CHAPTER IV. RISE AND PROGRESS OF MAHOMEDANISM, AND ITS A. D. 606. progress of medans, the Maho who mono Indian 1. ABOUT a century after the voyage of Cosmas, India was closed against the Greeks and Romans, Rise and in consequence of the extensive dominion which the Mahomedans then acquired in the East. In the year 608, Mahomet, the Arabian impos- polize and tor, began to put forth his pretensions as, The extend the Prophet of God. He recommended himself trade. and his cause to the wild marauders of Arabia, by the prospect of plunder in this world, and of sensual indulgence in the next. Such promises easily induced those barbarians to leave their secluded haunts and barren desert, and to sally forth under their martial prophet to the work of desolation. They rushed on in one tide of prosperity, as resistless as impetuous, until the Mahomedan creed and dominion were extended from the Atlantic to the very confines of China. Egypt was one of their earliest conquests, and they soon learned to appreciate the advantages of the commerce which had been so long carried on between that country and India. From this period the traders of Greece and other countries could in no way obtain the productions of India, except through the Arab merchants of Alexandria. The Mahomedans A. D. 640. CHAP. IV. were equally successful in Persia, where also the warlike Arab was soon transmuted into an enterprising merchant. Thus possessing the two great marts for Indian commodities, they were able to monopolize the trade; and they continued for many ages to carry it on with an energy not inferior to that which they had displayed in the march of conquest and devastation. The progress of their voyagers towards the East soon extended far beyond the Gulf of Siam, hitherto the boundary of European navigation. They became acquainted with Sumatra, and the other islands of the great Indian Archipelago, and advanced as far as the city of Canton in China. Nor are these discoveries to be considered as the effect of the enterprising curiosity of individuals; they were owing to a regular commerce carried on between the Persian Gulf and China, and all the intermediate countries. Many Mahomedans, imitating the example of the Persians described by Cosmas Indicopleustes, settled in India and the countries beyond. They were so numerous in the city of Canton, that the emperor (as the two Arabian authors quoted above relate) permitted them to have a cadi, or judge, of their own sect, who decided controversies among his countrymen according to their own laws, and presided in all the functions of religion. In other places proselytes were gained to the Mahomedan faith, and the Arabian language was understood and spoken in almost every sea-port of any consequence. Ships from China and different places of India traded in the Persian Gulf, and by the frequency of mutual intercourse, all the nations of the East became better acquainted with each other.1 1 "Ancient Accounts of India," &c. pp. 6, 7. E. Renau as 2. The review thus briefly taken of the rise and progress of that of that power which in after ages ruled over a vast proportion of the continent of Asia, should serve to keep the mind awake to the Divine Providence which never ceases to watch over the affairs of men, and to control their designs for the furtherance of His own purposes in the world.'"For," He hath declared, the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." And wherever His wisdom has ordained that His word shall visit a people, either to bless those who receive it, or to bear witness against those who reject it, His providence usually directs the sword of the warrior or the sail of the merchant to open a way for its passage and reception. A. D. 640. Manifesta tions of Di vine Provi dence. Asiatic 3. Mahomet found among the Arabs great Christians numbers who, having embraced the Christian pro- tolerated by fession under the leaders of different sects, had government. taken refuge within the borders of Arabia from Christians Persian cherish the dot's Note Q. See also Robertson's India, pp. 98-103, Indian with his Notes in the Appendix, 37, 38. During the middle ages, when Christendom was sunk in ignorance, literature was preserved from extinction, and even revived from the decline which had seized it, by the exertions of Mahomet's followers. The tenth century, which has been denominated the leaden age of Europe, was the golden age of Asia. (M'Crie's History of the Reformation in Spain, ch. ii). In confirmation of this remark we may refer to the fact, that history is indebted chiefly to the Arabian travellers whose writings we have referred to above, for all that is known of India about that period. 1 Isaiah lv. 10, 11. Church. CHAP. A. D. 660. Letter of Jesuyab, on the proscriptions of the imperial edicts. He was too consummate a politician not to discover and improve the opportunity thus afforded him of strengthening his cause. For this purpose he incorporated their several notions with his religion, and granted a free toleration to those Christians, "and especially the Nestorians," within his dominions who did not embrace his faith. For several ages this policy was pursued by the Mahomedan rulers in Asia; and while their merchants were busily engaged in commercial pursuits, their Christian subjects in Persia were no less active in cherishing the churches already planted in India, and in extending the knowledge of Christianity as far as they could reach. Their missionaries very soon followed the track of the enterprising trader, and their endeavours were crowned, both in India and China, with considerable success. 4. A letter is preserved by Asseman,2 written by Jesuyab, metropolitan of Mosul, who died the decline in the year of our Lord 660, from which it and Persian appears, that at that time the churches of India Churches in and Persia were in a declining state. This century. declension is attributed to the neglect of the of the Indian the seventh patriarch of Persia, and is thus described. "In your region, since you have refused to observe the canons of the church, the succession of the priesthood has been cut off from the people of India, &c." "It appears that the patriarch of Persia had refused to acknowledge the authority of that of Seleucia, asserting that the Christians of Persia and India were Christians of St. Thomas, and were therefore not at all subject to 'Sale's Koran, Pre. Dis. sec. 2nd. Asseman, Bib. Orien. Tom. iii. pt. ii. p. 94. Eus. Renaudot, Origin of Christianity in China, p. 111, &c. Ib. Tom. iii. pt. ii. p. 438. the followers of Mar' Moris, who is said to have propagated Christianity in Mesopotamia." 2 5. The allusion here made to St. Thomas suggests a recurrence to the subject, especially as this seems to be the most suitable place to introduce the characters who are thought to have given rise to the tradition of that Apostle's having preached in India. The whole story is supposed to be a fable invented by the Manichees, a heresy that owed its origin to Manes, who lived towards the close of the third century.3 His principal tenet was, the admission of two first causes independent of each other, whereby he endeavoured to account for the origin of evil. He is said to have sent one of his disciples, named Thomas, into India, to propagate his heresy. Jacobus Tollius suspected that this man was mistaken for the Apostle of that name. His suspicion is founded on the testimony of Theodoret, who relates the circumstance; and Tollius farther mentions an ancient tradition of the Malabar Christians, which makes mention of a certain magi1 who visited them from Persia, and to whom they gave the name Mannacavasser, This name, as is very reasonably conjectured, 1 Mar is a title still given to the Syrian Bishops, and is nearly equivalent to our word-Lord. 2 See "A brief History of the Syrian Churches in the South of India," drawn up by Professor Lee, for the Church Missionary Society, and published with their Seventeenth Report, Appendix IV. 3 Eusebius, Lib. vii. c. 31. Beausobre's Hist. of Manichees. It is worthy of remark, that the religion of the Magi had recently been revived in Persia. The heresies of Manes and Mazdak had occasioned such violent dissensions throughout the empire as to threaten it with destruction. To save his country, the emperor Anushirwan, on the death of his father, Khosrú Kobâd," put Mazdak to death, with all his followers, and the Manichees also, restoring the ancient Magian religion." (Sale's Koran, Pre. Dis. sect 2, p. 48.) |