" "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.
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