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SPRENGER ON MOSLEM TRADITION
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and as such were handed down; thus it was only the most practised critic who
could discriminate between what was genuine and what was interpolated (vol.
iii. p. clxxiv.).
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It is easy to perceive that, under
such circumstances, whatever illustration the habits and adventures of the
early Moslem heroes may receive from the remains of contemporary Poets, can be
of no certain service in contested points of history. As a matter of fact, one
meets in their statements with frequent anachronisms and allusions to later
events, which of themselves would suffice to shake our faith in them as a sure
ground of historical evidence.1
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The concluding pages of Sprenger's
essay are devoted to general considerations of much interest. He traces an
essential element of early Moslem literature to the proud supremacy of Islam;
and illustrates the position by the analogy of the English in India. He says:—
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One must live and labour in India to know what grand aspirations this feeling
of supremacy gives birth to. The heroic defence of Lucknow, and the daring
siege of Dehli in 1857, prove to what a pitch of greatness such influences
lead. The pride of belonging to the dominant nation makes every man a hero;
and, even in the domain of mind, produces, under such circumstances, the
elements of greatness. In the days of Muâvia, the finest provinces of the
world, yielding a revenue of forty millions sterling, were at the feet of the
conquering race. All non-Moslems were their slaves. And it was this that
moulded the heroic character of the Mahometan world.
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Supremacy begat assurance. But
notwithstanding the nobility of sentiment thus produced, the Moslem world
never rose above the rank of the barbarian. One must not mistake ability in
practical life, and the natural products of Fancy in the province of
speculation and religion, for the cultivation of Reason. Resembling other
people of the age, the Mahometans altogether failed in the faculty of
Observation, and the inductive exercise of the Reason. Like children,
Imagination had the sway over them, and the more the spiritual life wrought
in them, the more phantasy obtained the mastery over sound reason: for, the
overweening assurance with which they aspired to the highest regions of
science was based neither on true knowledge nor on the cultivation of the
understanding, and attained to no other result than the bold imagery of an
unbridled imagination,—inventions and lies. Excepting momentary displays
of nobility and self-abnegation, it entirely failed in imparting Humanity,
and the sense of Truth and Right.
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