Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/715

 MOHAMMEDANISM 697 trymen to leave their idols and adopt the worship of the one true God; the Jews, to ex- change the law of Moses for the new and final revelations given to him; the Christians, to cease worshipping Christ as God, as inconsis- tent with monotheism and with the true doc- trine of Christ himself. The doctrines of Mo- hammedanism may in large measure be traced to the national religion of the Arabs before Mohammed, to those forms of Judaism and Christianity which existed in Arabia in his time, and to those traditions and usages which were the common heritage of all branches of the Semitic race. To what extent Mohammed borrowed from these three sources the pro- found researches instituted during the last half century have begun to reveal. The sayings of Mohammed relative to his religion were col- lected in the Koran, which is recognized by all Mohammedan sects as their rule of faith and morals. (See KOKAN.) But the great major- ity of the Moslems recognize, in addition to the Koran, the Sunna, or traditions, embody- ing the expressions, occasional remarks, and acts of Mohammed, which are traced to his companions, his wives, and the first caliphs. Not only do they regulate, conjointly with the Koran, the doctrines, rites, and ceremonies of the Mohammedans, but the interpretation of the Koran is in a great measure determined by them. There is much uncertainty among the Moslems regarding them; the rationalistic Montasals and the extremists among the Shi- ahs reject the Sunna altogether; the moder- ate Shiahs acknowledge a tradition, but differ with the Sunnis respecting its extent. (See SHIAHS, and SUNNA.) Among the Sunnis four orthodox schools were distinguished, all estab- lished between 740 and 840. They were called, after their founders, Hanifites, Malekites, Shaf e- ites, and Hanbalites. The first and fourth were of little influence ; the second prevailed in northern Africa and Spain, and the third in the eastern countries. Their differences were only in discipline. The two largest and most influ- ential collections were made by Bokhari (died about 870) and Abu Moslim his pupil. An ex- tract from these two and some later collections was made by Hosein ibn Masud (died about 1120), under the title Masabih. It was trans- lated into English, together with a commentary (Mishcaf) by Wadi ed-Din Abu Abdallah Mah- moud, who lived about 1170, by A. N. Mathews (" Mishcat ul-Hasdbih, or a Collection of the most Authentic Traditions," 2 vols., Calcutta, 1809-'! 1). Most of the traditions received by the Shiahs are contained in the books Hayat ul-Kulub, Hag ul-Yaquin, and Ain ul-Hayat, written by Mollah Mohammed Bakir Majlisi, a famous Persian divine, who lived about 1650, which were printed in Teheran in 4 vols. fol. In the 8th and 9th centuries the rationalistic school, called by their opponents Montasals or Separatists, gained great strength and influence. Their chief seat was at Bassorah, where they formed an association of rationalistic scholars. They maintained the absolute self-determina- tion of man, denied the eternity of the Koran, and rejected the reality of the divine attri- butes so far as to divest God of all those char- acteristics which are the expression of a per- sonal existence. In the 10th century an ortho- dox school of scholasticism regained the as- cendancy, and from this time the doctrines and the ethics of the prevailing denomination un- derwent no other considerable change. The gradual development of Mohammedan doctrines and their relation to the Koran are still subjects of controversy. We give an outline of the system of doctrines and ethics which generally prevails. The fundamental doctrine of Islamism, and the only one which it is absolutely necessary to profess in order to be considered a Moslem, is : "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his apostle." The idea of God held by Moham- medans does not differ essentially from the Christian, except that they reject entirely the doctrine of the Trinity. They believe that a great number of prophets have been divinely commissioned at various times, among whom six were sent to proclaim new laws and dis- pensations, viz., Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. To the prophets were revealed certain scriptures inspired by God. All of these have perished except four, the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the Koran. The first three, they maintain, have been falsified and mutilated, and the Koran supersedes them all. Mohammed is the last prophet, and the Koran the final revelation. The Mohammedans regard Christ with a rev- erence second only to that which they pay to Mohammed, and blasphemy of his name is pun- ishable with death. But they deny that he is God or the son of God, though they consider his birth miraculous. They also deny that he was crucified, believing that some other person suffered in his place, while he was taken up to God. He will come again upon the earth to destroy Antichrist, and his coming will be one of the signs of the approach of the last judgment. The Moslems believe in the existence of angels w r ith pure and subtile bodies created of fire, who have no distinction of sex, neither eat nor drink, and are employed in adoring and praising God, interceding for mankind, keeping a record of human actions, and performing various other services. Four are held by God in peculiar favor: Gabriel, who is employed in writing down the divine decrees, and by whom the Koran was revealed at various times to Moham- med; Michael, the especial guardian of the Jews; Azrael, the "angel of death," who sep- arates the souls of men from their bodies ; and Israfil, who will sound the trumpet at the resur- rection. There is also a class of beings lower than the angels, like them made of fire, but of a coarser nature, called jinns (generally ren- dered genii), who eat and drink and are subject to death. Some of these are good, some evil. The chief of the latter is Eblis or "despair," who was once an angel named Azazel, but