Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society
Chapter 2
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH
CONDITION OF THE WORLD AT
MUHAMMAD’S ADVENT:
In the fifth and sixth centuries the civilized world stood on
the verge of a chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilization
possible, since they had given to men a sense of unity and of reverence for
their rulers, had broken down, and nothing had been found adequate to take
their place …
“It seemed then the great civilization which it had taken
four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that
mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe
and sect was against the next, and law and order was unknown … The old tribal
sanctions had lost their power … The new sanctions created by Christianity were
working division and destruction instead of unity and order. It was a time
fraught with tragedy. Civilization, like a gigantic tree whose foliage had
over-arched the world and whose branches had borne the golden fruits of art and
science and literature, stood tottering … rotted to the core. Was there any
emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more into
unity and to save civilization?”[1]
And, then, speaking of the Arabs,
Denison says:
“It was among these people that the man (Muhammad) was born
who was to unite the whole known world of the east and south.”[2]
CONDITION OF ARABIA AND THE STATE OF CHRISTIANITY
(THE PRECURSOR OF ISLAM AMONG REVEALED RELIGIONS):
“The Arabs believed neither in a future state nor in the creation of the world, but attributed the formation of the universe to nature, and its future destruction to time. Debauchery and robbery everywhere prevailed and since death was regarded as the end, strictly so called, of existence, so was there neither recompense for virtue nor punishment for vice. A like moral and religious corruption was to be found among the Christians and the Jews who, for ages, had established themselves in the Arabian Peninsula, and had there formed very powerful parties. The Jews had come to seek in that land of liberty an asylum from the persecution of the Romans; the Christians had also fled thither in order to escape the massacres occasioned by the Nestorian Eutychianism and Arian dissensions. It is not easy to conceive of anything more deplorable than the condition of Christianity at this time.
The scattered branches of the Christian Church in Asia and Africa were at variance with each other, and had adopted the wildest heresies and superstitions. They were engaged in perpetual controversies and torn to pieces by the disputes of the Arians, Sabellians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, whilst the simony, the incontinence, the general barbarism and ignorance which were to be found amongst the clergy caused great scandal to the Christian religion, and introduced universal profligacy of manners among the people.
In Arabia the
deserts swarmed with ignorant infatuated Cenobites, or recluses, wasting their
lives in vain but fiery speculations, and then rushing, often armed, in mobs
into the cities, preaching their fantasies in the churches and enforcing assent
to them by the sword. The grossest idolatry had usurped the place of the simple
worship instituted by Jesus—that of an all-wise, almighty, and all-beneficent
Being, without equal and without similitude: a new Olympus had been imagined,
peopled with a crowd of martyrs, saints, and angels, in lieu of the ancient
gods of paganism. There were found Christian sects impious enough to invest the
wife of Joseph with the honours and the attributes of a goddess. Relics and
carved and painted images were objects of the most fervid worship on the part of
those whom the word of Christ commanded to address their prayers to the living
God alone. Such were the scenes which the Church of Christ presented in
Alexandria, in Alleppo, and in Damascus. At the time of Mohammad’s advent all
had abandoned the principles of their religion to indulge in never-ending
wrangling upon dogmas of a secondary importance, and the Arabian people could
not but see that they had lost sight of the most essential point of the
religious doctrine—the pure and true worship of God—and that, as regards the
most disgraceful and the grossest superstition, they were upon a par with their
pagan contemporaries.”[3]
“Their lies, their legends, their saints and their miracles,
but above all, the abandoned behavior of their priesthood, had brought the
churches in Arabia very low.”[4]
“It has been the fashion”, observes Dr. Emanuel Deutsch, “to
ascribe whatever is good in Mohammedanism to Christianity. We fear this theory
is not compatible with the results of honest investigation. For, of Arabian Christianity
at the time of Muhammad, 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.”[5]
[1] J.H. Denison: Emotion as the Basis of Civilization, London, 1928,
pp. 265. 269.
[2] Ibid.
[3] John Davenport: An Apology for Mohammad and the Koran, London 1869.
p. 4
[4] Bruce: Travel,. vol. I, p. 501.
[5] The Quarterly Review, London. No. 954, p. 315.
to be continued . . . . .
Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times
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