CHAPTER IX

GHULAM 'S CONFESSION

ON the morning following the events narrated in our last chapter, Ghulam was sitting in his room reading the Bible, when the door suddenly opened, and his father entered. There was no time, even had the youth so desired, to secret the book which lay open before him, and his father's gaze was at once attracted to the well-bound volume. ‘What have you here Ghulam?’ he asked, as he took up the Book; and, then, as his eye caught the title ‘Holy Bible’ in bright gold lettering, he turned to the youth with a frown and demanded an explanation. Isma’il Jabbar's knowledge of English was most elementary, but he knew enough to understand the meaning of the words he had just read, and he seemed to feel intuitively that he had at last discovered the reason of the strange reticence, which, for weeks past, had marked the demeanour of his son. ‘What is this?’ he cried again in a tone which demanded an answer, and, as he spoke, the infuriated father stepped forward and laid his hand heavily on Ghulam’s shoulder.

The latter had risen at his father's entrance, and now stood facing him with respectful attention. As Isma’ili Jabbar repeated his question for the second time, the youth, with one quick, unspoken prayer to God for help, thus replied: ‘This, father, is a copy of the holy Bible which I procured when at Dhanpur. There are many things concerning religion of which I am ignorant, and, as the noble Qur'an teaches us to seek the help and advice of the People of the Book when in doubt concerning any matter, I visited the missionary who lives at Dhanpur, and from him procured this copy of the Christian Scriptures.’

‘Christian Scriptures, forsooth!’ cried the angry father, ‘what need have you, a Muslim, of the Christian Scriptures! Our noble Qur'an is good enough for all true followers of the Apostle of God. Hearken to me Ghulam. I absolutely forbid you to read or touch this book again, and I order you now to promise me that you will carry out faithfully my wishes with respect to this matter.’

For a moment there was silence. For eighteen years Ghulam had loyally obeyed every behest of an indulgent father, but now, at last, the crisis in his life, which he had long foreseen, had arrived, and the time had come to choose between the will of God and the will of men. The struggle in the mind of the young student, however, was of short duration. The die had long since been cast, and Ghulam knew himself to be, not the Muslim, his father had described, but a humble disciple of Jesus Christ. He had heard the call to take up his cross and follow the Christ; he had counted the cost of discipleship; he had chosen his treasure in heaven rather than on earth, and so, as he lifted his eyes to those of his father, there was in them a gleam of triumph, and as he made reply, there was in his voice a ring of settled determination.

‘Father’, he began, ‘what you ask is impossible. Too long I have hidden my light and denied my Saviour, but at last the time has come for me to tell you plainly that I am a Christian, and, as such, must obey God rather than you. I cannot, therefore, forsake the reading of my Bible, and I dare no longer remain a Muslim when this Bible tells me that the Prophet 'Isa is the only “way” to God the Father. I have felt for some time past that I must confess my faith, and I am glad now that the time has at length come to definitely place myself on the side of those who follow that Prophet. I count it my duty, therefore, to tell you that I intend, on my return to Dhanpur, to be baptized, and join the Christian Church.’

Ghulam's declaration of his faith in Christ, and of his intention to be baptized, fell like a bombshell into the astonished ears of the Islamabad landowner. Never before had his son addressed him in such tones, and he was staggered by the announcement which fell from the latter's lips. Rage and grief chased each other in alternate succession through his mind as the full significance of what he had just heard came home to him, and he felt humiliated to the very dust as he pictured the disgrace and contumely which would be his if his son really carried out his purpose of being baptized. Isma’il Jabbar was not what one might call a religious man, and the claims of religion sat lightly upon him. In his own heart of hearts, it must be confessed, he cared little whether Christianity or Islam were true, but he was a man of the world, and valued the esteem and honour of his fellow men, and as President of the local Anjuman-i-Islam he exercised no little authority over the other Muslims of the locality. In his dual capacity as landlord and President of the Anjuman-i-Islam he easily ranked first amongst the Muslims of that part of the country. The thought, therefore, that his only son, of all men, should renounce Islam and become a Christian, mortified and maddened him, whilst the sudden reversal of all his hopes concerning the future career of his son and heir cast him into the depths of despair.

‘Do you know sir,’ he cried, ‘what it means to be baptized? You scarcely have weighed the consequences of such a mad act; for the day you leave my home and become a Christian, that day you cease to be my son.’

‘Yes father, I have counted the cost,’ the young man replied, ‘and I am willing to pay the price so that I might gain eternal life; for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? I am ready, father, to obey you in everything else, and it gives me greater pain than you think to have to speak to you thus, but in matters of religion the claims of God come first, and I dare not act differently.

‘You need sir,’ cried the angry father, ‘'to be reminded that you are my son, and if you are not wise enough to follow the advice of your seniors in matters which you do not understand, then I must resort to other measures to enforce my authority and bring you to your senses. Understand, therefore, that you do not leave this room until you have given me your promise neither to touch the Bible again nor to have any further dealings with Christians. In the meantime you will get but one meal a day, and be permitted to speak to no one,’ and, so saying, Isma’il Jabbar strode from the room, and locked the door behind him.

As the sound of his father's retreating footsteps died away Ghulam threw himself upon his knees and poured out his heart to God in prayer for grace and strength to stand firm under the trials which awaited him; and he rose calmed and strengthened with the assurance that the Master whose name he had just confessed was an unseen Companion in his lonely prison. The day passed slowly away, and as the shadows of evening drew near his quick ears detected his father's footsteps outside the door, and a moment later the latter was standing before him.

‘Well Ghulam,’ the father began: ‘I hope that further consideration has led you to see the folly of disobeying my commands.’

‘Father, I cannot alter my decision to be a Christian,’ the lad replied. ‘I know that the Bible is the word of God, neither corrupted nor abrogated, and in that book I find that the Prophet 'Isa is the God-appointed Saviour of men. You may imprison me; you may starve me; aye, you may kill me, but I cannot deny the Lord who died for me.’ ‘Then the consequences of your mad folly be upon your own head,’ shrieked the now infuriated father. ‘I must adopt more extreme measures to teach you obedience’, and so saying, he opened the door, and beckoned to a group of male servants who stood waiting outside with heavy bamboo sticks in their hands. At a further sign from Isma’il Jabbar these men now fell upon the defenceless Ghulam, and belaboured him so unmercifully that the lad at length fell senseless at his father's feet.

When Ghulam returned to consciousness he found himself lying alone upon his bed, with the room bathed in light from the full moon which shone through the barred windows. His body was bruised and swollen, and he passed a sleepless night tortured with pain. The morning brought some measure of relief, for his mother was permitted to visit him, and she bathed his wounds and gave him some nourishing food. The day passed slowly away, and as a Ghulam lay upon his bed he had ample leisure to review the events of the past few hours. His Bible had been taken from him, but many a familiar passage came back to him bringing its message of comfort and peace, and he found deep consolation in repeating to himself the words of Christ: ‘Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’  ⁴⁵  ‘Every one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred fold, and shall inherit eternal life.’  ⁴⁶ 

The following day found Ghulam almost recovered from the effects of his beating, though his body remained stiff and sore. He was still kept a close prisoner, but at noon his father, accompanied by Maulavi Ibrahim ‘Ali, entered the room. The latter at once accosted Ghulam, and expressed his surprise and grief at the news of his threatened apostasy. ‘How can you so dishonour your aged father,’ he continued, ‘as to even think of renouncing the glorious religion of Islam. Would you bring down the grey hairs of your father in sorrow to the grave, and for ever cover your family name with shame and obloquy? Think, too, of your own loss! for if you become a Christian you will be disinherited and cast out upon a heartless world without a pice. Think what bright prospects you will forfeit! I know for a certainty that your father contemplated, later on, sending you to England that you might enter the civil service of this country. All this, and much more, you will lose if you become a Christian—and for what? You know as well as I do that poverty and disgrace await you if you are baptized, and so I plead with you for the sake of your aged father, and I plead with you for your own sake to give up this foolish infatuation, and relieve the mind of your anxious parents.’

There was no trace of indecision or of fear in the voice of Ghulam as he replied to the maulavi's words. He had found it difficult to speak plainly to his father, but to this man, who, a few days before, had so signally failed to justify his rejection of the Taurat and Injil, he found it easy to speak. Indeed it seemed as if, in that supreme moment, he had been given special power from on high, for he felt a strange sense of exaltation as he looked into the face of his old teacher.

‘Maulavi Sahib,’ he began, ‘I am surprised that you, a religious teacher, should at such a time as this have nothing better to urge than worldly considerations in order to induce me to give up Christianity. Surely in such a matter as this questions of worldly gain or loss should not count. I, for one, care not what the world may bring to me of joy or of sorrow, of gain or of loss. What I do care for is that I may be found doing the will of God before whom I shall one day be judged. That will I believe to be found in following the Prophet 'Isa whom God has ordained as the Saviour of men; and until I am shown that I am wrong in following Him, no considerations such as you have advanced can have any weight with me. I have read the Injil, and I know that the Prophet ‘Isa is the sinless Prophet who gave his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. God forbid, then, that I should endanger my salvation by denying Him.’

‘Well,’ retorted the maulavi, ‘I am not going to argue with you as to the sinlessness of the Prophet ‘Isa, upon whom be the peace and blessing of God, or even as to His alleged death upon the cross; for what do these things matter? The Prophet ‘Isa Himself foretold the advent of Muhammad, the seal of the Prophets, so that even if I grant you all you have said, our noble Prophet is still the last great Prophet, and, as such, is to be obeyed and followed.’

‘That I cannot believe’, answered the student, ‘for I raised the same objection to a Christian preacher in Dhanpur many days ago, and he showed me very clearly that the Prophet ‘Isa never mentioned the coming of a prophet named Muhammad, though He, on one occasion, warned His followers against false prophets who should arise after Him. On the contrary, He said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away”, ⁴⁷  thus indicating that Christianity should never be abrogated or superseded. Besides, I cannot see what gain it would be to the world even if we did admit Muhammad as the last Prophet. He himself never claimed to be a saviour from sin, but, on the contrary, often asked pardon for his own sins, so that there is nothing to be gained by following him even if, as you allege, he were a Prophet’.

The fearless words of Ghulam exasperated the maulavi almost beyond endurance; for the thought that a pupil of his should address him thus was more than he could tolerate, and, without replying to what had just been spoken, he proceeded to pour out upon Ghulam a perfect torrent of abuse. Finally, turning to the boy's father, he said: ‘The sooner, sir, you drive this infidel out of your house the better. His mind has been so utterly corrupted by these Christian missionaries that it is useless to hope for repentance from him. Who knows, but that, if he stays here longer, he may lead others astray.’ So saying, the angry Muslim strode out of the room.

As Ghulam stood alone before his father he knew instinctively that a great crisis had arrived in his life, and he prepared himself to hear the sentence which would for ever cut him off from all this world held dear. There was no sign of pity in the stern face of Isma’il Jabbar as he spoke the fateful words. Slowly and deliberately the words fell which proclaimed Ghulam a stranger in his own home, and two minutes later he found himself outside his father's gateway disinherited and disowned, a derision and a byeword in the village where he had been born. Yet Ghulam's faith did not waver. Deep down in his own heart the still, small voice of an approving conscience bade him take courage, and he knew that the Master whom he had chosen was by his side.

THE TRADITIONS IN ISLAM

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF TRADITION

ACCORDING to Muhammadan writers, there are four foundations upon which the doctrines of Islam are based. These are the Qur’an, the traditions, ijma’, ³ or the unanimous consent of Muslim theologians, and qiyas, ⁴ or the analogical reasoning of the learned with regard to the teaching of the Qur’an and the traditions. The first two foundations are called the roots, and the latter, as being derived from and dependent upon them, the branches. For all practical purposes, therefore, Islam may be said to be founded on the alleged revelation given by God to Muhammad in the Qur’an and the traditions. Muslim theologians, however, make a distinction between the revelation of the Qur’an and that of the traditions. By them the former is said to be wahi matlu (وَحِى مَتْلْو), or ‘recited revelation’, whilst the traditions are described as wahi ghair matlu (وَحِى غَيْر مَتْلْو), or ‘unrecited revelation’. In the first case, the Qur’an is said to have been recited to the prophet, generally by the angel Gabriel, and by him, in turn, repeated, word for word, to his followers. The traditions, on the other hand, are the reputed oral records of the sayings and actions of Muhammad as handed down by his early followers, and ultimately committed to writing by later Muslims. Thus it is seen that the Qur’an is, according to Muslims, a purely objective revelation, whereas in the traditions, on the other hand, the inspiration is subjective only. It should be remarked here, however, that all traditions do not deal with the sayings or doings of Muhammad. There are not a few traditions which have for their subject-matter the sayings or doings of the ‘companions’, or the immediate ‘successors’ of Muhammad. Thus a distinction is made by Muslim theologians between a marfu’ ⁵ tradition, which has to do with the prophet himself, and a mawquf ⁶ tradition which refers only to the sayings or doings of his companions’. There is also maqtu ⁷ tradition, which does not go back farther than the first generation after Muhammad, in other words, which deals with the sayings or doings of the tabi’un’, ⁸ or followers of the companions’.

The word usually employed by Muslim writers to denote the traditions is hadith (plural, ahadith). This word originally meant conversation, record or narrative, and is now technically used to indicate either a single tradition, or a whole collection of traditions. Another term frequently used for Islamic tradition is sunna. This word signifies a custom, habit or usage of the prophet Muhammad; and the doctrine of the inspiration of the traditions is based upon the Muslim belief that Muhammad, in all he said and did, was supernaturally guided, so that his words are to be regarded as the very words of God. Thus the theologians deduce the doctrine that God has given commands and prohibitions to men, not only by the Qur’an, but also by the mouth of the apostle Muhammad. This doctrine finds its basis in the reputed sayings of Muhammad, ‘Have I not been given the Qur’an, and with it that which is like it . . . verily what the apostle of God hath made unlawful is like what God hath made unlawful’. ⁹ ‘I have left you two things, and you will not stray so long as you hold them fast. The one is the word of God, and the other is the sunna of his prophet.’ It is also related that Muhammad used to say, ‘Science (i.e. religious knowledge) consists of three things: well-ordered verse, well-observed sunna and just law.’

In the introduction to the Mishkatu’l Masabih, a very celebrated collection of traditions, the word hadith is defined as being applied to the record of ‘the words of the prophet, and his actions, and what he permitted’. The last mentioned is explained as being something said or done by others in the prophet’s presence, which he neither denied nor forbade. Muhammad himself is reported to have encouraged his followers to preserve his words; and there is a tradition to that effect that he once said, بلغوا عني ولو آية  ‘Transmit from me, even if it be but one verse.’ He is also reported to have said, ‘May God bless him who hears my Words, and keeps them, and understands them and transmits them’. On another occasion, on being asked who be his successors, he replied, ‘Those who report my sayings, and instruct men in the same.’ ¹⁰ Yet there is evidence that the prophet forbade his followers to write down his various utterances; and he is reported as saying, لا تكتبوا عني ومن كتب عني غير القرآن فليمحه وحدثوا عني فلا حرج ومن كذب عليّ متعمداً فليتبوأ مقعده من النار ‘Do not write down (anything) from me; and whoever writes down (anything) from me, except the Qur’an, let him erase it. But narrate from me, for that is not forbidden; and whoever intentionally relates about me falsely, let him find his resting place in the fire’. ¹¹ The same authority is responsible for the statement that Muhammad forbade his followers committing his ordinary utterances to writing, out of fear that they would be confused with the words of the Qur’an, many of which were written down. This certainly suggests that the prophet, at least, intended to convey the idea that there was an essential difference between his own words and the words of the Qur’an. Whatever be the reason, the evidence is full and clear that, at first, the traditions depended for their transmission upon the precarious memories of men, and were, for many years, handed down orally from one generation to the next.

Al-Qastallani, ¹² the famous commentator of Al-Bukhari, states very clearly that لم يكن الصحابة ولا التابعون يكتبون الأحاديث إنما كانوا يؤدونها لفظاً ويأخذونها حفظاً ‘neither the companions (of Muhammad) nor the immediate successors (of the companions) used to write down the traditions. They only passed them on by rote, and preserved them by memory.’ ¹³

A tradition is technically divided by Muslim theologians into two parts. There is, first, the isnad, ¹⁴ the support or authority on which the tradition rests. This consists of the names of the succession of reporters by whom the particular tradition was handed down. This isnad, to be complete, must begin with the name of the original person who actually heard the words spoken by Muhammad, and must continue in an unbroken chain up to the name of the last reporter from whom the written record was made —when, of course, oral repetition automatically ceased. The second part of tradition consists of the actual text of what Muhammad is reported to have said or done. This is called the matn (مَتَن)‎ ¹⁵ or text. We now give below two specimens of traditions: one reporting an actual saying of Muhammad; the other relating his sunna or custom during a certain religious observance. ‘Abu Kuraib said to us that Ibrahim ibn Yusuf ibn Abi Ishaq said to us from his father from Abu Ishaq from Tulata ibn Musarif that, he said, I have heard from Abdu’r-Rahman ibn Ausajah that he said, I have heard from Bara ibn ‘Azib that he said, I have heard that the prophet said, “Whoever shall give in charity a milch cow, or silver, or a leathern bottle of water, it shall be equal to the freeing of a slave”‘ ¹⁶ The second is as follows: ‘Walid bin Muslim said that Al Awzai said to us from Qatada that he wrote to him to inform him from Anas, the son of Malik, that he said to him, “I prayed behind the prophet and Abu Bakr and ‘Umar and ‘Uthman, and they began (repeating Surat’l al-Fatihah) with the words, “Praise be to God the Lord of the worlds’; and they did not repeat the words, ‘In the name of God the most merciful’ either at the beginning of the recital or at the end of it.”’ ¹⁷

It would appear therefore, from what has been written above, that Muhammad encouraged his followers to preserve in their memories and hand down to their successors the teaching which he gave them from time to time. But there were other reasons for the practice. Even among the heathen Arabs it was considered a virtue to follow the sunna or custom of one’s forefathers. ¹⁸ It is obvious, however, that the Muslims could no longer follow the customs and usages of their heathen ancestors. What could he more natural, therefore, than that they should adopt the sunna of their prophet and make his divinely-guided life, in all its details, their model and pattern. This, as a matter of fact, they did; and so his every word and act became for them a divine rule of faith and practice. Such being the case, it is not difficult to understand the eagerness with which, after Muhammad’s death, his every word and action were recalled. Those who had been his most intimate companions were never tired of repeating, and, it must be added, of amplifying, his words. They loved to dwell in the past, and to cheer and comfort each other with recitals of the words and deeds of the wonderful man who had united the jarring, warring tribes of the Arabian desert into one great nation, embracing some of the fairest lands of the East. Indeed, we are told that it was an early custom of the Muhammadans when meeting one another, for one to ask for news (hadith) and for the other to relate a saying or anecdote of the prophet. This custom increased as time went by, until, when a generation arose which had not known the prophet, thousands of enthusiastic converts hung upon the lips of the ‘companions’, as Muhammad’s contemporary followers came to be called, and drank in the stories of how he spoke and ate and lived. No detail was too trivial, no story too commonplace for the men, who looked with envy and pride upon those who had been privileged to converse with the prophet and listen to his teaching. The desire to imitate Muhammad was carried to almost idolatrous lengths, so that a generation of men arose who refused to do anything which he had not done, or to eat anything which he had not eaten, even although its lawfulness was unquestioned. Thus it is related that the Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal would not eat water melons, although he knew that the prophet ate them, because he could not learn whether he ate them with or without the rind, or whether he broke, bit, or cut them! The same man is said to have forbidden a woman to spin by the light of torches passing in the streets by night, which were not her own property, because the prophet had not mentioned whether it was lawful to do so, and was not known to have ever availed himself of a light belonging to another person without asking that person’s permission. ¹⁹

Such men looked with superstitious reverence upon all who had known the prophet; and they listened to stories of him as of one endowed with supernatural power and surrounded with a halo of supernatural glory. ‘Is it possible, father ‘Abdullah, that thou hast been with Muhammad?’ was the question addressed by a pious Muslim to Hodzeifa in the mosque of Cufa. ‘Didst thou really see the prophet, and wert thou on terms of familiar intercourse with him?’ ‘Son of my uncle, it is indeed as thou sayest.’ ‘And how wert thou wont to behave towards the prophet?’ ‘Verily we used to labour hard to please him.’ ‘Well, by the Lord,’ exclaimed the ardent listener, ‘If I had but been alive in his time, I would not have allowed him to put his blessed foot upon the earth, but would have borne him on my shoulders wheresoever he listed.’ ²⁰

As the years passed by, and the founder of Islam became gradually farther removed from those who embraced the faith, so his portrait gradually came to assume more and more a semi-divine character. Fancy ran riot, faith degenerated into superstitious credulity, and, acting on as Shafi’i’s maxim that, ‘In the exaltation of Muhammad to exaggerate is lawful,’ traditions in tens of thousands began to be manufactured for the glorification of the prophet. It would seem that Muhammad himself astutely suspected the danger of such exaggeration, for he is reported as warning his disciples in these words إياكم والظن فإن الظن أكذب الحديث ‘Beware of imagination, for magination is the falsest tradition.’ ²¹

The oral form in which these so-called traditions were handed down gave full opportunity for the manufacture of spurious traditions, and before the era of written collections of traditions arrived, the historic records of the prophet’s life had come to be almost obliterated by the mass of utterly legendary material which came into existence, and was repeated with ever-increasing exaggeration. Proof of these charges will be given in the next chapter; it must suffice here to remind the reader that the great Bukhari, who died in the year 256 of the Muslim era, retained as trustworthy only some 7,275 traditions out of the 600,000 which he had, with infinite pains, collected from all over the Muslim world! One of the greatest of Western students of Islam thus describes the process, ‘Familiar intercourse with heavenly messengers, thus countenanced by the prophet, was implicitly believed by his followers, and led them, even during his lifetime, to regard him with superstitious awe. On a subject so impalpable to sense, and so congenial with imagination, it may be fairly assumed that reason had little share in controlling the fertile productions of fancy; that the conclusions of his susceptible and credulous followers far exceeded the premises granted by Mahomet; that even simple facts were construed by excited faith as pregnant with supernatural power and unearthly companionship; and that, after the object of their veneration had passed from their sight, fond devotion perpetuated and enhanced the fascinating legends. If the prophet gazed into the heavens, or looked wistfully to the right hand or to the left, it was Gabriel with whom he was holding mysterious converse. Passing gusts raised a cloud from the sandy track; the pious believer exulted in the conviction that it was the dust of the Archangel with his mounted squadrons scouring the plain as they went before them to shake the foundations of the doomed fortress. On the field of Bedr, three stormy blasts swept over the marshalled army; again it was Gabriel with a thousand horses flying to the succour of Mahomet, while Michael and Seraphil, each with a like angelic troop, wheeled to the right and to the left of the Moslem front. Nay, the very dress and martial uniform of these helmed angels are detailed by the earliest and most trustworthy biographers with as much naiveté as if they had been veritable warriors of flesh and blood; while the heads of the enemy were seen to drop off before the Moslem swords had ever touched them, because the unseen scimitars did the work more swiftly than the grosser steel of Medina! ²²

It is worth noting that most of the ‘companions’ were born later than Muhammad, and could have known little or nothing of his birth and early childhood; and yet there is no period in the prophet’s life which reveals more clearly the unchecked rovings of a vivid imagination, as seen in the fabulous stories concerning that period of his life, than the period of his birth. These ‘inventions of a playful fantasy’ are clearly the creations of a later age foisted upon the ‘companions’ in order to secure for them the credentials necessary for their acceptance. The same remark applies to the large mass of tradition which professes to relate the miracles of Muhammad. There is a well-known saying of the prophet to the effect that whatever contradicts the Qur’an is not true. ²³ Judged by this standard, thousands of traditions purporting to relate the miracles of Muhammad must he totally rejected as spurious and unhistorical; for the testimony of the Qur’an is clear that Muhammad worked no miracle. Amongst a wealth of passages the following must suffice here:

وَأَقْسَمُواْ بِاللّهِ جَهْدَ أَيْمَانِهِمْ لَئِن جَاءتْهُمْ آيَةٌ لَّيُؤْمِنُنَّ بِهَا قُلْ إِنَّمَا الآيَاتُ عِندَ اللّهِ وَمَا يُشْعِرُكُمْ أَنَّهَا إِذَا جَاءتْ لاَ يُؤْمِنُونَ.

‘With their most solemn oath have they sworn by God that if a sign (miracle) come unto them they will certainly believe it. Say (O Muhammad), Signs are in the power of God alone, and he teacheth you not thereby, only because when they were wrought ye did not believe.’ ²⁴

وَقَالُوا لَوْلاَ أُنزِلَ عَلَيْهِ آيَاتٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِ قُلْ إِنَّمَا الآيَاتُ عِندَ اللَّهِ وَإِنَّمَا أَنَا نَذِيرٌ مُّبِينٌ أَوَلَمْ يَكْفِهِمْ أَنَّا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ يُتْلَى عَلَيْهِمْ.

‘And, they say, “Unless a sign be sent down to him from his Lord—” say, Signs are in the power of God alone, and I am only a plainspoken warner. Is it not enough for them that we have sent down to thee the book to be recited to them?’ ²⁵ This testimony of the Qur’an is so clear that Syed Amir Ali, one of the greatest scholars that Indian Muhammadanism has produced, says candidly in his Life of Mohammed that, ‘they asked for miracles. Remark his reply, “God has not sent me to you to work wonders, He has sent me to preach to you” . . . Disclaiming every power of wonder-working, Mohammed rests the truth of his divine commission entirely upon his teachings.’ ²⁶

We shall have occasion, in a later chapter, to notice the different classes into which Muslim scholars of a later age divided the traditions. Amongst these is a class of tradition known as the hadithu’l-mutawatir. This term is applied to an undoubted tradition which has been handed down by many distinct chains of narrators, or rather by a chain of unanimous generations, and which has, therefore, always been accepted as genuine and authentic. The number of such traditions is acknowledged by Muslim scholars to be exceedingly small. Now it is a most significant fact that not a single tradition relating to an alleged miracle of Muhammad is found in this class. ²⁷

If traditions were invented in order to glorify the prophet Muhammad, no less surely were they invented in order to apologize for the many blemishes in his character. Judged by normal standards, there are many things in the life and character of the founder of Islam which will not bear investigation. This is especially true of his dealings with women; and his later apologists have not been slow to set up a special standard in order to meet this obvious difficulty. These attempted excuses, after the event, bear upon them the mark of barefaced forgery, and themselves constitute the strongest indictment of the prophet’s character. Thus a late biography of the prophet, the Siratu’l-Halabiyya, ²⁸ has a whole section devoted to what it terms the ‘special privileges of the prophet of God’. What these are like may be gathered from the following illustration:

أنه صلى الله عليه وسلم إذا رغب في امرأة خلية كان له أن يدخل بها من غير لفظ نكاح أو هبة ومن غير ولي ولا شهود، كما وقع له صلى الله عليه وسلم في زينب بنت جحش رضي الله عنها كما تقدم، ومن غير رضاها، وأنه إذا رغب في امرأة متزوجة يجب على زوجها أن يطلقها له صلى الله عليه وسلم.

‘When the prophet of God longed for any unattached woman, it was his privilege to go in to her without the word “marriage” or “gift " or without any marriage-agent or witnesses, as happened to him in the case of Zainab bint Jahsh, as has been said before, and without her consent. And if he longed for any married woman, then it became incumbent upon her husband to divorce her for the prophet.’ ²⁹

Another special privilege of the prophet, mentioned in the same book, was his right to choose any female prisoner from the spoils of victory before the regular division was made!

In a similar manner it was felt by later Muslims that some apology was needed for the prophet’s ruthless plundering and raiding, which are detailed at such length by all his biographers. Hence a tradition was concocted in which it was asserted that this, too, was a special privilege of the founder of Islam. It is found in the celebrated Mishkatu’l Masabih, and runs as follows:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ فَضَّلَنِي عَلَى الْأَنْبِيَاءِ أَوْ قَالَ أُمَّتِي عَلَى الْأُمَمِ وَأَحَلَّ لِيَ الْغَنَائِمَ.

‘Verily God has given me precedence over the prophets.’ Or he said (according to another tradition), ‘He has given my followers precedence over other nations by the fact that he has made plunder lawful for us.’ ³⁰

Besides the reasons mentioned above, there are other causes which were largely responsible for the manufacture of false traditions. Amongst these may be mentioned the new conditions arising out of the wide spread of Islam. With the conquest of Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, countries containing much higher civilization than the people of Arabia had ever seen or imagined, new ideas and institutions borrowed from Christians and other conquered races soon made their influence felt. Social customs, religious movements, and political relationships with other peoples all called for legislative action; and new and unforeseen circumstances were constantly arising for which the Qur’an made no provision. ‘The Arabs, a simple and unsophisticated race, found in the Coran ample provision for the regulation of their affairs: religious, social, and political. But the aspect of Islam soon underwent a mighty change. Scarcely was the prophet buried, when his followers issued forth from their barren peninsula resolved to impose the faith of Islam upon all the nations of the earth. Within a century they had, as a first step, conquered every land that intervenes from the banks of the Oxus to the farthest shores of Northern Africa, and enrolled the great majority of their peoples under the standard of the Coran. This vast empire differed widely from the Arabia of Mahomet’s time; and that which sufficed for the patriarchal simplicity of the early Arabs was found altogether inadequate for the multiplying wants of their descendants. Crowded cities, like Cufa, Cairo, and Damascus, required elaborate laws for the guidance of their courts of justice; widening political relations demanded a system of international equity; the speculations of a people before whom literature was throwing open her arena, and the controversies of eager factions on nice points of doctrine, were impatient of the narrow limits which confined them; all called loudly for the enlargement of the scanty and naked dogmas of the revelation, and for the development of its rudimental code of ethics.’ ³¹ Such was the problem. It was solved by recourse to the traditions. Where these did not exist, they were created, and henceforth all recitals regarding the life of the prophet acquired a new and unlooked for value. Henceforth his sayings and practice were to supplement the Qur’an, and provide a magic key to open every lock. Thus was met the demand for a fuller legal code and a more comprehensive social legislation. Judgments professing to proceed from Muhammad, or to be founded on principles enunciated by him, were gradually framed and promulgated, until his reputed utterances became invested with the force of law as well as the authority of inspiration. Thus by the aid of analogy and fictitious traditions an exhaustive treasury of precedents was established for every possible contingency.

In any estimate of the causes leading up to the origin of the traditions the political factor must be given a prominent place. For twenty-five years after the death of Muhammad Islam remained, under the Khalifas Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman, an undivided empire. With the assassination of the latter, however, the political unity of Islam was rent in sunder, and civil war deluged the kingdom in Muslim blood. With the death of ‘Ali four and a half years later, the Umayyad dynasty was firmly established at Damascus, and thenceforth, until the ‘Abbasides came into power in Iraq a hundred years later, history records a succession of rebellions, murders, and civil wars in which the rival parties freely anathematised each other, and just as freely based their mutual denunciations upon the alleged authority of the prophet. It is scarcely surprising, under such conditions, to find tradition being called in to the help of the various parties. A striking illustration of this is mentioned by Gairdner in his Mohammedan Tradition and Gospel Record. He writes as follows: ‘Arabia being very anti-Umayyad, while Jerusalem was a chief centre of their power, the Umayyad Sultans sought to encourage the idea that a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was as meritorious, or even more meritorious, than one to the haramain (i.e. Mecca and Medina). And a hadith was produced in which Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem were mentioned as the three places of pilgrimage, with the following startling appendix: “And one prayer in Jerusalem is better than a thousand prayers in other places.” Again, when the proud Umayyad Sultans led the Friday prayers, the old custom whereby the leader delivered the address standing, and after the prayer, became distasteful for obvious reasons. The Moslem historians freely admit that the Umayyads took in hand the alteration of the custom. The unfailing remedy —a hadith — was to hand, and this time it was another pious official theologian, Raja bin Hajwa, who was impressed into the service; and a hadith was produced which stated that ‘Uthman had delivered the second of the two khutbas (address) sitting.’ ³²

On the other hand, we find ‘Ayesha, the favourite wife of the prophet, producing traditions in order to blacken the character of the Umayyads as a race of profligate usurpers! Thus she is reported to have addressed Merwan in these words:

سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول لأبيك وجدك أبي العاص بن أمية أنهم الشجرة الملعونة في القرآن.

‘I heard the apostle of God say to thy father and grandfather, i.e. to Al-’As’bin Umayya, that they were the accursed tree (mentioned) in the Qur’an.’ ³³ Another tradition of the same nature runs as follows:

عن جبير بن مطعم كنا مع رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم فمر الحكم بن العاص فقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم ويل لأمتي مما في صلب هذا.

‘It is related from Jabir (bin) Mat’am that we were with the apostle of God when Hakim bin passed by. Then the apostle of God said, Woe to my followers who are in the loins of this (man).’ ³⁴ Still another tradition, obviously the offspring of political faction, runs as follows:

عن حمران بن جابر الجعفي قال سمعت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول وَيْلٌ لِبَنِي أُمَيَّةَ ثَلاثَ مَرَّاتٍ.

‘It is related from Hamran bin Jabir al-Ja’fi that he said, I heard the apostle of God say three times, “Woe to the Bani Umayya”! ³⁵

In the same way, traditions were put into the mouth of Muhammad which tended to almost deify ‘Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law, and to secure for his descendants the exclusive right to the Khalifate.

The manufacture of spurious traditions, however, was by no means confined to political parties. The great theological debates, which, after the death of the prophet, shook Islam to its foundations, were prolific in the production of false traditions. Each party supported its own particular dogma by pretended utterances of the prophet, and Mu’tazilahs, Shiahs, Kharijites and a host of other sects freely used the name of the prophet to gain acceptance for their various shibboleths. Thus, for example, we are told in the introduction to the celebrated Mishkatu’l Masabih that the Kharajites were not to be trusted in their use and quotation of tradition; and the reader is warned against accepting such traditions as they bring forward, for, the writer continues:

وَلَا شَكَّ أَنَّ أَخْذَ الْحَدِيثِ مِنْ هَذِهِ الْفِرَقِ يَكُونُ بَعْدَ التَّحَرِّي وَالِاسْتِصْوَابِ وَمَعَ ذَلِكَ الِاحْتِيَاطِ فِي عَدَمِ الْأَخْذِ لِأَنَّهُ قَدْ ثَبَتَ أَنَّ هَؤُلَاءِ الْفِرَقَ كَانُوا يَضَعُونَ الْأَحَادِيثَ لِتَرْوِيجِ مَذَاهِبِهِمْ.

‘There is no doubt that the accepting of traditions from these sects can only be done after due selection and approval, and notwithstanding that, the watching against them should take the form of non-acceptance, because it has been proved that these sects used to forge traditions for the spread of their particular parties.’ ³⁶ Often these good people contrived to produce the traditions they needed in order to substantiate their particular theological position, and there is an unusually candid admission of this fact recorded for our edification. It needs no comment, and runs as follows:

إذا هوينا أمراً صيرناه حديثاً.

‘If we want anything, we put it into circulation as a tradition.’

Another version is:

إذا رأينا رأياً جعلناه حديثاً.

‘If we entertain a (legal) opinion, we make it into a tradition.’ ³⁷

It is the existence of contradictory traditions which is largely responsible for the great diversity which exists up to the present day in the religious practices of the various sects. An instructive illustration of this is to be found in the Mishkat where there is a well-attested tradition from Wail bin Hujr to the effect that:

رأيت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم إذا سجد وضع ركبتيه قبل يديه وإذا نهض رفع يديه قبل ركبتيه.

‘I saw the prophet when he bowed down, he placed his two knees before his hands (i.e. he knelt first before placing his two hands to the ground). And when he rose up from prostration he raised his hands before his knees.’ On the other hand, there is another tradition, equally well-attested, that

قال (أبو هريرة) قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم إذا سجد أحدكم فلا يبرك كما يبرك البعير وليضع يديه قبل ركبتيه.

“Abu Hurairah said, the apostle of God said, When any one of you prostrates himself, then let him not sit down as a camel sits down, but let him place his hands before his knees (i.e. he should place his hands on the ground in front of him).’ ³⁸ The result of these contradictory traditions is that Abu Hanifa, Shafi’i and Ahmad bin Hanbal follow the tradition of Wail, and kneel before touching the ground with their hands, whereas Malik and Awz’u adhere to the tradition of Abu Hurairah and put their hands on the ground before their knees.

It is interesting to note here that the author of the Hidayah, a work in four volumes, written in reply to the Izharu’l-Haq, has given a list of over ninety contradictory traditions relating to various religious duties of Islam. ³⁹

Another set of traditions, with a theological bias, which are obviously the products of a later age, are those in which sects, which came into existence after the death of Muhammad, are represented as being mentioned by him. Thus, for example, there is a tradition foisted on to Ibn ‘Abbas to the effect that he said,

قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: صِنْفَانِ مِنْ أُمَّتِي لَيْسَ لَهُمَا فِي الإِسْلامِ نَصِيبٌ: الْمُرْجِئَةُ وَالْقَدَرِيَّةُ.

‘The apostle of God said, Two sects of my followers will have no part in Islam; the Murjiyahs and the Qadariyahs.’ ⁴⁰  

To such an extent was the manufacture of spurious traditions carried on for dogmatic and controversial purposes, that it has been shrewdly remarked that these themselves furnish a not unreliable history of the later controversies of Islam. This great mass of literature teems with contradictions, which stand to the present day in all the great collections, such as those of Bukhari, Muslim and others. Referring to this subject in his well-known Life of Mahomet, Sir William Muir tells us, by way of illustration, that ‘A score of persons affirm that Mahomet dyed his hair. They mention the substance used. Some not only maintain that they were eye-witnesses of it during the prophet’s life, but after his death produced relics of hair on which the dye was visible. A score of others, possessing equally good means of information, assert that he never dyed his hair, and that, moreover, he had no need to do so, as his grey hairs were so few that they might have been counted.’ ⁴¹

Yet another factor in the manufacture of traditions was the new spirit produced by Muslim contact with Christian nations, resulting in a growing knowledge of the historic Christ. With a fuller knowledge of the dignity and majesty of the Messiah, as depicted in the Gospels, it became imperative to attribute to Muhammad a dignity worthy of the last and greatest prophet, and so he came to be enveloped in a halo of almost supernatural glory. Christ worked miracles; so must Muhammad. The son of Mary is a great Intercessor at the throne of grace, and so, in spite of Qur’anic verses to the contrary, Muhammad is depicted as the greatest intercessor. Indeed, all the chief prophets in turn, at the last day, will decline the great commission and will plead unworthiness, and then Muhammad will stand forth as the one hope for sinful men. So, again, the heavenly glory which accompanied the annunciation of the birth of Christ to the shepherds of Bethlehem is eclipsed by a supernatural light which, it is alleged, attended the birth of Muhammad, and lighted up the whole land ‘from Basra to Sham’. The doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ is matched by the blasphemous teaching regarding the ‘Light of Muhammad’: his original essence, which was existent before all created things, and for whose sake God is declared to have created the world. The reader will gain some idea of the extravagance of language in which later writers indulged from the following quotation from the Maulud Sharif of Ghulam Imam Shadid. ‘Ye that are lovers of the face of Mohammed, and ye that be enamoured with the curls of Ahmad, know and be well aware that the light of Mohammed is the origin of all existing things, and the essence of everything that hath a being. Because that when it pleased the great Creator to manifest His glory, He first of all created the light of Mohammed from the light of His own unity, and from the light of Mohammed produced every existent thing. Now this glorious personage was made the last of the prophets, solely on this account, that as the rising sun chaseth away the splendours of moon and stars, so doth the glory of the religion of Muhammad supersede all other religions; so that if that pre-existent light had displayed its brilliancy from the first, then would all other prophets have shrunk into obscurity and been shorn of their apostolic dignity.’ ⁴² The quotation is from a modern work, but its extravagant statements find their bases in reputed traditions of the prophet himself. Thus the opening chapter of the Qisasu’l-Anbiya relates a story, with, of course, its long chain of narrators,. as to certain Muslims who were sitting with Muhammad, when one of them, Jabir bin ‘Abdallah by name, asked a question as to what was the first thing God created. In reply Muhammad is represented as saying that ‘The first thing God created was my light’; and then follows an extraordinary story of how this light wandered for a thousand years, ‘one day of which equalled a thousand years on earth’ engaged in the praises of God! ⁴³

The subject of Muhammadan attempts to eclipse the Gospel records by similar or greater stories concerning Muhammad has been absolutely exhausted by S. W. Koelle in the second part of his Mohammad and Mohammadanism. Koelle there describes the picture of Muhammad in tradition as ‘a repulsive and truly blasphemous caricature of the divine beauty of the Son of Man’, and he goes on to show how almost every detail of the Gospel record of the life of Christ has produced a Muslim imitation.

In the traditions the miracles of Jesus are topped by a whole series of puerile prodigies. Water flows from between Muhammad’s fingers or, at his bidding, wells up from parched fountains. Trees and stones salute him by the way, or co-operate to shade him from the midday sun. A wooden pillar weeps because he desists from leaning against it; maniacs are cured at his word; the hunger of crowds of men is satisfied by a single cake; and the record of Christ’s transfiguration and converse with messengers from the other world is eclipsed by the story of Muhammad’s journey in person to the very sanctuary of heaven, where he holds familiar intercourse with the Deity himself!

One more palpable reason for the widespread manufacture of traditions must be referred to before we pass on to discuss the value and authenticity of tradition generally. We allude to the need, which early arose, for the elucidation of obscure texts of the Qur’an, and for added light on certain details of the prophet’s life which are only briefly alluded to in that book. Every reader of the Qur’an, for example, will have noticed that not a few special revelations are said to have been ‘sent down’ in connexion with the personal affairs of Muhammad. Many of these ‘revelations’, however, are brief and enigmatical, and leave the reader sadly puzzled as to the real meaning of the text. To elucidate such passages was the work of the commentators, who freely filled up the blanks and straightened out the tangles by recourse to traditions. When these were not forthcoming, they were promptly supplied. This is freely admitted by liberal Muslims. Thus Syed Amir Ali writing of the Mir’aj, the famous night journey of Muhammad to heaven, says: ‘This period is also remarkable for that notable vision of the ascension, which has furnished worlds of golden dreams for the imaginative genius of poets and traditionists. They have woven beautiful and gorgeous legends round the simple words of the Qur’an.’ ⁴⁴ It is, indeed, to the commentators that we are indebted for many of the fabulous details of the prophet’s life; and these are found in such profusion within the commentaries of the Qur’an that one of the greatest of Western students of Islam has expressed the opinion that it would be easier to compile a life of Muhammad without the standard biographies than without the commentaries.

It may not be out of place to quote here, by way of illustration, one or two passages of the Qur’an, and to note the huge superstructure which tradition has erected thereon. The famous passage said to refer to Muhammad’s miraculous journey to heaven is found at the beginning of the seventeenth chapter of the Qur’an verse one. It runs thus, ‘Glory be to Him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple to the temple that is more remote, whose precincts we have blessed, that we might show him of our signs’. All commentators of the Qur’an agree that the ‘sacred temple’ refers to the temple of Mecca, and that the temple which is ‘more remote’ indicates a supposedly existent temple at Jerusalem. Syed Amir Ali and other intelligent Muslims regard this event as no more than a vision of the night vouchsafed to Muhammad; but in no subject have the commentators given a wider rein to an exuberant fancy than in their expositions of this passage. According to them, Muhammad was not only transported bodily from Mecca to Jerusalem in one night on the back of a mythical steed ‘between a mule and an ass’, but to the very sanctuary of heaven itself, where, after receiving the regular Muslim greeting, salam alaikum, from the angels, he found himself in the awful presence of his Maker. In the commentaries and books of tradition the whole story is dressed up in most fantastic detail, and Muhammad is represented as conversing, not only with God Himself, but with various prophets who had preceded him. The nature of these conversations may be judged from the following quotation from the Mishkat:—

فَفتح فَلَمَّا خَلَصْتُ فَإِذَا مُوسَى قَالَ هَذَا مُوسَى فَسَلِّمْ عَلَيْهِ فَسَلَّمْتُ عَلَيْهِ فَرَدَّ ثُمَّ قَالَ مَرْحَبًا بِالْأَخِ الصَّالِحِ وَالنَّبِيِّ الصَّالِحِ فَلَمَّا جَاوَزْتُ بَكَى قِيلَ لَهُ مَا يُبْكِيكَ قَالَ أَبْكِي لِأَنَّ غُلَاماً بُعِثَ بَعْدِي يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ مِنْ أُمَّتِهِ أَكْثَرُ مِمَّنْ يَدْخُلُهَا مِنْ أُمَّتِي.

‘Then he opened (the door of the sixth heaven), and when I entered, behold Moses! (Gabriel) said, This is Moses, therefore salute him, so I saluted him, and he returned the salute, and said, Welcome good brother and good prophet. And as I passed by, he wept. And it was said to him, What makes you weep? He replied, I weep because a boy (i.e. Muhammad) has been sent after me of whose followers more will enter heaven than of mine.’ ⁴⁵

The account of the so-called splitting of the moon, as related in the Qur’an, furnishes another fruitful topic for the commentators. Here, again, the original passage is far from clear. It runs thus, ‘The hour hath approached, and the moon hath been cleft’. ⁴⁶ The saner exegetes of the Qur’an refer this splitting of the moon to a date still in the future, viz. to the day of resurrection, of which it is said to be one of the signs. Such moderation, however, failed to satisfy the craving for the fabulous; and an ignorant and unscrupulous body of commentators soon arose who have related in circumstantial detail, and with incredible extravagance, a story of Muhammad answering the Arab demand for a miracle by splitting the moon in twain, so that, one half was seen on one side of the mountain, and the other half on the other side’. ⁴⁷ The limit, however, is surely reached in the following from the Siratu’n-Nabawiyya

إن القمر دخل في جيب النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم وخرج من كمه.

‘Verily the moon entered the prophet’s pocket, and came out at his sleeve’! ⁴⁸ An-Nawawi, the famous commentator of Muslim, mentions a tradition in which this story is told with the following variations: Two men were arguing about the splitting of the moon,

فقال أحدهما انشق فرقتين دخلت أحدهما في كمه وخرجت من الكم الآخر.

‘And one of them asserted that it split into two portions, one of which entered by one of his (the apostle’s) sleeves, and came out by the other sleeve.’ Little wonder that intelligent Muslims feel bound, for very shame, to repudiate such travesties of inspiration.

Amongst the many passages of the Qur’an which have given trouble to honest commentators is the following:—

هُوَ الَّذِي يُصَلِّي عَلَيْكُمْ وَمَلاَئِكَتُهُ لِيُخْرِجَكُم مِّنَ الظُّلُمَاتِ إِلَى النُّورِ.

‘He it is who prays for you, and his angels too, to bring you forth out of darkness into the light.’ ⁴⁹ Some commentators escape the difficulty of God praying by rendering the word yusalli ‘bless’, and it is admitted that the word will bear that construction; but other Muhammadans, impressed by the fact that the ordinary word for ‘pray’ is here used, have considered it necessary to find a tradition to prove that God does indeed pray. This is found in the Siratu’l-Halabiyya in the account of the Mi’raj or miraculous night-journey to heaven. Muhammad is there represented as relating his experiences in heaven and saying,

سمعت منادياً ينادي بلغة تشبه لغة أبي بكر فقال لي قف فإن ربك يصلي.

‘Then I heard a crier crying in a voice resembling the voice of Abu Bakr, who said to me, Stand still, for your Lord is praying.’ Upon the prophet expressing surprise that God should pray, the oracle is then made to say, ‘I only say, praise be to me! praise be to me! my mercy outruns my anger’. And then, the more surely to connect this tradition with the verse of the Qur’an quoted above, Muhammad is commanded to ‘Recite, He it is who prays for you,’ etc. ⁵⁰

The book in which this story is preserved relates other traditions concerning God praying. Thus it is stated that the Bani Isra’il asked Moses whether God prayed; whereupon, not being able to give an answer, the great law-giver wept! Then, to comfort him, God assured him that he did pray!

Such is the pitiful nostrum which makes up the mental pabulum of multitudes of Muslims all over the world to-day. Muslim tradition, much of it too obscene for translation, has practically usurped the place of the Qur’an and brought multitudes of men and women into subjection to a moral and social law, which is as little the product of divine inspiration as are the epic stories of the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.

We shall have occasion, in later chapters, to give further illustrations of these extraordinary productions of Semitic imagination. We now ask the reader to accompany us in a study of the evidence for the authenticity and integrity of Muhammadan tradition. In doing so, we shall confine ourselves almost entirely to evidence furnished by Muslim authors themselves.

CHAPTER III

THE COMPILATION AND SYSTEMATISATION

OF THE TRADITIONS

WE have seen, in the preceding chapters, that Muhammadan tradition was at first transmitted orally; and we have further noticed how that fact gave unlimited opportunities for the falsification of old, and the fabrication of new, traditions. It was not until nearly a hundred years later that any systematic attempt was made to gather the then existing traditions into a regular written collection. Then the obvious falsification that was taking place roused the Umayyad Khalifa, ‘Umar II, who occupied the Khalifate at Damascus during the years 99-101 A.H., to try and prevent further loss by preserving in written form the traditions then current. His reason for so doing is stated very clearly to be the fact, that with the death of the first companions and the scattering of their successors,

قلَّ الضبط، واتسع الخرق، وكاد الباطل يلتبس بالحق.

‘Exactness (in transmission) grew less, untrustworthiness increased, and the false began to be mixed with the true.’ ⁹⁶ Bukhari tells us that,

كتب عمر بن عبد العزيز إلى أبي بكر بن حزم انظر ما كان من حديث رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم فاكتبه فإني خفت دروس العلم وذهاب العلماء.

‘Umar wrote to Abu Bakr bin Hazam (and said), Look out what you can find of the traditions of the prophet of God, and write them down; for I fear the destruction of knowledge and the passing away of the learned.’ ⁹⁷

This man, Abu Bakr, we are told, was the deputy of ‘Umar at Medina, and died in the year 120 of the Muslim era. The collection made by him, unfortunately, no longer exists. We only know that it was made, and that it was quickly followed by others; but no authentic collection of traditions of an earlier date than the middle of the second century now exists.

The idea of collecting the traditions having once been mooted, enthusiasm for the task spread in every direction, and soon the most extraordinary zeal was developed for the search after alleged sayings and anecdotes of the prophet. A class of men arose, called ‘collectors’, who devoted their lives to the business of collecting traditions, and who scoured the whole Muslim world in search of what was represented to them as authentic reports of what Muhammad had said or done. Little or no critical selection appears to have been made, and the collectors accepted without demur anything and everything which purported to come from the prophet, provided only the silsilah, or chain of reporters, satisfied their requirements. So far as can be ascertained, it was Bukhari who first adopted rules of critical selection. The canons, however, which guided him, were scarcely worth the name, and left ample room for the inclusion of false traditions in his collection. Thus, speaking of Al Bukhari and the collectors who preceded him, the author of a work frequently quoted in these pages says,

وكانت الكتب قبله ممزوجاً فيها الصحيح بغيره.

‘In the books which preceded him (Bukhari), sound traditions were mixed up with non-sound.’ ⁹⁸

It will be well, before we proceed to note briefly some of the principal collections of traditions which came into existence during the next two hundred years, to look once again at the facts as they have been brought before us. Here we have a great mass of tradition, produced largely by unscrupulous forgers, and handed down orally for nearly a hundred years, before any systematic attempt is made to reduce it to writing and compile it into a collection. During this time various influences, political, social and religious, had been at work to bias the judgment of both reporters and collectors; and when at last an authoritative collection was ordered, it was ordered by an Umayyad Khalifa at Damascus, who would, without doubt, have suppressed all traditions favourable to the claims of the rival house of ‘Ali. The story of the unfortunate Abu ‘Abdu’r-Rahmanu’n-Nasa’i throws a flood of light upon this subject. An Nasa’i, to give him the name by which he is best known, was a famous collector of traditions, and the author of one of the six great standard collections still used to-day. He was born in Khorasan in 214 A.H., and subsequently journeyed to Cairo, and thence to Damascus. At the latter place he stirred up mob violence against himself by compiling a book of traditions on the virtues of ‘Ali. The Umayyad mob interrupted his recital by asking him whether he knew similar traditions in favour of Mu’awiyah, ‘Ali’s political rival. Upon his replying that he did not, he was so severely beaten that he died soon after from the effects. This incident is eloquent of the extent to which political influences were brought to bear on the compilation of the traditions.

The earliest collections of traditions, still extant, were works on Muslim jurisprudence. These were founded largely upon the traditions of Muhammad. Thus each great theological school came to have its own collection, upon which the laws of its own particular system were founded. The earliest of these was the Muwatta of Abu ‘Abdullah Malik bin Anas of Medina, who died in 179 A.H. ⁹⁹ This great scholar is deservedly renowned; and many of the later collectors and compilers made use of the material brought together by him. He was at one time the teacher of the famous Harunu’r-Rashid.

Following the legal collections of traditions came a class known as musnads. These were collections in which the traditions were arranged under the respective names of the first relators, such as ‘Ayesha, Abu Huraira, etc., without any reference whatever to the subject-matter. We have already referred to the musnad of Ibn Hanbal, who died in 241

Still later came the great collections known as the Musannaf, the arranged or classified. In these collections the traditions were arranged strictly according to their contents, and were divided into chapters in which the various subjects, legal, ritual, etc., were grouped together. Of these latter six great collections stand pre-eminent to-day.

The first is that of Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad bin Isma’il Al Bukhari. This scholar was born in Bukhara in 194 A.H. and died in 256 A.H. He is said to have conceived the idea of collecting traditions from a dream which he had. ‘I saw in a dream,’ he said, ‘the prophet of God, from whom I brushed away flies. When I awoke, I enquired of one skilled in the interpretation of dreams the meaning of the vision. He said to me, You shall keep lies from him.’ Thus encouraged Al Bukhari set out upon his search for traditions, and for sixteen years is said to have wandered over Iraq, Arabia, Syria and Egypt. He collected during that period the enormous number of 600,000 traditions, but, as we have already indicated, rejected all but 7,275. It is also related of him that of 40,000 men who professed to relate to him traditions of the prophet, only 2,000 of them were acknowledged by him as trustworthy! Bukhari’s great collection, known as the Sahihu’l-Bukhari is, perhaps, the most popular of all extant collections of traditions. Yet there is no guarantee whatever that this man was more successful than others in separating the true from the false. If it be remembered that Bukhari died in the middle of the third century of the Hijra, or Muslim era, the reader will be able to arrive at a just appreciation of the difficulties of his task. How could he, we ask, or any other man, after such a lapse of time, decide amongst the multitude of traditions as to which were true and which false? Moreover, the very canons of criticism adopted by Bukhari differed from those of Muslim, his celebrated disciple. Hence some traditions which would be considered as genuine according to the canons of the one would be rejected as spurious if judged by the standards set up by the other. Thus we read with regard to a certain tradition,

قالوا فيه هذا حديث صحيح على شرط مسلم وليس بصحيح على شرط البخاري لكون هؤلاء عند مسلم ممن اجتمعت فيهم الشروط المعتبرة ولم يثبت عند البخاري.

‘They said with regard to it: This is a sound tradition according to the canons laid down by Muslim, but it is not sound according to the canons of Bukhari, by reason of the fact that these (relators) are, in the estimation of Muslim, of the number in whom all the important conditions required by Muslim are fulfilled. But it is not attested (as sound) in the opinion of Bukhari.’ ¹⁰⁰

This fact is important; for if the two greatest of all the traditionists, Bukhari and Muslim, disagree as to the canons of criticism to be employed in ascertaining the authenticity and credibility of the traditions, then what value can be attached to their respective collections?

An excellent illustration of the way traditions were invented to give authority and precedence to certain collections is given by Al Qastalani. The story is as follows: Abu Zaid Al Maruzi said, ‘I was sleeping between the pillar and the place (of prayer) when I saw the prophet of God in my dream. He said to me, O Abu Zaid, how long will you continue to study the book of As Shafi’i and not study my book? So I said, O Apostle of God, and what is thy book? He said, The collection of Muhammad Isma’il (i.e. al Bukhari).’ ¹⁰¹

Of practically equal authority with the collection of Bukhari is that of Muslim bin Hajjaj who was born at Nishapur in Khorasan in 204 A.H., and died in 260 A.H. Out of 300,000 traditions collected by this man, only some 4,000, after deleting repetitions, were retained by him as genuine. Even these, upon his own admission, are open to grave suspicion. Thus his commentator, An Nawawi, reports him as frankly admitting,

وضع فيه أحاديث كثيرة مختلفاً في صحتها لكونها من حديث من ذكرناه ومن لم نذكره ممن اختلفوا في صحة حديثه.

‘He (Muslim) placed in it (i.e. the Sahih of Muslim) many traditions about the truth of which people differed, by reason of the fact that they belong to the traditions of those whom we mentioned, and whom we did not mention, about the truth of whose traditions people differed.’ ¹⁰²

Moreover, it is known that Muslim relied almost entirely upon the judgment of one man, Abu Zar’ah al Razi, in his choice of traditions. Thus it is related by An Nawawi that

قال مكي بن عبدان سمعت مسلماً يقول عرضت كتابي هذا على أبي زرعة الرازي فكل ما أشار أن له علة تركته وكل ما قال إنه صحيح وليس له علة خرجته.

‘Maka bin ‘Abdan said, I heard Muslim say, I referred this book of mine to Abu Zar’ah al Razi. Then everything which he indicated as faulty I abandoned, and everything which he said was authentic and faultless I incorporated it (into my book !)’ ¹⁰³

Another famous collector of traditions was Abu Da’ud As Sijistani. He was born in Sistan in 202 A.H. and died in 275 A.H. He, like Bukhari, travelled over many countries in search of traditions, of which he collected no less than 500,000. But, like his illustrious predecessor, he found the overwhelming proportion of the traditions pure fiction; and ultimately embodied some 4,800 in his Sunan. Not all of these, however, are above suspicion; for he himself admitted the presence of doubtful traditions in his collection in the following words,

ذكرت فيه الصحيح وما يشبهه وما يقاربه.

‘I have mentioned in it the authentic, those which seem to be so, and those which are nearly so.’ ¹⁰⁴

Ibn Majah, another of the great collectors, whose work the Kitabu’s Sunan is one of the six standard collections of traditions, was born in 209 A.H. and died in 273 A.H. He retained only 4,000 traditions in his collection, which, like those of Abu Da’ud, An-Nasa’i and Tirmidhi, deals almost exclusively with legal traditions. The collections of Bukhari and Muslim, on the other hand, cover a much wider field, and contain traditions on almost every conceivable subject, from the manner in which the prophet cleaned his teeth to the nature of the heavenly bliss reserved for the faithful.

Another renowned traditionist was Abu ‘Isa Muhammad at-Tirmidhi. He was born at Tirmidh (Termez), as his name indicates, in 209 A.H. and died in 299 A.H. His book, the Jami’, is still largely used, and is specially useful as pointing out the difference between different schools of Muhammadan law. He was the first to issue a selection of forty traditions, a practice which has been imitated by very many of his successors.

The sixth, and last, of the great collectors was Abu ‘Abdu’r Rahman an Nasa’i. This scholar was born at Nasa in Khorasan in the year 214 A.H. and died in 303 A.H. He was, therefore, the latest of the six great collectors. We have already mentioned the tragic circumstances connected with his death. His collection, as it exists to-day, is a revised and . abbreviated edition of a much larger work, and is called the Sunan An-Nasa’i, or Al Mujtaba, the selected. It deals particularly with small details of ritual.

The six great collections mentioned above exist to-day under the name of the Al Kutubu’s-sitta, or ‘six (correct) books’. They are not all regarded as of equal authority, however; for the first two, those of Bukhari and Muslim, are called sahih, sound or authentic, whilst the remainder are simply known as the sunan, ‘usages’.

The learned Sir William Muir has pointed out that these six collections all came into existence during the ‘Abbaside Khalifate, and at a time when ‘every word in favour of Muavia (the then deceased Umayyad Khalifa) rendered the speaker liable to death, and when all were declared outlaws who would not acknowledge ‘Ali to be the most distinguished of mankind.’ It is not difficult to see, how, under such circumstances, an impartial and unbiased collection was quite impossible. As a matter of fact, there were not wanting critics of the very Sahihain, the two Sahihs of Bukhari and Muslim. Thus Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali bin ‘Umar al Daraqutni, in his work entitled Al Istidrakat wa’l-tatabbu, proves the uncertainty of two hundred of the traditions accepted in the two Sahihs of Bukhari and Muslim! This author was a learned jurisconsult, and learned the traditions at an early age at the feet of Abu Bakr bin Mujahid. ¹⁰⁵

Another scholar who criticised the works of Bukhari and Muslim was Al-Bayyi, Qadi of Nishapur. He wrote the Kitabu’l-Mustadrak as a criticism of the two Sahihs in order to prove that several traditions overlooked in these two works were perfectly authentic and had been wrongly passed over. ¹⁰⁶

It only remains to be said that the Shiahs reject in toto the ‘six correct books’ mentioned above, and use in their place the following five collections, upon which they base their civil and religious laws:—

(1) The Kafi of Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Ya’qub who died in 329 A.H.; (2) the Man-la-Yastahzirahu’l-Faqih of Shaikh ‘Ali who died in 381 A.H.; (3) the Tahzib of Shaikh Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Husain who died in 466 A.H.; (4) the Istibsar by the same author; and (5) the Nahju’l-Balaghah by Syedu’r-Razi who died in 406 A.H. It will be noticed that the Shiah collections were all compiled later than the six collections of the Sunnis, and, generally speaking, they are regarded as of less authority and value by non-Muslim scholars—the only ones likely to exercise an independent judgment in the matter.

The collections mentioned above, however, do not exhaust the list. Indeed, it is stated in the Dictionary of Islam that, according to the Ithafu’n-Nubala’, there are no less than 1,465 different collections in existence. One of the most popular Sunni collections in use to-day is that known as Mishkatu’l Masabih, ‘the Niche of Lights’. This work was compiled by Shaikh Waliu’d-Din in 737 A.H. An English translation of it was made more than a hundred years ago; but it is long since out of print, and copies are now rare and expensive.

It must not be thought that the mere compilation of the traditions, the account of which we have been obliged to dismiss in a few lines, represents all the labour bestowed upon the subject by early Muslims. On the contrary, a new science, the science of tradition, was brought into existence in order to sift and classify the enormous mass of traditions then existing. Many men spent their lives in the study of proper names, and for this a separate science, ‘the science of men’, was invented for the criticism and examination of the authorities by whom tradition was handed down. Thus we read of one Ibn ‘Abi Hatim who compiled a work, the Kitabu’l-jarh wa’l-ta’dil, the ‘Book of criticism and correction’ in six volumes. Others wrote biographies of the collectors of traditions, or of the witnesses who handed them down. Some composed works dealing with the obscure expressions in the traditions. Others studied the subject of the abrogation of traditions, whilst others, again, drew up lists of all the traditions relating to medicine; whilst one genius arranged his collection of traditions in such a manner that those which guide to what is right appear on the right side, whilst those which counsel the avoidance of evil are ranged on the left! In another, the Jam’i as-Saghir, the traditions are arranged alphabetically according to the first letter of each tradition.

But one thing the science of tradition did not do. Its exponents did not, and would not, critically examine the traditions themselves. The chain of witnesses was, with them, the supreme test of a tradition. If that chain led up, in unbroken succession, to the prophet, then no inherent improbability, no crass absurdity, and no obvious contradiction was allowed to stand in the way of its acceptance! Yet, as we have seen, the premises upon which this reasoning was based are fundamentally unsound, inasmuch as the reporters, themselves in some cases the original companions of the prophet, were not trustworthy. It is obvious, that, under such circumstances, the existence of an unbroken chain of relators meant little or nothing.

Moreover, a well-known custom soon arose of touching up defective isnads by bridging over, as it were, the gap in the chain of witnesses, so that one would relate a certain tradition as from a ‘companion’ of the prophet, when, perhaps, he had not actually seen the person named, but had only heard the tradition from someone else, who had heard the ‘companion’ relate it. This practice, which was called tadlis, was widely adopted, and was instrumental in securing recognition for many traditions which would otherwise have been rejected.

The science of tradition further classified the traditions, either with reference to the characters of the transmitters, or with reference to the quality of the chain. An exhaustive list of these different classes of traditions is given in the introduction to the Mishkatu’l Masabih and in other works. It is too long for quotation here. With reference to the first class, however, it may be stated that traditions are roughly divided into three classes. The first is the sahih tradition, that is, one which has been handed down by a succession of trustworthy witnesses, and is, therefore, accepted as genuine. The second is the hasan, the good tradition. The transmitters in this class are not considered of such good authority as the first, but, for all practical purposes, the hasan traditions are accepted by Muslims as authoritative. The third class is that known as da’if or weak. The narrators of this class are considered of doubtful character, or of bad memory; consequently the ‘weak’ tradition has little value in the eyes of scholars.

There are many other subdivisions of traditions. Thus a tradition generally accepted by many distinct chains of narrators is called mutawatir. That which has, at least, three such chains is mashur, well-known. The gharib, poor, tradition is that having only one line of narrators, and so is of doubtful authority, whilst the maudu’a, invented, is a false traditions, the falsity of which is beyond dispute. The maqtu’, an intersected tradition, is one in the chain of transmitters of which a link is missing, and the isnad therefore incomplete.

From what has been written in this chapter it will be seen that an immense amount of labour has been devoted to the study and classification of the traditions. Owing, however, to the refusal of Muslims to subject them to any form of internal criticism, those labours have been rendered largely nugatory.

CHAPTER V

TRADITION AND THE QUR’AN

IT is no easy task to define the relationship between the traditions and the Qur’an. On the one hand, a large body of tradition is obviously an expansion of the teaching of the Qur’an. This is very evident in those sections which treat of the resurrection and judgment, and in the descriptions of Paradise. Most of the social legislation of the Qur’an has also been defined and expanded in hundreds of traditions which are attributed to Muhammad. Thus, as has been already pointed out in an earlier chapter, ¹⁵² the traditions have, to a large extent, exercised the functions of a commentary. Indeed it is to the traditions that the earliest commentators of the Qur’an refer for the exegesis of difficult passages and the historical setting of innumerable personal allusions in the Qur’an. There they found, ready made, and stamped with the imprimatur of the prophet himself, solutions to all the difficulties of Qur’an exegesis. It mattered not that a certain tradition transgressed every canon of decency and morality, or that it taught an absurd science, or a false cosmogony: there it stood, with its isnad leading up to the prophet, and, therefore, must be accepted without question or demur! Only thus can one account for the presence in the commentaries of the Qur’an of the puerilities and obscenities which disfigure those works. We shall revert to this subject in the succeeding chapter; but we just note, in passing, that one of the principal functions of the traditions was to preserve the alleged comments of Muhammad upon various passages of the Qur’an.

Yet this is only a very partial statement of the connexion subsisting between the two. It has already been remarked that a very large number of the traditions are directly opposed to the teaching of the Qur’an, and must, therefore, according to the dictum of the prophet himself, that ‘what does not agree with the Qur’an is not true’ be rejected as false. Some of these traditions were the result of controversy: the direct offspring of a diseased imagination which insisted upon the glorification of Muhammad at all costs, and his exaltation in rank above all other prophets. In this class must be placed that large group of traditions which professes to describe the alleged miracles of Muhammad. We have already shown in an earlier chapter ¹⁵³ that, in the Qur’an, Muhammad consistently disclaimed the power to work miracles. Yet a very large number of traditions have been manufactured for the purpose of exhibiting the prophet of Islam as a great wonder-worker. These are obviously the invention of a later age; and we do not propose to deal further with the subject here.

Another class of traditions voices the felt needs of the human heart: needs which failed to be met by the teaching of the Qur’an. In this class must be placed the many traditions which picture Muhammad as the great intercessor for sinners at the last day. This felt need of the Muslim heart for a mediator refused to be satisfied with the cold negations of the Qur’an; and the many traditions which now declare that Muhammad will intercede stand as a mute witness to the strength of this great hope of forgiveness through the merits of another. It is admitted that the testimony of the Qur’an on this subject is not always consistent; yet there are not a few passages which state unequivocally that there will be no intercession. Thus we read,

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ أَنفِقُواْ مِمَّا رَزَقْنَاكُم مِّن قَبْلِ أَن يَأْتِيَ يَوْمٌ لاَّ بَيْعٌ فِيهِ وَلاَ خُلَّةٌ وَلاَ شَفَاعَةٌ.

‘O believers, give alms of that with which we have supplied you, before the day cometh when there shall be no trafficking, nor friendship, nor intercession.’ ¹⁵⁴ Again we read,

ثُمَّ مَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا يَوْمُ الدِّينِ يَوْمَ لاَ تَمْلِكُ نَفْسٌ لِّنَفْسٍ شَيْئاً وَالأَمْرُ يَوْمَئِذٍ لِلَّهِ.

‘Who shall teach thee what the day of judgment is? It is a day when one soul shall be powerless for another soul. All sovereignty on that day shall be with God.’ ¹⁵⁵

If these statements of the Qur’an be compared with the traditions, the reader will be able to appreciate the vast and essential difference which exists between the teaching of Muhammad and that of his later disciples on this important subject. For example, in a tradition, the following words are ascribed to Muhammad, who, after describing how, in turn, at the last day all other prophets will decline to intercede on account of personal unworthiness, relates that, ‘Then the Mussulmans will come to me; and I will ask permission to go into God’s court, which will be given. And I will see Almighty God. I will prostrate myself before Him, and He will keep me, so long as he wills, and then will say, Raise up your head, O Muhammad, and say what you wish to say; it will be heard and approved; and ask grace for whoever you like, it will be approved; and ask what you want, it shall be given. Then I will raise up my head, and praise and glorify my Cherisher in a strain which he will teach at that time. After that, I will intercede for them, and God will say, Intercede for a particular class. Then I will come out from the presence, and bring that particular class out of hell-fire, and will bring them into paradise. After that I will go to God’s court to ask grace for another particular class, and will bring them out of hell, and enter them into paradise. After that, I will go into paradise; and in this way will I do for all Mussulmans, so that none but the infidels will remain in hell.’ ¹⁵⁶ Another tradition makes Muhammad to say, ‘I am the beloved of God, and without boasting; and I shall be the bearer of the standard of praise on the day of resurrection; and under it will be Adam, and all the prophets besides. And I shall be the first intercessor, and the first whose intercessions will be approved of on the day of resurrection.’ ¹⁵⁷

These traditions, and scores of similar ones, voice a deep-seated need of the human heart for a mediator. This cry of sinful souls refuses to be stifled; and, despite the teaching of the Qur’an to the contrary, all over the Muhammadan world to-day men and women are looking to the fancied intercession of their prophet to save them from the consequences of their sins. Man in all parts of the world, and in all ages, has felt his need of a saviour; and Muslims, like the rest, have clung to a belief in the mercy of God mediated through the person of a divinely-appointed saviour. Thus the traditions of Islam reflect the thoughts and hopes of Muslims, who have worked out in fulsome detail stories such as those we have quoted above.

Another felt need, deep-rooted in the heart of man, is the need of an atonement for sin. All down the ages men have clung to the conviction that only through the shedding of blood can there come the remission of sins; and sacrifice, in some form or other, has been found almost everywhere where the human race exists. The Qur’an, however, gave the lie to this God-given instinct, and taught that there is no atoning efficacy in sacrifice. Thus we read, ‘And the camels have we appointed you for the sacrifice to God. Much good have ye in them. Make mention therefore of the name of God over them (when ye slay them) as they stand in a row; and when they are fallen over on their sides, eat of them and feed him who is content (and asketh not) and him who asketh. Thus have we subjected them to you, to the intent ye should be thankful. By no means can their flesh reach unto God, neither their blood; but piety on your part reacheth him.’ ¹⁵⁸

But here, again, the Muslim heart refused to be deaf to the voice within, and so the traditions are full of the subject of substitutionary sacrifice, and picture Muhammad as offering sacrifices both for himself and for his people. That he slaughtered camels in sacrifice is probably historically true, but it is difficult to believe, in face of the Qur’anic passage just quoted, that he uttered the words attributed to him in the traditions. At any rate, the fact stands clear that the great central festival of the Muslim world to-day is the ‘Idu’l-Azha’ or Feast of Sacrifice. It is to the traditions, and not to the Qur’an, that we must go for details, albeit mixed up with much legendary material, of the institution of this great festival; and it is the traditions which put into the mouth of Muhammad sentiments far removed from the doctrine of sacrifice set forth in the passage of the Qur’an we have just quoted. Thus Muslim has preserved a tradition to the effect that Muhammad, when offering sacrifice,

أخذ الكبش فأضجعه ثم ذبحه ثم قال بسم الله اللهم تقبل من محمد وآل محمد ومن أمة محمد ثم ضحى به.

‘Seized the ram and threw it on its side; then he slaughtered it. Then he said, In the name of God, O God accept (this) from Muhammad and from the family of Muhammad, and from the people of Muhammad. Then he offered it as a sacrifice.’ ¹⁵⁹ In another tradition Muhammad is reported to have sacrificed two rams, saying, as he did so,

اللهم منك ولك عن محمد وأمته بسم الله الله أكبر.

‘O God (this) is from thee, and for thee on behalf of Muhammad and the people of Muhammad. In the name of God. God is great.’ ¹⁶⁰

It is noteworthy that ‘Abdul-Haqq, the commentator of the Mishkat, renders the words ‘from thee’ and ‘for thee’ by the words ‘from thy favour, and for thy satisfaction.’

Another striking utterance attributed to Muhammad by later Muslims, and handed down in the form of a tradition, is the following: ‘Man hath not done anything on the day of sacrifice more pleasing to God than shedding blood; for verily the animal sacrificed will come, on the day of resurrection, with its horns, its hair, and its hoofs: and verily its blood reacheth the acceptance of God before it falleth upon the ground.’ ¹⁶¹ This tradition, it will be noticed, contains a specific verbal contradiction of the Qur’an statement that neither the flesh nor the blood of the victim sacrificed reaches unto God; in other words, it directly inculcates a belief in the atoning efficacy of sacrifice.

Perhaps the most remarkable statement, however, in the traditions regarding the expiatory value of sacrifice is that contained in the following tradition, in which Muhammad is represented as affirming that, at the resurrection, Jews and Christians will be cast into hell as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of Muslims!! The tradition, which is preserved by Muslim, is as follows,

قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِذَا كَانَ يَوْمُ الْقِيَامَةِ دَفَعَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ إِلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ يَهُودِيًّا أَوْ نَصْرَانِيًّا فَيَقُولُ هَذَا فِكَاكُكَ مِنْ النَّارِ.

‘The apostle of God said, At the day of resurrection God will hand over a Jew or a Christian to every Muslim, and will say, This is a (means of) your redemption from hellfire.’ ¹⁶² In this tradition we have substitutionary sacrifice taught to its fullest extent, for, as ‘Abdul- Haqq, the commentator remarks in loc,

گویا کافر عوض اور بدل مومنوں کے ہیں۔ بیچ جگہوں ان کے کہ دوزخ میں ہیں۔

‘It is as if the Kafirs became the substitutes of the believers in their place in hellfire.’

Another Muslim custom, mentioned in the traditions, but originally derived from Arab heathenism, is the ceremony known as ‘aqiqa. This consists in shaving the head of an infant child on the seventh day after birth, and then offering in sacrifice on its behalf one or two sheep according to the sex of the child. It is distinctly stated in the Mishkat that this was a pre-Islamic custom. Thus we read that, ‘Buraidah said, We used, in the times of ignorance, when a boy was born to any one of us, to slay a goat and rub his head with the blood. Then when Islam came, we slew a goat on the seventh day, and shaved the child’s head and rubbed saffron on it.’ ¹⁶³ This rite does not seem to be even alluded to in the Qur’an, but the traditions have laid the foundations for a practice that has become almost universal amongst Muslim. Our interest in it here arises from the fact that it, too, bears clear testimony to a doctrine of substitutionary sacrifice in Islam. In the traditions Muhammad is represented as sacrificing a ram each for Hasan and Husain. He is also reported to have instructed his followers to sacrifice for their children, in these words, ‘He to whom a child is born should sacrifice on its behalf. Let him sacrifice two sheep for a son, and one sheep for a daughter.’ ¹⁶⁴ In another tradition from Samra the prophet is represented as saying ‘Every male child shall be redeemed by his ‘aqiqa, which is to be sacrificed for him on his seventh day; and so evil shall be removed from him.’ ¹⁶⁵ The following prayer, which is offered at the ‘aqiqa ceremony, leaves no doubt as to the modern significance of the rite, and shows how far Muslims have outgrown the Qur’anic conception of sacrifice. ‘O God, this is the ‘aqiqa sacrifice of my son so and so; its blood for his blood, its flesh for his flesh, its bone for his bone, its skin for his skin, its hair for his hair. O God, make it a redemption for my son from the fire; for truly I have turned my face to Him who created the heavens and the earth, a true believer.’ ¹⁶⁶

Thus in the conception of sacrifice found in the traditions we see the Muslim response to that innate belief in the atoning efficacy of sacrifice which is all but universal amongst the nations of the earth. If that belief, implanted there by God Himself, contradicts the teaching of the Qur’an, then—so much the worse for the Qur’an!

Any careful comparison of the traditions with the Qur’an will reveal innumerable discrepancies and contradictions. Many of these have particular reference to the person of Muhammad, who, in the traditions, has been almost deified and raised to a place of honour almost equal to that of God Himself. It would take us too far to attempt a detailed exposition of this point here. Some idea of the extravagance of language used in these traditions may be gained from the following, which is put into the mouth of Muhammad. ‘I am the first man in point of coming out from the grave, and am the guide to man, when he shall go to God’s court. And I am the speaker of grace for men near God, when the prophets will be silent, and I am the asker of grace, when men shall be made to stand up. And I am the giver of joyful news to man of grace, when he shall despond of God’s mercy, and the key of paradise will be in my hand, and all the standard of praise. And I shall be the greatest of the sons of Adam near my Cherisher, particularly on that day; and I shall have a thousand servants waiting upon me, you might say like scattered pearls.’ ¹⁶⁷ So great is the prophet’s glory that his very disciples and wives are made to share, for his sake, in the encomiums of God. Thus, for example, Muhammad is represented as addressing a disciple, Ubai bin Kab by name, in these words, ‘Verily, God has commanded me to read the Qur’an to thee.’ ‘Did God mention me by name to thee?’ came the astonished reply. ‘Yes’ said the prophet. ‘Then I have been mentioned by the Lord of the Universe!’ replied the awed Ubai, as he burst into tears. Bukhari mentions another ‘companion’, at whose death, so the tradition runs, ‘the throne of God trembled’! ¹⁶⁸ In a still more blasphemous tradition, the angel Gabriel is represented as coming to Muhammad, and asking him to convey the greetings of God and himself to Khadija, the wife of the prophet; and, continued Gabriel, ‘Give her the good news of an abode in heaven.’ ¹⁶⁹

We have already remarked that the Muhammad of the Qur’an, in sharp contrast to all the above, is a weak, erring mortal, whose prayers for pardon are again and again recorded, and who is represented as, on one occasion, being reprehended by God for his unjust treatment of a poor blind beggar. ¹⁷⁰ The Qur’an knows nothing either of the miracles or the intercession of Muhammad; whilst the traditions are full of both, and in the traditions we have a theory of the substitutionary value of sacrifice which is altogether alien to the Qur’an. Yet the value of contemporary evidence must outweigh that of later times; and there can be no question that the Qur’an represents, much more nearly than the traditions, the real teaching of Muhammad.

One other remark must be made before bringing this chapter to a close. We have referred to the universal belief in mediation and atonement. This great hope of the human heart cannot be permanently stifled; and if earnest Muslims fail to find in the Qur’an any adequate expression of this God given means of salvation, then it is surely their highest wisdom to seek elsewhere the satisfaction of this great instinct of the human heart. They will find it in Christ, who gave His life a ransom for sin, and now sits at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercession for us.