From “Mohammedanism and Christianity.”

IT has often been said that a religion must be false which teaches what the Koran teaches about a future life. I do not think so. In every religion we must make allowances for anthropomorphic imagery, nor would it be possible to describe the happiness of Paradise except in analogy with human happiness. Why, then, exclude the greatest human happiness, companionship with friends, of either sex, if sex there be in the next world? Why assume the pharisaical mien of contempt for what has been our greatest blessing in this life, while yet we speak in very human imagery of the city of Holy Jerusalem, twelve thousand furlongs in length, in breadth and height, and the walls thereof one hundred and forty-four cubits, and the building of the wall of jasper and the city of pure gold, and the foundations of the wall garnished with all manner of precious stones, jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and amethyst? If such childish delights as that of women in certain so-called precious stones are admitted in the life to come, why should the higher joys of life be excluded from the joys of heaven? If Mohammed placed the loveliness of women above the loveliness of gold and amethyst, why should he be blamed for it? People seem to imagine that Mohammed knew no other joys of heaven, and represented Paradise as a kind of heavenly harem. Nothing can be more mistaken. In many places when he speaks of Paradise the presence of women is not even mentioned, and where they are mentioned, they are generally mentioned as wives or friends. Thus we read, “Verily the fellows of Paradise upon that day shall be employed in enjoyment, they and their wives, in shade upon thrones, reclining; therein they shall have fruits, and they shall have what they may call for, Peace, a speech from the merciful God.” Or, “For these shall enter Paradise, and shall not be wronged at all, gardens of Eden, which the Merciful has promised to his servants in the unseen; verily, this promise ever comes to pass.” Is it so very wrong, then, that saints are believed to enter Paradise with their wives, as when we read, “O my servants, enter ye into paradise, ye and your wives, happy”?

  In this and similar ways the pure happiness of the next life is described in the Koran, and if, in a few passages, not only wives but beautiful maidens also are mentioned among the joys of heaven, why should this rouse indignation? True, it shows a less spiritual conception of the life to come than a philosopher would sanction, but, however childish, there is nothing indelicate or impure in the description of the Houris.

  The charge of sensuality is a very serious charge in the Western world, and it is difficult for us to make allowances for the different views on the subject among Oriental people. From our point of view, Mohammed himself would certainly be called a sensualist. He sanctioned polygamy, and he even allowed himself a larger number of wives and slaves than to his followers. Mohammedans, however, as I was informed, take a different view. They admire him for having remained for twenty-five years faithful to one wife, a wife a good deal older than himself. They consider his marrying other wives as an act of benevolence, in granting them his protection while others were “averse from marrying orphan women.” Mohammedans look upon polygamy as a remedy for many social evils, and they are not far wrong. We must not forget that Mohammed had to give laws to barbarous and degenerate tribes, with whom a woman was no more than a chattel, carried off, like a camel or a horse, by whoever was strong enough to defy his rivals. In Arabia, as elsewhere, women were more numerous than men, and the only protection for a woman, particularly an orphan woman, was a husband. Much worse than polygamy was female slavery; still even that was better than what existed before.