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ABSTRACT
Contemporary critiques of Islam and Judaism as political religions have a genealogical connection with older Protestant arguments that religion ought to remain apolitical. At the end of the seventeenth century in England, drawing on older polemics against Muhammad, the theologian Humphrey Prideaux argued that Islam, like Roman Catholicism, was an ‘imposture’ because it failed to maintain a distinction between religion and politics. The true Gospel introduced a separation between these domains but was misunderstood by the Jews, who expected the Messiah to restore them to national sovereignty. By recovering the role such arguments played in the development of ideas of religious freedom, Yelle’s aim is to show that secularism is not non-religious nor religiously neutral, but a doctrine that has privileged certain interpretations of Christianity in the context of interreligious debates.
Notes
1 Robert A. Yelle, ‘Moses’ veil: secularization as Christian myth’, in Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Robert A. Yelle and Mateo Taussig-Rubbo (eds), After Secular Law (Stanford, CA: Stanford Law Books 2011), 23–42; Robert A. Yelle, ‘Imagining the Hebrew republic: Christian genealogies of religious freedom’, in Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood and Peter G. Danchin (eds), Politics of Religious Freedom (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 2015), 17–28. A recent and, to my mind, persuasive historical argument that freedom of religion emerged from the Protestant Reformation may be found in Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Dissenting Protestants and the Separation of Church and State (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012).
2 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government and A Letter concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press 2003), 239.
3 ‘The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.’ (ibid., 219).
4 [Thomas Morgan], A Brief Examination of the Rev. Mr. Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses (London: Printed by T. Cox 1742), 75–6, 81, also 124, 127–8. Morgan echoes Locke’s definition of religion as an ‘inward persuasion’. See discussion later in this article.
5 Martin Luther, ‘The freedom of a Christian’, trans. from the German by W. A. Lambert and Harold J. Grimm, in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, vol. 2 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press 2007), 20.
6 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West, trans. from the German and ed. Stephen Kalberg, 4th edn (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009), 107.
7 Immanuel Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius 1793), 176.
8 This reflects the older classification of all religions into four categories: Christianity, Judaism, Mahometanism/Mohammedanism and Paganism (or Idolatry). For the classification, see Jonathan Z. Smith, ‘Religion, religions, religious’, in Jonathan Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religions (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 2004), 179–96; see also Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press 2005). Among the texts that I reviewed, the only two that used ‘Islam’ were Henry Stubbe, Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam: The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism, ed. and introd. Nabil Matar (New York and Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press 2014), 10 (editor's introduction); and the English translation of Henri de Boulainvilliers, The Life of Mahomet (London: W. Hinchliffe 1731), 31: ‘Islam or Islamism’. In my own exposition later, I will generally follow the spelling of the name of the Prophet and of the tradition that he founded as these are given in the text under discussion; this highlights the fact that we are dealing with different versions of a fictional trope, rather than with historical realities.
9 See Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 1960), 188–91; Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100–1450 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2009), 227–8, 257–9; and Minou Reeves, Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making (New York: New York University Press 2000), 4: ‘For the medieval cleric and scholar, nourished on the core doctrines of Christianity—the separation of spiritual and temporal power, the notion of Christ’s Kingdom as ‘not of this world’, the virtues of celibacy—Muhammad’s example was contrary to all patterns of behavior associated with religious devotion.’
10 Edward W. Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (New York: Pantheon 1978).
11 Gil Anidjar, ‘Secularism’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 33, no. 1, 2006, 52–77.
12 Sharmin Sadequee, ‘Surveillance, secular law, and the reconstruction of Islam in the United States’, Surveillance & Society, vol. 16, no. 4, 2018, 473–87 (475–6).
13 Hrafnkell Haraldsson, ‘Michael Flynn called Islam a “political ideology” hiding behind “being a religion”’, PoliticusUSA, 19 November 2016, available at www.politicususa.com/2016/11/19/michael-flynn-called-islam-a-political-ideology-hiding-being-religion.html (viewed 28 January 2020).
14 Ramsey, quoted in Eric Schelzig, ‘Tenn. gov hopeful questions if Islam is a “cult”’, Seattle Times, 27 July 2010, available online at www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/tenn-gov-hopeful-questions-if-islam-is-a-cult (viewed 28 January 2020).
15 On the history of this term as applied to Islam, see Matthew Dimmock, Mythologies of the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern English Culture (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013), 170–82.
16 John Toland, Nazarenus: Or, Jewish, Gentile, and Mahometan Christianity (London: Printed by J. Brown, J. Roberts and J. Brotherton 1718).
17 Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Faith, reason and the university: memories and reflections’, speech given at Regensburg University, 12 September 2006, available on the Vatican website at http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html (viewed 29 January 2020).
18 ‘He [Mohammed] did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.’ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles. Book One: God, trans. from the Latin by Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press 1975), 73 (ch. 16, art. 4). See also Daniel, Islam and the West, 123–7; and David A. Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions: Comparative Religion in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain (Manchester and Dover, NH: Manchester University Press 1984), 103.
19 I have consulted, in addition to those works noted earlier, the following surveys of European attitudes towards Muslims: John V. Tolan, Sons of Ishmael: Muslims through European Eyes in the Middle Ages (Gainesville: University Press of Florida 2008); Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain 1558–1685 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 1998); G. J. Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning: The Study of Arabic in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996); Kecia Ali, The Lives of Muhammad (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2014); and Alexander Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2018).
20 Anonymous, Here after Followeth a Lytell Treatyse agaynst Mahumet and His Cursed Secte (London: Printed by Peter Treuerys, c.1530), ff. viii, ix.
21 Ibid., f. viii.
22 Ibid., f. vii.
23 Ibid., f. xxv.
24 William Bedwell, Mohammedis Imposturæ (London: Printed by Richard Field 1615), 63.
25 Ibid., 59, see also 72.
26 The Mahumetane or Turkish Historie, trans. from the French and Italian by Robert Carr (London: Printed by Thomas Este 1600).
27 Ibid., 113–15.
28 Ibid., 114–16.
29 Ibid., 117.
30 Ibid., 120–1.
31 Juan Andrés, The Confusion of Muhamed’s Sect, or a Confutation of the Turkish Alcoran, trans. from the Spanish by I. N. [Joshua Notstock] (London: Printed for H. Drummond 1652), 217, 220.
32 Ibid., 221.
33 Ibid., 214–15, see also 221.
34 Ibid., 225.
35 Ibid., 208 (italics in the original).
36 Lancelot Addison, The First State of Mahumedism: Or, an Account of the Author and Doctrines of That Imposture (London: William Crooke 1679).
37 Lancelot Addison, The Present State of the Jews (London: William Crooke 1675).
38 Ibid., 3.
39 Ibid., 8–9.
40 Henry Stubbe argued that this interpretation of the Shiloh prophecy was an innovation of Kabbalists, and that there is no evidence that Jews harboured such an idea until after Antiochus Epiphanes. On the other hand, he claimed that not only Jews but also early Christians believed that the Messiah would unite the peoples in one monarchy. Stubbe, Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam, 71–2, 77.
41 Matar, Islam in Britain, 168–76, notes the substantial minority of Christians of the opinion that the end times would see a restoration of the Jewish kingdom in Palestine.
42 Humphrey Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet: With a Discourse Annexed, for the Vindicating of Christianity from this Charge; Offered to the Consideration of the Deists of the Present Age, 2nd edn (London: Printed for William Rogers 1697). The first edition appeared earlier the same year. For other readings of Prideaux, see Daniel, Islam in the West, 85, 286; Pailin, Attitudes to Other Religions, 204–9; Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning, 289–92; Tolan, Sons of Ishmael, 33; Reeves, Muhammad in Europe, 159–60; Dimmock, Mythologies of the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern English Culture, 180–2; Ali, Lives of Muhammad, 35–6; and Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters, 76, 90, 93–4, 104. None of these scholars has focused on the aspect of Prideaux’s work analysed here.
43 Humphrey Prideaux, The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, 4th edn, 2 vols (London: Printed for R. Knaplock and J. Tonson 1718). The first edition was published in 1716–18.
44 Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet, 32–3, 16–17.
45 Ibid., 25.
46 Ibid., 149.
47 Ibid., 116–17. A close paraphrase of this passage can be found in ‘The life and actions of Mahomet’, the Prefix to Four Treatises concerning the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of the Mahometans . . . To which is prefix’d The Life and Actions of Mahomet (London: Printed by J. Darby 1712), 69–70. Henry Stubbe says that Muhammad established at Medina a ‘prophetical monarchy’ (Stubbe, Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam, 131). For contemporary echoes of the idea that Muhammad in Medina combined religious and political roles, see Reeves, Muhammad in Europe, 31, 283 (quoting Rudi Paret); and Ali, Lives of Muhammad, 79: ‘In Medina, Muhammad was not only a prophet but also—and in some contexts, primarily—a community leader and military commander.’
48 See especially the distinction between God and Caesar at Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Romans 13.
49 Gelasius I, Duo Sunt, 494 ce.
50 For the use of this example by Hobbes and others in the seventeenth century, see Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2010), 23–56.
51 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett 1994), chap. 29, §15 (‘ghostly authority’), chap. 47, §21 (‘. . . the Papacy, is no other, than the Ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof’).
52 Ibid., chap. 39, §5.
53 Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet, 16.
54 See also Matar, Islam in Britain, 154; Dimmock, Mythologies of the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern English Culture, 173; and Ali, Lives of Muhammad, 31.
55 Prideaux, ‘Letter to the Deists’, 7, in Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet.
56 Ibid., 14–15, see also 23–4.
57 Ibid., 16.
58 Ibid., 23, see also 29: ‘the Glory of his Kingdom should chiefly consist in the Perfection of its Observance, and the exact Performance of the Worship it prescrib’d . . .’
59 Ibid., 18.
60 Ibid., 23–4.
61 Ibid., 31.
62 Ibid., 27–8.
63 Ibid., 131.
64 On Williams, see Yelle, ‘Moses’ veil’, 30–1.
65 Prideaux, The Old and New Testament Connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations, vol. 2, 549–53.
66 Ibid., vol. 2, 662–3.
67 Prideaux notes that Josephus’s account of the Jews’ expectation before Christ of a worldly Messiah, and their persistence in adhering to that expectation after Christ (ibid., vol. 2, 633–4).
68 Ibid., vol. 2, 663.
69 Prideaux, ‘Letter to the Deists’, 131, in Prideaux, The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet.
70 Henry Stubbe, a contemporary of Prideaux, whose much more favourable account of Islam circulated in manuscript during his lifetime, pointed out that, although Islam had conquered an empire through violence, this empire had allowed much greater toleration to religious minorities. Stubbe, Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam, 44, 177–9. The editor, Nabil Matar, notes in his introduction (45) that John Locke, who corresponded with Stubbe, later advocated the toleration of Muslims in Christian Europe.
71 The phrase ‘by fire and by his sword’ appears in Isaiah 66: 16 in reference to the Lord’s vengeance against evil-doers and idolaters. This suggests that, in using the phrase, Locke and Prideaux may have been condemning the religious intolerance of the ancient Hebrews. Thanks to Catarina Panunzio for pointing me to this scriptural passage.
72 William Hurd, New Universal History of the Religious Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs of the Whole World (London: Alexander Hogg 1788), for example, paraphrasing Prideaux’s parallel between Mahomet and the Pope as having claimed sovereignty at the same time (313); or echoing the latter’s claim that in the ‘Torrid Zone’ men are more lecherous (314).
73 Ibid., 13.
74 Ibid., 22.
75 Ibid., 24.
76 A Comprehensive View of the Various Controversies among Pagans, Mahometans, Jews, and Christians (Edinburgh 1785), 51.
77 Ibid., 55.
78 Ibid., 73.
79 Ibid., 294.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid., 295–6.
82 John 18: 36 (RSV). A series of other authors followed Prideaux in making this argument. See, e.g., Excellency of the Christian Religion above the Pagan and Mahometan (Aberdeen 1737), 17–20, 111; Richard Lewis, Excellency of the Christian System Demonstrated, 2nd edn (London: Printed for J. Robinson and B. Law 1754), 17–20; Nathan Alcock, The Rise of Mahomet, Accounted for on Natural and Civil Principles (London: Printed for G. Sael 1796), 20–2, 32–3; and Voltaire, Mahomet the Impostor: A Tragedy (Edinburgh: Printed for A. Donaldson 1759), Prologue.
83 See Dimmock, Mythologies of the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern English Culture, 179.
84 The Three Impostors, trans. from the French by Alcofribas Nasier (Privately printed 1904), 77, see also 78 and 91.
85 Zelim Musulman [i.e. Alberto Radicati di Passerano], A Parallel between Muhamed and Sosem (London 1732), 44–6.
86 Thomas Morgan, The Moral Philosopher, vol. 2 (London 1739), 265.
87 Thomas Morgan, The Moral Philosopher, vol. 1 (London 1738), 349ff.
88 Ibid., 354.
89 Ibid., 359–61.
90 2 Corinthians 3: 6.
91 Romans, passim.
92 Morgan, The Moral Philosopher, vol. 1, 374.
93 Ibid., 416.
94 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols (London: Printed by W. Strahan and T. Cadell 1776–89), vol. 5, ch. 50. On Gibbon’s approach to Islam, see Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters, 187–99.
95 Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters, 197–9.
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Robert A. Yelle
Robert A. Yelle is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies with a focus on Theory and Method in the Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Email: [email protected]