United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The stamp of Ijma' was essential to every rule of faith and life, to all manners and customs. All sorts of religious ideas and practices, which could not possibly be deduced from Mohammed's message, entered the Moslim world by the permission of Ijma'. Here we need think only of mysticism and of the cult of saints.
They were allowed to adhere to their religion, provided they helped with their taxes to fill the Moslim exchequer. This rule was even extended to such religions as that of the Parsis, although they could not be considered as belonging to the "People of Scripture" expressly recognized in the Qoran.
Notwithstanding the destructive criticism of all Moslim princes and state officials by the canonists, it was only from them that they could expect measures to uphold and extend the power of Islam; and on this account they continually cherished the ideal of the Khalifate. I am pleased to find the same views expressed by Prof.
It seems strange that the Moslim peoples, although the theory of Islam never attributed an hereditary character to the Khalifate, attached so high a value to the Abbasid name, that they continued unanimously to acknowledge the Khalifate of Bagdad for centuries during which it possessed no influence.
The Christians, on the contrary, are looked upon as hardened infidels, and as deliberate despisers of the prophet's call; and as they in general steadfastly reject the Mahommedan creed, and at least never embrace it, whilst they have hopes of ransom; the Moslim, consistently with the spirit of many passages in the Koran, views them with the bitterest hatred, and treats them with every insult and cruelty which a merciless bigotry can suggest.
The Moslim of the Turkish empire, as far as I have had an opportunity of remarking, easily suppresses his feelings, his passions, the dictates of his conscience, and what he supposes agreeable to the will of the Almighty, at the dictates of his interest, or according to the wish or example of the ruling power.
Of course, features shocking to the Moslim mind were dropped and the whole adapted to the monotonous conception of the Qoran. With ever greater boldness the story of Mohammed's own life was exalted to the sphere of the supernatural; here the Gospel served as example.
The Moslim divines affirm, that prayers recited in the mosque of Medina are peculiarly acceptable to the Deity; and invite the faithful to perform this pilgrimage, by telling them that one prayer said in sight of the Hedjra is as efficacious as a thousand said in any other mosque except that of Mekka.
This is a work in which we all may collaborate, whatever our own religious conviction may be. The principal condition for a fruitful friendly intercourse of this kind is that we make the Moslim world an object of continual serious investigation in our intellectual centres.
This last doctrine, as well as the doctrine of salvation through Vâyu, the wind or spirit, has led many to suspect that Madhva was influenced by Christian ideas, but it is more probable that he owed something to Islam. Such influence would no doubt be distant and indirect, for a Brahman would not come into contact with Moslim doctors, though it is said that Madhva could speak Persian.
Word Of The Day