their entire policy bears its 
 impress. 
 
 It was in pursuance of this policy that Abdul 
 Malik introduced Arabic coinage in general use, for 
 hitherto Roman and Persian coins circulated in the 
 Muslim Empire,* and had the government accounts, 
 hitherto kept in Greek in Damascus, and in Persian 
 in Kufah, transferred into the Arabic language. 
 Arabicizing, says Professor Wellliausen, started, it 
 seems (according to Beladhuri, p. 300 : Fihrist, 242), 
 from Kufali. Zadan Farukh ibn Piri or his son 
 Mardan Shah was the last Persian accountant. His 
 assistant, Salih ibn Abdur Rahman, offered to keep 
 the accounts in Arabic for Hajjaj, and he managed 
 to do so even though it gave him some trouble to 
 
 * Wellhauscn, " Das Arabische Reich und sciu Sturz," 
 pp. 135-137.
 
 70 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 express the fractions — numerical figures were not 
 employed in Kufah. The Greek accounts in Damas- 
 cus were transferred into Arabic by Sulaiman ibn Sa'id. 
 The Greek and Persian systems, however, were 
 maintained ; only the language was changed, and the 
 foreigners continued to be as indispensable to the 
 government as ever, for the Arabs were deficient in 
 technical knowledge and clerical training. 
 
 We now pass on to consider the position of the 
 Mawali (the clients) in the Muslim society and their 
 relation towards the ruling power. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Arab tribal system was founded upon unity of 
 blood, upon real or feigned kinship, and as such, in 
 theory at least, held by itself and refused aliens a per- 
 manent settlement in its midst ; but as a matter of 
 fact, each individual tribe had a number of freedmen 
 and refugees within its circle, who were incorporated 
 into it, either by affiliation or adoption. The weaker 
 tribes, for purposes of safety and protection, largely 
 resorted to affiliations and adoptions, and " the 
 adoption of individual proteges to full tribesmanship 
 must in late times have been very common, for Hilf 
 and Da'i, sworn ally and adopted son, are often taken 
 as synonymous terms."* In the earliest times 
 Mawla simply meant a kinsman, and even in the 
 Qur'an Mawalikimi (33, v,) is used as a synonym for 
 Ikhwanukum. But we gradually notice a distinction 
 
 * Robertson Smith, " Kinship and Marriage in Arabia," 
 pp. 54, 55.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 71 
 
 made between Mawla-l-2cilada, i.e., a kinsman by 
 birth, and Mawla-l-yamin, a kinsman by oath; a dis- 
 tinction further deepened when Mawla (one admitted 
 into the tribe by affiliation) was used in contradistinc- 
 tion to Samim or Sarih (a full-blooded member of the 
 tribe). This distinction, however, was only observed 
 in the matter of blood-money ; for the blood-money 
 for the death of a dependent was not so high as 
 for a Sarih ; otherwise protector and protected shared 
 the risks and benefits of the blood-feud ; the protector 
 was bound to avenge his halif'a blood, and he himself 
 or any of his people was liable to be slain in the 
 halif'a quarrel, as the latter was in the quarrel of his 
 protector. Further, in Medina at least, the sworn 
 ally had a claim on the inheritance of his protector. 
 
 The rule obtaining with regard to it is expressed 
 by the Arabs: Alicala lnhnia ha-lnhmat al nasah or al 
 nala nasah thahit, i.e., clientship creates strong kin- 
 ship. Again, Maida-l-Qaum minlwm or min Anfusi- 
 him, i.e., the Mawla of a tribe is to be regarded just 
 as one of its original members.* It is obvious, there- 
 fore, that in the earliest times the word Mawla was not 
 exclusively applied, as it was later on, to foreign 
 converts to Islam or non-Arabian clients. 
 
 With the unceasing conquests of Islam, foreign 
 converts streamed into Arabia, in larger and larger 
 numbers, and formed a part of the Arab nation. 
 They were not the sworn allies, the hulafa, but 
 captives of war who escaped slavery by conversion to 
 Islam, and thus acquired the status of clients. The 
 clients, after the conquest, therefore, were non-Arabs, 
 * Goldziher, vol. i., p. 117.
 
 72 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 since Arabs might not be enslaved. The Omayyads, 
 however, applied the term to all non-Arab Muslims, 
 and called clients all Muslims of Persian nationality, 
 who having been Magians and members of a tolerated 
 sect, had embraced Islam, as well as all such persons 
 as had attached themselves to the Arabs or had taken 
 refuge with them. They used to call them the " Red 
 Party," a word which the native lexicographers say 
 is equivalent to non-Arab.* Their rank was steadily 
 swelled with the hundreds and thousands of white 
 and black slaves sent as presents to the Caliph or at 
 times in lieu of land-tax. t Even as early as the 
 time of Muawiah these clients had become sufficiently 
 numerous to make that clear-sighted statesman 
 uneasy as to their future. He accordingly desired to 
 massacre them all or partially, but before taking 
 such an extreme step he consulted some of the chief 
 statesmen in whom he reposed trust and confidence, 
 such as Al-Ahnaf ibn Qais and Samurah ibn Jundub. 
 He told them that he found this " Pied Race "—i.e., 
 the clients — were ousting the earlier Muslims, and he 
 was in hourly dread of an assault by them on the 
 Arabs and the supreme power. "■ I suggest, then," 
 he said, " that I should kill a large portion of them, 
 leaving the remainder to maintain the market and 
 keep up the roads. What do you think ?" Al-Ahnaf 
 would not approve of such a course, but Samurah 
 agreed with the Caliph and even volunteered to carry 
 out himself the massacre of the clients. Muawiah, 
 however, adopted the advice of the former and desisted. 
 
 * Zaydan, " Umayyads and Abbasids," p. 52. 
 t Ibid., 113.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 73 
 
 Muawiah anticipated the difficulties which the racial 
 question would bring in its train, and his forebodings 
 were realized, and only too soon. At the commence- 
 ment of Islam, says Zaydan, the Arabs occupied 
 themselves only with governing and politics ; all 
 other occupations, especially arts and crafts, were 
 relinquished by them to non-Arabs. One of their 
 proverbs places folly with weavers, spinners, and 
 teachers, these being trades pursued by members of 
 tolerated creeds.* The Arabs, intoxicated with vic- 
 tory, cared little for anything except poetry and 
 history, and to these also they devoted such scant 
 attention that they were soon outstripped by the 
 foreigners, the despised clients. Moreover, their 
 want of acquaintance with calculation and clerical 
 work rendered them unfit for the public offices 
 which, in spite of the Omayyad chauvinism, were 
 mostly held by members of tolerated creeds and 
 clients. Not only in the government are the 
 foreigners always to the front, says Goldziher, but 
 we find them also in the foremost ranks in the 
 specifically religious sciences. It almost seems, says 
 Von Kremer, that these scientific studies (reading 
 and exegesis of the Qur'an, sciences of tradition and 
 law) were during the first two centuries [of the 
 Hijra] principally carried on by clients [ Mawali, i.e., 
 non-Arab Muslims] ; while the Arabs proper felt 
 themselves more drawn to the study of their ancient 
 poetry, and to the development and imitation of the 
 same ; but, we would add, even in this field they 
 were often outstripped by the foreigners, whose 
 * Zaydan, " Uuiayyads and Abbasids," p. 71.
 
 74 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 men of learning in no small degree advanced this 
 sphere of the Arabian genius by literary and historical 
 studies on the antiquities of the Arabs, by thorough 
 critical researches and so forth. It would be super- 
 fluous to cite here the many names whereof the 
 mere sound affords proof of what Arabic grammar and 
 lexicology owe to non-Arabs ; and even if we cannot 
 permit Paul de Lagarde's assertion that " of the 
 Mohamedans who have achieved anything in science, 
 not one was a Semite," to pass in this absolute form, 
 yet so much at least may be said that alike in the 
 specially religious studies as in those which grew up 
 round the study of the Arabic speech, the Arabian 
 element lagged far behind the non-Arabian. And 
 this was principally the fault of the Arabs them- 
 selves. They looked down with sovereign contempt 
 on the studies so zealously prosecuted by the non- 
 Arabs, considering that such trivialities were un- 
 worthy of men who could boast of so proud an 
 ancestry, and befitted only the pedagogue anxious 
 to gloss over with such pigments his dingy genealogy. 
 It befits not the Quraishite — in such words a full- 
 blooded Arab expresses himself — to go deeply into 
 any study save that of the old histories of the Arabs, 
 especially now, when one has to handle the bow and 
 attack the enemy. Once a Quraishite, observing 
 an Arab child studying the Book of Sibawaiyh, could 
 not refrain from exclaiming : " Fie upon thee ! That 
 is the learning of schoolmasters and the pride of 
 beggars !" For it was reckoned as a jest that any- 
 one who was a grammarian, prosodist, accountant 
 or jurist (for the science last mentioned arithmetic is
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 75 
 
 indispensable) would give instruction in these subjects 
 to little children for sixty dirhams (for what length 
 of time is not unfortunately mentioned).* 
 
 The greatest of the Arab historians has come to 
 the same conclusion as Dr. Goldziher, and it is 
 interesting to hear him : " The first Muslims were 
 entirely ignorant of art and science, all their attention 
 being devoted to the ordinances of the Qur'an which 
 they carried in their breasts and to the practice 
 (sunna) of the Prophet. At that time the Arabs 
 knew nothing of the way by which learning is taught, 
 of the art of composing books, and of the means 
 whereby knowledge is registered. Those, however, 
 who could repeat the Qur'an and relate the traditions 
 of the Prophet were called ' readers ' (Qurra). The 
 oral transmission continued until the time of Harun 
 al-Pashid, when the need of securing the traditions 
 against corruption or of preventing their total loss 
 caused them to be set down in writing ; and in order 
 to distinguish the genuine traditions from the spurious, 
 every Isnad (chain of witnesses) was carefully scrutin- 
 ized. Meanwhile, the purity of the Arabic tongue 
 had become impaired ; hence arose the science of 
 grammar ; and the rapid development of law and 
 divinity brought it about that other sciences, c.^., logic 
 and dialectic, were professionally cultivated in the 
 great cities of the Muslim Empire. The inhabitants 
 of these cities were chiefly Persians, freedmen and 
 tradesmen, who had long been accustomed to the 
 arts of civilization. Accordingly the most eminent 
 
 ♦ Goldziher, vol. i., p. 119 ; Von Krcmer, " Culturgesch. 
 Streifziige," p. 10 ; my translation, p. Tl.
 
 76 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 of the early grammarians, traditionists and scholastic 
 theologians, as well as of those learned in the prin- 
 ciples of law and in the interpretation of the Qur'an, 
 were Persians by race or education, and the saying 
 of the Prophet was verified : * If knowledge were 
 attached to the ends of the sky, some amongst the 
 Persians would have reached it.' Amidst all this 
 intellectual activity the Arabs, who had recently 
 emerged from a nomadic life, found the exercise 
 of military and administrative command too engross- 
 ing to give them leisure for literary avocations 
 which have always been disdained by a ruling caste. 
 They left such studies to the Persians and the mixed 
 race (Al-muwalladun) which sprang from inter- 
 marriage of the conquerors with the conquered. 
 They did not entirely look down upon the men of 
 learning, but recognized their services, since after 
 all it was Islam and the sciences connected with 
 Islam that profited thereby."* The Arabs, as a 
 nation, loved to live up to the ideals of Paganism, 
 caring little for scientific and literary pursuits ; but 
 we do not thereby suggest that they altogether 
 neglected such studies. The intellectual history 
 of Islam can point to many genuine Arabs of the 
 type of Al-Mu'arrij (d. a.h. 195), of the tribe of 
 Sadus, who has said : " I came from the desert 
 and I knew nothing of the rules of the Arabic 
 language. My knowledge was merely instinctive, 
 and for the first time did I learn its rules in the 
 
 * Ibn Khaldun, " Muqaddima " (Beyrut, 1900), p. 543 et seq. 
 Apud Professor Nicholson, "Literary History of the Arabs," 
 p. 278.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 77 
 
 college of Abu Zaid al-Ansari al-Basri." But the 
 Arab, says Goldziher, had completely to change 
 his very nature and recast it in the mould of a 
 foreign culture before he could take up theoretical 
 sciences as subjects of his study.* By wealth and 
 learning the Mawali made their power felt in Muslim 
 society, though the ruling Arabs would not hold 
 them as their equals and peers. The conversation 
 between Abdul Malik and Zuhri, happily preserved 
 and handed down to us, illustrates the position 
 acquired by the Mawali even as early as the time 
 of Abdul Malik. Ibn Sahl relates in his travels that 
 Al-Zuhri, the famous theologian, happening to be 
 once at the court of the Caliph, introduced himself 
 to the Commander of the Faithful. The following 
 conversation took place between the ruler and the 
 savant. 
 
 Caliph : Whence dost thou come ? 
 
 Zuhri: From Mekka. 
 
 Caliph : Who exercised authority over the people 
 at the time of thy residence there ? 
 
 Zuhri : *Ata, son of liabah. 
 
 Caliph : Is he an Arab or a Mawla ? 
 
 Zuhri : A Mawla. 
 
 Caliph : How did he succeed in obtaining this 
 influence over the Mekkuns? 
 
 Zuiini : By his pioty and knowledge of tlic tradi- 
 tions. 
 
 Caiji'II : Just so ; distinction among men comes to 
 the godfearing and the learned in the traditions. 
 Well, now, who stands in prominence in Yaman ? 
 * Goldziher, vol. i., p. 122.
 
 78 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 ZuHRi : Ta'us, son of Kaisan. 
 
 Caliph : Is he an Arab or a Mawla ? 
 
 ZuHRi : A Mawla. 
 
 Caliph : How has he attained this influence ? 
 
 ZuHRi : By the very same qualities as 'Ata. 
 
 Thus did the Caliph question him about all the 
 provinces of Islam and was informed by Zuhri that 
 in Egypt, Yazid b. Abi Habib; in Syria, Makhul 
 the son of a captive of war from Kabul to whom a 
 Hudhailite, in whose service he was, had granted 
 his freedom ; in Mesopotamia, Maimun B. Mehran ; 
 in Khurasan, Al-Dhahhak ; in Basrah, Al-Hasan ibn 
 al-Hasan ; in Kufa, Ibrahim An-Nakhai ; all these 
 were pure Mawali, who played the role of leaders 
 in Muslim society. When the Caliph expressed 
 his astonishment at this state of affairs, which would 
 inevitably lead to the Mawali wresting the rule from 
 the Arabs and making the latter their subjects, 
 Zuhri said : "So it is, Commander of the Faith- 
 ful ! This is effected by the command of God and 
 His religion ; he who observes these, attains to 
 authority; he who neglects them, goes under."* It 
 is related of Muslim ibn Yasar, a Mawla, that no one 
 in his time was more respected than he. f These 
 clients distinguished themselves as Huffaz (persons 
 who knew the Qur'an by heart), commentators, 
 lexicographers, poets and scholars, and as such they 
 gained a considerable influence with the people as 
 well as the pietist party — not quite a negligible 
 
 * Khuda Buklish, " Islamic Civilization " and the authorities 
 therein cited, p. 27. 
 t Ibn Qutaibah, p. 121. He died a.h. 100.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 79 
 
 factor in early Muslira iDolitics. To the Mawali 
 belonged most of the intellectual men who adorn 
 the literary history of Islam, and we need scarcely 
 cite more than a few instances here. Mohamed Ibn 
 Ishaq, author of the "Life of the Prophet," was the 
 grandson of one of those forty, named Yasar. 
 
 To the clients, moreover, belonged such men as 
 Abu Safar, of the captives of Daba in the time of 
 Abu Bakr ; Hammad, the reciter of poetry whose 
 father was a Dailemite by birth, of the captives taken 
 by Mukhnif, son of Zaid of the Horses; Sa'ib 
 Khathir, by origin of the captives taken when 
 Persia was conquered ; the poet Marwan, son of 
 Abu Hafsah, descended from a Jew taken captive at 
 Istakhar ; the grammarian Al-Harawi, originally a 
 prisoner who fell into the lot of some Bedouin Arabs ; 
 Ibn al-Arab, originally of Scinde ; Abu Dulamah, 
 a black slave at Kufah to an Arab of the Banu Asad 
 who manumitted him. * We might indefinitely 
 multiply this list, but it is enough to show that 
 the clients had early enough made a mark in the 
 world of letters and had secured a position of con- 
 siderable weight in the Muslim community which 
 the Arab Government could not altogether ignore. 
 They had acquired importance not only in the world 
 of letters, but were indispensable to Government as 
 clerks in ollices and as traders and artisans. Besides 
 these there were fighting clients. To each Arab 
 tribe there were attached a number of these, often 
 more numerous than the tribe itself. When the 
 tribe went fighting, they went out with it and fought 
 * Zaydan^ p. 54.
 
 80 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 for it. The proportion between clients and patrons 
 varied at different times. In Ali's time the number 
 of cUents who went to war was to the number 
 of citizens as one to five ; in the Omayyad period, 
 owing to the steady growth of the numbers of 
 the clients, they became more numerous still.* 
 We come across a statement in the history of the 
 first expedition to Khurasan, according to which the 
 Muslim army that crossed the Oxus and besieged 
 Saghaniun, counted 5,000 strong, of which one-fifth 
 were Persians who had accepted Islam and had 
 made common cause with the Arabs.-f- Abu Mikhnaf 
 states that in the camp at Dair Jamajim along with 
 100,000 Arab military pensioners (muqatila) there 
 were as many Mawali.j Certain it is, as Von Kremer 
 points out, that the majority of the converts in Syria, 
 Egypt, Africa, as well as Iraq, Persia and Transoxiana 
 chose military service and entered the army. To 
 this class belonged Tariq whose name Gibraltar 
 still bears, and Musa ibn Nusair, conqueror of the 
 Maghrib and Spain. Though conspicuous in every 
 walk of life, in learning, in trade and in war, the 
 Mawali were refused political rights and social 
 privileges which they as Muslims should have en- 
 joyed. Though Muslims they were not only not 
 exempted from the hateful capitation-tax paid origin- 
 ally by non-Muslims, but were exposed to the ever- 
 increasing exactions of government officials. The 
 Omayyads might justify their conduct against the 
 
 * Zydau, p. 114. 
 
 I Beladhuri, 407. Ajjud Von Kremer, " Culturgeschichte des 
 Oiieats," vol. i., p. '232, 
 
 % Wellhausen, " Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz," p. 153.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 81 
 
 Shi'ites and the Kharijites who were ever and anon 
 trying to undermine the basis of their rule, but 
 no such justification could be pleaded or urged 
 against the peaceful Hawaii. We read in the "Iqd 
 Ibn Abd Rabbih " the following passage which is 
 evidently taken from the work of Jahidh on clients : 
 Nafi ibn Jubair allowed a client to lead the prayer ; 
 for this he was reproached, but he replied : " I only 
 wished to demean myself before God by performing 
 my prayer behind a client." This Nafi used to 
 ask whenever a funeral passed by his house who 
 the dead person was. If the answer was that 
 he was of the Quraish he called out : ** Oh, what a 
 loss to his tribe!" If the dead person was only 
 an Arab, he said : " Oh, what a loss to his home !" 
 If the dead person happened to be a client he said : 
 " One of the herd of God who takes whatever He wishes 
 and leaves whatever He wills." People used to say : 
 Three things, if they happen to pass before the person 
 praying, cancel prayer ; these are a donkey, a dog, and 
 a client. Further, clients were never addressed by 
 kunyas {i.e., father of so and so) but simply by their 
 names or nicknames. Nor would Arabs walk in their 
 midst nor let them go ahead ©f them in festive proces- 
 sions. If they came to dinner, they had to sit behind 
 the Ai'abs. If a client was entertained on account of 
 his age or his piety or his learning, he had to sit 
 apart so that no one could mistake him for a genuine 
 Arab. Moreover, a client was not allowed to perform 
 the funeral prayer over a deceased Muslim if an 
 Arab was present, however distinguished the client 
 might be. If anybody wanted to marry the daughter 
 
 6
 
 82 THE SIIU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 of a client he had to make the proposal not to 
 the father or the mother of the girl but to the patron 
 of the client ; and the patron either gave or withheld 
 his consent as he pleased. If, on the contrary, the 
 father or the mother of the girl gave her in marriage, 
 it was considered absolutely null and void even 
 if the marriage had been consummated. The status 
 thus created was looked upon merely as that of 
 concubinage and not of lawful wedlock. The Hawaii, 
 moreover, were excluded from all important religious 
 posts such as the judgeship, the maxim being that 
 only Arabs were qualified to be judges. The office 
 of Caliph was, further, closed to the son of a slave- 
 girl even though his father was a Quraishite. In 
 A.H. 101, for the first time, the son of a slave-girl, 
 Yazid son of Al-Walid, ascended the throne. The 
 Omayyads forbade marriages between clients and 
 Arab women, and the famous Abdullah Ibn 'Aun, 
 being a client, was beaten with scourges by Bilal 
 ibn Abi Burdah for marrying an Arab woman. 
 There is a long poem of Abu Bujail condemning a 
 member of the tribe of Abd Qais in Bahrain for 
 marrying his daughter to a client. The whole tribe 
 is reproached for allying itself with tradesmen and 
 cultivators.* It is obvious how little inclined the 
 aristocratic Arabs were to allow absolute equality 
 to recent converts. The genuine Arab considered 
 himself infinitely higher and nobler than either the 
 recent Persian or Syrian converts, t Here was a 
 situation full of danger. But it was not only the 
 
 * Zaydan, p. 118. 
 
 t My translation of " Culturgeschicht. Streifziige," pp. 79, 80.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 83 
 
 Mawali whom the Omayyads had to face and over- 
 come ; the Arabs themselves were by no means dis- 
 posed favourably towards them. Besides the contempt 
 in which they were held, the Mawali had other serious 
 grievances against their rulers. When they served 
 in the army they fought on foot and not on horseback; 
 and when they distinguished themselves they were 
 regarded with distrust. They got pay and a share in 
 the booty (even this excited the wrath of the Arabs), 
 but no regular annuities ; nor were they enrolled 
 in the army pension register. Nothing, says the 
 historian Tabari, in speaking of the revolt of Mukh- 
 tar, so exasperated the [Arab] Kufans as to see 
 Mukhtar assign to the clients their share of the 
 spoil. " You have taken from us our clients," they 
 cried, " who are the spoil which God hath destined 
 for us with all this province. We have liberated 
 them, hoping for a reward from God, but you do 
 not trouble yourself about this, and cause them to 
 share in our booty." Although admitted to the 
 Arab tribes they were distinguished as "people of 
 villages" from the "people of the tribe," and 
 although Muslims, they were not exempt from taxes 
 payable by subject races. The- tax to which the 
 land-owning Arabs themselves had to contribute 
 seems not to have been felt as such a burden by 
 the Khurasanians as by the Transoxanians, who had 
 only joined Islam in anticipation of being exempted 
 from this tax. But the discontent of the inhabitants 
 of Soghd, without doubt, spread to those of Khurasan. 
 Ilarith b. Suraij and others took care that this 
 should be the case. Had the Arabs treated the
 
 81 THE SIIU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 converted Iranians as equals, the amalgamation 
 of the two nationalities might have been possible ; 
 as it was, they merely cherished them as enemies 
 in their own bosoms. Islam did not remove but 
 aggravated the antagonism. It regenerated the 
 Iranians, stiffened their backs, and placed in their 
 hands a weapon, which they could direct against 
 their masters. Islam united them with those 
 Arabs who, led by theocratic principles, opposed 
 the Omayyad government. It was the Arabs who 
 first excited and organized the Mawali. The revolu- 
 tionary Islam set up the idea of the theocracy 
 as against the existing system of government and 
 sounded the war-cry in the name of God against 
 the Omayyads and their officials, in the name of 
 right and justice against injustice and oppression.* 
 Broadly speaking, says Professor Browne, the policy 
 of the Omayyads utterly alienated four classes of their 
 subjects : 
 
 1. The pious Muslims, who saw with horror and 
 detestation the sacrilegious actions, the ungodly 
 lives, the profanity and the worldliness of their 
 rulers. Amongst these were included nearly all 
 the " companions " (Ashab) and the ** helpers " 
 (Ansars), and their descendants. From these elements 
 the rebellion of Zubair derived most of its strength. 
 
 2. The " faction " (Shia) of Ali, which had suffered 
 from the House of Omayya the irreparable wrongs 
 culminating in the tragedy of Kerbela. This con- 
 stituted the kernel of Al-Mukhtar's rebellion. 
 
 * Wellhausen, " Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz," pp. 309, 
 310.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 85 
 
 3. The Kharijites or Puritan theocrats who, rein- 
 forced by malcontents and freebooters of every 
 kind, continued till about a.d. 700 to cause continual 
 trouble of the most serious kind to the Omayyad 
 government. 
 
 4. The clients (Mawali) or non-Arab Muslims who, 
 far from being treated by the government as equal 
 to their co-religionists of Arab birth, were regarded as 
 subject races to be oppressed, exploited and despised 
 by their rulers.* 
 
 The pietist party, the Kharijites and the Murji'ites, 
 rejected, on principle, every distinction between 
 Arabs and Mawali in Islam ; and it is not, therefore, 
 surprising that the Mawali alternately cast in their lot 
 with these and were found, in large numbers, in 
 every insurrection and rebellion that was organized 
 agamst the government. The Shi'ite party was 
 largely recruited out of their midst, and in Merv 
 the masses of Shia consisted of Mawali. With the 
 help and assistance and sympathy of the Arabs who 
 stood opposed to the ruling dynasty, the Mawali 
 lifted their heads; and in these Mawali, who were 
 entitled by virtue of Islam to more than the dominant 
 Arabism allowed them, the hope now dawned of 
 freeing themselves from clientship and of rising to 
 full and direct participation in the Muslim state, f 
 The despised Mawali, therefore, fondly joined the 
 party which conceded to them their legitimate rights 
 and privileges. Even as early as the time of Muawiah, 
 
 * "Literary History of Tersia," vol. i., pp. 232, 233. 
 t Wellliausen, "Die religiiis-pnlitischon ( )ppoaitionsparteien," 
 p. 79.
 
 86 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 there was a Kharijite Mawali insurrection headed 
 by Abu Ali of Kufa, a Mawla of the Banu Harith.* 
 In the rebelHons of Al-Mukhtar and Abdur-Rahman 
 ibn Ash'ath there were Mawali in large numbers ; but 
 Wellhausen in his masterly and erudite " Das Arab- 
 ische Eeich und sein Sturz," has conclusively shown 
 that neither of them, as suggested by Von Kremer, 
 was essentially a Mawali movement. It is equally 
 certain, says he, that the insurrection of Ibn Ash'ath, 
 like that of Mukhtar, had its real centre in Kufa.f 
 That the Mawali took part in it does not necessarily 
 make it a Mawali movement. They might well have 
 had their own reasons for hostility against the 
 Syrian Government which constituted the backbone 
 of the Arabism, but they only played a secondary 
 role. In it specially well-represented were the 
 Yamanites of Kufah, the Kinda Hamdan and the 
 Madhij. In Kufah they were predominant and 
 reckoned Ibn Ash'ath as their own. They were 
 joined by the rest of the tribes, not excluding those 
 of Basorah. The insurrection of Ibn Ash'ath was 
 rather a renewed and desperately violent attempt 
 of the Iraqians to shake off the Syrian yoke. It was 
 not a war of the Mawali against the Arabs but rather 
 of the Iraqians against the Syrian Arabs. It was 
 a war of the two rival provinces of the Arab Empire 
 ever striving for supremacy. 
 
 Even the Murji'ites, the passive resistors, content, 
 as Wellhausen puts it, " to stand up for the Imper- 
 sonal Law," turned their principle of toleration 
 
 * Goldziher, vol. ii., p. 189. 
 
 t Wellhausen, " Das Arabische Reich," pp. 153, 156.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 87 
 
 against their rulers. Thus Harith b. Suraij and other 
 Arabian Murji'ites, joined the oppressed Mawali of 
 Khurasan to whom the government denied those 
 rights which they had acquired by conversion. 
 Enough, we trust, has been said to show that the 
 MawaH had abundant reasons to be distrustful of, and 
 disloyal to, the Omayyad government. Things were 
 hurrying to a crisis, and the general belief that some 
 revolution would take place towards the end of the 
 A.H. 100 hastened and precipitated the crisis already 
 near at hand. The Omayyad governors of Iraq— 
 Ziad and Hajjaj — had driven away the dangerous 
 elements of Kufah and Basorah to Khurasan, which 
 in process of time became the centre of discontent 
 and the nursery of rebellions. The Mawali, here, 
 were far more compact, and the Arabs, compared 
 to them, far weaker. Moreover, here in Khurasan, 
 the fusion of the Arabs and Persians was far greater, 
 and, as its result, the sympathy between the two races 
 far more real than elsewhere. " The Arabs in Khura- 
 san were already to a large extent," says Wellhausen, 
 " Persianized. Tliey had Persian wives, wore trousers, 
 drank wine, and kept the festivals of Nawrauz and 
 ]\rehrjan, while the Persian language was understood 
 and even spoken among them."* Thus was the 
 position of affairs when in a.ii. 101 (719-20), the 
 Shi'ites sent deputations to the Imam Mohamed b. 
 Ali b. Abdullah b. Abbas b. Abdullah b. Hashim 
 to accept their allegiance. The time was ripe for 
 change, but the Abbasid propaganda could not count 
 upon the undivided support of the oppressed and 
 * Wellhausen, " Das Arabischo Reich und sein Sturz," p. 307.
 
 88 THE SIIU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 despised Mawali who, as wo have seen, espoused 
 the cause of the rebels and insurgents who rose 
 against the government. They had ah^eady proved 
 their power and worth in the insurrection of Al-Mukh- 
 tar, in the conquest of Andakisia and upon a hundred 
 battlefields. These Mawali hailed with eagerness 
 and delight the movement which assured to them 
 the fall of the Omayyads and the dawn of a happier 
 and brighter era. 
 
 In all the accounts of the Abbasid movement 
 Kufah appears as its home and hearth. Here more 
 than half the population consisted of Mawali (clients) 
 who had monopolized handicraft, trade, and com- 
 merce. They were mostly Persians in race and 
 language. They had come to Kufah as prisoners 
 of war, and had there passed over to Islam ; then 
 they were manumitted by their owners and received 
 as clients into the Arab tribes, so that they now 
 occupied an ambiguous position, being no longer 
 slaves but still very dependent on their patrons, 
 needing their protection, bound to their service, 
 and forming their retinue in peace and war. No 
 longer satisfied with their humble position, they 
 were pining for their liberty and political rights. 
 Here, in Kufah, resided Maisara, Ibn Mahan, Abu 
 Salma, the representatives and the plenipotentiaries 
 of the concealed Imam, as also their supporters and 
 fellow- workers. All of these were Mawali, Iranians 
 by nationality, and traders and artisans by profession. 
 Some Arabs, says Professor Wellhausen, may have 
 belonged to the party, but they did not hold a leading 
 position. Khurasan {i.e., Merv) was worked from
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 89 
 
 Kufah ; and for a long time after the year a.h. 101, 
 the canvassers there were all foreign merchants, 
 natives of Kufah.* To the support of the Mawali 
 was to be added the support of the Shi'ites in order 
 to ensure complete success of the movement. The 
 Shi'ites regarded the Omayyads as usurpers and 
 were only too anxious to bring back the Imamat 
 to the house of Ali ; and their support to the move- 
 ment was secured by carrying on the Abbasid propa- 
 ganda in the name of Hashim, the common ancestor 
 of both the Abbasids and the Alides, and only at 
 the last, when success was achieved, was it made 
 clear, to the bitter disappointment of Ali's partisans, 
 that the House of Abbas was to profit by their 
 labours to the exclusion of the house of Ali. t Thus 
 duped, the Shi'ites willingly plaj^ed into their hands, 
 for they not only execrated the Omayyad rule, but 
 protested against Arabian Nationalism. Islam and 
 not Arabism, according to their fundamental prin- 
 ciples, conferred citizenship in the Muslim theocracy. 
 We are not concerned with the successive stages 
 of this remarkable propaganda, but we cannot fail 
 to mention here that the black standard of the 
 Abbasids raised by Abu Muslim at the village of 
 Siqandanj near Merv bore the significant inscription 
 from the Qur'an : " Permission [to fight] is accorded 
 to those who take up arms because they have been 
 unjustly treated."! This was a stroke of policy, most 
 probably adopted with a view to gratify the Mawali, 
 
 * Wellhausen, p. 320. Professor Wellhausen considers 
 Rhidash to be the real fouiirler of the Abbasid party iii RIerv. 
 t Browne, " Literary History of Persia," vol. i., p. 239. 
 j Browne, vol. i., p. 242.
 
 90 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 who had been smarting under the lashes of the 
 Omayyad tyranny and oppression. But Abu Muslim 
 proceeded with caution, and it was not until he had 
 secured the help of the Yamanite Arabs that he 
 proceeded to capture and occupy the capital of 
 Khurasan. For seven months did he wait in the 
 neighbourhood of Merv without attempting any 
 serious advance. The Abbasid propaganda was 
 one triumphal procession leading up to the accession 
 of Abdullah al-Saffah, October 30, a.d. 749. Kufah 
 was occupied by Kahtabah in August, a.d. 749, in 
 the same month Merwan's son was routed on the 
 lesser Zab by Ibn Awn, and Merwan himself suffered 
 a crushing defeat on the Kiver Zab on January 26, 
 A.D. 750. Damascus was taken three months later, 
 and Merwan II., the last Caliph of the house of 
 Omayyad, was slain on August 5 of the same year. 
 The war against Arabism, says Professor Wellhausen, 
 resulted in the supremacy of the Iranians and the 
 subjection of the Arabs as a nation.* Nasr b. Sayar — 
 the only man of loyalty and devotion to the Omayyad 
 cause— clearly anticipated that, but his warnings fell 
 on unwilling ears. Thus did he address the Arabs in 
 the verses preserved by Dinaweri : t 
 
 " Tell those of Rabi'a in Merv and her brethren to rise in wrath 
 
 ere wratli shall avail nothing, 
 And to declare war ; for verily the people have raised a war in 
 
 the skirts of which the wood is ablaze I 
 What ails you that ye stir up strife amongst yourselves, as 
 
 though men of sense were absent among you, 
 
 * "Das Arabische Reich," p. 334. 
 
 t Ihid., p. 322 ; Professor Browne's excellent translation, 
 p. 242.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 91 
 
 And neglect an enemy who already overshadows 3'ou, a hetero- 
 geneous horde, devoid ahke of religion and nobility '? 
 
 They are no Arabs of ours that we should know them, nor even 
 decent clients if their pedigree be declared, 
 
 But a people who hold a faith whereof I never heard from the 
 Prophet, and which the Scriptures never brought. 
 
 And should one question me as to the essence of their religion, 
 verily their religion is that the Arabs should he slain /" 
 
 With Merwan II. passed away the house of Omay- 
 yah and the Arab Imperialism. Wo have seen how the 
 Omayyads offended ahnost all classes of their sub- 
 jects; the pietists by their ungodliness, the Mawali 
 by their arrogance and contempt, the Arabs as a 
 body, by taking away power from them and confining 
 it in the narrow circle of their kinsmen and favourites. 
 Had they secured the loyalty and devotion of the 
 Mawali, they would have founded their empire upon a 
 sure and permanent basis. The Mawali and the 
 Syrians combined together would have given them 
 strength enough to cope with any difficulty or put 
 down any insurrection. But as matters stood the 
 oppressed Mawali threw in their weight, whenever an 
 occasion arose, against the government. The entire 
 fabric of the Omayyad rule was shattered by incessant 
 insurrections, deep-seated disaffection and growing 
 disloyalty, and the Abbasid propaganda was but one 
 unopposed and continuous triumph. With the house 
 of Abbas the Arabs retire to the background, and the 
 Iranians come to the forefront. 
 
 The political tendencies of the Abbasids were 
 decidedly Iraqian and anti-Syrian.* At the same 
 time the sovereignty of the Arabs, whose representa- 
 
 * WHlhauson, " I^as Arabischp Mcu-U nnd sein Hturz," 
 pp. o'l7-;3o2.
 
 92 THE SflU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 tives wore the Omayyads and the Syrians, had 
 ended. The old home and hearth of the Arabs had 
 become such a complete waste that pilgrimages could 
 no longer be undertaken with safety. The Arab 
 tribes, ceasing to be the framework of Muslim theo- 
 cracy, had completely lost their privileges. The 
 Mawali were emancipated, and the distinction between 
 Arabs and non-Arabs was effaced. Displaced from 
 its original, exclusive position founded upon military 
 rights, Arabism was now relegated to a peaceful and 
 civic sphere, and became an international civilization 
 in which all Muslims participated. The basis of this 
 civilization was religion, but the Arab religion, no 
 longer confined to the Arab nation, had extended 
 far and wide. The Arabic language, however, re- 
 mained the language of Islam, and absorbed the 
 languages of the most important Christian nations 
 of Asia Minor and Africa. In Iran it appears even 
 to have been adopted for literary and learned pur- 
 poses, but poetry preserved the native idiom and 
 brought it afresh to a place of honour. Even the 
 Mawali obtained not a complete but a partial pre- 
 ponderance over the Arabs. The Khurasanians had 
 helped the Abbasids to victory and had shared the 
 booty with them. They were in a certain sense 
 the heirs and inheritors of the Syrians, even though 
 their relation to the government was different to 
 that of the Syrians. They styled themselves the 
 Shia (the party), the Ansar (helpers), or the Abna 
 (sons) of the Dawla. In their hands lay the outward 
 power. They were militarily organized. They held 
 the posts of commanders, and their officers (Quwad)
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 93 
 
 were privileged to play the part of great lords. They 
 formed the standing army of the Caliph, and to him 
 they were attached as his bodyguards. Baghdad was 
 not laid out as a world-city, but as the camp of 
 the Khurasanians where the Caliph, far from Kufah, 
 desired to reside. But while in camp the Khura- 
 sanians kept up connection with their home, and 
 the preponderance which they had gained as a party 
 and as an army in the service of the Abbasids made 
 itself felt among their people and in their country, 
 in the Eastern Iran. Under the mask of Inter- 
 national Islam, Iranism triumphed over the Arabs. 
 "With the change of dynasty even the system of 
 government changed. It is doubtful whether Persian 
 influence chiefly brought this about, but certain it 
 is that it became essentially un-Arab. By conquest 
 the Arabs stood as a ruling nobility ; the genea- 
 logical network of their tribal system superficially 
 spread over the provinces of their empire. This 
 primitive system, in its main features, continued 
 under the Omayyads. It soon became impracticable, 
 however. It disappeared under the Abbasids, with 
 the distinction of rank and position which the Ab- 
 basid government presupposed. ■ Not like the Omay- 
 yads, the Abbasids rose upon a broad aristocracy 
 to which they themselves belonged. The Khura- 
 sanians, on whom they relied, were not their kith 
 and kin, but only their instruments. For them the 
 Muslims, as a whole, were all alike without any 
 gradation of political rights and privileges. They 
 alone, as the heirs of the Prophet, had the right to 
 rule and to govern. There was nothing, tlierefore,
 
 1)4 THE SIIU'UBIYYAII MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 to prevent them from constituting their government 
 according to technical rules just as it suited their 
 purpose or personal interests. They brought greater 
 order in administration, notably in their judicial 
 and financial systems, and showed great earnestness 
 in removing the grievances of those who approached 
 them as the supreme appellate tribunal. But in 
 a much stronger manner than the Omayyads did 
 they suppress all general and lively interest in 
 politics which earlier formed part of religion. Mus- 
 lims, Arabs and non-Arabs, were mere subjects and 
 were allowed no longer to interest themselves in 
 public affairs. They were relegated to trade, agricul- 
 ture or the peaceful cultivation of letters, and could 
 only conspire in secret at the most. The court was the 
 sum total of the State. The Caliph was surrounded by 
 a motley crowd of attendants of both sexes, as also 
 by the very numerous members of the Hashimide 
 family. To the court belonged the army, the cream 
 and flower of which was permanently quartered at 
 the residence of the Caliph. In this Baghdad differed 
 not only from Medina but also from Damascus, To 
 the court, moreover, belonged a crowd of civil ser- 
 vants who were no longer identical with military 
 officers. They were, for the most part, creatures 
 and favourites of the ruler. Among them there 
 was a majority of freedmen who formerly exercised 
 private influence, but now succeeded to the highest 
 public posts. From the dust were they raised and 
 to the dust were they thrown back. Catastrophes 
 and intrigues became the order of the day at the 
 court. Distinguished men, though non-officials,
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 95 
 
 were unwillingly drawn to the court, and in choosing 
 then: wives the Abbasids no longer attached any 
 weight to their descent. Not birth but the Caliph 
 created the circle of the nobility. By uniforms and 
 " Tiraz " he conferred rank and dignity— the tailors 
 and the lacemakers had plenty to do. In the place 
 of an aristocracy there stepped forward a court 
 bureaucracy, graduated and controlled internally. 
 At the head stood the Wazir, who presided over the 
 chancery, and in later times became the ostensible 
 alter ego of the invisible Caliph who only occasionally 
 appeared as an actor on the stage or shimmered 
 like a lightning and disappeared. More and more 
 did the practice gain ground for the governor-elect 
 to make over his province to his representative and 
 to remain himself at the court ; specially so if he had 
 the advantage of being a prince of the royal blood. 
 The subordinate officers of the chancery were mostly 
 Christians and Jews who easily drew upon themselves 
 the hatred and envy of the Muslim mob. Besides 
 the Wazir the most conspicuous person in the official 
 circle was the executioner. The Arabs knew no 
 executioner and the Omayyads kept no such person. 
 From the Abbasids, however, this office was insepar- 
 able. A piece of leather near the throne, which 
 served as a scaffold, formed one of the insignia of 
 the Caliphate ; instantaneous execution coupled with 
 the most deliberate cruelties heightened the awe and 
 reverence for the majesty of the Caliph. For this 
 Iran served as a model, whose Shah exercised the 
 right of life and death over his subjects. From Iran 
 also came the oftice of the court astrologer who
 
 96 THE SHU'UBIYYAII MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 was questioned about every important undertaking, 
 and even accompanied the army in the field. Finally 
 the postmasters should be mentioned, as quite char- 
 acteristic of the Abbasid government, who were the 
 feelers of the court of Baghdad extending over the 
 provinces, and the select confidants who had secretly 
 to watch even the governors.* The post served 
 as a means of espionage ; the news service in the 
 extensive empire was splendidly organized. Tabari 
 mentions not merely the events but also the arrival 
 of the information at the court. The new era is 
 essentially distinguished from the old by its relation 
 to religion. The Abbasid s claimed the credit of 
 having brought Islam to power which had been 
 suppressed by the Omayyads. They wanted to revive, 
 as they said, the faded traditions of the Prophet. To 
 Baghdad they invited from Medina — their seat hither- 
 to — men versed in the sacred laws — and constantly 
 secured their good-will ; for they had to decide 
 political questions in juristic form, according to the 
 Qur'an and the Sunnah. They used Islam in truth 
 for their own purposes. 
 
 They tamed the divines and the theologians at their 
 court and made them justify their most odious 
 measures. The pious opposition in gaining the 
 victory over the Omayyads had reached its goal 
 and was thus rendered harmless and now could rest 
 quiet. Politics were in good hands ; the Muslims had 
 no longer to worry themselves about them. The theo- 
 cracy was realized and revolutions against the govern- 
 
 * Von Kremer, " Culturgeschichte des Orients," vol. i., p. 192 
 et seq.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 97 
 
 ment must, therefore, cease. The Abbasids, moreover, 
 after unceasing wars and insurrections, were favoured 
 by the necessity for peace. The Arabs had become 
 exhausted and had been bled to death. We might 
 think that the Abbasids would have favoured the 
 Shi'a party with whom they were allied; but they 
 turned against them when they succeeded to govern- 
 ment, and even became hostile to them in order to 
 repel their claims to the Caliphate. An extreme 
 Shi'ite sect, the Ravendites (specially to be found 
 in Iran), they did not even hesitate to cast aside. 
 In religion they turned from the Persians to the 
 Arabs. They ceased to acknowledge their extraneous 
 origin as soon as they had firmly planted themselves 
 and had secured power. They conformed to the 
 current Islam of the Jama'a, which was of an unreflec- 
 tive character, treated religion as a matter of custom, 
 and were satisfied with tradition which regulated in a 
 uniform manner the life of everyone by ritual and law. 
 They stood up far more vigorously for the Ijma* of 
 the community and persecuted far more fiercely than 
 the Oraayyads any departure or innovation which 
 imperilled religious or political unity. As heirs 
 of the Prophet they made greater use of the Imamat 
 than the Omayyada and wielded the temporal and 
 spiritual powers of government. While the Omay- 
 yads relied upon nationality, the Abbasids founded 
 their empire upon the army and the religion. 
 We might characterize their Caliphate as CtDsaro- 
 Papacy. They appointed an officer who attended 
 to heresies and instituted an inquisition against 
 the so-called Zindi(|, who appear to have been the 
 
 7
 
 98 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 precursors of the extreme Persian Shi'ites. Even 
 the Khurasanians, later on, became inconvenient 
 to the Abbasids. Mansur got rid of the guardianship 
 of Abu MusHm when he required him no more. He 
 was by no means a match for Abu Muslim in his 
 great qualities, but he managed to overreach him 
 and got him murdered. At first the Khurasanians 
 were indispensable for military purposes, and later 
 it was not easy to ignore or to do without them. 
 After Harun's death an attempt was made to get 
 rid of them with a view to consolidate and strengthen 
 the government. The Abbasids did not succeed, 
 however, in making themselves independent by the 
 wholesale purchase of Berbers, Slavs, Soghdians 
 and Turks, whom they organized and equipped in 
 order to j)lay them off against the Khurasanians. 
 In the result they failed. They fell, indeed, under 
 the tyranny of these mamluks, chiefly the Turks. 
 They finally became powerless and their empire 
 fell to pieces. The Iranians maintained their com- 
 manding position for a couple of centuries, but they 
 were unable to maintain it permanently in their 
 own country. They could not check the incursions 
 of the Turks in Transoxiana, Tukharistan, and 
 Khurasan, though for a time these were kept back 
 by the Arabs. And thus, in the end, the Turks 
 became the inheritors of the Islamic empire in which, 
 as mamluks, they had already secured a position. 
 To them we might even add the Mongols, who did 
 not feel quite at home in Islam, but who, like a 
 devastating storm, passed over it, leaving behind, 
 in the main, no other than negative traces.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 99 
 
 We have thought it necessary to indicate the 
 changes which the overthrow of the Omayyads in- 
 volved, and to describe the poHcy which the Abbasids 
 pursued. The Abbasids, by destroying the bulwark 
 of Arab nationality, paved the way for foreign in- 
 fluences which ultimately denationalized the govern- 
 ment and demoralized the Arabs. The introduction 
 of unbounded luxuries and the most corrupt forms 
 of vice at the Court and among the people sapped 
 the national vigour and vitality and made the 
 government entirely dependent upon foreign mer- 
 cenaries, who slowly yet steadily succeeded in 
 cnpplmg the powers of the government and in 
 reducing the Caliph to a shadow and a phantom 
 The racial problem, says Lord Curzon, must always 
 remain an anxious one, since when excited it is 
 capable of transcending all others in explosive energy 
 and importance. This very racial problem the 
 Omayyads were called upon to grapple with and 
 settle, but in dealing with this problem they ship- 
 wrecked their empire. Instead of a policy of concilia- 
 tion they pursued a policy of suppression and repres- 
 sion, and mstead of tact and sympathy they showed 
 national venom and aggressiveness. In the Omayyad 
 days the Shu'ubiyyah party was unable to gain the 
 upper hand, owing, as wo have seen, to the harsh and 
 severe policy of the rulers; but when the Caliphate 
 came into the hands of the Abbasids and when the 
 Arab prestige was destroyed by the result of the war 
 between Amid and Mamun, they immediately came 
 to the front and composed works sorely wounding the 
 vanity of the Arabs.
 
 100 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 IV 
 
 We have noticed the changes that came over the 
 Muslim empire with the ascendancy of the House of 
 Abbas. Persian influence, as Von Kremer truly 
 says, increased at the court of the Caliphs and 
 reached its zenith under Al-iladi, Harun ur-Rashid 
 and Al-Mamun. Most of the ministers of the last 
 were Persians or of Persian extraction. In Baghdad 
 Persian fashions continued to enjoy an increasing 
 ascendancy. The old Persian festivals of the Nawruz, 
 Mihrjan and Ram were celebrated. Persian raiment 
 was the official court dress, and the tall, black, con- 
 ical Persian hats were already prescribed as official by 
 the second Abbasid Caliph (in a.h. 153 = a.d. 770). 
 At the court the customs of the Sasanian Kings 
 were imitated, and garments decorated with golden 
 inscriptions were introduced, which it was the ex- 
 clusive privilege of the ruler to bestow. A coin 
 of the Caliph Mutawakkil shows us this Prince 
 actually clothed in true Persian fashion.* While 
 under the Omayyads Ismail b. Yasar found it danger- 
 ous to boast of his Persian descent, being thrown 
 into a tank of water by the order of the Caliph 
 Hisham for doing so, under the Abbasids the 
 Persians showed an open contempt for the Arabs 
 and all that was Arabian. In this the Persians 
 were undoubtedly encouraged by the Caliphs, for 
 we have it that Mamun openly avowed his partiality 
 for the Persians at the expense of the Arabs ; 
 and when reproached by an Arab for showing 
 
 * " Streifziige," pp. 32, 33 ; my translation, p. 93.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 101 
 
 greater favours to the inhabitants of Khurasan than 
 the Arabs, the CaHph observed: "Never have I 
 caused a Qaisite Arab to alight from his horse 
 without his consuming my treasury to the last 
 du-ham ; the South Arabians, indeed, I do not like 
 nor do they like me ; the Quda'a Arabs again await 
 the advent of the Sufyani* in order to join him; 
 the Rabi'a Arabs are angry with God for not selecting 
 a prophet out of their midst ; and we never meet two 
 of them without one being a rebel." 
 
 In the golden period of the Abbasid dynasty among 
 the many Wazirs we scarcely find one of Arab descent. 
 They were mostly Mawali and Persians ; for instance 
 the Wazir of the second Abbasid Caliph, Eabi'a 
 b. Yunus, was a descendant of a certain Kysan, the 
 client of Othman, or, according to other reports, a 
 foundhng. Already under the Caliph Abu Jafar 
 Al-Mansur, says Goldziher, we notice how the 
 Arab waits vainly for entrance before the Caliph's 
 gate, while men of Khurasan freely go in and out 
 through it and mock the rude Arabs. The poet 
 Abu Tammam (died a.d. 845-816) was rebuked by the 
 Wazu' for comparing the Caliph to Hatim of the tribe 
 of Tayy and other personages I'n whom the Arabs 
 gloried, with the words : " Dost thou compare the 
 Commander of the Faithful with these barbarous 
 Arabs?" 
 
 Irano-philism was indeed traditional with the 
 house of Abbas; and I fancy, says Goldziher, that 
 in one of the most remarkable traditions in Bukhari 
 the conviction of the damaging results of this tendency 
 
 * The Muhili of the followers of the Ouiay;yad dynasty.
 
 102 THE SHU'UBIYYAII MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 of the Abbasids is intended to be expressed. Who- 
 ever is acquainted with the style of traditions, and 
 does not allow himself to be blinded by the brilliance 
 of the Isnad, will easily see that the theologians in 
 the beginning of the third century of the Hijra 
 probably intended to convey this [conviction of theirs] 
 by making Omar, struck by the dagger of Abu Lulu, 
 say to Abdullah, the son of Abbas, the ancestor 
 of the Abbasids : " Praise be to God that my death 
 has not been caused by a Muslim. Thou and thy 
 father would like to see Medina full of barbarians 
 {uluj)." This fiction is nothing more than a criti- 
 cism of the circumstances which came to light during 
 the Abbasid rule, associated with the person of the 
 ancestor of the dynasty.'^ 
 
 Eich and influential Persian families sought to 
 revive their ancient religious beliefs and practices, 
 and in Afshin we have a most conspicuous example 
 of the thin veneer of Islam in non-Arab circles. 
 Though he rendered brilliant services to Islam, he 
 still held by his own ancestral beliefs, and dreamed 
 of the restoration of the Persian empire and of the 
 "white religion," and ridiculed the Arabs, the Magh- 
 ribines, and the Muslim Turks. He likened the 
 Arabs to dogs to whom we throw a bone in order 
 to strike them on the head with a club. Since the 
 Caliphate of Al-Mutawakkil the influence of the 
 Turks became decisive on the government at Bagh- 
 dad. They held the most important civil and military 
 posts, and under Al-Musta'in things came to such 
 
 * Goldziher, " Muh. Studien," vol. i., p. 149 ; (compare 
 Ibn Sa'd, " Tabaqat," vol. iii., part i., p. 253.)
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 103 
 
 a pass that the CaHph allowed them a free hand 
 in the disposal of the State Treasury. Very great 
 must have been the indignation among the Arabs 
 against the preponderance of the foreign elements, 
 and an echo of the popular feeling we hear, as it 
 were, in a poem declaimed with applause and approval 
 at the court of the Caliph Al-Muntasir (a.h. 247-248). 
 
 " Oh I Lady of the house in Al Burk !— Oh I Lady of government 
 and power I 
 Be afraid of God and do not kill us I for we are neither Dailam 
 nor Turks."* 
 
 Al-Mutanabbi (fourth century of the Hijrah) felt 
 for the decay and corruption of his nation, and has 
 written, so to speak, an epitaph over the Arab great- 
 ness which is unsurpassed in its beauty and in its 
 pathos : 
 
 " Men retain their worth through their ruler ; 
 No salvation is there for the Arabs whom the barbarians rule, 
 Who possess neither culture nor renown, neither alliance nor 
 
 loyalty. 
 Wheresoever thou mayst set thy foot, wilt thou find men 
 
 watched over by slaves as if they were a herd of cattle." t 
 
 The increase of foreign elements, says Goldziher 
 (in the government), corresponded with the decline of 
 Arabism. 
 
 * Aghani, ix. 86, 14, quoted by Goldziher, vol. i., p. 151. 
 
 " O Herrin des Hauses in Al-Burk— Ilerrin dcr Herrschaft 
 und dcr Macht 
 Fiirchte Gott und todto uns nichtl wir sind ja nicht Dejilem 
 und Tiirken." 
 
 t Ibid., p. 153.
 
 104 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 Such a social and political atmosphere could not but 
 add strength to those tendencies which the Shu'ubiy- 
 yites represented. The Shu'ubiyyites might roughly 
 be divided into two classes, the moderate and the 
 extremists. While the former urged the doctrine 
 of the complete equality of the Ajam with the Arab, 
 the latter boldly advocated the superiority of the 
 Persians and the inferiority of the Arabs, and hence 
 in the remains of the controversial literature that 
 survived the overwhelming tide of orthodoxy which 
 set in, in the fifth and sixth centuries of the 
 Hijra, we find a fierceness of tone and temper against 
 the Arabs and an unrestrained apotheosis of the 
 Persian race and nationality. We do not suggest 
 that the Persians alone took part in this, but as 
 Professor Browne says : "Of these Shu'ubiyyah each 
 one vaunted particularly the claims to distinction 
 of his own nationality, whether Syrian, Nabathsean, 
 Egyptian, Greek, Spanish or Persian ; but the last 
 named were at once the most vehement and the most 
 numerous."* 
 
 At the time of the Abbasids, learned men, poets 
 and scholars (of Persian origin) opposed their Iranian 
 racial pride against the Arabs. The Persian aris- 
 tocracy of this period, moreover, preserved their 
 genealogies with as much care and zeal as did the 
 descendants of Kahtan and Adnan, and even in the 
 genealogy of the Arabs they were better instructed 
 than the Arabs themselves. They could, therefore, 
 
 ^ Professor Browne, " Literary History of Persia," p. 266.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 105 
 
 pick holes in their pedigrees with all the greater ease 
 and attack them with all the greater effect. It is 
 reported of the famous grammarian Yunus b. Habib 
 (died A.n. 185) (whom even the Arabs of the desert 
 visited to profit by his philological studies), that he 
 referred with pride to his Persian descent. The 
 orator and theologian, Mohamed b. Al-Laith (a Mawla 
 of the Omayyad family who traced back his pedigree 
 to Dara b. Dara), openly showed partiality to tlie 
 Persians at the time of the Barmicides. It was 
 probably on this account that the Orthodox called 
 him a " Zindiq " though he wrote a book in refuta- 
 tion of this heresy. Sahl b. Harun, one of the 
 librarians of Mamun, wrote a large number of books 
 ventilating his hatred against the Arabs. This was 
 the time when poets (of the Persian race), writing 
 in the noble language of the Quraishites, could enter 
 their protest against the self-glorification of the 
 Arabs. At their head stands the Shu'ubiyyite poet 
 Bashar b. Burd whose boastful poems celebrating 
 his descent from the "Quraish of the Persians " and 
 biting satires against the Arabs have come down to 
 us. Almost two centuries later, we have Abu Sa'id 
 ur-Eustami (tenth century a.d.), in whom the national 
 cry of the Persians against the Arabs sounds its last 
 notes.* To this class of poets belongs Ishaq b. Has- 
 san ul-Khurrami (died A.n. 200) . He refers with pride 
 to the fact that he has come from Soghd and exultingly 
 says that it matters not to him that he does not 
 reckon among his ancestors Yuhabir or Jarm or 'Ukl. 
 The poet and philologist Abu Othman Sa'id b. Humaid 
 
 * Goldziher, p. IGl ct acq.
 
 lOG THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 b. Bukhtigan (died a.ii. 240) appears to have been the 
 representative of the extreme wing of the Shu'ubiy- 
 yite poets. Ilis father, a distinguished upholder of the 
 Mutazil doctrine, had given suspicion of Shu'ubiy- 
 yism, but the son offered the clearest proof of it. He 
 composed some verses ridiculing Ahmad ibn Abi Da'ud, 
 the chief Kazi of Mutasim and Wathiq, at whose 
 instance his father had been imprisoned : 
 
 " Thou tracest thy descent from lyad simply because thy father 
 happens (by chance) to be called Abu Da'ud. 
 If by chance he had been called Amr b. Madi thou wouldst have 
 said thou wert descended from Zubaid or Murad."* 
 
 In the poet Dik ul- Jinn (died a.h, 235-236), a Shu'u- 
 biyyite enthusiast, the Syrian patriotism appears to 
 have found a special advocate. The Arabs, he says, 
 have no precedence over us, for descent from Abraham 
 unites us all. We are as much Muslims as they are, 
 and if one of them kills us he is liable to capital 
 punishment. Has God announced anywhere that 
 they have superiority over us? The much-despised 
 Nabathseans as well found their supporters in philoso- 
 phers. The philosophers Dirar b. Amr ul-Ghatafani 
 and Thumama b. Al Ashras (died a.h. 213) espoused 
 their cause and urged that the Nabatheeans could hold 
 their own as against the Arabs in honour and 
 glory. Mas'udi — to whom we owe this information — 
 adds that even the brilliant litterateur and philoso- 
 pher Al- Jahidh professed the doctrines of the Dirarites 
 who advocated the excellence of the Nabathseans 
 over the Arabs. But the book called the "Naba- 
 thsBan Agriculture " (third century a.h.) must be 
 
 * Aghani, xvii., p. 2.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 107 
 
 regarded as the most conspicuous document of the 
 Nabathaean Shu'ubiyyah. Its author — Ibn Wahshiy- 
 yah* — inspired by a fierce hatred against the 
 Arabs, and full of bitterness for the contempt enter- 
 tained by these against his compatriots, decided to 
 translate and make accessible (to the people) the 
 remains of the old Babylonian literature with a view 
 to show that the forerunners of his people — so deeply 
 despised by the Arabs — possessed a high culture 
 and civilization, and surpassed, by their knowledge, 
 many nations of antiquity. The author intended 
 to contrast the insignificance of the old Arabs in 
 science and culture with the performances in this 
 direction of his own people and thereby to meet the 
 unfounded conceit of the ruling race. 
 
 Just as in the Aramaic circle, Nabathfcan Shu'u- 
 biyyah literature grew up, so also " Books of the 
 Copts " arose celebrating the great deeds of the old 
 Egyptians. Thus throughout the Muslim Empire, 
 embracing as it did many races and nationalities 
 united by the one tie of religion, the idea of nation- 
 ality got the better of religion and eventually triumphed. 
 This, indeed, was but consistent with the slow but 
 sure progress of humanity. Religion cannot annihil- 
 ate the distinction of races, and though Islam, in its 
 beginning, destroyed the barriers of race and colour 
 and united its followers under the common banner of 
 faith, it hopelessly failed to maintain its ideal ; and 
 hence the intensity of national pride and national 
 
 * The book of " Nabathtean Agriculture," composed in a.d. 904 
 by Ibn Wahshiyyah, wlio professed to have translated it from 
 the Chaldaean, is now known to be a forgery (Profossor Nicholson, 
 "Literary History of the Arabs," p. xxv).
 
 108 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 tradition, of which the Shu'ubiyyite literature bears 
 more than ample proof. 
 
 Among the most notable champions of Arab superi- 
 ority we might mention the historians Ibn Qutaiba 
 (died A.D. 883 or 889), and Al-Beladhuri (died a.d. 892), 
 and Nasir-i-Khusraw — all, curiously enough, of 
 Persian origin. 
 
 The Shu'ubiyyah controversy, says Professor 
 Browne, extended itself to the regions of genealogy 
 and philology, wherein lay the special pride of the 
 Arabs ; and as regards philology proper, Goldziher speci- 
 ally mentions as champions of the Arab cause the great 
 commentator Al-Zamakhshari (also a Persian, died 
 A.D. 1143-1144) who in his preface to the " Muffassal " 
 thanks God for his learning in, and enthusiasm for, 
 the Arabic language, and his exemption from Shu'ubi 
 tendencies ; Ibn Duraid (died a.d. 933) ; and Abu'l 
 Husain b. Faris (early eleventh century). Amongst 
 their most notable opponents he reckons Hamza of 
 Isfahan who " was enthusiastic for the Persians and 
 who shows his enthusiasm, amongst other ways, by 
 finding Persian etymologies for names generally re- 
 garded as purely Arabic.""^ 
 
 We can fix the second and third centuries of the 
 Hijra as the golden period of this party, and we find, 
 as it were, an echo of this movement in Al-Biruni, who 
 lived in the fourth century of the a.h., and wrote in 
 Arabic and championed the cause of the Persian race 
 against the idle boasts of the friends of the Arabs, 
 particularly Ibn Qutaiba. 
 
 ■'*■ "Literary History of Persia," vol. i., pp. 269, 270.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 109 
 
 VI 
 
 It now remains for us to consider the nature of the 
 arguments used by the Shu'ubi and the Arabs in sup- 
 port of their respective contention. In the " Iqd " of Ibn 
 Abd Rabbih we have a most admirable summary of the 
 arguments advanced by each of these parties, and as 
 these passages are full of interest, I propose to trans- 
 late them in extenso. * 
 
 TJie contention of the Shu'uhiyyah or the Equalitarians 
 
 who hold to the doctrine of Equality. 
 
 Of the arguments advanced hy the ShuHihiyyah against 
 
 the Arabs. 
 
 We hold (they say) to the principle of brotherhood 
 and equality, and believe that all men are of the same 
 substance, and children of one and the same man. 
 We adduce as proof of our contention the sayings 
 of the Prophet : " The blood of the believers shall be 
 equally retaliated or expiated {i.e., the noble shall 
 have no advantage over the ignoble in the retaliation 
 or expiation of blood) ; and if the least of them 
 should give a promise of security to any people, the 
 whole body of the Muslims shall be responsible for 
 its fulfilment ; and they shall be one body, and a help 
 to each other against all others." And also his 
 saying in his speech at the farewell pilgrimage, in 
 which address he took leave of his followers, and 
 put the seal on his mission (or brought it to an end). 
 " Ye people ! God has removed from you the pride 
 
 * "Iqd," vol. ii., pp. 85-90.
 
 no THE SHU'UBIYYATT MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 of tliQ days of ignorance, and the boasting of one's 
 ancestors. Ye are all children of Adam, and Adam 
 is from dust. No Arab has superiority over any of 
 the *Ajam, except by reason of piety." These words 
 of the Prophet are in conformity with the words 
 of God : " Truly, the most worthy of honour in 
 the sight of God is he who feareth Him most." 
 You, however, do not consent to aught save boasting, 
 and say : " They shall never be equal to us, although 
 they professed Islam before us, and although they 
 shall pray until they become like unto bows, and 
 fast until they become like unto strings." But we 
 shall act in a gentle manner towards you, and consent 
 to discuss with you the question of the nobility of birth 
 which your Prophet has prohibited you to boast of, 
 but you have chosen naught save to act contrary 
 to his injunctions. In agreeing to argue with you, 
 we are also following his teaching and his precepts ; 
 and thus we shall refute your contention for self- 
 glorification and say, " Let us hear what you have to 
 say should the Ajam put this question to you : Do 
 you consider glory to consist all in sovereignty or 
 the prophetic office?" Should you say, in sovereignty, 
 they might answer you in this wise. The Kings 
 of the whole world are of our number such as the 
 Pharaohs, the Nimrods, the Amalekites, the Chosroes, 
 and the Cresars. Besides, is it meet for anyone ever 
 to have the like of the dominion of Solomon to whom 
 were subjected men and the demons and the birds 
 and the wind? Now, he was one of us. Or has 
 anyone had a kingdom like that of Alexander whose 
 power was established upon the earth, and who
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 111 
 
 reached the rising of the sun and its setting, and 
 who built a rampart of iron with which he filled the 
 space between the mountain-sides, and behind which 
 he imprisoned a nation of men who surpassed the 
 rest of the world in numbers, for God saith : " Until 
 Yajuj and Majuj have had a way opened for them, 
 and they shall hasten from every highland ;" nothing 
 can point better to their large numbers than these 
 words. Nor has any man left behind him monuments 
 hke his on the face of tlie earth. If he had left 
 nothing else save the Pharos at Alexandria, the 
 foundations of which he had laid on the bottom 
 of the sea, and at the head of which he constructed a 
 mirror which reflected the sea on all sides [it would 
 have been quite sufficient]. Of us, also, are the 
 Kings of India, one of whom wrote to Omar Ibn 
 'Abdul Aziz to the effect : " From the King of Kings, 
 who is a descendant of a thousand Kings, and has as 
 his wives the daughters of a thousand Kings, and in 
 whose stables a thousand elephants are kept, and who 
 has two rivers giving growth to the alas wood and 
 madder and the nut and camphor, the fragrance of 
 which is perceived at a distance of twelve miles— to 
 the King of the Arabs who does "not attribute to God 
 any companion whatever. To proceed. My object 
 in writing to you is to pray you to send me someone 
 to teach me the faith of Islam and instruct me in its 
 laws. Peace." 
 
 If, on the other hand, you say that there is no 
 glory save in the prophetic office, we answer that all 
 proi)hets and apostles from Adam himself have been 
 of our nations, with the exception of four— llud.
 
 112 THE SIIUTTBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 Salih, Ismail, and Mohamed. Of us are the chosen 
 
 ones of mankind, Adam and Noah, the two stocks 
 
 from which all men have branched off. We are 
 
 therefore the root and you the branches ; indeed, 
 
 you are nothing but one of our offshoots. This 
 
 being so, you may say what you list and indulge 
 
 in your pretensions. And besides, there have ever 
 
 been nations of the A'ajim in every part of the world, 
 
 with Kings to unite them and cities to gather them 
 
 together, and with laws to obey; and a philosophy 
 
 they have created, and wonderful things they have 
 
 invented in the way of instruments and arts, as, 
 
 for instance, the art of manufacturing silk brocade, 
 
 which is the most wonderful of arts, and the game 
 
 of chess, which is the noblest of games, and the 
 
 weight of the steel-yard by means of which a single 
 
 pound or a hundred pounds can be weighed; and 
 
 like the philosophy of the Greeks in their cosmogony 
 
 and their law, and the astrolabe which shows the 
 
 positions of the stars, and by which a knowledge 
 
 of altitudes is gained, as well as the movements 
 
 of heavenly bodies and of the eclipses. As for the 
 
 Arabs, they have never had a King to unite the country 
 
 and outlying districts in one rule, or to curb the 
 
 wrongdoer and restrain the ignorant; nor have 
 
 they produced any result in art, nor have they 
 
 effected anything in philosophy ; the only thing they 
 
 can lay a claim to is poetry, the laurels of which, 
 
 however, the foreigners share with them, for the 
 
 Greeks have wonderful poetry, perfect in measure 
 
 and rhyme. What, then, can the Arab boast of as 
 
 against foreigners (i.e., non-Arabs) ? They simply
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 113 
 
 are ferocious wolves and savage beasts, devouring 
 and attacking each other, so that their men are 
 ever secured in chains of captivity, and their women 
 taken up behind the saddle-bags of camels, and who, 
 if overtaken by the rehef party, are rescued in the 
 evening, but after having been trampled upon like 
 a public road. In fact, a certain poet boasted of 
 this, saying: "Nor more trusted than I, by the 
 women carried off on an evening." "And is it a 
 thing to boast of, woe to thee," he was told, "to 
 rescue them in the evenmg after they have been 
 outraged and humiliated?" The poet Jarir has said, 
 reproaching the Banu Darim for the victory of the 
 Qais over them in the battle of Rahrahan : 
 
 " And at Rahrahan, on the morning when Ma'bad was taken in 
 fetters, were your women wedded without dowries." 
 
 And Antarah has said, addressing his wife : 
 
 " Men have a way to thee, shouldst thon bo taken. Thou 
 
 paintest thine eyes with coUyriuui, and tingest thy finger 
 
 with henna. 
 But were I taken, I would be yoked to the string of captives, 
 
 tied behind the camels. 
 Thy mount would be the camel and its saddle, but my mount 
 
 on that day would be the hollow of my foot." 
 
 We also read that Ibn Habulah, the Ghassanid, 
 having taken captive the wife of Al-IIarith ibn Amr 
 al-Kindi, was overtaken by Al-IIarith, who slew 
 him and took back his wife after he had had connec- 
 tion with her. Al-IIarith asked her if this had 
 happened, and she answered : " Yes, and by God, no 
 woman has ever had a man like him." Al-IIarith, 
 having tied her between two horses, made them 
 
 8
 
 114 THE SIIU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 run at full gallop, and she was torn to pieces. He 
 then said the following verses : 
 
 " Every woman, though she should make a show of love to thee, 
 her love is but false. 
 He who is deceived by woman's love, after Hind [his wife], is 
 but an ignorant fool." 
 
 And the Banu Sulaim carried off Raihanah, sister 
 of 'Amr ibn Ma'di-Karib, the horseman of the Arabs, 
 who says in this connection : 
 
 " Is it Raihanah's cry I hear ? It keeps me awake, while my 
 companions are all asleep." 
 
 It is in this poem that he says : 
 
 " If you are powerless to do a thing, leave it to do what you 
 can." 
 
 Al-Haufazan raided the Banu Munqidh ibn Zaid- 
 Manat, and carried off Az-Zarqa of the Banu Eabi' 
 Ibnu-1-Iiarith. She found favour in his eyes, and he 
 found favour in hers ; and he lay with her. Then he 
 was overtaken by Quais ibn 'Asirn who rescued 
 Az-Zarqa, and brought her back to her family, after 
 he, too, had lain with her. Now, such were the 
 customs of Arabs and non-Arabs in the time of 
 ignorance. Then God brought about Islam, in which 
 the non- Arabs, too, had a full share ; for the Prophet, 
 peace and blessing be upon him, was sent to the red 
 and the black of the sons of Adam ; and the first to 
 follow him were one freeman and one slave. There 
 is a difference of opinion as to who these were ; some 
 say these were Abu Bakr and Bilal, while others 
 allege they were *Ali and Suhaib. When Omar 
 Ibnu-1-Khattab was stabbed by his murderer, he 
 placed this Suhaib at the head of the Muhajirs and
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 115 
 
 the Ansar to lead them in prayer ; and on Suhaib 
 asking him to appoint a successor, he answered, " I 
 do not feel as though I can appoint a successor." 
 Suhaib then mentioned the names of the six men of 
 Hira, he took exception to every one of them ; and then 
 said, "If Salim, the Mawla of Abu Hudhaifah had 
 been alive, I would not have hesitated about him." 
 Thereupon the Arab poet thus expressed himself : 
 
 " Here is Suhaib ; he led as Imam every one of the Muhajirs, 
 
 a,nd rose high above all the tribes of the Ansar. 
 He [i.e., Omar] did not approve of any of them to act as our 
 
 Imam,— and yet they are the guiding spirits and the leaders 
 
 of all good men. 
 Nay, more, had Salim, he of the broken teeth, been now alive, 
 
 he would have obtained the Cahphate of the whole empire I 
 These barbarians are ever alive and prosperous, but not we. 
 
 Verily the Arabs are blind and greatly in error." 
 
 Bujair holds the Arabs to scorn in the following 
 verses for their genealogical differences and their 
 adoption of men of dubious parentage : 
 
 "You say that the Indians are the children of Khindif, and 
 
 that there exists between you and the Barbars a kinship ; 
 That the Dailams are descended from Basil ibn Dhabbah, and 
 
 the Burjans are sons of 'Amr ibn 'Amir 1 
 All men thus become sons of one man ; and all alike in origin 
 
 of race I 
 Surely, the kingly race of the Banu-1-Asfar [i.e., the Greeks] 
 
 are nobler than you ; and worthier of our kinship are the 
 
 Chosroes. 
 Dost thou covet to enter into marriage relationship with me, 
 
 when thou openly laycst claim to false parentage ? Wliat 
 
 protection can one hope for from a barefaced pretender ? 
 Thou, in thy vilenoss, revilest his family and tribe, and foolishly 
 
 dost extol Tahir." 
 
 I have reproduced these verses in a complete form 
 in the chapter on women, men of dul)iou8 birth, and 
 the nobly born.
 
 IIG THE SIIUaiBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 Al-Hasan ibn Hani has composed the followhig 
 verses, favouring the opinion of the Shu'ubiyyah. 
 
 " I live among a people between whom and me the only ties of 
 
 relationship arc empty claims. 
 When the head of the tribe calls me by the name of kinsman, 
 
 I lightly respond to this ridiculous claim. 
 The Azd of 'Uman ibn ul-Muhallab raise their heads at first 
 
 when families are contending for honour ; but their pride 
 
 is humbled at last. 
 So Bakr think that the spirit of prophecy descended on Misma, 
 
 while he was still a foetus in the womb 1 
 And Tamim claim that none could be like their Ahnaf to the 
 
 end of time. 
 After this I cannot blame Qais if they were to vaunt of 
 
 Qutaibah I Verily talk flows in various channels." 
 
 Answer of Ibn Qutaibah to the contention of the 
 Shu'ubiyyah. 
 
 Says Ibn Qutaibah in his Tafdhilu-1-Arab [The 
 Superiority of the Arabs] : 
 
 As to the party of equality, some of them have laid 
 hold of the letter of some words in the Holy Book 
 and in the Traditions, and decided accordingly, 
 without searching for the true sense of the words. 
 They seized upon the words of the Almighty, *' The 
 most honoured of you in the sight of God are those 
 who fear Him most," and His words, "Verily the 
 believers are brothers to each other, do ye make 
 peace between your brothers;" and upon the words 
 of the Prophet in his sermon during the farewell 
 pilgrimage : ''Ye people, God has removed away 
 from ye the pride of the times of ignorance, and 
 their vaunting of fathers. No Arab is superior to 
 a foreigner, except with regard to piety. All of 
 ye are from Adam, and Adam is from dust." As
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 117 
 
 also his saying, " The blood of the Muslims is 
 equally retaliated, and the least among them shall 
 be able to pledge their word, and they shall be a 
 hell? to each other against their enemies." Now, 
 the true sense of all this is that all believing men 
 are alike before the law, and their positions are the 
 same in the sight of God and in the life to come ; 
 for if all men are alike in the things of this world, 
 and no one is superior to the other except so far 
 as the affairs of the next, there will not be in this 
 world high or low, a superior or an inferior. What 
 then, is the force of the Prophet's injunction, " If 
 the chief of a tribe come to ye, do ye receive him 
 honourably," and his saying, '* Pardon the faults 
 of men of good positions," and his saying with regard 
 to Qais ibn 'Asirn, " This is the lord of the dwellers 
 of the desert "? The Arabs used to say, " The well- 
 being of mankind is assured so long as they differ 
 in degree ; but when they become equal in rank 
 to one another, they perish," meaning by this that 
 their condition will continue to be flourishing so 
 long as there are among them people of high degree 
 and good men, but that were they to be made as 
 people of one class, they would be ruined. And 
 when the Arabs wish to depreciate a people they 
 say " they are as like to each other as the teeth 
 of the ass." Indeed, how can men be alike in merit, 
 when things in man's own body, the limbs, are 
 not on an equality, and the joints are not the same ; 
 but on the contrary, some of them are superior to 
 others ; the head, for instance, is superior to the rest 
 of the body, for it contains the intellect and the
 
 118 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 five senses ; and it is said of the heart that it is the 
 king of the body, while some of the limbs are servants 
 and others are served. Ibn Qutaibah goes on to 
 say : Among the weightiest pleas that the Shu- 
 'ubiyyah have preferred against the Arabs is to 
 vaunt the fact that Adam is one of them ; and 
 they cite these words of the Prophet : " Do not place 
 me above him, for I am only one of his many ex- 
 cellences." They also glory, in that all the prophets 
 are of the non-Arabians with the exception of four, 
 Hud, Salih, Isma'il and Mohamed ; and they adduce 
 as proof these words of the Almighty, "God has 
 chosen Adam and Noah and the family of Abraham 
 and the family of 'Imran above all men, descendants 
 one from the other, and God is all -hearing, all- 
 knowing." Again, they vaunt of Isaac, son of 
 Abraham ; and that he is son of Sarah ; and say 
 that Isma'il is the son of a slave-girl called Hajar ; 
 and this is what their poet has said : 
 
 " In a country wherein 'Ukn has not attached a rope nor pitched 
 a tent, nor Akk nor Hamdan ; 
 Nor have Jarm or Nahs a habitation therein. It is the 
 dwelHng-place of the children of the Free, a land wherein 
 Chosroes built his abodes and in which not a man of the 
 son of the Lakhna [slave] is to be found." 
 
 The children of the free, according to them, are 
 the Persians ; and the sons of the Lakhna, in their 
 opinion, are the Arabs, as being descendants of 
 Hajar, who was a slave. But they are wrong in 
 this interpretation, for it is not every slave that can be 
 called Lakhna. That slave-girl is called Lakhna 
 who is employed to do menial service, such as the 
 tending and watering of camels and the gathering of
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 119 
 
 fuel ; the word being derived frora al-lakhn, which 
 means stinking smell ; for we say of a water-skin 
 " lakhina," i.e., it has become rancid. As for a woman 
 like Hajar, whom God has purij5ed of all stain, and 
 approved of as wife to His friend [i.e., Abraham], and 
 as mother to Isma'il and Mohamed, the pure, whom 
 He made to descend from her, it behoves not a heathen 
 to call her Lakhna, much less a Muslim. 
 
 The Reply of the Shuhibiyyah to Ihii Qiitaihah. 
 
 One of those who afifect the opinion of the Shu'ubiy- 
 yah thus replies to Ibn Qutaibah's argument as to the 
 difference in the ranks of men and of some being 
 superior to others, and there being liege lords and 
 vassals among them : 
 
 We do not deny that men are of different classes 
 and differ in merit, and that some are superior and 
 some inferior to others, and some noble and others 
 of low degree; but we contend that these differ- 
 ences among men do not arise from their ancestry 
 or lineage, but, on the contrary, from their own deeds 
 and personal character, and from their nobility of soul 
 and high-mindedness. Do you not see that if a man 
 is of a mean spirit and devoid of manliness, he cannot 
 attain a noble position even though he were of the 
 noblest of the families of the Banu Hashim and of 
 the best family of Omayyah, and although he should 
 be of the best stock of (^ais? Indeed, he is noble 
 whose deeds are noble, and he is high of degree 
 whose spirit is high : and this is the meaning of the 
 Prophet's words : " If the chief of a tribe come to ye, 
 do you receive him with honour," and of his saying,
 
 120 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 Bpeaking of Qais ibii 'Asim : '* This is the lord 
 of the dwellers in tents." He spoke of him in this 
 way for the high position he had acquired among 
 his tribesmen for his defence of their womenfolk 
 and his liberality to all. Do you not see that 'Amir 
 ibn-Tufail, who was of the noblest family in Qais, 
 says : 
 
 " Although I am the son of the Lord of 'Amir and her warrior 
 
 famous in every tight, 
 Amir has not made me her lord by right of heritage. God 
 
 forbid that I should rise tlirough father or mother. 
 But (it is because) I defend her sanctuary, prevent any injury 
 
 to her, and repulse the attacks of her enemies." 
 
 Another poet has said : 
 
 " Although our descent is a noble one, we do not rely upon 
 lineage. 
 We build up as our forefathers built, and we do the like of what 
 they did." 
 
 And Quss ibn Sa'idah has said : " I shall give a 
 judgment amongst the Arabs, which no one has ever 
 judged before me, nor will anyone dare to set it aside 
 after me." 
 
 " If a man reproaches another for a blemish re- 
 deemed by his personal nobility, no blame can attach 
 to him ; but whoever lays claim to nobility, being 
 of a vile nature, does so in vain." Similar to this 
 is the saying of 'A'ishah, mother of the Believers : 
 ** A man of noble race, if base, should be considered 
 a man of base origin ; but a man of base origin, if of 
 noble spirit, should be considered a man of good 
 birth." She means by this that a man ought to be 
 judged by his own disposition and qualities; if these 
 are good, the baseness of his origin does him no
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 121 
 
 injury ^Ybateve^' ; and if they are bad, the nobility 
 of his origin does him uo good whatever. The poet 
 says : 
 
 " It is the soul of 'Isaixi that has ennobled 'Isam. 
 And taught him to advance boldly to the fight. 
 And has made of him a great lord." 
 
 And a certain man made in the presence of Abd ul- 
 Mahk ibn Marwan a speech which was full of eloquence. 
 Charmed with what he had heard, *Abd ul-Malik 
 asked him: "Whose son art thou, youth?" Said 
 he, "I am the son of myself, Prince of the Faithful; 
 for it is by my mind that I have acquired this posi- 
 tion near you." " Thou art right," was the reply. 
 "The Prophet has said, ' The pedigree of a man is his 
 wealth, and his nobility is his religion.'" And Omar 
 Ibn ul-Khattab has said : " If you have wealth, j'ou 
 have distmction, and if you have religion, you have 
 nobility." Indeed, I have not met with a stranger 
 case than that of Ibn Qataibah in his Tafdhilu-1-Arab, 
 for, after exhausting all his powers in proving the 
 superior merits of the Arabs, he finishes by express- 
 ing the same view as that of the Shu'ubiyyah, thus 
 demolishing at the end what he had built up in the 
 beginning ; for he says at the end of his account : — 
 " And the most equitable view, in my opinion, is that 
 all men are descended from one father and mother ; 
 that they were created from dust, and to dust will they 
 return ; and they all pass through the uterus and are 
 befouled by impurities. These facts should prevent 
 men of sense from exaggerated ideas about themselves, 
 and from pride and vaunting of their parentage ; for 
 after all they shall return to God, where their high
 
 122 THE SIIU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 pedigrees will be of no account, and their worldly 
 honours of no consequence save one whose honour is 
 the fear of God, and whose capital is obedience to His 
 laws." 
 
 The Shu'ubiyyah also say that the Arabs in the 
 time of ignorance used to take each other's women as 
 wives during their raids, without the marriage 
 contract, and without waiting the necessary period to 
 see if the woman was with child from her husband. 
 How can anyone say who his father was ? they say. 
 Al-Farazdaq, in his eulogy of the Banu Dhabbah, 
 extols them for their carrying off of women, and says, 
 in reference to a captive woman whom they had taken 
 from Banu 'Amir ibn Sa'sa'ah : " She fell to the 
 ground and they held her in their embrace, and their 
 only cover was their long spears." 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have given, I trust, a 
 sufficiently exhaustive history of the origin, growth, 
 and development of this most intensely interesting 
 movement in the history of Islam ; and though it 
 would be unsafe to differ from so eminent a scholar 
 as Dr. Goldziher, who holds that the Shu'ubiyyite 
 party was not a party of the discontented and the 
 rebels,* still it is impossible to believe that a party 
 which preached the gospel of equality and which con- 
 tinuously fought for light and liberty was utterly 
 divorced from politics or political aspirations, and had 
 no connection whatever with the political conditions 
 of those times. I am inclined to believe, as I have 
 stated at the outset, that such a party could not have 
 
 * Goldziher, " Muh. Studien," vol. i., p. 147.
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 123 
 
 at all come to existence had it not been for the 
 despotism of the Omayyads, \Yhich in defiance of 
 the principles of Islam— namely, equality and brother- 
 hood of all Muslims— riveted every shackle tighter 
 and stretched every breach wider between the ruling 
 race and the foreign converts to Islam. The Arab 
 warriors and their descendants could not, for an 
 instant, conceive that conversion to Islam raised a 
 foreigner to a level of equality with the genuine- 
 born Arab. The Arab always looked upon himself 
 as belonging to the ruling race which was called 
 upon to govern the foreigners, the barbarians, the 
 Ajami. Here lay the cause — destructive alike of the 
 Islamic theocracy and the Arab Imperialism— which 
 developed the growth of the idea of nationality, further 
 aggravated and intensified, as it was, by years of 
 misrule and maladministration, nepotism, and jobbery. 
 While the theoretical Islam did not believe in the 
 distinction of races and colour, the ruling house of 
 Omayyah claimed for themselves rights and privileges 
 and prerogatives founded not upon Islam but upon 
 might and power, and pursued a policy of unmitigated 
 despotism which reached the height of its aggressive- 
 ness in the person of Ilajjaj. The subject races felt that 
 conversion to Islam did not, after all, secure equality 
 with the Arabs, and that the Islamic teaching, as in- 
 terpreted at least by the Arab aristocracy, was a fiction, 
 a myth, and a mockery. The more the learned class 
 developed among foreign converts the greater became 
 the influence of the client, and all the more heavily 
 did this circle feel its subordination to the ruling 
 class consisting of the descendants of the conquerors.
 
 124 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 In their souls lay sheathed the swords of the spirit 
 ready to flash forth and smite, and hence the unceas- 
 ing insurrections and rebellions under the Omayyads, 
 if not initiated, at all events largely backed and sup- 
 ported by foreign converts. The entire policy of the 
 Omayyads was deeply offensive to the Muslims of 
 non-Arab nationality, who, though crushed under 
 the iron heels of Hajjaj, could not forget the glory 
 and splendour of their national traditions and national 
 history. After Hajjaj, though the Muslim empire 
 was outwardly quiet for a time, still there were 
 ominous undertones of disaffection which repeatedly 
 burst forth in the shape of insurrections and rebel- 
 lions. The Arab and Ajam represented two adverse 
 currents of political thoughts and political creed, 
 incompatible, irreconcilable, eternal in antagonism 
 as the poles. The origin and beginning of the Shu- 
 'ubiyyah movement, therefore, we cannot but trace back 
 to the political conditions of the times. On any other 
 supposition we can scarcely give a satisfactory explana- 
 tion of the origin of this movement. The various 
 nations included in the Muslim empire — the Arabs, 
 the Persians, the Syrians, the Nabathaeans, the 
 Egyptians, the Turks — were all Muslims, and in the 
 eye of Islam brothers irrespective of nationality. 
 Their faith alone was the passport to the full rights 
 of citizenship in the theocracy. Islamic government, 
 in its essence, was not local nor territorial nor national, 
 but religious. It was one compact confederacy united 
 by the tie of Islam, and as such there was no room in 
 it for the idea of nationality. If this original spirit of 
 the Islamic government had been maintained and
 
 THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 125 
 
 kept up, there would have been no occasion for 
 emphasizing the distinction of nationality. All— 
 of whatever race or nationality— would have enjoyed 
 equal rights and privileges. But the high ideal of 
 Islam failed, and failed most hopelessly in practical 
 appHeation, and inasmuch as similar rights and 
 privileges (as enjoyed by the Arab aristocracy) were 
 not conceded to foreign converts, they winced and 
 smarted under their political disabilities, and as a 
 protest against the injustice of the Government 
 dreamed of the days of their national government 
 and sang of the glories of their forefathers. This 
 party, therefore, was the direct outcome of the 
 storm and stress of oppression and despotism under 
 which the subject races suffered and pined in the 
 days of the Omayyads. True, it was only under 
 the Abbasids that this party boldly stepped forward 
 as an organized body and openly advocated its 
 doctrines, but it does not follow from this that the 
 masses of foreign converts, under the Omayyads, 
 were not animated by the same spirit or inspired by 
 the same zeal. 
 
 As I have already stated, under the Abbasids better 
 days dawned upon the Mawali, and they gathered 
 strength and fought their battle. Their learned men 
 only gave expression to the thoughts and sentiments 
 of the inarticulate masses, thoughts and sentiments 
 that were, so to speak, long in the air. In the argu- 
 ments of the Shu'ubiyyah party we cannot fail to 
 detect an animus and bitterness which savour rather 
 of political than literary controversy. One word and 
 I have done. According to my reading of the history
 
 12G THE SHU'UBIYYAH MOVEMENT IN ISLAM 
 
 of this movement it illustrates one supreme and 
 eternal truth which all governments might well take 
 to heart. Physical force might prolong the existence 
 of the body-politic but it cannot insure its permanence. 
 The only sure foundation of a government is in the 
 loyalty of its subjects, but loyalty cannot be secured 
 by despising them and excluding them from their 
 legitimate share in the government and its administra- 
 tion. History repeats itself, and those very problems 
 which confronted the Omayyad statesmen nearly a 
 thousand years ago are now before us, different per- 
 haps in their setting, but in their essence unchanged. 
 No better epilogue can I find for this paper than in 
 the language of the late Bishop of Oxford, perhaps 
 the greatest historian of our age : " For the roots of 
 the present lie deep in the past, and nothing is dead 
 to the man who would learn how the present comes to 
 be what it is."
 
 IV 
 
 GHALIB: AN APPRECIATION 
 
 Literature is a mirror of national life, and national 
 life the resultant of various influences, partly under 
 and partly beyond the control of man— influences of 
 climate, of physical conditions, of political freedom or 
 political subordination. These influences, and many 
 others besides, are too marked to remain uimoticed. 
 In the East, for instance, certain forms of poetry 
 have never struck root. The East is a stranger 
 to sea-poetry, such as we find in Heine, or Swinburne 
 or Theodore Watts-Dunton. The East is a stranger 
 to those sublime hymns to liberty and freedom such 
 as we find in Milton, or Collins, or Shelley, or Victor 
 Hugo. We have no such worship of the good and 
 beautiful as distinguishes the poetry of Keats. We 
 have not that Ijuoyant hope and that invincible optim- 
 ism which characterize the poetry of Browning and 
 Tennyson. Nor have we anything to compare'' with 
 that rapturous adoration of Nature which was the cult 
 of Wordsworth. 
 
 In the East it is not physical Nature, political free- 
 dom, or worship of the beautiful which inspires the 
 muse. It is rather man and his destiny which is the 
 
 127
 
 128 GIIALIB : AN APPRECIATION 
 
 absorbing subject of the poet's activity. All his 
 powers, his art, his genius, are concentrated on this 
 subject and this alone. Hence there is not that 
 richness, variety, expansiveness which we notice in 
 European poetry, and hence there is that want of the 
 flavour of originality with which European writers 
 taunt us. But our poets in their own sphere are 
 supreme, matchless, incomparable. 
 
 The Oriental, by his mental constitution, is mystical, 
 melancholy, imaginative rather than practical, fatal- 
 istic in his tendencies — and this is not because his 
 religion inculcates fatalism, but because he sees both 
 in actual life and reads in the records of the past the 
 lesson that there is nothing certain or stable in life ; 
 the periodical epidemics sweep away, at one stroke, 
 thousands of human lives, the whims and passions of 
 his sovereigns exalt or debase his fellow-creatures 
 without a moment's notice. At every step he is con- 
 fronted with the thought of the folly of human efforts 
 and the futility of human wishes. He regards life as 
 a game of chance, and hence the dominant note of our 
 poetry is resignation, melancholy, quietism. From 
 the weariness of life he, in spite of himself, is drawn 
 and diverted to religion and mysticism. Hence the 
 vein of mysticism, hence the impassioned invocations 
 to Allah, hence the lamentations over the feebleness 
 of human effort, the impotence of human will. It is 
 the spirit of Job which we not infrequently encounter 
 in our poetry! We are struck therein by a note 
 of profound melancholy and deep pathos ; a note of 
 weariness and disgust with life; a note of utter hollow- 
 ness of worldly ambitions and worldly dreams of
 
 GHALIB : AN APPEECIATION 129 
 
 prosperity and an accent of revolt against the good- 
 ness and justness of Providence. Apart from the 
 natural tendencies of Oriental writers to melancholy, 
 to dejection, to sadness, there was yet another cause, 
 a contributory cause, which tended to deepen, to 
 accentuate this tendency in India. At the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century the star of the Mohamedans 
 had set ; the glory and greatness of the Mohamedans 
 were at an end. Those, therefore, who lived and wrote 
 in that age could scarcely shake off the sense of utter 
 forlornness, ennui, weariness, or successfully resist 
 the thought of the emptiness and hollowness of human 
 hopes and the uselessness of a struggle against fate 
 and destiny which had flung them to earth vanquished, 
 prostrate, bleeding. To men born and bred in that 
 atmosphere of sadness and depression the world 
 seemed a dreary waste and life an insufferable, in- 
 supportable burden. 
 
 It was not a mere poetical rhapsody which prompted 
 Sawda to write : 
 
 «=i' jk-V l5* ^'^ }-r^'^ O^j^ 0>-ft> ^-^ 
 
 Nor was it a mere flight of imagination which 
 called forth the despairing utterance from Mir Taqi : 
 
 ^^ <=-^ ^ r-^^ ^^j-^ Jj~-j-^ 
 
 9
 
 130 GHALIB : AN APPRECIATION 
 
 Or again from Nasikh : 
 
 ^.^ ^-' ^5^ ^/ uV U)^ J^ Ui^ ^' J^f 
 
 No ! Their lives were one supreme, tragic proces- 
 sion, and these sad, sorrowful poems were but expres- 
 sions and revelations of their inward self. In the 
 depths of their strong nature there was a struggle, an 
 impatience, an inquietude, an ennui which continues 
 to the end and which leaves one with a sense of profound 
 melancholy. Even in the Masnavi of Mir Hassan, with 
 its light and shadow, its playful, joyous, humorous 
 touches, there runs the deep undercurrent of melan- 
 choly, which no thoughtful reader can miss. It was 
 again this very strain of sadness which has found its 
 noble expression in Anis and Dabir. The atmosphere, 
 steeped through and through as it was with melan- 
 choly, has very largely coloured the thoughts and 
 sentiments of our writers. They pass in a single 
 moment from anxiety to exultation, and back again 
 from exultation to still deeper melancholy. But 
 it is not the repulsive, hateful melancholy of a 
 misanthrope, but the chaste, subdued sorrow of a 
 nature in which struggle and revolt is over, and which 
 accepts, with a joyous acquiescence, the inevitable 
 and the unavoidable. It is not the melancholy of 
 Schopenhauer, but rather that of Heine. 
 
 What are the functions and duties of a poet ? Do 
 our poets fulfil those functions and duties ? What 
 is it that makes the true poet immortal ? What is it 
 that makes his work live and endure and survive the
 
 GHALIB: AN APPEECIATION 131 
 
 vicissitudes of time and fate, the ruins and wreckage 
 of changing fashions ? What is it that confers 
 upon his works the unfading charm, the deathless 
 beauty ? 
 
 " The poet, expressing pain as well as pleasure, 
 becomes," says Stopford Brooke, " at one with all who 
 feel pain. Conscious then of his brotherhood with 
 man, and far more conscious of it than by sympathy 
 only with man's pleasure, strength and passion flow 
 into his poetry. Men feel themselves expressed, 
 sympathized with, and empowered by the noble 
 representation of their trouble, and send back to the 
 poet their gratitude and sj'mpathy, till he, conscious 
 of their affection, is himself uplifted and inspired. 
 Then his poetic power, fed by human love, increases. 
 A fuller emotion, a wider thought, a knowledge of life 
 deepened by imagination into something far more 
 true than any intellectual philosophy of life can 
 give, fill his verse with the unsought for, revealing 
 phrases which seem to express, with strange sim- 
 plicity, the primary thoughts of Being, to speak 
 from the secret place where the laws of the universe 
 abide." 
 
 It is, therefore, the sympathy with human joys, 
 sorrows and sufferings, the power of expressing those 
 feelings which though felt by all is not capable of 
 being expressed by all, the talent for inter^jreting 
 those subtlest impressions which Nature makes upon 
 us : it is these qualities and these alone which make 
 the poet at once a priest and a prophet. Poetry inter- 
 prets both the outer world of physical nature and the 
 inner world of emotional man. Poetry interprets,
 
 132 GHALIB: AN APPKECIATION 
 
 says Matthew Arnold, by expressing with magical 
 felicity the physiognomy and movement of the outer 
 world, and it interprets by expressing, with inspired 
 conviction, the ideas and laws of the inward world of 
 man's moral and spiritual nature. In other words, 
 poetry is interpretive both by having natural magic 
 in it, and by having moral profundity. In both ways 
 it interprets man ; it gives him a satisfying sense of 
 reality; it reconciles him with himself and the 
 universe. 
 
 The poet appeals to the permanent, eternal senti- 
 ments of man : sentiments which defy the changes 
 of time and circumstances ; sentiments which all 
 humanity, apart from the barriers of race and religion, 
 shares. Language improves, religion changes, the 
 conception of the Deity varies from age to age, but 
 amidst endless changes, innovations, alterations in 
 social life and social customs ; amidst endless additions 
 to and subtractions from the stock of human know- 
 ledge, there is the human nature ever the same. 
 The mystery of pain, of suffering, of life, of death; 
 the sorrows arising from disappointed hopes or 
 blighted love ; the anguish and uneasiness due to 
 poverty and privation; the unsuccessful war waged 
 against fate and destiny : these are the themes which 
 will never cease to delight, to captivate, to inspire, to 
 uplift men from their " dead selves to higher things." 
 The poetry of pleasure, the poetry of pain, cannot 
 fail to strike a responsive chord in the human 
 heart. It is the delight of prosperity, the solace of 
 adversity. 
 
 Das ist das Lehen, Kind! Ein Ewig Jammern,
 
 GHALIB: AN APPEECIATION 133 
 
 Ein Eicig Absehiednehmen, Ew'ges Trennen ! What a 
 mournful fact ; and yet how true, how appealing ! It 
 is the truth drawn from the fount of life. But, like 
 Heine, has not Saib sung the very same thing : 
 
 The secret of that richness, freshness and sweetness 
 which the true poet possesses ; the secret of that 
 immortality which laughs decay and death to scorn, is 
 the universality of his feeling, the catholicity of his 
 sentiments, the firm grasp of the permanent elements 
 of life. Though our own Indian poetry is modelled 
 upon Persian poetry, yet it is neither a servile imitation 
 nor a lifeless translation either. The thoughts may be 
 the same, but the expression of those thoughts is 
 original, striking, charming. Who can read Mir 
 Taqi, Momin Khan, Zawq, Atash, Nasikh, and, last 
 but not least, Ghalib, without feeling and realizing the 
 hand of the master, the genius of the true poet? 
 Their sweetness and serenity, their height and eleva- 
 tion, their fortitude and meekness, their laughter and 
 tears are too subtle, too delicate, too fine to admit of 
 description or even an attempt at description. They 
 belong to that galaxy of intellectual giants whom the 
 world calls immortals. 
 
 It would have been nothing short of rashness to 
 write the life of GhaUb in EngHsh if we had already a 
 life such as Hali has written in Hindustani. But 
 there is none in English so far as the present writer 
 is aware, and he has undertaken this task with no
 
 134 GHALIB: AN APPKECIATION 
 
 other object than to bring Ghalib and his works to 
 the notice of readers to whom Hali's splendid mono- 
 graph is a sealed book. The genius of Ghalib is 
 indeed, worthy of a wider celebrity than it has hither- 
 to attained, and Europe has still to learn that only in 
 1869 died the man whose Kasidas rival the Kasidas of 
 Anwari and Khaqani ; whose gazals excel the gazals 
 of Urfi and Talib ; whose " Eubaiyats " take rank by 
 the side of the " Eubaiyats " of Omar Khayydm, and 
 whose prose outshines the prose of Abul Fazal and 
 Zahuri (Hali, p. 178). 
 
 What are, then, the characteristics of our poet? 
 His prose and poetry are autobiographical fragments 
 giving us an insight into his life, which was one of 
 absolute weariness and grinding struggle, painful 
 indifference on the part of his contemporaries and 
 lukewarm support on that of the friends. Ghalib is 
 essentially a poet of self-introspection. He sings of 
 life and all the phases of life. He sings of the liquid 
 ruby and the blushing roses. He fully opens his 
 heart to his readers and sings of the tragedies of his 
 own life : his fallen fortune, his illusive and ever- 
 receding hopes, his galling poverty, his unavailing 
 efforts, his sceptical beliefs occasionally relieved by a 
 buoyant faith in the goodness and justness of Provi- 
 dence, his unconquerable faith in the immortality 
 of his poems ; in fine, his prose and poetry are the 
 records of his various and varying moods ; now of 
 bright hope, now of impenetrable gloom. But besides 
 being a poet of supreme parts he is a prose-writer of 
 great attainments. He stands incomparably the 
 greatest prose-writer of our age. Its winning grace,
 
 GHALIB : AN APPEECIATION 135 
 
 its delightful simplicity, its wit and humour, its 
 fascinating rhythm, ease, spontaneity, flow and charm 
 have not yet been rivalled, much less surpassed. 
 This is not an extravagant laudation, but a sober 
 estimate formed by no less a writer than his dis- 
 tinguished biographer, Hali of Paniput. There is yet 
 another feature of Ghalib's writings which we might 
 notice here. His thoughts are fine, subtle, delicate, 
 and are as original as they are finely worded. Both 
 his Urdu and Persian divans are literary gems : opal, 
 ruby and sapphire all in one. * His religious views, 
 indeed, cannot be passed over unnoticed. He was a 
 Unitarian who had long cast aside the unessential 
 elements of religion. He wore no sectarian badge, 
 no sectarian colour. He professed Islam, but Islam 
 unfettered, untrammelled, unencumbered by dogma- 
 tism, by sectarianism, by narrow-mindedness. 
 
 This couplet gives us an idea of his bold, fearless 
 independence of thought. In one of his letters he 
 writes, "I am a pure Unitarian and a true believer," 
 and so he was. It was precisely this spirit which 
 made him so uncommonly liberal, tolerant, sympa- 
 thetic with other religions, and which made him say : 
 
 \j:^^ji AJ^ >.:>- ^^ ^'.^ ij ^* >-^ f^j'^ ' ^;^ 
 
 * I have in my possession a copy of Ghalib's Persian Divan, 
 which was written at the instance of Nawab Mustapha Khan, 
 and revised by the poet.
 
 136 GHALIB : AN APPRECIATION 
 
 This is a feature as prominent and noticeable as his 
 avowed contempt for public opinion. Though Ghalib 
 lived in an age and among a people who, as a whole, 
 were neither scholars nor judges of scholarship — the 
 Golden Age of Mohamedan learning in India had long 
 gone by — still there were men, a very few, indeed, 
 but there were men alive, his contemporaries, who 
 acknowledged his great powers and recognized his 
 intellectual superiority. Such were Fazl Huq 
 Khairabadi, Mufti Sadruddin Khan, Abdullah Khan, 
 Ulavi, Imam Bukhsh Sahbai, Momin Khan, Nawab 
 Mustafa Khan, Nawab Zia-ud-din, Syed Golam Ali 
 Khan, Wahshat and Hali, his biographer. Besides 
 these, there were Bahadur Shah and the Nawab of 
 Eampur who offered him pecuniary assistance, though, 
 we must confess, it was not much to speak of. Utterly 
 unrecognized even in his lifetime he was not ; but it 
 was a recognition clearly not commensurate with his 
 attainments. Fate has never been exceptionally kind 
 to men of letters, and Ghalib shared the common lot 
 in this respect. What man of genius has not felt 
 what Ghalib has felt and expressed ? What man of 
 genius has not appealed, and appealed unsuccessfully, 
 for recognition, which his contemporaries only scantily 
 and grudgingly conceded ? Has not Saib said : 
 
 J.! i Jl—^—j^ -<j jIj <iJo}]s ^—i} u-^— ^ 
 
 Not vanity, not extravagance, but the consciousness 
 of the certainty and permanence of his fame it is that 
 finds expression ; not faint, feeble, faltering, but firm,
 
 GHALIB : AN APPEECIATION 137 
 
 distinct, unequivocal expression, in a language such as 
 this : 
 
 ^ ^^>*-V J.^ TT.*^ (*^^^ .•'^l' «^-S 
 
 i,_i 
 
 X 
 
 It has a strain of inspiration, a prophecy — fulfilled 
 to the letter. Well might he have applied to himself 
 the noble lines of Heine : 
 
 " Mein Herz gleicht ganz dem IMeere, 
 Hat Sturm und Ebb' und Flut, 
 Und manche schone Perle 
 In seiner Tiefe ruht." 
 
 And well might we liken his heart to the sea, which in 
 spite of its storm, its ebb, its flow, in spite of its agi- 
 tated surface, conceals beneath it its choicest and finest 
 pearls. Would that we had the dates of the composi- 
 tion of the poems. They would have enabled us to 
 construct a biography out of them, but however we 
 may mourn this loss we are in.no lack of materials. 
 His own letters, the monograph of Hali, the notice of 
 Azad in his Tazkirah, are materials enough for the 
 biographer to work upon. The object of his bio- 
 grapher, however, should be not merely to chronicle 
 the events of his life, but to show how far and to what 
 extent he was the product of his own age, and the pre- 
 cursor of the next ; to consider, to estimate, to fix his 
 place not only among the poets of India, but among 
 the poets of the world. This is still virgin soil, an
 
 138 GHALIB: AN APPEECIATION 
 
 unbroken field; and it is, for that reason alone, a 
 subject worth pursuing, a goal worth attaining. The 
 lustre of that immortal name will increase more and 
 more as education increases and as appreciation grows 
 of that strange, sad book of the heart's experience — 
 the Divan of Mirza Asad-ullah Khan Ghalib.
 
 MY FATHER: HIS LIFE AND 
 EEMINISCENCES 
 
 " The most precious and intimate recollection of each man's 
 memory is his series of recollected portraits and biographies 
 of persons he has individually known. A pecuUar sacredness 
 attaches to these recollections of persons when they themselves 
 are dead. . . . Every livhag man or woman can reckon up those 
 select of' the dead who are most memorable to him or to her; 
 and soraetunes there may be a duty, or at least an impulse, that 
 one should speak to others of the dead whom he remembers, and 
 of whom theij know little or nothing."— Professor Masson. 
 
 I 
 
 In writing this short sketch of my father's life, I have 
 been actuated neither by vanity nor self-glorification, 
 but simply by that sense of duty which I owe to him 
 and to those numerous friends of his who have been 
 good enough to ask me to give them a brief account 
 of his earthly pilgrimage. It is always a delicate and 
 difficult task to write the life of a contemporary; 
 much more so is it for a son to attempt the biography 
 of his father. The tenderest ties of filial duty and 
 devotion necessarily render him unfit for such a task. 
 
 139
 
 140 MY FATHER : 
 
 We can scarcely hope to find in him the severe im- 
 partiality of an historian, or the equally unbiassed 
 mentality of a judge. I must, therefore, at once 
 inform my readers that, though I lay claim neither 
 to the impartiality of an historian nor to the im- 
 personal attitude of a judge, still, in these pages, I 
 have endeavoured to give a true and faithful account 
 of the career which has so recently yet all too soon 
 ended. I have abstained alike from extravagant 
 laudation and captious criticism. I have merely 
 placed the facts before the reader, and have left him 
 to draw his own conclusions. My father's public 
 services, his rank and position in the profession to 
 which he belonged, his literary works, and the history 
 of the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, are too well 
 known to require my interposition, or to call for my 
 assistance ; and I might easily have left these subjects 
 to be dealt with by others more competent than 
 myself to weigh, to test, to focus, to adjust ; but the 
 outer world, after all, never secures more than a 
 partial glimpse of a man's life. It can never, un- 
 assisted, hope to know the man in his true inward- 
 ness — his varied relations with his friends, relatives, 
 and dependants. Nor is that world expected to have 
 an idea of the subtle influences which a man of 
 commanding intellect and powerful will exercises 
 over his immediate and more private entourage, the 
 secret springs of his actions and deeds, his tone and 
 temper, his religious beliefs, his unexpressed political 
 views, a thousand little kindnesses secretly done, and 
 good offices privately performed. But these are just 
 the things which reveal the true nature of the man,
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 141 
 
 and the nobility of his soul. Moreover, the public 
 sees only the ultimate result of a life's labour. It 
 knows not the slow and painful steps through which 
 that result was achieved, the innumerable obstacles 
 that lay in the path of success, the strange reverses 
 of fortune, and the strength of will and purpose, 
 dauntless courage, and unflinching pertinacity needed 
 finally to conquer and triumph. In other words, the 
 public sees only the last act in a series of failures, 
 otherwise known as success ; but it is the inter- 
 mediary stages which are alike interesting and in- 
 structive, and a lesson and an example to others. A 
 life of the donor of the Bankipore Library, written 
 even by me, would scarcely fail to bring out those 
 qualities of the mind and the heart which made him 
 the idol of his friends and one of the most interesting 
 figures of his time. Fraud and imposture can never 
 long continue to impose upon the credulity of man- 
 kind. It is the sterling qualities of the mind and the 
 heart alone which win for a man a place in the 
 annals of his community, or the history of his nation. 
 " Call no man happy until he is dead," is as true of 
 my father as of any other mortal. His life's voyage, 
 like that of others, was not, and, as things are, could 
 not be, all prosperous. He had his moments of deep 
 despondency and blank despair. He had his share of 
 sorrows and griefs, bitter disappointments, and sad 
 vicissitudes. In the following pages I shall recount 
 the story of that life which, in early manhood, was 
 overcast with heavy unmoving banks of cloud im- 
 pervious to any ray of sunlight, but which was 
 destined to end in peace, serenity, and honour.
 
 142 MY FATHER : 
 
 Among the heralds and pioneers of Muslim learning 
 in India, history, I doubt not, will assign him a place 
 next to Sir Syed Ahmed and Mohsin ul-Mulk. Like 
 Sir Syed, he devoted himself to the cause of the 
 Mohamedans, and, like him too, he spent his fortune 
 for their benefit and advancement. Throughout life 
 he exhibited an active courage, a resolute endurance, 
 a cheerful self-restraint, and an exulting self-sacrifice. 
 He ignored the claims of his family for the higher 
 and nobler claims of his community, and I can 
 suggest no better and more fitting epitaph for his 
 grave than the following words of a great French 
 philosopher : " I love my family more than myself, my 
 country more than my family, and humanity more than 
 my country " (I quote from memory). His whole life 
 was but a commentary on these words. It was neither 
 weight of purse nor length of pedigree which brought 
 him to the forefront, but his own inherent qualities 
 and intrinsic merits, his single-minded devotion to 
 learning, and his overmastering passion for books. 
 
 The most charming feature of his life was his 
 central trust in God. He never allowed himself to be 
 anxious for the morrow, or to suffer the well-known 
 
 text of the Qur'an ^y^^^\ J^.i^-li d^\ ^^ to fade 
 
 from his mind. To the last he believed that in purity 
 of heart rather than in outward cleansing, and in 
 spirit rather than in the letter, lay the real strength 
 of religious beliefs. 
 
 "When the end comes," wrote John Stuart Mill, to 
 a friend in pensive vein,* " the whole life will appear 
 
 * Lord Morley, " Miscellanies," 4th Series, p. 151.
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 1^3 
 
 but as a day, and the only question of any moment to 
 us then will be : Has that day been wasted ?" Wasted 
 it has not been by those who have been, for however 
 short a time, a source of happiness and moral good 
 even to the narrowest circle. But there is only one 
 plain rule of life eternally binding, and independent 
 of all variations of creed, embracing equally the 
 greatest moralities and the smallest ; it is this : '* Try 
 thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing 
 thou art capable of doing, faculties and circumstances 
 being both duly considered, and then do it." Be 
 this our standard now, and let the reader pronounce 
 his own judgment. In the Oriental Public Library 
 at Bankipore, where under one roof are collected, as 
 though in a shrine, the literary remains of the great 
 savants of Islam, he has built for himself a monu- 
 ment which will last so long at least as the destiny of 
 India is linked with that of Great Britain, if, per- 
 chance, no longer. There, in course of time, as the 
 mists of ignorance lift, will rise a school of Oriental 
 learning ; and thence will radiate beams of culture 
 which will illumine the whole of the Indian Peninsula. 
 The claims of the founder of .the Oriental Library 
 on the gratitude of the Muslims — nay, of the entire 
 literary world — nothing but jealousy can overlook or 
 disparage. I now proceed to details. 
 
 II 
 
 My father was born at Chapra on August 2, 1842. 
 Soon after his birth the family removed to Bankipore, 
 where my father was brought up under the direct
 
 144 MY FATHEE : 
 
 supervision of my grandfather, a distinguished pleader, 
 a man of letters, and a passionate lover of books. In 
 1854 Mr. Travers, the then District Judge of Patna, 
 induced my grandfather to send his son to the Patna 
 High School, where he studied till 1859. Owing to 
 the disturbances and commotions consequent upon the 
 Mutiny, the Patna High School was that year abolished, 
 and my father had to wend his way to Calcutta, which 
 was not then, as it is now, the City of Palaces, the 
 centre of fashion, and the headquarters of commerce. 
 In those days there was no direct railway com- 
 munication between Calcutta and Patna, and the 
 journey was, as might be expected, at once costly and 
 perilous. With wallet and staff, the young student 
 nevertheless undertook the pilgrimage in quest of 
 learning. At Calcutta he was placed under the 
 charge of Nawab Amir Ali Khan, who treated him 
 with the utmost kindness and consideration. In 1861 
 he passed the Entrance Examination of the Calcutta 
 University, but his stay in Calcutta had to be cut 
 short, as the climate never agreed with him, and he 
 returned to Bankipore. On his return he joined the 
 Law Class, with a view to qualifying as a pleader. 
 Between 1861 and 1868, when my father was admitted 
 to the Patna Bar, he passed through great hardships 
 and sore trials. My grandfather's health began to fail, 
 and as time went by he found it more and more 
 difficult to attend to professional work — the only sup- 
 port and maintenance of the family. The whole 
 burden fell on my father, and it was with the greatest 
 difficulty that he managed to keep the family together. 
 In spite of accumulating woes and miseries he attended
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 145 
 
 law classes, and at the same time earned a small 
 income. It was during this period that he applied 
 for the post of Naib under a Munsiff, but, as fate 
 would have it, his application was refused. He, how- 
 ever, obtained the post of Peshkar to the District 
 Judge, but he and Mr. Latour, the Judge, could not 
 agree, and he had to throw up his post. The next 
 appointment that he held was that of a Deputy- 
 Inspector of Schools, but this was also for only a 
 period of fifteen months. Misfortunes and disappoint- 
 ments, instead of depressing his spirits, only stirred 
 him into fresh activity, and he determined to fight the 
 battle of life. It was always with emotion that he 
 referred to the sad experiences of those times — the 
 mental anguish, the bitter privations, the terrible 
 sufferings through which he had passed. These un- 
 happy days, however, were to end, and they did end, 
 with his enrolment at the Patna Bar in 1868. There 
 was a sudden change of fortune, and his progress in 
 the profession was rapid and assured. Within a 
 couple of years he was perfectly well established, and 
 commanded almost the largest civil practice in Patna. 
 Nor was this unexpected ; he inherited to the fullest 
 extent not only his father's passion for books, but also 
 his talents. We can form some idea of the latter's 
 position at the Patna Bar by the certificate which 
 Mr. Travers, the Judge, gave him on February 28, 
 1855. 
 
 " Mohamed Bukhsh, a pleader in the Patna Court, 
 is a very excellent lawyer. In his argument he is 
 very much to be depended on as a close and accurate 
 reasoner. I place much confidence in him, and think 
 
 10
 
 146 MY FATHER: 
 
 that he does great credit to the character of his pro- 
 fession and the Court generally. I have great pleasure 
 in giving him the certificate, and hope that he will 
 always maintain the reputation which he now holds. 
 
 "W. Traveks, 
 " Judge." 
 
 My father steadily rose in his profession and in the 
 estimation of the local officials, and served the public 
 in various capacities. In the letter of Mr. W. F. 
 Macdonell, dated October 22, 1874, we have a clear 
 and disinterested testimony which will not be out of 
 place here. 
 
 To MouLVi Khuda Bukhsh Khan. 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 "I have much pleasure in sending you the 
 certificate I promised. I can honestly say that I 
 consider you one of the very best pleaders at the 
 Patna Bar, and last year when it was proposed that 
 a Law Professor shall be appointed who knew Hindu- 
 stani as well as English, I recommended you for the 
 post as being by far the best fitted for the appoint- 
 ment. Your father was a gentleman much spoken of 
 by everyone, and he was one of the leading men at 
 the Bar, and you have certainly well sustained the 
 family reputation. I trust to hear of your continued 
 
 success. 
 
 " I remain, 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " W. F. Macdonell, 
 
 ^^ Late Judge of Patna.''
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 147 
 
 He obtained a certificate of honour for his work on 
 the School Committee in 1877, and when local self- 
 governing bodies were created by Lord Eipon he 
 was appointed the first Yice-Chairman of the Patna 
 Municipality and of the Patna District Board. Almost 
 all the qualities of a successful advocate he possessed, 
 and possessed in a remarkable degree. He had keen 
 intelligence, ready wit, a remarkable memory, a 
 wonderful grasp of facts, and a rare power of ad- 
 vocacy. While ever avoiding friction with the 
 Court, he nevertheless always stood up for his 
 rights. 
 
 On the civil side he was reckoned almost without 
 a peer, but he always had a horror of criminal prac- 
 tice, and never seriously took to it. In 1880 he was 
 appointed Government Pleader of Patna, and in 1881, 
 for public services, he was made a Khan Bahadur, In 
 1891 he founded the Oriental Public Library, of which 
 we shall hear more in the sequel, and in 1895 he was 
 appointed Chief Justice of the Nizam's High Court 
 for a term of three years. In 1898, on his return 
 from Hyderabad, he reverted to the Bar, but a stroke 
 of paralysis, which he had that year, so completely 
 shattered his nerves that he never felt himself again. 
 He recovered, but his health began to decline, and he 
 grew weaker and weaker. His demise would perhaps 
 have come much earlier than it actually did had it 
 not been for the anxious care and tender solicitude of 
 my brother Shahabuddin and his wife. They were 
 always with him, and took the greatest care of his 
 health. In 1903 the title of CLE. was conferred on 
 him, and the Government of India was pleased to
 
 148 MY FATHER : 
 
 appoint him Secretary of the Library on a salary of 
 Es. 200, and to make a grant of Es. 8,000 in liquida- 
 tion of his debts. I shall here insert the letters of 
 Sir Charles Lyall and Sir James Bourdillon, the 
 former being a letter of congratulation on his obtain- 
 ing the CLE., and the latter conveying the announce- 
 ment of the grant of Es. 8,000. 
 
 "India Office, 
 
 " Whitehall, 
 
 ''June 1, 1903. 
 
 " My dear Moulvib Sahib, 
 
 " Pray accept my hearty congratulations on the 
 CLE., which I see in this morning's paper has been 
 conferred upon you. I wish it had come long ago. 
 It has been most thoroughly earned by your long 
 service to Government and by the public spirit with 
 which you have devoted your means and your labour 
 to the establishment of the Bankipore Library. May 
 you live long to enjoy it. I trust that Salahuddin is 
 making good progress at the Calcutta Bar. I hear 
 from him occasionally when he sends papers to the 
 Reviews here, and I am very glad to be of any 
 assistance to him that is in my power. I have in 
 hand an edition of the Mufaddaliyat with Al-Anbari's 
 commentary, which will take me some years to get 
 published. The commentary is a very full one, but 
 so far I have heard of only one manuscript of it, and 
 there will be a good deal of difficulty in constituting a 
 satisfactory text. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 " C L Lyall."
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 149 
 
 "The Shrubbery, 
 
 " Darjeeling, 
 " My dear Moulvie, " October 14, 1903. 
 
 " It gives me great pleasure to be able to inform 
 you that the Government of India have sanctioned the 
 payment to you of Rs. 8,000 for the liquidation of 
 your debts. The money will be paid to you as soon as 
 possible. I am glad that this sanction has been 
 received before I leave the Province, and I congratu- 
 late you heartily. I hope that this gift from the 
 Government will relieve you from all your anxieties. 
 " Believe me to be, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " J. A. BOURDILLON." 
 
 For the last fifteen months his health was fast 
 giving way. He was growing feebler and feebler, and 
 he had to cease from attending court ; but he could 
 not be idle, and during this period he spent most of 
 his time in the Library, reading books and writing 
 articles. 
 
 As early as 1874, as Mr. Macdonell's letter shows, 
 my father's reputation was made. But seventeen 
 years had yet to elapse before my grandfather's wish, 
 expressed on his death-bed to his son — namely, to 
 found a public library — was an accomplished fact. My 
 grandfather's favourite couplet was : 
 
 and time has amply justified its application to his 
 case. My father not only maintained the family 
 reputation, but secured for it an honourable place in 
 the literary history of India.
 
 150 MY FATHER : 
 
 III 
 
 So far I have said nothing regarding our family 
 history. A few words will suffice. Unlike most of 
 our countrymen, we do not trace our descent either 
 from the Prophet of Arabia or from some great hero 
 of Islam, or from some spoliating despot of a bygone 
 age. Nor do we need such meretricious trappings. 
 The Province of Behar (I may be permitted to say 
 without vanity) can scarcely point to another 
 Mohamedan family which can count three genera- 
 tions of learned men. I mean men who enjoy not 
 merely local, but Indian, if not European, fame. 
 Tradition traces our descent from Kazi Hibatullah, 
 one of the compilers of the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, but I 
 am not prepared to treat this seriously. There are, so 
 far as I can see, no sufficient data for the establish- 
 ment of any such claim, and I must therefore reject it 
 as unproven, if not as a pure fiction.* 
 
 * In my grandfather's Bayadh, written in a fine Shikasta 
 Amlz Nastaliq, I find an account of our family (MS., Bankipore 
 Library). Besides the passage in the Bayadh, I have no other 
 authority, so far, which connects our family with Kazi Hibatullah, 
 one of the compilers of the Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, and, curiously 
 enough, the passage under discussion does not throw any light 
 as to who Kazi Hibatullah, our ancestor, was. This much is 
 clear : that our family originally came from Delhi, settled down 
 at Chapra, and eventually removed to Bankipore. It is also 
 clear that from the earliest times the members of our family 
 have been, more or less, noted for learning, and as such were 
 men of position and influence. My father never set much value 
 on unauthenticated traditions, and beUeved more m personal 
 distinction and individual merit than in proud pedigrees or 
 fanciful descent. The passage in the Bayadh runs thus :
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 151 
 
 My father, though thoroughly aristocratic in his 
 ways and habits, always deplored and deprecated the 
 tendency of his countrymen to invent a pedigree or 
 claim fanciful descent. He regarded such a tendency 
 as the surest sign of national decadence and demoral- 
 ization, and the last refuge of the unworthy and the 
 incompetent. In this connection he often used to 
 quote the famous lines of Amir-ibn Tufail, one of the 
 noblest of the Qur'aish : 
 
 :as^ ^U _ oJj^ ^ ^j\^ j-U ^i\ |,U*^Vy is^ t^*J j' - ^i ^^■^ ) ^ 
 _ ^..o-U Jj«r» UV.-, o''j\ jl J I .»U> ^j^ X*jr« iii _ i_ii3 \j?yt oSjl jl >^.'J>i ^J];? 
 
 j^^V" /»3Jki^ -i-i «^ lx/^ b '*'*^^ -^ ■*>"• J cry"** '•^^« '■^^'} '■^i^ i^ j_j' (»-'V 
 i\it ,^y, ^i'. c—^ i.';i^^j j\ tjli ^•-'^■- *i «^1 •^:'ry i_fr*' j"^!/ *-r-*"^ cA^''- 
 
 r,jj e/*'^ J L>V <— ^ U^^ yljfcle ySjJ ; l_J«-U li^j-*- tA^^. ^ J v^^ 
 J^ \2J» ;J •«-»>*J li'^i ^>>^-i' ^ J>J«V«I JU:>-yyuj *i|l Jj ili V_-»-lo jiyJ lU jl _ AiS-»» 
 
 j\r VV IJ* V^ J^ ^ "^— ^ -'^'^^ r^"".^ W-»U. &l!i J; ii-'^^i-J jl l^^O ^dli 
 dM«-l JLe ^jj^ jjU j_.jj ,U J>\^ J-S?. jti ^ '^Tij >A LS? Li^ t/i Li— l^;iri-J 
 ^^J ) dA9 ijl^ ,i^ j^^Li ^_jle ^j. Sj^ *=-i)j ii);-i- iU*.^ J _ ij^s:; ,jiM^ j v--o-U» 
 
 *-^ tH^« U^^ ij-^^^r*^ '-V' vj^ f-^ "^ ^^'-^ ^'-^ ^ '-^ '"^ ^^''' '-^ ^ 
 
 j^ j_^ i^,*^ - cr;**^ ti-i^ A^ • (.^3y« J^ ^J^v^ -V- w^ LT^ j' - jV '^y, u^rH* 
 jl,«u j;;;-^. (>ii^. ^_;^■^ u^ J^ j^ 'jy. v)""^ er^ '-ir^' (♦^•^ >-Sv'j' '•^l) ^***' 
 *^ j-i;- t-5y c/^ w^'T u^= t:^- *=r?J J^. ^ Lj^ »^>^ L5^ uj-^-^J\f f
 
 152 MY FATHER : 
 
 il_c , .—u—'Jiyi^^ \, 
 
 AJ 
 
 _.' »_^_-:t ,.J <);_IJ^ , ^}\ 
 
 
 Kazi Eeza Husain, Moulvi Mohamed Hassan, and 
 my father, constitute a noble trio. They were true 
 friends, and their friendship was marked with true 
 love and devotion to each other, and was tested by 
 every possible variation of good and evil fortune. 
 Animated by one common desire — the social, moral, 
 and intellectual amelioration of their co-religionists — 
 they worked together with perfect harmony and 
 earnest zeal, and achieved substantial results. Kazi 
 Reza and Moulvi Mohamed Hassan were constant 
 visitors at our house, and twice a week, at least, did I 
 see them. I can recall the zeal, the earnestness, the 
 enthusiasm with which they discussed questions 
 affecting the interest of the Mohamedans. Not to 
 speak of a number of Muslim students whom they 
 educated at their own expense, they successfully 
 combated that unreasoning and unreasonable Ortho- 
 doxy which regarded with distrust and suspicion the 
 spread of English education. It was they who first 
 lighted the lamp of learning in Behar, and though 
 it still burns but dimly there, yet in process of 
 time, we doubt not, it will shine with its wonted 
 brilliance.
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 153 
 
 In spite of a very large and extensive practice my 
 father never neglected his studies. Immediately on 
 returning from court he dined, and after resting for an 
 hour or so he would retire to his library, which, in 
 earlier days, was in our dwelling-house. There he 
 would generally be, either reading or writing notes on 
 books, or conversing with visitors on subjects religious 
 and historical. On no account would he see clients 
 after sunset, or attend to professional work. Sur- 
 rounded by his books he was, for those few hours, 
 absolutely happy and cheerful. In that Eden of bliss 
 there was no room for the cold, calculating cares of 
 life, or the disquieting anxieties of the lengthening 
 chain of existence. His love of letters and learning 
 enabled him to find in the pursuit of knowledge a 
 relief from anxiety and a solace under disappoint- 
 ments. Hafiz and Mowlana Eiim were his inseparable 
 companions, and he read them every day with almost 
 religious regularity. He was a better Persian than 
 Arabic scholar, though his knowledge of Arabic was 
 by no means contemptible. He was perfectly at home 
 with the whole range of Persian literature, and 
 stupendous and encyclopaedic was his memory. He 
 could recite Arabic and Persian poetry for hours, and, 
 what is so rare in India, he could write Persian with 
 almost the ease and elegance of a native. There are 
 passages in his Mahbub-ul-Lubab which would be 
 accepted by competent critics as the high-water mark 
 of Persian prose. Mahbub-ul-Lubub is a descriptive 
 catalogue of the Arabic and Persian manuscripts in his 
 library. It extends over 500 pages, and gives the 
 lives of the authors, with an exhaustive critical
 
 154 MY FATHER: 
 
 analysis of their works. It involved immense labour, 
 and my father was justly proud of his performance. 
 Owing to a variety of causes, the foremost of them 
 being his departure to Hyderabad Deccan, he was 
 unable to complete it. 
 
 An accomplished Arabic and Persian scholar, he was 
 by no means unacquainted with English literature. 
 Among English poets he admired Byron most, but he 
 was not insensible to the lyrical intensity of Shelley, 
 the fascinating elegance of Keats, the sweet reason- 
 ableness of Wordsworth, the ineffable charms of 
 Tennyson, and the robust manliness, mingled with a 
 dash of scepticism, of Swinburne, whom he likened 
 to Qa'ni — both supreme and matchless in their fine 
 and forcible diction. For Gibbon he had an un- 
 bounded admiration, and almost the whole of the 
 chapter on the " Rise of Islam " he committed to 
 memory. 
 
 The language of Gibbon had a fascinating hold 
 upon his mind, and Gibbon's sympathetic treatment 
 of Islam and its heroes could not fail to appeal to a 
 Muslim. As a boy I remember learning by heart 
 passages from the " Roman Empire," selected by my 
 father. 
 
 We read together Mill's " Autobiography," Goethe's 
 " Truth and Poetry " (Dichtung and Wahrheit), and 
 the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini ; and he was 
 never weary of imposing upon me the lesson drawn 
 from the lives of these great masters. He considered 
 biographies as the most instructive of all studies, and 
 used to refer to Goethe's preface to " Truth and 
 Poetry," where the great sage of Weimar says : " For
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 155 
 
 this seems to be the main object of biography, to 
 exhibit the man in relation to the features of his 
 time, and to show to what extent they have opposed 
 or favoured his progress ; what view of mankind and 
 the world he has formed from them, and how far he 
 himself, if an artist, poet, or author, may externally 
 reflect them. But for this is required what is scarcely 
 attainable — namely, that the individual should know 
 himself and his age — himself so far as he has re- 
 mained the same under all circumstances ; his age, 
 as that which carries along with it, determines and 
 fashions both the willing and the unwilling, so that 
 one may venture to pronounce that any person born 
 ten years earlier or later would have been quite a 
 different being both as regards his own culture and 
 his influence on others." Thus it is that the study 
 of biographies and autobiographies written by great 
 masters yields the richest harvest. They trace the 
 gradual evolution of the minds of great men, and 
 serve to exercise a healthy and stimulating influence 
 on others. He found an inexhaustible source of 
 pleasure in the noble lines of Wordsworth : 
 
 " There is one great society alone on earth. 
 The noble living and the noble dead," 
 
 and in the immortal couplet of the poet Mutanabbi : 
 
 t__;Vo J^^}"^ ^i ^_^J.^ ^.-rL ^ * ^L -^^ ^sW ^i J^.*y^ 
 
 He impressed upon me, in season and out of 
 season, that life would not be worth living were it not 
 for intellectual pursuits, and as Goethe says : " It is 
 the pious wish of all fathers to see what they have
 
 156 MY FATHER: 
 
 themselves failed to attain realized in their sons, as 
 if in this way they could live their lives over again, 
 and at last make a proper use of their early ex- 
 perience." He advised me, on the eve of my 
 departure for England, to study French and German, 
 and recommended me to write a history of Islam from 
 the standpoint of a Muslim. He regretted the spirit 
 in which the life of the Prophet and the history of 
 Islam were treated by European writers, and he was 
 firmly persuaded that it was almost impossible for 
 Western writers to do full justice to, or to handle, 
 either of these subjects in a dispassionate spirit. 
 The East and the West, he thought, were as widely 
 apart from each other as they could be. Eastern 
 thoughts and Eastern traditions. Eastern ideals and 
 Eastern sentiments, were so utterly different, and 
 even opposed to the Western current of thought, that 
 it was perhaps a hopeless task for a European really 
 to enter into or fully realize the feelings and senti- 
 ments of the Oriental. Moreover, the strong hold 
 which religion has over the people in Eastern coun- 
 tries is something quite foreign and inexplicable to a 
 European ; and its dominating sway over the minutest 
 details of their life is something inconceivable and 
 enigmatical to him. While religion is no more than 
 a social function in the West, in the East it is the 
 very essence of life. In this I am entirely disposed 
 to agree with my father, and I ascribe the failure of 
 European writers in comprehending the character of 
 the Prophet and the phenomenal success of the Islam 
 to a complete misconception of the Eastern character 
 and Eastern sentiments. Very truly does Bagehot
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 157 
 
 say: "National character is a deep thing— a shy 
 thing ; you cannot exhibit much of it to people who 
 have a difficulty in understanding your language ; you 
 are in strange society, and you feel you will not be 
 understood." "Let an English gentlemen," writes 
 Thackeray, " who has dwelt two or four or ten years 
 in Paris, say at the end of any given period, how 
 much he knows of French society, how many French 
 houses he has entered, and how many French friends 
 he has made. Intimacy there is none ; we see but 
 the outside of the people. Year by year we live in 
 France, and grow grey and see no more. We play 
 ecart^ with Monsieur de Trefle every night ; but what 
 do we know of the heart of the man— of the inward 
 ways, thoughts, and customs of Trefle? We have 
 danced with Countess Flicflac, Tuesdays and Thurs- 
 days, ever since the peace; and how far are we 
 advanced in her acquaintance since we first twirled 
 her round a room ? We know her velvet gown and 
 her diamonds ; we know her smiles and her simpers 
 and her rouge, but the real rougeless, intime Flicflac 
 we know not. ""^ 
 
 If this is the case— and undoubtedly it is so — 
 between such close neighbours as the English and the 
 French, we need not marvel at the inability of the 
 Western writers rightly to understand that strange 
 and complex quantity— Oriental character— without 
 which they can neither intelligibly interpret their 
 life nor with any reasonable accuracy expound their 
 history. It was the intensity of religious belief alone, 
 unalloyed by baser considerations, which was the 
 * Bagehot, " Literary Studies," vol. ii., pp. 44, 45.
 
 158 MY FATHER : 
 
 real propelling force of the life of the Prophet, and it 
 would be an error to ascribe his actions, as it has been 
 done, to motives other than religious. We often read 
 of certain measures of the Prophet attributed to 
 political foresight and reasons of statesmanship, but 
 neither politics nor statescraft had any meaning or 
 significance in those days of sweet simplicity. 
 
 The error lies in introducing preconceived notions 
 into the study of the history of those times, and it is 
 singular that even so careful and circumspect a writer 
 as Von Kremer ascribes the conversion of the Arabs 
 mainly to their love of money and the boundless 
 prospect of booty which the early militant Islam offered 
 to them, and equally singular is it that so sound and 
 thorough a scholar as Dr. Goldziher seriously argues 
 from the similarity between certain Muslim traditions 
 and Biblical passages that the former were necessarily 
 borrowed from the latter. * 
 
 Were I to discuss this subject here I would be taken 
 far afield, and I therefore leave it for a more season- 
 able occasion. 
 
 Though my father could not, for one moment, 
 sympathize with religious bigotry and intolerance, he 
 was yet a Muslim through and through. For the 
 Prophet and his family he entertained the most 
 devout reverence, and to the last he never missed the 
 five daily prayers. After the morning prayer he 
 
 * " It has been the fashion," says Deutsch, " to ascribe 
 whatever is good in Islam to Christianity. We fear this theory 
 is not compatible with the results of honest investigation. For 
 of Arabian Christianity, at the time of Mohamed, the less said, 
 perhaps, the better. By the side of it even modern Amharic 
 Christianity, of which we possess such astounding accounts, 
 appears pure and exalted."
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 159 
 
 would regularly read the Qur'an for half an hour, and 
 a magnificent copy of the Qur'an was one of the gifts 
 which I received from him on the eve of my departure 
 for England. On the fly-leaf he wrote : 
 
 '^j'^uir^ ^^.:l« ^'vj)ji ir*^ ^^ crl^^ z"^^ '^-^ 
 
 j^'j iX; j^ri. ^^ j^^j v^ ^^ ^j/ ^_,:^ (^^^* 
 
 '^•^'^ L5^ lA— ^ ^-^^ 
 
 With rapturous enthusiasm did he always quote the 
 following Ruba'i : 
 
 On the 10th of Mohurrum my father never allowed 
 us children to see the Mohurrum procession, which he 
 regarded as a mockery and travesty of religion, and 
 for which he never found language sufficiently con- 
 demnatory. He thought it wicked to a degree to con- 
 vert the anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies 
 in the history of Islam into a day of carnival and 
 festivity, instead of observing it scrupulously as one of 
 veritable mourning; and perhaps it would surprise
 
 160 MY FATHEE: 
 
 the reader to know that up to now I have not seen the 
 Patna Mohurrum procession which, I am told, is 
 almost unique in grandeur and magnificence. On the 
 anniversary of that terrible day he occupied himself in 
 the study of the Qur'an and other religious books. 
 
 It was one of his deepest regrets that he could 
 never visit the two holy cities of Mekka and Medina. 
 Here I may mention an instance of my father's 
 extreme religious tolerance. In 1894, when I returned 
 home from England for the summer vacation, I often 
 had discussions with him on religious subjects, and he 
 found fault with my views as being somewhat un- 
 orthodox, but he never lost his temper or showed 
 the least sign of displeasure. On the contrary, 
 he purchased for me Sir William Muir's " Life of 
 Mohamed," Koelle's " Life of Mohamed," and Dodd's 
 "Buddha, Christ, and Mohamed," books by no means 
 favourable to the Prophet; but at the same time, 
 he asked me to study the other side of the question 
 as well before making up my mind one way or the 
 other. Among Muslim authors whom he suggested 
 that I should study, he laid special stress on the 
 following : Ibn Hisham, the Shifa of Kadhi lyadh, 
 Kitab-ul-Wasila of Mulla (a unique manuscript in our 
 library) ; Zad-ul-Ma'ad of Ibn Qayim (another rare 
 manuscript in our library) ; and the collection of 
 Muslim traditions which, he said, reveal the inner life 
 of the Prophet, his intense religious conviction, his 
 glorious self-sacrifice, his stoical firmness in defeat, his 
 magnanimity in victory, his simple and unostentatious 
 life, the entire absence of pride, ambition, arrogance 
 and vindictiveness from his character, and his passion-
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 161 
 
 ate devotion and loving fondness for his followers. 
 Moreover, in Islam he found a religion which set 
 before its followers an ideal neither too difficult to 
 attain, nor at the same time impossible to realize. In 
 it he saw not merely " counsels of perfection," but a 
 religion which might scrupulously be followed without 
 renouncing the duties and responsibilities of the 
 world. But with all his attachment to Islam he was 
 not one of those who relegated the professors of other 
 religions to eternal damnation. He could not conceive 
 that God, ^#lom we are taught to believe as just, 
 loving, and merciful, would commit the major portion 
 of mankind to the everlasting torments of hell-fire 
 because they happen to hold a different creed or to 
 worship Him in some manner other than the one 
 prescribed by Islam, and often would he quote in 
 support of his view the noble utterances of Sana'i, 
 Dard, and Ghalib : 
 
 
 ^A J^^-j} J J ^,!.^.^l L_.l_j ^!,jl_i. 
 / cT'-V V'^ ^jr^ 'V*^ y ^j^-* '^'^ ^-^ ^j-^ 
 
 His whole view of life was deeply coloured by 
 religion. Resignation to the will of God was his 
 
 11
 
 162 MY FATHEE: 
 
 watchword, and never was his faith shaken, however 
 bitter the trial, however acute the suffering. He 
 never worried about the mystery of pain, of evil, of 
 the future life, of the brevity of existence. For these 
 he did not go to philosophy to seek a solution, but to 
 religion ; and there he found all that was necessary to 
 give him inward wealth and joy and sweet content. 
 ** Whatever is, is right," was his philosophy of life, 
 and he took joys and successes, sorrows, misfortunes, 
 and bereavements with a cool head and a calm 
 fortitude; in other words, he always preserved a 
 temper "cool in arduous and reasonable in prosperous 
 circumstances." 
 
 The guiding principle of his conduct towards others 
 might well be summed up in the language of 
 Thackeray : " Be gentle with those who are less 
 lucky, if not more deserving. Think what right have 
 you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of 
 temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose 
 rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity 
 is very likely a satire." Oft did I hear him recite the 
 couplet of Zauq jj^j : 
 
 ^ (♦- ^ c=r^ ^ Jf ^Vj ^^ cir"-- (*^ ^-- 
 
 Nothing excited his emotion or stirred his com- 
 passion more than the sight of poverty, and he 
 frequently told me that he could not understand the 
 strange dispensation of Providence under which some 
 were rolling in wealth and others grovelling in absolute 
 penury. But this observation was invariably qualified
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 163 
 
 by the remark that *' He knoweth his ways best." To 
 the poor and the suffering he never grudged help if it 
 lay in his power, and I well remember some years ago 
 the visit of a friend of his youth who was in sore 
 distress. The man was too proud to beg, and he 
 brought with him a manuscript which he wanted to 
 sell to my father, and the only reason for the sale that 
 he assigned was his immediate want of money. My 
 father looked at the manuscript and told him that he 
 had better copies in his possession. (I believe it was 
 a copy of either Sadi or Jami's works.) He then 
 returned the book to him, and with it a hundred-rupee 
 note. He believed in the brotherhood of humanity, 
 and never suffered religion to be a barrier to a genuine 
 friendship or intimate social intercourse. Religion, 
 he thought, was a matter between man and his God, 
 and a thing too sacred and too holy to be dragged into 
 the details of life. On more than one occasion he 
 allayed passions and smoothed difficulties between 
 Hmdus and Mohamedans, and in 1893 he took a 
 prominent part in bringing that hateful cow-killing 
 question— the fruitful source of so many disturbances 
 in India— to a happy and peaceful settlement. It was 
 on that occasion that Sir Antony Macdonell, the then 
 Lieutenant-Governor, addressed to him a letter, a copy 
 of which I give below : 
 
 " Lieutenant-Governor's Camp, 
 " Bengal, 
 " Dear Khan Bahadur, "August 7, 1893. 
 
 " I thank you for your letter of the 3rd instant, 
 and for the valued and loyal promise of your assist- 
 ance in removing the feelings of irritation which here
 
 164 MY FATHER : 
 
 and there have arisen between Mohamedans and 
 Hindus in connection with the slaughter of cows. I 
 think that there has been some misapprehension of 
 the meaning of the Maharajah of Durbhanga. His 
 wish and object, he assures me, was not to make any 
 imputations, which, in the circumstances in which he 
 spoke, would be altogether out of place, but to 
 indicate the points on which friction might possibly 
 occur between Hindus and Mohamedans, and so, by 
 anticipation, to guard against its occurrence. This 
 explanation will, I am sure, be accepted by Mohamedans 
 and others in the conciliatory spirit in which it has 
 been offered to me. Please convey to your many 
 Mohamedan friends my best thanks for the marked 
 courtesy and friendliness with which they received me 
 at Patna, and believe me to be, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " A. P. Macdonell." 
 
 My father was wont to say that he had a strain of 
 Brahmin blood in him, and throughout his life he 
 showed a pronounced partiality towards the Hindus, 
 among whom were some of his best and devoted 
 friends. The story runs thus : My grandfather, as an 
 infant, was suckled by a Brahmin lady, and out of 
 deference to the memory of his foster-mother neither 
 my father nor my grandfather ever took beef; and 
 this family scruple and family prejudice against cow's 
 flesh has continued unchanged. 
 
 My father was of an essentially didactic turn of 
 mind, and he would often tell me that he considered 
 nothing a greater sin than to wound the feelings of
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 165 
 
 others, or " to blend our pleasure or our pride with 
 the sorrows of the meanest thing that feels"; and 
 these occasional sermons were constantly wound up 
 either with the charming Qat'a of Imad or the equally 
 charming lines of Sawda or Rasikh : 
 
 J^ d:;i.i'jl ^^Aiiiy ^l_^ -^-^j-J 
 
 '^i^ LS^ ri-^ .-^j J-> J^^ j^J 
 
 L>s-»_) ,j»- t)j\j 
 
 
 ,*-iU 1^ ^,A J J ^y ^5_^-= ^ .^ * ^ j^^^ ^^^^^. ^ ^^ 
 
 IV 
 
 Marked with a sanity of judgment and a clarity of 
 vision were his views alike regarding religion and 
 politics. He took a liberal and extended view of
 
 166 MY FATHER : 
 
 religion — a practical view of polities. He was firmly 
 persuaded that English rule was an unqualified 
 blessing for India, and that its withdrawal would 
 at once evoke the undying passions of opposing creeds 
 and all the smouldering ambitions of the warlike 
 races. In other words India without the English 
 would become the theatre of the wildest anarchy and 
 the scene of the most unspeakable horrors. He 
 admired the English sense of duty, which shirked no 
 danger and feared no obstacle, and he always told me 
 that it was his rarest privilege to count among his 
 friends some of the great Anglo-Indians who have 
 served the Indian Empire. Nor was this feeling one- 
 sided. His English friends had a genuine regard for 
 him, and always showed him the greatest considera- 
 tion. They appreciated his disinterested and public- 
 spirited action in giving to the public his magnificent 
 collection of books and the enormous self-sacrifice that 
 it involved. Mr. Duke (so well known for his uniform 
 kindness to, and sympathy with, Indians) wrote to me 
 (on my father's death) : " He was a unique character 
 whom it was a privilege to know, and certainly his 
 labours raised, during his lifetime, what will now be 
 a magnificent monument to him." This tribute, 
 coming as it does from one of the most responsible 
 officers of the Bengal Government, amply shows the 
 esteem in which my father was held in official circles. 
 I do not propose here to discuss this subject at length, 
 as a number of my father's friends are still in high 
 office, and a sense of delicacy prevents me from refer- 
 ring to their relations with him. This portion of his 
 life may, therefore, with advantage, be withheld for
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 167 
 
 a more seasonable occasion. It was his deep-rooted 
 conviction that India, at this stage of her career, stood 
 in the greatest need of social reform, and he regretted 
 the enormous waste of energy on the part of the so- 
 called " politicians," and the itinerant preachers of 
 Swaraj and boycott, who, he thought, were doing 
 positive harm to the country. He believed that the 
 time was not yet ripe for India to meddle with 
 politics, and half a dozen fluent and facile orators 
 could not give to " the three hundred millions whom 
 the Imperial Sceptre sways" that political turn of 
 mind which, for its formation, requires centuries of 
 discipline and training, and which can alone create 
 unity of action and unity of purpose. India, with her 
 numerous communities, each looking askance at the 
 other, with an intensity that had its roots founded in 
 deep differentiations of character, faculty, and con- 
 dition, was hardly prepared yet to embark on a 
 political mission, and it was criminal folly to estab- 
 lish secret societies and to have recourse to the dagger 
 of the assassin. Such are not the methods by which 
 he thought India could realize her legitimate ambition 
 or the Indians their legitimate rights. These would 
 serve merely to retard progress by creating a feeling 
 of suspicion and distrust on the part of our rulers. 
 He always admired the patience and forbearance, the 
 self-restraint and self-control which those at the helm 
 of the State display under most trying and irritating 
 circumstances ; and he pointed to the action of the 
 Indian Government in connection with the recent 
 bomb outrages and the discovery of a secret anarchical 
 society as a signal proof of the English sense of justice
 
 168 MY FATHEE : 
 
 and equity. He never, however, for one moment, 
 doubted that the country as a whole was loyal to the 
 core, and regarded the mad melodrama enacted in 
 Bengal as the outcome of temporary brain-storm and 
 diseased fancy. He held firmly by constitutional 
 principles, and though he did not consider that our 
 Government is perfect or flawless (that no govern- 
 ment is), he yet had an unbounded faith and confi- 
 dence in the English character, and was firmly 
 convinced that any grievances properly represented, 
 or any demand honestly made, would meet with the 
 serious attention of the Government. He thought it 
 would do good to the people who talk glibly about 
 Swaraj carefully to study and inwardly to digest 
 Bagehot's " Physics and Politics " and take its lessons 
 seriously to heart. 
 
 In the following passage of that remarkable book 
 he found a deep lesson for the overweening politicians 
 of our age :— " What are called in European politics 
 the principles of 1789 are, therefore, inconsistent with 
 the early world ; they are fitted only to the new world 
 in which society has gone through its early task; 
 when the inherited organization is already confirmed 
 and fixed ; when the soft minds and strong passions 
 of youthful nations are fixed and guided by hard trans- 
 mitted instincts. Till then not equality before the 
 law is necessary, but inequality, for what is most 
 wanted is an elevated elite who know the law ; not a 
 good Government seeking the happiness of its sub- 
 jects, but a dignified and overawing Government 
 getting its subjects to obey; not a good law, but a 
 comprehensive law binding all life to one routine.
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 169 
 
 Later are the ages of freedom ; first are the ages 
 of servitude." The energy expended and the time 
 wasted on pohtical propaganda might profitably be 
 employed both by Hindus and Mohamedans on social 
 reforms and intellectual advancement, without which 
 politics were barren, ineffectual and unavailing. He 
 insisted on the purity of the home,* and regarded 
 
 * Extracts from my father's article on JULl (^jj^ ^^ , pub- 
 lished in <ui^T usiJ , No. 9, a.h. 132 (Hyderabad Deccan) : 
 
 >VJ ^} ^ VjijJ j)^ y i:«^ *^ <^>^ u^]? (»'-*' J)^ ^ "'^js^y j^ *— ^ L/j'^'P 
 
 U> uy^. U«J«Jl ^^ft^ L/^lr' *i ^J 4i tV \^1 IjA ^r!-'} (.i-V *ir?^ ^^^ J)^ l5t ^)^ 
 l/*' ^^ LAjiji l5^jF. -^ t:W^ <-^ *tr ur^* U"^ cr* cm* «tfi^^ e^ e^ tA'Vi 
 
 J)^ e.^ t/ wF. J'^P •'j^ VV *^ e* '^Jjr^ '^■^ ij-"^ c^-' ^^j^ i:;*v^ VJ*/ 
 *OkS uWr^ ljkj\i.(jjKi* aCj^ - e_0 jj^ i— >lj uu\ jj jjjl* tJ^^v' <J.J*** lijliUk d r ? .i^«J» 
 
 e» <Jj> ,jf *ib *s^, S-=r c* u~^ *<r^'*-' ^ ;^ "^l^ ^ J" u^ u^ij^ iy*~'^ *•*;; 
 
 yj^ ii_.sw ^-Z;) <r-'-V* i^ Wi?'. S'^ ''^^ - ^:r^*,' <— ^'' c:-?^- ^i^ <^J^ «• *V 
 t*J ^j>«i\ ^ jf-"^ {•fi^ WJjP j^WbuK \.»j-*s *s ^*"iT trt*Ji *fi\-' ejJj^, M* i^ jy 
 
 »• 41 ui^ u* t;?* *^^2 ^"^ }' tt?^^ '"^ «^ (_^w^.«»jl _ ^^ {^^-.ijii ij^^!>-\ cj;' ^vjy 
 
 \ju^ c* ^=^ <-J-l ^^^ e;-^ c?/' <i?>*5', o^ ^^j' '^^^ ^'^ CLJ,As ^ jji^ tjULi IJ 
 (Ji^ Jj ^^Ji^. — ^ (JJ^ 't'V' '_^^-*J' *j^5 e* j??- ijvi tt^ '^'^ *^ y^?'"*^ '^. y <k
 
 170 MY FATHER: 
 
 character as of greater moment than a University 
 degree. Honesty, straightforwardness, self-respect, 
 self-reliance, respect for womanhood, regard for re- 
 ligion, fellow-feeling, and mutual toleration — these 
 are the qualities, he would frequently say, the Indians 
 must possess before they can hope to rise or reason- 
 ably call for self-government. With the Swadeshi 
 movement — namely, the movement which aims at 
 reviving the faded industries and forgotten arts and 
 crafts of India, he was in perfect sympathy, but he 
 had nothing but unmixed contempt for a movement 
 which, under cover of promoting native industries, 
 avowedly has for its end and aim the excitement of 
 racial jealousy and racial hatred. He never attached 
 any importance or gave a second thought to the wild 
 
 J.Ai eS ^./ JUeS- j^J^U 5-1 ^J-^ ii gA *<olj ^ cb^\^ e.r* "-^^ *J J-^^j' '-'^ 
 
 ^/\ ^ j,i\^ ^.j-u" ^_/ jjjj U-»- ^ ^> eU/^- ij>^.) J^Sf.ji J** ^^ tJ^' 
 j\J>\ ei i_,».U> (_<el - j^! eii* ttT^'V l;*« c^V <i *^J*< "-^^ <e-'ji t- 'tT' - c* 
 
 ^y _ Lf,& li«^ ^ t»*- o^' (^i! ot;= - ^ ^'^ *^ iJ ciV J>^ <^^ =;i<^ ^"i" 
 y«/^ ^ ^U- JjU ei-^ <_>^ cr- ijt'^ <J"' '^^ '^ V^, *i./ f^ "^^ ^^ ci uW- 
 Ci-,^Jc^ JC;\ ^^^ji^ y - Jj> J«\i« «ff^ »j/^ L^^ - / ej^j^"^ ^ J^ ujbjV wj 
 
 \^ 1^^1\ J i)./*a;U '>\ij^\)i * e— l>Vij (^J il^i^Jl ^s'./^'i 
 ^ ^,1 ^l, (4*r (_jf=-l 5::-==^. ^ ^j5 |^'\ -^ <=* t»j5 u- w/ y s^ LS^J* iJ^-' t/
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 171 
 
 excesses recentl}'' perpetrated in Bengal, but, at the 
 same time, he beheved that throughout the country- 
 there existed a general feeling that the claims of the 
 people were not fully considered, nor their wishes 
 always consulted. 
 
 He did not, however, believe that a wave of dis- 
 content or disloyalty was passing over the country, 
 or that there was any genuine or widespread unrest 
 among the people, but he apprehended that if the 
 misunderstanding between Government and people 
 were to continue long unremoved, difficulties might 
 arise in the remote if not near future. He took a 
 lively interest in the Russo-Japanese War, and in his 
 letter of November 1, 1906, he writes to me : " My 
 house is a solitary confinement in holidays, and I 
 regret to say that the first volume of the Eusso- 
 Japanese War which I have been reading is now 
 over." He did not, like some writers, ascribe the 
 new phase of thought to the victories of Japan, but 
 mainly to the growth of education among the people. 
 India has been suddenly drawn into the main current 
 of European thought, and the influence of European 
 civilization has had a pronounced and decisive in- 
 fluence over her. English is universally studied out 
 here, even to the neglect and exclusion of Arabic and 
 Sanskrit. People have suddenly risen from their 
 long slumber, and see before them the dazzling 
 brilliance of European civilization, and the majestic 
 march of democratic ideas. This being the position 
 of affairs, educated Indians, secretly if not openly^ 
 resent the social distinctions and social disabilities 
 which divide them from their rulers. They naturally
 
 172 MY FATHER: 
 
 crave, so he thought, for a share in shaping the 
 policy of the Government, and a fair representation 
 in the higher offices of the State. True, this feehng 
 is yet confined to a narrow and limited class of 
 educated men ; but decade by decade education is 
 fast increasing, and is penetrating larger and larger 
 areas. It was here, more than anywhere else, that 
 my father saw a source of danger alike to the people 
 and the Government. Nevertheless, he hoped that 
 as time went by Government would make greater 
 concessions and allow greater privileges to the people 
 than it is, at present, prepared to concede. 
 
 Keenly alive as he was to the incalculable advan- 
 tages which have flowed from British rule in India — 
 namely, the enlargement of the intellectual outlook, 
 the impetus to trade and commerce, the general and 
 widespread prosperity of the country and the people, 
 a universal sense of security of person and property, 
 the growth of civic life and its necessary concomi- 
 tants, the unmistakable progress towards the recogni- 
 tion of the rights and status of women — with all these 
 cheering and cheerful results which promise still 
 brighter prospects for the future, he was, at the same 
 time, not insensible to the destructive results of 
 European influence. 
 
 Of such results he found the most clear and cogent 
 evidence in two directions : firstly, on the religious, 
 and secondly, on the social systems of the Indians.* 
 
 * I shall here quote from my article on " The Mohamedan 
 Awakening," published in the Empire of November 15 and 22, 
 1906 : " Misconceived ideas of Islam prevented the Mohamedans 
 from applying themselves to the study of English. This pre- 
 judice against it continued for some time after the Mutiny. It was
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEmNISCENCES 173 
 
 Western influence has made a vigorous assault on the 
 rehgions of India, notably on Hinduism. It has 
 shaken the middle-class Hinduism to its deepest 
 foundations. It has unsettled the belief of the par- 
 
 reserved for Sir Syed Ahmed to bring home to the Mohamedans 
 the utter folly of the position they had taken up. He pointed 
 out to them, in season and out of season, the blazing indiscretion 
 which was wrecking their career as a people. He met with 
 opposition, and was cried down as a setter forth of strange 
 things; but he continued to preach, and eventually succeeded 
 in bringing round his people to his own mode of thought. The 
 political life of the Mohamedans could only be saved from ex- 
 tinction, so thought Sir Syed, by participating in, and not dis- 
 cardmg, "Western education and Western culture. To plant his 
 teaching on a permanent and abiding basis, he established the 
 Aligarh College. Here were the two streams of Eastern and 
 Western culture to meet, and unite and broaden into a mighty 
 channel for the general benefit of his people. The result has 
 completely justified his hopes and wishes, and at Aligarh we 
 have the most harmonious blending of European and Eastern 
 education. If Sir Syed was the premier advocate and founder 
 of Muslim education on modern lines, he was also the first in 
 India to remove the crust of superstition and bigotry, with its 
 thousand incidents, which overlaid and disfigured the original 
 simpUcity of Islam. A new life was poured into Islam, and 
 Sir Syed must be regarded and reckoned as one of the apostles 
 of our age. The impulse which he has given to modern educa- 
 tion, and the interpretation which he has put upon Islam and 
 its tenets, have borne a rich harvest. The narrow and straight- 
 laced doctrines of the doctors and divines were scattered to the 
 winds, and a new era set in, the watchword of which was reform 
 in all directions — reform in social life, reform in religion — and 
 advance in matters intellectual. The upward march is always 
 slow, but even the least reflective of observers would scarcely 
 fail to notice that there is an appreciable advance towards 
 progress. Nor are the Mohamedans insensible now of their 
 pohtical position. This, indeed, is only natural. With education 
 come political hopes, ambitions, and aspirations. They have 
 rightly refrained, so far, from adopting methods of pohtical 
 agitation with which of late we have become only too familiar. 
 But that is due mainly to their belief that conciliatory steps 
 and respectful requests are more profitable and effective than 
 clamorous speeches and seditious advocacy. In the interest of
 
 174 MY FATHEK: 
 
 tially educated classes, without substituting anything 
 in its place. Nor has it failed to leaven Islam. To 
 this influence did he ascribe the growing religious 
 scepticism, agnosticism, and even atheism in educated 
 
 both the Government and our Mohamedan fellow-subjects, we 
 hope that this feeling of trust and confidence on the one hand, 
 and help and sympathy on the other, will continue without a 
 break. 
 
 " Notable, indeed, is the spirit in which modern Mohamedan 
 writers have addressed themselves to the task of writing history. 
 We, of course, expect modern treatment of history from Mr. Ameer 
 Ali, who is abreast of modern culture and has had the advantage 
 of an English education, and whose historical works might be 
 favourably compared with works of recognized European his- 
 torians. But the modern spirit, so to speak, is in the air, and is 
 not confined to men who have been to Europe, or have received 
 their training at European or English Universities. We have 
 got, indeed, Mohamedan historians who have never set foot on 
 European soil saturated with the same spirit. This fact^ to be 
 sure, can only be accounted for by the influence of European, 
 or rather English, education, which has been steadily gaining 
 ground here, and which has been affecting all classes and con- 
 ditions of men. In Professor Shibli, who might be called a 
 disciple of Sir Syed, we have the triumph of modern historical 
 method. Though ill-acquainted with English, Professor Shibli 
 is in line with modern historical criticism. He has opened a 
 new vein in Indian historical criticism, and his canons of historical 
 criticism would be accepted without demur or hesitation even 
 by the Eegius Professor of History at Oxford. It scarcely admits 
 of a doubt that the new Indian historical literature is the direct 
 outcome of English influence. Professor Shibli may be regarded 
 as the founder of the historical school in India. He has hghted 
 the torch, and it is he who has handed it on to others — men like 
 Moulvie Chirag Ali and Moulvie Abdur Eazzaq. Moulvie Chirag 
 Ali deserves more than a passing notice. He has written two 
 books of great excellence and great merit — ' A Critical Exposition 
 of the Jehad ' and ' Reforms under Muslim Rule.' In the latter 
 he discusses with much learning and breadth of view the weak 
 points of the Islamic Government, and advocates certain reforms 
 which he considers imperative for the salvation and preservation 
 of Mohamedans as a community. This work exemplifies, indeed, 
 the spirit of compromise, and shows the extent to which it is 
 prepared to go. The burden of the book is to prove to his
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 175 
 
 circles. But he considered it as a mere passing 
 phase, to be followed by the return of an ortho- 
 doxy of a perhaps more reasonable and permanent 
 character. 
 
 Western influence upon the Indian social system 
 appeared to my father of a more durable character. 
 It has completely transformed the domestic life of 
 educated India, and is steadily undermining the basis 
 of Eastern family life. The Eastern family, unlike 
 the Western, includes all the descendants of one 
 common ancestor. Bound by the tie of kinship, in 
 most cases they live together under the tender care 
 
 co-religionists the necessity of moving with the age in which 
 they are Uving. He urges them to consider whether institutions 
 thirteen hundred years old can be accepted in their entirety 
 without change or modification. He points out the enormous 
 changes through which Mohamedans have passed, and advocates 
 that, circumstances havmg changed, they must needs modify, 
 alter, or even do away with institutions which are no longer in 
 harmony with existing conditions and requirements. No sane 
 person will deny the soundness of this proposition, but for our 
 purposes we need only note that such views are clear indications 
 of the changes that have come over the tone and temper of the 
 Mohamedan community. But if the study of history has, under 
 English influence, been placed upon a. modern basis, we cannot 
 fail to trace English influence in the rich crop of novels that 
 have appeared in the Urdu language. True, these novels contain 
 no shrewd criticisms of life, nor do they deal with the various 
 and varying shades of human character. They do not possess 
 cleverness of design nor mastery of finish ; but we should not 
 forget that this art is still in its infancy, and has a future before 
 it. These ire, indeed, infallible signs of a new age which is 
 dawning upon the Mohamedans. It is an age of silent revolu- 
 tion, in which old habits are shaken, old views overthrown, 
 ancient assumptions rudely questioned, and ancient inferences 
 utterly denied. The result is an impatient anxiety to put an 
 end to the slavish devotion of the past, which so far stifled 
 growth, and destroyed that adaptability to changing circum- 
 stances which is the condition precedent of progress and success."
 
 176 MY FATHEE: 
 
 of the head of the family, who is usually its oldest 
 member and is invested with Patria Potestas, short of 
 the power of life or death possessed by the Eoman 
 father. He decides disputes, enforces discipline, and 
 his command has the force of law. He is the sole 
 custodian of the family honour and prestige, and he 
 is the one to whom the members of the family look 
 up for help and guidance. A strong tendency towards 
 decentralization has set in, and it is too glaring to be 
 mistaken or missed. Whether it will lead to results — 
 good or bad — it is, indeed, premature to predict ; but 
 one thing is certain — this most charming feature of 
 Oriental life cannot last long. 
 
 Further, the introduction of the competitive system 
 appeared to him largely responsible for the decline 
 and decay of the old Hindu and Mohamedan aristo- 
 cratic families. While it has brought men of very 
 indifferent birth and position in life to the forefront, 
 and has secured for them high stations in Government 
 employ, it has left the cream and flower of the Indians 
 to wither away unprotected and unprovided for. They 
 find it hopeless successfully to compete in examinations 
 with the Novi Homines ; with the result that they must 
 end their days either as Sub-Inspectors of Police, or, 
 if they are fortunate enough, as Eegistrars in some 
 remote and outlying districts of Behar or Bengal. 
 My father never attached much importance to exami- 
 nations ; nor did he believe that mere book-learning 
 was a safe guarantee for the qualities needed to make 
 either a good judicial or executive officer. It required, 
 he thought, many generations to breed high qualities 
 of the mind or body, and if the Government seriously
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 177 
 
 gave a trial to the scions of old Hindu and Moham- 
 edan families it would find in them men not merely 
 thoroughly competent to discharge their duties, but 
 scrupulously honest, strictly impartial, severely just, 
 and eminently fitted for any duties that might be 
 entrusted to them. He frequently referred, as instances, 
 to the old subordinate judges who, though they wrote 
 judgments in Persian, yet possessed a reraarkal)le 
 insight, and a rare knowledge of law and human life, 
 and whose decisions not even their Lordships of the 
 Privy Council felt inclined to disturb or vary. These 
 men were not crammers, who by sheer dint of memory 
 had passed examinations, but were descendants of the 
 old Hindu and Mohamedan families, and as such 
 commanded and fully justified the respect and con- 
 fidence reposed in them by the public. The admission 
 of such men, in larger numbers, would at once raise 
 the tone of the public service, and impress upon it 
 a character which the sons of weavers, petty trades- 
 men, and the like, could scarcel}' hope to impart to it. 
 Often did my father say: "Where would Sir Salar 
 Jung, Sir Syed Ahmed, and Mohsin-ul-Mulk be if 
 examinations alone were the test of statesmanship or 
 of high judicial and executive qualities?" 
 
 V 
 
 I now pass on to the history of the Bankiporo 
 Oriental Library, which is the greatest achievement 
 of my father's life, and upon which must rest his title 
 to fame and his claims upon the gratitude of the 
 literary world. My grandfather was essentially a man 
 
 12
 
 178 MY FATHEE: 
 
 of letters,* and he spent the greater portion of his 
 income in purchasing manuscripts which, at the time 
 of his death, in 1876, numbered 1,400. ** On his death- 
 bed my father [writes the founder in his article on the 
 Islamic Libraries] entrusted them to me, and asked 
 me to convert his library into a public library for the 
 use of the community whenever I should find myself 
 in a position to do so." My father never forgot this 
 pious trust, and since 1876 his one constant endeavour 
 was to carry it out. By his sketch of my father's life, 
 published in the September number of the Modern 
 Revieic, Professor Jadunath Sircar has forestalled me, 
 and I shall here quote some of the romantic incidents 
 connected with the library which the Professor has 
 so admirably described in his article. " There are 
 
 * My grandfather (1815-1876) was an excellent Persian and 
 Arabic scholar, and his Bayadh, which I hope to publish shortly, 
 shows at once his wide reading and sound judgment. The 
 Bayadh contains selections from Persian poets, and covers the 
 whole range of Persian poetry from the earliest times down to 
 Ghalib, his contemporary. He himself occasionally composed 
 verses, which were mostly religious. His poem on our saint 
 Shaikh Mohiuddin Jilani I place here below : 
 
 j_j3Uli jjici u^u A-ij ^ f! siji si * ^kl fi, J ij'ijj'i Jj i;V i ^^ )^ ^-r^-A 
 
 j_jJbl_S.rf)) 1.^ Jvl.»0 jii j (jtoi lfc ty=^ LSO^' L^^ y*"^ '^Jff^ {„^ iX*>-1 t)i*- <J"»- tt;«»^ 
 IjJUjI fj^ CS-.»15 ) fj]i.a-jS:.^ii ;jii»ii} jj * ^ji^ f\\ rj^ {Jii^i j ^j»^\\ Ijf^ \J^J 
 
 ^\*Awi jift* li-wMtf^tfc y »U iJ^Ij ei * y (_^*j Jul {J'^j'i *«1* /J^ '^fry* *^* 
 
 LS' V wl/ 'i^^ J ^^ S-'^ JiT* W^ "^ * lis*^ /?^*» y ^^ ^ e-' V* cr^ lt!" ^
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 179 
 
 many romances connected with the growth and history 
 of the librarj'. The most precious manuscripts in 
 India were undoubtedly those of the Mogul Library in 
 Delhi. Thither, through the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, came all rare and fine specimens of cali- 
 graphy and illumination in the East. Some were 
 purchased, others were executed by artists retained 
 in the Imperial service, some were secured by con- 
 quest (as of Golconda and Hyderabad in Aurangzib's 
 reign) ; and many by the confiscation of the goods of 
 great nobles on their death. (On the death of Akbar's 
 poet-laureate, Faizi, his 4,300 volumes were added to 
 the Emperor's library.) Thus was formed the largest 
 library in the East at that period, for while Central 
 Asia, Persia, and Arabia were torn by incessant wars, 
 India enjoyed peace under the Moguls. In the 
 eighteenth century many of these found their way 
 to the library of the Nawabs of Oudh. But the Sepoy 
 Mutiny of 1857 brought about the fall of Delhi and 
 Lucknow. The Imperial and Nawabi treasures were 
 dispersed. The Nawab of Rampur (Eohil Khand), 
 who had joined the English, got the best of the loot, 
 as he had proclaimed among the victorious sepoys 
 that he would pay one rupee for every manuscript 
 brought to him. Khuda Bukhsh began his collection 
 much later ; but there was the greatest rivalry between 
 him and the Nawab. At last Khuda Bukhsh won 
 over from the Nawab's side that jewel of a book- 
 hunter, Mohamed Maqi, an Arab, and paid him a 
 regular salary of Rs. 50 a month, besides commission, 
 for eighteen years, and employed him in searching 
 for rare manuscripts (mostly Arabic) in Syria, Arabia,
 
 180 MY FATHER: 
 
 Egypt, and Persia (specially Bayrut and Cairo). It 
 was Khuda Bukhsh's invariable practice to pay double 
 railway fare to every manuscript-seller who visited 
 Banliipur. Thus his fame spread throughout India, 
 and he was given the first choice of every manuscript 
 on sale in any part of the country. Curiously enough, 
 one year the library was broken open by a former 
 bookbinder, and some of the best manuscripts stolen. 
 The thief sent them for sale to a broker or merchant 
 at Lahore, and the latter unsuspectingly offered them 
 to Khuda Bukhsh as the likeliest person to buy them. 
 So in the end the honest man came by his own, and 
 the thief was punished. In another case divine justice 
 was secured by a similar roundabout process. Mr. 
 J. B. Elliot (a great book-collector and donor to the 
 Bodleian) borrowed a unique manuscript of the odes 
 of Kamaluddin Ismail Isfahan! from Mohamed Bukhsh 
 and afterwards refused to return it, offering a large 
 price for it. The owner indignantly declined but held 
 his peace. When Elliot retired he packed his choicest 
 manuscripts in some cases and shipped them to Eng- 
 land, while his worthless books were put in another 
 case and left at Patna to be sold by auction. By the 
 irony of fate or the Will of God, call it what you will, 
 not only the extorted volume of the odes but some 
 other rare manuscripts as well (such as the Majalis- 
 i-Khamsa bearing Shah Jahan's autograph) got into 
 the wrong case, and Mohamed Bukhsh bought them. 
 On reaching England Elliot discovered his mistake, 
 only to fret and fume in vain. One day when Khuda 
 Bukhsh was driving back from the High Court at 
 Hyderabad, his eyes, ever on the lookout for books,
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 181 
 
 discovered a bundle of volumes on a sack of flour in 
 a grocer's shop. He stopped, turned the books over, 
 and asked the price. The owner shrewdly answered : 
 ' To any other man I should have sold these old and 
 rotten papers for Rs. 3. But as your lordship is 
 interested in them they must contain something of 
 value. I want Rs. 20 for them.' A true guess,'' for 
 along with some worthless things the bundle con- 
 tained an old work on Arabic bibliography not to be 
 found elsewhere. Immediately after Khuda Bukhsh's 
 purchase Rs. 400 was offered for it by the Nizam, but 
 in vain." So far Professor Sircar and I vouch for 
 the correctness of these statements. Besides the 
 rare manuscripts with which Mohamed Maqi enriched 
 our library, manuscripts poured in, in torrents, from 
 all parts of India, and my father paid fancy prices 
 for them. As years went by the number of manu- 
 scripts increased, and the idea of building a special 
 house for his library laid hold of my father's mind, 
 somewhere in 1886, and he at once commenced work. 
 In 1888 that magnificent building, " a worthy setting 
 for the jewels they contain," was completed, and the 
 books were then removed from our dwelling-house 
 to^ the building which is now known as the Oriental 
 Library. It was about 1888 that he asked Mr. Camp- 
 bell, the then opium agent of Patna, and a dear friend 
 of my father, to bring the library to the notice of the 
 Government. What the actual results of Mr. Camp- 
 bell's negotiations were I am unable to ascertain, but 
 within a year or so Sir Charles Lyall visited the 
 library. An accomplished Arabic scholar, Sir Charles 
 was charmed with the invaluable treasures that he
 
 182 MY FATHER : 
 
 found there, and since then he has taken a keen and 
 lively interest in the library and its founder. It is 
 impossible for us adequately to convey in words the 
 gratitude which we feel for the many obligations 
 under which that great scholar has laid us, and I am 
 convinced that it was he who first drew the attention 
 of the Bengal Government to the worth and value of 
 the library and induced that Government to become 
 its patron and sponsor. I regret the loss of corre- 
 spondence between my father and the Bengal Govern- 
 ment which preceded the opening ceremony in 1891 
 by the then Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Charles Elliott, 
 when my father's and grandfather's collection of 
 Oriental manuscripts was opened to the public under 
 the name of Khuda Bukhsh's Oriental Public Library. 
 In 1891 the library contained 4,000 manuscripts, but 
 the number has since then increased, and there are 
 now over 5,000 manuscripts, besides the collection of 
 English books amounting to over 2,500. I may here 
 mention that my father had a peculiar weakness for 
 fine binding. He insisted on his books being 
 excellently bound, and the library can boast of rare 
 specimens not only of Oriental but also of European 
 binding. It were idle to try to convey in a few pages any 
 adequate idea of the imperishable treasures which the 
 library possesses, and I shall not embark upon a task 
 which I consider so hopelessly impossible ; but, at the 
 same time, this paper would lose its value if no mention 
 were made of at least some of our literary gems. 
 
 Before I make my own observations I shall here 
 quote from my father's article on the Islamic Libraries, 
 published some years ago, in the Nineteenth Century,
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 183 
 
 and which has become all but unknown : " True it is, 
 indeed, that the Moguls never rose to the same 
 eminence in culture as the Muslims of Baghdad or 
 Cairo or Cordova ; nevertheless, they held themselves 
 up, after their iconoclastic work was done, as the 
 patrons of letters. The descendants of Gengis Khan 
 and grandsons of Tamerlane embraced Islam and 
 encouraged learning. It was under them that Nasir- 
 uddin Tusi, Kutbuddin Shirazi, Saduddin Taftazani, 
 and others flourished. The Mogul dynasty in India 
 likewise extended protection to arts and sciences, and 
 took deep interest in the progress of culture. The 
 Emperor Shahjahan was, indeed, a well-read man and 
 extremely fond of books. The Adil Shahi and Kutub 
 Shahi, Kings of the Deccan, also followed the example 
 of the Mogul princes so far as the encouragement of 
 learning was concerned. In India there existed 
 several well-known libraries, but no traces of these 
 libraries were found after the Mutiny. In those times, 
 of which history has a doleful tale to tell, these 
 libraries were either destroyed or books were taken 
 out of the country. The few that remained in the 
 country were sold at miserably low prices, owing to 
 poverty no less than want of education. Thus, to-day 
 in India, as far as I am aware, there is no library of 
 Oriental books which can stand comparision with the 
 libraries either at Medina or Cairo or Constantinople. 
 I hope I shall not be deemed guilty of want of modesty 
 if I describe the library which I have given to the city 
 of Patna. It is not vanity, but the desire of bringing 
 it to the notice of the Orientalists in Europe, that 
 impels me to mention it in this paper. Though the
 
 184 MY FATHER: 
 
 library is now under the control of the Government of 
 India, and though every possible precaution which 
 wisdom or foresight can dictate is taken to assure its 
 safety and permanence, still the library is incomplete 
 without a printing press. Let us hope that ere long 
 we shall possess a press to multiply the copies of 
 valuable works, and so bring them within the reach of 
 the reading public. The idea of founding a library 
 long floated before the vision of my father. The 
 greater portion of his income he spent in the collec- 
 tion of manuscripts, which numbered 1,400 at the 
 time of his death in July, 1876. On his death-bed he 
 entrusted these manuscripts to me, and asked me to 
 convert his library for the use of the community 
 whenever I should find myself in a position to do so. 
 I inherited to the fullest extent my father's passion for 
 collecting books, and since his death I have been 
 making large additions to it. In 1891 the library was 
 opened to the public. It then contained nearly 4,000 
 manuscripts. The number of manuscripts now is 
 over 5,000. The collection of English books, though 
 not very large, is indeed respectable, including nearly 
 all the most important literary and scientific works. 
 The library, further, possesses select manuscripts 
 which formerly belonged to great Orientalists like 
 De Sacy, Sir Gore Ouseley, and Mr. Blochmann of the 
 Calcutta Madrasah, and many, indeed, are the notes 
 in the handwriting of those men. 
 
 " I have spoken above of the destruction to which 
 libraries in Muslim countries were constantly liable 
 during the periods of political excitement. In addition 
 to oft-recurring internal dissensions, the ravages of
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 185 
 
 the Moguls and the fanaticism of the Christians 
 obliterated countless books. Owing to these mis- 
 fortunes productions of Muslim writers from the 
 second to the seventh century of the Hegira have 
 become exceedingly rare. The Mohamedan books now 
 extant are chiefly the writmgs of the authors who 
 flourished from the middle of the seventh to the end 
 of the eleventh century of the Hegira. I have 
 succeeded in securing some manuscripts of earlier 
 dates which treat of astronomy, surgery, medicine, 
 metaphysics, and mixed mathematics. Many of the 
 manuscripts are written by the most famous scribes, 
 and are exquisitely done. In the first volume of the 
 catalogue which I have published I have dealt at 
 length with these manuscripts. If time and health 
 permit me I shall soon bring out the second volume. 
 I shall mention a few here as I have a limited space 
 at my disposal. The work of Zahravi on surgery is a 
 manuscript which requires particular attention. This 
 copy bears a.h. 584 as the date of execution. In this 
 manuscript the pictures of the surgical mstruments 
 are carefully drawn, and the marvelous similarity 
 which some of the instruments bear to those which 
 are supposed to be of modern invention tempts us to 
 believe that the Muslims of Spain were not entirely 
 unfamiliar with them. There is another old manu- 
 script which it may be worth our while to mention 
 here. It is the work of Dioscorides on medicinal 
 plants, and which was translated by the Arabs during 
 the Caliphate of Harun-ul-Rashid. It is the very 
 manuscript which was once deposited in the charitable 
 dispensary established by Jalaluddin Shir wan Shah in
 
 186 MY FATHEK : 
 
 Shiraz, some 600 years ago. Muslim writers made 
 this book the basis of their future inquiries on 
 medicinal plants, and the library possesses the most 
 important and authoritative works written by Muslims 
 on this subject. Further, this library possesses a 
 very old manuscript of the treatises of Thabit Ibn 
 Kurra and some of the writings of Nasirruddin Farabi 
 and Abdur Eahim Bairuni. I am told by a well- 
 known Orientalist of England that our copy of 
 Nahhas's commentary on the Moallakat is far 
 superior to any that exists in the libraries of Europe.* 
 
 * Here is a letter from Sir Charles Lyall, which will be of 
 some interest to cm: readers. It is dated April 13, 1905 : 
 
 " My dear Moulavi' Saheb, 
 
 " I have to thank you for your letter received by last 
 naail, and your kind inquiries after my health. By God's blessing, 
 I am very well, though, like all of us, growing older. My family 
 has also been spared the trials of illness, and we are able to take 
 part in life with a quiet mind. I am very busy, partly with 
 otficial work relating to the affairs of India, which give me 
 plenty of employment, and partly with the preparation of an 
 edition of the Mufaddaliyat ii}U.aa*il with the commentary of Al 
 Anbari, a task on which I have now been employed for some 
 time. When the work is printed, I shall take care that a copy 
 is provided to the library at Bankipur. You will find some 
 account of it in a paper which appeared in the Journal of the 
 Boyal Asiatic Society in April, 1904. I am returning to the 
 library, duly registered, the very valuable MS. of the commentary 
 of An-Nahhas on the Moallakat, and beg you to accept my 
 hearty thanks for having been allowed to keep it for so long. 
 It is indeed a most valuable MS. — better than any known to me 
 in Europe. I should think, from the character of the writing, 
 that it must date from about the end of the fifth or the beginning 
 of the sixth century Hegira, and it is probably a MS. written in 
 Persia. I have had in my hands for the Mufaddaliyat a MS. 
 dated a.h. 471, which corresponds in a remarkable manner in its 
 style of writing with your MS. of Nahhas, and I think that the 
 two must belong to the same age and country. 
 
 " With all good wishes, 
 
 " I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 "C. J. Lyall."
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 187 
 
 There are, moreover, manuscripts which used to 
 belong to the Emperors of Delhi: for instance, the 
 poetical work of Mirza Kamran, brother of Humayun, 
 written by Mohamed Ishaq Shabi, was with the 
 Emperors of Delhi from Akbar to Mohamed Shah. 
 This manuscript bears the signatures of Jahangir 
 and Shahjahan. There are other books, too, bearing 
 signatures of Shahjahan, AbdurEahim Khan Khanan, 
 Kings of the Adil Shahi, and some of the members 
 of the Kutub Shahi family, which are in the library. 
 
 " Jahangir, in his autobiography, makes mention of 
 a copy of the Zulaikha, which, from the description 
 given by him, I consider to be identical with the one 
 in the library. This book, according to the estimate 
 of Jahangir, was valued at Es. 20,000. 
 
 " Of poetical works the library possesses over 400 
 manuscripts ; some of them are sumptuously illumi- 
 nated and magnificently bound in the Oriental style. 
 The Mohamedan works on religion — namely, the 
 Hadis (tradition), the Fiqh (law), the Usui (juris- 
 prudence), and Tafsir (commentary on the Koran) — 
 are many in number, bearing the signatures of the 
 best authors, such as Subki, Zahabi, Ibn Hajar, and 
 others. The collection of historical works is worthy 
 of notice. History of India, written by various 
 Muslim writers, and also the biographies of the 
 Emperors of the Mogul dynasty, constitute the most 
 important portion of this collection. 
 
 " These are rare books, and unless care is taken for 
 their preservation they are likely to be all but extinct, 
 after the lapse of half a century. The library would, 
 indeed, fulfil its mission if an arrangement is made to
 
 188 MY FATHER : 
 
 edit and publish them. I fondly hope that before 
 long the Government of India will turn its serious 
 attention towards the publication of the important 
 literary and historical works which lie buried in the 
 library. It will only be doing its duty in bringing 
 within the reach of the public books which deserve 
 the attention of every person who is at all interested in 
 the history of the Eastern nations."* 
 
 Eare and charming as are the specimens of eastern 
 painting and Persian penmanship, the value and 
 importance of the library lie in its vast store of works 
 on law and history, philosophy and theology, science 
 and medicine, which are absolutely unique and in 
 most cases unknown to the world of letters. On the 
 life of the prophet, among others, we possess Kitab-ul- 
 Wasila of Mulla and Zad-ul-Ma*ad of Ibn Qayyim, 
 which throw a flood of light on his public and private 
 
 * In acknowledging the receipt of a copy of this article which 
 I sent to Professor Stanley Lane Poole, he writes to me : 
 
 ,, ^ „ "March 25, 1902. 
 
 " Dear Sir, 
 
 " I am very much obhged to you for sending me a copy 
 of your distinguished father's essay on ' Islamic Libraries,' which 
 I read aloud to some friends, and we were all greatly interested. 
 It is full of information, and very much to the point. You have 
 a noble tradition in your family of book-lovers, and your father 
 and grandfather have done a splendid work in founding the 
 library at Patna, of which you sent me the first volume of the 
 judge's Persian Catalogue— full of interest to me. I hope he 
 will get his wish, and see a printing press estabHshed in con- 
 nection with the library. May I ask you to tell me whether 
 H.E. Lord Curzon has been approached on this subject, and 
 whether there is any chance of the Government taking it up ? 
 I hope to say something about it in a London journal, and any- 
 thing I can do in support of your father's public spirited scheme 
 I need not say will be a pleasure. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 " Stanley Lane Poole."
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 189 
 
 life. Connected with the life of the prophet is the 
 history of the Qur'an, and on this subject too we can 
 boast of Kitab Taisir-ul-Bayan fi Takhrij-Ayat-il 
 Qur'an of Mauza'i and Ahkam-ul-Qur'an of Jassas 
 Razi.* Of the historical works among others, our 
 library is the proud possessor of Ibn Hazm's Jamharat- 
 un-Nasab, Zahabi's Duwal-ul-Islamiyya, and a whole 
 mine of odd and interesting information in the unique 
 manuscript called Kitab Eas-mal-in-Nadim. The 
 collection of works on Fiqh is specially noteworthy, 
 but I shall only mention two : Al Mahsul fil-Usul of 
 Fakhruddin Piazi,t andMaratib-ul-Ijma of Ibn Hazm. 
 I have alluded to these books with no other object 
 than this, that the Government may be pleased to 
 consider, for the present at least, the scheme of their 
 publication. These are rare and valuable books, and 
 their publication would be an acquisition to Oriental 
 learning. This list does not, by any means, exhaust 
 the rare curiosities of the Oriental Public Library, and 
 as the catalogue comes out the Orientalists of Europe 
 will undoubtedly discover more and more treasures 
 and feel more and more interest in that depository of 
 learning. 
 
 Permit me now to draw the attention of Orientalists 
 to a few other rare manuscripts of the library. 
 In medicine we have the Kitab-ul-Mushajjar (t_>li^ 
 
 ..s^l), a treatise on medicine in tabular form by 
 Ibn Masawayh, who died a.h. 237 (a.d, 857) at 
 Saraarra; * Kitab-ul-Tasrif (,.^ isf- ,.,J i_cj ^\ c->l::^ 
 
 * Brockelmann, vol. i., p. 191. t Ibid., vol. i., p. 506. 
 
 I Brockelmann (Arab. Litt., vol. i., p. 232) does not mention 
 this in the list of Ibn Masawayh's works.
 
 190 MY FATHEE: 
 
 t^Jl.!^), which is a complete copy of Albucasis's 
 great work. The portion deahng with the practice 
 of medicine is in Maghribi character ; that which 
 treats of surgical practice is in an Old Arabian 
 hand ; a.d. 584 is the date of transcription. The 
 illustrations of surgical instruments are splendidly 
 drawn and beautifully coloured.* Then we have the 
 Talwih-ut-Tib (e^^^ ^^ii) of Al Khujandi, a very 
 rare manuscript dealing with the system of medicine 
 current among the Arabs ; t and Kitab-ul-Hasha'ish 
 (,jijlA.sM L^\'^). Dioscorides' Materia Medica was, 
 for the first time, translated by Stephen, the son of 
 Basil, whose translation was revised by Hunayn Ibn 
 Ishaq. It was further revised and improved upon 
 by Natili Husain b. Ibrahim b. Husain An-Natili. 
 Our copy is the last revised and improved version. It 
 is a very rare and old copy, with coloured drawings of 
 plants and animals. 
 
 Specially interesting and noteworthy is our collection 
 of biographical works. Among others we have the 
 Kitab - ul - Mu'talif - wal - Mukhtalif (^JjJ^ i-j^-^ 
 t— ai^J-sr^lj) of Ali b. Omar ad-DarqutniJ containing 
 the lives of the Companions of the Prophet and the 
 Traditionists generally. It is a very old and rare 
 copy. Then we have the Tabaqat-ul-Hanabilah (a 
 very rare copy) of Mohamed b. Husain Abu Ya'la§ and 
 As-Suhub ul-Wabilah of Mohammed Abdullah An- 
 Najdi, a modern writer. The latter is a continuation 
 
 * Brockelmann, vol. i., p. 239. f Ibid., vol. i., p. 458. 
 
 X Ibid., vol. i., p. 165. § Ibid., vol. i., p. 398.
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 191 
 
 of Ibn-Eajab's biography of the Hanbahtes and 
 covers almost six centuries (a.h. 748-1295). 
 
 Besides the historical works that I have already 
 mentioned I shall here notice the Kitab-ut-Tawarikh 
 of Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Abi'd-Dam. It is a history of 
 Islam from the time of Mohammed down to the 
 Ayyubide Sultan Muzaffur (a.h. 1-628).* I must not 
 omit to refer to the unique copy of Abu Ali al-Farisi's 
 Kitab ul-Hujjah which our library possesses. Neither 
 Ibn Khallikan f nor Brockelmann I mentions this book 
 in their list of Abu All's works. The only reference 
 that I have been able to find to this book is in the Al- 
 mubtasab fi arab-ush-Shawaz (Bankipore manuscript) 
 of Abu All's devoted disciple Ibn Jinni.§ The Kitab- 
 ul-Hujjah treats of Qiraat or the seven early readings 
 of the Qur'au. Equally valuable is our collection of 
 commentaries on the Qur'an. Among others we have 
 Tafsir Bahr ul-Haqa'iq of Najmuddin Abdullah Dayah. 
 It is a commentary according to the Sufi principles, 
 and is absolutely unknown. No other library seems 
 to possess a copy of it. Then we have the Tafsir 
 Haqa'iq ul-Qur'an of Mohamed b. Husain as Salami. || 
 It is dated a.h. 823. This list might be indefinitely 
 multiplied, but I trust I have said enough to convey 
 to the reader the importance of the Bankipur 
 Library. 
 
 In 1893 Sir Antony (now Lord) Macdonell visited 
 
 * Brockelmann, vol. i., p. 346. 
 t Ibn KJiallikan, vol. i., p. 39. 
 
 I Brockelmann, vol. i., p. 113. 
 
 § Dr. Probster's introduction to Ibn Jinni's lOtab ul-Mugtaaab, 
 p. viii. 
 
 II Brockelmann, vol. i., p. 200.
 
 192 MY FATHER: 
 
 the library, and on August 11, 1893, he wrote to my 
 father : 
 
 " Belvedere, 
 
 " Calcutta, 
 
 ''August 11, 1893. 
 " Dear Moulvie, 
 
 " I must write you a line of thanks for the great 
 treat that you gave me in going through with me the 
 Oriental Library which, with rare public spirit, you 
 have presented to Patna. I had not expected to see 
 anything so fine. The collection of English literature 
 is very good and made with excellent judgment, but 
 the feature of the library is the magnificent collection 
 of Oriental manuscripts which it contains. I have 
 seen nothing like it out of Europe, and it bears 
 lasting testimony to your reverence for the great 
 teachers of Islam and to your love of the lighter 
 products of Eastern genius. I assure you that I 
 spent a delightful hour with you among these im- 
 perishable treasures. I shall direct that a copy of 
 important literary works published by the Bengal 
 Government shall be presented, as they appear, to 
 your library. 
 
 "I remain, dear Moulvie, 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "A. P. Macdonell." 
 
 In 1903 one of India's greatest Viceroys honoured 
 the library with his visit, and his remarks, which 
 I place below, are worthy of all attention : 
 
 '* While at Patna I inspected with great pleasure 
 the library which the liberality of Khuda Bukhsh has
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 193 
 
 presented to the public, and I was shown many of the 
 rare and valuable treasures which it contains. I 
 discussed with the generous donor the means by which 
 the collection may be preserved from risk of fire or 
 any other danger, and by which its advantages may be 
 made even more accessible than they now are to the 
 reader and student. I hope that steps may be taken 
 in both of these directions. 
 
 "CUKZON." 
 ^^Jcmuary, 1903." 
 
 Lord Curzon's attention to the library was drawn 
 by my friend, Dr. Denison Eoss, of the Calcutta 
 Madrassah, and I would add that had it not been for 
 Sir Charles Lyall and Dr. Eoss, that valuable store- 
 house of Oriental learning would have remained 
 unnoticed and unknown. The present writer has 
 enjoyed the friendship of the Prmcipal of the Calcutta 
 Madrassah ever since his arrival in this country, and, 
 as was expected of him, he was irresistibly drawn to 
 my father's library, where he found more than he 
 had hoped to see and find. He aroused the interest 
 of Lord Curzon in the library ; and, as I have 
 stated before, that great scholar, antiquarian, and, 
 last but not least, statesman, visited the library in 
 1003. 
 
 The sanction for the construction of the reading- 
 hall, and the preparation of the descriptive catalogue, 
 under the supervision of Dr. Denison Eoss, were the 
 direct outcome of the Viceroy's visit. I would be 
 guilty of the unpardonable sin of ingratitude were I 
 to fail to mention the name of the Honourable Mr, 
 
 18
 
 194 MY FATHEK : 
 
 J. G. Gumming, the then District Magistrate of Patna 
 (now the Judicial Secretary). To him the library is 
 most deeply beholden. An accomplished scholar, a 
 graceful writer (as his report on the Industries of 
 Bengal abundantly shows), a distinguished officer, a 
 man of liberal and catholic principles, Mr. Gumming 
 has always taken the keenest interest in the library. 
 It was during his time that the reading-hall was 
 built, the lands adjoining the library were acquired, 
 and the scheme of making a garden matured. But 
 owing to Mr. Gumming's departure from Patna, this 
 has been left unfinished. It was my father's dearest 
 wish that the reading-hall should be called after 
 Mr. Gumming ; in other words, it should be named 
 the "Gumming Hall," and the Library Gommittee 
 would only be carrying out his cherished desire were 
 they so to name it. 
 
 The reading-hall is built, and the catalogue of the 
 library — thanks to Dr. Boss and my esteemed friend, 
 Mr. J. A. Ghapman — is in a fair way to completion. 
 The first volume of the catalogue, which deals with 
 Persian poetry from Firdausi to Hafiz, has just been 
 published, and it does credit to Dr. Boss, Mr. Ghap- 
 man, and the compiler, Moulvi Muqtadir, It displays 
 an amount of research and erudition which is, indeed, 
 rare in the East, and Dr. Denison Boss may well be 
 congratulated on the success achieved by his pupil, 
 Moulvi Muqtadir. Among the remarkable works 
 noticed in this volume. Dr. Boss mentions : 
 
 1. A splendid copy of the Shah Namah (No. 1), 
 which Ali Mardan Khan presented to the Emperor 
 Shahjahan.
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 195 
 
 2. A copy of the Euba'is (No. 56) of Saifuddin 
 Bakharzi, of which no other copy is known.* 
 
 3. A splendid copy of the Haftband of Kashi, 
 notable for its superb caligraphy (No. 114). 
 
 4. A very old copy of the lyrical poems of Salman 
 Sawah, written thirty-three years after the poet's 
 death (No. 147). 
 
 5. A unique copy of the Divan of Ruknuddin Sa'in 
 (No. 149). 
 
 6. A very valuable and interesting copy of the 
 Divan of Hafiz, from which the Emperors Humayun 
 and Jahangir took omens, and on which they made 
 notes with their own hands (No. 157).t 
 
 * I have edited the Euba'is in vol. Us. (1905) of the Z. D. M. G., 
 pp. 3-15-354. 
 
 f Here is a letter of Sir Charles Lyall, which cannot be 
 without interest to the reader : 
 
 "82, Cornwall Gardens, S.W., 
 "November 22, 1906. 
 " Dear Maulvi Saheb, 
 
 " I was much pleased to get your letter of the 1st inst., 
 though very sorry to hear that you were not well. I also am 
 getting old — in my sixty-second year, and shall begin my sixty - 
 third in March next. 
 
 " The MS. of Hahz which you describe in it must indeed be 
 most interesting, and I congi-atulatc you heartily on acquiring 
 it for your library. I know the custom to which you allude of 
 taking omens from the Divan of Hafiz. I hope you will be 
 80 kind as to let me have a copy of the commentary on iJi ^ j 
 which you mention, when it is printed at Hyderabad. I dare 
 say the Kasidah is the one beginning 
 
 " I know this poem very well, and have copied and translated 
 it ; but it is a difficult piece, and I should be very glad to have a 
 good commentary. There is a MS. from India of Dhur-Kummah's 
 Divan in the India Office Library, but the text teems with stupid
 
 196 MY FATHEK: 
 
 This extremely valuable manuscript was presented 
 to the library by Subhanullah Khan, of Gorukpur, 
 and bears marginal notes in the handwriting of the 
 Emperors Humayun and Jahangir, who, after con- 
 sulting the odes (according to the popular belief of 
 the Mohamedans they reveal the hidden secrets of 
 fate like an oracle), made notes on the margin, 
 which explain in most cases the particular reasons 
 for consulting the odes, and the results that followed 
 after consulting them. There is an autograph note 
 on a fly-leaf at the end by Sultan Husayan Bayaqra. 
 True, the catalogue is now in the course of publica- 
 tion, but though Lord Curzon, in 1903, wrote that 
 " he discussed with the donor the means by which its 
 advantages may be made even more accessible than 
 they now are to the scholar and student," more than 
 five years have rolled away, and nothing has yet been 
 done to bring nearer home the valued treasures of 
 the library. The present writer, moreover, appre- 
 hends that nothing can be done unless the Government 
 seriously addresses itself to the task of making some 
 satisfactory arrangements for the publication of rare 
 and useful manuscripts. Nor is this an unreasonable 
 demand for us to make. The British Government 
 
 mistakes. There is another in the British Museum, two at 
 Leyden, and one in Egypt. A good critical edition of the poet 
 is very much wanted. It would be a work of some difficulty, 
 requiring a good knowledge of the old poetry whence Dhur- 
 Eummah drew his models. I am getting on with the ci>U«a4l 
 but the work progresses slowly, as I am very busy with other 
 
 things. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "C. J. Lyall,"
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 197 
 
 has even more Mohamedan subjects than the Sultan 
 of Turkey, and if the French Government, with only 
 Algeria as its possession, can spend money for the 
 publication of Oriental texts and their translation, 
 might we not ask the Government of Bengal to follow 
 the example of France in this direction? Let the 
 Government first satisfy itself about the value and 
 importance of the books I have suggested for publica- 
 tion, by appointing a committee or otherwise as it 
 thinks fit, and when once assured of their value and 
 importance, let the books be printed. A library, such 
 as the Bankipore Library, can only be a useful in- 
 stitution if the public employ it as such. The Patna 
 society is still too intellectually backward to appre- 
 ciate its value, or to make use of its treasures. But 
 such is not the case with the educated public outside 
 Patna, who can neither afford time nor find oppor- 
 tunity to visit the library. For such persons, both 
 here and in Europe, the publication of useful works 
 in the Bankipore Library would be of incalculable 
 advantage. It would be a solid acquisition to the 
 domain of Oriental learning, which is almost djdng 
 out of India. Though India has produced some 
 eminent Arabic scholars, who would have held their 
 own with the choicest products of Al-Azhar, none 
 perhaps would deny the fact that very narrow and 
 circumscribed is the range of studies known to the 
 average student of Oriental languages in India. This 
 is due to two causes : to poverty first, and, secondly, 
 to scarcity of books. European publications of 
 Oriental texts are too costly to be within the reach 
 of ordinary students, and the result is a very
 
 198 MY FATHEE: 
 
 superficial scholarship. If the Government, however, 
 could see its way to establishing a printing press at 
 Bankipore or elsewhere for the publication of Arabic 
 and Persian books, under the supervision of a com- 
 petent staff, it would do a lasting service to Oriental 
 learning, which, the present writer apprehends, will 
 otherwise either completely disappear from India, or, 
 in course of time, be reduced to a mere mockery. 
 Even on political grounds, the Government should 
 seriously consider this proposal. So far the Moham- 
 edans, as a body, have kept aloof from polities, 
 and this, the present writer is inclined to believe, is 
 mainly owing to the want of English education among 
 them. Ignorance, prejudice, call it what you will, 
 has hitherto kept the Mohamedans back, as a class, 
 from the study of English, which they, rightly or 
 wrongly, believe to be destructive of their religious 
 beliefs. But, decade by decade, sheer necessity and 
 instincts of self-preservation are opening their eyes 
 to the indispensability of English education, without 
 which they cannot hope for any rise or prospect in 
 life. Arabic and Persian learning, however tempting, 
 is steadily declining, inasmuch as it offers no pros- 
 pect; this chiefly because Oriental learning here in 
 India is so sadly deficient and so seriously imperfect. 
 It neither makes men finished scholars nor useful 
 members of society, nor does it put them in a position 
 to earn their livelihood in any respectable or lucrative 
 walk of life. It merely turns out a band of unreason- 
 able fanatics, who rove about the country preaching 
 the worst gospels of fanaticism and intolerance. The 
 result, naturally, is that the so-called Oriental scholars
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 199 
 
 have entirely ceased to command the respect of the 
 educated public. They are discredited and distrusted, 
 and are looked upon as fit only for either teaching in 
 village schools, or serving as registrars of births and 
 marriages. The condition of Oriental learning im- 
 peratively demands the immediate attention of the 
 Government. It must be made sufficiently scholarly 
 and attractive to draw students to it, and this can 
 only be done by placing it on a far wider basis than 
 that on which it now rests. 
 
 Nothing is more desirable than to keep the Orientals 
 Orientals. Western learning is, indeed, a desidera- 
 tum, but not at the sacrifice of Eastern culture. The 
 thin veneer of European civilization can scarcely 
 regenerate the Indians. It will only tend to produce 
 a class of people who are neither one thing nor 
 another, and who will unite in themselves the vices 
 of the two wholly opposed civilizations without the 
 redeeming virtues of either. Mohamedans should be 
 encouraged in the study of their own language and 
 literature, and that result can only be achieved by 
 making those studies profitable and attractive. 
 Surely it is not an extravagant request to ask the 
 Government to consider the question of establishing 
 a professorship of Arabic and Persian at Bankipore, 
 where the students might receive direction in regard 
 to their studies and learn to carry on Oriental re- 
 searches upon European principles under the profes- 
 sor's control and supervision. Perhaps it will be 
 urged as an objection to my proposal, that even if the 
 Government were prepared to appoint a professor — 
 where are the students ? But there will be no scarcity
 
 200 MY FATHEE : 
 
 of students if Oriental learning receive patronage from 
 the Government. 
 
 It is strange, nay, deplorable, that while Indian 
 students are thoroughly conversant with the history 
 of the American War of Independence and the 
 thrilling stories of the French Eevolution, they know 
 nothing, or next to nothing, about their own history 
 and its abiding lessons. Could we not have Bankipore, 
 with its magnificent library, as a centre of Oriental 
 learning, for at least the province of Behar ? 
 
 VI 
 
 In this short sketch I have given nothing but the 
 merest outline of my father's life. Nor was it possible 
 to do more in the space at my disposal. It would 
 require almost a volume to deal fully and exhaustively 
 with the history of a career which was alike instructive 
 in lessons and fruitful in results. The period covered 
 by the lives of my father and grandfather — almost a 
 century — has been the most significant and the most 
 important in the literary history of the Muslims of 
 India, and the biographer has not merely to recount the 
 events of Khuda Bukhsh's life, but to discuss them in 
 their relations to the literary and intellectual activity 
 of his co-religionists ; to compare, to contrast and to 
 illustrate the conditions and circumstances as they 
 stood before the Mutiny with the conditions and cir- 
 cumstances as they stand now. A whole generation of 
 Indians has passed away, and with them the old order 
 of things, yielding place to new. It was directly under 
 my grandfather that my father was brought up and
 
 HIS LIFE AND REMINISCENCES 201 
 
 it was under his training that he learnt those lessons 
 of self-knowledge, accuracy of mind, and habits of 
 strong intellectual exertion which throughout his life 
 stood him in good stead and which made him what he 
 became. Nor did the society of a select and dis- 
 tinguished band of Indians, such as Nawab Syed Feda 
 Hassan Khan,* Syed Azmuddin Hassan Khan, C.S.I., 
 Syed Zainuddin Hassan Khan,t and Moulvi Syed 
 Wahiduddin,t with whom he had the privilege of free 
 social intercourse, fail to produce great and, indeed, 
 abiding influence on his habits and character. Even- 
 ing after evening, after the day's work was done, did 
 my father, still young in years, enjoy the benefit of 
 their society. They were the old class of Indians who, 
 unaftected by the modern spirit of materialism, with 
 its concomitant vices of ambition, jealousy, and self- 
 seeking, never acted but in accordance with the 
 dictates of honour and humility, of ardent public 
 spirit and lofty public virtue. Such a conclave of pure 
 and disinterested and virtuous men, who would orna- 
 ment any society, were the guardians and guides of my 
 father in his early youth. 
 
 Ever since his enrolment at the Patna Bar public 
 life divided his thoughts with literature, and when 
 in later years the world loaded him with its envied 
 prizes, he never ceased to mention that those privi- 
 leges were the fruit, not of favour or inheritance, but 
 of personal industry and ability. 
 
 He stood at the confines of the fast-retreating old 
 
 * Afterwards Chief Justice of Nizam's High Court. 
 
 •j" Father of Syed Husain Bilgrami, of India Council. 
 
 j. Father of Shamsul Ulama Syed Imdad Imam, of Patna.
 
 202 MY FATHER: 
 
 world and the incoming new world of ours, and as 
 such his life is of special interest and value. I greatly 
 deplore the loss of the autobiography which he com- 
 menced to write shortly before his death. Though 
 only fragmentary — death prevented him from com- 
 pleting it — it was yet a store of information which 
 the world would not have willingly allowed to perish. 
 I am therefore left to my own recollections of that 
 lost treasure, but I do not propose, at the end of my 
 paper, to draw upon my memory and thereby exhaust 
 the patience, and perhaps the indulgence, of my 
 reader. I reserve my information for a fuller and a 
 more complete life which I hope before long to publish. 
 
 I have not discussed his work as Chief Justice of 
 Hyderabad, Deccan, nor have I dealt with him as a 
 poet. Four stout volumes of odes, elegies, and kasidas 
 he has left behind him, composed at intervals during 
 the last five years of his life ; and these, indeed, 
 lead me to believe that his rank in the profession, and 
 his position in public life, would not have been ill- 
 exchanged for a place in the world of letters. Situated 
 as he was, the distractions of the profession allowed 
 him but little leisure for the peaceful pursuit of pacific 
 culture ; but though not voluminous, his writings are 
 enough to secure for him a niche in the temple of 
 fame. 
 
 A powerful mind in ruins is the most heart-breaking 
 thing which it is possible to conceive, and such, indeed, 
 was the case with him during the last two years. 
 These were the years of trouble, of sorrow, even of 
 gloom, due chiefly to his self-imposed poverty. " Fail- 
 ing health, failing eyesight, the sense of being helpless
 
 HIS LIFE AND EEMINISCENCES 203 
 
 and useless after an active and beneficent career ; the 
 consciousness of dependence upon others at an age 
 when the moral disadvantages of poverty are felt even 
 more keenly than youth feels its material discomforts — 
 such were the clouds that darkened the close of a life 
 which had never been without its trials." 
 
 When, at last, the end came, he passed from this 
 vale of tears as peacefully as he had lived in it, nobly 
 and gloriously ; illustrating the well-worn principle, 
 strong with the strength and immortal with the 
 immortality of truth, that to the just and the God- 
 fearing death inspires neither terror nor the grave the 
 uncertainty that lies beyond it. 
 
 One word and I have done. To the long list of 
 distinctions which the late founder of the Oriental 
 Public Library achieved in his illustrious career, there 
 was added, on Monday, August 3, 1908, the crowning 
 honour, namely, of burial within the library premises. 
 There, amid all the associations which the library 
 enshrines ; there, under the shadow of that literary 
 pantheon, in the exalted companionship of the great 
 writers of Islam, he rests at the end of his life's 
 voyage. A more fitting or a more worthy place could 
 not have been selected for him. 
 
 
 ^-j^ ^y^ ^^^ c:,^^ <^
 
 VI 
 HINDUSTANI LITERATUKE 
 
 SOME SUGGESTIONS 
 
 The zeal for making a nation's great instrument of 
 thought — its language — correct and worthy is un- 
 doubtedly a sign full of promise, a weighty earnest 
 of future power. Thus wrote Matthew Arnold in 
 his charming essay on the "Literary Influence of 
 Academies." For nearly forty years, owing to a 
 variety of causes, little or no attention has been paid 
 by the Mohamedan community to the cultivation or 
 encouragement of Urdu literature. It cannot be 
 suggested, however, that throughout this period 
 Hindustani literature has lain absolutely fallow or 
 entirely neglected. The only thing that we do suggest 
 is that its growth has been slow and fitful and not as 
 it should have been, regard being had to its position 
 and importance in India. We can mention great 
 names that have arisen and great works that have 
 been written during this period ; but there has been 
 a marked absence of a conscious, deliberate effort on 
 the part of the Mohamedan community, to improve, 
 to extend, to enrich their literature ; there has been 
 a marked absence of that pride which every nation 
 
 204
 
 HINDUSTANI LITEEATURE 205 
 
 "worthy of that title feels in its own national literature, 
 and which carries it onward in the path of glory and 
 renown. This has been owing, as we have intimated, 
 to a variety of causes, the foremost of them being the 
 astonishing growth of English education, for reasons 
 other than mere love of learning or acquisition of know- 
 ledge. Our own language was assigned a secondary, 
 almost an unimportant, place in the curriculum of 
 studies. And the natural result was its steady decline, 
 leading, slowly but surely, to its wilful neglect. I 
 cannot speak with confidence of the United Provinces 
 or other parts of India, but of this I am positive, that 
 not one Mohamedan out of a hundred, in Bengal 
 or Behar, can write or speak his language with any 
 degree of accuracy, much less with ease and elegance. 
 This is a mournful and distressing truth. On the 
 contrary, I have known graduates of the Calcutta 
 University — Mohamedan graduates — who looked upon 
 their own language and literature with silent scorn 
 or thinly disguised irony. And this not because Urdu 
 literature is really a heap of nonsense, unworthy 
 of the consideration of graduates of the Calcutta 
 University, but simply because they have never taken 
 the trouble to study it. They have formed their judg- 
 ment and founded their conclusion upon the study of 
 low-class Urdu journals, or, perhaps, works of ill- 
 educated writers who court fame, or rather notoriety, 
 by the publication of a very inferior order of poetry. 
 But whatever may be the grounds for such opinion, 
 not the worst detractors of our literature can charge 
 it either with poverty of thought or a want of dignity 
 of expression. The permanent elements of good
 
 206 HINDUSTANI LITERATUEE 
 
 literature — width of thought, flawless beauty, and 
 exquisite dignity of expression, an unfettered out- 
 look, a catholic sympathy, a deep insight into man 
 and his character, measure, sobriety, effectiveness — 
 all these are to be found in Urdu literature and in 
 sufficient richness, alike in our prose and in our 
 poetry. To charge Hindustani literature with a dearth 
 and poverty of noble thoughts, enshrined in noble 
 diction, is the most flagitious ignorance. In it the 
 Mohamedan intellect of India has reached its highest 
 fruition, its grandest height. Sawda and Mir Taqi, 
 Mir Hassan and Mir Soz, Atash and Nasikh, Zauq 
 and Ghalib will stand comparison with the greatest 
 poets of any age or any nation. In their works we 
 cannot fail to recognize the sublimest heights of poetic 
 imagination, the most placid, imperturbable philosophy 
 of life, the struggle of high souls with the uglier 
 realities of life, the laughter and tears of humanity, 
 the power of soothing and healing afflicted hearts. 
 They make us see and feel and know what life is. 
 They lift us from our dead selves to higher things : 
 the true province, the essential duty of a poet. But 
 have we now got anyone to compare with them ? 
 Has the spring of the Mohamedan intellect passed 
 and gone, gone irrevocably, irredeemably ? Is Urdu 
 literature now doomed to sterility ? I cannot take 
 such a pessimistic view of things. It was only in 1869 
 that one of the greatest of our poets and prose writers 
 — Ghalib — was laid to rest. Not fifty years have yet 
 elapsed since he ceased to sing those eternal notes 
 of sadness of which his own life was an illustration 
 and a commentary. I decline to believe that within
 
 HINDUSTANI LITEEATUEE 207 
 
 this period the Mohamedan intellect has completely 
 withered away. No ! Urdu literature has yet before 
 it a wondrous career of advance and expansion. Nor 
 are there even now men wanting, men possessing 
 unrivalled powers of intellect and imagination ; but 
 circumstances, which enmesh and enervate the human 
 will and paralyze the human intellect, have either 
 crushed or stifled the great gifts with which Nature 
 has endowed them. The ceaseless struggle for exist- 
 ence, the growing poverty of our community, the 
 necessity of earning a decent livelihood, the want of 
 court patronage, the absence of sympathy on the part 
 of the rich and wealthy for letters and men of letters — 
 all these have, in a large measure, contributed to the 
 extinction of a class of men who pursued literature 
 as a profession, or who sought learning and literature 
 as an avenue to fame and distinction. Nobody has 
 felt this more deeply, more keenly, more bitterly than 
 the present writer, but in a true lover of letters these 
 very disadvantages would rather tend to stimulate than 
 to extinguish that supreme overmastering passion for 
 the acquisition of human knowledge. Whatever has 
 been done towards the growth of our literature for 
 the last forty years has been done by such men, and 
 we only hope and trust that their number, as time 
 goes by, will increase rather than decrease. No 
 people without a literature can ever thrive ; and 
 this is a fact which we cannot too clearly and forcibly 
 impress upon our co-religionists. Sir Syed Ahmed — 
 that gifted statesman — very correctly appreciated the 
 importance of a true, genuine, popular literature, and 
 it was to this end that in 1870 he established the
 
 208 HINDUSTANI LITERATUEE 
 
 Tahzihul Akhlaq (The Social Reformer), "the pro- 
 fessed object of which was to display most effectively 
 the resources of the Urdu language as a means of 
 expressing modern ideas." 
 
 It is one of the most healthy and promising signs 
 of the times that this necessity for a national literature 
 is now being felt more and more deeply and more 
 and more widely. In the September number of the 
 Salai Am my esteemed friend, Mir Nasir Ali Khan 
 Bahadur, its distinguished editor, has invited the 
 opinion of his co-religionists as to the question of 
 forming a society for the cultivation and promotion 
 of Hindustani literature. In this proposal he has the 
 warmest support and the most enthusiastic approba- 
 tion of every Mohamedan — nay, of every Indian — 
 interested in the future of Urdu literature. There 
 is no doubt that a society, consisting of men of talents, 
 of eminence, of acknowledged reputation, would be a 
 society at once weighty in influence and fruitful in 
 consequence. The grand aim of this proposed society, 
 as I conceive it, is to set up as a recognized authority, 
 imposing on us a high standard in matters of intellect 
 and taste. It is not necessary to enter into the details 
 of the constitution of the society, but we might here 
 pause and consider the best means of attaining our 
 purpose and of using that purpose to good account. 
 Its centre must, of necessity, be Delhi, the seat of 
 the Moghul Emperors, the home and hearth of purest 
 and chastest Hindustani. No other place can be 
 what Delhi is. Even in its ruins it stands, among 
 the Indian cities, unique and unrivalled. Where else 
 can we have a town, round which so thickly cluster
 
 HINDUSTANI LITERATURE 209 
 
 the traditions of ages ? Where else can we have a place 
 (Lucknow excepted) associated with the memory and 
 lives of so many great men ?— and it is this precisely 
 which confers on it its own special, ineffable charm. 
 It is Delhi, therefore, which was, and which must 
 ever remain, the reigning queen of our language, 
 and this queen must we now ask to establish for us 
 " the High Court of letters " which would lay down 
 authoritative rules of language, decide all questions 
 of style, pronounce judgments on matters relating to 
 literary taste ; in fine, set up the standard of literary 
 excellence. 
 
 I am deliberately of opinion, therefore, that Delhi, 
 and Delhi alone, should be the seat and centre of 
 this society; but its members must be limited, and 
 the qualifications for its membership severely and 
 rigorously fixed. Its gates should be shut against 
 no one, if he has the necessary qualifications. Against 
 admission to it neither race nor religion should be a 
 barrier. It must be a veritable republic of letters. 
 Or else there is the danger— a fatal danger— of the 
 society degenerating into a narrow, sectarian oligarchy 
 which an intellectual body must never be. Insularity 
 and aloofness, factiousness and cliquishness are apt 
 to destroy flexibility, adaptability, openness and clear- 
 ness of mind. Its duty should be twofold— a duty 
 which the society would discharge through the medium 
 of its recognized organ. It should do original work, 
 and, secondly, it should bring nearer home to the 
 Indians, by means of authorized translations, the 
 works of great Western writers. We cannot afford 
 to cast aside the gifts of European civilization. Nor 
 
 11
 
 210 HINDUSTANI LITEIUTUBE 
 
 can we pass over, in disdainful silence, great contri- 
 butions to learning made by Europe. Thus, and thus 
 alone, shall we annex a large tract of knowledge to 
 our language. We shall improve our prose, we shall 
 enrich our thoughts, we shall pave the way for original 
 work so sorely needed, and in which our literature has 
 hitherto been so singularly and so conspicuously poor 
 and deficient. 
 
 I use the word "original" in opposition to work 
 which is imitative or which is mere adaptation or 
 translation of already existing work. By original 
 work I mean literary criticisms, historical researches, 
 any work of art or fiction which owes its conception 
 and execution to the genius of the author, and the 
 author alone. To achieve anything great requires 
 years of apprenticeship ; to train and educate national 
 taste needs centuries of direction, guidance, wholesome 
 restraint, and eftective control. 
 
 But wholesome restraint and effective control can 
 only be exercised by a body of men who command 
 the public confidence and who, by their past services 
 to letters, are in a position to assume the role of dic- 
 tators. It is for this reason, and for no other, that 
 its membership should be open to none but acknow- 
 ledged masters ; men of accepted and acclaimed renown. 
 For instance, who would dare question the verdict of 
 a literary tribunal composed of men like Hali, Shibli, 
 Nazir Ahmed, Syed Ali Bilgrami, and others of their 
 intellectual stature? To be a real, effective body, 
 pledged to serious work, it must, on no account, 
 be unwieldy. In our society it is not number that 
 we should aim at, but rather efficiency, earnestness,
 
 HINDUSTANI LITERATURE 211 
 
 and zeal. To keep it active and up to its high level, 
 it would be desirable to publish its proceedings, to 
 hold annual conferences where all the members could 
 meet and submit the year's work for the consideration 
 and criticism of their fellow-members. Its sphere of 
 work should be eminently practical. It should edit 
 and publish under its authority works of our classical 
 writers ; translate into Hindustani valuable books 
 written by European authors, suggest subjects for the 
 study of those who interest themselves in our language 
 and literature, encourage, by example and precept, 
 critical studies and critical essays ; and last, but not 
 least, revive the forgotten study of the Arabic and 
 Persian languages. 
 
 The achievements of the Nadwat ul-Ulama are, 
 indeed, highly encouraging, and I am sure that a 
 society, formed on the lines indicated, would soon 
 become a powerful engine of reform and culture, 
 carrying sweetness and light to the remotest corner 
 of India. I rejoice that a distinguished friend has 
 seriously taken up this matter, and I feel certain that 
 he will carry it through with his characteristic energy 
 and enthusiasm. In an incredibly short time Mir 
 Nasir Ali Khan has succeeded in securing for his 
 journal, the Salai Am, a position and a status second 
 to none among the journals of modern India. Its 
 articles are sound and scholarly, luminous and illu- 
 minating. They are free from the defects — the 
 besetting sin of Oriental writers — of over-heavy rich- 
 ness and overwrought finery of style. They are, on 
 the other hand, perfect models of simple, flowing, 
 chaste, and vigorous Urdu. Mir Nasir Ali Khan's
 
 212 HINDUSTANI LITERATURE 
 
 efforts, in the direction of improving the Urdu language, 
 constitute an era, a landmark in the literary history of 
 the Indian Mohamedans. He is laying, slowly and 
 silently, the foundation of a splendid modern literature, 
 now in the process of making. This, like many other 
 movements which are stirring India to its depths, is 
 a sign full of hope and promise. With the help and 
 co-operation of his countrymen my friend, the editor 
 of the Salai Am, will soon wipe the stain off the 
 escutcheon of the Mohamedan community, the stain 
 which sullies it, the stain of the absence of a noble, 
 dignified, modern, progressive Urdu literature, worthy 
 of its tradition and consistent with its past.
 
 VII 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 I 
 
 POLITICAL. 
 
 " For each tree is known by its own fruit. For of thorns 
 men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they 
 grapes." — St. Luke vi. 44. 
 
 RioHTLY or wrongly, I have always kept aloof from 
 modern Indian politics, and I have always held that 
 we should devote more attention to social problems 
 and intellectual advancement and less to politics, 
 which, in our present condition, is an unmixed evil. 
 I am firmly persuaded that we would consult our 
 interest better by leaving politics severely alone. I 
 am aware that no progress is made in one march or 
 even series of marches, but we must set about it in 
 a proper, practical manner. It is not a handful of 
 men, armed with the learning and culture of the 
 West, but it is the masses that must feel, understand, 
 and take an intelligent interest in their own affairs. 
 The infinitesimal educated minority do not constitute 
 the population of India. It is the masses, therefore, 
 that must bo trained, educated, brouglit to the lovel 
 of unassailable uprightness and devotion to their 
 
 213
 
 214 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 country. This goal is yet far beyond measurable 
 reach, but until we attain it, our hopes will be a 
 chimera, and our efforts futile and illusory. Even 
 the educated community have scarcely yet cast off 
 their swaddling clothes of political infancy, or have 
 risen above the illusions of power and the ambitions 
 of fortune. We have yet to learn austerity of principle 
 and rectitude of conduct. Nor can we hope to raise 
 the standard of private and public morality so long as 
 we continue to subordinate the interest of our com- 
 munity and country to our own. India must needs 
 be washed clean of her stains of racial warfare, 
 religious bigotry, narrow prejudices, and must come 
 out fresh-robed in the wedding garment of purity 
 before she can aspire to have fixed, effective politics 
 of her own. There can be no freedom without the 
 spirit of union. But irresponsible political pedlars 
 have filled the country, from one end to the other, 
 with wild, insane speeches which have corrupted the 
 youths of the country, drawing them away from their 
 legitimate occupation to the paths of sedition and 
 anarchy. This false and ignominious system has 
 borne fruit in producing mistrust and disaffection, in 
 exasperating racial warfare, in destroying personal 
 security, in paralyzing the efforts of commerce and 
 industry. Nothing is more needed than our whole- 
 hearted co-operation with the Government in stamping 
 out, root and branch, this seditious propaganda which, 
 like a network, has overspread the whole country. I 
 do not believe in lip-sympathy or word-coining or 
 phrase-making ; nor do I set much value on lengthy 
 speeches consisting of splendid periods and elegant
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 215 
 
 perorations. We must actively support the Govern- 
 ment in destroying sedition and anarchy. 
 
 Our immediate field of work lies in spheres social, 
 religious, and educational. We must, for the present, 
 banish poUtics from the programme of our activity. 
 To the problems affecting us most vitally we must 
 turn, with single-minded devotion, and upon these 
 must we concentrate our attention if we are intent 
 upon the advancement of the interest of our com- 
 munity. 
 
 Let us, to begin with, make a solemn effort to heal 
 the breach in our own camp; to unite, in loving 
 brotherhood, the two sects— the Shiahs and Snnnis— 
 divided, as they now are, by envy, malice, hatred, 
 and all uncharitableness. We talk of unity, but we 
 have the barrenness of death and division at home. 
 The fabric of Islam is torn by dissensions, fierce and 
 bitter to a degree ; and we sit in our arm-chairs, 
 comfortably and complacently speculating over fran- 
 chise, self-government, membership of councils, etc. 
 
 Long speeches are delivered at educational con- 
 ferences and Muslim leagues, but not a voice is raised 
 for the restoration of peace, concord, and harmony 
 among our own people, bound by the ties of religion, 
 and linked by the ties of kinship. What a noble sight 
 it is to see the police officers interfere at Moharrum 
 between the followers of the Prophet to prevent a 
 breach of the peace ! Does this redound to the credit 
 of our community ? I trow not. 
 
 Look at the state of affairs a little deeper ! What 
 must we say of a society which transforms licentious- 
 ness into elegant frailty, and treachery and falsehood
 
 216 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 into pardonable finesse ? Should we not combat, with 
 all our might, these social evils which are sapping the 
 very life and vitality out of our community? Are 
 these not problems calling for attention and solution ? 
 I am drawing up (I am only too keenly aware of it) 
 a severe indictment against my own community, but 
 we need have no delicacy any longer if we are to 
 proceed onward. We want no palliatives, but the 
 surgeon's knife to cut the cancer — social cancer — away. 
 
 Education may not be the cure for all social evils, 
 but it undoubtedly goes a long way towards re- 
 generating a community. But it is just that which 
 we neglect. It is perfectly painful to consider the 
 number of students — bond fide students — who, for 
 sheer want of means, are unable to pursue their 
 studies. I have personally known a number of men 
 in Calcutta who had to discontinue their studies 
 because no one would come forward to help them. If 
 a tithe of the money which the rich wickedly and 
 wantonly waste over their sordid pleasures and 
 marriage festivities were applied to the education of 
 the members of the community, a great number of 
 students would be relieved of their embarrassing 
 position. But there is no society to plead for them ; 
 no organized charity to bring relief to them. 
 
 The education of women, the elevation of their 
 status, is a question which yields to none in weight 
 and importance. By a kind of tacit prescription they 
 are relegated to the four walls of the zenana, steeped 
 in ignorance and superstition. Can a society reach 
 its real stature of progress and development if divested 
 of those soft, refining influences ; those heart-subduing
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 217 
 
 graces ; those unfailing springs of encouragement and 
 compassion, the exclusive privilege and prerogative of 
 women, and which constitutes life's deepest, holiest 
 joys ? 
 
 But for Khadijah's encouraging counsels, Mohamed 
 would scarcely liave been the prophet and law-giver 
 of the Islamic world ! But for his mother, Abdullah 
 Ibn Zubair would have died the death of a coward 
 and renegade ! Instances might be indefinitely mul- 
 tiplied, but it is a proposition which none would 
 dispute. Bertrand Barere's noble tribute to woman- 
 hood will not be out of place here : " The wives and 
 mothers are the priests of the family. They give 
 their children their first education ; they teach them 
 religion and charity; they preserve their purity of 
 heart while stimulating and directing their intelli- 
 gence. Happy are those whose education has been 
 directed by mothers, who combine the virtues of their 
 sex with studies fit for them. A good mother is the 
 basis of the family; she devotes to it her care and 
 tenderness equally. No one can better know and 
 apply what is necessary to the first stage of life, the 
 physical and moral influence of which is so great on 
 our after-existence. ... A mother gives her child 
 the first teachings of that Divine religion which 
 emancipated woman, and assigned such a pure, 
 useful, noble, and necessary part in family life to her." 
 A great deal of our social evils is due to the con- 
 dition of our womankind, and so long as we keep 
 them in ignorance we cannot hope to impart to our 
 children those lofty virtues which adorn a civilized 
 and free people. It is at home that we learn tbe
 
 218 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 sense of duty, the sense of unity, the feeling of sym- 
 pathy and compassion for the poor and suffering, 
 honesty, uprightness, fidehty, and dignity. 
 
 We must deserve before we demand. Let us prove 
 ourselves worthy, and everything will come to us. 
 But let us not mistake the twilight for the dawn. 
 Let us proceed, but with slow, cautious steps, im- 
 proving our social conditions, enlarging our intel- 
 lectual horizon. 
 
 II 
 
 SOCIAL. 
 
 " A wise man keeps both his eyes open, belongs to no party, 
 and seea things as they are." — Froudb. 
 
 This is one of the many lessons of practical wisdom 
 with which the writings of the English historian 
 teem. Froude is not only one of the great masters 
 of the English language, but he is also a profound 
 thinker. Throughout his history and essays we come 
 across passages which clearly reveal the depth of his 
 mind and the elevation of his thoughts. If it is im- 
 possible to coe things with our eyes shut : it is equally 
 impossible justly to appreciate, or correctly to esti- 
 mate, social problems and religious questions with a 
 veil of prejudice, iKirti-pris and prepossession hung 
 over our vision. It needs a very superior mind to 
 perceive that great fundamental axiom of real life — 
 namely, that the service which man owes to God is 
 not the service of words or magic forms, or cere- 
 monies or opinions, but that of holiness, of purity, of 
 obedience to the everlasting laws of duty. It requires
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 219 
 
 a very high culture to perceive that social institutions, 
 hallowed by the practice of untold generations, have 
 become effete, time-worn, useless, even mischievous. 
 The generality of mankind rarely think. They follow 
 blindly, they accept unhesitatingly, what they have 
 been taught, and what their forefathers liavo prac- 
 tised ; and to abandon the trodden path requires an 
 effort— a painful effort. In the following pages we 
 propose to discuss what we consider to be the defects 
 and drawbacks in our social system. Such discus- 
 sions have a special value, and we trust that others 
 will come forward with their own views on a subject 
 which is of engrossing interest and supreme practical 
 utility. 
 
 "Truth and freedom are twin-sisters; the surest 
 guide to truth is freedom, and the truth makes us 
 free." It is only by free discussion, unrestrained 
 freedom of thought (but freedom must be distin- 
 guished from licence), that we can hope to arrive at 
 the truth. The purpose of free discussion is twofold. 
 It serves, on the one hand, as a corrective to wild, 
 extravagant views, and it assists us, on the other, to 
 discover our real needs and requirements. 
 
 We do not believe in gazing into the starry heights 
 merely to find the earth a poor spectacle and men a 
 little breed. In other words, we do not despair of 
 human progress. The world moves and we move, or, 
 at all events, wo should move, with it. Nor have we 
 any sympathy with the class of men (unfortunately 
 the larger portion of our community belongs to that 
 class) who take it for granted that our religion and 
 our social system admit of no corrective, or call for
 
 220 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 no improvement. Such a theory were subversive of 
 all progress. To claim perfection is to shut the door 
 against progress, and to deny the influence of new 
 ideas which, according to Dumas, hidden in the 
 depth of the soul, throw out deep roots. The mind 
 of man is no inert receptacle of knowledge, but 
 absorbs and incorporates into its own constitution 
 the ideas which it receives. It would be the merest 
 affectation to contend that religious and social systems, 
 bequeathed to us thirteen hundred years ago, should 
 now be adopted in their entirety without the slightest 
 change or alteration. This is exactly the battlefield 
 on which for the last fifty years a relentless war has 
 been waged in India between the party of light and 
 hope, and the party which is wedded to the old order 
 of things. Though the God of battle has not yet 
 pronounced His verdict, the signs of the times are 
 clear enough. It is certain that the party opposed to 
 progress has not a very long lease of life left to it. It 
 is doomed and dying, and it might as well reason 
 with the winds or threaten the waves of the sea. 
 New ideas, large formative conceptions, are seething 
 in the intellectual and emotional cauldron of our day. 
 And hence the stir and activity in our community. 
 True, the conferences and meetings of the Muslim 
 League have not done all they could have done, but 
 the energy, the enthusiasm, and the earnestness which 
 we now notice are reassuring signs, full of promise 
 for the future. Our hope centres in the younger 
 generation, with its deeper beliefs, greater generosity, 
 fewer prejudices, and sounder education, and we trust 
 that they will prove themselves equal to the task
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 221 
 
 which lies before them. They have a noble mission 
 to fulfil, and that mission is to educate their co- 
 religionists in breadth and sympathy, which are the 
 only possible means of diminishing prejudices and 
 breaking down barriers. Their mission, further, is 
 to illustrate by their own lives the union of faith with 
 knowledge, the combination of intellectual activity 
 with moral purpose and directing ideals, and finally 
 to exemplify the eternal supremacy of righteousness. 
 This class is still very small in number, but we doubt 
 not that it will grow year by year and decade by 
 decade. 
 
 The age of transition is necessarily to a certain 
 extent an age of laxity of morals, indifference to 
 religion, superficial culture and gossiping levity. But 
 these are passing ills which time itself will cure. 
 Now let us proceed to examine the general frame-work 
 of our social system as it stands ; reserving religious 
 questions for future consideration. 
 
 The one fact which more than another stands out 
 in bold prominence is marked inertia, unmanly 
 dependence, an unmistakable unwillingness on the 
 part of the majority of our people to work for their 
 living. This is due to want of self-respect — that 
 spirit which revolts against mendicity, whatever shape 
 it may assume. Nothing else, indeed, than mendicity 
 is it for relatives to depend upon the bounty of one 
 working member of the family. And yet, in hundreds 
 of families, scattered all over India, we meet a number 
 of men who are dependent upon one man who works 
 and toils incessantly to feed and clothe the idlers and 
 the hangers-on. Charity is an admirable virtue, but
 
 222 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 it is meant for the deserving and not for those who, 
 from sheer idleness, will not exert themselves or strive 
 to secure a living. 
 
 Another contributory cause, to our mind, is the 
 false pride of lineage or ancestry which we not 
 infrequently encounter among the members of our 
 community. It is deemed unworthy of a man who 
 claims descent from the Prophet, or from some great 
 hero of Islam, to take to the humbler occupations 
 of life. The one great ambition of our people now is 
 to obtain admission into Government service, to the 
 utter neglect of trade and commerce and the indigen- 
 ous arts and crafts. But Government posts are not 
 numerous enough to provide for every youth, and 
 hence young men will rather do nothing than betake 
 themselves to other pursuits. Our people forget that 
 some of our greatest writers, whose names history 
 will ever continue to cherish, were tradesmen ; and 
 the historian of Eastern Civilisation under the Cali- 
 'phate expressly notes that " at that time [at the time of 
 the Caliphate] , and even partially up to now, every one 
 in the East busies himself with some trade or craft for 
 his livelihood. There were few Government posts, 
 and the modest independence which a trade or craft 
 offered was always prized as the most honourable 
 fortune." [Khuda Bukhsh's translation of Von Kremer's 
 C'ldturgeschichte des Orients.] Let us mention two 
 noble instances : Sa'id Ibn Mussayab carried on an 
 oil trade. Abu Hanifah lived upon his moderate 
 income as a merchant. The most casual reference to 
 a biographical dictionary would prove the statement of 
 Von Kremer. If such great leaders and pioneers
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 228 
 
 of thought as Sa'id and Abu Hanifah were not 
 ashamed to engage in trade and commerce, why need 
 the Indian Mohamedans have any scruples or hesita- 
 tion about them ? The early Mohamedans were the 
 most successful traders in the Middle Ages, and the 
 latest discoveries and excavations have unearthed 
 Mohamedan coins as far as Scandinavia ; a clear 
 proof of the fact that their commerce extended far and 
 wide. Intellectual progress and material prosperity 
 generally go hand in hand. We cannot neglect the 
 latter without damaging the former. We should, 
 therefore, actively encourage our arts and crafts, and 
 seriously turn our attention to trade and commerce. 
 Idleness and indolence are as demoralizing to in- 
 dividuals as they are dangerous to society. It is from 
 this class that the majority of the law-breakers, the 
 discontented and the able-bodied Faqirs, the curse 
 of society, are recruited. Far from trying to root out 
 these evils, we blink at them ; nay, we actively 
 support and maintain them by our misguided philan- 
 thropy. While it would be difficult to get together 
 even a hundred rupees by way of subscription for the 
 education of poor students, money would flow in in 
 abundance for building a mosque, or establishing an 
 Imam Barali, or endowing a Khanqah, or, worse still, for 
 feeding able-bodied Faqirs, or for patronizing fanatical 
 mullahs and Moulvies. Some do it out of religious 
 conviction or pious zeal, but we have a lively suspicion 
 that most of us do it for show and exhibition. By 
 this sort of foolish charity we put a premium on 
 idleness on the one hand, and fraud and imposture on 
 the other. Not very long ago I noticed in Calcutta
 
 224 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 three boys, scarcely over fifteen, begging from door 
 to door. I stopped them and told them that instead 
 of begging they should take to some work ; to which 
 they indignantly replied that begging was their 
 hereditary vocation, and in a rich city like Calcutta, 
 they made much more by it than they ever would get 
 in any employment that they might take up. 
 
 This evil is not difficult to meet if we only set 
 about it in a proper spirit. Why can we not establish 
 a society in every town to collect subscriptions and 
 to bring relief to the poor and the suffering, the 
 widows and the orphans ? Would not this be real 
 charity ? 
 
 The clearest result of the break-down of our old 
 system of domestic life and social customs under the 
 assault of European ideas is to be found in two 
 directions — namely, in our religious beliefs and in 
 our social life. It is perfectly true that Islam is too 
 well entrenched to be easily thrown down, but not the 
 most superficial observer could fail to notice the 
 change that has come over us. Our community may 
 roughly be divided into two classes — the representa- 
 tives of the older system and the representatives of 
 the new, the dawning era. 
 
 It is needless to add that the educated class of the 
 younger generation belong to the latter. The old 
 system, with all its faults, had many redeeming 
 virtues. The idea of responsibility to God, who is 
 omnipresent and all-seeing, was a check far more 
 effective than the one furnished by the Indian Penal 
 Code. The truly religious man avoided evil and 
 cultivated virtue, because virtue was more acceptable
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 225 
 
 to God. As a result of religious beliefs the standard 
 of morality was high, and the effect of public opinion 
 necessarily severe. Every action was brought to the 
 bar of public opinion. Society exercised not a 
 nominal control, but a real vigilance over its members. 
 Its judgment was enforced by the penalties which it 
 inflicted for violation of, or deviation from, the 
 recognised standard of private conduct and public 
 morality. I am not unaware that people then 
 practised polygamy more freely than they do now. I 
 am not insensible to the fact that there were then, as 
 there are now, flagrant cases of falsehood, treachery, 
 moral obliquity or downright immorality. To claim 
 for the past a stainless social purity or virginal 
 sweetness would be altogether inconsistent with facts. 
 But I do say that breaches of faith or lapses into 
 immorality were not then committed in broad day- 
 light and open defiance as they are committed now. 
 And why? Because the religious hold has been 
 considerably weakened and the standard of morality 
 thereby decidedly lowered among us. "We connive, 
 now, at faults and blemishes which, in earlier days, 
 would have been visited with the gravest punishment. 
 Though I do not, for one moment, believe that to be 
 religious we must be rabid fanatics, I do hold that a 
 community without deep, earnest religious faith can 
 scarcely attain much good. Even so great a free- 
 thinker as John Stuart Mill has told us in his auto- 
 biography that he would be sorry for the day when 
 religion disappeared from the world. The sphere 
 of law must necessarily be confined and limited ; in 
 those broad regions of private life beyond the reach 
 
 15
 
 226 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 
 
 of law the safest and surest and the most powerful 
 corrective is religion, and religion alone. 
 
 But, as I hope to point out in the sequel, we must 
 learn to distinguish religion from its forms and 
 ceremonials. Religion is as much subject to changes 
 and improvements as our manners and customs are 
 from age to age. Without faith, however, we would 
 float over a dreary, shoreless sea of incertitude, seeking 
 for some plank to cling to ; some land, dim and 
 distant, to attain. But the faith, to be a living faith, 
 must be in harmony with the spirit of the age and the 
 growing consciousness of the people, 
 
 Another feature equally noticeable is the strange 
 independence of thought and action which we notice 
 in our people. Reverence for age, respect for our 
 elders, deference to the opinion of others are fast 
 disappearing. This is remarkable, and it is remark- 
 able all the more because of the fact, already noticed, 
 that a large number of our people depend for their 
 bread and butter upon others. Under the older 
 system the head of the family was the sole guide and 
 friend of its members. His word had the force of 
 law. He was, so to speak, the custodian of the 
 honour and prestige of the family. From this exalted 
 position he is now dislodged, and the most junior 
 member now claims equality with him. Not merely 
 did each family have a head man who controlled the 
 affairs and guided the action of the younger men, but 
 each quarter of the town or the city had a man who 
 constituted, so to speak, a court of appeal, where 
 disputes were settled, advice was sought, and matters 
 relating to the general welfare were decided.
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 227 
 
 Within the last twenty-five years all this has now 
 become a thing of the past. It is the courts — courts 
 of small causes and Foicjdari courts — that now have 
 a strange, overpowering fascination for us. 
 
 As a great master of practical wisdom has put it, 
 everything that frees ourselves without giving us con- 
 trol of ourselves is ruinous. This is exactly what has 
 happened. Destruction has done its work ; but the 
 work of construction has not yet begun, or, at all 
 events, it is proceeding at almost imperceptible pace. 
 
 " Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 May make one music as before, 
 But vaster." 
 
 We should, above all, impress upon our co- 
 religionists the lesson of self-reliance and self-depen- 
 dence, for without these it is idle to expect to foster 
 those virtues without which we can be neither good 
 members of society nor good subjects of the Empire to 
 which we have the honour to belong. 
 
 But with self-reliance and s"elf-dependence we must 
 have respect and reverence, too ; respect for those 
 who are superior to us, and reverence for those who 
 have given soul-subliming truths to man.
 
 228 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 III 
 
 DOMESTIC. 
 
 We have by no means exhausted the list of evils 
 which affect our society. We have only pointed out 
 so far the most glaring and the most obvious ones. 
 The unmanly dependence of our youths, their neglect 
 of arts and crafts, their contempt for trade and com- 
 merce, their sneering and scoffing attitude towards 
 religion, their indifference to morality, their levity 
 and light-heartedness, their want of respect for age 
 and seniority — all these are the outcome, direct or 
 indirect, of our defective family life, where liberty is 
 indistinguishable from licence, and healthy vigilance 
 from meaningless conventionalism. 
 
 The marked feature of our family life, as it now stands, 
 is the absence of that loving regard, that feeling of one- 
 ness, which at once strengthens the bonds of affection 
 and deepens the sense of altruism, self-forbearance, 
 and self-sacrifice among its members. A society or 
 community is nothing else but a collection of families ; 
 the family may be reckoned as the type of society. 
 
 Not that these feelings were absent in the East, but 
 rather the other way. They existed in a most intense 
 shape, but they are now distinctly on the decline. I 
 am inclined to ascribe this state of things to the 
 gradual weakening of religious sentiments among us. 
 Eeligion, day by day, is becoming a mere formality, 
 and not a living reality as it has been in the past, 
 with us. This is to be regretted, but it is a problem 
 which we must face. Religion must be expansive,
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 229 
 
 progressive, and in harmony with advancing ideas 
 and enlarging thoughts. Unless it is that it is 
 bound, in course of time, to cease to appeal to our 
 growing intellect, and, instead of holding society 
 together, it becomes a blight, a curse, a dead weight 
 upon progress. 
 
 We propose to discuss this question at more length 
 in the sequel. 
 
 The tendency now is to reduce the family limit ; 
 to make the family consist of the man, his wife and 
 his children. Beyond this circle the obligation ceases. 
 If anything is done for others it is a mere charity ; not 
 as anything obligatory or binding. 
 
 I will not discuss the soundness or otherwise of this 
 view, but this is the view which, undoubtedly, is now 
 gaining ground. I would merely point out that this 
 system would be considerably shorn of its apparent 
 severity and harshness if we had that larger sym- 
 pathy, that generous consideration, those humane 
 sentiments, the flower and fruit of which we have 
 in Europe in thousands of hospitals, nursing homes, 
 etc., maintained by free gifts -or voluntary subscrip- 
 tions. But to have the one without the other is, to 
 my mind, a palpable absurdity. 
 
 We must not forget that social systems grow from 
 within and are not transplanted from without. They 
 are the expressions of natural needs and require- 
 ments, and not the manifestations of passing phases 
 of thought. Take, for instance, an obvious illustra- 
 tion. I can well recall that system of free education, 
 now a thing of the past, which obtained in this 
 country only twenty-five or thirty years ago. Men in
 
 230 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 easy circumstances who could afford to keep Moulvies 
 for the instruction of their children allowed, in their 
 houses, free admission to the children of their less 
 fortunate neighbours. Each quarter of the town had 
 in this way its own free schools where elementary 
 education was given. Here did the young boys learn 
 to respect those older in years or superior in social 
 status ; here, again, did they learn, at the most 
 impressionable period of their life, love and devotion 
 to their religion. 
 
 This system had, of course, its limiting conditions, 
 the education imparted being mostly religious, but it 
 had its compensating advantages. We now have 
 schools right enough, and in profuse abundance, but 
 those who are in straitened circumstances can ill- 
 afford to pay for the schooling of their children. The 
 result, naturally, is that a large number of boys must 
 now go without any education of any sort whatever. 
 And what becomes of them ? They become either 
 servants, or petty menials, or beggars, or do-nothing 
 gentlemen-at-large, living on the bounty of others, or, 
 worse still, low-class criminals. 
 
 The old system has disappeared, but nothing has 
 taken its place. Have we sufficiently numerous 
 scholarships or exhibitions for our poor students ? 
 We have hardly any ! What a woeful picture is this ! 
 If this is the fate of the less lucky members, no less 
 unfortunate is the condition of the wealthy members 
 of our community. I may almost say, without the 
 least fear of contradiction, that in most houses we 
 would scarcely find a library consisting of even 
 500 books. Books are the commodities least in
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 231 
 
 demand among us. The rich are plunged in one vor- 
 tex of pleasure, gaiety, sordid sins or venal ambitions. 
 There is no healthy emulation or honourable 
 rivalry, no desire to shine in literary spheres or to 
 pioneer in the world of the sciences. Surrounded by 
 courtiers and only too often, indeed, by courtesans, 
 their inseparable companions are either vile flatterers 
 or insatiable drunkards. Instead of intellectual 
 gatherings they have demoralizing carouses ; instead 
 of healthj^ social meetings they have "night after 
 night of running kisses and chirp after chirp of 
 changing doves." This is no extravagant exaggeration. 
 but sober truth. Children brought up in this poison- 
 ous atmosphere can hardly be expected to be a credit 
 to their society or a glory to their country. We can- 
 not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles. 
 Let us, then, first and foremost, purify and sanctify 
 our home and hearth. "We cannot lay the foundation 
 of a healthy community on a foundation of sand 
 We cannot have a very high regard for womankind 
 with a system which sanctions four wives. Polygamy 
 is destructive alike of dornestic peace and social 
 purity. Nor can we have a sound basis for family 
 life with women sunk in the deepest ignorance and 
 the wildest superstitions. Without physical exercise, 
 without the benefit of fresh air, without a ray of 
 intellectual sunlight, can women be mothers of a race 
 of stalwart warriors, intellectual giants and far-sighted 
 statesmen ?
 
 232 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 IV 
 
 SUGGESTIONS. 
 
 * u-^-* / ^-^ ^ j;-^ Li^ ^i / ^-v^ s_sV. u^ 
 
 My ambition is not to light the way into unexplored 
 regions. I have undertaken a more modest task — the 
 task of dealing with actualities and common-places, 
 the things which cry aloud to be set forth anew for 
 every generation. We have already stated that our 
 hope centres in the educated few. They are the 
 scouts in advance whom the bulk of the community 
 follows with unhesitating confidence. They must 
 formulate and fashion public opinion, inculcate lessons 
 of self-respect and self-reverence, infuse into our 
 religion breadth and toleration, encourage honesty of 
 purpose and rectitude of conduct, and, last but not 
 least, devote themselves to the culture and refinement 
 of our womankind. They are, indeed, the trustees of 
 the unborn generations. 
 
 We are charged with fanaticism. We are accused 
 of ignorance and extravagance. We are taunted with 
 keeping our womenfolk as birds in a cage, as toys to
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 233 
 
 play with, as ornaments to decorate our houses, and 
 with not assigning them their legitimate due as mem- 
 bers of our society, as our partners in art and science. 
 We are repeatedly told that we, for no accountable 
 reason, claim preferential treatment at the hands of the 
 Government ; that we rely, not upon merit, but favour- 
 itism. Are these accusations really founded on fact, or 
 are they malicious libels levelled at us and our society? 
 I, for one, readily plead guilty to this indictment, 
 and I believe not one thinking Mohamedan will be 
 prepared to deny that there is more than an element 
 of truth in it. Infinitely better is it to acknowledge 
 our faults ; infinitely better is it to cure and rectify 
 them than to persist in, or to connive at, our 
 errors and vices. By cynical indifference to our own, 
 as well as our community's material and intellectual 
 interests, we have made ourselves the laughing-stock 
 of our more progressive brothers ; the target for the 
 shafts of their satires and calumnies. It is folly to 
 deny what is clear as day. To administer the right 
 remedy we must correctly diagnose the disease. Now 
 as to the last charge ; there is no doubt that we, by 
 our own conduct, have given colour and an air of 
 truth to it. The young Mohamedan who is fortunate 
 enough to pass his F. A. Examination takes it for 
 granted, that he has reached the height of education 
 available in this country. Judging himself by the 
 standard of his friends and associates, he overrates 
 his importance and forms exaggerated notions of his 
 abilities, and he forthwith starts in quest of a Govern- 
 ment appointment. He carefully draws up a petition 
 dwelling upon his legendary ancestry, detailing the
 
 234 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 
 
 services his ancestors have rendered to the Govern- 
 ment during the Mutiny, and presses his case on the 
 special consideration of the authorities. After posting 
 or personally delivering his application to the district 
 officer or the Chief Secretary he, with self-satisfied 
 complaisance, awaits the letter of appointment, which 
 in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred never 
 comes. In a futile and hopeless expectation glide 
 insensibly away the best days of his youth. For him 
 each year brings new hopes and disappointments new, 
 till, at last, when hope fades and the pinch of poverty 
 becomes insupportable, he secures, after special plead- 
 ing, a clerkship or a sub-registrarship, carrying a 
 small pittance. Such instances are, indeed, only too 
 numerous. Usually such men are not in easy, much 
 less in affluent, circumstances. They belong to res- 
 pectable families who have seen better days. During 
 these years of vain expectation, they usually run 
 through their little fortune and not infrequently con- 
 tract debts. When they do succeed in obtaining an 
 appointment, half their pay goes to their creditors and 
 with the other half they try their best to make both 
 ends meet. Beneath neat dresses and smiling coun- 
 tenances, I have found, alas ! very often, vexed minds 
 and bleeding hearts. Our chief failings are want of 
 thrift and want of foresight. Eich and poor alike are 
 victims to them. Their evil consequences they realize, 
 but they realize them when it is too late to mend 
 their ways. Here the Mohamedan compares very 
 unfavourably with his Hindu compatriot, who is 
 generally a model of thrift and self-control. But 
 not only in thrift and self-control does the
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 235 
 
 Hindu excel the Mohamedan. The former is incon- 
 testably his superior in capacity for work, in family 
 devotion, in temperance, in sacrifice for education. 
 
 Here lies the secret of the material prosperity and 
 intellectual advancement of the one, and the poverty 
 and ignorance of the other. In my younger days 
 when I led an almost ideal life of unclouded joy at 
 Oxford — that seat and centre of learning, that home 
 and hearth of culture and refinement, that famous 
 city, grey with years and hedged round by noble tradi- 
 tions, of which no Oxford man can think without 
 a tear or at least a sigh — in those days of intellectual 
 bliss and devotion, I regarded the magnificent invoca- 
 tion of Heine to gold as exaggerated and overdrawn. 
 But the uglier realities of life and the bitter struggle 
 for existence have now convinced me, beyond doubt, 
 that no man or community can really be great in arts 
 or sciences or literature if not sufficiently well off to 
 secure ease and leisure and freedom from that petty 
 "dust," which each day brings "our soon-choked 
 souls to fill." No! Heine in poverty, privation, and 
 squalor felt what a great magician gold is, how it 
 helps us in realizing our dreams and how it gives us 
 the power of the gods themselves, what grandeur and 
 sublimity there is in its possession, and how it is the 
 mightiest yet the most obedient of our slaves. If we 
 are to advance in the sphere of art and science and 
 literature, we must develop our material resources, 
 cultivate our arts and crafts, and take to commerce 
 and industry. For this digression I ask the reader's 
 forgiveness. These unfortunate ones of whom we 
 have been speaking, working on a small and wretched
 
 236 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 pay, and even giving half of that to their creditors — 
 are these, indeed, in a position to give any education 
 worth the name to their children ? Clearly not. 
 Every other man of our community we meet has this 
 very mournful tale to tell. 
 
 But the mischief does not end here. Our whole 
 system is so unfortunately shaped that under it it 
 would seem impossible to make headway or to advance 
 one step successfully. Our Law of Inheritance is so 
 framed as to reduce the wealthiest family, in a 
 generation or two, to narrow circumstances, if not to 
 utter penury. And yet we must not lay our un- 
 hallowed hands on it. It is a part of our religion, say 
 its zealous supporters, and as such it must continue, 
 for ever and ever, with all its defects and imperfec- 
 tions, its short-sighted policy, and its disastrous 
 consequences. Moreover, our partial and limited 
 power of making a will is another source of countless 
 mischiefs. The tendency of modern legislation is to 
 concede the highest freedom to individual action 
 compatible with the safety of society. We have 
 absolute freedom of contract, we have unreserved 
 liberty to deal with our property as we like, under 
 every conceivable system of modern laws. But we, in 
 spite of new light, in spite of continuing progress, 
 must keep intact sumptuary laws and a patriarchal 
 system, the exploded fallacies of a past age. These 
 restraining laws are not only antagonistic to the spirit 
 of the age, but corrode and disintegrate society. 
 Take the most obvious results. It is rarely that we 
 come across educated men in our wealthy classes. 
 
 The reason is not far to seek. The moment
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 237 
 
 children realize that they will be inheritors of fortune, 
 large or small, all incentive to work is gone. They 
 bid adieu to their books and farewell to their teachers. 
 Early do they come to know that they cannot be dis- 
 inherited or deprived of a share in the property. 
 The result is that they take to most gross and hideous 
 vices which ruin the health and pave the way for 
 a premature death. 
 
 To the Chandu, Ganja, Madak, there have now been 
 added European wine and spirits, the worst and the 
 most expensive of all. Further, to meet their ex- 
 orbitant demands, they begin early to borrow money 
 at a heavy rate of interest. By the time they actually 
 succeed to the property — the expectation of which has 
 been the cause of their ruin — they are either heavily 
 involved or their entire share is in mortgage to the 
 nearest maliajan. It is well-nigh maddening to see 
 and watch these evils destroying our society, ruining 
 its manhood, lowering its moral and intellectual tone, 
 and yet to do nothing to remove, to redress, to 
 palliate, if not altogether to cure them. Perhaps we 
 are waiting for some prophet carrying tables of law in 
 his hand to descend from the mountain with a new 
 revelation. If such is our expectation, it is one void of 
 hope, and the sooner we rid ourselves of it the better. 
 
 The tendency to extravagance in our community is 
 further strengthened by the wholesale adoption of 
 European customs and modes of living. The 
 Mohamedans have a remarkable power of absorption 
 and assimilation. They assimilate foreign habits and 
 adopt foreign manners far more quickly than any 
 other people. Islam is by no means conservative or
 
 238 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 exclusive. It is free from the barriers of caste, and it 
 imposes no such restrictive rules upon social inter- 
 course as does Hinduism, for instance. The strength 
 of the Mohamedans consists in their power of adapt- 
 ability to all conditions and circumstances ; their 
 weakness in their inability to withstand the pressure 
 of foreign and extraneous influences. This has ever 
 been the case with them. The old Islam, says Von 
 Kremer, had lost its exclusiveness by contact with 
 foreign religious systems. It had not become more 
 tolerant, but the ruling classes had become more in- 
 different. The old hatred of the Arabs against every- 
 thing foreign had disappeared under Persian influences. 
 The treasures of Greek literature had been brought 
 to the Arabs through the Syrian Christians, and 
 there suddenly arose among all active and intellectual 
 men an intense passion for the study of the 
 " ancients " — i.e., Greek authors. . . . From this, 
 which brought many new conceptions and ideas into 
 the intellectual horizon of the Muslims, there were 
 developed the Arab schools of philosophy which soon 
 took a theosophomystic turn, while the orthodox Islam 
 sought more and more to develop a firm and exclusive 
 dogmatic system. " The foreign influence, however, 
 was not confined to the world of letters, for we 
 are told that, in Baghdad, Persian fashions continued 
 to enjoy an increasing ascendancy. The old Persian 
 festivals of Nawruz, Mihrjan, and Ram were celebrated. 
 Persian raiment was the official Court dress, and the 
 tall, black, conical Persian hat (Qalansuwa PL Qalanis), 
 similar to our European top hats, were already pre- 
 scribed as official by the second Abbasid Caliph (in
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 239 
 
 A.H. 153 = A. D. 770). At the Court the customs of 
 the Sassanides were imitated, and garments decorated 
 with golden inscriptions introduced which were the 
 exclusive privilege of the ruler to bestow." (Khuda 
 Bukhsh, " Contributions to the History of Islamic 
 Civilization, pp. 93, 109.) 
 
 It is apparent that Mohamedans have always 
 possessed a striking power of absorption and assimila- 
 tion. This, at times, has accelerated, at others has 
 retarded, their progress. In the beginning it helped 
 them in fashioning their law, religion, and social 
 institutions, and in governing their Empire ; for they 
 unhesitatingly adopted the institutions, social, political, 
 legal, which were serviceable to them. But when 
 they lost their individuality as a race, as a people 
 they became effeminate and debilitated by those very 
 things which, in the earlier stages of their national 
 existence, were their power and strength. They 
 became a mere tool in the hands of foreigners and 
 servile imitators of their ideas. They lost their genius, 
 their originality, and finally their Empire. 
 
 Now what has happened here in India ? We have 
 adopted European costume, European ways of living, 
 even the European vices of drinking and gambling, 
 but none of their virtues. Nobody is a greater 
 admirer of European civilization and European learn- 
 ing, and nobody more anxious than the present writer 
 for our co-religionists to participate in the ripened 
 culture of the West, but when I have said this I have 
 come to the parting of ways. Thus far and no 
 further. To me East is East and West is West. 
 India can no more be England than England India.
 
 240 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 We must learn at the feet of Europe, but not at the 
 sacrifice of our Eastern individuality. But this is 
 precisely what we have not done. "We have dabbled 
 a little in English and European history and we have 
 commenced to despise our religion, our literature, our 
 history, our traditions. We have unlearned the 
 lessons of our history and our civilization, and in their 
 place we have secured nothing solid and substantial to 
 hold society fast in the midst of endless changes. 
 We have developed expensive habits ; we are imitating 
 luxurious modes of living, but we have not succeeded 
 in learning that supremest of practical lessons — viz., 
 the lesson of making money. Hence the woeful 
 poverty, the dire penury, the appalling catalogue of 
 miseries, writ large on the face of our community. 
 
 Yes, we have neglected our own learning and we 
 are masquerading in borrowed feathers. Instead of 
 drinking and gambling, why not learn from the 
 Europeans their sense of co-operation, their exalted 
 idea of duty, " that stern daughter of the voice of 
 God," their thoroughness, their perseverance, their 
 practicalness, their commercial activity, their devo- 
 tion to learning ? And, better still, why not turn to 
 our own history to find examples to follow and 
 imitate? Where do we find men more earnest and 
 more single-minded in their devotion than the first 
 four Caliphs ; a knight more chivalrous than Saladin ; 
 a philosopher more bold and fearless than Nazzam ; a 
 genius more versatile and encyclopaedic than Avi- 
 cenna ; a warrior more intrepid and dashing than 
 Khalid ; a man more pious and saintly than Sa'id 
 Ibn Musayyab ? Are these not examples to stimulate
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 241 
 
 our ambition or to excite our admiration ? But 
 these names will sound strange and unfamiliar to 
 many of us. I deplore the neglect of our learning 
 and literature more than anj^thing else, and I earnestly 
 hope that vre will soon redeem this neglect by an 
 enthusiasm worthy of the cause. 
 
 In religion, in morals, in politics, it is now the 
 fashion to believe one thing, to profess another. It 
 is reckoned a virtue or wisdom to suppress the truth, 
 if not to profess what you hold to be a false opinion. 
 I have the privilege of knowing a gentleman, a 
 Mohamedan by jirofession, who owes his success in life 
 to his faith. Though, outwardly, he conforms to all 
 the precepts of Islam and occasionally stands up 
 in public as the champion and spokesman of his 
 co-religionists; yet, to my utter horror, I found that 
 he held opinions about his religion and its founder 
 which even Voltaire would have rejected with indigna- 
 tion and Gibbon with commiserating contempt. But 
 it is not he alone who thus wears the cowl of sanctity, 
 but there are hundreds besides who count hypocrisy 
 as a venial sin and falsehood a- pardonable weakness. 
 
 This is not, to our mind, a light offence. It is, 
 indeed, fatal to the very well-being of our community. 
 It is precisely because we believe, with Lord Morley/ 
 that opinion, and nothing but opinion, can effect great 
 permanent changes, that we ought to be careful to keep 
 this most potent force honest, wholesome, fearless and 
 independent. 
 
 All this is due to our want of courage to recognize 
 the simple truth that society is a growing organism 
 
 * On Compromise, p. 97. 
 
 16
 
 242 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 and the institutions of the past demand progressive 
 readaptations. Since we have not the strength of will 
 and firmness of resolution to face the truth, we accept 
 the other alternative — namely, contented acquiescence 
 with the ordering that has come down to us from the 
 past. We see the absurdity of the position, but our 
 indolence and timidity prevent us from laying the axe 
 to the root of the tree. We perpetuate error, we 
 sanctify falsehood, we publicly applaud but inwardly 
 condemn our social and religious institutions. Instead 
 of leading the masses to truth and light, we help them 
 in maintaining a stupendous fabric of folly, ignorance 
 and superstition. 
 
 The decisive sign of the elevation of a nation's life, 
 says Lord Morley, is to be sought among those who 
 lead or ought to lead. 
 
 Leaders, in the sense that Sir Sayed Ahmad and 
 Nawab Mohsan-ul-Mulk were leaders, the Mohamedans 
 do not now possess. We have, indeed, numerous 
 self-styled leaders, but they have no warrant or title, 
 other than their own inclination, to keep themselves 
 constantly in evidence and thereby facilitate the path 
 of glitter and glory, Government titles, and perhaps 
 Government posts. In such self-styled leaders the 
 Mohamedan community is, perhaps, the richest in 
 India. We have political leaders, social leaders, 
 religious leaders, mercantile leaders ; leaders of all 
 sorts : in fact, as many leaders as there are followers. 
 Let us carefully look into the various types of our 
 leaders. The typical leader is the man who makes 
 morning and evening calls upon the officials a religious 
 duty which must needs be performed at all hazards
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 243 
 
 and at all risks. Besides the calls, he must never 
 fail to propose a vote of thanks to the chair — whether 
 asked or unasked — at a public meeting, if the holder 
 of the chair is a high official. Moreover, he must, 
 ever and anon, speak on behalf of his community with 
 a sureness and assertiveness to impress upon the 
 Government that he is their plenipotentiary and 
 accredited spokesman. Further, he must pose as the 
 greatest living authority, competent or otherwise, on 
 Mohamedan law and religion. As for character and 
 conscience, the less he has the better for him. He 
 acts upon the well-known saying of Goethe : " Men 
 of action are essentially conscienceless." This is the 
 most successful type of leader. The next type is 
 equally fascinating. It is the leader whose supreme 
 virtue and highest credential is his inconsistency. 
 He preaches one gospel on Monday and the very 
 reverse of it the following day. We do not regard 
 this as a vice, but as a virtue. We view it as a sign 
 of mental pregressiveness, and enlarging ideas, or 
 perhaps as a proof of readiness to reject a mistaken 
 notion for something maturei-, sounder, and more 
 suitable to the occasion. Then we have a class of 
 leaders who, perched on the Olympian heights, look 
 down with philosophic contempt on those less lucky 
 than themselves. They love to have many tongues 
 buzzing about them, chanting their virtues and singing 
 their praises. 
 
 With learning they are in permanent feud; and 
 with learned men, consequently, they have no 
 sympathy. With leaders of this sort, there is 
 no sovereignty but that of wealth ; no nobility
 
 244 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 but that of official position. The unfortunate 
 nobody who visits him to offer his homage rarely 
 succeeds in extorting a word or a smile from him. 
 He sits mute till the delicate performance known out 
 herein India as " paying respects " is over, and he 
 departs with relief to himself and to the leader. 
 These, then, are the three main classes into which 
 the present writer is inclined to group the leaders 
 of his community. Of these leaders there is this, 
 however, to be noted. They are exceedingly generous 
 with lip-sympathy with the Mohamedans and their 
 cause, but they rarely relax the strings of their 
 purse for the benefit of their community. When it 
 comes to payment, they wisely draw the line and 
 plead multiplicity of calls upon their treasury as the 
 reason for not unloosening the strings of their 
 purse. Why is it, then, that our leaders, while 
 coveting the laurels of leadership, shirk its duties 
 and responsibilities? The reason is clear enough. 
 It is not the promotion and welfare of the community 
 which lies nearest to their heart, but the advancement 
 of their own interest, the furtherance of their own 
 cause ! Leadership is merely a cloak for self-adver- 
 tisement, self-aggrandisement, a path to cheap fame 
 and personal glory. 
 
 These are some of the home-truths which we would 
 do well to ponder over. I do not find fault with the 
 ambitious individual who makes his community the 
 footstool for his own success in life. The fault is with 
 the people who tolerate such impudence. With an 
 intelligent public and a strong public opinion such 
 imposture would not succeed even for a day. But we
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 245 
 
 are culi3ably negligent of our own interests and we reap 
 as we sow. 
 
 Whether I am right or wrong — whether my views 
 are accepted or rejected— of this, however, I have not 
 the faintest doubt : that no educated or self-respecting 
 man will, for one instant, justify self-indulgent silence 
 and hypocritical reserves, complaisant assents and 
 false affirmations. All that I ask of my educated 
 co-religionists is that they should bear in mind and 
 put in practice the golden maxim of life with which 
 that sweetest singer of our days — Algernon Charles 
 Swinburne — has concluded his supreme code of ethics 
 " The Altar of Righteousness." 
 
 " Far above all wars and gospels, all ebb and flow of time, 
 Lives the soul that speaks in silence, and makes mute earth 
 
 sublime. 
 Still for her, though years and ages be blinded and bedimmed, 
 Mazed with hghtnings, crazed with thunders, life rides and 
 
 guides the wind. 
 Death may live or death may die, and the truth be light or 
 
 night. 
 Not for gain of heaven may man put away the rule of right." 
 
 LEADEKS. 
 
 " Ah Love ! could thou and I with fate conspire, 
 To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, 
 Would we not shatter it to bits — and then 
 Remould it nearer to the heart's desire ?" 
 
 Omar Khayyam. 
 
 Those who would love mankind must not expect much 
 from them, is the half sad, half cynical verdict of 
 worldly wisdom. Thus writes one of the greatest of
 
 246 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 living writers. Distrust on the part of contemporaries ; 
 suspicion on that of friends ; pelting scorn from the 
 masses : these are the rewards which reformers and 
 prophets have received in all ages and at all times. 
 Thus humanity continues, now as always, garnishing 
 the sepulchres of the prophets which its predecessors 
 have stoned. The prophets and reformers have been, 
 and will always be, men of like passions with us ; with 
 this all important difference — that in them, unlike 
 mankind in general, the Divine spark was not suffered 
 prematurely to die away. They felt the inward message 
 and determined to carry it out. That Divine spark 
 which lurks in every bosom continued to burn bright 
 and steady in them. At the sacrifice of all the glitter- 
 ing glories of the world, at the cost of their very lives, 
 they preached and proclaimed the ideas which they 
 held to be just and right, and built for themselves 
 names among the names that can never pass away. 
 
 Socrates, condemned as a corrupter of youths; Jesus, 
 crucified as a setter-forth of strange things ; Mohamed, 
 persecuted for his religious mission : these are the 
 instances, a few among many, of the poetic justice 
 which man metes out to man, to his sponsor, to his 
 exponent, to his benefactor. The soil is manured 
 by the most precious of human lives, and each step 
 forward involves waste and wreckage at once fearful 
 and appalling. 
 
 If the world, however, only rarely and at long 
 intervals sees the vision — the supreme, beatific vision 
 — of a Socrates, a Jesus, a Mohamed, it is not out of 
 reach of the humblest and the meanest mortal that 
 ever walked this earth to follow light and do the
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 247 
 
 right, and to contribute his quota, however modest 
 it may be, to the well-being of society and the general 
 welfare of humanity. 
 When Ghalib wrote : 
 
 he was setting up a lofty standard by which to judge 
 man — man, the noblest of God's creation. He would 
 not have man grovelling in superstition, steeped in 
 egotism, sunk in sin and immorality, stripped of high 
 aims and noble ideals, but man created in the very 
 image of God, pure, chaste, altruistic, high-souled. 
 The philosophic historian, Sallust, tells us that man 
 shares the qualities of the gods as well as the beasts. 
 Ghalib would have man clothed with the attributes of 
 God, whose image he is, and not with those of the 
 beasts. 
 
 Were we to turn but occasionally to our own litera- 
 ture, what a harvest of noble, edifying thoughts would 
 we find therein. No ! such .a mistake we would not 
 make. Rather, from the pinnacle of self-esteem, we 
 would survey the world ; to find it merely a theatre 
 for the display of our little strength, an arena for our 
 petty battles. Pygmies and dwarfs we like to remain 
 for evermore, devoid of representative men in the 
 domain of thought, of great workers in the domain 
 of action. 
 
 We have already dealt with the sort of leaders that 
 we now possess — men of strange mediocrity, of strange 
 sterility of character, of sleepless ambition, ever ready
 
 •248 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 to sacrifice the community's interest to gain their 
 private ends. With such men at the head of society, 
 is it not but natural that we should be deficient in 
 those qualities of the heart and mind which train and 
 befit men for life's severe struggles and the world's 
 glowing prosperity ? 
 
 Well might we sigh with Hafiz : 
 
 The days have gone by, we trust, never to return, 
 when a child was born to the station of its parents. 
 We are now living in a world which freely opens to 
 all the prizes that are to be won by labour and 
 thought. 
 
 To these simple truths, which experience day by 
 day forces upon us, we turn a deaf ear; leading an 
 indeterminate existence, awaiting something which 
 we do not understand and care not to inquire into. 
 Is it the far off millennium ? Is it some gleaming hope 
 invisible to all but our co-religionists? Is it some 
 mysterious prophecy to be fulfilled in near future? 
 What is it ? The present writer is unable to appre- 
 hend or explain. Or is it the unwillingness to face 
 the truth, to shirk and shrink from the coarser, 
 uglier, harsher realities? This seems to us most 
 likely to be the case. Why this nervous apprehen-
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 249 
 
 sion ? Would we not do well to confront what lies 
 before us, to seek a remedy, to find a solution for our 
 present backward, degenerate condition ? Let us face 
 the truth in scorn of consequence. 
 
 In a society such as ours there is no encourage- 
 ment to honest labour, real merit, intrinsic abilities. 
 Here more than anywhere else we find the saying 
 illustrated that the race is not always to the swift nor 
 the battle to the strong. We put a premium on fraud 
 and imposture. We distinguish not the real from 
 the counterfeit. We suffer ourselves to be made the 
 stepping-stones of the ambitious, the aspiring, the 
 hypocritical, who look upon us as fair game. We 
 treat with indifference and contempt those who, with 
 better opportunities, would have been the leaders of 
 thought and the standard-bearers of truth. We offer 
 the incense of flattery, in unceasing torrents, to men 
 in power, while we suffer our men of genius to fret, 
 to struggle, to starve, to die, unwept, unhonoured, 
 and unsung. We worship power, whether it resides 
 in a constable or a Lieutenant-Governor of a Province. 
 How different are things here to what they are in 
 Europe ; nay, to what they were in Mohamedan 
 countries in days gone by. If we do not respect 
 ourselves, what right have we to call for respect from 
 others ? 
 
 ^'/ V '-^/ <^-3/ s^ ^-fJ ^^} J^^ ^} 
 
 But as things are (a terrible truth it is) nobody 
 out here is respected who does not hold a Govern-
 
 250 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 ment post, be he a scholar, a philosopher, a jurist of 
 renown, or an artist of great celebrity. With us it is 
 not the man who adorns the office, but it is the office 
 which adorns the man. We know many a sheep 
 masquerading in a lion's skin ; many a fool delivering 
 supposed oracles of wisdom. The modern Indian is 
 a strange personality — cringing to his superiors, tyran- 
 nical towards his inferiors ; fawning, flattering, and 
 abject when an official deigns to take notice of him. 
 We claim equality with the English. We resent what 
 we consider rough treatment at their hands. Have 
 we any right or justification to make this complaint? 
 Nobody has a greater admiration, a more genuine 
 respect, for the English than the present writer. He 
 has enjoyed their kindness here, their hospitality 
 at home ; not for one or two or three, but for nine 
 cherished years. An Englishman loves truth, honesty, 
 self-respect, integrity, and straightforwardness — virtues 
 in which we are so sadly and conspicuously deficient. 
 Often and often have I heard the complaint that Indians 
 call upon officials ostensibly to "pay respects"; but, 
 in truth, merely to ask for a favour, for a post, for 
 a transfer, for an appointment, and such things. 
 When asked the object of their visit they will, with 
 self-complaisance, say that they have come to "pay 
 respects," and after wasting ten or fifteen minutes, or 
 even half an hour, they would explain the object of 
 their visit. Is this the way in which our people expect 
 to enlist sympathy ? 
 
 Sir Lancelot Hare has pointed out, in his recent 
 speech at Dacca, the loss of manners as the most 
 striking feature of the Indians of to-day. I, for one.
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 251 
 
 entirely subscribe to his views. It is astonishing to 
 notice the arrogance, the petulance, the want of good 
 breeding, polish, grace, and politeness in the people 
 of our days. Herein they compare most unfavourably 
 with the older generation now fast disappearing. 
 
 We need only refer to Hali, the first and foremost 
 in the shining heaven of song, to see the picture of 
 Mohamedan society painted in its naked, hideous 
 deformity. His " Musaddus " is a doleful tale of the 
 vice and immorality, the selfishness, self-seeking and 
 hypocrisy which are corrupting Mohamedan society 
 through and through. It is, if I may say so, the 
 epitaph, the funeral oration over our community in 
 India. His verses express the authentic cry of the 
 human heart — sad, weary, depressed at things as 
 they are. 
 
 With leaders such as we have described, it is not 
 likely that we would have " societies " working for the 
 benefit and in the interest of our community. We 
 have a large number of societies scattered all over 
 India — societies with ostentatious names and splendid 
 programmes. We have one-man shows, which fre- 
 quently, indeed, stand out before the world as the 
 sponsors and exponents of Mohamedan hopes and 
 aspirations. We have societies which lie dormant for 
 months and months, to wake up one fine morning to 
 consider an address of congratulation or farewell to 
 some mighty magnate, who either comes to, or goes 
 away from, this beautiful country of ours, where all 
 except her sun has set. Then by a magician's wand, 
 as it were, the members rise from the dead, meet 
 together, display their skill and ingenuity in the
 
 252 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 sublime art of flattery and panegyric, vie with each 
 other for the honour of reading the address, and 
 anxiously look forward to the great day of joy and 
 rejoicing when they are to wait, in deputation, to 
 receive a nod, a recognition, or to shake hands with 
 the great god of worldly power, the recipient of the 
 address. We have, further, societies the express 
 object of which is to bring this or that man into 
 prominence, usually the secretary. Of these societies 
 we never hear or read any report, annual or monthly. 
 Of their working we know next to nothing. They 
 exist in name, and that is all. 
 
 What do all these things teach ? What lessons do 
 they bring home to us ? They are simply this, that 
 the very foundations of our belief and conduct need to 
 be reconstructed, that we need fixed stars to steer by, 
 firm principles to lead and guide us if we are success- 
 fully to compete for the prizes of life with the other 
 communities in India. The ancient tyranny of custom 
 and routine which keep us pinned to the archaic must 
 now give way to the new order of things if we are to 
 be a progressive community. 
 
 Unless and until we take these lessons seriously to 
 heart, our society must continue to be what it is — a 
 society so remote from all benignant ways as to 
 demand nothing less than the advent of a kindly 
 comet to sweep the whole affair into nothingness.
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 253 
 
 VI 
 
 ALLEIN. 
 " Der Frauen Zustand ist beklagenswerth." — Goethe. 
 
 In that supreme masterpiece, "Iphigenia in Tauris," 
 Goethe makes Iphigenia say : " Yet truly deserving 
 of lament is woman's lot." This pathetic, tragic 
 utterance, drawn, as it were, from the deepest depth 
 of despair, Iphigenia supports with a logic at once 
 forcible, trenchant, and convincing. At home an im- 
 perious lord to obey and to serve ; abroad, a life of 
 utter forlornness to face. Such is the destiny which 
 fate has woven for women ; very unlike man, indeed, 
 
 who 
 
 " Eules alike at home and in the field, 
 Nor is in foreign climes without resource : 
 Him conquest crowneth, him possession gladdens, 
 And him an honourable death awaits. 
 How circumscrib'd is woman's destiny ! 
 Obedience to a harsh, imperious Lord, 
 Her duty and her comfort, sad her fate, 
 Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote." 
 
 From the earliest dawn of history man has asserted 
 a right and dominion over woman, enjoyed advan- 
 tages and privileges which have been denied to her. 
 This, undoubtedly, has been due to his physical 
 superiority rather than his intellectual eminence. It 
 is only within recent times that women have awakened 
 to their claims and to the assertion of their rights, 
 and this, indeed, all the world over. In England the 
 forward march has been more apparent than else- 
 where ; but even in the pacific and conservative East
 
 254 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 women have raised their heads, and have called for 
 their due. 
 
 Pierre Loti, in his " Les Desenchantees," has very 
 truly remarked that among the Turkish women there 
 is a decided spirit of revolt against the severe regime 
 of the harem. But this is as true of India as it is of 
 Turkey. Muslim women are getting educated day by 
 day, and now assert their rights. Though the ijurdah 
 system still prevails, it is no longer that severe, 
 stringent, and unreasonable seclusion of woman which 
 existed fifty years ago. It is gradually relaxing, and 
 women are getting, step by step, rights and liberties 
 which must in course of time end in the complete 
 emancipation of Eastern womanhood. 
 
 Forty years ago women meekly submitted to neglect, 
 indifference, and even harsh treatment from their 
 husbands, but such is the case no longer. They 
 claim and, indeed, have succeeded in securing, a 
 decided position in their household (no longer the 
 position of a housekeeper), and cases are not rare of 
 women completely controlling the movements of their 
 husbands, and holding the strings of the purse. 
 Eastern women are by no means now those poor, 
 suffering, patient, and unfortunate creatures whom 
 the missionaries fondly delight in describing as the 
 women of the East. Education, though very imper- 
 fect still, is daily gaining ground, and with education 
 new hopes have dawned upon them; and, possibly, 
 the sex question may, in the remote future, become 
 as acute here as it is in the West. The more educated 
 families have done away with the purdah altogether, 
 such as the family of Tyyabji in Bombay and that of
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 255 
 
 Mr. Syed AH Belgrami in Hyderabad Deccan. It is 
 not Islam which enjoined the purdah system, but as 
 Mr. Ameer AH, in his " History of the Saracens," 
 points out (p. 199) : '* The custom of female seclusion, 
 which was in vcgue among the Persians from very 
 early times, made its appearance among the Muslim 
 communities in the reign of Walid II. And the 
 character and habits of the sovereign favoured the 
 growth and development of a practice which pride 
 and imitation had transplanted to the congenial soil 
 of Syria. His utter disregard of social conventionali- 
 ties, and the daring and coolness with which he 
 entered the privacy of families, compelled the adop- 
 tion of safeguards against outside intrusion, which 
 once introduced, became sanctified into a custom. 
 To the uncultured minds, walls and icarders appear to 
 afford more effective protection than nobility of senti- 
 ment and purity oj heart." It is incontestible that the 
 improvement in the social status of women, here as 
 elsewhere, is due to a large extent to European 
 influence, which is predominant throughout the East. 
 In the East women have always been regarded as 
 child-bearing machines, and hence they have never 
 risen to that position and eminence in which we find 
 them to-day all over Europe. It is true that the East 
 has produced women of high culture and political 
 insight, but these are exceptions and not the rule; 
 the average woman has always been what we have 
 described, " a child-bearing machine," devoted solely 
 to domestic affairs. When Haji Baba tells us how he 
 showed himself a true Muslim l)y his contempt for 
 womankind, he expressed a universal truth openly
 
 256 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 accepted and publicly avowed in Eastern countries. 
 What is the cause of this low estimate in which 
 women are held ? True, European influence has 
 largely alleviated their lot, has considerably widened 
 their outlook on life, has invested them with rights 
 and rescued them from oppression ; but to our mind 
 the true emancipation of womankind must indefinitely 
 be put off so long as the system of polygamy flourishes, 
 drawing its sanction from religion. 
 
 The author of " Eeforms under Muslim Rule " seeks 
 to make out that polygamy is an institution which 
 Islam does not sanction, but I am not quite sure that 
 he is right. At all events, the unanimity and con- 
 sensus of opinion is the other way. It may, with 
 growth of education and freedom of women, die out, 
 but the question which we must decide, and that once 
 for all, is whether it is an institution compatible with 
 present-day notions. The question, then, resolves 
 itself into this : Is this institution to be retained or 
 done away with ? Is it conducive to the interests of 
 society or otherwise? If the general sense of the 
 Mohamedan world condemns it as pernicious to the 
 stability, happiness, comfort and peace of the family, 
 let it be expunged from our law. If it approves it, 
 retain it by all means. I do not believe in the 
 argument constantly put forward that the conditions 
 which the Qur'an imposes upon its practice are too 
 difficult of realization, and, as such, according to the 
 strict letter of the law, the practice cannot be sup- 
 ported or sustained. But this is no answer to the 
 question raised here. Is the institution per se good 
 or bad ? Is it beneficial to the interest, or subversive
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 257 
 
 of the well-being of society? There can be no two 
 opinions on this point. To our mind the social cor- 
 ruption behind the zenana is, to a large extent, due to 
 this system. It is a fruitful source of discord, strife, 
 harassing litigations, the ruin of many wealthy 
 families. Nor can we ignore the fact that it is this 
 system which is responsible, in no small degree, for 
 the degraded view of womanhood current in the East. 
 It is impossible to expect among a polygamous people 
 that exalted idea of wedded life which we would 
 expect, and which we do, as a matter of fact, find 
 among those that are monogamous. Tahe a European 
 and an Indian home and see the contrast. The wife 
 in the West is a friend, a companion who is never in 
 that mortal terror of a rival to contest or to supplant 
 the affection of her husband in which a wife in the 
 East is. The Eastern wife may at any moment be 
 dislodged by another, and relegated to everlasting 
 sorrow and perpetual gloom. This idea colours the 
 whole life of our women. They are meek and sub- 
 missive, humble and accommodating, patient and 
 painstaking ; but this, in most instances, not by 
 choice, but by compulsion. There is not that relation 
 which is founded upon the equality of rights ; that 
 feeling of oneness which the ceremony at the altar 
 at once creates, strengthens and perpetuates. There 
 is not that feeling of fellowship and partnership of 
 two human beings linked together to toil through 
 life's journey, in weather foul or fair, and to remain 
 one unto death in the eye of the law without the 
 darkening shadow of a rival, or a co-wife or a con- 
 cubine. Hence the supreme difference between a 
 
 17
 
 258 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 Mohamedan and a Christian marriage. While the 
 former is merely a contractual relation liable to 
 termination at the will and caprice of one of the 
 contracting parties, the other is a deeply religious 
 function, sanctified and consecrated by the Church, 
 and to be severed only by death. 
 
 Polygamy and divorce generally go hand in hand. 
 In Eastern Bengal divorce is the order of the day, 
 and wives are put away as we cast off our old clothes. 
 And so also in Egypt and Arabia. No Judicial inquiry, 
 no positive proof, not a tittle of evidence of any sort 
 is needed. The lord of creation is invested with the 
 power of divorce, and he makes full and free use 
 of it. Is a high regard and reverence for womankind 
 conceivable under a system such as this ? Marriage 
 becomes only one remove from promiscuous inter- 
 course. Its significance, sanctity, importance in 
 domestic life is destroyed, and women become mere 
 instruments to satisfy passion and gratify lust. 
 
 "Whatever may have been the origin of the purdah 
 system, it is clear enough that it is founded in the 
 belief, though not openly confessed yet clear enough, 
 that women cannot be trusted to themselves ; that the 
 female sense of virtue, piety and chastity is too frail 
 and feeble to withstand the temptations of free social 
 intercourse. In no other light is the existence of this 
 system to be explained or justified. I may be charged 
 with drawing a picture of our society in colours far 
 worse than it is ; but I am confident that no thought- 
 ful man will disagree with me that these are defects, 
 most vital defects, which we must seriously attempt 
 to remove and set right. The barbarous and wanton
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 259 
 
 waste of money on wedding festivities, the perverse 
 prejudice against widow-marriage, and the equally 
 perverse system of early marriages, are evils too 
 patent to be passed over in silence. Nor shall we 
 omit to point out that iniquitous system, obtaining 
 very largely in Behar, the system of keeping good- 
 looking female servants and a retinue of female slaves 
 who usually give to the children their earliest lessons 
 in vice and immorality. 
 
 True, within the last quarter of a century there has 
 been a distinct and pronounced tendency to check 
 these evils, but there is not yet a deliberate, strenuous, 
 persistent effort to destroy them, root and branch. 
 Occasional voices, indeed, do we hear protesting 
 against them, but they fall on unwilling ears. The 
 Muslim societies, in our opinion, should take it upon 
 themselves to grapple with these problems, to arouse 
 an interest in them, to bring home to our people the 
 necessity of united and concerted effort to purify the 
 stream of domestic life and social system. 
 
 Xi^Li i^'v-i, ^ a ,[:lj Jib^ c:^ i\ ^^.Cl
 
 260 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 
 
 VII 
 
 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE. 
 
 Ghalib. 
 
 " I never can make out how it is that a TcnigJit- errant does 
 not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a ^^ecZZar-errant always 
 (loes ; — that people are willing to take hard knocks for nothing, 
 but never to sell ribands cheap ; — that they are ready to go on 
 fervent crusades, to recover the tomb of a buried god, but never 
 on any travels to fulfil the orders of a living one ; — that they 
 will go anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be 
 well bribed to practise it, and are perfectly ready to give the 
 Gospel gratis, but never the loaves and fishes." — Ruskin. 
 
 Fear God and keep his commandments, for that is 
 the whole duty of man — commandments, to be sure, 
 the very same in all religions. This simple principle, 
 though perceived by all right-thinking men, is yet 
 very far from universal acceptance ; for had this been 
 the guiding principle of life, history would have been 
 painted in far other colours than those which have so 
 long chequered its course. To discern between the 
 carnal and the spiritual, to reject the former and 
 adhere to the latter, is given but to few of us suffering 
 mortals. And yet reformers in all ages have impressed 
 upon their contemporaries this noble truth ; have 
 striven strenuously to unearth this half-buried pearl. 
 
 To one like the present writer, born and bred in an 
 atmosphere free from narrow religious views, and 
 saturated with liberal and catholic sentiments, it has 
 always been a mystery why one man should be at
 
 THOUGHTS OX THE PEESENT SITUATION 261 
 
 strife with another over diversity of religious belief, 
 or even why religious differences should ever stand in 
 the way of the most entire social, religious and 
 poHtical harmony between man and man, community 
 and community, race and race. Religion is too deep, 
 too sacred, too exalted to be dragged in this ivay into 
 the petty details of our common-place daily existence. 
 Would that we could realize and follow this truth. 
 
 We would not, for a moment, accept the dictum of 
 a celebrated courtesan that " a person who needs the 
 help of religion to get through life is to be pitied ; it 
 is a certain sign either of lacking intelligence or a 
 very corrupt heart." On the contrary, we fully 
 recognize its importance, its gravity, its far-reaching 
 influence in human life. Is it not religion, as the 
 poet sings, which teaches weak wills how much they 
 can achieve, which falls on dry hearts like rain, and 
 which whispers to self-weary, moribund man, " Thou 
 must be born again " ? 
 
 There seems, indeed, to be in religious men, says 
 Froude, whatever be their creed and however limited 
 their intellectual power, a prophetic insight which 
 puts to shame the sagacity of statesmen, and claims 
 for the sons of God, and only for them, the wisdom 
 even of the world. Those only read the world's 
 future who have faith in principle, as opposed to faith 
 in dexterity, who feel that in human beings there lies, 
 really and truly, a spiritual tendency which the 
 wisdom of the serpent cannot alter and scarcely 
 can affect. And Froude has hit the nail on its head. 
 But true religion is to be distinguished from its 
 counterfeit. Listen to what the Quran says : " That
 
 262 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 is not righteousness, whether ye turn your faces 
 towards east or west ; God's is the east as well as the 
 west. But verily righteousness is his who believes in 
 God, in the Day of Judgment, in the angels, in the 
 Book and the Prophets ; who bestows his wealth, for 
 God's sake, upon kindred and orphans, and the poor, 
 and the homeless, and all those who ask ; and also 
 upon delivering the captives ; he who is steadfast 
 in prayer, giveth alms, who stands firmly by his 
 covenants, when he has once entered into them ; and 
 who is patient in adversity, in hardship, and in times 
 of trial. These are the righteous, and these are the 
 God-fearing." Here, in this passage, is summed up 
 that essence of true religion which is one and the 
 same in every existing system : Humility, faith, 
 charity and cheerfulness. The rest is not worth 
 troubling over or fighting for. Take these as the 
 supreme guides of life, and all humanity becomes one 
 brotherhood ; striving after one common goal — " to 
 become like to God with a pure mind and to draw 
 near to Him and to abide in Him." 
 
 If we would only act up to these shining precepts, 
 which will remain to the end of time unshaken and 
 unassailed in their supremacy, our life would not be 
 what it is, an unceasing war with our fellow-men, 
 each with the mail on his breast and sword loose in its 
 sheath. It is not love, peace, charity, truth, justice 
 that we worship and cherish ; it is not these broad 
 lessons that all religions teach which we take seriously 
 to heart ; but it is to superfluities, accretions, non- 
 essential elements that we cling with a passionate 
 devotion. What is it that all religions, with an
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 263 
 
 absolute unanimity, teach us ? Is it not to make us 
 " not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right 
 things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — 
 not merely learned but to love knowledge — not merely 
 pure, but to love purity — not merely justice, but to 
 hunger and thirst after justice " ? 
 
 But the fact is that religion has now, all over the 
 world, been separated from life. It has become a 
 dull, dry, meaningless routine. It is lost in ritual and 
 ceremonials, fitful superstition and fanatical passion. 
 It is no longer a vital, vigorous, all-subduing force, 
 restraining and extirpating vice, fashioning character, 
 developing moral and spiritual powers. We would 
 rather be a Pagan suckled in creed outworn than one 
 of those Christian or Muslim worldlings of whom 
 society seems mainly to consist. I would be the last 
 to lay this fault at the door of the religions of the 
 world. It is the fault of their exponents, their 
 interpreters, who persist in burying truth in a heap of 
 unsavoury dogmas and incredible superstitions. The 
 result is that while the real teachings are neglected 
 and forgotten, the unessential elements have been 
 given an undue and obtrusive prominence. 
 
 People go to church as regularly now as they ever 
 did before, but the motive is no longer worship but 
 show and display of latest fashion. The church is the 
 most important matrimonial market in the civilized 
 Europe of to-day. People go to the mosqne, in troops, 
 Friday after Friday, in rain and sunshine, but how 
 few there are whom unalloyed religious feelings take 
 there. I have seen long-bearded Muslims, who would 
 rather starve than miss a prayer, gaily enter the
 
 264 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 witness-box, ^Yitll beads in their hand, to swear to 
 a falsehood for a mess of pottage, a few acres of land, 
 a few thousands of rupees. I have known men who 
 freely indulge in that licensed form of prostitution 
 known as mutah, beat their breast with frantic 
 vehemence, rend their clothes, cast dust on their head, 
 mourn in sack-cloth and ashes, year after year during 
 the Moharram for the murder of the grandson of the 
 Prophet. 
 
 Sin as much as you may, a visit to the Karhalah or 
 blessings from a mujtahid would whitewash all and 
 secure an assured passport to Paradise. The belief, 
 though half-hidden, is yet fully confessed that a 
 pilgrimage to Mekka or a visit to the Karhalah is a 
 sufficient atonement for the sins, excesses, and incon- 
 tinences of a life-time. What a caricature ! What a 
 travesty of Islam is all this ! 
 
 We have muftis who would willingly give any fatwa 
 you want, provided you only made it worth their 
 while to do so, and mujtahids who would unblushingly 
 sanction incest if their pockets were only well-lined 
 with gold and silver. The Islam that we now have 
 and now see is not the pure, undefiled islam of the 
 Prophet Mohamed — that Islam which called forth 
 those acts of heroism and self-sacrifice, that love 
 of justice and righteousness, that sense of loyalty and 
 obedience, that passionate attachment to Allah and 
 His cause, which made the early Muslims what 
 they were — conquerors of the world and the most 
 tolerant of rulers. Our modern Indian Islam is a 
 pliant, flexible, accommodating Islam which fails 
 to make the distinction between right and wrong,
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PBESENT SITUATION 265 
 
 religious devotion and rankest fanaticism. It is of 
 little moment whether you lead an immoral life, rob 
 an infant of his heritage, break the plighted oath, 
 commit perjury in law courts, look upon mankind as 
 fair game, and regard life from the narrow standpoint 
 of personal pleasure and advancement. All this you 
 may do and much more with impunity, so long as you 
 keep a long, flowing beard ; declare the rest of 
 mankind kafir, doomed to eternal damnation ; shun 
 the liquid ruby ; perform the five daily prayers without 
 understanding or trying to understand what they 
 mean ; and fast in the month of Ramazan. These are 
 the credentials which we now require to enter the 
 Paradise of the Prophet peopled with hoiiris as fair 
 and exquisite and beautiful as polished ivory or lucent 
 alabaster. While the true spirit of our religion has 
 departed from us we are as fanatical as ever; fanaticism, 
 unreasoned and unreasoning, is the lord we implicitly 
 obey. It is a distressing fact that in India religion is 
 made the base of the most hostile operations by one 
 community against another. - It is a fact which we 
 must not and dare not overlook if we are to share our 
 common burden, to work for our common good. We 
 are constantly told that Mohamedans are a distinct 
 people, as unlike the Hindus as the Semite is unlike 
 the Aryan ; that there are differences penetrating to 
 the very root of life ; differences of habit, tempera- 
 ment, social customs, racial type ; that these differ- 
 ences are so vital and so enormous that the fusion 
 between the two is a hopeless impossibility, an 
 impracticable dream. Now I am not at all sure 
 that this argument is sound. Admitting that the
 
 266 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 Mohamedans came to India as foreign conquerors as 
 utterly different to the Hindus as the EngUsh are 
 different to us both, we cannot forget that for many 
 centuries they have lived side by side, freely mixing 
 with the people of the land, mutually influencing each 
 other, taking Indian women as their wives, adopting 
 local customs and local usages ; in fine, permeated and 
 pervaded through and through by local characteristics 
 and local peculiarities. The most infallible proof of 
 this we find in the marriage ceremonies, which are en- 
 tirely Hindu ceremonies, in the customs of the women- 
 folk, such as the use of the vermilion mark, the symbol 
 and token of wedded life, the restrictions imposed 
 upon the dress and diet of widows, the disapproval, 
 nay condemnation, of widow marriages, and, indeed, 
 in a thousand little practices behind the zenana. 
 
 All this indicates somewhat more than mere super- 
 ficial connection between the two races which mainly 
 divide the Indian population. A yet clearer proof is 
 the unity of language and the similarity of dress. 
 Moreover, say what we will, a large number, in fact 
 the largest portion of the Mohamedan population, are 
 Hindu converts to Islam. It rests upon no un- 
 warranted assumption, but upon well ascertained 
 facts, that Hinduism and Mohamedanism have acted 
 and reacted upon each other ; influencing social 
 institutions, colouring religious thoughts with their 
 mutual, typical, religious hues. The Panthis of 
 Kabir Das and the Nal Daman of Faizi are but con- 
 spicuous illustrations of the union of the two streams 
 of Hinduism and Islam which, since Muslim conquest, 
 have flowed side by side in India.
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 267 
 
 Why and how comes now this bitterness of feeling 
 between the two communities ? Both live under the 
 same laws, enjoy the same rights, share the same 
 responsibilities, pay the same taxes, have the same 
 educational facilities, and are eligible for the highest 
 posts in the land. Wherein consists the difference or 
 distinction between the two, the present writer is 
 unable to find. 
 
 Is it not to our interest to work together in concert 
 and harmony, for we pursue the same goal: the 
 intellectual and material prosperity of India? In 
 mutual help and co-operation lies our hope, in division 
 and dissension our feebleness and death. The Hindu 
 and Mohamedan question is of but recent growth. It 
 was unheard of in the last generation, though both 
 the Hindus and Mohamedans were then much more 
 orthodox than they now are. The Hindus and 
 Mohamedans were animated by one common spirit 
 and kindled by one common zeal, and that was mutual 
 brotherhood. The Mohamedans joined them in their 
 festivities, shared in their joys, and stood by them in 
 their sorrows, and they returned the compliment. 
 The success of one was the joy of the other. The 
 sorrow of the one was the sorrow of the other. Tliere 
 was a warm feeling of sympathy, and a strong feeling 
 of responsibility for the less fortunate sections of the 
 two communities. 
 
 How different things then were to what they now 
 are. We have called for a separate election, apparently, 
 on the ground that we cannot trust the Hindus. We 
 have got it, but we are not at all sure that it will help 
 the cause, dear to all who are interested in tranquil
 
 268 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 peace, assured order, and intellectual and material 
 progress of India — the cause of the union of the 
 Hindus and Mohamedans. Could we cement good 
 feeling between us by suggesting distrust ? No ! A 
 thousand times no ! But if the Mohamedans are to 
 blame, the present writer cannot acquit the Hindus of 
 blame altogether. They are ahead of us in both 
 wealth and learning, and we expect from them help 
 and sympathy. Do we get it? Very little indeed, if 
 at all. 
 
 This feeling of estrangement is growing worse day 
 by day. Ought we not to heal the breach, to bridge 
 the gulf, if we have really the good of India at 
 heart ? 
 
 While Faizi and Kabir Das represent the subtle, 
 intellectual influence working to a common goal — 
 namely, the union of Hinduism and Islam, and the 
 creation of mutual love and esteem and regard 
 between the two communities, Ajmere points to 
 a more palpable, tangible, practical result. There, at 
 the shrine of the great Khajah, religious differences 
 have almost reached their vanishing point. No 
 privilege, no distinction, does the Mohamedan there 
 enjoy over his Hindu compatriot. The same feeling 
 of reverence and devotion which inspires one inspires 
 the other. The same treatment is meted out to one 
 as is meted out to the other. There do both go and 
 pray with folded hands and bended knee. There, as 
 nowhere else, do you see the glorious triumph of the 
 feeling of mutual brotherhood rising above petty, 
 trivial, meaningless forms and conventionalities, 
 which, outside the hallowed precincts of Ajmere,
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 269 
 
 have rent Hindus and Mohamedans in twain, be- 
 getting fierce hatred and implacable animosity, which 
 neither reason nor prudence nor education have 
 succeeded in hushing into silence. 
 
 The laurel, the palm, and the ptean to thee, 
 Khajah, for having, at least in Ajmere, effected an 
 enduring reconciliation between these two great com- 
 munities, and united them in the silken bonds of 
 brotherly love and esteem. 
 
 VIII 
 
 UNITY. 
 
 '* My own hope is a sun will pierce 
 
 The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 
 That after Last, returns the First, 
 
 Though a wide compass round be fetched. 
 That what began best, can't end worst, 
 
 Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst." 
 
 Browning. 
 
 We have tried to show that, with us, religion has now 
 become a solemn farce stripped of spiritual truth and 
 steeped in barren tradition and practice. Religious 
 knowledge, with us, suffers not only from ignorance 
 but from an excess of fiction and falsification. We 
 are too deeply rooted in the past, and it would be 
 almost impossible to obtain a hearing if you were to 
 preach that it is time to take stock of the treasures, 
 religious and intellectual, bequeathed to us ; to accept 
 and retain those which are still acceptable ; to reject 
 those which are effete and time-worn. Such a pro- 
 position would at once be branded as perilously near 
 irreverence, impiety, irreligion ; nay, apostasy. The
 
 270 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 position taken up is somewhat this : our religion and 
 our law are divine. No human wisdom can improve 
 upon them or has a right or power to modify or alter 
 or add to or subtract from them. Our fealty to this 
 doctrine must, on no account, waver or falter if we 
 are to remain good Muslims. This is the foundation 
 stone of our faith, as it is conceived to-day. I con- 
 fess there is a sweet fascination about the past and all 
 that belongs to the past. What is grey with years, 
 says Schiller, to man is Godlike. But this idolatrous 
 enthusiasm must be kept well within bounds, or we 
 run the risk of closing all avenues to progress. Is 
 this attitude anything new to Muslims ? No ! It has 
 a history of its own — a very deep, interesting, in- 
 structive history. If we ascend the stream of time 
 and look backward to that dark and dismal period 
 which followed the murder of Othman, we will find that 
 Islamic unity was already a thing of the past. New 
 passions, new interests had come into play ; interests 
 and passions not always very clean or pure either. 
 
 Under the Omayyads it was the Arab heathenism 
 that was in the ascendant ; under the Abbasids 
 scepticism and indifference to religion alternating 
 with rabid fanaticism ; under the Turks and Moguls 
 servile imitation unrelieved by a single ray of origin- 
 ality. The period of real, original, solid, substantial, 
 intellectual activity coincides with the period of un- 
 bounded luxury and widest sway — namely, the age of 
 the Abbasids. But beneath the glory and splendour, 
 transient, fleeting, and evanescent, there is one 
 feature standing out in bold relief — and that is the 
 absence of slow, steady, continuous, broadening pro-
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 271 
 
 gress. Either there is a sudden burst of intellectual 
 sunshine and material prosperity, or there is the en- 
 girdling gulf of deepest intellectual and material decay 
 and decline. The only explanation that we can 
 suggest for this phenomenon is that in the East all 
 movements, whatever be their character, owe their 
 origin not so much to popular feeling and conscience, 
 as to the towering genius of some local potentate, 
 some mystical enthusiast, some far-sighted sovereign 
 standing on a pinnacle, high and above his age. In 
 other words, all eastern movements are from without 
 and not from within. They do not respond to a deep- 
 felt need on the part of the people, but are not unlike 
 a rainbow radiance, bright, brilliant, beautiful, but 
 alas! too brief, too momentary, too short-lived. But 
 along with this we must not omit to mention another 
 cause much too deep and far-reaching in oriental life. 
 I mean the intimate relation which exists between 
 religion on the one hand and social life and the legal 
 system on the other. For the eastern, everything, the 
 minutest detail of his prosaic common-place life, is 
 regulated by religion. Eeligion is the ultimate 
 source, the divine basis, the fountain head from 
 which rules of life are drawn. He cannot separate 
 municipal from religious laws, and hence progress to 
 him is a defiance of a divinely-ordained system. 
 
 In the Islamic history we perceive two unequal 
 periods : the period when the whole body of the 
 floating laws, ritual and ceremonial, are in a state of 
 vague uncertainty ; and secondly the period when they 
 are set into shape. Thenceforward the standard of 
 Muslim manhood, minted by authority, is fixed and
 
 272 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 determined to the end of time, and any departure 
 from it is akin to apostasy. I do not for one moment 
 contend that this is what Islam requires, but this is 
 what its interpreters would have us believe. It is 
 then that we see the unedifying spectacle of religious 
 sects rising armed with credentials and weapons in- 
 vented and forged to support their claim or establish 
 their right. Of these sects we have no less than 
 seventy-two — a very respectable figure, to be sure ! It 
 was an age fertile in forgeries ; nor was there any 
 means (for the science of criticism is essentially 
 a modern science) whereby to detect and discredit 
 such forgeries. There was a whole armoury of forged 
 tradition from which each party drew its authority to 
 meet the other. Thus did religious sects, standing on 
 the sure foundation of what they deemed genuine 
 traditions, settle down to fight no longer non-Muslims 
 but to fight and decimate each other. And thus each 
 sect is well supplied with its store-house of these 
 forged traditions which it would be reckoned impious 
 to doubt or to call into question. 
 
 For the essentials of Islam we need hardly travel 
 beyond the Qur'an — a book which will be read to the 
 last generation of man — a book so human in its 
 ineffable tenderness— so divine in its triumphant 
 consecration of calamity — a true song of human life 
 pervaded by dignified sweetness and a sunny purity 
 of light. But though it is conceded by these warring 
 sects that the Qur'an is the pillar of religion, the 
 basis of Islam, they would have something over and 
 above it. And the moment they overstep its boundary 
 there is a weltering chaos of disunion and disagree-
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 273 
 
 ment about this or that — mere airy nothings, un- 
 substantial shadows, meaningless quibbles. 
 
 Every Mohamedan belongs to one of these sects and 
 is the inheritor of a long-continued feud with the 
 members of the other sects. Well might a reasonable 
 man sit and watch, a bewildered spectator, at this 
 vast and unintelligible drama enacted every day of our 
 life. Imagine the fight over the question whether 
 Amin should be said aloud or not ; whether the 
 prayer should be performed with hands above or 
 below the breast, and such-like twaddle. The result 
 is that each Mohamedan sect, so to speak, is an 
 organized camp, armed to the teeth, to strike at the 
 others. 
 
 The Snnnis are perpetually at war with the Sliiahs ; 
 the Hanafis and Shiahs at war with the Wahahis, and 
 vice versa. At the beginning of this year the present 
 writer happened to visit Lucknow. While going from 
 the station to the house of a friend whose guest he 
 was, he saw a posse of police, with glistening bayonets, 
 pacing up and down the main road. Surprised at the 
 unusual display of arms in a city apparently quiet 
 and unshaken by any tumult or upheaval, he was 
 informed that it was to maintain peace between 
 Shiahs and Snnnis. Well might we heave a deep 
 sigh at a sight such as this ! Has Islam, after all, 
 brought a sword on earth ? Has time turned its 
 precepts of brotherly love and fraternal unity into 
 Bad, mocking derision ? Are we to live in a house so 
 cruelly divided against itself ? Can we, with distrust 
 and hatred and contempt for our brothers-in-faith, do 
 any good to ourselves, our religion, or our community, 
 
 18
 
 274 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 so sorely in need of help and pilotage in the dark 
 waters in which it struggles ? These were the mourn- 
 ful thoughts which were irresistibly borne in upon 
 me as my carriage swiftly glided down the road. 
 
 If my reading of Islamic history is right, it was 
 precisely these very divisions which destroyed Islam 
 as a political force, and it is precisely these very 
 divisions which render our modern Islamic Powers 
 incapable of union. These very divisions meet us, in 
 our own community to-day, in their grim, tragic, fearful 
 hideousness. 
 
 Should we not say with William Watson : 
 
 " Though dark, O God, Thy course and track, 
 I think Thou must at least have meant, 
 That nought which Hves should wholly lack 
 The things that are more excellent." 
 
 Shall we not investigate the causes of this wasting, 
 corrupting disease which is sucking the very life- 
 blood out of our community and is making it a by- 
 word for all that is useless and ignoble in life ? I am 
 inclined to ascribe this present retrogressive condition 
 of our people to three causes : (1) Blind acquiescence 
 in the ordering that has come down from the past ; 
 (2) the decline of Oriental studies ; (3) want of pro- 
 gressive standards. 
 
 We are much too prone to accept things as they 
 are. We shrink, with horror, from the idea of con- 
 sidering the utility or otherwise of institutions that 
 have come down to us from the past. It is partly 
 due to the feeling of pain which every breach with 
 the past involves, and partly due to the religious 
 character with which every institution has been,
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 275 
 
 more or less, hallowed. Climatic influences have 
 also a great deal to do with this dormant attitude 
 of mind, but I am disposed to believe that such 
 influences are somewhat over-rated. The Eastern 
 to some extent is, by temperament, mystical and 
 dreamy rather than practical, but this does not 
 mean that with him progress is an impossibility. 
 Witness the marvellously rapid growth of Japan ! 
 and yet the Japanese are essentially an Asiatic 
 race. Nor would I ascribe this backward condition 
 of the Muslims to their religion. Their religion 
 is essentially broad, expansive, progressive. Then 
 what is the cause of this seemingly hopeless lethargy 
 if it is neither climate nor religion ? It is their 
 aversion to change, their refusal to move with the 
 time. They would rather dwell under the shadow 
 of old traditions and institutions than adapt them- 
 selves to the growing needs of the age. They need 
 direction and guidance, but they have none to direct 
 and guide. The Muslim mind has not been able 
 to rise (because there is none to draw them to it) 
 to commercial enterprise with all that it involves ; 
 organization of industry, invention, machinery, trusts, 
 stock and share markets. And Professor Margoliouth 
 tells us that, according to an authority on Con- 
 stantinople, a bank or insurance office run by Mus- 
 lims would be regarded as portentous ; where the 
 hand of Europeans has not interfered, the camel 
 or the horse is still the only available means of 
 locomotion, the earth the only store-house of treasure. 
 Then the prohibition as to taking of interest on 
 money. It is fatal to commercial activity, for
 
 276 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 
 
 capital cannot be raised when no remuneration on 
 it can be promised ; and thus co-operation, which 
 lies at the root of modern enterprise, is annihilated. 
 Whether this prohibition is really a religious or- 
 dinance the present writer has much doubt, but 
 whether it is so or not it is worth considering whether 
 it should not be avoided or at least evaded by legal 
 fiction. But, as stated above, it is the too servile 
 adhesion to the past which stands seriously in our 
 way. It is impossible to have advancing standards, 
 moral, ethical, social, intellectual, if we once accept 
 that whatever is, is right. It is an insurmountable 
 barrier to the creation of a new kingdom of feeling 
 and sensation and thought, which need not neces- 
 sarily be opposed to the existing spiritual system, 
 but which must certainly be beyond it and independent 
 of it, if it is to be at all an accession to human 
 culture. The creation of this new kingdom of feeling 
 and sensation and thought ought to be our effort, 
 aim and solemn endeavour. It will take time, but 
 we must prepare the ground for it, must take a 
 step towards it, and not remain lapped in pleasant, 
 self-complacent slumber. And how are we to em- 
 bark upon our task ? By infusing a new life into 
 our educational curriculum. My friend, Mr. Justice 
 Abdur Kahim, in his admirable address to the 
 Madras graduates, tells us what the home life of a 
 Mohamedan is. "I will just tell you," says he, 
 " what the home life is of a young man in a well- 
 regulated Mohamedan household of which I can claim 
 to speak with some knowledge. Every Mohamedan 
 child has his ears filled with the cry of ' God is
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 277 
 
 great and there is no God but God,' the God who 
 to him is the embodiment of the highest perfection ; 
 he is taught not to begin any work or duty of 
 the day or any undertaking of life, great and small, 
 but in the name of * God ' the kind, the merciful ; 
 he learns to thank the Almighty whenever his efforts 
 are crowned with success and to trust in Him all 
 the more if he fails, to bend the knees of devotion 
 every now and then each day ; every day he repeats 
 and pores with loving reverence over the words of 
 the Qur'an, whose divine eloquence has an abiding 
 place in every Mohamedan's heart ; he is brought 
 up to find the keenest pleasure in the practice of 
 the most rigid self-denial for one month in each 
 year, and the practice of charity and kindness to- 
 wards his neighbours is impressed upon him as 
 a legal duty and a high spiritual privilege. Thus 
 brought up a Mohamedan youth can be trusted 
 never to swerve from his faith." This is what 
 Mr. Eahim says about a Mohamedan home, and I 
 admire his lyrical and rapturous enthusiasm. But 
 is this a correct picture of things as they are ? To 
 begin with the conception of God. Let it be clearly 
 understood that what I am now going to say is not 
 what I believe to be the conception of the deity 
 as portrayed by Islam. But my observations are 
 mainly confined to the views of our modern Mohame- 
 dans. The one thing which strikes me about it 
 (and I would not have noticed it but for the fact that 
 it vastly colours our religious views) is that God, as 
 fashioned by our co-religionists, is an exact type 
 of an oriental ruler. It is not love but fear that
 
 278 THOUGHTS ON THE PEE SENT SITUATION 
 
 is more prominently emphasised. He is conceived 
 as vindictive, unmerciful, occupied in tedious matters 
 hostile to all gaiety and juvenility ; totally un- 
 interested in the human race, except in so far that 
 He regards their transgressions with morbid asperity 
 and a kind of gloomy satisfaction, as giving Him 
 an opportunity of exercising coercive discipline. It 
 is this which our children are taught to believe. 
 So long as the beautiful innocence of childhood 
 continues, I frankly admit, this belief acts with 
 sensitive children as a sort of deterrent, but the 
 moment they begin to think for themselves the 
 whole thing vanishes as a dream and is followed 
 by a reaction which not infrequentl}^ lands them 
 in scepticism and irreligion. There is a great deal 
 of truth and force in what Mr. Arthur Christopher 
 Benson suggests : " Considering how entirely creatures 
 of sense children are, it has seemed to me since 
 that it would be well if their simplest pleasures, 
 the material surroundings of their lives, were con- 
 nected with the idea of God — if they felt that what 
 they enjoyed was sent by Him ; if it were said of 
 a toy that * God sends you this,' or of some 
 domestic festivity that * God hopes that you will 
 be happy to-day ' — it appears to me that we should 
 have less of that dreary philosophy which connects 
 ' God's will ' only with moments of bereavement 
 and suffering. If we could only feel with Job, 
 that God, who sends us so much that is sweet and 
 wholesome, has equally the right to send us what 
 is evil, we could early grow to recognize that, when 
 the greater part of our lives is made up of what
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PKESENT SITUATION 279 
 
 is desirable and interesting, and when we cling to life 
 and the hope of happiness with so unerring an instinct 
 it is probable, nay, certain, that our afflictions must 
 be ultimately intended to minister to the fulness of 
 joy." It is love rather than fear, the forgiving rather 
 than the severe, the merciful rather than the cruel 
 character of Divmity that we should impress upon our 
 children. And this is exactly what we do not do. 
 Why not teach that prayer is acceptable to God and 
 you should therefore pray ; charity pleasing unto Him 
 and you should therefore be charitable ; fasting a 
 divine ordinance, for the discipline of the body and 
 soul, and therefore you should fast; pilgrimage to 
 Mekka an institution to draw you nearer unto His 
 prophet, and therefore you should make a pilgrimage ? 
 Would not this be more appealing to childhood, " bright 
 as truth and frailer than a toy," than the doctrine that 
 for disobedience the punishment is eternal, enduring 
 Hell-fire ? And above all, why not teach them the 
 supremest of all religious lessons — the lesson that no 
 service of bended knee or of humbled head is of 
 any avail if the heart is not pure and the hand not 
 clean ? 
 
 Then Mr. Abdur Eahim speaks of the unceasing 
 study of the Qur'an. Yes ! children are taught the 
 Qur'an. It is almost the first book that they read. 
 But how do they read it ? It is as well that we 
 should be disenchanted and know the truth. The 
 land of dreams is so rich, so beautiful, so new, but 
 alas ! it will not help us in grappling with our diffi- 
 culties, in rectifying our defects. We will not recline 
 in a false security nor will we solve the problem by
 
 280 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 overlooking its difficulties. Yes ! the Qur'an is taught, 
 but in how many well-regulated houses do the boys 
 know sufficient Arabic to understand the language 
 of God ? They read the Qur'an like parrots, without 
 knowing what it means. Its sweetness is wasted on 
 the desert air. Is such study likely to have any 
 influence over their thought and conduct ? I most 
 distinctly hold not. I consider the years spent over 
 the study of the Qur'an in this fashion as years 
 utterly wasted and thrown away. I am firmly con- 
 vinced that so far as a sound, substantial spiritual 
 teaching is concerned the Mohamedan youth has 
 nothing, or next to nothing. Take, for instance, the 
 five daily prayers, one of the cardinal tenets of our 
 religion, how few of the members of the " well- 
 regulated family " perform them or care to perform 
 them. This does not betoken much religious enthu- 
 siasm. As for fasting, it is an institution which is 
 gradually dying out in the higher circles. We need 
 not talk of pilgrimage to Mekka. It has fallen on 
 evil times. The modern Mekka is Europe, and most 
 of the members of the "well-regulated family" go 
 there for the purpose of pilgrimage. 
 
 The picture that Mr. Abdur Eahim draws is an 
 ideal picture ; it is a picture of things not as they 
 exist but as they should exist ; not of a Mohamedan 
 as he is but as he should be ; and in this I am in 
 perfect agreement with him. And if all that he says 
 does come to pass, and I fervently hope that it will 
 come to pass, then the ideal Mohamedan youth of the 
 Madras Judge would be a Mohamedan youth who can 
 be trusted never to swerve from his faith !
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 281 
 
 Now as to the study of Arabic ? It is the fashion, 
 now, to look down with contempt on Oriental studies. 
 I suiDpose this is owing to the fact that such studies 
 have no commercial value. But, for us Mohamedans, 
 they have a value far higher and deeper than the 
 value which can be assessed in gold. Our sacred 
 book is in Arabic, and it is perfectly futile to try to 
 enter into the spirit of our religion without knowledge 
 of the language which embodies its sacred book, its 
 laws, its tenets, its precepts, its very spirit. It is 
 through these alone that we can hope to maintain 
 our individuality as a community, and to justify our 
 existence as such. But the studies must be broad- 
 based. With all our reverence and devotion to our 
 religion we do not believe that the moral and other 
 laws are not to be learned by experience and observa- 
 tion, but solely by the study of the Qur'an and the 
 practice of the Prophet. This view I hold to be 
 utterly unsupported by our religion, and I shall pre- 
 sently endeavour to show that it is a wholly unfounded 
 doctrine, without any religious basis or sanction for 
 it. But this is no new limitation or bar fixed against 
 progress by latter-day Islam. It dates much earlier. 
 It is a heritage handed down to us by the medieval 
 schoolmen of Islam — a remnant of days when intellect 
 was fettered and shackled by the bondage of faith in 
 the authority and wisdom of great masters. It is a 
 relic of the days when people were persuaded that all 
 that was worth being done was already done, and no 
 human wisdom could surpass or excel it. This fatal 
 doctrine tended to cramp and circumscribe the intellect. 
 " Such a system means" (the system which relies solely
 
 282 THOUGHTS ON THE PKESENT SITUATION 
 
 on the Qur'an and the practice of the Prophet), says 
 Professor Margoliouth, " banging the door in the face 
 of observation and experience ; it places the legislation 
 of the community in the hands of theologians, pedants, 
 grammarians, excluding therefrom the men of practical 
 wisdom and experience. The day that Europe eman- 
 cipated itself from such a system was the day whereon 
 European progress and superiority commenced. It 
 seems to have been this principle which caused the 
 vast sums spent by Muslim sovereigns on educational 
 establishments and the endowment of research to have 
 perished without leaving education or research the 
 better for them. For what was endowed was not the 
 study of life and reality, the working of cause and 
 effect in Nature, the evils of society and their cure, 
 but solely the text of ancient books, lists of authorities 
 through whom traditions had been handed down, the 
 mode by which questions of casuistry could be solved 
 out of the recognized authorities." 
 
 The Oriental studies, out in India, have been more 
 or less conducted on these very lines, and it is this 
 that we must alter if we are to make these studies 
 liberal, broadening, sustaining studies. It is not the 
 slavish acceptance but well-considered adoption or 
 rejection of views, principles, beliefs that must be 
 the result of education. It is the power to think for 
 oneself which is the highest gift of culture, and it is 
 this that we must implant, foster, and strengthen. 
 Honest doubt is better than half the creeds. Mr. 
 Benson once more : 
 
 "What is, after all, the aim of education? I sup- 
 pose it is two-fold : firstly, to make of the mind a
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 283 
 
 bright, keen, and effective instrument, capable of 
 seeing a point, of grappling with a difficiiltj^ of pre- 
 senting facts or thoughts with clearness and precision. 
 A young man properly educated should be able to 
 detect a fallacy, to correct by acquired clear-sighted- 
 ness a false logical position. He should not be at the 
 mercy of any new theory which may be presented to 
 him in a specious and attractive shape. That is, I 
 suppose, the negative side. Then, secondly, he should 
 have a cultivated taste for intellectual things, a power 
 of enjoyment ; he should not bow meekly to authority 
 in the matter of literature, and force himself into the 
 admiration of what is prescribed, but he should be 
 possessed of a dignified and wholesome originality ; 
 he should have his own taste clearly defined. If his 
 bent is historical, he should be eagerly interested in 
 any masterly presentation of historical theory, whether 
 new or old ; if philosophical, he should keep abreast 
 of modern speculation ; if purely literary, he should 
 be able to return hour after hour to masterpieces 
 that breathe and burn." Thus far Mr. Benson. Our 
 educational authorities should well weigh and well 
 consider every word of this advice. 
 
 For the present, however, we are only concerned 
 with Oriental studies, but the principle set forth by 
 Mr. Benson is as applicable to these as to any other 
 study. Instead of teaching our Oriental students 
 old-fashioned logic, commentaries on the Qur'an, 
 voluminous books on traditions, a slight smattering 
 of law — all at once — it would be infinitely more pro- 
 fitable to give them a good grip of the language, and 
 then allow them to choose their own course — be it
 
 284 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 history, literature, science, law, or philosophy — and 
 along with it a little original thinking and original 
 work. Under the present system it is inconceivable 
 for a student to think for himself, his earliest lesson 
 being never to doubt or question what has come down 
 from the past. Fresh to work with an emancipated 
 mind and intellect, they will be the prophets of a new 
 dispensation, and not what they are now, traffickers 
 of silly, foolish superstitions. 
 
 Now we come to the last question we have pro- 
 posed to discuss in this chapter. Is Islam hostile to 
 progress ? 
 
 I will emphatically answer this question in the 
 negative. Islam, stripped of its theology, is a per- 
 fectly simple religion. Its cardinal principle is belief 
 in one God and belief in Mohamed as his apostle. 
 The rest is mere accretion, superfluity. The Qur'an, 
 rightly understood and interpreted, is a spiritual guide, 
 containing counsels and putting forward ideals to be 
 followed by the faithful, rather than a corpus juris 
 civilis to be accepted for all time. It was never the 
 intention of the Prophet — and no enlightened Muslim 
 believes that it ever was — to lay down immutable 
 rules, or to set up a system of law which was to be 
 binding upon humanity apart from considerations of 
 time and place and the growing necessities arising from 
 changed conditions. The Prophet always emphatically 
 asserted that he was a man of like passions with others, 
 except that he was entrusted with a revelation. 
 
 True, for the purposes of order and security and 
 the preservation and maintenance of the new society 
 created by Islam, he laid down rules regulating mar-
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 285 
 
 riage, inheritance, and so forth, but these rules were 
 mostly of a very elementary character, and were 
 intended to meet the existing conditions of things. 
 The position of Mohamed, indeed, was that of a 
 spiritual teacher, a prophet, and not that of a legis- 
 lator. In the infancy of human society there is but 
 a faint line of demarcation between law and religion, 
 the two being inseparably connected with each other. 
 With advancing civilization the line becomes clearer 
 and sharper, and religion and law become separate 
 and distinct. Such was the case at Eome, and such 
 has been the case at Mekka. 
 
 All respect and honour is due to the law laid down 
 by Mohamed, but the very fact that Muslim juris- 
 prudence grew into a stupendous fabric within an 
 incredibly short time, partly by interpretation and 
 partly by adoption of foreign rules, unmistakably 
 proves that the legislation of the Prophet of Arabia 
 made no claim to finality. It shows, beyond doubt 
 or cavil, that the law of the Prophet was neither wide 
 nor comprehensive enough to cover the newly-arisen 
 conditions of life in which Muslims found themselves 
 after their brilliant and extensive conquests. Fully 
 conscious of this, indeed, were the great jurists of 
 Islam, and but for this. Islamic law would have 
 remained fragmentary and insufficient for a highly- 
 developed society like that of Baghdad or Cairo or 
 Cordova. 
 
 It would be an error to suppose that Muslim law — 
 regulating the minutest details of life — is entirely based 
 on the Qur'an and the Sunnah ; it is, to be sure, the 
 creation of the great jurists of Islam.
 
 286 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 "By far the greatest portion of the Muslim law," 
 says Nawawi (one of our famous theologians), " is the 
 outcome of true inquiry; for the actual passages of 
 the Qur'an and the Sunnah have not contributed 
 a hundredth part to it ". The Mohamedans were 
 fully alive to the necessity of modifying their law 
 as time went by. Modification of the law, in accord- 
 ance with the spirit of the times and the require- 
 ments of the age, was one of the most important 
 duties of the Nazar-ul-Mazalim (Board for the inspec- 
 of grievances), one of the finest institutions of the 
 Caliphate. It lasted from the time of Abdul Malik to 
 that of the Caliph Muhtadi, and in connection with 
 this institution our great publicist Al-Mawardi notes 
 that the President of the Board had to decide not 
 according to the letter oj the laiv, hut according to the 
 principles of equity. 
 
 And yet Lord Cromer says that "Islam, speaking 
 not so much through the Qur'an as the traditions 
 which cluster round the Qur'an, crystallizes religion 
 and law into one whole, with the result that all 
 elasticity is taken away from the social system." 
 This statement of Lord Cromer is entirely belied 
 by the history of Islam, and is wholly untenable in 
 the light of well-authenticated facts. 
 
 " The epoch of systematization, sifting discussion and 
 glosses," says Von Kremer, "followed the unfettered 
 love of work and creative energies. Polemical litera- 
 ture and voluminous commentaries on old masters 
 poured forth in unending streams. They soon began 
 to look upon the great doctors of the earlier centuries 
 as men whose works could not be rivalled or surpassed
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PKESENT SITUATION 287 
 
 by their later successors. They entertained the belief 
 that those alone were endowed with the divine gift of 
 explaining the revelations and the Sunnah, and that 
 they alone had known and taught all knowledge more 
 than which was wrong to know. And such unrivalled 
 masters of sciences and learning, besides the com- 
 panions of the Prophet and Tabi'un, were the founders 
 of the four schools : Malik, Abu Hanifah, Shafi'i, and 
 Ahmad Ibn Hanbal." 
 
 If the Mohamedans chose to follow blindly the 
 lead of these great jurists, surely it is not the fault of 
 Islam. Islam is no more to blame for it than 
 Christianity is to blame for the fierce persecutions 
 committed in its name. We now come to Mohame- 
 dan law. 
 
 Is Mohamedan law fixed and immutable ? Is it 
 against Islam to make changes in it or to adapt it to 
 modern conditions ? The Prophet, as we have stated, 
 was no legislator. He dealt with some pressing ques- 
 tions of the day and met them as well as he could. 
 Keen-sighted as Mohamed w-as, he fully realized that 
 cases would occur, in course of time, unprovided for in 
 the Qur'an, and it is the consciousness of this fact 
 that we find unequivocally expressed in a tradition, 
 not to be impeached even by the most orthodox 
 Muslim. Tirmidhi, Abu Da'ud and Darimee relate 
 that when deputing Mu'adh to Yaman, the Prophet 
 asked him how he was to judge the people. "I will 
 judge them according to the Book of God," said Mu'adh. 
 Thereupon Mohamed asked him : " And if you do not 
 find it in the Book of God?" Mu'adh replied: "I will 
 judge according to the precedent of the Prophet." But
 
 288 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 once more was he questioned by the Prophet, " If there 
 be no such precedent?" Rejoined Mu'adh : "Iivill make 
 efforts to form my own judgment.'' This answer com- 
 mended itself to the Prophet and he rendered thanks 
 to God for the judicious opinion of his delegate. 
 
 I will make efforts to form my oion judgment was the 
 significant answer, and let the reader bear this in 
 mind. The Prophet (it is abundantly clear from this 
 tradition) never intended to fetter the exercise of 
 private judgment, and the propounders of the doctrine 
 of the finality of Mohamedan law may be challenged 
 to quote one single saying of the Prophet, or to cite 
 one single passage of the Qur'an, which fetters the 
 exercise of private judgment or prohibits legislation 
 to meet altered circumstances. Let us now examine 
 the history of the growth of Mohamedan law. Its 
 most conspicuous feature is the attempt made by the 
 founders of the various systems to suit the law to the 
 requirements of the age. Moulvi Chiragh Ali, in his 
 admirable monograph on " the proposed political, 
 legal and social reforms," mentions no less than 
 nineteen founders of the various systems of juris- 
 prudence. These founders never assumed the attitude 
 of laying down the law for ever, and indeed such an 
 assumption would have been wholly untenable. Nay, 
 the Hanbali system of jurisprudence emphatically 
 asserts that there should be a Mujtahid in every age. 
 The constituent elements of Mohamedan law are (1) 
 the Qur'an, (2) the traditions of the Prophet, (3) the 
 Ijma — i.e., the consensus of opinion of the Mohamedan 
 doctors on a point of civil or canon law (4) Qias — i.e., 
 analogy. With regard to the Qur'an it is to be noted
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 289 
 
 that deductions have been made from a single word 
 or isolated passages — deductions purely fanciful and 
 not infrequently utterly unsupported by the language 
 of the text. The Ayat-ul-Ahkam (verses dealing with 
 law) are supposed to be 200 out of 6,000 verses of the 
 Qur'an, but a more careful scrutiny and a closer 
 observation would, jjerhaps, narrow down such verses 
 still more considerably. The next source of Mohame- 
 dan law are the traditions of the Prophet. It is well- 
 known that the traditions were not collected, sifted, or 
 arranged, until the third century of the Hijra, and 
 the principle on which the selection was made cannot 
 but be pronounced by us as imperfect and defective to 
 a degree. It hardly corresponds to anything ap- 
 proaching our modern method of criticism. But 
 apart from this it is nowhere to be found that 
 Mohamed enjoined the collection of the traditions, or 
 directed the foundation of the municipal law upon the 
 basis of traditions. It is impossible for me to deal 
 with traditions in general here, or to enter into their 
 defects and imperfections. I may be permitted, how- 
 ever, to refer the reader to the masterly examination 
 of the traditions and the principles which governed 
 their collection, or the reasons to which most of them 
 owed their existence, by Dr. Goldziher in his scholarly 
 Muhammedanische Studien and to the last chapter of 
 Von Kremer's Cnlturgescldchte des Orients (Vol. I). 
 Suffice it to say that not one out of a thousand tradi- 
 tions would stand the test of the canons of modern 
 criticism. Then comes Ijma, as the third source of 
 Muslim law. But some of the greatest Muslim 
 theologians, as Moulvi Chiragh Ali points out (p. 21), 
 
 19
 
 290 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 
 
 have disputed the authority or the binding force of 
 Ijma : 
 
 " Shaikh Mohiuddin Ibn Arabi, a Spanish writer of 
 great authority and sanctity (died in a.h 638.) ; Abu 
 Sulaiman Da'ud Dhahiri, a learned doctor of Isphahan 
 and the founder of the Dhahirite (Exteriorist) school 
 of jurisprudence; Abu Hatim Mohamed bin Habban 
 Al Tamimi AI-Basti, generally known as Ibn Habban 
 (died A.H 354.) : Abu Mohamed Ali Ibn Hazm, a 
 Spanish theologian of great repute (died a.h. 400) ; and 
 according to one report, Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 
 (died A.H 241.) denounce the authority of any Ijma 
 other than that of the Companions of the Prophet ; 
 while Ibn Ishaq Ibrahim Ibn Sayyar Al-Nadhdham, 
 generally known as Nadhdham, (died a.h 231.) and 
 Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, according to another report, deny 
 the existence of any Ijma whether of the Companions 
 or the Muslims in general. Imam Malik, the famous 
 legist and founder of the second school of jurispru- 
 dence, admitted the authority of Ijma of the Medinites 
 only and not of anyone else." 
 
 Finally comes the Qias. It means analogical 
 reasonings based on the Qur'an, traditions or Ijma. 
 It is not, therefore, an independent source of law, but 
 rules of law drawn from the Qur'an, traditions and 
 Ijma on the basis of analogical reasoning. What then 
 is the position ? The Qur'anic texts dealing with law 
 proper are extremely few, and those few deal with 
 primitive conditions of society, The law evolved 
 from the traditions can scarcely be trusted ; since 
 they themselves are not sufficiently well-authenticated 
 or established according to the canons of modern
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 291 
 
 criticism. The binding force of Ijma has been 
 disputed by some and rejected by others. And Qias 
 after all is mere private opinion, which can claim 
 neither divine sanction, nor infallibility, nor finality 
 either. 
 
 If Mohamedan law in the past has borrowed from 
 Roman law — and we have undoubted traces of it in 
 Islamic jurisprudence — what is there now reasonably 
 to prevent Mohamedans from adopting and accepting 
 suitable rules of law drawn from the more advanced 
 European systems? Many rules of Roman law, 
 specially those relating to bailment, guardianship, 
 wills and procedure, have made their way into the 
 Islamic system. " In a two-fold manner," says Von 
 Kremer, " the Arabs acquired knowledge of those 
 foreign ideas which we detect in Muslim law: either 
 by daily intercourse with subject nations, from which 
 discussions on questions of spiritual and temporal 
 laws could not have been absent, or through the 
 medium of Rabbinical literature. As to the former 
 source, we would draw attention to the two jurists, 
 Auza'i and Shafi'i, who were both born in Syria, and 
 had, doubtless, there become familiar with many of 
 the Roman Byzantine rules of law, surviving in the 
 shape of customary laws. To these jurists, indeed, 
 we must ascribe those general maxims which have 
 been taken from the Roman and bodily incorporated 
 into the Muslim law ; for instance, the maxim that 
 proof lies upon the plaintiff (Al-Isbatalal-Mudda*i), 
 the definition of pledge given by Abu Shuj'a, the oldest 
 Shafa'ite jurist accessible to us, and which literally 
 corresponds with the definition of pledge in Roman
 
 292 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 law, or the maxim confessus pro judicato, which is ex- 
 pressed in the Arab system by Iqrar (legal confession). 
 On commercial law were such Eoman influences 
 most decisive, and this fact offers additional proof of 
 the soundness of the conjecture hazarded above, that 
 apart from books and the Jewish medium, the Arabs 
 gradually, and in a certain measure unconsciously, ab- 
 sorbed and assimilated, by contact with the people 
 among whom the Eoman Byzantine law obtained, 
 many of its guiding principles." 
 
 And Dr. Goldziher holds that even if we had no 
 other positive data to go by, the very name given to 
 jurisprudence in Islam from the beginning attests the 
 influence of Roman law : 
 
 " It is called Al-Fikh, reasonableness, and those 
 who pursue the study of it are designated Fukaka 
 (singular Fakih). These terms, which, as we cannot 
 fail to see, are Arabic translations of the Roman 
 (juris) ^j?'iff/c'»fm and pimdentes, would be a clear 
 indication of one of the chief sources of Islamite 
 jurisprudence, even if we had no positive data to prove 
 that this influence extended both to questions of the 
 principle of legal deduction and to particular legal 
 provisions." Besides the positive rules of law drawn 
 from Roman sources to meet new social and economic 
 conditions in conquered countries. Dr. Goldziher con- 
 siders that the profoundest influence of Roman law 
 is to be seen in the system of legal deduction in Islam. 
 He says : " But even apart from the adoption of legal 
 standards, Roman law exercised a notable influence 
 upon the legal thought of the new intruders into a 
 country whose jurists had been trained in the scien-
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 293 
 
 tific jurisprudence of the school of Berytus. The 
 influence exercised by the Roman legal methods on 
 the system of legal deduction in Islam is a more 
 important factor in the history of Muslim civilization 
 than even the direct adoption of particular points of 
 law. By what systematic rules or what devices can 
 deductions be drawn from positive laws, written or 
 traditional, which shall apply to newly arising cases 
 at law and to the decision of legal questions for which 
 the positive written law provides no answer ? In 
 dealing with this juridical problem the Arab Fukaha 
 took their stand entirely upon the instruction they 
 had gained from circles familiar with the work of 
 Rome in the domain of law. The dualism of written 
 law (Arabic Nass) and unwritten law is a mere 
 reflection of the dualism of Leges scriptae and Leges 
 non scriptce. Just so, about half a century before, the 
 Jewish jurists (called by a word which in its legal 
 application is likewise a translation of the Eoman term 
 jiirispruchntes) had been moved by their intercourse 
 with the Romans to make the hitherto unrecognized 
 distinction between tora she -hitch cthah, or written law, 
 and the tora she-he al-peli, or oral law. The application 
 of principles and rules borrowed from the methodology 
 of Roman jurisprudence first made it possible to extend 
 the limited legal material supplied by the Qur'an, and 
 the old decisions which were accepted as the basis of 
 the law, to other departments of juridical activity, of 
 which these authorities had had no prevision. The 
 ratio leijis (ilia), the principle of presumption, was 
 applied to analogies ((^)ias) in words and things ; nay, 
 juBt as Eoman legal practice gave great weight to the
 
 294 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 opinio 'prudentium in legal deduction, so the Islamic 
 prudentes assumed the prerogative of an authoritative 
 subjective opinio ; for Bay, as it is called in Arabic, is 
 a literal translation of the Latin term. Of all these 
 principles (which are not exhausted by the examples 
 just cited) none more strikingly demonstrates the pro- 
 found influence of Eoman law on the development of 
 legal opinion in Islam than that which is known in 
 Arabic as maslaha, or istilah — i.e., the public weal and 
 regard for the same. The significance of this principle 
 lies in the licence it grants to the interpreter of the 
 law to apply the legal standard in the manner best 
 fitted to serve the public weal and interests. Here we 
 recognize the Roman standard of the utilitas publica, 
 which gives the interpreter of the law the right, by 
 interpretation, and application, to wrest a plain and 
 unambiguous law into something quite different from 
 its original meaning, in the interests of the public 
 weal.^' 
 
 I am well aware that the extreme wing of the 
 orthodox party will scarcely subscribe to the opinion 
 I have put forward ; but their acceptance or condem- 
 nation, approval or disapproval of my view, cannot 
 affect the historical and juridical aspect of this 
 question. Even so close and circumspect an author as 
 Maulvi Abdul Ali, surnamed Bahr-ul-'idum, in his 
 commentary on the Mussidmn-us-Suhut, writes as 
 follows : 
 
 " Some people consider that Ijtihad fil Madkhab, 
 relative independence in legislation, was closed after 
 the death of Allama'i Nasafi, and Ijtihad Mutlaq, or 
 absolute independence, had become extinct since the
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE PEESENT SITUATION 295 
 
 four Imajiis. These men have gone so far as to make 
 it incumbent on Muslims to follow one of these Imams. 
 This is one of their many foolish ideas which has no 
 authority for itself ; nor should we pay any regard to 
 what they say. They are among those in reference 
 to whom the prophetical HaditJi has it that they 
 award their decision (fatwa) without knowledge, they 
 go astray and mislead others. They have not under- 
 stood that this assertion is a pretension to know the 
 future, which is only known to God." 
 
 If I am in error I rejoice that I am in the dis- 
 tinguished company of savants like Moulvi Abdul Ali 
 and Moulvi Chiragh Ali. Such is the broad outline 
 of the history of Muslim jurisprudence, and it is per- 
 fectly idle to contend either that Islamic law is inflex- 
 ible, or that the Islamic social system is inelastic. 
 A machine is rigid — an organism vitally flexible. 
 The one exists the other lives. It is the ambition of 
 the writer to see Islam an organism — a vital force in 
 perfect correspondence with its living environment — 
 the modern progressive world. 
 
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