MOHAMMED.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1922, Page 4

MOHAMMED.

(W. W. Hornell, C.LE., in Sydney “ Morning Herald.”

Mohammed was born at Mecca in t i e year 509 of the Christian era. Ihoj Roman Kmperor Justinian —the great - law codifier—Find then been dead for four years. Only two months heroic the Prophet's birth the Abyssin.ians under Abraham, the Christian Prime, of Yemen, had invested Mecca Fry a | train of elephants and an army of | Africans.” The Abyssinians were fore-.' cd to retreat, and Mecca was saved. . Had they captured Mecca, the Kao bo j would almost certainly have been con- j verted into a Christian Church. This.

happened only two months before the Prophet was born. In 622 A.T). -’Mohammed bad to flee from -Mecca for his life. He made his way to Medina, and that city made him its prince. The Arabs subsequently called this-flight the Hegira, and from it the Mohammedan era dates. Some seven years later Mecca yielded, and within nine years from the Hegria the whole of Araoia had passed under his sway.Mohammed then turned his. arms against the Human Empire—lferaclius was then Emperor of the East—but he died on the 7tb June, 632, at the age of 6.1. He. was buried where he died—in Median — and there to this day stands his sinnne tomb, and before it bow the innumciable pilgrims to Mecca.

W'itlun two generations from tbe Proliphet’s death the Crescent, tf e symbol of his faith—that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God—had been carried in victory “from the Pyrenees to Ihe Hymnlayas, from the deserts of Central

Asia to the deserts of Central Africa.'’ “ The rise of Islam,” these are file opening words of Dr. Lothrop Stoddard’s recent book, “is perhaps the most am-v-ing event in human historv. Springing from a land and a people alike previously negligible, Fslnni spread within a century over half the earth, shattering great empires, overthrowing long established religions, remoulding the souls of races, and building up a whole new world—the world of Islam.” Arabia may have been previously negligible, but she was free, and the Arabs- were a people of great potentialities. “The adjacent kingdoms,” writes Gibbon, “were shaken by the storms of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects fled to the happy land, where they might profess what they thought and practice what they professed.” The religions of the Salmans and Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were diseminntcd throughout Arabia from the Persian Gulf fo the Red Sea, hut Eastern Christianity had become a “repellent caricature of the religion of Christ,” and both .Magism /Persia’s ancestral cult of Zoroaster) and Bazantine Christendom were riven by great heresies.which engendered savage persecutions and furious hates. Even the cynical Gibbon >avs ef fbe creed of Mohammed that it is “free from suspicion and, ambiguity,” and •'‘at “the Kiuati is a glorious testimony to the unitv of God." I'M.AM AND THE SARACEN.

For the first three centuries of its existence 1 IJSM-101 III) the realm of Islam was, under Saraeenie rule, "i Inmost civilised ami- progressive portion of the world.” Hut Saracenic civilisation had by the end of the 11th. century already passed its zenith. The Neo-Arabs had lost their vigour; their political power was soon to pass to others. Their political successors were the Turks—a western branch of the' nomads of eastern and central Asia. These nomads are known collectively cis Uralo-Altaic, or Turanian, peoples. The Arabs, when they conquered Persia, found the Turks pressing on the iinrth-tast boundary r.f that kingdom. The Caliphs were pleased to hire the Turks as mercenaries, and excellent soldiers they made. All went well so long as the Caliphate was strong, but when it grew weak the mercenaries became the masters. They opened the eastern frontiers and let in hordes of their countrymen, who despoiled or evicted the inhabitants, settling where they pleased or wandering as they willed. The Turks quickly renounced their ancestral paganism and became Moslems, hut this conversion did not change their natures. Towards the end of the eleventh century the Turkish hordes [conquered Asia Minor—(ill then a province of the Roman Empire—and captured Jerusalem. This led to the jCrusades—fanatic lighting fanatic. To’wards the end of the twelfth century came Jengliiz Khan, under whom the Mongols, the eastern branch of the Turanian peoples, overran North China and then turned westward. Jenghiz Ivlian cl id not get very far west, hut his successors carried on his work. Fastem Europe was ravaged and thrown hack into barbarism .while the Moslem iworld from India to Egypt was devastated. Bagdad was stormed in 1258 and wiped out, and Mesopotamia—previously the land rivers, the granary of jibe world—became the noisome land of 1 pestilence which it is to-day. Early 4 in the loth century c-ame Tamerlane, (“whose foible was pyramids of human !skulls.” By this time the Western ‘.Mongol had embraced Islam. When jt-hc Mongols ceased their ravages the Moslem East came under the sway of jOsmanli or Ottoman Turks. In 1453 j Mohammed 11, the 7th Sultan of the ; House of Osman, captured C’onstantilmple and extinguished the Razantine I Empire. Williin a century from then .’the Ottoman Turks had captured the .Moslem East from Persia to Morocco, j had subjugated the whole Balkan Peninsula, and had penetrated through | Hungary to Vienna.

Mo anwhile Europe wits awakening, fit the fifteenth century Columbus and \ aseo do Gama made their moinonthlo voyages. Dr Stoddard describes their discoveries “ as the greatest strategic shift in all human history.” “ Instead of fronting hopelessly on the fiercest of Asiatics, against whom victory bv direct attack seemed impossible, the Europeans could now flank them at will. Furthermore, the balance of resources shifted in Europe’s favour. Whole new world’s were unmasked, where Europe could draw limitless wealth and initiate a progress that would soon iflacc it immeasurably above its oneedreadsd Asint'V assaila"ts.” MOSLEM SURIEmON.

Tslam was unmoved. The Turks, routed under the walls of Vienna in IWb sank into lethargy, and ceased to .cultivate the art of war. The Ottoman Empire was harried by assaults from the west.'and was saved from <■ llapsc onlv hy the mutual jealousies of Western Powers. The nineteenth century—the century of Eurone's industrial revolution -saw the decrepi* Moslem States fall, one bv one. before Western attack. England took India and Egypt: Pussia ""ssed Iho Caucasus, and dominated C utr.'il Asm: France eonoiiered Xorth Africa. The orent War was the last si-ig- in rim humiliation of Tslam. Rv the Wins of the treatv which marked its close, Turkey was ext'nguished. and not n Mindc Mohnmniedan S'tnt.e r tninert ii'denendeiue. The subjection of the Moslem world was complete—on paper.

On paper! And the Rr'tish Government. i« now calling for '-olnnf"evs from the Tlonmions in case Mustnnba Kernel ‘•Uenlrl attack ('“<’.« aiil 11 inn].' end embroil tbo world. Tl,e 2*0.000.000 followers of tlie Prophet are now moved by a.

feeling of solidarity previously unknown. Pan-Tslamism —the feeling of solidarity between all “True Relievers —began when the Prophet, and his few followers we re bound together by the tie of faith against their pagan compatriots who sought their destruction. To Mohammed the principle of fraternal solidarity among Moslems was of Iranscendant importance, and he succeeded in implanting this so deeply in Moslem hearts that thirteen centuries have not sensibly weakened it. “ The bond between Moslem and Moslem,” writes Dr Stoddard, “is to-day much stronger than that between Christian and Christian. Of course Moslems fight i bitterly amongst themselves, but these conflicts never quite lose the aspect of familv quarrels',' anil tend to he adjourned in presence of infidel aggression.

Islam’s profound sense of solidarity | probably explains in large part its ex- j traordinarv grip upon its followers, j No other religion has such a grip on its , votaries. Islam has won vast territor- j ies from Christianity and Brnhaniism. j and has driven Mngism from the face of the earth ; yet there has been no single ■ instance where a people, once become | Moslem, has e.vre abandoned the faith. 1 Extirpated they may have been, like;

the Moors of Spain, hut extirpation is j not. a posts iy.” Islam’s solidarity is Supported by one j of its jn-incipal institutions—the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. Mohammed | ordained the Hajj as a supreme act of ■ faith, and every vear fully 100.000 pi 1 - | grims stand before the sacred Tvaalia of . Mecca. They come from everv quarter j of the Moslem world—a world which ! ! stretches from Morocco to China and j fiom Tnrkist.-ui to the Congo—“men oi j | all races and tongues and culture meet ] , and mingle in an esetney of common de- j j votion.” Politically the Hajj is a lie-| rcnnial.Pan-Islamie congress. | Christianity made no attempt to es- ! (oldish a State or to found political institutions. With Tslam the case is en- ! tiielv different. The eternal "Word of God, which is the supreme authority in all matters of religious dogma, is at the I same time the foundation of law. De- | tails of law and administration have the same Divine sanction as the dogmas of the faith. Thus Tslam. as Professor Sir | Thomas Arnold nointed out recently in I the “Edinburgh Review,” “is not merelv a creed but an organised society and the believer is not only a member of u church hut of a Stale also.”