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European Witness
Page 3
The New Testament advocates purity of life and even leans toward asceticism. Christ himself was unmarried and was of spotless purity. The Koran is sensual in its teachings, both as to this life and the life hereafter. It promises the true believer an allotment of paradisiacal females, when he arrives in the other world. What the relation of the earthly wives will be to this new group is more or less uncertain. This doctrine of the Koran throws the light very clearly on the contemptuous regard, in which woman is held by the followers of Mohammed.
Such a lofty, pure and beautiful Idyl, as the life and death of Lord Tennyson and his lady, is not possible to a creed of polygamy and heavenly houries. Heaven is thus described in the Koran:
"Therein shall receive them lovely damsels refraining their eyes from beholding any but their spouses, whom no man shall have touched before, neither any spirit (Jinn) and having complexions like rubies and pearls."
In connection with this, one must remember that Mohammedans hold the Koran in deep reverence and believe it literally. Among the great mass of them, there is not that advanced thought and development of education which might cause them to regard skeptically their sacred book, as is the case among Christians. When a Mohammedan dies on the field of battle he actually believes that he is going straight to a beautiful garden where a bevy of voluptuous females await him.
According to the Koran, divorce is easy and can be obtained by the husband simply proclaiming that he is weary of his spouse. The wife, on the other hand, can only obtain divorce for sufficient causes. In fact, matrimonial ties in Mohammedan countries are flimsy. No better example of the ease of Mohammedan divorce can be given, than that of Mustapha Khemal, the Turkish leader, and his wife. The American papers explained that Khemal himself pronounced the decree, his priestly functions enabling him so to do; but the fact is that divorce in Mohammedan countries is an extremely simple process for both high and low.
The Koran teaches non-indulgences in wine, and in general devout believers are absolutely tee-toddlers. The cultivation of grape and the making of wine does not prevail among the followers of Mohammed.
Circumcision, non-eating of pork, objection to statues and photographs, are all borrowed from the Old Testament, the last named from the commandment, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image.’’
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