ance is of no avail. But for the convert to Islam, who afterwards falls away and finally repents, there is mercy. There is also mercy for penitent female apostates. There is no authentic evidence that the sentence of death was ever inflicted. A certain amount of toleration was the necessary policy of the Mussulman emperors, who could not otherwise have reconciled the Hindoos to their rule. But all good Mussulmans believe that such toleration was sinful, and is not to be considered as a precedent. The emperors placed the law of death for apostacy in abeyance, and it is unfortunately in abeyance still, but it is the law of Islam nevertheless.

"2d, The Indian Mahomedans do consider it a grievance that they are restrained by the English Government from enforcing the law. This naturally follows from the answers to the former question.

"3d, Few Indian Mussulmans have heard of the Hatti-Sherif; ew of those who have heard of it believe in it, and those who do, say that the Sultan has become a Kafir [an infidel].”.

In India, the Mahomedans doggedly set themselves against western civilisation. Very few of their children are permitted to attend schools taught by Europeans. There are not many at mission schools; and even the exclusion of religious teaching cannot charm more than a limited number of them into the seminaries of the Government. Open a school anywhere in India, and the heathen Hindoos will enter it, while the Mahomedans, as a whole, hold aloof; and during the Crimean war we observed the significant intimation, that where the Sultan opened schools, they were thronged by Greek boys, while his own co-religionists shewed no disposition to become scholars. The result of this fatal policy is seen when the Mussulmans, who ought to have been pupils in boyhood, but have not been so, grow up to man's estate. There are very few lucrative situations which persons so deficient in education can fill: hence the Mussulmans, whom we found rulers of a great portion of India, are continually permitting the Hindoos, whom once they dominated over, to snatch from them all the prizes of life, while they themselves are yearly sinking further down and down in station, and from being the aristocracy of native Indian society, are on the way to becoming its lapsed masses.

There met some months ago, in England, three ministers, who had all had experience of the Mahomedan character, two in the Turkish empire, the third in India. All had come to the same conclusion with regard to the probable future of the Turkish empire. It was that by revolts like that of Candia, in European Turkey, the Christians on this side the Bosphorus would gradually free themselves to a large extent from Mahomedan domination; but that, at a certain point, the believers in the Koran would become greatly ex

The Probable Future of Turkey.

49

cited by seeing their power falling. On becoming roused, the Mahomedans of Asia Minor, and other parts of Asiatic Turkey, would then in all probability attempt to perpetrate a massacre of the Christians there, on a scale of magnitude such as has not been witnessed in modern times.

What

If such a frightful contingency be even possible, the Christian powers would do well to have their minds made up beforehand as to how they should act in the circumstances, for very little time for deliberation will be afforded if the crisis come. There is one power whose mind is already made up-we mean Russia; for in a dispatch to our own and other governments, she has declared that in certain circumstances she will interfere on behalf of the Christians of Turkey, "though torrents of blood should flow." But who could blame her, if such a crisis as that we dread should arise? We could not stand forth as apologists for massacre, especially if the victims bore the Christian name. then should be done? We think the answer is not involved in much difficulty. As in all other cases, the path of duty is the path of safety. Let the Christian powers be prepared to act in common on the side of humanity, and on the first occasion on which massacre of Christians is attempted by Mahomedans anywhere in the world, let the murderers be brought to justice, and let it be distinctly made known everywhere that Mahomedan massacres of Christians, simply for bearing that honoured name, in addition to the guilt of such crimes, are an insult to every follower of Jesus in the world; and whatever labour, expenditure of money, or of life, be necessary to bring the perpetrators of such enormities to justice, the Christian Powers pledge their honour that it shall be done. But after all precautions have been taken, the mind will still remain anxious, and can regain composure in no other way than by reflecting that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; and that the Divine Redeemer feels the deepest interest in all his followers on earth, however humble may be their lot; as was evinced when, on the road to Damascus, he struck down one, then a haughty oppressor of the Church, and, in explanation, said to him reproach fully, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou ME ?"

R. H.

Editorial Note. The preceding article should have appeared in our October number, but it will be found not less applicable to the present time.

VOL. XVII.-NO. LXIII.

D

ART. III. A Mahomedan Commentary on the Bible.

(Second Notice.)

The Mahomedan Commentary on the Holy Bible. By SAYAD AHMAD. Part First. Ghazipore: Printed and published by the Author at his private press. 1862.

The Mahomedan Commentary on the Holy Bible. By SAYAD AHMAD. Part Second. Allyghur: Printed and published by the Author at his private press. 1865.

IN passing from a consideration of Sayad Ahmad's views with regard to the authenticity and authority of the Bible, to a consideration of his attempts to reconcile the Mahomedan faith with it, we are met by the difficulty that he has as yet attempted the criticism of only the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis. As he does not take up any topic not suggested by them, several important doctrines are omitted, and we cannot tell how he may succeed in making them accord with the Scriptures. A more important difficulty is the manner in which he treats the doctrines which he does take up. He does not seek so much to reconcile the Mahomedan religion with the Bible, as the Bible with the Mahomedan religion. He continually brings in the Mahomedan doctrine as the rule of interpretation. According to the belief of us Mahomedans," is the formula with which he gives the authoritative meaning of any passage. He supports it by analogous passages quoted from other parts of the Bible, and dismisses all that are opposed to his view with the assurance that they will be treated of in their proper place. As the Christian faith is founded on a general view of the entire Scriptures, and as the first chapters must be interpreted in the light of what follows, this is not a fair way of going to work, and it is one which in the end must prove fatal to Sayad Ahmad's own positions. He has in fact forgotten in a great degree the maxim which he himself has laid down to study the Scriptures as a whole. We by no means think, however, that he has succeeded even on these tactics. On the contrary, the most careful perusal of the commentary, with full anxiety to allow due weight to all he says, must shew that on all points where Mahomedanism differs from Christianity, he has entirely failed to reconcile the former with the Bible.

It will facilitate the consideration of the subject if, instead of following the order of chapters, we take up successive topics and doctrines. There are many points on which Mahomedanism and Christianity are agreed, and on these Sayad Ahmad has allowed himself much greater latitude than on the distinctive

Authority of the Pentateuch.

51

principles of his creed. We may begin with some of them, and proceed afterwards to those in which the two religions are more opposed.

One of the first questions that meets us, on opening the second volume of the Commentary, is the authority of the Pentateuch in its present form. He gives it as the Mahomedan opinion, that we have it in the form in which Ezra rewrote it :

"Imam Fakhr-ud-din Razi relates in his commentary, on the authority of Ibna Abbas, that the Jews had lost the Pentateuch, and were behaving in a way opposed to its original commands. Thereupon God made them forget the law and took it out of their hearts; but Ezra humbled himself and abased his heart before God. Then God caused him to remember the law, and by means thereof he gave instructions to the children of Israel. When they examined it, they found it correct, on which they began to say, He is not man, but the Son of God. From these quotations this fact is established, that the existing Pentateuch is the work of Ezra, and, according to the creed of us Mussulmans, the same faith and reverence are to be shewn to that law which, under divine inspiration, Ezra wrote, as were due to that which Moses himself wrote, because Moses and Ezra were both prophets, and we Mussulmans do not allow any difference between any prophets."-(Pp. 14, 15.)

Hence he has no difficulty in answering objections raised from the use of the third person, and references to dates and events subsequent to Moses.

"In refuting these objections, those have certainly met with difficulties who are convinced that the Pentateuch we have now in our hands is a copy of the manuscript which was written by Moses himself. But as we Mahomedans believe that the present Pentateuch was written by Ezra, we have no difficulty whatever: for if Ezra did write this book, then, as a matter of course, Moses would be spoken of in the third person, and the events that had happened up to his time would be spoken of just as we find them."-(P. 40.)

The above quoted extract from Fakhr-ud-din Razi is interesting to European critics, as shewing what eastern tradition says on the subject of the revisal of the Old Testament by Ezra. Sayad Ahmad may have quoted it to predispose his co-religionists to accept the Pentateuch, but does he not see that, with those who cannot fully accept his dogmas, he is destroying all its title to credit? To persons who deny inspiration, the Pentateuch, if allowed to be written by Moses and preserved by successive manuscripts-even though interpolations may have been inserted-would appear entitled to some credit as a historical work, but if we have it from the source Does he has indicated, it would be of no authority whatever. he not see the palpable contradictions and absurdities of the

story he has quoted and homologated? According to it, God had caused the Jews to forget the Pentateuch altogether. Yet when Ezra gave it to them again, they compared it with the original and found it correct. They pronounced judgment on what they had totally forgotten. If this be true, God must have revealed it to them as well as to Ezra; they too must have been inspired. In giving weight to such stories, Sayad Ahmad can only bring ridicule on his commentary and his religion.

In passing from the introduction to the text itself, the first topic we may take up as common to Christianity and Mahomedanism, is the reconciliation of Scripture and science. Sayad Ahmad, in attempting this, generally adopts those interpretations which accord with the present state of science, and rejects those which have been adopted to reconcile the Bible with science in its less advanced state. He does so in a spirit of liberty and reverence, which is a reproof to many Christian controversialists.

"I can never assent to the idea that sacred books-all the Scriptures, including even the holy Koran-are not to be minutely and critically examined. Dare any one say that reason, that most noble of God's gifts, has been given to us to remain unemployed? Can we on whom this power has been bestowed, be true Christians or Mahomedans, unless we examine our holy Scriptures with thoughtful, careful criticism, and on them found an unfeigned faith? If we are ourselves able by thought and examination to establish our own faith, will it suffice to answer before God that we are Christians or Mahomedans just because our fathers were Christians or Mahomedans. On the contrary, I earnestly desire that these sacred writings be examined with fairness and with respectful, but not impertinent, freedom. . . . I am not sorry to find that Bishop Colenso should point out historical inaccuracies in the holy Scripture if he really can, but I do regret that he should have so completely forgotten this respectful freedom. I speak not indeed in accordance with the generality of Christians, but in perfect accordance with those principles which I have laid down with regard to the holy Scriptures, which are, I believe, perfectly agreeable to the Mahomedan religion, and to which I find that many Christians also are ready to assent, that even if any one should point out inaccuracies in the historical parts of the holy Scriptures (if there be any such), he cannot prove them to be untrustworthy until such errors in the revelation itself be established,* as to make belief in it impossible. This being the case, even if Bishop Colenso should have pointed out some errors in the history, what nced I care about answering him? But I say further, that if, without

The Mahomedans consider only the direct sayings of the prophets to be revelations, and the rest to be mere narratives to explain the circumstances in which they were given. See British and Foreign Evangelical Review for July pp 562, 563.