http://fiqhcouncil.org/french-emperor-napoleon-bonapartes-islam/
“A poor Jew, who pretended to be descended from the royal house of David, after being long unknown in his own country, emerges from obscurity, and goes forth to make proselytes. He succeeded amongst some of the most ignorant part of the populace. To them he preached his doctrines, and taught them that he was the son of God, the deliverer of his oppressed nation, and the Messiah announced by the prophets. His disciples, being either imposters or themselves deceived, rendered a clamorous testimony of his power, and declared that his mission had been proved by miracles without number. The only prodigy that he was incapable of effecting, was that of convincing the Jews, who, far from being touched by his beneficent and marvelous works, caused him to suffer an ignominious death. Thus the Son of God died in the sight of all Jerusalem; but his followers declare that he was secretly resuscitated three days after his death. Visible to them alone, and invisible to the nation which he came to enlighten and convert to his doctrine, Jesus, after his resurrection, say they, conversed some time with his disciples, and then ascended into heaven, where, having again become the equal to God the Father, he shares with him the adorations and homages of the sectaries of his law. These sectaries, by accumulating superstitions, inventing impostures, and fabricating dogmas and mysteries, have, little by little, heaped up a distorted and unconnected system of religion which is called Christianity, after the name of Christ its founder.”The French Jacobins like their deists comrades believed that “Mahometans” were “closer to “the standard of reason” than the Christians…”Bonaparte’s personal deistic disposition and the overall French propensity towards hatred of organized Christianity and its irrational dogmas combined with simultaneous appreciation of Islamic rational monotheism and medieval Islamic civilization were truly at play in Egypt. The political expediency added to the already existent seeds of the French radical enlightenment and caused them to flourish in a congenial Muslim Egyptian environment. The French were not accepting a new religion. They were accepting a reformed version of their deeply held religious convictions, something already present in their religious outlook.Bonaparte dressed in Islamic attire, promoted Islamic art and sciences, and greatly emphasized the “affinity between the French egalitarian principles and Shari’a law. The political ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity was fused with a hermitically tinged Islamic messianism, which, in a time of change and uncertainty, temporarily served as the de facto state idiom of France between 1798 and 1999.”The Egyptian scholars, in their letter to the Sharif of Mecca and Madinah, wrote the following about Bonaparte. “He has assured us that he recognizes the unity of God, that the French honor our Prophet, as well as the Qur’an, and that they regard the Muslim religion as the best religion. The French have proved their love for Islam in freeing the Muslim prisoners detained in Malta, in destroying churches and breaking crosses in the city of Venice, and in pursuing the pope, who commanded the Christians to kill the Muslims and who had represented that act as a religious duty.” Napoleon’s public conversion to Islam was more significant for the Egyptians than any of his other policies.Napoleon’s conversion to Islam was highlighted by the known newspapers both in France and England. In England, the “Copies of Original Letters from the Army of General Bonaparte” was published in a total of eight editions to implicate “a Franco-Ottoman conspiracy to eradicate Christianity.” The publicity and importance given to Napoleon’s proclamation was geared towards “supplying indisputable evidence of French admiration of Islam”, and identifying a “Jacobin-Mahometan plot to undermine British national interests at home and abroad.” The alliance between the Islamic Egypt and French republicanism was the source of English paranoia that resulted in a grand scale polemical works against Islam culminating in a new biography of Muhammad, the professed model of Napoleon Bonaparte. Humphrey Prideux’s famous biography “The Life of Mahomet, or the history of that Imposter, which was begun, carried on, and finally established him in Arabia… To which is added, an account of Egypt” was published in London in the year 1799. The books multiple editions over a short span of time, the enthusiastic support it generated both from the Church of England and English monarchy and its widespread distribution over the European continent in different languages reflect the levels of anxiety, alarm, suspicion and fears caused by a perceived alliance between the Islamic and French republicanisms.“Although Bonaparte and his defender, Bourrienne, prefaced this account by saying that Bonaparte never converted, never went to mosque, and never prayed in the Muslim way, all of that is immaterial. It is quite clear that he was attempting to find a way for French deists to be declared Muslims for purposes of statecraft. This strategy is of a piece with the one used in his initial Arabic proclamation, in which he maintained that the French army, being without any particular religion and rejecting Trinitarianism, was already “muslim” with a small “m.” Islam was less important to him, of course, than legitimacy. Without legitimacy, the French could not hope to hold Egypt in the long run, and being declared some sort of strange Muslim was the shortcut that appealed to Bonaparte.”One can easily see that in conformity with the French Enlightenment ideals Napoleon truly believed that Prophet Muhammad’s concept of God was genuinely sublime and that the Prophet was a model lawmaker.“Arabia was idolatrous when Muhammad, seven centuries after Jesus Christ, introduced the cult of the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Moses and Jesus Christ. The Arians and other sects that had troubled the tranquility of the Orient had raised questions concerning the nature of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Muhammad declared that there was one unique God who had neither father nor son; that the trinity implied idolatry. He wrote on the frontispiece of the Qur’an: “There is no other god than God.”“I have dictated thirty pages on the world’s three religions; and I have read the Bible. My own opinion is made up. I do not think Jesus Christ ever existed. I would believe in the Christian religion if it dated from the beginning of the world. That Socrates, Plato, the Mohammedan, and all the English should be damned is too absurd.” Napoleon substantiated his claims by historical perspectives. “Did Jesus ever exist, or did he not? I think no contemporary historian has ever mentioned him; not even Josephus. Nor do they mention the darkness that covered the earth at the time of his death.” He claimed to have studied Josephus’ writings. Josephus was a Jewish historian of Jesus’ times. “I once found at Milan an original manuscript of the ‘Wars of the Jews’ in which Jesus is not mentioned. The Pope pressed me to give him this manuscript.” Here Napoleon insinuated a papal conspiracy to hide all historical evidences that went against the historical narrative of the Church.Napoleon believed that religion was necessary for law and order in a given society. “All religions since that of Jupiter inculcate morality.” He further stated that “Society needs a religion to establish and consolidate the relations of men with one another. It moves great forces; but is it good, or is it bad for a man to put himself entirely under the sway of a director? There are so many bad priests in the world.” That is why he did not abolish any religion from any country which he conquered. It seems that he outwardly showed respect to almost every faith tradition including the Catholics but inwardly despised Christianity due to his deistic notions of the divinity. The same reasons made him respect the rational monotheism of Islam.“The Mohammedan religion is the finest of all. In Egypt the sheiks greatly embarrassed me by asking what we meant when we said ‘the Son- of God.’ If we had three gods, we must be heathen.” He was a staunch admirer of Islamic morality which he considered a prerequisite to the wellbeing of all societies. “A man may have no religion, but may yet have morality. He must have morality for the sake of society.” The simple Islamic monotheism, its lack of burdensome ceremonies and strong emphasis upon morality were the keys to Napoleon’s admiration of Islam. “That is how men are imposed upon Jesus said he was the Son of God, and yet he was descended from David. I like the Mohammedan religion best. It has fewer incredible things in it than ours. The Turks call Christians idolaters.” While denying the biblical miracles attributed to Moses, Napoleon confirmed the historical miracle of Muhammad, the stunning victories and sweeping social changes in a short span of ten or so years.Napoleon was also impressed by certain aspects of the Islamic Shari’ah and intended to incorporate some of them into his “Napoleon Code”. John Tolan observes that Napoleon was “ready to excuse, even to praise, parts of Muslim law that had been objects of countless polemics, including polygamy.” Napoleon argued that “Asia and Africa are inhabited by men of many colors: polygamy is the only efficient means of mixing them so that whites do not persecute the blacks, or blacks the whites. Polygamy has them born from the same mother or the same father; the black and the white, since they are brothers, sit together at the same table and see each other. Hence in the Orient no color pretends to be superior to another. But, to accomplish this, Muhammad thought that four wives were sufficient…. When we will wish, in our colonies, to give liberty to the blacks and to destroy color prejudice, the legislator will authorize polygamy.”The identification between Napoleon and Prophet Muhammad and the emphasis upon Muhammad the lawgiver perhaps played a role in Adolph A. Weinman’s visual expressions which decorate the main chamber of the U. S. Supreme Court. Weinman (December 11, 1870 – August 8, 1952), a German-born American sculptor, visualized the Prophet as one the great lawgivers of the world. He is one of the eighteen great conquerors, statesmen and lawgivers commemorated in a series that includes Moses, Confucius and Napoleon. Even though Muslims have a strong aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of the Prophet, they can still appreciate the impact of his legacy upon the legal and political traditions in the West.
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