India, Its Life and Thought Part 14

Then this expectation for the future robs men of any ambition to remedy present evils. For, they naturally will say, "Why flee from ills which are pressing upon us and which by experience we have learned to endure, if it be only to contract greater troubles in their stead; for freedom from evil is an impossibility in this age?" Is it not, to a very considerable extent, the reason why there are so few whole-hearted reformers in India? Why should a man seek, at the risk of opprobrium and enmity, to root out of the country some accursed custom if his inherited belief in the inherent badness of the present era is still with him? He must feel that all his efforts will be worse than vain; for even if he and others may succeed in overcoming this custom, it will be only to give room to another that may be worse.

Hence the universal apathy in the face of crying evils and d.a.m.ning customs; hence also the helpless "_cui bono?_" to every effort of others to help the land out of the deep pits of injustice and ancient ills.

Out of this belief comes another equally portentous danger, viz. that of easily yielding to the temptations of the time, and of a readiness to partic.i.p.ate in the common sins of the day. For, say many, are not these immoralities and evils an integral part of the time; and, if so, what harm is there in our partaking of them? Or, at least, is it not our best interest to harmonize ourselves with the essentially evil environment of our age rather than vainly to combat the sins of the day and to strive to no purpose to remove them?

And thus a belief in the divine order and purpose of the evil of our time and in the impossibility of changing the character of our age becomes one of the most prolific sources of sin, of weakness, and of moral and spiritual apathy in the land to-day. Do not many sin without fear and with increasing facility because they think it is the only life that best harmonizes with this _Kali yuga_ in which they live?

Much of this conception of time is connected with the all but universal belief of the people in astrology. In India, astrology is still fed by popular ignorance and superst.i.tion, and continues to rule with an iron rod in this last stronghold among the nations of the earth. It would seem as if it controlled the conduct of individuals, of families, and of society in general. It claims that for one to be born under the dominant influence, or spell, of one of the heavenly bodies is for him to be its slave ever afterwards. And thus the life of every human being is said to be largely controlled by certain planets and constellations, some of which are malign, and some benign in their character and influence.

For it must be remembered that it is not only the _yugas_ that are possessed of moral attributes; even years, months, days, and hours are also cla.s.sified as good and bad, auspicious and inauspicious. For one to do a thing this month is auspicious, while on the next month it will be the reverse.

In the same manner, almost every human activity has its "lucky" and "unlucky" times--occasions when effort is much less, or more safe or valuable, than at other times. For instance, the Hindu is warned against going eastward, Mondays and Sat.u.r.days; northward, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; westward, Fridays and Sundays; and southward, Thursdays.

This, we are told, is because Siva's trident is turned against those points of the compa.s.s on those particular days, and one would therefore be in danger of being transfixed by this divine weapon!

Then a man must not begin any important work on _Rahu-kalam_. This inauspicious time covers an hour and a half of each day of the week and is at a different hour every day. The only safe hour is from 6 to 7.30 each morning. That hour is free from the influence of _Rahu_, and is therefore auspicious. And what is Rahu? It is not a planet at all, as was thought years ago; nor is it a mighty snake which periodically swallows the sun or moon. It is merely the ascending node in astronomy wherein alone the eclipses can take place. And yet this imaginary monster has a very real place in the life of this great people, and the foolish dread of it converts a period daily into an inauspicious occasion for important effort.

I will present only one other ill.u.s.tration with a view to showing how extensively this moral attribute of time is ascribed and emphasized in the serious affairs of life in India. For instance, when a man is engaged in the performance of religious duties, it is regarded as of supreme moment that he know when certain acts are of no merit, or, on the other hand, of special merit. Now, there is a regular code of rules for this special purpose. By observing these rules carefully one may acc.u.mulate religious merit or power with the G.o.ds beyond any one who does not observe them. We are told that a rupee contributed in charity during the time of an eclipse, or at the time when the new moon falls upon Monday, brings as much merit to the contributor, with the G.o.ds, as an offering of one thousand rupees at any ordinary time.

Who, then, would not choose the right time for his religious activity if time alone is the element which adds value to it, and if motive has evidently so little of importance in giving quality or value to our efforts in the religious life?

CHAPTER XI

ISLAM IN INDIA

There are sixty-five million Mohammedans in India. This const.i.tutes more than one-fifth of the total population, and is considerably larger than the whole population of the Turkish Empire. There are now under the British Empire more Mohammedans than under any other government in modern, or in earlier, times. For at least ninety-five millions of the followers of the Prophet of Mecca are prospering to-day under the aegis of Great Britain; which is probably five millions in excess of the Christian population of the same empire.

This is a significant fact.

And this Islamic population in India is growing, too. During the last decade it increased by 9.1 per cent, while the population of India, as a whole, increased only by 1.9 per cent.

Of the Mohammedans of India, only a small portion are descended from the Mussulmans of the West; while the remainder are the results of conversions from Hinduism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUMAYAN'S TOMB, DELHI]

This population is scattered all over India, though North India is the home of the majority of them. Bengal, also, has a large Mohammedan element in its population. It is that part of the country where Islam has gathered in the largest number of converts; for, of the people of that Presidency, more than one-third (25,264,342) are Mussulmans. And in certain portions of East Bengal the Mohammedans are in the large majority.

In South India, too, there is a fair representation of the members of this faith. One can hardly pa.s.s through any section of the country without seeing and recognizing them by their physiognomy, costume, or customs.

I

_The History of Islam in India_

It is nearly twelve hundred years since the first military expedition of this triumphant faith entered this land. It is an interesting fact that the first attack of Islam (711 A.D.) upon India almost synchronizes with the end of the millennium of Buddhistic rule in India. Thus the incoming of the new Hinduism under Sankaracharyar almost coincides with the first onslaught of the western hordes of the Arabian Prophet upon the strongholds of India.

It was a pure conquest of the sword which gave to Mohammed in India, as in other lands, a place and a possession. And those early days of Mohammedan triumph are, in the main, a record of cruel butchery and of widespread ma.s.sacre. They fulfilled, to the letter, the command of the founder of their faith, which says: "When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them; and bind them in bonds; and either give them a free dismission afterwards, or exact a ransom; until the war shall have laid down its arms. This shall ye do." (Quran (Koran), xlviii. 4, 5.)

The fanaticism and bigotry of that people carried triumph everywhere; and their triumph meant to every Hindu the acceptance of the sword, the Quran, or tribute. For some centuries, indeed, the fortunes of Islam in India wavered, and its undisputed sway was not recognized until the time of Baber, the distinguished founder of the great Mogul Empire in the sixteenth century. It is also true that, among the mild and patient population of this land, the spirit of that militant faith gradually softened until the era of Akbar the Great--a ruler who was not only ill.u.s.trious as a lawgiver, but also was justly celebrated for his cosmopolitanism and religious toleration. He was succeeded by another great name, Shah Jehan, a man of wonderful administrative powers, but one of narrow sympathies and occasionally given to cruel bigotry. And yet, if he did not possess the graces for a n.o.ble character, he adorned his realm with religious edifices which still stand unrivalled in their exquisite beauty.

The cruel Aurangzeeb practically closed the Mogul dynasty by his weakness, bloodthirstiness, and uncompromising bigotry.

It is strange that during the centuries of cruel dominion, of uncompromising fanaticism, and of religious intolerance, the whole population of the land was not absorbed into Islam. But the Mogul Empire pa.s.sed away. And, while it left a strong impression on the country as a whole, and affected somewhat the faiths of this land and left marvellous monuments of architectural beauty, it did not seriously change the undercurrents of the life of the whole people.

II

_The Present Condition of this Faith in India_

Like all other faiths in this peninsula, Islam is accepted and practised in all degrees of purity, from the orthodox wors.h.i.+p, conducted in the grand and beautiful mosques of Delhi and Agra, to the grovelling, superst.i.tious, heathenish ceremonies which obtain among, and which const.i.tute the religious pabulum of, the ma.s.ses of Islam in remote villages and in distant sections of the land.

Generally speaking, the religion of Mohammed is not calculated to appeal to the highly poetic mind of India. It is too severe and prosaic in its character. The mind of India delights in mystical elaborations and in the multiplication of fanciful incarnations and other divine manifestations. The Allah of Islam is almost as remote and as unknowable a deity as is the Brahm of the Vedantist. But in the absence of a personal G.o.d the Vedantist and Hindus in general have built up a system of numberless incarnations which "play" upon the imagination of the votaries and give ample scope to the remarkably poetic genius of this people.

Mohammedanism has nothing of the kind; it denies even the possibility of divine "descent," and its animus throughout the centuries has been one of antagonism to the incarnation doctrine of other faiths.

The Quran is largely wanting in the tropical warmth and legendary lore which is such a resource and comfort to the Indian mind, and which therefore abounds in the sacred writings of the Brahmans.

Doubtless, the simplicity and intelligibility of its creed--one G.o.d, one prophet, one book--commends Mohammedanism to the minds of many.

But simplicity is not a foible of the religious mind of India. It has always craved the complex, the mystical, and the unfathomable. It delights in inconsistencies, and indulges freely in the irreconcilable mysteries of faith. Hinduism, being the child of the Hindu mind, abounds in tropical exuberance of spiritual exercise and "amus.e.m.e.nts,"

which seem childish and inane to all other people.

The teaching of Mohammed has, therefore, very little that can appeal with power, carry conviction, and bring contentment to the people of India.

In nothing, perhaps, is this more manifestly marked than in the conception of the deity above referred to. Islam is a most uncompromising form of Unitarianism. It is bitterly opposed to any doctrine which brings G.o.d down to men and renders Him intelligible to the common mind. It denies the possibility of the divine putting on human, or any other, nature.

Hinduism, on the other hand, is the very ant.i.thesis of all this. At first, this was not so. But its rigid pantheism gradually necessitated manifestations of the divine, in order that faith and devotion might be made possible. And, in later centuries, the doctrine of incarnation was accepted as a haven of rest to the Hindu mind and soon became a wild pa.s.sion of its soul. There is no other people on earth who have carried the doctrine of incarnation (_Avatar_) to such excess of imaginings as to create such abundantly grotesque and fanciful appearances of their many divinities. Normally, then, the Mohammedan faith, at its very core, must be unsatisfying and even repulsive to the tropical Hindu mind. It was brought here at the point of the sword; and, for centuries, it was the faith of a ruling power whose custom was to tax heavily all people who did not conform, outwardly at least, to the State religion.

After Islam had become established and secure in its success in India, when it could relax its grip upon the sword and relinquish something of the spirit of intolerance which characterized it, it had to meet and cope with a greater foe than that of the battle-field. Hinduism has always exercised a great benumbing influence upon all faiths which have come into contact and conflict with it. It has insinuated itself into the mind of the conquerors and laid its palsied hand upon every department of religious thought and life. So that, after a few centuries of prosperity in India, Islam began to forget its narrow bigotry and uncompromising severity and fraternized more or less with the religion of the country. Little by little a lat.i.tudinarianism crept in, which found its culmination in that remarkable man, Akbar the Great, who entertained the teachers of all faiths and encouraged a fearless discussion of their respective merits. Dr. Wherry writes: "The tolerance of Akbar, who not only removed the poll-tax from all his non-Moslem subjects, but who established a sort of parliament of religions, inviting Brahmans, Persian Sufis, Pa.r.s.ee fire-wors.h.i.+ppers, and Jesuit priests to freely discuss in his presence the special tenets of their faith and practice, was remarkable. He went farther, and promulgated an eclectic creed of his own and const.i.tuted himself a sort of priest-king in which his own dictum should override everything excepting the letter of the Quran. His own creed is set forth in the following words of India's greatest poet, Abul Fazl:--

"O G.o.d, in every temple I see those who see thee, and, in every tongue that is spoken, thou art praised.

Polytheism and Islam grope after thee, Each religion says, 'Thou art one, without equal,'

Be it mosque, men murmur holy prayer; or church, the bells ring, for love of thee; Awhile I frequent the Christian cloister, anon the mosque: But thee only I seek from fane to fane.

Thine elect know naught of heresy or orthodoxy, whereof neither stands behind the screen of thy truth.

Heresy to the heretic,--dogma to the orthodox,-- But the dust of the rose-petal belongs to the heart of the perfume seller."[8]

[Footnote 8: "Islam and Christianity," p. 68.]

This religious cosmopolitanism developed into what has been called an "Eclectic Pantheism," which welcomed all men and satisfied no one.

Even though Aurangzeeb tried to stem this tide of liberalism and to rehabilitate the intolerance and cruelty of ancient Islam, his effort was not only unsuccessful, but was partly instrumental in bringing on the downfall of the Empire. And the faith of Mohammed in India has revealed, ever since, the sickly pallor and want of vigour which tropical life and contact with Hinduism necessarily entail.

When the government of this land ceased to be Mohammedan, and the sceptre pa.s.sed into the hands of the British, whose glory it has been, for centuries, to protect its subjects from the b.l.o.o.d.y hand of intolerance and to vouchsafe unto all not only the blessed boon of _Pax Britannica_, but also the inexpressible right and privilege of religious liberty,--then pa.s.sed away, never to return, we hope, from this motherland of tolerance, the ghastly sceptre of bigotry and fanaticism. And thus Islam ceased to be enforced and propagated by the strong arm of law and by the pointed argument of sword and spear of the legions. It has, since then, enjoyed in this land a free and an open field for the exercise of its powers of persuasion. But its increase has not been marked. And what there has been of progress has been owing to its other characteristics, which we will mention later.

Thus the faith of the Arabian prophet has lost, in India, not only its vigour, but also its prestige and purity, by contact with the lower faiths of the land, especially with the ancestral faith of India. From that religion it has taken unto itself many of the base superst.i.tions, and not a few of the idolatrous practices, which have characterized it.

Indeed, the great ma.s.s of the converts from Hinduism, and their descendants, have had but a distorted conception of the lofty faith of Mohammed, which they have unequally yoked with their ancient superst.i.tions and errors.

The Indian census of 1901 tells us how the pure monotheism of Mohammed has been debased by contact with wors.h.i.+p at human shrines: "We have seen in the case of Hinduism that the belief in one supreme G.o.d, in whom are vested all ultimate powers, is not incompatible with the belief in Supernatural Beings who exercise considerable influence over worldly affairs, and whose influence may be obtained or averted by certain ceremonies. Similarly, in the case of Islam, while the ma.s.ses have, on the whole, a clearer idea of the unity and omnipotence of G.o.d than the ordinary Hindu has, they also have a firm belief in the value of offerings at certain holy places for obtaining temporal blessings.

Thus the shrine of Saiyad Salar, at Bahraich, is resorted to, both by Hindus and Mussulmans, if a wife is childless, or if family quarrels cannot be composed. Diseases may be cured by a visit to the shrine of Shaik Saddo, at Amroha in Moradabad; while for help in legal difficulties Shah Mina's dargah at Lucknow is renowned. Each of these has its appropriate offering,--a long embroidered flag for the first, a c.o.c.k for the second, and a piece of cloth for the third. Other celebrated shrines are those of Bahauddin Madar Shah at Nakkanpur in the Cawnpore district, and of Ala-uddin Sabir at Piran Kaliar in Saharanpur." The same writer, in his report concerning Bengal, says: "The unreformed Mohammedans of the lower and uneducated cla.s.ses are deeply infected with Hindu superst.i.tions, and their knowledge of the faith they profess seldom extends beyond the three cardinal doctrines of the Unity of G.o.d, the mission of Mohammed, and the truth of the Quran; and they have a very faint idea of the differences between their religion and that of the Hindus. Sometimes they believe that they are descended from Abel (Habil), while the Hindus owe their origin to Cain (Kabil). Kabil, they say, killed Habil and dug a grave for him with a crow's beak."