Religion of the Crescent

18	THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

spectacle¹ which the Christian Church in almost every part of the world then presented in this respect,²

Arabic
Idolatry.

the ancestral Temple at Mecca contained 360 idols,³ one for every day of the Lunar year. Besides these the planets and other heavenly bodies were worshipped, and almost every Arab tribe had contributed its own local deity to help to fill the building⁴ which, though still retaining its ancient appellation of "The House of God" (Baitu'llah), had become a pantheon in which even "Christian" idols were adored. When he captured

¹ Hauri ("Der Islam in seiner Einfluss," &c.), ch. ii., well says:—"Wir verkennen auch keineswegs, dass Mohammeds Lehre von Gott eine Reaction war gegen die in die christliche Kirche eingedrungene Vielgotterei. Die starke Betonung der Einheit Gottes hat entschieden seiner Lehre grosse Kraft gegeben, und stets wird die Thatsache, dass einst eine neue Religion sich der christlichen gegenuber mit ungeheurem Erfolg als die Vertreterin des Monotheismus ausgeben konnte, fur die Kirche eine Warnung sein, sich vor polytheistischen Abwegung zu huten."
² Vide Isaac Taylor's "Ancient Christianity," vol. I., p. 266.
³ Stobart's "Islam and its Founder," pp. 32, 33. Koelle, "Mohammed and Mohammedanism," p. 17 sqq.
⁴ The Ka'abah at Mecca. In reference to its antiquity there are many very strange tales. The Muslims assert that Abraham and Ishmael built it, but that a similar building had existed there in Adam's time. Diodorus, mentions a Temple there revered by all the Arabs in his time. Vide Sayyid Ahmad, "Essay on History of the Holy Mecca," Koelle, ut supra, also Ibn Hisham and Tabari: also (for absurdities on the subject) "Araishu't Tijan," "Qisasu'l Anbiya" (s. Adam): also the "Dabistan-i-Mazahib."

¹ [In no way are we unaware that Mohammed's teachings about God was a reaction against the idolatry that had come into the Christian church. The strong emphasis on the oneness of God has certainly given his teachings great influence, and the fact that a new religion presenting itself as the embodiment of monotheism has resulted in a large following should serve as a warning to the Christian church to keep itself from polytheistic influences.]

THE STRENGTH OF ISLAM.

Mecca in 630 A.D. after his victory over the Quraish, Muhammad is said to have entered the Ka'abah and entirely demolished¹ every one of these idols and even obliterated every picture which it contained. From that time to the present every true Muslim is animated by the same hatred of idolatry, and in many countries this has led to the shedding of oceans of human blood.²

Although great faith is placed in the efficacy of charms, talismans and the like and great

Muslin hatred
of Idolatry.

reverence—almost if not quite amounting to worship—is paid to deceased saints,³ and to holy places, yet the worship of idols has never been able to gain an entrance into the religion of the Musalmans. Their Monotheism is far from being all that could be desired; their conceptions of GOD (as we shall see in a later lecture⁴) are faulty and defective in many respects: yet their firm faith in the Unity of GOD and the profession of this grand truth in the very fore-front of their kalimah has given the Religion of Islam a strength and a power which has never been owned by any other non-Christian

¹ Koelle, ut supra, p. 203: Ibn Ishaq.
² Wheeler, "Hist. of India;" Firishta, "Tarikh," &c.
³ Vide Hauri, "Der Islam," pp. 110, sqq. My own personal experience in India, with which that of others in almost every Muhammadan country agrees, enables me to affirm that the worship paid to deceased saints is one of the main features of practical Muhammadanism, as distinguished from the religion as it exists in theory.
⁴ Vide Lecture 11.

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