vices, which are said to prevail to a fearful extent among Mohammedans, as they did among the
ancient heathen.^198
In nothing is the infinite superiority of Christianity over Islâm so manifest as in the condition
of woman and family life. Woman owes everything to the religion of the gospel.
The sensual element pollutes even the Mohammedan picture of heaven from which chastity
is excluded. The believers are promised the joys of a luxuriant paradise amid blooming gardens,
fresh fountains, and beautiful virgins. Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls of blooming youth
will be created for the enjoyment of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged
to a thousand years; and his faculties will be increased a hundred fold. Saints and martyrs will be
admitted to the spiritual joys of the divine vision. But infidels and those who refuse to fight for
their faith will be cast into hell.
The Koran distinguishes seven heavens, and seven hells (for wicked or apostate
Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, Sabians, Magians, idolaters, hypocrites). Hell (Jahennem=Gehenna)
is beneath the lowest earth and seas of darkness; the bridge over it is finer than a hair and sharper
than the edge of a sword; the pious pass over it in a moment, the wicked fall from it into the abyss.
Slavery.
Slavery is recognized and sanctioned as a normal condition of, society, and no hint is given
in the Koran, nor any effort made by Mohammedan rulers for its final extinction. It is the twin-sister
of polygamy; every harem is a slave-pen or a slave-palace. "The Koran, as a universal revelation,
would have been a perpetual edict of servitude." Mohammed, by ameliorating the condition of
slaves, and enjoining kind treatment upon the masters, did not pave the way for its abolition, but
rather riveted its fetters. The barbarous slave-trade is still carried on in all its horrors by Moslems
among the negroes in Central Africa.
War.
War against unbelievers is legalized by the Koran. The fighting men are to be slain, the
women and children reduced to slavery. Jews and Christians are dealt with more leniently than
idolaters; but they too must be thoroughly humbled and forced to pay tribute.
§ 46. Mohammedan Worship.
"A simple, unpartitioned room,
Surmounted by an ample dome,
Or, in some Iands that favored he,
With centre open to the sky,
But roofed with arched cloisters round,
That mark the consecrated bound,
And shade the niche to Mecca turned,
By which two massive lights are burned;
With pulpit whence the sacred word
Expounded on great days is heard;
With fountains fresh, where, ere they pray,
Men wash the soil of earth away;(^198) Rom. i. 24sqq. See the statements of Dr. Jessup of Beirût, l.c., p. 47.