Margoliouth was an Oxford Professor who specialized in Muslim and Arab history during the early part of the 20th century. In May and June of 1913 he gave a series of lectures at the University of London, attempting to explain to undergraduate students, how Mohammedanism or Islam as it is now called, was developed. The first part of his book is reviewed here. This book needs to be read by anyone who is interested in the real Islam, or as it should properly be described, Mohammedanism or the cult of Mohammed. Islam is not a religion in the Western sense of that word, but merely a cult, and as Margoliouth describes a quite despotic, totalitarian and Orientalized one at that.
“But that any of the gentler virtues were cultivated does not appear; and the vices which are associated with Asiatic despotisms seem to have displayed themselves from the time when the despotism of Medinah was founded.” [p. 59]
All that is true.
The second half of Margoliouth's work explores the various strains of mystical Islam, what the theories forward by Mohammed on behalf of his creation the thing 'Allah' mean in practice, and why Islam is so moribund in thought, deed and action. Indubiatably the Koran, or 'Mother Book' believed by Muslims to be the perfect form of Arabic poetic depiction, and one which is uncreated by the Godhead ideal or object called 'Allah', is believed by pious Mohammedans to supersede and supplant any other scripture, book, theological work or spiritual tract. The Koran reigns uber-alles. From that follows the mental, intellectual, social and political-economic dysfunctionality which has warped, demeaned and irrationalized Muslim society until the present day.
Margoliouth ends his account with this quite factually appraisal. Muslims since the death of Mohammed and eulogized and engaged in hagiography about their 'most perfect man' in order to perpetuate the cult. Thus the real Mohammed becomes the fictional Mohammed. In reality Mohammed traded in slaves, kept a score of sex slaves at his beck and call, had 4 wives in total, married a 6 year old and had sex with her at age 9 [thought his fact too has now been rewritten so that Aisha was 18 when the Hadiths clearly say she was 9]; led 88 military campaigns, demanded the eradication of all Jews and Christians in Arabia and the plundering of their wealth and property, killed with his own hands, ordered the murders of anyone who opposed him including poets; commanded that no pictures or music could be invented which used Koranic material in their compositions including his own portrait; and invented the thing Allah which he conflated into some sort of omnipotent God head. The fictional Mohammed is thus created to propagate the cult after his death and deify his entire life. Thus the murderous, sex addled, racist brigand, becomes a mixture of Charlemagne, St. Thomas and Jesus:
“In order to understand the rise of Islam, it is necessary to be acquainted with the historical Mohammed – the man of extreme caution and extreme intrepidity: who made by force his merit known: who guaged with exactitude the intellect and the character of his associates and his adversaries...But for the continuance and development of the system probably the fictitious Mohammed was the more significant: the legislator, the saint, the thaumaturge.”
How right. What better way to attract followers than to present the founder as some infallible genius, who possessed all the traits and skills of a dozen or more great men and previous prophets? Not only was the image of the rather insane Mohammed important to mythologize and lie about it. Wealth was the key to Islam's spread – wealth acquired through war. Why would pagan Arabs who were poor and illiterate follow en masse the bizarre figure of Mohammed as opposed to some other theological exponent? The one key attraction was money, or booty, attained from plunder, war and Jihad of Unbelievers – actions which are entirely irreligious but nonetheless sanctioned and encouraged by the thing Allah, who would grant his 'Messenger' any amount of consideration including vast wealth. How very convenient:
“The Companions of the Prophet, then, for the most part amassed wealth, and the transformation of Meccah and Medinah from obscure settlements into the religious and political capitals of a mighty empire was sufficient of itself to enrich those who possessed land or houses in either,, owing to what is now called unearned increment....Huge fortunes were built up out of the plunder reached Medinah in camel-loads from Persia, Syria, and Egypt.”
Money made Islam. The appropriation of other empires, states, tribes and people's wealth was of course sanctioned by the Allah thing. In order to solidify the domination of Koranic mores, Islam and its liturgy had to become irrefutable in both truth and power. Thus over time came the idea that the Koran superseded all spiritual tracts developed before or since:
“The maxim 'Islam cancels all before it,' of the utmost importance in morals and law, also came to be historically applied. The amount of past history which the Koran contained was all that was worth knowing.”
Thus the Koran becomes the basis of all of society merging not just Church and State into one despotic venture, but claiming that all of reality, nature, science, math, and any human endeavor whatsoever is explained by the Koran. There is no need to think therefore, or inquiry. The Koran contains all of the world's truths, even though its paucity of intelligence and gibberish on any and all topics is famous and profound:
"The scientific and philosophical value of the Koran appears, then, to be but slightly, if at all, superior to that of the pagan Arabs; it recommends the study and observation of nature, but the author clearly had no idea that nature had ever been methodically studied, and his own observations are elementary.”
Because the Koran is the only document a Muslim will need to understand, there is little point in reading books, including those of the Jews or Christians. There is no real need to investigate, experiment, invent, inquiry or debate. To do so is a blasphemy in Islam. Not accepting the supremacy of the Koran is a sin:
“According to the tradition, Mohammed actually forbade his followers to read the books which the Koran ostensibly confirmed, alleging that the copies of the Jews and Christians had been intentionally corrupted: a charge which in the Koran itself is confined to the actual recitation;..”
With this supremacist ideal of Koranic power and omniscience, rituals laid down deep roots keeping the society and the followers permanently attached and regulated en masse:
“The apparent simplicity of the Koranic teaching was thus gradually altered into elaborate ritualism; and the moderation of Islam was forgotten....So long, however, as their procedure was confined to exaggerated observance of Koranic institutions they [Imams] won the respect of their fellows, and earned the right to rebuke vice...”
The dialectical force or thing Allah, became the only object of veneration for the cult and the only figurehead that any Muslim could even consider let alone worship. Allah was everything, including love, power, thinking, will and truth. The human was unimportant. Allah was uber alles:
“....developing unlooked for consequences from the primary proposition of the system – there is no God but Allah, with Whom nothing must be associated...If, e.g., God is to be loved, then nothing else may be loved; any other object of affection would be associated with God, and the person who bestowed the affection would be a pagan.”
“..God's love...is a free and mysterious choice from the beginning of the world. Such a mystery is known only to prophets and to reveal it would be unbelief.”
Sufism, denoting those mystics and fanatics who wore coarse wool, would take the abstraction of what Allah meant and how you can come to know its power to absurd lengths. Muslim mystics became famous for their delusions and inability to see reality. Insanity was one of their attributes:
“That the higher stages of Sufism were akin to madness is not only clear of itself, but is sometimes acknowledged; Ibn 'Arabi boasts of having for a time lost his reason.”
and
“...the mysticism of Islam is developed on lines of its own, and has only a superficial resemblance to other sorts. Its goal, Fana, 'perdition', means losing consciousness of all other existences besides that of God; and this goal seems so clearly suggested by the Koranic doctrine that nothing should be associated with God....”
Sufist theology is a logical end point for Islamic doctrine. Islam is a pre-destination cult, in which free-will rational inquiry, humanism and acceptance of non-Muslims do not exist. Islamic mysticism is simply the extension of Mohammed's ideals about society – follow, ritualize, work for the cult, shut up and obey. A simple Oriental despotism. Islam is thus more akin to say Shinto paganism and even Hinduism with its many abstract mystical elements than to Western ideals of a religion.
Margoliouth's detailed, well-sourced and factually correct appraisal of Islam or as he puts it 'Mohammedanism' makes this plain. I am sure today, if Margoliouth gave his lecture he would be frog-marched off to prison for a 'hate crime'. Such is the absurd anti-reality world we live in. A cult like Islam is now magically a 'religion', just as a mad illiterate brigand like Mohammed is now a saint, who was deeply concerned about the poor and who was also of course, one of the great law-givers in history. What bunk.