sense would be found in the ranks of the anthropomorphists, who in this matter certainly have the letter of the Koran on their side. Far from it! Anthropomorphism is as repugnant to Ibn Hazm as to the Mutazilites; but he does not, like the rationalists, dispose of the hands and face and other members of God in the Koran as figures of speech; he undertakes by dictionary and grammar to prove that in the passages under dispute the words have a literal meaning altogether different from that in which the reader offhand takes them.

The triumph of the Asharite dogmatics in the West was a result of the conquests of the Almohad dynasty under Abd al-Mumin and his successors. The name of this dynasty is a Spanish corruption of the Arabic, al-Mowahhid, "Unitarian," a party, or sect, which made its creed and its battlecry the Tauhid, the assertion of the unity of God. The founder of this movement was Ibn Tumart, a Berber of the Masmudah tribe. He had studied in the East under Asharite teachers; and although the legends which bring him into personal connection with al-Ghazali are more than improbable, the influence of al-Ghazali's works is unquestionable. On his return to Morocco he found his first task in a reformation of the life of his countrymen, of which, to tell the truth, there was abundant need. The Mohammedanism of the Berbers was at best superficial; the laws of the Koran against intoxicating drinks were a dead letter; swine roamed the streets of the towns, and their flesh was eaten without scruple. Other customs of theirs were in equally plain violation of Mohammedan law. Among the ruling Almoravids the men habitually kept their faces carefully covered, while the women went unveiled, in disregard of the law which forbade one sex dressing like the other. Nor was he better satisfied with the religious notions of his countrymen. The jurists of the prevalent Malikite school insisted on the literal sense of the anthropomorphic expressions in the Koran and tradition, and the cautionary phrase, "in some inscrutable manner," with which 1 "Without thinking how"; see above, p. 424.

they were accustomed to qualify their assertions made little impression on the popular imagination, which was grossly materialistic. Against these "corporealists" Ibn Tumart made war without quarter. They were, in his eyes, infidels, and apostates from Islam. The watchword Tauhid meant for him, as it had done for the Mutazilites, not merely the unity of God, but his incorporeality, and in the creed which he drew up, and to which he required the confession of his followers, this is a fundamental article.1

On the question of the attributes Ibn Tumart departs from the position of al-Ashari and al-Ghazali, and agrees with Ibn Hazm, under whose influence on this point he manifestly stands, in denying the existence of eternal distinctions in the essence of the godhead. Like Ibn Hazm-and like al-Ghazali, though for a different reason--he was most hostile to the jurists, with their endless casuistry and superfœtation of "opinions," to the neglect of both the sources of law and its principles. Authority lay only in the Koran, the authentic traditions of the Prophet, and the consensus of the companions of the Prophet.2

Before long, however, the reformer took a higher flight. He came to believe himself the Mahdi, sent by God to restore decadent Islam, and to fill the world with righteousness as now it is filled with iniquity, in preparation for the hour of God's judgment.3 He made a collection of traditions concerning the signs of the last times and the character and work of the Mahdi, including certain alleged sayings of the Prophet which praised the people of the West and foretold the coming of the reformer from among them. It had long been a part of the common tradition that the Mahdi would have the same name and patronymic as the Prophet, Mohammed ibn Abdallah. So small a matter did not stand in Ibn Tumart's way; he simply assumed these 1 For this creed see Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. XLI, pp. 72 ƒ.

2 Not the consensus of the Moslem world, expressed in the agreement of the heads of schools, as in the ordinary interpretation of the principle.

See above, p. 434.

names, and found more easy credence because it was nothing uncommon for a Berber to have an Arabic name as well as a more familiar one in his native tongue. A genealogy was also worked out in which his lineage was traced back to Ali and Fatima.

The Shiite doctrine that the Mahdi was an infallible Imam, the last in a succession that began with Adam, was not unfamiliar in Morocco, where a Shiite dynasty had ruled for nearly two centuries.1 Ibn Tumart's second confession of faith was an Imamite creed, in which the mission and authority of the Imam were set forth in a most positive and circumstantial manner. He did not name himself in it, but every trait in the description tallied so well with his person that it had its intended effect when Abd alMumin and ten of his fellow disciples saluted him: "These signs and characteristics are to be found in thee alone. Thou art the Mahdi !"2

Before long he had a large following among the Berbers, with whom he had all the more success because his religious deliverances, his confessions of faith and exhortations, were made in their own tongue; he even introduced the innovation of causing the call to prayer to be made from the minarets of the mosques in Berber instead of Arabic. Presently he summoned the believers to a Holy War against the ruling dynasty of the Almoravids (al-Murabit), whom, for their false ideas of a corporeal God and their neglect of the religious law of Islam, he denounced as infidels, and their rulers as Antichrists. The first encounters went against the Mowahhids, and Ibn Tumart died (1128) without having seen the triumph of his cause.

Abd al-Mumin took up the unfinished work, and in the thirty-three years of his rule conquered Morocco and all Moslem Spain, putting an end to the Almoravid dynasty,

1 A. D. 788-985.

2 Compare Peter's confession at Cæsarea Philippi, Mark 8, 27-29. The name signified originally men who picket their horses on the frontier, that is to say, "Champions of the Faith."

and subjected, one after another, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, thus bringing all North Africa from the frontier of Egypt to the Atlantic under his sway. Abd al-Mumin had been a student of theology before he became the most famous general of his time, and his first successors, especially Mansur, the third of the line, were eminently learned in the science of tradition. Mansur is said to have made an auto da fé of the law-books; cases should be decided by direct appeal to the corpus of tradition, not by the opinions of the jurisconsults. Although the triumph of the Almohads was the triumph of a purer and a more spiritual theology, it does not appear that theological studies flourished much under their rule. Their times are made illustrious in philosophy by the names of Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tofail, Averroes, and of one of the greatest of the mystics, Ibn Arabi; but by no great theologian.

CHAPTER XXI

MOHAMMEDANISM

CREED, WORSHIP, MORALS

Essentials of Moslem Belief-Worship-The Fast of RamadanPilgrimage to Mecca-Survivals of Paganism-Worship of Saints -Doctrine of Salvation-Ethics and Morals-The FamilySlavery-Intoxicating Drinks-Piety-Dervish Orders.

THE obligations of the Moslem were early summed upprobably during Mohammed's years at Medina-under five heads: The Profession of Faith, Worship, the Payment of Poor-Rates, the Fast of Ramadan, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. The simple Profession of Faith is: "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah (the one true God), and that Mohammed is the Apostle of God." The first article, the confession of faith in the one God, is, in works on Moslem theology and books intended for the religious instruction of laymen, understood to include belief in the teachings of the Koran and traditions concerning the angels, the prophets and saints, the Scriptures, and the other life. In all these topics especial prominence is given to the points which had been denied or disputed in the period of the great controversies. It is commonly held to be incumbent on every Moslem to be acquainted with the fundamental articles of belief as they are contained in the creeds, and with the grounds on which they are believed. A mere implicit faith, which accepts these doctrines as a whole upon authority, without knowing in particular what they are or why they are held, is not sufficient. This was the position of al-Ashari, and may be regarded as an integral part of orthodoxy. Some, like Ibn Arabi and al-Sanusi, went so far as to hold that blind acceptance of the articles of belief without knowing the rational proof of them is unbelief.