Excerpt From Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
“Ah!' said the gentleman. 'A Turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven. Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!”
In this passage from Oliver Twist, Dickens uses sharp satire to attack religious hypocrisy, not to make a theological comparison between Islam and Christianity. The gentleman contrasts a “Turk” (a Muslim), who “turns his face, after washing it well, to the East” when he prays, with certain “good people” whom he compares to “Pharisees.” The Muslim is described as performing a clear, disciplined, and sincere ritual—washing and then facing a definite direction (Mecca, which lies east of England). This symbolizes order, intention, and authenticity. By contrast, the so-called pious Christians metaphorically “rub their faces against the World as to take the smiles off,” meaning they deliberately adopt a severe, joyless expression as if holiness requires visible gloom. Instead of turning toward light or hope, they turn to the “darkest side of Heaven,” an ironic phrase suggesting a religion focused on fear, judgment, severity, and moral superiority rather than mercy or joy. The term “Pharisee,” drawn from the New Testament portrayal of religious leaders criticized by Jesus for outward piety but inward hypocrisy, had come in Victorian England to mean someone self-righteous, legalistic, and spiritually insincere. Dickens’ final remark—“Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!”—is deliberately provocative to his Christian audience: he suggests that a sincere believer of another faith is morally preferable to a hypocritical adherent of one’s own. In the Victorian context, where church attendance was closely tied to social respectability and where strands of Evangelical seriousness emphasized sin, discipline, and visible moral austerity, Dickens frequently criticized forms of religion that were cold, judgmental, and indifferent to suffering—especially the suffering of the poor and children, a central concern of Oliver Twist. He was not anti-religion; rather, he believed deeply in Christian ethics of charity, kindness, and compassion, and he objected to institutions and individuals who performed religiosity while lacking humanity. The Muslim in this comparison functions symbolically as a figure of straightforward devotional sincerity, while the Pharisee represents performative piety and moral pride. Through irony and contrast, Dickens advances a broader moral principle that runs throughout his work: authenticity is superior to religious label, inward goodness is superior to outward display, and true faith should produce warmth, mercy, and sympathy—not severity, gloom, and self-righteousness.
The above expansion is from ChatGPT.
What I want to remark is that we, ourselves should reflect on our own society, are we becoming a society devoid of care, empathy, charity, kindness, and compassion and becoming too legalistic, ritualistic, outward piety, cold and judgemental?
As a community we are aloof from the society, we shield ourselves from the society and box ourselves in our close family and friends, do we bother to be to know and care for the downtrodden in our own localities, to empathise with them and care for them.
Are we more focused on legalities more than heart?