Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam

The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism

Nabil Matar

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780231527361
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: European Medieval History

Henry Stubbe (1632–1676) was an extraordinary English scholar who challenged his contemporaries by writing about Islam as a monotheistic revelation in continuity with Judaism and Christianity. His major work, The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism, was the first English text to document the Prophet Muhammad's life positively, celebrate the Qur'an as a divine revelation, and praise the Muslim toleration of Christians, undermining a long legacy of European prejudice and hostility.

Nabil Matar, a leading scholar of Islamic-British relations, standardizes Stubbe's text and situates it within England's theological and intellectual climate in the seventeenth century. He shows how, to draw a historical portrait of Muhammad, Stubbe embraced travelogues, Latin commentaries, studies on Jewish customs and Scripture, and, most important, Arabic chronicles, many written by medieval Christian Arabs who had lived in the midst of the Islamic polity. No European writer before or for a long time after Stubbe produced anything similar to what he wrote about Muhammad the "great Prophet," Ali the "gallant" advocate, and the "standing miracle" of the Qur'an. Stubbe's book therefore makes a unique contribution to the study of the representation of Islam in Western thought.

The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism

HENRY STUBBE

INTEND TO WRITE of one of the greatest transactions the world hath ever yet been acquainted with: “The Original and Progress of Mahometanism,” wherein a new religion was introduced into the world to the desolation, in a manner, of paganism, Judaism and Christianity, which hath now maintained itself above a thousand years and has increased its extent and proselytes over more than a fifth part of the known earth. Whereas Judaism, including all its colonies, was never equal thereunto, nor perhaps Christianity itself, if we consider the condition of it either before Constantine, or even to the days of Theodosius (during all which time as the senate of Rome so the greatest part of the empire were pagans), or afterwards, when uniformity was settled.¹ But the inundation of the Arian Goths and the general irreligion, impiety, and division into sects, some whereof were idolaters, do not permit me to think that true and fervent Christianity was so far diffused as Mahometanism is at present.²

The same narration includes in it the rise of an empire greater than any of the four so famed monarchies, erected in a barren poor country in the midst of two potent princes, one reigning over the Eastern Christians, the other over the Persians: and all this to be brought about in the compass of a few years by a man of a mean estate, fiercely opposed, and slenderly befriended.³

By this time your curiosity prompts you to search after the physiognomy of this extraordinary person. This great soul was lodged in a body of a middle size: he was no giant nor did his stature equal that of an Almain Cimber whose bulk amazed the old Romans.⁴ He had a large head, a brown <2> complexion but fresh color, his beard long and black but not gray, a grave aspect wherein the awfulness of majesty seemed to be tempered with admirable sweetness which at once imprinted in the beholders respect, reverence, and love. His eyes were quick and sparkling. He had very handsome legs, an incomparable mien, easy motion and every action of his had a grace so peculiar that it was impossible to see him with indifference. The Arabians compare him to the purest streams of some river gently gliding along, which arrest and delight the eyes of every approaching passenger.⁵

Nothing was more mild than his speech, nothing more courteous and obliging than his carriage. He could dexterously accommodate himself to all ages, humors and degrees.⁶ He knew how to pay his submissions to the great without servility and to be complacent to the meaner sort without abasing himself. He had a ready wit, a penetrating and discerning judgment and such an elocution as no Arabian before or since hath ever equaled. When he pleased he could be facetious without prejudice to his grandeur: he perfectly understood the art of placing his favors aright. He could distinguish betwixt the deserts, the inclinations, and the interests of men; he could penetrate into their geniuses and intentions without employing vulgar espials or seeming himself to mind any such thing.

In fine, such was his whole deportment.

So was his natural freedom tempered with a befitting reservedness as instructed others not to importune him with unbecoming proposals, but never suffered any to understand what it was to be denied. Besides all those embellishments and qualifications, he had a great strength and agility of body, an indefatigable industry, an undaunted courage such as never forsook him in the greatest dangers. He was much addicted to ride the best and most warlike horses, <3> and since every action of great men is remarkable and often carries a presage of future accidents, I shall relate one. He being once mounted on a brave but unruly courser, his friends desired him to forsake his back; but whether it were that he duly apprehended his own skill and abilities, or his great spirit thought it more fitting to contemn than acknowledge a danger into which he had rashly engaged himself, he denied the request, adding that it became the timorous and effeminate to have their horses exactly managed for them: that a generous and true Arab could not be surprised with an untamed steed, that the intractableness of his horse added to his pleasure, as a storm delights an intelligent pilot since it gives him an occasion to discover that skill which could not be manifested otherwise, and rewards the danger and trouble by an accession of glory.

Behold the character of that man who hath gained so much upon the esteem of one part of the world and filled the rest with astonishment.

But to discover the means by which he achieved those great things is a matter of more difficulty, and in order thereto you must consider what it was that disposed the people to such a change and what gave beginning thereunto. Prudent persons distinguish cautiously betwixt those two circumstances and know that the bravest actions do frequently miscarry under very happy pretenses or beginnings, in case the antecedent causes be not proportionate to the design.⁷ Never any republic did dwindle into a monarchy or any kingdom alter into an aristocracy or commonweal without a series of preceding causes which principally contributed thereto.⁸ Never had Caesar established himself, nor Brutus erected a senate: and if you inquire why the first Brutus could expel Tarquin and the second could not overthrow Augustus and Antony;⁹ why Lycurgus, <4> Solon, and others could establish those governments which others have in vain attempted to settle in Genoa, Florence and other places, you will find it to arise from hence:¹⁰ that some considering those antecedent causes which secretly and securely incline to a change took the advantage thereof, whilst the others did only regard the speciousness or justice of their pretensions without a mature examination of what was principally to be observed.¹¹ This is certain: that when the previous dispositions intervene, a slight occasion, oftentimes a mere casualty, opportunity taken hold of and wisely prosecuted, will produce those revolutions which otherwise no human sagacity or courage could accomplish.¹²

I cannot find any authentic ground to believe that the sects among the Jews were more ancient than the days of the Maccabees, but arose after that Antiochus had subdued Jerusalem and reduced the generality of the Jews to paganism; and (the better to confirm his conquests) erected there an academy, placing the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Epicurean philosophers there. This I conceive to have been the original of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.¹³ Though afterwards, when the Maccabees had made an edict against and anathematized all that taught their children the Greek philosophy, one party did honest their tenets by entitling them to Sadoc and Baithos, and the others from a Cabbala derived from Eleazar and Moses successively.¹⁴

The introduction of those sects and of that Cabbala occasioned that exposition of the prophecy of Jacob (Genesis 49:20): “The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”¹⁵ From whence they did according to that fantastical Cabbala imagine that when so ever the scepter should depart from Judah and the dominion thereof cease, that then there should arise a Messiah of the line of David (this was no general opinion: for how then could any have imagined Herod the Great to have been the Messiah; and how could Josephus fix that character upon Vespasian) who should <5> restore the empire and glory of Israel, and all nations should bow and submit to his scepter?¹⁶

I do not read that the Jews harbored any such exposition during the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar; albeit that the scepter so departed at that time from the tribe of Judah and house of David that it never was resettled therein. After their return to Jerusalem, no such thing is spoken of when Antiochus Epiphanes subdued them, profaned their temple, destroyed their laws and rites, and left them nothing of a scepter or lawgiver—during all which time, although they had the same prophecies and scripture, there is no news of any expected Messiah.¹⁷ But after that, the curiosity of the rabbis involved them in the pursuance of mystical numbers, and Pythagorically or Cabbalistically to explain them, according to the Gematria.¹⁸ Then was discovered that Shiloh and Messiah consisted of letters which make up the same numerals, and therefore a mysterious promise of a redeemer was insinuated thereby. And the prophecy of Balaam (Numbers 24:17) concerning a star out of Jacob and a scepter rising out of Israel with a multitude of other predictions (which the condition of their nation made them otherwise to despair of) must be fulfilled under this Messiah.

I name no other prophesies because either they are general and indefinitely expressed as to the time of their accomplishment, or else inexplicable for obscurity and uncertain as to authority, as the weeks of Daniel, which book the Jews reckon among their hagiographa or sacred (but not canonical) books.¹⁹ And also this prophesy had a contradictory one (Jeremiah 22:30), where it is said of Coniah, no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah. And Ezekiel 22:26–27: “Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.”

The aforesaid obscure prophecy, which did not take effect at first until the reign of David, and which suffered such a variety <6> of interruptions, seems to have fallen under this interpretation in the days of Herod the Great, whom the Jews so hated for his usurpation upon the Maccabee Levitical family and his general cruelties; he was particularly detested by the Cabbalistical Pharisees. That to keep up their rancor against him and his lineage, and to alienate the people from him, I could easily imagine this to have been a contrivance, wither perhaps was Herod displeased with the interpretation of the prophesy after that the Herodians had accommodated it to him and made him the Messiah, who after their conquest and ignominy under Pompey,²⁰ had restored the Jews to a great reputation and strength, rebuilt the temple, and found some who could deduce his pedigree from the thigh of Jacob, as directly as David and Solomon. This sense of the prophecy being inculcated into the people, and all those Jews or strangers or proselytes, which resorted to Jerusalem at the great festivals from Alexandria, Antioch, Babylon, and all those parts where the Jews had any colonies, there was an universal expectation of the Messiah to come (I except the Herodians) which continued amongst them ever after and possesses the Jews (our Jews are but the remains of the Pharisees) to this day.²¹

Their impatience for his appearance seems to have been less under Herod the Great (there being no mention of false Messiahs then), perhaps because the prophecy was not so clear and convincing whilst Herod was king since the scepter and legislative power seemed to be still in Judea. Though swayed by an Idumean proselyte, the priesthood continued, the temple flourished, and there was a prince of the Sanhedrin, Rabbi Hillel of the lineage of David.²² But ten years after the birth of Christ, when Archelaus was banished to Vienna,²³ and Judea reduced into the form of a province, the scepter seemed then to be entirely departed from Judah. The kingdom was now become a part of the government of Syria and ruled by a procurator, who taxed them severely. Then the sense of their miseries made the people more credulous, and whether they more easily believed what they earnestly desired might happen, or that the malcontents did the more frequently and diligently insinuate into the multitude that opinion, there arose then sundry false Messiahs, and the world was big with expectation raised by the Jews in every country who had used the intelligence <7> from their common metropolis (Jerusalem) that the great prince was coming who should reestablish the Jewish monarchy and bring peace and happiness to all the earth.²⁴

Those circumstances made way for the reception of Christ, and the miracles he did (miracles were the only demonstration to the Jews, Mark 8:11). Convincing the people that he was the Messiah, they never stayed till he should declare himself to be so (I think he never directly told any so but the woman of Samaria, John 4:26) or evince his genealogy from David. For though some mean persons called him the Son of David, and the populace by that title did cry “Hosanna” unto him, yet did he acquiesce in terming himself the Son of Man, but esteemed him a prophet Elias, Jeremiah, and even the Messiah. And when he made his cavalcade upon an asinego, they cried him up as the descendant of King David. But his untimely apprehension and death, together with his neglect to improve that inclination of the people to make him king, did allay the affections of the Jews towards him, disappoint all their hopes, and so exasperated them that they, who had been a part of his retinue in that intrado of his, called for his execution and adjudged him by common suffrage to be crucified.²⁵ His disciples fled; the apostles distrusted and sufficiently testified their unbelief by not crediting his resurrection. After that he was risen again, and they, assured thereof, they assume their former hopes of a temporal Messiah, and the last question they propose to him is: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6).

After his assumption into heaven, they attend in Jerusalem the coming of the Holy Ghost which seized in them and gave them the gift of tongues for a season: whereby they preached to the Jews, Elamites, Parthians, Alexandrians et cetera (...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction The “Copernican Revolution” of Henry Stubbe
• The Printed and Manuscript Sources Editorial Policy
• The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index