This ideal was the
supremacy of religion over life and all its activities, over the state
and the individual alike. But it was a religion primarily concerned
with the next world, where alone real worth was to be found. Earthly
life was a pilgrimage to be performed and earthly intentions had no
place with heavenly. The joy of life which the ancient world had
known, art, music and culture, all were rejected or valued only as
aids to religion. Human action was judged with reference only to its
appraisement in the life to come. That ascetic spirit was paramount,
which had enchained the Christian world, that renunciation of secular
affairs which explains the peculiar methods by which mediaeval views
of life found expression.
Asceticism did not disturb the course of life as a whole. It might
condemn but it could not suppress the natural impulse of man to
propagate his race: it might hamper economic forces, but it could not
destroy them. It eventually led to a compromise in every department of
life, but for centuries it retained its domination over men's minds
and to some material extent over their actions.
Such was the environment in which Islam was planted: its deepest roots
had been fertilised with Christian theory, and in spite of Muhammed's
call to repentance, its most characteristic manifestations were
somewhat worldly and non-ascetic. "Islam knows not monasticism" says
the tradition which this tendency produced. The most important
compromise of all, that with life, which Christianity only secured by
gradual steps, had been already attained for Islam by Muhammed himself
and was included in the course of his development.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42