-a very
keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of God;
and a very sharp perception of the politics of their day. Of these
elements, Mohammed's teaching possesses only the last.

MOHAMMED'S CONCEPTION OF GOD

His conception of God is essentially deistical. The intimate personal
communion, so characteristic of the Old Testament, is unknown and
unrealised: hence there is little, if anything, in his system that
tends to draw men nigh to God. Attempts to remedy this characteristic
defect have been vainly made by the dervish orders, which, while
acknowledging the claims of Mohammed and his book, have introduced
methods not sanctioned by the system, by which they attempt to find
the communion with the Unseen, for which their souls crave. These
methods are very much akin to the efforts of the devotees of Hinduism.
There is, therefore, lacking amongst Moslems that need which grows out
of personal relationship with the Divine--that need which leads to
moral transformation and spiritual intensity on the part of those who
enjoy such fellowship. The Creator exists apart from His handiwork. He
has predetermined the actions of men. They are destined to eternal
bliss or destruction by an Inflexible Will, so that there is no need
for Divine Interference in their affairs. "God is in His heaven, and
the world is working out its end according to His unalterable decree."

Because of this gross conception, Palgrave has designated the system
"The Pantheism of Force," and says:

"Immeasurably and eternally exalted above, and dissimilar from all
creatures, which he levelled before Him on one common plane of
instrumentality and inertness, God is One in the totality of
omnipotent and omnipresent action, which acknowledges no rule,
standard or limit, save His own sole and absolute will. He
communicates nothing to His creatures, for their seeming power and
act ever remain His alone, and in return He receives nothing from
them; for whatever they may be, that they are in Him, by Him, and
from Him only. And, secondly, no superiority, no distinction, no
pre-eminence, can be lawfully claimed by one creature ever its
fellow, in the utter equalisation of their unexceptional servitude
and abasement; all are alike tools of the one solitary Force which
employs them to crush or to benefit, to truth or to error, to
honour or shame, to happiness or misery, quit