Mohammed (Muhammad, and less correctly Mahomet; Arab., 'Praised'), the founder of Islam. He was born about the year 570 A.D., at Mecca, and was the son of Abdallâh, of the family of the Hâshim, and of Amina, of the family of Zuhra, both of the powerful tribe of the Koreish, but of a side-branch only, and therefore of little or no influence. His father, a poor merchant, died either before or shortly after Mohammed's birth, whom his mother is then supposed to have handed over to a Bedouin woman, to be brought up in the healthy air of the desert; but in consequence of the repeated fits of the child, which were ascribed to demons, the nurse sent him back in his third year. When six years old he lost his mother also. His grandfather, Abd-Al-Muttalib, adopted the boy; and when, two years later, he too died, Mohammed's uncle, Abû Tâlib, though poor himself, took him into his house, and remained his best friend and protector throughout his whole life. It seems that he at first gained a scanty livelihood by tending the flocks of the Meccans. In his twenty-fifth year he entered the service of a rich widow, named Khadija, likewise descended from the Koreish, and accompanied her caravans—in an inferior capacity, perhaps as a camel-driver—thus visiting Syria. Up to that time his circumstances were very poor. Suddenly his fortune changed. The wealthy, but fifteen years older, and twice widowed Khadija offered him her hand, which he accepted. She bore him a son, Al-Kâsim—whence Mohammed adopted the name Abul-Kâsim—and four daughters: Zainab, Rukaija, Umm Kulthûm, and Fâtima; and afterwards a second son, whom he called Abd Manâf, after an idol worshipped among his tribe. Both his sons died early. Mohammed continued his merchant's trade at Mecca, but spent most of his time in solitary contemplations.
Mohammed was of middle height, rather lean, but broad-shouldered, altogether of strong build, and fair-skinned for an Arab; slightly curled black hair flowed round his strongly developed head; his eyes, overhung with thick eyelashes, were large and coal-black; his nose, large and slightly bent, was well formed. A long beard added to the dignity of his appearance. A black mole between his shoulders became afterwards among the faithful 'the seal of prophecy.' In his walk he moved his whole body violently, 'as if descending a mountain.'
About the year 600 A.D. Christianity had penetrated into the heart of Arabia, through Syria on the one hand, and Abyssinia on the other. Judaism no less played a prominent part in the peninsula, chiefly in its northern parts, which were dotted over with Jewish colonies, founded by emigrants after the destruction of Jerusalem; and round about Yathrib (Medina) remnants of the numerous ancient sects, dating from the first Christian centuries, such as Sabians and Mandæans, heightened the religious ferment which, shortly before the time of Mohammed, had begun to move the minds of the thoughtful. At that time there arose several men in the Hedjaz who preached the futility of the ancient pagan creed, with its star-worship, its pilgrimages and festive ceremonies, its temples and its fetiches. It had in reality long ceased to be a living faith; but the great mass of the people clung to it as to a sacred inheritance. The unity of God—the 'ancient religion of Abraham'—human responsibility, and judgment to come were the doctrines promulgated by these Hanifs ('converts'), forerunners of Mohammed; and many, roused by their words, turned either to Judaism or to Christianity. The principal scenes of these missionary labours were Medina, Taif, and Mecca; this last was then the centre of pilgrimage to most of the Arabian tribes, and there, from times immemorial, the Kâaba, Mount Arafat, the Valley of Mina, &c. were held sacred—the Koreish, Mohammed's tribe, having had the care of these sanctuaries ever since the 5th century. It was under these circumstances that Mohammed felt moved to teach a new faith, which should dispense with idolatry on the one hand, as with narrow Judaism and corrupt Christianity on the other. He was forty years of age when he received the first 'divine' communication in the solitude of the mountain Hirâ, near Mecca. Gabriel appeared to him, and in the name of God commanded him to preach the true religion. That he was no vulgar impostor is now generally recognised. What part his epilepsy, or rather hysteria, had in his visions we are not able to determine. Certain it is that, after long and painful solitary broodings, something at times moved him with such fearfully rapturous vehemence that, during his revelations, he is said to have roared like a camel, and to have streamed with perspiration; his eyes turned red, and the foam stood on his lips. The voices he heard were sometimes those of a bell, sometimes of a man, sometimes they came in his dreams, or they were laid in his heart. Waraka, one of his wife's relatives, who had embraced Judaism, spoke to him of the Jewish doctrine, and told him the story of the patriarchs and Israel, not so much according to the Bible as to the Midrash; and the gorgeous hues of the legendary poetry of the latter seem to have made as deep an impression on Mohammed's poetical mind as the doctrine of the unity of God and the morale of the Old Testament, together with its civil and religious laws. Christianity exercised a minor influence upon him. All his knowledge of the New Testament was confined to a few apocryphal books, and with all his deep reverence for Jesus, whom he calls the greatest prophet next to himself, his notions of the Christian religion and its founder were excessively vague (see KORÂN).
His first revelation he communicated to no one, it would appear, except to Khadija, to his daughters, his stepson Ali, his favourite slave Zaid, and his friend the prudent and honest Abu Bekr. His other relatives rejected his teachings with scorn. Abu Lâhab, his uncle, called him a fool; and Abu Tâlib, his adoptive father, although he never ceased, for the honour of his family, to protect him, yet never professed any belief in Mohammed's words. In the fourth year of his mission, however, he had made forty proselytes, chiefly slaves and people from the lower ranks; and now first some verses were revealed to him, commanding him to come forward publicly as a preacher, and to defy the scorn of the unbelievers. He now inveighed against the primeval superstition of the Meccans, and exhorted them to a pious and moral life, and to the belief in an all-mighty, all-wise, everlasting, indivisible, all-just, but merciful God, who had chosen him as he had chosen the prophets of the Bible before him, so to teach mankind that they should escape the punishments of hell, and inherit everlasting life. God's mercy was principally to be obtained by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The belief in the sacredness of the Kâaba and the ceremonies of the pilgrimage was too firmly rooted in his and the people's minds not to be received into the new creed; but certain barbarous habits of the Bedouins, such as the killing of their new-born daughters, were unsparingly condemned by Mohammed. The prohibition of certain kinds of food also belongs to this first period, when he as yet entirely stood under the influence of Judaism; the prohibition of gambling, usury, and wine coming after the Hegira. Whether he did or did not understand the art of writing and reading at the commencement of his career is not quite clear; certain it is that he pretended not to know it, and employed the services of amanuenses for his Koranic dicta, which at first consisted merely of brief, rhymed sentences in the manner of the ancient Arabic soothsayers. The Meccans did not object to his doings; they considered him a common 'poet' or 'soothsayer,' who, moreover, was not in his right senses, or was simply a liar. Gradually, however, as the number of his converts increased, they began to pay more and more attention to his proceedings; and finally, fearing mostly for the sacredness of Mecca, which the new doctrine might abolish, they rose in fierce opposition against the new prophet and his adherents, who dared 'to call their ancient gods idols, and their ancestors fools.' The Koreish now demanded that Abu Tâlib should silence or surrender his nephew. Abu Tâlib refused. Many of the converted slaves and freedmen had to undergo terrible punishments; and others suffered so much at the hands of their own relatives that they were fain to revoke their creed. A hundred believers, on the prophet's own advice, emigrated to Abyssinia. Mohammed himself, although protected by the strong arm of Abu Tâlib, was yet at that time so low-spirited and fearful that, before an assembly of the Koreish, he raised three of the idols to mediatorial beings between God and man—a dictum, however, which he next day revoked as an inspiration of Satan, thereby increasing the hatred of his adversaries. All the Hâshimi family were now excommunicated, and all except Abu Lâhab retired to Abu Tâlib's ravine in the mountains east of Mecca. After two years they were restored when on the brink of starvation.
A great grief befell Mohammed at this time—his faithful wife Khadîja died, and, shortly afterwards, his uncle Abu Tâlib; and, to add to his misery, the vicissitudes of his career had reduced him by this time to poverty. An emigration to Taif proved a failure; it was with great difficulty that he escaped with his life. Shortly after his return from Taif he married Sauda, and he afterwards so increased the number of his wives that at his death he still left nine, of whom Ayesah, the daughter of Abu Bekr, and Hafsâ, the daughter of Omar, are best known. In the midst of his vain endeavours to find a hearing in his own city, he succeeded, during a pilgrimage, in converting several men from Medina, whose inhabitants had long been accustomed to hear from the numerous Jews there the words Revelation, Prophecy, God's Word, Messiah. The seed sown in the minds of these men bore a fruitful harvest. While he waited for the next pilgrimage he had in vision his night journey to heaven, the relation of which caused even his staunchest adherents to smile at his hallucination. The next pilgrimage brought twelve, and the third more than seventy adherents to the new faith from Medina, and with these he entered into a close alliance. Mohammed now conceived the plan to seek refuge in the friendly city of Medina, and about June 622 A.D. he fled thither. About one hundred families of his faithful flock had preceded him some time before, accompanied by Abu Bekr, and reached, not without danger, the town, called thence Medinat Annabi ('City of the Prophet'), or Medina ('City'), by way of eminence; and from this flight dates the Mohammedan Era, the Hegira (q.v.).
Now everything was changed to the advantage of the prophet and his religion; and if formerly the incidents of his life are shrouded in comparative obscurity, they are from this date known often to their most insignificant details. Formerly a despised 'madman or impostor,' he now assumed at once the position of highest judge, lawgiver, and ruler of the city and two most powerful Arabic tribes. His first care was directed towards the consolidation of the new worship, and the inner arrangements in the congregation of his flock; his next chief endeavour was to proselytise the numer- ous Jews who inhabited the city, to whom he made many important concessions also in the outer observances of Islam, but he was sorely disappointed in his hopes to convert them. They ridiculed his pretension to be the Messiah, and so enraged him by their constant taunts that he soon abrogated his concessions and became their bitterest adversary up to the hour of his death. The most important act in the first year of the Hegira was his permission to go to war with the enemies of Islam in the name of God—a kind of manifesto chiefly directed against the Meccans. Not being able at first to fight his enemies in open field, he endeavoured to weaken their power by attacking the caravans of the Koreish on their way to Syria. Being successful enough to disturb their trade and to conclude alliances with the adjoining Bedouin tribes, he at last dared to break even the peace of the sacred month of Radjab, and with this the signal to open warfare was given. A battle, the first, between 314 Moslems and about 600 Meccans was fought at Badr, in the second year of the Hegira, December 623; the former gained the victory and made many prisoners. A great number of adventurers now flocked to Mohammed, and he successfully continued his expeditions against the Koreish and the Jewish tribes, chiefly the Beni Keinnkâ, of a suburb near Medina, whom he sent destitute into exile; and the Beni Kureidhah of another suburb, 700 of whom he beheaded after the victory, while the women and children were sold. In January 625 the Meccans defeated him at Ohod, where he was dangerously wounded. The siege of Medina by the Meccans in 627 was frustrated by Mohammed's ditch and earthworks. In 6 A.H. he proclaimed a public pilgrimage to Mecca. Although the Meccans did not allow this to be carried out, he gained the still greater advantage that they concluded a term of peace with him at Hudaibiyeh for ten years. He was now allowed to send his missionaries all over Arabia, and even beyond the frontiers, without any hindrance; and in the following year he had the satisfaction of celebrating the pilgrimage with 2000 followers for three days undisturbed at Mecca. Shortly afterwards, during his expeditions against the Jews of Chaibar and Fadak, Mohammed very nearly lost his life: a Jewess, Zainab by name, a relative of whom had fallen in the fight against him, placed a poisoned piece of roast meat before him, and although he merely tasted it he yet up to his death suffered from the effects of the poison. His missionaries at this time began to carry his doctrines abroad. He wrote letters demanding the conversion of Chosroes II., of Heraclius, of the king of Abyssinia, the Viceroy of Egypt, and the chiefs of several Arabic provinces. Some received the new gospel, but Chosroes II., the king of Persia, and Amru the Ghassanide rejected his proposals with scorn, and the latter had the messenger executed in Moab. This was the cause of the first war between the Christians and the Moslems, in which the latter were beaten with great loss by Amru. Some Meccans having taken part in a war between a tribe in their alliance and another in Mohammed's alliance, he marched at the head of 10,000 men against Mecca before its inhabitants had had time to prepare for the siege. It surrendered, and Mohammed was publicly recognised as chief and prophet. With this the victory of the new religion was secured in Arabia. While employed in destroying all traces of idolatry in the captured city Mohammed heard of new armies which several warlike Arabic tribes had concentrated near Taif (630). There again he was victorious, and now his dominion and creed extended farther and farther every day. From all parts flocked the deputation to do homage to him in the name of the various tribes, either as the messenger of God or at least as the Prince of Arabia, and the year 8 of the Hegira was therefore called the year of the Deputations. Once more he made most extensive preparations for a war against the Syrian subjects of Byzantium; but, not being able to bring together a sufficient army, he had to be satisfied with the homage of a few minor princes on his way to the frontiers. Towards the end of the tenth year of the Hegira he undertook his last solemn pilgrimage to Mecca, and there on Mount Arafat fixed for all time the ceremonies of the pilgrimage (Hajj); and he again solemnly exhorted his believers to righteousness and piety, and chiefly recommended them to protect the weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from unsury.
Returned from Mecca, he occupied himself again with the carrying out of his expedition against Syria, a necessary aid to religion and patriotism in keeping his people together, but fell dangerously ill very soon after his return. One night while suffering from an attack of fever he went to the cemetery of Medina and prayed and wept upon the tombs, praising the dead, and wishing that he himself might soon be delivered from the storms of this world. For a few more days he went about; at last, too weak further to visit his wives, he chose the house of Ayesah, situated near the mosque, as his abode during his sickness. He continued to take part in the public prayers as long as he could, until at last, feeling that his hour had come, he once more preached to the people recommending Abu Bekr and Osâma the son of Zaid as the generals whom he had chosen for the army. He then asked whether he had wronged any one, and read passages from the Koran preparing the minds of his hearers for his death and exhorting them to peace among themselves. A few days afterwards he asked for writing materials, probably in order to fix his successor as chief of the faithful; but Omar, the most influential of his followers and friends, fearing he might chose Ali while he himself inclined to Abu Bekr, would not allow him to be furnished with them. In his last wanderings he spoke only of angels and heaven. He died in the lap of Ayesah about noon of Monday the 12th (11th) of the third month in the year 11 of the Hegira (8th June 632). His death caused an immense excitement and distress among the faithful; and Omar, who himself would not believe in it, tried to persuade the people that he was still alive. But Abu Bekr said to the assembled multitude: 'Whoever among you has served Mohammed let him know that Mohammed is dead; but he who has served the God of Mohammed let him continue in His service, for He is still alive and never dies.' While his corpse was yet unburied the quarrels about his successor, whom he had not definitely been able to appoint, commenced; but finally Abu Bekr received the homage of the principal Moslems in Medina. Mohammed was then buried in the night between the 9th and 10th of June, after long discussions, in the house of Ayesah, where he had died, and which afterwards became part of the adjoining mosque.
A man of Mohammed's extraordinary powers and gifts is not to be judged by a modern commonplace standard; the manners and morals of his own time and country must also be taken into consideration. He was at times deceitful, cunning, revengful, cowardly, addicted to sensuality, and even a murderer. Yet not only his public station as prophet, preacher, and prince, but also his private character, his amiability, his faithfulness towards friends, his tenderness towards his family, and the frequent readiness to forgive an enemy must be taken into consideration, besides the extreme simplicity of his domestic life; he lived when already in full power in a miserable hut, mended his own clothes, and freed all his slaves. And, to do him full justice, his melancholic temperament, his nervousness, which often bordered on frenzy and brought him to the brink of suicide, and his poetic temperament must not be forgotten. Altogether his mind contained the strangest mixture of right and wrong, of truth and error. Although his self-chosen mission was the abolition of superstition, he yet believed in jinns, omens, charms, and dreams—an additional reason against the now generally abandoned notion that he was a vulgar designer, who by no means deceived himself about those revelations he pretended to have received. And though the religion of Islam may rightly or wrongly be considered the bane of eastern states and nations in our day, it should be remembered that it is not necessarily Islam that has caused the corruption, as indeed its ethics are for the most part of a high order; and in the second place, that Mohammed is not to be made responsible for all the errors of his successors. Take him all in all, the history of humanity has seen few more earnest, noble, and sincere 'prophets,' men irresistibly impelled by an inner power to admonish and to teach, and to utter austere and sublime truths the full purport of which is often unknown to themselves.
See the Lives in German by Weil (1843), Sprenger (1861-65), Nöldeke (1863), Krehl (vol. i. 1884); in French by Delaporte (1874); and Sir W. Muir, Life of Mahomet (4 vols. 1858-61; new ed. 1877), and Mahomet and Islam (1887); also Syed Ameer Ali, C.I.E., The Life and Teachings of Mohammed (1890).
MOHAMMEDANISM, the religion founded by Mohammed, or, according to him, the only orthodox creed existing from the beginning of the world, and preached by all the prophets ever since Adam. It is also called Islâm, 'Resignation,' entire Submission to the will and precepts of God. In its exclusively dogmatical or theoretical part it is Imân, 'Faith'; in its practical, Dîn, 'Religion.' The fundamental principles of the former are contained in the two articles of belief: 'There is no God but God; and Mohammed is God's Apostle.' The Mohammedan doctrine of God's nature and attributes coincides with the Christian, in so far as He is by both declared to be the Creator of all things in heaven and earth, who rules and preserves all things, without beginning, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and full of mercy. But, according to the Mohammedan belief, He has no offspring: 'He begetteth not, nor is He begotten.' Nor is Jesus called anything but a prophet and apostle, although His birth is said to have been due to a miraculous divine operation; and as the Koran superseded the Gospel, so Mohammed superseded Christ. The crucifixion is said to have been carried out upon another person, Christ having been taken up unto God before the decree was put into execution. Christ will come again upon the earth to establish everywhere the Moslem religion, and to be a sign of the coming of the day of judgment. Next to the belief in God, that in angels forms a prominent dogma. Created of fire, and endowed with a kind of incorporeal body, of no sex, they stand between God and man, adoring or waiting upon God, or interceding for and guarding man. The four chief angels are Gabriel, 'The Holy Spirit' or 'Angel of Revelations;' Michael, the special protector and guardian of the Jews; Raphael (Azraël, Azraïl), the 'Angel of Death;' and Uriel (Israîl), whose office it will be to sound the trumpet at the Resurrection. Islam borrowed its ideas of the unseen world from the Persians or from the Jews, who had borrowed them from the Persians (see ANGEL). To each human being are appointed two guardian angels. Besides angels, there are good and evil genii, the chief of the latter, who are generally called Ifrit, being Iblis ('Despair'), once called Azazil, who, refusing to pay homage to Adam, was rejected by God. These jinn are of a grosser fabric than angels, and subject to death. They are, in almost every respect, like the Shêdim in the Talmud and Midrash. A further belief is in certain God-given Scriptures, revealed successively to the different prophets. Four only of the original one hundred and four sacred books—the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the Koran—are said to have survived; the three former, however, in a mutilated and falsified condition. The number of prophets, sent at various times, is stated variously at between two and three hundred thousand, among whom 313 were apostles, and six were specially commissioned to proclaim new laws and dispensations, which abrogated the preceding ones. These were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed—the last the greatest of them all, and the founder of the final dispensation.
The belief in the resurrection and the final judgment is the next article of faith. The dead are received in their graves by an angel announcing the coming of the two examiners, Munkir and Nakir, who put questions to the corpse respecting his belief in God and Mohammed, and who, in accordance with the answers, either torture or comfort him. Concerning the condition of the soul between death and the resurrection Islam has no authoritative teaching. The soul is supposed, according to its rank, either to enter immediately into paradise (as do the prophets), or to partake, in the shape of a green bird, of the delights of the abode of bliss (as the martyrs); while, in the case of common believers, it stays near the grave, or is with Adam in the lowest heaven, or remains either in the well of Zem-Zem or in the trumpet of the resurrection. The souls of the infidels dwell in a certain well in the province of Hadramaut, or, being first offered to heaven, then offered to earth, and rejected by both, are subject to unspeakable tortures until the day of resurrection. Concerning the latter, great discrepancy reigns among the Mohammedan theologians. Mohammed himself seems to have held that both soul and body will be raised; and the 'bone Luz' of the Jewish Haggadah was by him transformed into the bone Al Ajb ('the rump-bone'), which will remain uncorrupted till the last day, and from which the whole body will spring anew, after a forty days' rain. Among the signs by which the approach of the last day may be known—nearly all taken from the legendary part of the Talmud and Midrash—are the decay of faith among men, the advancing of the meanest persons to highest dignities, wars, seditions, and tumults, and consequent dire distress. The sun will rise in the west, the Beast will appear, Constantinople will be taken by the descendants of Isaac, the Mahdi (q.v.) will come, the Dejjâl or arch-impostor also will come and be killed by Jesus at Lud. There will further take place a war with the Jews, the coming of Gog and Magog (Yâyûj and Mâjûj's), a great smoke, an eclipse, the Mohammedans will return to idolatry, the Kâaba will be destroyed by the Ethiopians, beasts and inanimate things will speak, and finally, a wind will sweep away the souls of those who have faith. The time of the resurrection Mohammed himself could not learn from Gabriel: it is a mystery. Three blasts will announce it: that of consternation, of such terrible powers that mothers shall neglect the babes on their breasts, and that heaven and earth will melt; that of examination, which will annihilate all things and beings, save paradise and hell, and their inhabitants; and forty years later, that of resurrection, when all men, Mohammed first, shall have their souls breathed into their restored bodies, and will sleep in their sepulchres until the final doom has been passed upon them. The day of judgment, lasting from one to fifty thousand years, will call up angels, genii, men, and animals. The trial over, the righteous will enter paradise to the right hand, and the wicked will pass to the left into hell; both, however, have first to go over the bridge Al Sirât, laid over the midst of hell, and finer than a hair, and sharper than the edge of a sword, and beset with thorns on either side. The righteous will proceed on their path with ease and swiftness, but the wicked will fall down headlong to hell below.
Hell is divided into seven stories or apartments, respectively assigned to Mohammedans, Jews, Christians, Sabians, Magians, idolators, and, lowest of all, the hypocrites, who, outwardly professing a religion, in reality had none. The degrees of pain, chiefly consisting in intense heat and cold, vary; but Mohammedans and all who professed the unity of God will finally be released, while unbelievers and idolators will be condemned to eternal punishment. Paradise is divided from hell by a partition (Arâf), in which a certain number of half-saints will find place. The blessed, destined for the abodes of eternal delight (Jannat Aden; Heb. Gan Eden), will first drink of the Pond of the Prophet, which is supplied from the rivers of paradise, whiter than milk, and more odoriferous than musk. Arrived at one of the eight gates, they will be met by beautiful youths and angels; and their degree of righteousness (prophets, religious teachers, martyrs, believers) will procure for them the corresponding degree of happiness. Yet, according to the Mohammedan doctrine, it is not a person's good works or merits that gain his admittance, but solely God's mercy. The poor will enter paradise five hundred years before the rich. The majority of the inhabitants of hell are women. The various felicities which await the pious (and of which there are about a hundred degrees), are a wild conglomeration of Jewish, Christian, Magian, and other fancies on the subject, to which the Prophet's own exceedingly sensual imagination has added largely. Feasting in the most gorgeous and delicious variety, the most costly and brilliant garments, odours and music of the most ravishing nature, and above all, the enjoyment of the Hûr Al Oyûn, the black-eyed daughters of paradise, created of pure musk, and free from all the bodily weaknesses of the female sex, are held out as a reward to the commonest inhabitants of paradise, who will always remain in the full vigour of their youth and manhood. For those deserving a higher degree of recompense rewards will be prepared of a purely spiritual kind—i.e. the 'beholding of God's face' by night and by day. A separate abode of happiness will also be reserved for women. The last of the precepts of pure faith taught by Mohammedanism is the full and unconditional submission to God's decree (Islam), and the predestination of good and evil. Not only a man's fortunes, but his deeds, and consequently his future reward or punishment, are irrevocably, and thus unavoidably, pre-ordained (Fate, kismeh): a doctrine which is not, however, taken literally by all Moslems, but which has no doubt contributed largely to the success of Islam by inspiring its champions with the greatest contempt for the dangers of warfare.
The Din, or practical part of Islam, which contains the ritual and moral laws, inculcates as the chief duties the following four: prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage.
Prayer, 'the key of paradise,' comprises also certain religious purifications, as the most necessary preparations. They are of two kinds: the Ghasl, or total immersion of the body, required as a religious ceremony on some special occasions; and the Wudû, a partial ablution, to be performed immediately before the prayer. This is of primary importance, and consists of the washing of hands, face, ears, and feet up to the ankles—a proceeding generally accompanied at each stage by corresponding pious sentences, and concluded by the recital of the 97th chapter of the Koran. If water be beyond reach, dry dust or sand may supply its place. 'The practice of religion being founded on cleanliness,' the ground or the carpet upon which the believer prays must be as clean as possible, and the use of a special prayer-carpet is therefore recommended. Every Mohammedan is obliged to pray five times in the space of every twenty-four hours. The prayer (Salât) itself consists partly of extracts from the Koran (Fard), partly of pieces ordained by the Prophet without allegation of a divine order (Sunnah). The first time of prayer commences about sunset; the second at nightfall; the third at daybreak; the fourth about noon; the fifth in the afternoon. The believers are not to commence their prayers exactly at sunrise, or noon, or sunset, lest they might be confounded with the infidel Sunworshippers. These several times of prayer are announced by the Muezzins (q. v.) from the minarets of the mosques. Their chant, sung to a very simple but solemn melody, sounds harmoniously and sonorously down the height of the mosque, through the mid-day din and roar of the cities, but its impressiveness is most strikingly poetical in the stillness of night. The day-call (the Adân) consists chiefly of the confession of faith ('God is most great,' 'Mohammed is God's apostle,' 'Come to prayer, come to security') repeated several times; the night-calls (Ula, the first; Ebed, the second), destined for persons who desire to perform supererogatory acts of devotion, are much longer. The believer often changes his posture during his prayers; and one series of such inclinations of head and knees, prostrations, &c. is called a Rêka. It is also necessary that the face of the worshipper should be turned towards the Kibleh, in the direction of Mecca, the exterior wall of the mosque marking that direction being distinguished by a niche (Mihrâb). All sumptuous and pompous apparel is laid aside before the believer approaches the sacred place; and the extreme solemnity and decorum, the humility, the devotion which pervades it have been unanimously held up as an example to other creeds. The mosques are always open. Women, although not strictly forbidden to enter the mosque, yet are practically not allowed to pray there, lest their presence might be hurtful to true devotion. Besides these prayers, there are others ordained for special occasions, as on a pilgrimage, before a battle, at funerals, during an eclipse, &c. Moslems pray to God only, but implore the intercession of Mohammed, saints, and angels (see MOSQUE). Mohammedanism has no clergy in our sense of the word, the civil and religious law being bound up in one (see MOLLAH, MUFTI).
Next in importance stands the duty of giving alms. These are twofold—legal and voluntary, but the former, once collected by the sovereign, and applied to pious uses, has now been practically abrogated. The latter is, according to the law, to be given once every year, of cattle, money, corn, fruits, and wares sold, at about the rate of from two and a half up to twenty per cent. Besides these, it is usual to bestow a measure of provisions upon the poor at the end of the sacred month of Ramadân.
The duty of fasting follows (see FASTS). During the whole month of Ramadân the Moslem is commanded to refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, smelling perfumes, bathing, and every unnecessary indulgence in worldly pleasure, from daybreak until sunset. From that period till the morning he is allowed to eat, drink, and enjoy himself. The Arabian year consisting of twelve lunar months, it often happens that the Ramadân falls in mid-summer, when the fasting, more especially the abstaining from drinking, is excessively mortifying. None are exempt from this duty save the sick, travellers, and soldiers in time of war; but they are bound to fast an equal number of days during some other months. Nurses and pregnant women are entirely free from fasting. It is Mohammed's special and express desire that no one should fast who is not quite equal to it, lest he might injure his health and disqualify himself for necessary labour. Of the other commendable fast-days the Ashûrâ, on the 10th of Moharram, deserves special mention. There are very few Moslems that do not keep the Ramadân, even if they neglect their other religious duties; at all events, they all pretend to keep it most strictly, fasting being considered 'one-fourth part of the faith,' nay, 'the gate of religion.'—For the fourth paramount duty of the Mohammedan, the pilgrimage to Mecca, see MECCA.
With the 'positive' ordinances of Islam may also be reckoned the minor and greater festivals. The first (Al-Fetr, or 'breaking the fast'), following immediately upon the Ramadân, begins on the first day of the month of Shawâl, and lasts three days. The second (Eed Al-Korbân, or 'sacrifice') begins on the 10th of Dhu'l Hijjah, when the pilgrims perform their sacrifice, and lasts three or four days. The weekly day of rest is the Friday, because, from times long before Mohammed, the people used to hold public assemblies for civil as well as religious purposes on that day. When the special Friday service with its Chotbeh or Homily is over, the people are allowed to return to their worldly affairs, if they cannot afford to give themselves up entirely to pleasure or devotion for the rest of the sacred period.
The ancient rite of circumcision is used in Mohammedanism as the badge of the faith. It is commonly performed between the sixth and eighth year. Of the fundamental prohibitory laws of the Koran, one forbids the drinking of wine, which includes all strong and inebriating liquors, as giving rise to 'more evil than good'; and although of late, chiefly through European influence, very many Moslems have lost their religious scruples on that score, and not only secretly but openly indulge in spirits, yet the great bulk of the faithful refuse even to make use of the proceeds of the sale of wine or grapes. Some over-scrupulous believers even include opium, coffee, and tobacco in the prohibition; but general practice has decided differently. The prohibitory laws respecting food resemble closely those of Judaism; blood, the flesh of swine, animals that have died from disease or age, or on which the name of some idol has been invoked, or that have been sacrificed to an idol, or have been strangled, or killed by a blow, a fall, or by some other beast, are strictly forbidden. 'Pure' animals must be slaughtered according to certain fixed rules, and the name of God is to be invoked before the operation, without, however, the usual addition of the benevolent epithets. Fish, birds, and game are mostly allowed for food.
All games subject to chance, such as dice, cards, tables, bets, are considered so wicked that a gambler's testimony is invalid in a court of law. Chess and other games depending on skill, provided that they do not interfere with the regular performance of religious duties, and that they are played without any stakes whatsoever, are allowed by the majority of Moslem theologians. Usury is strictly prohibited. Taking interest upon any loan, however large or small, or profiting in trade through any questionable means, save by buying and selling, is severely condemned.
To prevent the faithful from ever falling back into idolatry the laws relating to images and pictures have been made very stringent. Whosoever makes an imitation of any living being, in stone, wood, or any other material, shall on the day of judgment be asked to endow his creation with life and soul, and, on his protesting his inability to do so, shall undergo the punishment of hell for a certain period. The head of law civil and religious is the Calif. His vicegerent in religion is the Grand Mufti or Sheikh ul Islām, under whom are the whole guild of Ulemā or experts.
The civil and criminal laws of Mohammedanism, founded both on the Koran and on the Traditions (Sunna), are in some instances, where the letter of the written or oral precept allows of various explanations, or where the case in question is not foreseen, interpreted according to the opinion of one of the four great masters of Islam—Abu Hanifa, Malek Ibn Ans, Shāfeī, Ibn Hanbal—within the pale of their respective sects. The principal points, however, upon which all Mohammedans agree are the following. Polygamy is allowed. 'Take in marriage of the women who please you, two, three, or four; but if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably, one, or those whom your right hands have acquired'—i.e. your slaves. Thus four wives, and a certain number of concubine slaves, is the extent to which a Moslem may legally go. The Prophet's example proves nothing to the contrary, since he was endowed with special privileges. It is moreover added, as an advice, that to marry one or two is quite sufficient for a man. A Moslem may, if urged by excessive love, or if unable to obtain a wife of his own creed, marry a Christian woman or a Jewess, but a Mohammedan woman is not, under any circumstances, to marry an unbeliever. In all cases, however, the child of a Moslem father, whatever the mother's faith, is a Moslem; nor does the wife that is an unbeliever inherit at her husband's death. A simple declaration of a man and woman at the age of puberty, before two witnesses, of their intention to marry each other, and the payment of part of the dowry (which is indispensable, and must amount to at least ten dirhems, or about five shillings) is sufficient for a legal marriage. A girl under age is given away by her natural or appointed guardian, with or without her consent. To see the face of any woman who is neither his wife nor his concubine, and who does not belong to any of the forbidden degrees, is strictly forbidden to the believer. Divorce is an easy thing for a Moslem husband. Twice a man may send away his wife and take her back again without any ceremony; the third time, however, or if he unite the triple divorce in one sentence at once, he dare not receive her again in wedlock until she have been married to another man in the meantime. Mere dislike is sufficient reason for a man to dissolve the conjugal ties, and his saying 'Thou art divorced,' or 'I divorce thee,' together with the payment of part of the wife's dowry, is all that is required from him by the law. A wife, on the other hand, is bound to her husband for ever, unless she can prove some flagrant ill-usage or neglect of conjugal duty on his part; and even then she forfeits part, or the whole, of her dowry. A woman proving disobedient to her husband may be declared by the qadi rebellious, and the husband is no longer bound to maintain her; but he cannot be forced to divorce her under these circumstances. If a slave becomes a mother by her master, and he acknowledges the child to be his own, the child is free, and the mother is to be emancipated at the master's death. A free person wishing to marry his or her slave must first emancipate this slave.
The privilege of primogeniture does not exist in the Mohammedan law, but males generally receive a double share. A person may not bequeath more than one-third of his property, unless there be no legal heirs. Children—whether begotten with the legal wife, or slave, or concubine, or only adopted—and their descendants are the first heirs; next come the claims of wives, parents, brothers, sisters, in their order. Where there is no legal heir the property falls to the crown. The law is very lenient towards debtors, the Koran recommending the creditor to remit a debt 'as alms.' Insolvency and inability to work for the discharge of the claim solve all further obligations. The most conscientious performance of all private contracts, however, is constantly recommended in the Koran.
Murder is punishable either with death or by the payment of a fine to the family of the deceased, according to their own pleasure. There must, however, be palliating circumstances in the latter case. Unintentional homicide is expiable by freeing a believer from slavery, and paying to the family a certain sum in proportion to the rank and sex of the deceased. He who has not the means of freeing a believer is to fast for two months, by way of penance. According to the strict letter of the law, a man is not liable to capital punishment for killing his own child or an infidel; but, practically, no difference is generally made by civilised Mohammedan governments in our day: murder is punished with death, and no fine frees the culprit.
The Mosaic law of retaliation, in case of intentional wounds and mutilation, holds good also for Islam; that is (not, as has ignorantly been supposed, that the corresponding limb of the offender is to be cut off), a certain proportionate fine in money is to be paid to the injured. The payment for any of the single limbs of the human body, such as the nose, is the full price, the same as for a homicide; for a limb which is found twice, like hand or foot, half; for a finger or toe, the tenth part. Women and slaves have smaller claims. Injuries of a dangerous or otherwise grievous nature pay the full price; those of an inferior kind bring the perpetrator within reach of the lash or cudgel.
The Koran orders theft to be punished by cutting off the chief offending limb, the right hand; the second theft is punishable by the loss of the left foot; the third, of the left hand; the fourth, of the right foot; but the ordinary punishments of imprisonment, hard labour, and the bastinado have been substituted in our days. Not, however, if the property stolen were of easy access to the thief, nor if it consisted of food, since he may have taken this to satisfy the craving of his hunger.
Unchastity on the part of a woman was, in the commencement of Islam, punished by imprisonment for life, for which afterwards, however, stoning was substituted in the case of a married woman, and a hundred stripes and a year's exile in the case of an unmarried free woman; a slave to undergo only half of that punishment. Fornication in either sex is, by the law of the Koran, to be visited with a hundred stripes.
Infidelity, or apostasy from Islam, is a crime to be visited by the death of the offender, if he have been warned thrice without recanting. Equally severe, and not to be averted by repentance or revocation of any kind, is the punishment inflicted for blasphemy—against God, Mohammed, Christ, Moses, or any other prophet.
A further injunction of the Koran, for the carrying out of which the time has well-nigh gone by, is that of making war against the Infidels. He who is slain while fighting in defence and for the propagation of Islam is reckoned a martyr; while a deserter from the holy war is held up as an object of execration, and has forfeited his life in this world as well as in the world to come. At first all the enemies taken in battle were ruthlessly slain. Later, however, it became the law to give the people of a different faith against whom war was declared the choice of three things: either to embrace Islam, in which case they became Moslems at once, free in their persons and fortunes, and entitled to all the privileges of Moslems; or to submit to pay tribute—in which case they were allowed to continue in their religion, if it did not imply gross idolatry or otherwise offend against the moral law; or to decide the quarrel by the fortune of war—in which case the captive women and children were made slaves, and the men either slain, unless they became converts at the last moment, or were otherwise disposed of by the prince. The fifth part of the spoil belongs 'to God,' that is, the Sanctuary, to the apostle and his kindred, to the orphans, the poor, and the traveller.
In cases for which subsequent ages found no written rules laid down by the Prophet, traditional oral dicta were taken as the norm, and later still precedents of the califs were binding. Hence contradictions in theory and practice have crept in, according to the different traditions and decisions of the Imâms or expounders of the Law, besides the various interpretations put upon the book itself within the pale of the different Mohammedan sects. The secular tribunals, therefore, not unfrequently differ in their decisions from the judicial tribunals; and the distinction between the written civil Law of the ecclesiastical courts and the common Law, aided by the executive power, is, fortunately for the cause of civilisation, getting clearer and clearer every day.
That part of Islam which has undergone least change in the course of time, and which most distinctly reveals the mind of its author, is also its most complete and its most admirable part—we mean the ethics of the Koran. They are not found, any more than the other laws, brought together in one, or two, or three Surahs, but 'like golden threads' they are woven into the huge fabric of the religious constitution of Mohammed. Injustice, falsehood, pride, revengefulness, calumny, mockery, avarice, prodigality, debauchery, mistrust, and suspicion are inveighed against as ungodly and wicked; while benevolence, liberality, modesty, forbearance, patience and endurance, frugality, sincerity, straightforwardness, decency, love of peace and truth, and, above all, trust in God and submission to His will are considered as the pillars of true piety, and the principal signs of a true believer. Nor must we omit to point out expressly that Mohammed never laid down that doctrine of absolute predestination which destroys all human will and freedom, because the individual's deeds cannot alter one iota in his destiny either in this world or in the next. So far from it, foolhardiness is distinctly prohibited in the Koran (ii. 196). Caution is recommended. And a glance at the whole system of faith, which is built on hope and fear, rewards and punishments, paradise and hell, destined to be man's portion according to his acts in this life, as well as the incessant exhortations to virtue and denunciations of vice, are sufficient to prove that the extreme doctrine of predestination is not in the Koran. But submission to the Lord's will, hope during misfortune, modesty in prosperity, and entire confidence in the Divine plans are supported by the argument that everything is in the hands of the Highest Being, and that there is no appeal against His absolute decrees.
That the worst side of Mohammed's character, the often wanton cruelty with which he pursued the propagation of his faith, should by his successors have been taken as a thing to be imitated is not wonderful if we consider how brilliant the results of the policy of the bloody sword had proved. The progress of the Moslem arms is described in the article CALIF. Eighty years after Mohammed's death Islam reigned supreme over Arabia, Syria, Persia, Egypt, the whole of the northern coast of Africa, and over Spain; and notwithstanding the subsequent strifes and divisions in the interior of this gigantic realm, it grew and grew outwardly, until the Crescent was made to gleam from the spires of St Sophia at Constantinople (1453), and the war-cry, 'Lâ ilâha ill' Allâh!' resounded before the gates of Vienna (1529). From that time, however, the splendour and the power of Mohammedanism began to wane. Two hundred millions, or 14 per cent. of the human race, profess Islam. Two-thirds of these are found from Turkey to farthest Malaysia, the rest in Africa. There are upwards of 45 millions of Moslems in British India alone. Among the African races Mohammedanism has lately made great progress. Yet since it left off conquering it has lost also that energy and elasticity which promises great things. Its future fate will depend chiefly on the progress of European conquest in the East, and the amount of Western civilisation which it will, for good or evil, import thither.
The strong points of Mohammedanism, its sobriety, its pure theism, its simple and intelligible creed, are heavily counterbalanced by its slavery, its degradation of woman, its stereotyping of laws and science, and its belief in the past rather than in the future. Yet over a great part of the world it is what Mohammed declared every prophet before him to have been, a pioneer of better things.
Besides the Koran, the Sunna, and the native (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, &c.) writers on the foregoing subject, we mention as further references the works of the European scholars D'Herbelot, Sale, De Sacy, Hammer-Purgstall, Burckhardt, Sprenger, Burton, Muir, Garcin de Tassy, Lane, Weil, Geiger, Nöldeke, Kremer. See also the articles on ARABIA, CALIF, CRUSADES, DEMONOLOGY, KORAN, MECCA, SHITES, SUNNITES, TURKEY, WAHABIS.