Christianity and Islam

Christianity And Islam


Christianity again condemned marriage, though it eventually agreed to a compromise sanctifying this tie; Islam, on the contrary, found in the Qoran the text "Ye that are unmarried shall marry" (24, 32). In the face of so clear a statement, the condemnation of marriage, which in any case was contrary to the whole spirit of the Qoran, could not be maintained. Thus the Muhammedan tradition contains numerous sayings in support of marriage. "A childless house contains no blessing": "the breath of a son is as the breath of Paradise"; "when a man looks upon his wife (in love) and she upon him, God looks down in mercy upon them both." "Two prayers of a married man are more precious in the sight of God than seventy of a bachelor." With many similar variations upon the theme, Muhammed is said to have urged marriage upon his followers. On the other hand an almost equally numerous body of warnings against marriage exists, also issued by Muhammed. I know no instance of direct prohibition, but serious admonitions are found which usually take the form of denunciation of the female sex and were early interpreted as warnings by tradition. "Fear the world and women": "thy worst enemies are the wife at thy side and thy concubine": "the least in Paradise are the women": "women are the faggots of hell"; "pious women are rare as ravens with white or red legs and white beaks"; "but for women men might enter Paradise." Here we come upon a strain of thought especially Christian. Muhammed regarded the satisfaction of the sexual instincts as natural and right and made no attempt to put restraint upon it: Christian asceticism regarded this impulse as the greatest danger which could threaten the spiritual life of its adherents, and the sentences above quoted may be regarded as the expression of this view. Naturally the social position of the woman suffered in consequence and is so much worse in the traditional Muhammedanism as compared with the Qoran that the change can only be ascribed to the influence of the civilisation which the Muhammedans encountered. The idea of woman as a creature of no account is certainly rooted in the ancient East, but it reached Islam in Christian dress and with the authority of Christian hostility to marriage.

With this hostility to marriage are probably connected the regulations concerning the covering of the body: in the ancient church only the face, the hands and the feet were to be exposed to view, the object being to prevent the suggestion of sinful thoughts: it is also likely that objections to the ancient habit of leaving the body uncovered found expression in this ordinance. Similar objections may be found in Muhammedan tradition; we may regard these as further developments of commands given in the Qoran, but it is also likely that Muhammed's apocryphal statements upon the point were dictated by Christian religious theory. They often appear in connection with warnings against frequenting the public baths, which fact is strong evidence of their Christian origin. "A bad house is the bath: much turmoil is therein and men show their nakedness." "Fear that house that is called the bathhouse and if any enter therein, let him veil himself." "He who believes in God and the last Judgment, let him enter the bath only in bathing dress." "Nakedness is forbidden to us." There is a story of the prophet, to the effect that he was at work unclothed when a voice from heaven ordered him to cover his nakedness!