his own option whether he should listen to it or not; and the complainant had very little chance of relief, for the oppressor was often the landlord's servant, and the plunderer, even if they took the trouble to trace him, would not find it difficult to make friends with his captors.'

Mr. Hunter himself then continues:

The truth is that under the Muhammadans government was an engine for enriching the few, not for protecting the many. It never seems to have touched the hearts or moved the consciences of the rulers that a vast population of husbandmen was set toiling barebacked in the heat of summer and in the rain of autumn, in order that a few families in each district might lead lives of luxurious ease.' And just, too, as the Turks are wont to employ the most unprincipled and rapacious among the Christians as their taxgatherers, so the Mussulmans of India employed Hindu bailiffs to deal directly with the peasantry as being more likely to know their ways, and thus be enabled to squeeze more out of them. The Hindus, in fact, formed a subordinate Revenue Service, and took their share of the profits before passing the collections on to their Muhammadan superiors. The latter, however, were responsible to the Emperor, and formed a very essential link in the Muhammadan fiscal system. They enforced the Land-Tax, not by any process of the Civil Courts, but by the sharp swords of troopers. Arrears were realised by quartering banditti upon a District, who harried the villages till the last penny was paid up.'

Mr. Hunter is also at direct issue with Sir George Campbell in regard to the question of Mussulman toleration in India. On so vast and populous a terri

CHAP. III.]

ITS INTOLERANCE.

217

tory it was necessary for the Mussulman minority to employ non-Mussulmans in the service of the State; but both in the civil and military services they gave them nothing but inferior posts. For some time after the country passed under our care the Mussulmans retained all the functions of government in their own hands. Mussulman collectors gathered the Land-Tax ; Mussulman Fanjdárs and Gháteváls officered the police. A great Mussulman department, with its headquarters in the Nizam's palace at Murshidabád, and a network of officials spreading over every district in the province, administered the Criminal Law. Mussulman jailors took bribes from, or starved at their discretion, the whole prison population of Bengal. Kázis or Muhammadan Doctors of Law sat in the Civil and Domestic Courts. Even when we attempted to do justice by means of trained English officers, the Muhammadan Law Doctors sat with them as their authorised advisers on points of law. The code of Islam remained the law of the land, and the whole ministerial and subordinate offices of Government continued the property of the Mussulmans.'

On the inveterate and unspeakable immorality which is invariably engendered by Islam Mr. Hunter is equally explicit. Fanaticism and impurity are invariable characteristics of Mahometanism when not under the control of a superior Power. When thus curbed the Mussulman submits to fate, and his fanaticism is only sporadical and occasional. But the impurity remains, though it be not flaunted so openly and defiantly. Colleges for Mussulman students are found to be dens of profligacy.' 'Not content with harbouring what Carlyle calls "the unmentionable women," says Mr. Hunter of the students in one of these colleges, they

6

sank into those more horrible crimes against nature which Christianity has extirpated from Europe, but which lurk in every great city of India."1

1 The Mussulmans of India, by W. W. Hunter, B.A. LL.D., of Her Majesty's Bengal Civil Service.

166, 204.

Pp. 160–1, 163–4,

CHAP. IV.] DR. BADGER ON ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. 219

CHAPTER IV.

DR. BADGER ON ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY.

I MUST now notice an argument on the other side, advanced by a gentleman who undoubtedly has a right to speak. In the Pall Mall Gazette of the 18th of last December there appeared a long letter headed 'Islam and Christianity in the East,' and bearing the signature of George Percy Badger.' The writer began by explaining that he had no predilection whatever for the Turk as the representative of the existing Ottoman Empire,' and that he 'entertained no sympathy whatever for the political system of Islam, even apart from its peculiar religious dogmas.' Having made these 'personal statements,' the author proceeds to develop his thesis. He finds the minds of a large section of the English people' possessed by an entirely erroneous idea, namely, that Islam teaches intolerance towards all those who are without its fold; hence the Turks, being followers of Islam, persecute their Christian subjects.' He assumes a very wide concession indeed that those sympathizers are well acquainted with the doctrines of Islam;' and he asks them how it comes to pass that this religion even at the outset made such rapid progress in the East, and has continued to prevail and to advance with such steady strides.' Let me say, in passing, that I see nothing extraordinary in the

assures us.

rapid spread of Islam in the beginning of its career, considering the circumstances of the time and the means employed; and that I dispute the correctness of the assertion implied in the second part of the question. I find no evidence that Islam continues to prevail and to advance with such steady strides' as Dr. Badger But this by the way. Dr. Badger answers his own question, and his explanation is that the Christianity which Mahomet found existing in the world was so corrupt and idolatrous that mankind, including large portions of Christendom, welcomed the religion of Mahomet in preference to that of Christ. Dr. Badger founds this theory on the portrait given of' Christianity by Dr. White1 in his famous Bampton

The author of the 'famous Bampton Lecture in 1788' was not Dr. White, though he delivered it and published it afterwards under his name. The lectures were chiefly written by a Mr. Badcock, then a Dissenting minister, and afterwards a clergyman of the Church of England. Dr. White, who was Professor of Arabic at Oxford, agreed to pay Mr. Badcock 500l. for the MS. Mr. Badcock died soon afterwards, and on his sister presenting Mr. White's bond for payment, the latter, with equal folly and immorality, refused to redeem his promise. This led to the affair being published, when the celebrated Dr. Parr immediately laid claim to the most brilliant parts of the volume. The matter was then referred to arbitration; but that also came to a ludicrous termination on the discovery by one of the arbitrators, Dr. Parsons, of Balliol, that he too had a very considerable right of property' in the lectures. A similar claim was made by a Dr. Gabriel, of Bath. The upshot of the whole imbroglio was of course the utter collapse of Dr. White's short-lived reputation. Gibbon, naturally enough, went out of his way to praise the 'elegant and ingenious' fraud of the Arabic Professor (vol. iv. p. 187, Milman's edition). The fraud had not then been discovered, and the chief recommendation of the work in Gibbon's mind was doubtless its apology for Mahomet at the expense of the Christianity of the day. After all, it was perhaps not very unnatural that one Arabic impostor should have felt himself drawn to become the apologist of another.

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