and expansive character of their system was sufficiently marked to attract the notice of Mr. Park. "In the negro country," observes that celebrated traveler, "the Mohammedan religion. has made, and continues to make, considerable progress.' "The yearning of the native African," says Professor Crummel, “for a higher religion, is illustrated by the singular fact that Mohammedanism is rapidly and peaceably spreading all through the tribes of Western Africa, even to the Christian settlements of Liberia." * From Senegal to Lagos, over two thousand miles, there is scarcely an important town on the sea-board where there are not at least one mosque and active representatives of Islam, often side by side with the Christian teacher. And as soon as a pagan, however obscure or degraded, embraces the. Moslem faith, he is at once admitted as an equal to their society. Slavery and the slave-trade are laudable institutions provided the slaves are Kafirs. The slave who embraces Islam is free, and no office is closed against him on account of servile blood. The pagan village possessing a Mussulman teacher is always found to be in advance of its neighbors in all the elements of civilization. The people pay great deference to him. He instructs their children, and professes to be the medium between them and heaven, either for securing a supply of their necessities, or for warding off or removing calamities. It must be borne in mind that people in the state of barbarism in which the pagan tribes are usually found have no proper conceptions of humanity and its capacities. The man, therefore, who by unusual strength or cunning achieves something which no one had achieved before him, or of which they do not understand the process, is exalted into an extraordinary being, in close intimacy with the mysterious powers of nature. The Mohammedan, then, who enters a pagan village with his books and papers and rosaries, his frequent ablutions and regularly recurring times of prayers and prostrations, in which he appears to be conversing with some invisible being, soon acquires a controlling influence over the people. He secures their moral confidence and respect, and they bring to him all their difficulties for solution and all their grievances for redress. To the African Mussulman, innocent of the intellectual and scientific progress of other portions of the world, the Koran is *"Future of Africa," page 305. all-sufficient for his moral, intellectual, social, and political needs. It contains his whole religion and a great deal besides. It is to him far more than it is to the Turk or Egyptian upon whom the light of European civilization has fallen. It is his code of laws and his creed, his homily and his liturgy. He consults it for direction on every possible subject; and his pagan neighbor, seeing such veneration paid to the book, conceives even more exaggerated notions of its character. The latter looks upon it as a great medical repository, teaching the art of healing diseases, and as a wonderful storehouse of charms and divining power, protecting from dangers and foretelling future events. And though the prognostications of his Moslem prophet are often of the nature of vaticinia post eventum, yet his faith remains unshaken in the infallibility of "Alkorana." He, therefore, never fails to resort in times of extremity to the Mohammedan for direction, and pays him for charms against evil. These charms are nothing more than passages from the Koran written on slips of paper and inclosed in leather cases about two or three inches square-after the manner of the Jewish phylactery-and worn about the neck or wrist. The passages usually written are the last two chapters of the Koran, known as the " Chapters of Refuge," because they begin, "Say, I take refuge," etc. In cases of internal complaints one or both of these chapters are written on certain leaves, of which a strong decoction is made, and the water administered to the patient. We have seen these two chapters written inside a bowl at Alexandria for medicinal purposes. The Moslems themselves wear constantly about their persons certain texts from the Koran called Ayát-el-hifz, verses of protection or preservation, which are supposed to keep away every species of misfortune. The following are in most common use: "God is the best protector, and he is the most merciful of those who show mercy." (Sura xii, 64.) "And God compasseth them behind. Verily it is a glorious Koran, written on a preserved tablet," (Sura lxxxv, 20.) Sometimes they have the following rhymed couplet : Bismi illahi arrahman, arrahim Auzu billahi min es-Shaytan arrajim.* In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, This couplet is also employed whenever they are about to commence reading the Koran, as a protection against the suggestions of Satan, who is supposed to be ever on the alert to whisper erroneous and hurtful constructions to the devout reader. The Koran is almost always in their hand. It seems to be their labor and their relaxation to pore over its pages. They love to read and recite it aloud for hours together. They seem to possess an enthusiastic appreciation of the rhythmical harmony in which it is written. But we cannot attribute its power over them altogether to the jingling sounds, word-plays, and refrains in which it abounds. These, it is true, please the car and amuse the fancy, especially of the uncultivated. But there is something higher, of which these rhymning lines are the vehicle; something possessing a deeper power to rouse the imagination, mold the feelings, and generate action. Mr. Gibbon has characterized the Koran as a "tissue of incoherent rhapsodies." But the author of the "Decline and Fall" was, as he himself acknowledges, ignorant of the Arabic language, and therefore incompetent to pronounce an authoritative judgment. Mr. Hallam, in a more appreciative vein, speaks of it as "a book confessedly written with much elegance and purity," containing "just and elevated notions of the divine nature and moral duties, the gold ore that pervades the dross." The historian of the "Middle Ages," a most conscientious investigator, had probably read the book in the original-had been charmed with its sense as well as its sound. Only they who read it in the language of the Arabian author can form any thing like an accurate idea of its unapproachable place as a power among unevangelized communities for molding into the most exciting and the most expressive harmonies the feelings and imaginations. Says a recent able and learned critic: The Koran suffers more than any other book we think of by a translation, however masterly. The grandeur of the Koran consists, its contents apart, in its diction. We cannot explain the peculiarly dignified, impressive, sonorous mixture of Semitic sound and parlance; its sesquipedalia verba, with their crowd of prefixes and affixes, each of them affirming its own position, while consciously bearing upon and influencing the central root, which they envelop "Middle Ages," chap. vi. *Chap. 1. like a garment of many folds, or as chosen courtiers move round the anointed person of the king.* The African Moslem forms no exception among the adherents of Islam in his appreciation of the sacred book. It is studied with as much enthusiasm at Boporo, Misadu, Medina, Kankan,† as at Cairo, Alexandria, or Bagdad. In traveling in the exterior of Liberia we have met ulemas, or learned men, who could reproduce from memory any chapter of the Koran, with its vowels and dots and other grammatical marks. The boys under their instruction are kept at the study of the books for years. First they are taught the letters and vowel marks, then they are taught to read the text without receiving any insight into its meaning. When they can read fluently they are taught the meaning of the words, which they commit carefully to memory; after which they are instructed in what they call the "Jatali," a running commentary on the Koran. While learning the Jatali they have side studies assigned them in Arabic manuscripts, containing the mystical traditions, the acts of Mohammed, the duties of fasting, prayer, alms, corporal purification, etc. Young men who intend to be enrolled among the ulemas take up history and chronology, on which they have some fragmentary manuscripts. Before a student is admitted to the ranks of the learned he must pass an examination, usually lasting seven days, conducted by a Board consisting of imáms and ulemas. If he is successful, he is led around the town on horseback with instrumental music and singing. The following ditty is usually sung: Allahumma, ya Rabbee Salla ala Mohammade, Salla Allahu alayhe wa Sallama. § After which the candidate is presented with a sash or scarf, usually of fine white cloth of native manufacture, which he is thenceforth permitted to wind round his cap, with one end hanging down the back, forming the Oriental turban. This is * Emanuel Deutsch, in the Quarterly Review (London) for October, 1869. + Mohammedan towns, from seventy-five to three hundred miles east and northeast of Monrovia. The student at this stage is called tālib, that is, one who seeks knowledge. SO God, my Lord, bless Mohammed! God bless him and grant him peace! a sort of Bachelor of Arts diploma. The men who wear turbans have read and recited the Koran through many hundred times; and you can refer to no passage which they cannot readily find in their apparently confused manuscripts of loose leaves and pages, distinguished not by numbers, but by catch words at the bottom. Carlyle tells us that he has heard of Mohammedan doctors who had read the Koran seventy thousand times. Many such animated and moving concordances to the Koran may doubtless be found in Central and West Africa. But the Koran is not the only book they read. We have seen in some of their libraries extensive manuscripts in poetry and prose. One showed us at Boporo the Makamat of Hariri, which he read and expounded with great readiness, and seemed surprised that we had heard of it. And it is not to be doubted that some valuable Arabic manuscripts may yet be found in the heart of Africa. Dr. Barth tells us that he saw in Central Africa a manuscript of those portions of Aristotle and Plato which had been translated into Arabic, and that an Arabic version of Hippocrates was extremely valued. The splendid voweled edition of the New Testament and Psalms recently issued by the American Bible Society, and of which, through the kindness of friends in New York, we have been enabled to distribute a few copies among them, is highly prized. We have collected in our visits to Mohammedan towns a number of interesting manuscripts, original and extracted. We will here give two or three specimens as translated by us. We should be glad if we could transfer to these pages the elegant and ornamental chirography of the original. The first is from a talismanic paper written at Futa Jallon, copies of which are sold to the credulous as means of warding off evil from individuals and communities, to be employed especially during seasons of epidemics. It is as follows: In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. O God, bless Mohammed and save him, the seal of the prophets and the imam of the apostles, beloved of the "Lord of worlds! ” After the above is the conveying of health, and the completing of salutation and honor. * "Heroes and Hero Worship," p. 80. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXIII.-5 |